Chapter. 14. One Empire, Three Legends (20)
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“Oh my, master! “You shouldn’t be exposed to cold air!”
“Ugh… just take a look, Martha. These days, I feel like I’m melting like a wax doll. They piled up the firewood in the fireplace to the point where it scorched the carpet and even placed a brazier next to my bed. My eyes will turn white like a fish. “Do you want the heir to the Teldemire family to be blind?”
“Maybe that’s better than suffering from a cough and feeling like a bellows.”
Sweet!
Aldrich, who was sweating profusely, frowned at the nanny’s gesture of firmly closing the window.
“Tsk. “It’s snowing like this and I can’t even go out to the garden.”
“Anyway, the Winter Spirit’s Dance won’t end until the master’s coming-of-age ceremony. So, young master, just concentrate on getting his body back in order!”
“Everyone is making a big deal out of just having a spit stuck in your throat. Sheesh!”
Aldrich sighed as he heard laughter and snow falling outside the window. Neria, who is two years younger than her, is running around and playing like that, but now her brother, who is about to have his coming-of-age ceremony, is lying down because he has a cough. Of course, he seems a little weak and a little dizzy, but isn’t he the heir to the title of House of Teldemire? If there were even a rumor that the family’s heir was lying down in the whistling snow, it would tarnish the family’s status. That’s nonsense to Aldrich, a boy whose dream is to become a respected lord like his father.
‘You have to stand up like a lion and run around like a horse! And make a snowman bigger than Neria! A snowman so big that the winter spirit stops dancing and raises his hat! The servants of the family looked at that and said, “Ah!” You’ll say, ‘It was our master who made that amazing snowman!’
Just thinking about it made my toes shake. I wanted to run out right now and roll around in the snow with Neria, and to do that…
“ruler. Ah, do it. Ah~”
As if the fireplace and brazier weren’t enough, I had to pass by the nanny who was trying to feed me hot soup. The nanny, Meina, had been taking care of him and Neria since he was a child he couldn’t remember, and she was as affectionate as her wide arms.
The problem is that sometimes that affection turns into overprotection.
Mayna, who was blowing on hot soup, saw Aldrich’s eyes still looking out the window and spoke sternly.
“If you ignore a cough, you’ll be in big trouble, right? My cousin makes a living by cutting wood, and while he was working wood in the winter, he got caught in the wind of the winter spirit and ended up contracting a coughing disease. Oh my god, that bearded woman, who was as healthy as a log, was shaking in bed and spitting out blood… and in the end, she had to call a priest with the money she had saved to spend on her daughter’s wedding?”
“Then we can call a priest too. “There’s no way the family warehouse doesn’t have enough money to cover the cost of a commoner’s wedding.”
“Well… you know. My family’s relationship with the church is a bit… difficult. “They’ll probably ask for a lot of donations, and the head of the family is someone who doesn’t care if he’s a priest, so I guess…”
“Ugh, that’s enough. “If I eat it all, they’ll let me go, right?”
Aldrich interrupted Mayna who was about to nag her again and took the bowl of soup from her arms. The bowl was hotter than I expected, and tears almost came out, but with the patience of a family heir, I picked up the spoon without letting go of the bowl. The sight of Aldrich slurping hot, spicy soup full of spices into her mouth made even the stubborn Mayna have no choice but to prepare his street clothes.
“Cough!”
Although she flinched unconsciously at the young owner’s slight cough, Mayna did not show it and simply held out a handkerchief to the frightened owner.
The rumors going around among users are just rumors, so I tried to calm my anxiety.
****
“Wow! “Wow, it’s so big!”
“lol. yes? “Wouldn’t the Winter Spirit just be able to pass by at this rate?”
“Yep! really! “Maybe I can’t wait for Bom and ask for a dance!”
“Hehehe. Then it won’t work. “If Bom becomes depressed after losing her partner, cold rain will fall instead of the warm spring sunlight.”
“Uh… then what should I do? “Would you like me to dance for you?”
Aldrich was delighted to see Neria slightly lifting the hem of her thick winter clothes and wiped her red nose.
A snowman made as big as the statue of the first head of the family. Of course, the guard knights next to him rolled snowballs in the middle, but since he was the one who made the first small snowball, isn’t it the same as making it in the end?
“Master, lady. Please stop going in now. “The Countess will be very worried.”
“are you okay! Sir Cedric! “I just need to speak well to my mother, so just a little more-”
“Oh, and when Master came out, I saw Mayna enter the kitchen. “I heard that a lot of sweet pumpkins came in yesterday.”
“-Well… it’s good to play, but I don’t want Neria to get a coughing disease. She said Neria is a girl and she is two years younger than me, so if she gets coughing sick, she will be in big trouble. Will she stop going in now?”
