The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 8

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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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Chapter 8
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Pejin felt the young man’s body go limp against his back as he ran outside carrying Gyeongsa.
Pejin immediately laid Gyeongsa down on the mansion’s porch.
“Come on, stay with me!”
While he shouted sharply, trying to rouse him, one of the officers who hadn’t gone into the basement spoke to Pejin.
“Should we move him inside somewhere warm?”
“No, never mind.”
Pejin refused and pressed hard and fast against the area just below Gyeongsa’s sternum. His movements carried absolute certainty.
Fortunately, the Lunos Mansion was located close to the city center, so a doctor arrived in less than thirty minutes.
The doctor examined Gyeongsa’s condition and spoke.
“It appears to be poison.”
“Poison?”
A man named Pohl screwed up his face in disbelief as he echoed the question.
The doctor nodded.
“I’m not sure where the poison was inhaled from, but it would be best to stay as far from the scene as possible.”
“Listen, the carriage—”
Pohl, about to give orders to the officers, found his voice catching and trailed off.
The officers who had checked the pipe were all sitting down. Even if they hadn’t lost consciousness like Gyeongsa, it was clear they had been adversely affected.
Pohl spoke to Pejin.
“Then… what the Lunos couple sent to the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess—that wasn’t poison either, was it?”
“That was made from mushrooms. There was nothing like that in the basement.”
Pejin spoke on that point with surprising finality.
A colorless, odorless poison brewed from poisonous mushrooms.
It had been a traditional method used by the seafarers of the Right Island.
A potent draught sent to a man who had betrayed a daughter.
Some actually ate it and died, but most recognized the deadly poison before then, merely pretended to eat it, and went out to sea.
They gave the profits they had risked their lives to obtain through navigation to the person they had promised to marry. It was a matter of buying their own life and the other person’s honor with money.
The people of the Left Island seemed to regard it as an extremely barbaric tradition.
When the chieftain changed, that method was prohibited by law.
A hundred years ago on the Right Island, it was not something strongly condemned for the noble class to keep mistresses.
Since men frequently died at sea, everyone knew that eternity could not be sworn to.
But even then, permission from the other party was always necessary, and that party could exercise strong authority over these mistresses.
Miller had found it abhorrent that April exercised her authority over his true love, so by the law of the Left Island people he obtained a divorce by law, and the Lunos couple sent poison in accordance with the Right Island tradition.
In any case, unless April had actually become a witch, it made no sense for her to have tried to poison the officers from a basement she hadn’t entered once in the seven years since then.
Yet there was not a single officer present who did not suspect April.
Even the doctor was stealing glances at the Lunos Crest affixed to the mansion’s door.
Over its long history, the Lunos Crest, which adorned a clan that had built itself through trade, bore the image of a scale.
They took pride in the fact that they did not engage in pillaging, and so that scale was also a symbol of their pride.
Yet despite this, the Lunos Clan had in fact lost nearly all their wealth to pillaging.
Among the people of the Right Island, there still remained a perception that pillaging was natural for survival. But the greater problem lay in the fact that there were many sailors who sailed merchant vessels within the Lunos Territory. Since virtually all sailors were descendants of pirates, pillaging became even more professional and ruthless.
However, over the past seven years, there had been much change in the consciousness of the Right Island people. Pejin thought that if they had been placed under house confinement now, pillaging would have diminished significantly.
When Pejin descended into the basement, April was nowhere to be seen.
Certain that she had gone further down still, he climbed the ladder to descend deeper into the depths.
In the distance, the oil lamp April held glowed faintly.
Even burly young men had staggered after spending a brief time here, yet April was moving deeper without any sign of distress.
Pejin felt the broken pipe with his hand and then moved toward where April was, his expression darkening.
Despite having never abandoned his blind faith in his own health for even a moment in his life, a nausea so overwhelming rose in him that his vision seemed to darken.
“April, come out.”
“I think we need to check further in.”
April spoke calmly.
Her finger pointed at the inner wall.
The space was too vast to be lit by a single oil lamp, yet the lamp April held seemed too bright to have been lit by just one lamp’s worth of oil.
“A witch…”
The words that flashed through Pejin’s mind were spoken aloud by the detective who had followed him.
The way April looked, holding the brightly burning oil lamp, was not an exaggeration—she looked like a witch.
Her golden hair blazed like sunlight, her red eyes aflame. Despite the fact that a man had just collapsed and been carried out, her expression remained as composed and arrogant as always, that look evident in her eyes.
The detective, overwhelmed by fear, rushed at April.
Pejin knew the detective wouldn’t reach April, and as he expected, the detective clutched his chest midway and collapsed.
Pejin helped the detective up and spoke to April.
“It seems there’s no one else who can check further in besides you.”
No matter how much someone had been confined for seven years, April could tell from the current situation that she was being treated as a suspicious person.
What was certain was that April herself was the healthiest person in this basement.
She too felt nausea rising and felt as though she might collapse at any moment, but she did not actually collapse.
The fact that even Pejin had stopped more than ten paces away from her made it clear he could not approach further.
April felt relief come before the question of why she wasn’t collapsing in this basement.
“You’re right—no one else can come this far.”
At her words, the detective on the verge of fainting gripped Pejin’s arm and spoke.
“A witch… She’s definitely a witch. Didn’t the doctor say she used poison? We should set fire to that witch right now—”
The detective could not continue further and lost consciousness. Pejin clicked his tongue and dragged him outside.
The people taken out of the basement were mostly recovering to some degree. Yet no one had fully regained their condition.
Pejin clicked his tongue as he surveyed the devastated police force.
Pohl, running up to him, made his report.
“The doctor says that thanks to the officers breathing clear air outside, there shouldn’t be any officers with cardiac or pulmonary complications.”
“That’s fortunate.”
One of the officers from the capital police, having heard that report nearby, asked Pejin with surprise.
“Did you suspect it was poison?”
Pohl laughed loudly and answered that question first.
“How would you know that if you’re not even a doctor? It was luck.”
Then he waved his hand dismissively, as if telling him to go.
Once people had moved out of earshot, Pohl asked Pejin.
“We seem to have made a sufficient show of investigating—shall we close it again?”
“No.”
Pejin gestured with his chin toward the basement and spoke.
“I need to know why April Lunos didn’t collapse even in that basement.”
“Ah, I see.”
Pohl nodded in agreement.
He shifted his gaze toward the direction of the basement door as he followed Pejin and spoke.
“So now we can’t really say that the mist and Miss April Lunos are completely unrelated.”
“If we’re going by that logic, you’d have to arrest me first.”
“Commissioner.”
“What? Am I wrong?”
Pejin continued, speaking with bitter irony.
“I’m the one who’s allowed the cause of the mist to persist.”

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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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