episode_0039

Ashe got her hands on the diary of the Arkaden butler. She didn’t read the newly acquired diary right away. Instead, she focused her energy on searching for the missing butler.

I still feel resentful towards the butler. My anger has not subsided. What’s more, my judgment, which I left behind on the brink of death, has not fully returned.

I was just being swayed by contradictory instincts.

It’s hard to forgive him, but I still admit deep down that I need him.

He walked around the large mansion impatiently. He searched through every floor, looking for the butler’s presence. As the sun was approaching, Asher collapsed somewhere on the third floor.

It was the place where Arsent met his end.

I felt a strong sense of foreboding. It felt like I was missing some important memory.

Ash, who had been racking his brain, wasted a lot of time there before finally finding the last piece of the missing puzzle.

“What have I done…?”

I knew that Arsent had died. It was just that the cause was unknown.

“He was a butler…”

Just before he fell, the butler picked up Ashe’s sword, which had fallen nearby.

And then he cut it. It was a horizontal cut that drew a perfectly parallel line with the floor of the hallway.

The butler only swung his sword once, but everything in the direction the tip of the sword cut was severed as if it had cut through space.

Asher unconsciously dismissed the unrealistic sight as a dream and quickly forgot about it. It was a miracle that he even regained consciousness, since he was close to death from blood loss due to the puncture wound to his side.

“But… why?”

Still, the question remains unanswered. If that were possible, you should have betrayed Arsent long ago. Why at such an ambiguous time…

…we should have talked calmly.

Nothing is solved by using the excuse of panic after coming back from the dead. In the end, it’s my fault for being weak. If I had been strong like Mirelda, even without Haley’s urn… the situation would have been completely different.

A sense of inferiority came over me.

And the self-destructive thoughts brought about by self-loathing moved Asher’s legs.

Let’s go up to the 4th floor.

Now it was either I had to get out of this mansion or I had to die. Waging around for too long wouldn’t change the future.

It was finally time to step onto the 4th floor again.

Again.

There was a small noise.

Asher’s expression brightened suddenly. He thought the butler had shown up. However, in the direction where the sound came from, there was a completely different being.

“Girl…?”

It’s a tiny new model.

She was a girl with pitch-black hair like the butler and matching black eyes. However, unlike the butler who had the appearance of an immigrant, the girl’s impression was that of a typical imperial person.

As Asher was absentmindedly observing, the girl ran over like a rabbit sensing a presence.

“Hey, wait…!”

Asher quickly chased after the girl. However, the distance between them did not narrow easily. It felt as if the girl was moving by narrowing the space.

The girl finally stopped after a few moments of chase. When the opportunity finally came, Asher approached the girl.

It had a harmless-looking appearance.

If we really look at it, she was an incredibly cute girl.

‘Somehow, the appearance seems to resemble someone I know… Is it because the butler’s hair and eye color are exactly the same?’

Asher frowned and recalled her memories. That was a mistake. The girl started to move her feet innocently again, as if Asher was losing focus.

“Oh, wait! Why are you running away again…”

Tong, tong, tong.

The girl wandered around teasing Ashe, maintaining a subtle distance that seemed to keep her from ever leaving her sight.

It seemed as though the gap between them would never narrow for the rest of their lives unless the girl stopped voluntarily.

“Haa… Haa…”

Eventually, the girl headed towards a dead end. It was truly a corner of corners. It was a gloomy place that even servants wouldn’t bother to visit unless something really important happened. The structure, which blocked the sunlight on three sides, added to the gloom.

On either side of the dead-end wall are two doors. One of them was particularly poorly maintained compared to the other rooms, and the other was a pure white door locked with a padlock.

The girl opened the poorly maintained door and closed it behind her as soon as she entered.

“What are you doing…?”

Asher slowly approached and opened the door the girl had entered through. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be locked from the inside.

But, strangely enough, the girl’s new form disappeared like a ghost. Even though it was a desolate room with no shelter to be found…

Instead, there was a diary lying on the small, shabby wooden bed. Asher quickly reached for the newly found clue.

The title of the diary is…

[Letia’s Diary]

“Letia…!”

It’s a familiar name.

The name that Hayley had mentioned while becoming Buddha was Letia. And… she was also the person that Ash had guessed to be ‘the lady of the mansion’.

