Chapter 261
Chapter 261
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: One Empire, Three Legends (20)
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“Oh no, young master! You can’t let the cold wind in like that!”
“Ugh... Just this once, Maine. I feel like I’m melting into a puddle like a wax doll lately. We’ve got so much firewood piled up in the hearth that it’s scorching the carpet, and there’s even a brazier right by my bed. I’ll end up with eyes white like a boiled fish. Would the heir to House Telldmayer really want to go blind?”
“Better that than catching a cough and wheezing like a bellows.”
Clack!
Aldrich, drenched in sweat, grimaced at the nursemaid’s firm gesture as she shut the window tight.
“Tch. With snow coming down like this, I can’t even go out to the garden.”
“The Dance of the Winter Spirits won’t end until after your coming-of-age ceremony anyway, young master. Just focus on getting your strength back!”
“You’re all making a fuss over a little tickle in my throat. Tch!”
Aldrich sighed at the sound of laughter like tinkling bells and the swish of snow outside the window. His two-years-younger sister Neria was out frolicking in it, while here he was, on the verge of manhood, laid low by a mere cough. Sure, he felt a bit drained, and his head spun a little, but wasn’t he the heir to House Telldmayer? If word got out that the family successor was felled by a flurry of snowflakes, it’d tarnish the house’s reputation. For a boy like Aldrich, who dreamed of becoming a lord respected like his father, that was unthinkable.
‘I’ll shake it off like a lion and leap about like a horse! And I’ll make a snowman bigger than Neria’s! A snowman so huge the Winter Spirits will stop dancing and tip their hats to it! The servants will see it and think, Ah, our young master made that magnificent snowman!’
Just imagining it made his toes twitch with excitement. He wanted to bolt out right now and roll in the snow with Neria—and to do that...
“Here. Say ahh~. Aah~.”
He had to get past the nursemaid trying to feed him hot soup on top of the hearth and brazier. Maine, the nursemaid, had cared for him and Neria since their earliest days—days he couldn’t even remember—and her affection was as boundless as her ample bosom.
The problem was when that affection turned into overprotection.
Maine, blowing on the steaming soup, noticed Aldrich’s gaze still drifting to the window and said firmly,
“Ignore a cough at your peril, young master. My cousin made his living chopping wood, and even he went out in winter, got caught in the Winter Spirits’ skirts, and caught a cough. Heavens, that burly bearded fellow, healthy as an oak, ended up shivering in bed, spitting blood... In the end, he had to call a priest with the money he’d saved for his daughter’s wedding.”
“Then we’ll just call a priest. The family vaults have plenty more than enough for a commoner’s wedding.”
“Well... you know how it is. Our house has a bit of a... rocky relationship with the Church. They’d demand heaps of donations for sure, and your father can’t stand priests—he’d probably...”
“Ugh, fine. If I eat it all, you’ll let me go, right?”
Aldrich cut off Maine before she could launch into another lecture and snatched the soup bowl from her lap. The bowl was hotter than expected, nearly bringing tears to his eyes, but with the patience befitting the family heir, he held firm and lifted the spoon. Maine, steadfast as she was, had no choice but to prepare his outdoor clothes as he gulped down the spicy soup laced with pungent herbs.
“Cough!”
She flinched involuntarily at her young charge’s little cough but betrayed nothing, merely offering a handkerchief to her choking master.
The rumors among the servants were just that—rumors—and she swallowed her unease as best she could.
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“Waaah! It’s~ so~ huge!”
“Hehe. Right? Bet the Winter Spirits won’t be able to just pass by this one.”
“Yeah! For real! They might even ask Spring to dance before she’s ready!”
“Hihihi. Can’t have that. If Spring gets depressed without a partner, we’d get cold rain instead of warm spring sunshine.”
“Uh... Then what do we do? Should I dance with her instead?”
Aldrich beamed at Neria lifting the hem of her thick winter clothes playfully, then wiped his reddened nose.
A snowman as tall as the statue of the founding lord. True, the knights had rolled the bigger snowballs from the middle on, but since he’d made the initial snowball, didn’t that mean he’d made the whole thing?
“Young master, miss. Time to come inside now. The countess will be worried sick.”
