The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 26

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 26
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At the news that they were going to the amusement park, Hanna grew so excited she spent the whole day before racing through the Lunos Mansion.
Baumann calmed the child and, as he had promised, decided to teach her about construction.
Baumann greeted April and spoke.
“I will teach this girl well while we repair the house together. She’s such a sharp child that in just three or four years she’ll be worth her weight as a full-grown laborer.”
“Take your time teaching her. The work of repairing this mansion only needs to be finished in my lifetime.”
At April’s words, Baumann grew anxious instead.
To April, barely twenty years old, life must have seemed stretching endlessly before her. But Baumann was at an age where death, arriving without warning on any given day, would not catch him by surprise.
To Baumann’s eyes, April—still so fresh and green—remained utterly unaware of the old man’s concern, and merely tilted her head in confusion at his stiffened expression.
Baumann did not wish to trouble the young mistress who had taken him in, so he straightened his frame with effort.
“I understand. If I cannot finish it, Hanna will. I will, without fail—”
Only then did April realize that Baumann was worried about his own age.
The thought that she had failed to grasp his meaning made April’s eyes widen ever so slightly, but she quickly suppressed her alarm and spoke.
“Then I’ll entrust it to you.”
“Yes, Miss. I’ll go inspect the grounds then.”
“Very well.”
After his conversation with April ended and Baumann left, Hanna returned, humming, with a basket of eggs in her arms after feeding the chickens and tidying the chicks.
Though April had never assigned her the task, Hanna naturally assumed caring for the chickens was her responsibility.
Hanna held up the basket and spoke.
“What should we make with these?”
“I’ll handle that myself. You go find Baumann.”
“Right now? I have so much to do—”
“Don’t go looking for work I never asked you to do.”
April snatched the basket from Hanna and set it on the low pedestal where a vase ought to have been placed.
Then she offered a notebook with a cover of deep purple silk, worn but still retaining the beauty it possessed when first completed, and a single pencil.
“Write down everything you learn. So you don’t forget.”
Hanna’s eyes moved between the notebook and April, and she spoke with a face ready to cry.
“I don’t know how to write—”
At those words, April hesitated.
Today, she had stepped outside her world more than once.
This time too, she quickly recovered her composure and spoke.
“It’s all right. At first, draw pictures. Tonight I’ll teach you how to write.”
“Really, Miss?”
Hanna’s eyes widened with delight and, her face brightening, she bounced up and pointed at the window.
“What about Fred?”
“Fred?”
“Yes!”
April turned to look where Hanna pointed. She walked quickly to the window and opened it, and the small hands dangling there fell away.
Almost at the same moment, a thud sounded from the ground, and a boy about Hanna’s age lay on the floor groaning in pain.
“So that’s Fred.”
A boy she’d never seen before.
Faster than April, it was Baumann who rushed to the boy at the sound of the thud.
He was a gentle and affectionate man in all ways—except toward intruders.
Baumann seized Fred by the scruff of the neck as he lay on the ground shamming, and dragged him toward April.
“Miss, this rascal!”
“Yes, I understand now. It seems he knows Hanna.”
“Knows Hanna?”
Baumann, looking angry enough to break the boy’s leg on the spot and drive him out, turned to Hanna in confusion.
When Hanna saw the gentle Baumann make such a fierce expression, she realized the situation was serious and spoke in fear.
“He’s a friend from the Factory. When I went to pay off a debt a few days ago, he must have come along because he was worried about me. I’m so sorry—”
As Hanna apologized on his behalf, Fred, still kicking at Baumann’s legs, spoke to April.
“Let Hanna go, you witch! You’re trying to devour her—”
Fred, speaking thus, was suddenly shoved hard and fell backward, landing on his rear.
Even as new pain struck a spot already bruised, Fred didn’t seem to feel it. His eyes were fixed, shocked, on the person who’d pushed him—Hanna.
Hanna shouted.
“I told you it wasn’t me! Why won’t you listen!”
“You’re the one being tricked! The boss said so—that witch is killing people!”
“That’s not true! Why are you believing such a bad person! I told you I’m kind!”
Hanna’s sudden shouting struck April as a shock more startling than Baumann’s fierce expression from moments before.
Indeed, from an adult’s perspective, Hanna had always seemed like a child completely devoid of emotion.
Even when her own hand was severed, she had not grieved. That such a child could show no emotion at all seemed impossible.
Yet Hanna had done exactly that. Baumann’s worried words about this were something April found herself completely agreeing with.
When Hanna suddenly began shouting and growing angry, April was surprised—then, her own anger flaring first, she worried she’d done wrong, feared she might be driven out, and walked toward Hanna as she looked back at herself.
And she pulled the child into her arms with both hands.
“You did well.”
“I did… well?”
“Yes, you’re doing well. Be angrier. You can be much angrier. You have every right to be.”
“…”
Hanna’s eyes widened as she felt April’s hand patting her back. Then she gently gripped April’s collar with both hands.
Hanna whimpered.
“There are so many bad people in this world.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“So many that I want to kill them all!”
“Let’s look into that later. Whether it’s possible. We can’t have you getting hurt while killing people.”
“I’m so angry—”
Hanna’s eyes glistened with tears of rage, but she did not cry. She thought there was nothing here worth crying over. By April’s logic, this was something to be angry about, not something to weep over.
There in April’s embrace, Hanna unleashed every curse she could upon the world.
Her father, who had drunk away the money Hanna earned from the Factory since she was barely walking. And the factory master, who—when Hanna injured her hand—cared nothing for what happened to her, only ensuring he took no loss and saddled her with debt instead.
A world of garbage. A cruel, heartless world. Unfair and filthy and utterly wretched!
As Hanna spewed her curses, Fred could only watch with a vacant expression, while Baumann quietly covered the boy’s ears with his hand.
Yet even he seemed, without quite realizing it, relieved that Hanna was angry.
After all that rage had spent itself, exhaustion settled over everyone present.
Fred was half in a daze. He’d come with decent intentions to help, never imagining Hanna would explode like this.
When April laid Hanna down in bed, burning with fever after her outburst of fury and rage, Baumann knocked, asked permission, and entered, speaking with formality.
“The boy says he has something to tell you. Should I let him in? Or shall I send him away?”
“Let him in.”
At April’s words, Baumann opened the door wider and gestured to Fred.
Fred entered with a deathly pale face and spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
“You think I’m a fool.”
At those words, Fred froze completely and began to whimper.
April waved her hand and spoke.
“No, that’s not what I mean. But if I were truly a witch—if you were truly afraid—would I appear like this, one by one, and settle in?”
At April’s words, Baumann laughed with embarrassment. Then he spoke with formality.
“I came with true resolve, Miss. But I understand what you mean.”
Baumann even nodded in acknowledgment.
By April’s logic, the Lunos Mansion needed to cultivate more authority.
Even if one rented to lower-ranking officials famous for meager wages, the owners could scarcely evict them—for most such officials had connections somewhere in a noble family, and it was through those connections that they conducted their affairs.
The nobility were odious creatures, to such a degree that people wanted nothing to do with them.
The Lunos Family too had been second only to the Grand Duke’s house before the Trial began. People entered such a mansion freely precisely because they held it in contempt.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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