But I thought it was a bit odd that such a precious young lady would keep her diary in such a shabby room.

“The butler’s diary and Letia’s diary are all gathered. This time, I might finally find out something…”

Ash took out the diary of the Arkaden butler and placed it next to Letia’s diary. He only intended to read them in order. But suddenly, the two diaries were drawn to each other and merged into one book.

[Memories of our happy family]

The new diary on the bed read:

The moment Asher touched the diary.

Phalang!

A piece of paper fluttered from inside the book cover, and soon fluttered down to land on Asher’s lap.

Naturally, Asher’s gaze was fixed on the words written on the paper.

=====

My dad is the smartest person in the world!

Everyone respects our dad, and everyone follows our dad.

But I don’t know my father’s face.

So I’ve been waiting for the day when you would come to visit me.

Was it because I prayed to the stars every day? One day, my father came to visit me and hugged me tightly.

My dad is the world’s greatest warrior!

In the fairy tale my father read to me, the warrior protects the princess.

Our father will also protect Letia.

Like a knight with a great sword, forever, forever, forever! As expected, Dad is Letia’s only warrior!

… Yeah. That’s right.

All along… All along…

At Letia’s side…

I will protect Letia…

So, Letia is happy forever.

=====

Asher had to put a lot of effort into interpreting the writing, because the handwriting of a child was difficult to understand.

Even the grammar and vocabulary errors that were far removed from formal education required a paraphrasing process. If all the lines in the main text of the diary were like this, it seemed like I would have to wrestle with the diary for more than half a day.

“… Oh! Right.”

Just in case, Asher took out all the diaries she had.

From Maid A’s Diary, Maid C’s Diary, to the Duchess’s Diary. I arranged all the diaries I had on the bed, but they didn’t bring about any unexpected changes.

It seemed that only Letia’s diary and Butler Arkaden’s diary were exceptions.

In the end, Asher carefully picked up [Memories of Our Happy Family] after putting the diary in his leather pouch without much success. He looked around once more.

“As expected… I can’t see it.”

No matter how much I thought about it, there was no suitable place for the girl who came in here to hide.

Most likely, he is not an ordinary human being. It would be reasonable to classify him as a type of monster.

I was reluctant, but decided to move on.

Ashedo also went through his own learning process. The girl’s actions leading Ashed here were no accident. It was an inevitable part of the process to unravel the secrets of the mansion.

“The disappearance of the butler is probably in the same context…?”

Looking back, the disappearance of the butler was probably inevitable. I guess the structure was such that the butler would disappear and leave behind a diary the moment he set foot on the 4th floor.

Now, the time spent being bewildered by supernatural phenomena has become shorter. Thinking that the butler was at the center of such changes, I felt a sense of guilt.

“If we meet again…I want to apologize and talk properly…”

I felt depressed for some reason. Even if I was half-sane, that doesn’t justify my past harsh treatment of him.

I’m worried that I’ll never see her again and that I’ll have to let her go. Whether it’s the ending where Ashe dies or escapes…

I was afraid that the morning argument would be the last memory I had.

Although it was a strange relationship, it seemed like they were strongly bound by a kind of bond while sharing life and death in an extreme situation.

At that moment, Asher hit his own cheeks hard with both palms.

Crack!

A cold pain forcibly takes hold of my sanity.

Asher set his goals straight with determination.

This will most likely be the last time. If you overcome the final ordeal, you will have the chance to meet the butler again.

So, Asher steeled his resolve and opened the first page of his diary.

…

……

Chi-chik─. Chi-chik─!

At that moment, a noise popped up.

Exactly behind Asher. It was an empty space where nothing would have been placed.

“Huh…?!”

As soon as the sensation of the hairs on his entire body standing on end took over his nerves, Asher quickly turned around.

Whoosh!

[You saw it?]

The awkward, slow speech is drowned out by the menacing noise.

A small, dark, unknown monster with a shape like sparks was now behind Ashe.

Asher, who was trying to hurriedly escape from the burning sense of crisis.

It was a mistake. The real threat wasn’t the child behind it.

Chijijik─!

In an instant, a large amount of noise multiplied from the diary she was holding, darkening her world.