Chapter 34 :

Chapter 34 - Between Courage and Lingering Attachment (2)

Celos Abiran was crouching by the door, dressed in light pajamas that did not suit the heavy sword he hugged to his chest, his eye pressed to the keyhole.

For a prince, it was a shabby sight, but Celos was in no state to care about such things right now.

It was today too.

Today too, a huge shadow was walking down the corridor.

He knew all too well how that swaying doll moved.

That soundless thing would soon loiter in front of the bedroom door, then disappear without a sound.

No, perhaps today, it might finally come inside.

That Seventh Prince bastard had carelessly said to leave it alone since it would not be able to do anything physically anyway, but if that had been possible, he would have stretched out his legs and slept soundly from the beginning.

At the annoying face that came to mind again, Celos ground his teeth.

How could he sleep comfortably when an unknown existence that might barge in at any moment stood guard in front of the door as if it would enter, then left?

Even the temple priests said that when sending them back, all they did at most was pray to Emperor Sierra.

They said sincere prayer was enough to drive out fugitives.

Bullshit.

Telling him to offer prayers while looking at that thing right before his eyes, Celos could not understand why they offered such nonsense as a solution.

They should have found a way to cut it down with a sword or beat it with a club instead, those stupid priests.

Celos made an absurd complaint.

Having been taught that he himself belonged to the divine race, there was no way he possessed the devout faith that priests cultivated over years.

Still, he had secretly tried praying, at least as an imitation, but it truly had not worked at all.

The ghost still loitered in front of his room, and Celos spent the night trembling in fear.

While Celos was distracted for a moment resenting the innocent priests, the black shadow had approached right up to the door he was leaning against.

“Haah!”

Celos swallowed his breath.

He could not see well through the small keyhole, but with a swaying movement no human could make, the other stood in front of the door.

The old, faint-looking hem of the thing’s clothes, which were wrapped entirely in black cloth, swayed along with it.

Cold sweat ran down his forehead and stung his eyes, but Celos could not blink even once.

Please just pass by like that.

Just pass by.

Disappear down the corridor like you did every day.

Why are you staying so long today, damn it!

Sierra Abiran must have been a stingy god toward his bloodline.

Because the thing that seemed to be the arm of the black shadow slowly entering Celos’ sight, as he cursed inwardly, was being raised.

At the shock that felt like his heart had stopped, Celos fell backward onto his rear.

He desperately hoped he had seen wrong, but a cruel sound rang through his room.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack.

It was not a nightmare or an illusion, but reality.

A terrible reality.

Clang.

Celos dropped the sword he had been hugging just in case and crawled backward hesitantly.

The claim that ghosts could do nothing was a blatant lie.

He did not know what it intended to do, but that thing would open that door, and it was certain it would harm him.

When death came right before his eyes, many thoughts flashed through his head.

He had been taught that when an imperial family member died, they would stand beside Sierra Abiran and help with his work.

But would an ambiguous being like him, who was only somewhat like an imperial family member, be treated coldly even after going there?

‘If that was the case, then I should become a ghost myself and go around killing the bastards who spread such nonsense.’

Even while his reason was paralyzed by fear, Celos thought wicked thoughts and tightly shut his eyes.

The sound of the doorknob was growing rougher and rougher.

“Caw—”

It was at that moment.

A loud crow’s cry echoed through the silent corridor.

At the same time, the maddening sound of metal and wood colliding also stopped.

Instead, the faint sound of flapping wings and light cloth colliding could be heard.

The Eighth Prince barely opened his eyes and looked at the door, which was still closed.

Several flapping sounds could be heard, but before long, they slowly died down.

By the time he could barely move his legs, which had gone weak, the outside had already become silent.

Celos barely dragged his trembling legs and quietly approached the door.

The corridor seen through the keyhole was clean, as if nothing had happened.

Barely opening his hand, which he had been clenching tightly from tension, he quietly unlocked the door and stepped into the corridor.

It was silent.

A refreshing wind was blowing in the corridor where the nightmare that had seemed endless had passed.

What just happened?

Still unable to believe what had happened just now, Celos carefully looked around the corridor.

And he found something small and shiny placed in front of the door, then bent his waist.

He carefully picked it up.

“......?”

It was a small, shining acorn.

* * *

Do things like ghosts really exist?

In the past, I think I had been quite afraid of them.

Seeing as I still remembered trembling in the early dawn, when everyone was asleep, with the room lights on and my whole body wrapped in a thin blanket because I was afraid that something might come, that must have been the case.

But it did not take long for me to stop even worrying about whether such things existed.

Even because I was worried about next month’s electricity bill, I could no longer sleep with the lights on, and I had to save on the monthly electricity costs.

There was not much difference between wrapping myself in a blanket and trembling in a bright room, or trembling in a dark room.

Nothing came to attack me under the cover of the deep night.

In that way, I gradually realized that electricity bills were scarier than things like ghosts.

After becoming an adult, finding a job, and living through busy days, I became so indifferent to them that I erased them from my mind entirely.

Well, in conclusion, the only ghosts I knew were the characters inside Dark Header.

And that was clearly far from them in the book.

Among the ghosts I knew, there was no one who went around wrapped in dirty black cloth like that.

That is a little creepy.

“Squeak.”

The small creature settled beside me made a small sound, as if agreeing with my inner thoughts.

No wonder the Eighth Prince jumped in fright.

Sitting on the windowsill of a small window in the castle corridor, I thought while looking at the human-shaped mass of black cloth swaying in front of the entrance to the Eighth Prince’s bedroom.

The guy was right.

That was indeed an existence capable of harming people.

