The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 3

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

Episode 3
* * *
In the empire of Rasa, which consisted of two vast islands, the Dieusz Grand Duchy existed on the Right Island.
Once, the Right and Left Islands had fought fiercely, but roughly a century ago, the king of Rasa forced the king of the Right Island to his knees, and only one nation could exist across both islands.
Unable to occupy the Right Island completely, Rasa killed only its king and granted the ducal title to his five-year-old youngest son, renaming the territory the Dieusz Grand Duchy and administering it thereafter.
From that point forward, the ducal house had been sustained through Marriage Bonds with the Rasa Empire.
The appearance of the Dieusz brothers—bearing both the blue eyes common to Right Island inhabitants and the black hair of Left Island people—testified to this history.
Having completed his task of arresting the suspect in the Fog Serial Murder Case, Pejin had grown considerably more at ease.
His hatred toward April, who had attempted to kill his brother and sister-in-law, had thankfully not diminished in the slightest, so he harbored no great reservations about designating April Lunos as the suspect.
Yet the articles printed in every newspaper of the Grand Duchy afterward left him unsettled.
[April Lunos, the serial killer who murdered beneath the fog, has been apprehended.
……When April Lunos arrived in the Capital City, the floor was soaked with blood of unknown origin…….
That sinister gaze scarcely seems credible as the former betrothed of the Grand Duke…….
……And thus, the Grand Duke’s wisdom in preventing this villainess from becoming Grand Duchess, and the Grand Duchess’s virtue…….]
The Red Dress April had worn apparently looked like blood, but what mattered more than such facts was the final line.
“Is this an article or a eulogy?”
Then Logan, the youngest of the police officers who had come from the Grand Duchy, raised his hand and spoke as if delivering a presentation.
“Isn’t it House of Dieusz propaganda?”
“That’s the most accurate way to put it.”
At Pejin’s answer, Logan puffed up proudly, and Pascal struck him from the side with a look of disgust.
Logan exaggerated his stumble dramatically, and laughter erupted among the officers.
Pejin had only recently returned to the Grand Duchy from the Empire, and his first assignment had been to resolve the serial murder case plaguing the region.
Upon his promotion to Chief Inspector, Pejin was appointed director of the Special Investigation Bureau—a newly established division created specifically for one seemingly impossible, supernatural case.
This young chief inspector, the Grand Duke’s only blood relative, began investigating the problem: on winter days when the Dieusz Grand Duchy was suddenly shrouded in fog, dozens of people in the Capital City would perish.
A serial killer who appeared alongside the fog.
The method left no trace whatsoever, suggesting the work of someone possessed of supernatural power.
During preliminary investigation, April Lunos emerged as the sole individual confirmed to possess such power—which, in hindsight, seemed inevitable.
It was already a rumor that had reached even the Empire.
A strange rumor: that despite the gas pipes being blocked, April Lunos’s grand mansion had burned with light every single day without fail for seven years.
When Pejin sent investigators from his bureau to observe the grand mansion, where April Lunos lived alone, for several days, the rumor proved to be true.
Among those who had not seen the mansion up close, there were whispers that April was playing with fire inside the stake-hidden estate. Wild rumors circulated that a witch danced in those flames.
According to the investigator’s observations, it was not fire at all, but Gas Lamps—though calling it the latter hardly made it any “less witchcraft.”
Even if fuel other than gas had been used, seven years would have exhausted any supply long ago.
To illuminate so many fixtures would require an enormous amount of fuel, and the investigators of Division 3 of the Special Investigation Bureau could find no explanation for this phenomenon, no matter how they calculated it.
Only after confirming this much did the bureau arrest April Lunos.
Having the citizens of the Grand Duchy witness April Lunos’s arrest was among his most important tasks.
The citizens took heart at the sight of the transport carriage.
In Pejin’s view, April had simply finished adolescence and grown a bit taller; there was little else that had fundamentally changed.
Her face had been attractive as a child, and it remained so. Her temperament, too, was largely unchanged except for a certain added weight of gravity.
He was grateful that she was not greatly different from before. Had there been some dramatic transformation, that discrepancy might have unsettled him when arresting her in such an uncertain state.
The police officers of the investigation bureau established by the Empire, having completed their crucial task, arrived at the Grand Duke’s Residence to pay their belated respects to the head of the Grand Duchy.
Though the time of his appointment with the Grand Duke was approaching, Pejin and none of the other officers entered the residence.
