The Status Effect Count - Chapter 5

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

Abnormal Status, Count 005
It had been a month since Anne arrived at the estate, and by now she’d grown accustomed to both its atmosphere and her duties.
A low rumble echoed across the dry sky.
Thunder—rain would come soon. Anne hurried to gather the laundry before it fell.
“Hm?”
As she returned to the estate with the damp washing, she found the whole place in disarray.
Was it just the sudden threat of rain? No, something else felt wrong.
Everyone rushed about with faces gone pale as ash. Among them, she spotted a familiar maid.
“Has something happened?”
“I—I don’t know!”
Mary, startled at the sight of Anne, bolted in the opposite direction.
What on earth was this?
As Anne carried the laundry basket onward, the strange tension only deepened.
‘Has someone of importance arrived?’
The Preneta Estate was an unusually quiet place, one that rarely received guests.
Not only that—no gatherings, no tea parties, nothing remotely festive or engaging ever took place within its walls.
So when a visitor did occasionally appear, the whole household fell into chaos.
Someone suddenly seized her arm.
“There you are!”
“Emily?”
“Come on, hurry! The Head Maid is calling for you!”
Me?
Emily yanked her along. For such a slender wrist, her grip was surprisingly strong.
Fighting her way upstream against the tide of rushing servants, Anne found the Head Maid, Ekueom, waiting at the front of the estate.
Ekueom greeted her with an unusually bright expression.
“Good day, Ekueom. You summoned me, I hear…”
“Well met, Anne. Come here.”
Ekueom seized Anne’s arm with a firm grip.
Pain lanced through her wrist, but Anne quickly gathered her skirt in her other hand and followed the woman deeper into the building.
As they entered the Main Building’s corridor, a stench hit her like a wall.
This smell…
It was familiar. That acrid stench she couldn’t forget even in her dreams—the same reek from the Count’s chamber!
‘It’s permeated the entire estate?’
This was most irregular. Unlike the frantic activity in the Separate Building, the Main Building lay eerily silent.
Anne found herself stepping backward without thinking.
But behind her stood Ekueom and Emily, blocking any retreat.
“Anne. Hurry upstairs now. The Chamber Maid needs an assistant, and I’m to send one at once.”
“Yes, but—”
Suddenly a tremendous sound echoed from above—something between a shriek and a summons.
Anne and Ekueom both looked toward the stairs.
Emily spoke again, her voice honeyed and smooth.
“Maren, you’re going to get a bonus for this.”
My surname is Marthe, not Maren.
She wanted to correct her, but the word “bonus” caught in her throat.
“A bonus?”
“Yes. Remember when you helped out around the estate the other day and got one? This time you’ll get double. It’s urgent work, they say.”
“…Of course! Of course. I’ll be sure to tell them to calculate it at the same rate as the other chamber maids receive. Maren.”
Gold coins danced before her eyes.
She’d received her first wages not long ago—a sum she’d never handled before in her life. But after repaying her debts and sending a little to the Temple, it had vanished quickly.
At least the bonus had given her enough to buy a gift for Ana, who’d introduced her to this position through the Night of Silence, and to thank her properly.
And yet…
Anne met Ekueom’s gaze directly.
“Why are you assigning me instead of Emily?”
Ekueom was Emily’s reliable patron.
Despite ignoring Emily’s subtle provocations toward Anne all this time, now she’d stepped in once more.
This time too, it was Emily who’d inserted herself.
“You know how particular the Chamber Maid is. If I went in her stead, I’m afraid I’d only botch the job she’s asked of me directly through Ekueom.”
“But—”
“Besides, you’ve done this sort of work before. You even earned commendation for it.”
Ekueom added her voice to Emily’s.
“Hurry now, we don’t have time for this. If you’re late, you’ll be the one facing punishment. Your bonus might even be cut.”
Anne’s shoulders hunched.
She swallowed hard and glanced around the estate, but aside from the appalling stench, everything looked exactly as it always did.
……That’s right. Nothing terrible happened last time either.
The moment the Earl had seized her wrist flashed vividly in her mind, but Anne forced herself to ignore it.
Besides, this time Belentche, the head maid, was present too. She absolutely hadn’t let herself be swayed by a few gold coins.
“I’m Anne Marita, not Marlen. You mustn’t mix me up with someone else and give me the wrong assignment.”