Because that thing, which did not look like a ghost, or even like a person, was moving with a complete physical body.

The ghosts described in the novel could not even pick anything up, let alone walk.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack.

And yet that bastard was perfectly shaking the doorknob roughly with both hands.

What on earth did the Eighth Prince see to think that was a ghost?

I had to put aside blaming the guy, who I suspected might have collapsed on the floor and wet his pants by now.

It was not a ghost from the original work, but the situation had become more complicated.

What is that thing?

This was already a world inside a novel where time had subtly twisted.

Was it a trigger for trauma that had been sleeping in the Eighth Prince’s past, which had not been mentioned in the novel?

He was someone who lived longer than me, but the Eighth Prince was also nothing more than an extra.

If he were a more important character, the story would have revealed not only the parts that made up the highs and lows of his life, but also a few more interesting episodes, but neither he nor I had been mentioned in such detail in the book.

Then was this something that was originally supposed to happen, or was it another incident created by the twisted timeline of this world?

Honestly, I had not come here thinking it would be such a big incident.

“Ugh.”

It was at that moment.

A thin sound, similar to a sob, reached my ears as I was thinking.

It seemed he was trembling quite a lot inside.

Well, the pale face I had seen during the day had been enough to prove just how afraid Celos was of that thing.

Having made a decision, I spread both wings.

In the direction that, whatever that thing was, I needed to identify it.

According to the Eighth Prince, it seemed to flee once a certain time came, and some unidentified thing wandering around the imperial palace was not a condition favorable to me.

“Caw—”

At my cry, the something that had been roughly clacking the doorknob stopped moving.

Then it slowly turned what seemed to be its head toward me.

At the same time, the squirrel sitting beside me looked at me as if asking what I thought I was doing.

It did not speak, but I definitely thought it cursed at me with its eyes.

That is why I asked before coming whether you wanted to come with me.

* * *

Unlike how it looked, the rag monster seemed to have something called reason, because after confirming that there was only one crow on the windowsill, it turned its body again.

I cried out once more and flapped my wings.

Then I circled around the strange creature’s head.

The creature waved its arms toward me.

It was not slow, but it was not fast enough for me to be caught either.

Avoiding the flailing arms, I lowered my altitude slightly and flew.

The reason I could approach so fearlessly like this was partly because it had no particular ability and merely staggered around, but its size also played a part.

It was somewhat large, but not inhumanly so.

Since I was in a position where I could even transform into a bear, I could approach the creature without much difficulty and observe it.

It was not just a piece of rag.

Inside the pieces of cloth that shook according to the direction of the wind caused by my wings, there was clearly a frame.

If there was a human inside, one could simply think of it as a madman, but if something else came out, it would become a monster.

The black cloth hanging over its face, or what I thought was its face, fluttered.

If I do something about that, I think I will be able to see inside.

I will need bigger wings.

It just so happened that today was the day I had met a magnificent eagle in the forest.

The warm energy gathered in my dantian soon spread to the tips of my wings.

My black talons became sharper and larger, and my black wings became wider and stronger.

This feels pretty good.

The wingbeats of the eagle, filled with strength, were incomparably more powerful than those of the crow.

Just then, a slightly strong autumn wind blew in through the corridor window.

The two winds tangled together at the same time, and the rag covering the creature’s head shook greatly.

What showed through it was neither a skeleton nor a monster, but an ordinary person.

It was the first face I had seen, but I could recognize who it was at a glance.

Because the dark blue hair and familiar features reminded me of someone.

Why is Ego Crisa, who should be in prison, here?

* * *

Having judged that it would be better not to go outside for a while after the carriage incident, Tollin was keeping the young duke’s outings to a minimum.

Moreover, the number of the young duke’s tutors who came and went from the ducal residence had also decreased, so from the young duke’s perspective, he had reached the point where he could not handle the free time that remained without knowing the reason.

Tollin and Pale said he could rest comfortably or play with toys, but that only lasted a day or two, and the young duke, who had never had a hobby of playing in the first place, was only troubled.

The housekeeper and the nanny told him he could use his time freely, but when he actually tried to read books or study, they made troubled expressions and said that Lord Tollin had recommended he try doing something else if possible.

Then the young duke would hesitate, hold the toys, and put them down again before long.

There was no way playing with toys alone would be fun.

It was more comfortable to be alone in his bedroom instead.

Just like now.

In the child’s hand, as he looked at the clear sky by the window, was an old, small piece of wood.

It was a lost item he had not been able to return to the children he had met in the alley.

The children had not been found yet.

He occasionally asked Pale, but the only answer he could hear was that Tollin was searching hard.

Because he knew Tollin, who had already been so busy he could not sleep, even when he asked if there was anything he could help with, Pale only said with a proud face that he was already doing more than enough.

He felt happy, but also frustrated.

At times like this, his glossy black friend would always listen to him.

Missing his small friend, who had not come to visit for quite a long time, the young duke needlessly lingered by the window.

“Huh?”

Today must have been a lucky day for the young duke.

Because, as if it were a lie, his friend was flying toward him from far away.

“Blackie!”

In his delight, the young duke lost all dignity and ran over, flinging the window open.

The young duke was so excited that he did not notice the crow flinch for a moment at the intense welcome and the hard-to-get-used-to name he had not heard in a long time.

“Why have you not come for so long? I have piled up a lot of walnuts to give you.”

The young duke, who had regained his liveliness after a long while, bustled about unlike himself and brought over the box placed on the table.

Looking at the walnuts piled high enough to spill out of the box, the one nicknamed Blackie made a troubled expression without the young duke noticing.

The young duke did not know, but his friend did not particularly like nuts.