Pascal, the butler who had cared for the brothers since childhood and was waiting at the residence’s entrance, asked Logan, the youthful officer who had come with Pejin.
“Why don’t you come inside?”
Logan smiled with a grin befitting his youthful appearance and answered cheerfully.
“As you can see, we’re all heavy smokers.”
“You could always smoke later…….”
“Yes, but the Chief Inspector has no reason to.”
“No reason?”
“A reason to postpone smoking for the sake of the Grand Duke.”
Pascal’s eyes widened at Logan’s answer; he glanced back at the boy and clicked his tongue without meaning to.
Every person of the Grand Duchy learns that this island was once an independent nation. The same held true for those of House Dieusz, whose blood carried the mark of the Empire.
Yet Pejin Dieusz had now become entirely an Imperial subject—a police officer of the Empire sent here under the Emperor’s command.
For Pejin Dieusz, who had begun his police career in the Empire at sixteen, to expect respect for the Grand Duchy would have been unreasonable.
While affecting such ease, Pejin found himself recalling April Lunos as she had been in his childhood.
As the sole heir of the wealthy Lunos Family, April had taken her overwhelming material abundance for granted.
There had been no girl on the Right Island as resplendent as she.
The Lunos couple ordered their countless servants to sweep clean the streets through which their daughter would pass, and they arranged the gardens so that only beautiful vistas were visible from April’s window.
It was the natural order for the most privileged girl on the Right Island to become Grand Duchess.
When House Dieusz first proposed marriage, the Lunos couple offered one refusal, citing the ten-year age difference.
But by the time the second proposal came, April was utterly entranced by the freshly blooming youth that was Miller Dieusz, and they accepted the proposal.
Yet Miller Dieusz already had a beloved woman—Heidi Basanta, the daughter of their tutor, who had grown up studying alongside him from childhood.
But for the heir of House Dieusz, this betrothal was an unavoidable duty.
There was no way to avoid the marriage of the two most powerful families of the Grand Duchy except for one of them to die or fall into ruin.
Infatuated with Miller, April began to torment Heidi in earnest once she became aware of the woman’s existence.
Pejin had felt pity for his brother, bound to an unwanted promise, unable to do anything about it.
And so he had hated April.
Of course, now that he was older, he understood that his love for Heidi had compounded his hatred for April.
Afterward, events had unfolded in a way that was, in retrospect, astoundingly favorable to Miller.
The once-great Lunos Family had crumbled ignominiously.
Miller Dieusz had thereby seized both control of the entire Grand Duchy and love itself.
Remembering this fact, Pejin finished his cigarette and slowly entered the Grand Duke’s Residence.
The Grand Duke reclined at an angle in his chair, and the Grand Duchess sat beside him with a welcoming expression.
As Pejin entered, the Grand Duke spoke.
“Once you’ve arrived in the Grand Duchy, shouldn’t you have greeted us first?”
“On the contrary, I ought to avoid it.”
“Avoid it?”
Pejin replied, hands clasped behind his back.
“I’ve come as an officer of the Empire. I must avoid any influence I might receive from my blood relations.”
“How rigid.”
“Not at all. I’m far too flexible—that’s my problem.”
In his childhood, the boy Pejin, who had bloomed so late, had envied his brother most of all. He could have Pejin’s first love. Because he was older.
Now grown far taller than that brother, Pejin gazed intently at the Grand Duchess.
At twenty-eight this year, the Grand Duchess was still breathtakingly beautiful, exactly as Pejin had first known her, and she still regarded him with that gentle gaze.
Did anyone truly wish to recall kindness when it caused them pain?
Pejin pondered this and slowly turned his gaze to his brother Miller.
Miller spoke.
“Come closer and greet the Grand Duchess.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because we’re delighted to see our dear little boy after so long.”
Then Heidi agreed.
“That’s right. It’s been so long.”
“You both still think I’m a child.”
Pejin grumbled even as he strode toward them. Standing before the Grand Duchess as she rose to greet him, he bowed his head and spoke.
“Since I’m such a dear little boy, will you pet my head?”
At his words, Heidi looked up at Pejin. The acrid smell of tobacco rose from him. The young man’s shadow grew like a mountain, enveloping her.
Miller, still seated in his chair, watched the scene with intense stillness.
Heidi’s eyes narrowed, and then she spoke with a mischievous tone.
“What nonsense are you playing at? How could one pet a young man grown so tall?”
“Well, the Grand Duke called me little boy.”
As Pejin spoke this with a smile, Miller said.
“Let’s eat first. Since you’re back, we should hold a celebration in five days. After all, we need to find you a bride.”
“I don’t need a bride.”
“Why not?”
“Because I haven’t forgotten my first love.”
At his casual remark, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess were momentarily at a loss for words and simply stared at Pejin.

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