“It’s fine! Sir Cedric! I’ll smooth things over with Mother, so just a bit longer—”
“Oh, and when you came out, I saw Maine heading to the kitchen. She mentioned a big batch of sweet pumpkin arrived yesterday.”
“—longer... Playtime’s fun, but we can’t have Neria catching a cough. She’s a girl, and two years younger than me, so it’d be a disaster. Shall we head in now?”
Neria’s flushed face nodded eagerly at Aldrich’s subtle hint. Maine’s pumpkin pies. Nobles weren’t supposed to stuff themselves outside mealtimes, so she rarely made them—which only fueled Aldrich’s burning ambition to become head of the house.
‘When I’m lord, I’ll have pies every day—breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea time, even midnight snacks!’
Boy and girl raced off, warm pies dancing in their imaginations, their lips curved in pure joy.
****
Whoooosh—
Thud!
As the heavy wooden door shut behind them, enveloping them in warmth laced with the scent of buttery bread and sweet pumpkin.
“Where is everybody?”
Aldrich grumbled at the absence of the servants who’d normally rush to take his coat.
Warm, dry air. The aroma of soft pies. Thick candelabras keeping the castle bright even in the blizzard.
It looked just like the castle he’d grown up in, yet something felt off.
As knights took his snow-damp coat instead of servants, Aldrich realized what was missing amid his pondering.
“Oswald! The letter-keeper Oswald’s missing! Has old Oswald not come back yet? Is his cough worse?”
“Y-yes. That’s right. His age makes him frail, you see.”
“I see. Of course. If he’s sick, he should rest. Then... Uni, the hall maid? That’s why it feels empty—she should be dusting the entrance with her feathered duster by now.”
“...She had family matters back home and left for a bit.”
“Uni too? What about Astia?”
“On sick leave.”
“Gobin?”
“Kicked by a horse’s hind hoof...”
“Derek? Susan? Padsel?”
“...Warm water’s ready for you. Go wash up before dinner.”
He called out familiar servant names one by one, but the answers were mostly the same. Sick, tumbled in the snow, family emergency—whatever the reason, they’d all left the castle.
In the two days he’d spent bedridden, battling the roaring hearth, they’d all vanished in just those two days.
“Brother...”
Neria clutched his sleeve, unnerved by the unfamiliar silence.
‘...Don’t tremble. You’re the heir to House Telldmayer!’
Truth be told, Aldrich wanted to run to his mother’s arms, but the thought that in just a week—on his fourteenth birthday—he’d undergo his preliminary coming-of-age rite, debut in society, and in fourteen months, at fifteen, seek a bride held him back. He was practically a man.
“...Let’s go, Neria. After we wash up, we can have warm pumpkin pie.”
“Y-yeah...”
Rattle, rattle!
Whoooosh—
The intensifying blizzard rattled the sturdy windows, letting in an eerie howl that seeped into the castle.
Aldrich quickened his steps to the bath, toes curling tight at the sound. He doubted he’d crave going out anytime soon, even from his bed.
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“Winter... So lots of nobles on bad terms with the temple like that?”
“More than you’d think. As you know, during the Seventy Years’ War when the Church was weakened, many nobles used them like tools. Now that the various churches have regained power, it’s only natural they’re not cooperative. Our house had its share of skirmishes with lesser domains too—uhm... back then, they were seen as cheap, efficient mercenaries. We hired priests through... forceful means. They harbored grudges from that and refused to treat the family head’s gravely injured son back then. That’s when relations soured completely.”
“Hey, hold on, Aldrich. Even with bad blood between the temple and the house, with things that dire at home, the head didn’t call a priest? Isn’t that... too irresponsible?”
“The situation was complicated that year. The crops withered that summer, so we requested blessings from the Temple of Abundance, but they refused. Furious, Father expelled the priests and demolished their temple. Enraged in turn, the Temple of Abundance decried House Telldmayer’s tyranny. Noble houses friendly with the Church piled on. With harvest woes on top, Father’s distrust of the religious orders peaked. He’d tried resolving it for years, but it always backfired, leading to that winter’s mess. Looking back, it’s ironic. If he’d called a priest at the first sign of trouble—even one holy man—things might be different now... Hrm.”