Neria’s red face nodded frantically at Aldrich’s coy tone. Pumpkin pie made by Mayna. It is said that nobles do not bloat their bellies outside of mealtimes, and Aldrich was even more eager to become the head of the family.
‘If I become the head of the family, I will have them make pies every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as tea time snacks and even late at night!’
The faces of the boy and girl running as they imagined the warm pie were filled with happy smiles.
****
Whiuuu-
thud!
As the heavy wooden door closes, the smell of buttery bread and sweet pumpkin mixes with the warm warmth.
“What, where has everyone gone?”
Aldrich grumbled at the subtitles of the servants, who normally would have rushed over to receive his coat.
Warm, dry air. The smell of soft pie. Thanks to the thick candlesticks, the view of the castle is bright even in a snowstorm.
Although it was clearly the same as his usual surname where he was born and raised, Aldrich felt somehow foreign.
While the knights instead of the servants accepted the snow-soaked outerwear, Aldrich, who was thinking deeply, realized what was missing.
“Oswald! Oswald, the letter bearer, is missing! Is old Oswald back yet? “Do you have a bad cough?”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s right. “I guess my body is weak due to my age.”
“I see. yes. If you’re sick, you should rest well. So… what about Uni, who is in charge of the hall? “I said it was empty, but there was no uni at this time who should be dusting the front door with a feathered whip.”
“…She said she had some work to do in her hometown and went back for a while.”
“Uni too? “Then, what about Astia?”
“I’m on sick leave.”
“Gobin?”
“Kicked by the heel of a horse….”
“derrick? Susan? Padsel?”
“…Warm water will be ready. “Please wash up before the meal.”
I called out the names of familiar users one by one, but most of the answers I got were the same. They left the castle because they got sick, rolled in the snow, had work at home, or whatever.
While he had been lying in bed for the past two days, struggling with the roaring stove, everyone had gone in just two days.
“brother….”
Neria, anxious in the unfamiliar silence, grabbed his collar.
‘….don’t be nervous. You are the heir of House Teldemire!’
In fact, Aldrich wanted to run straight to his mother’s arms, but the thought that he was a grown man who would have to go through a bar mitzvah and debut in the social world two weeks later, on his fourteenth birthday, and who would turn fifteen in fourteen months and find a partner, was holding him back. I could barely stop.
“…Let’s go, Neria. “After you wash up, you can eat warm pumpkin pie.”
“Uh, uhm….”
Rattling, rattling!
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Whiuuuung-
The sturdy windows rattled in the intensifying snowstorm, and strange wind noises leaked into the castle.
Aldrich curled his toes at the sound and hurried his way to the bathroom. Even if I just lay in bed for a while, I didn’t think I would ever want to get out.
****
“It’s winter… Are there many nobles who have a bad relationship with the temple like that?”
“It’s surprisingly pretty. As you know, there were quite a few nobles who used the church as tools during a time when the church’s power was greatly weakened by the 70 Years’ War. Now that the various religious denominations have regained their power, it is natural that they are not cooperative. Our family also had territory wars big and small, and um… at the time, they were considered cheap and efficient mercenaries. Our family also used coercive methods to hire priests. “They had built up a lot of resentment and refused to treat the head of the family’s son, who was seriously injured, and that led to a complete breakdown in their relationship.”
“Uh, wait a minute, Aldrich. No matter how bad the relationship between the temple and the family is, the head of the family didn’t call a priest when the family was like that? “Isn’t that… too irresponsible?”
“The situation was a bit like that at the time. That summer, the crops were withering, so I asked the Church of Bounty for a blessing, but they refused. The father was so angry that he expelled his priests and tore down the temple. The Church of Bountiful was angry about that incident and condemned the tyranny of the Teldemire family. Some families that are on good terms with the church are criticizing our family. As things became complicated and the fall harvest was poor, my father’s distrust and rejection of the religious world reached its peak. My father had been trying to solve the problem and do well for a long time, but each time, things got worse and we ended up in that situation that winter. When I think about it now, it’s really ironic. “If I had called a priest right away when I thought something was strange, if even just one priest had come, by now… Uhm.”
From Aldrich’s story, the professor was able to easily recall infectious diseases accompanied by coughing, such as Spanish flu and pneumonia. A world where the growth of the medical field is limited to folklore, thanks to priests who are nothing short of a panacea.
If the snowstorm had been enough to shake the sturdy and heavy wooden doors of the castle, the inside of the castle would have been colder than usual, and it was natural for the servants, who slept in cold rooms, to feel unwell compared to the nobles.
