The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 6

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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 6
Fortunately, Pejin, who shared the carriage with April, said nothing to her.
He had always been quick to read the room. Of course, sometimes his perceptiveness only made him more insufferable, and she found him all the more unbearable for it.
Whether from the interrogation preventing her from lying down, or from the relief of returning home causing her tension to finally drain away, just as April managed to suppress her anger, a crushing wave of drowsiness swept over her.
Not wanting to fall asleep in front of others, she desperately fought the sleep, and Pejin spoke in a tone without malice.
“Just sleep. You look like a sick chicken—it’s pitiful.”
…….
“Why are you glaring? I was merely offering my observation.”
“Keep your observations to yourself when you’re alone. I don’t care.”
The bitter truth was that their exchange had been the least tedious moment of this long carriage ride.
April fought sleep desperately, and Pejin said nothing more after that.
He thought the sick chicken looked pitiful, and perhaps he felt his presence was keeping her awake—so midway through the journey, he switched to a different carriage.
April fell asleep not long after he left.
When the carriage arrived at Lunos Manor, the police officer who opened the door hesitated, then spoke to Pejin.
“She appears to be asleep, sir.”
Before Pejin could respond, Paul stepped forward.
“I’ll wake her.”
“Ah, no sir. I should do it.”
As the officer hurried to wake April, Pejin pressed his temples, and Paul—who had followed him from the Rasa Empire—spoke up.
“If she’s asleep, you wake her. These Grand Duchy police can’t seem to do anything on their own, I tell you.”
He voiced what Pejin wanted to say, and the Grand Duchy officers averted their eyes and fell silent.
The atmosphere at the Grand Duchy Police Headquarters was in disarray because of the Rasa Empire officers who had poured in alongside Pejin.
What Pejin and Paul—both Grand Duchy natives who spent their childhood on Right Island and came of age on Left Island—found most incomprehensible was the lukewarm attitude of the Grand Duchy police.
Originally, Right Island was a nation built by seafaring people. Half the year snow fell there, and with barren soil that made agriculture nearly impossible, the people of Right Island spent most of the year aside from about two months roaming the seas. They were traders and pirates.
Now occupied by the Empire, the churches that pirates had primarily plundered were replaced by those of the Imperial Royal House, yet the traditions of piracy still remained in their culture.
A hundred years ago, the Emperor of the Rasa Empire had granted the name Deus—an ancient god’s name—to the Grand Duchy in hopes of soothing the rage of the conquered. And it seemed to have yielded remarkably successful results.
Yet like Pejin’s own name, the Grand Ducal House had preserved their traditions in every way they could.
Pejin Laine Deus.
Waves were the only thing a brave seafarer was permitted to fear. Therefore, the old royal house of Right Island took its name from waves—Laine.
Paul, Logan, and April all bore traces of Right Island tradition. The belief that only waves need be feared; the spiritual custom that one might live recklessly until fifteen, but upon reaching sixteen, one possessed the independence of an adult.
April had come of age during her house arrest and thus did not partake, but the others had all undergone the traditional Coming-of-age Ceremony of Right Island.
For the people of Right Island, coming of age meant one could claim a ship.
Whether this spiritual culture had vanished in the seven years since, Pejin and Paul found the Grand Duchy police to be lacking ambition and overly dependent.
He was beginning to understand why adults used to lump together the younger generation and tsk in disapproval.
In any case, in every small detail, the Empire-born officers and the original Grand Duchy officers had nothing in common.
A short time later, April woke and descended from the carriage.
Having ventured out for the first time in seven years, and that venture being no pleasant occasion, her expression was decidedly dark.
She did not look around her surroundings, but walked toward the manor as if entranced. There, she gazed up at the darkened estate, where the police had pulled out all the stakes, leaving holes everywhere, the grounds overgrown with weeds.
Unlike how it appeared from within, Lunos Manor as seen from outside could be called nothing but an abandoned house.
It was an estate that had required twenty skilled servants—twenty had scarcely been enough. Before her arrest, April had been raised pampered by those twenty; she could never have managed the building alone.
The holes left by pulling up the stakes without properly covering the soil only made the house more unsightly.
The sparse, skeletal winter trees that ringed Lunos Manor on the hill added further to its desolation.
Many people stood in that place, but only Logan—the most playful among them and equally fond of people—offered her his concern.
“Still, the foundation is so sound that once restored, it will regain its former grandeur.”
At his kindness, April consciously managed a smile.
“Do you think so?”
“Of course! You must have many fond memories of this manor, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure.”
April gazed at the manor and murmured.
“I don’t remember.”
“Pardon?”
“I haven’t looked back in so long. There’s no point in longing for something that won’t return.”
She turned her head slowly to look at Logan.
He realized that April Lunos was smiling. Not only Logan, but several other officers nearby felt a chill at her smile—uncanny and strange.
Pejin, who had been listening to Paul complain about the Grand Duchy police, turned to look at April, her golden hair scattering in the chill wind.
Her words—that she did not wish to recall happy memories—drifted on the wind and lingered at his ear.
* * *
For the past seven years, April had thought of nothing but misfortune.
The memory of her lover being stolen before her eyes, the ridicule and ostracism she received in society because of it, her parents’ rage at their tarnished honor, an execution, followed by another.
Since her parents had tried to kill the leader of this Grand Duchy, she knew that even when house arrest ended, she could never live a peaceful life.
Miller would certainly try to kill her. One way or another.
This time, April turned her head to look at Pejin.
From the perspective of the Police Headquarters, the divide between Empire and Grand Duchy officers was starkly visible. They were already separated like oil and water, speaking only within their own factions.
The Grand Duchy officers would inevitably lose ground to the Empire officers in promotion competition.
Knowing this, there could be no goodwill between them from the start.
Lunos Manor consumed enormous sums simply to maintain.
To keep the manor standing, she would need to recover at least some of her fortune, and for that, she needed the only force capable of standing against the Grand Duke.
There was no shield like Pejin Deus—a man who made no effort to hide his weariness at simply standing in this Grand Duchy situation.
But what could she offer him in return?
Confessing that she was a Witch might be Pejin’s greatest desire in this situation, but she could not grant that.
So the only weakness she knew of him next would be one.
“Have you met the Grand Duchess?”
When April asked, Pejin, who had been speaking nonsense with his subordinates, looked at her.
Just as in childhood, Pejin clearly resembled a feline creature.
At night, those peculiar opaque eyes of his only made one’s mood worsen further.
Beautiful and arrogant.
Had April possessed power, she would have driven him out entirely from her territory.
In any case, now Pejin was the only person to whom she could even attempt to ask for help. Therefore, she needed to understand what he wanted.

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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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