“Right, understood. Anne Marita. Now go.”
Anne climbed the stairs toward the second floor.
* * *
Ekueom watched the maid’s dress flutter as Anne Marita ascended, staring for a long time.
She half-expected the girl to come running back down, unable to continue.
But no such thing happened, and the black uniform soon vanished from sight.
“Phew——”
Ekueom finally released a deep breath.
The Preneta Family went through servants so often that dozens of unknowns had cycled through, but this girl—Anne Marita—stood out peculiarly.
Her mysterious origins.
Her surprising skill at work.
That strange, measured deference of hers.
To look at her, she was an ordinarily pretty child—but something in her bearing kept people at a distance.
Even Ekueom found her deeply unsettling.
Especially those polished black eyes and hair dark as ebony.
When she looked at Ekueom with those penetrating eyes—as if seeing straight through her—a chill would creep up her spine.
“I never liked that girl from the start.”
“You’re right.”
Bang!
Lightning struck from a cloudless sky. Even in the spring afternoon, the heavens hung dark and ominous—as though something dreadful was about to unfold.
And every servant in the Preneta Estate knew where it was coming from: the main residence itself.
Just look at that sinister aura and those strange sounds pouring from the Main Building!
And what of that eerie liquid oozing through such a beautiful estate?
The Earl had brought something abominable into this hallowed place!
The Preneta Family was the house Ekueom had devoted her entire life to.
She had waited for a rightful heir to return, carefully maintaining the estate’s reputation and grandeur.
But something had gone wrong the moment that black-haired man of unknown birth suddenly took his place as master.
“Dolan said that for some time now, an incomprehensible stench has been pouring from the Earl’s chambers.”
“So the Emperor has finally brought a demon into the Preneta house…….”
And so Ekueom made her decision to abandon the Preneta Estate.
“Let’s go now, Emily. You’ve emptied the storehouse?”
“Yes. I deliberately stirred up chaos among the servants. They all went pale and fled without even packing.”
Emily covered her mouth as she laughed prettily.
She knew all too well how to spread suspicious rumors and whip up a frenzy in moments.
‘Quite clever, that one.’
Ekueom smiled with satisfaction.
“Well done. I’ll make sure you’re well compensated. Just trust in me.”
“Of course. I’m your person through and through.”
Emily smiled foxily.
Bang!
Thunder rolled across the sky. Despite the dry weather without a drop of rain, the heavens had turned an eerie violet that looked deeply ominous.
Ekueom spat toward the mansion.
‘Let the demons tear each other apart.’
The two hurried in the opposite direction from Anne, making for the front gate of the estate.
The vast mansion, emptied of all who should have been there, looked haunted and desolate.
* * *
Bang!
Thunder cracked outside the window.
‘Heavens, that startled me!’
She’d almost screamed aloud.
If she hadn’t held it in, her cry would have echoed through the entire estate.
Anne steadied her racing, frightened heart and climbed the stairs carefully, one step at a time.
With each step, the stench grew worse, so she retrieved the tongs she’d used before.
All the lights were on, yet the mansion felt oddly dark.
“Huh?”
Something lay on the stairs.
Feeling something squelch beneath her shoe, Ann lifted her foot carefully.
“Ugh!”
Something dripped and oozed from the sole of her raised shoe. It was viscous, foul-smelling, and green—
Familiar.
Ann muttered without thinking.
“A lump?”
More precisely, it wasn’t a lump at all, but rather a sticky, syrupy liquid.
Yet the color and smell were unmistakably the same.
The difference was that today it had taken on a more fluid, viscous state than before.
“It’s like it’s melting and dripping away, isn’t it?”
But that wasn’t even the worst of it.
“What is all this?”
This time, Ann couldn’t help but cry out.
The lumps she’d seen on the bed had been no larger than a fingernail; now, the substance before her covered the entire staircase and was flowing downward in a viscous stream.
Like a waterfall—a foul-smelling, sticky one.
Should she run?
She must have made a terrible mistake, blinded by the promise of gold coins.
If cleaning all this up fell to her, then I’d really—
As Ann hesitated at the edge of the staircase, unable to take another step, she heard movement from above.
Squelch, squelch—the sound of something sticking and then peeling away.
Then someone emerged.

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