The professor easily pictured the Spanish flu or pneumonia-like epidemic from Aldrich’s tale—a world where medical progress was limited to folk remedies without priests, those miracle-workers.
With a blizzard rattling the castle’s thick wooden doors, the interior would’ve been colder than usual, and servants in chillier rooms than the nobles would naturally fall ill first.
“One day, two... Servants kept vanishing as time passed. Maids and footmen who’d scurried everywhere suddenly gone. Father, grave-faced, ordered a knight to ‘drag a priest here if you must,’ but the knight vanished into the storm and stayed gone for two days.”
Whoooosh—
Lucilla rubbed her arms, chilled not just by the low, quiet, almost ominous tone in Aldrich’s voice.
“W-what rank was the knight? Aura user or...”
“No, not that level, but... I remember he was a notable swordsman locally. In thick winter gear, vanishing into the blizzard like a bear on horseback. The flickering lantern on his saddle swallowed by the snow. We didn’t see him again until three days later.”
On the third day after he left, he returned to the castle with Father and the search party—legs broken on his horse, frozen solid as a corpse.
Aldrich had weathered twelve winters in this castle, but that one was savagely, brutally cold like none before. Fierce winds tore small windows free; boards nailed over them echoed everywhere. Father gave up venturing out, waiting for the snow to ease. Luckily, firewood and rations held, thinned by the missing folk.
Aldrich shuddered at the cold memory resurfacing. The deluxe carriage was toasty, but the howling wind outside made his body quake.
“Five days passed like that. An eerie silence haunted the castle halls, laced with unease. We’d try calming down, and something would happen. Glass and dishes shattering inexplicably; the head cook, who wielded knives like extensions of himself, slicing his finger instead of meat, filling the castle with screams; the old butler who navigated the cluttered storerooms blindfolded tripping over nothing, spilling oil. We had to light the castle with stale, smelly emergency candles from the tower instead of blazing oil lamps. It was deathly quiet, yet filled with horrific discord—things breaking, screams, doors slamming shut.”
The sounds shredded the silence like daggers into anxious hearts. No one knew why, but everyone sensed something was wrong.
Cold, dark, gloomy. Thick shadows from flickering candles seemed alive, piling unease. The snow showed no sign of stopping; endless isolation turned mounting anxiety into something darker.
To him and Neria, it was still just “Nothing’s wrong. No need to worry”—but the siblings knew better. Something was amiss. Like an infant crying near a weeper, they just felt it. The empty spaces left by vanished people weren’t empty. Something embracing chill and silence had taken their place.
And then, the day it came.
Day 9. Only five slashes left until the coming-of-age mark on the hearth.
Thud, thud thud!
Pounding on the ice-bound door woke Aldrich as servants forced it open.
Sweat-soaked from nightmares, his clothes clung damp. He rubbed away the hazy dream, throat tight with unshed sobs, reaching for the bell-pull—then:
Bang!
“G-gaaah!”
The frozen door burst open under a servant’s sturdy shoulder, screams rising from below the window.
Rushing to look, Aldrich saw dazzling snowfields in morning light—and crimson staining the white canvas.
“E-Emerson! Emerson... he’s dead!”
A corpse, frozen stiff, slumped at the door.
The thick wooden door bore blood and nail marks. Jagged red trails on pristine snow showed the dying man had crawled there, pounded and clawed desperately at the unyielding door with his cooling body.
‘...P-please... open...! ...F-feet... don’t wanna...’
Aldrich realized the “nightmare” sounds weren’t dreams. The rattling door wasn’t just wind.
A knight rushing at the screams pulled a short dagger from the frozen back.
Someone had crept up, stabbed the servant, driven him into the snowy night.
Someone in this castle had killed. That was certain.
Then, if those night sounds weren’t dreams...
‘...Hehe. Heh heh... Hee... All... die... Every... one... No... exceptions... Hehehehehehickhickhick...’
What had the dying servant seen to laugh like that in his final moments?
Aldrich buried his head in the blankets. Even plugging his ears, that dreamlike, sinister laughter echoed on.
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