“One day, two days… As time passed, the users kept disappearing. The servants who were busy pacing wherever they went suddenly disappeared. My father, with a serious face, ordered a knight to ‘bring the priest, even if it means kidnapping him,’ but the knight disappeared in a blizzard and was not heard from for two days.”
Whiuuu-
Lucilla rubbed her arms, which had goosebumps for no reason, as Aldrich’s voice was low, quiet, and even ominous.
“Well… how much of an article was it? “Use auras or…”
“no. It wasn’t to that extent, but… I remember that he was a knight who was famous for his swordsmanship in the area. The sight of him wearing thick winter clothes and disappearing into the snowstorm looked just like a bear. Bear on horseback. “The flickering light of the oil lamp disappeared into the snowstorm, and it was three days later that I saw him again.”
On the third day after the knight left, he returned to the castle with his father and the knights who had gone out to look for him. Becoming a frozen corpse with a broken leg.
Aldrich had survived twelve winters in this castle, but that winter was so fierce and cold that he had never experienced it before in his life. A small window was blown off by a strong wind, and the sound of wooden boards being boarded up echoed throughout the castle. His father gave up going outside the castle and decided to wait for the snowfall to subside. Fortunately, there was plenty of firewood, and thanks to the reduced number of people, there was also plenty of food.
Aldrich shivered from the chill that came with the memories of that day. It was warm enough inside the luxury carriage, but the sound of the wind howling outside the wooden walls made Aldrich shiver.
“Five days passed like that. Silence drifted through the castle’s hallways, accompanied by a strange sense of anxiety. When everyone tried to calm down, something happened. Strangely, glass and plates kept breaking, the chef who used the kitchen knife as if it were his own hand cut his own finger instead of meat, filling the castle with terrible screams, and an old servant who walked around the crowded warehouse with his eyes closed as if he were at home, tripped over an empty place and fell into an oil tank. I also overturned it. Thanks to this, we had to light the castle with old, smelly thick candles that were stored in the castle tower for emergencies instead of burning oil lamps. The castle was eerily quiet, but at the same time it was filled with a terrible cacophony. “Something breaks, someone screams, and the door suddenly slams.”
The sounds that tore through the silence pierced the hearts of anxious people like daggers. Everyone didn’t know what was going on, but they clearly felt that something was wrong.
Cold, dark and dreary. As the shadows of the flickering candles come to life, a deep sense of anxiety builds up. The snowfall still showed no signs of abating, and the indefinite isolation was enough to transform the anxiety that had been building up in people’s minds into something else.
Still, ‘nothing’s going on’ with him and Neria. The words ‘There is no need to be anxious’ were thrown around as if it were their responsibility, but the two siblings were confident. Something is wrong. I could just feel it, like a newborn baby would cry if it were next to a crying person. That the space where people disappeared is not just an empty space. Something, something embracing the chill and silence, is taking the empty place.
And, the day finally came.
9th. The day when there were only five lines left for the coming of age ceremony drawn on the fireplace with charcoal.
Thump, thump!
Aldrich awoke to the sound of servants pounding open a door that had been frozen all night.
My clothes were soaked with sweat because I had been suffering from nightmares all night. A dream as blurry as a painting erased by hand. The moment when Aldrich swallowed the tears welling up in his throat and tried to pull the string.
Jump up!
“Ugh, wow!”
The frozen door was thrown open by the servant’s strong shoulder, and a scream was heard from beneath the window.
What caught Aldrich’s eyes as he ran to the window was a snowy field dazzling in the morning sunlight, and snow stained red like paint on the white drawing paper.
“Eh, Emerson! “Emerson… is dead!”
A dead body lying in front of the door, frozen as a stone.
A thick wooden door covered in blood and fingernail marks. The red road roughly drawn on the smooth snow field showed that the dead had crawled there to live, and how desperately they knocked and scratched at the tightly closed door with their cold bodies.
‘…Give me… Give me heat! ….I don’t want to….’
Aldrich reveals that what he thought was a nightmare last night was not a nightmare. He realized that the door that was shaking in the wind wasn’t just shaking in the wind.
The knight who came running at the sound of a scream pulled out a short dagger from his frozen back.
Someone came up behind the servant’s back, stabbed him with a knife, and drove him out into the cold night’s snow storm.
Someone in this castle killed someone. It was certain.
then. If that sound last night wasn’t a nightmare.
‘….Hi-Hi. Hehe…hehe. Everyone…die…everyone…everyone…hihihihihihihihi…’
What on earth did the dying servant see that made him laugh so much in his final moments?
Aldrich buried his head in the blanket. Even if he covered his ears, that dreamy, ominous laugh continued to echo in his ears.
****
fantasy,
