Chapter 124
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 124
Perhaps it was thanks to Evangeline’s act, or maybe it was the commotion in the greenhouse earlier, but for whatever reason, the Duchess retired unusually early. With her duties finished sooner than expected, Rico planned to share a meal with Mavka for the first time in a while.
But even as night fell, Mavka did not return. It was Rico’s fault; she hadn't paid enough attention to the child while the Duchess’s condition worsened. The Hosaquin estate was already in chaos, and Rico worried that Mavka might have gotten caught up in something terrible.
As Rico stepped out to look for her, a bizarre resonance echoed through the mansion. The ceiling creaked. Rats scurried about, their movements frantic and restless.
“Mavka.”
“Mavka?”
The pronunciation was slurred and clumsy, as if half-formed monsters were mimicking human speech. What was even more chilling was the single name they chanted in unison: Mavka.
At first, Rico thought she had finally gone mad, just like the maids who served the Duchess. They claimed that by keeping quiet and caring for the Duchess instead of reporting her to the Temple, they had been infected by her curse. The madness had spread.
Fortunately, the Duchess’s maids were deeply loyal to the Hosaquin estate and would neither report her to the Temple nor let any rumors leak out.
If their claims were true, then the voice Rico was hearing now had to be another symptom of that same madness.
“Mavka? Where are you? Where is she? Where did she go?”
The voice seemed to echo her own inner thoughts, but it felt far more ominous. It sounded like an animal’s cry, yet also like a cacophony of multiple human voices blended into one.
Rico tried her best to ignore the sound as she ran through the mansion, checking every place the child might be. But Mavka was nowhere to be found.
Nothing terrible has actually happened, right?
Hoping someone might have seen her, Rico went to find a young maid who was usually fond of Mavka. The maid was already preparing for bed, intending to sleep early.
“…Is Mavka here, by any chance?”
“No. Why would she be?”
The sliver of hope Rico had been clinging to vanished, and she couldn't hide her disappointment. Seeing Rico's hollow expression, the maid tilted her head.
“Have you seen Mavka today?”
“Don’t tell me she’s missing?”
“…Yes. It’s already this late, and she hasn’t come back.”
“It is quite late…”
The maid looked worried, but then she suddenly clapped her hands as if remembering something.
“Ah! Come to think of it, I might know something.”
“What? What is it?”
“Mavka has been playing detective lately, always tailing the chef. Yesterday, she gave me a fright hiding under a table, saying she was on a stakeout. Maybe she did it again today and fell asleep in the kitchen?”
At the maid’s words, Rico’s face brightened. She hadn’t even thought to look there, assuming Mavka had no reason to be in the kitchen.
“Thank you. I’ll go check right away.”
It felt as if she had already found her. Rico looked ready to bolt straight to the kitchen, but she stopped and quietly asked the maid one more question.
“By any chance… do you hear that sound, too?”
“What sound?”
“No. It’s nothing.”
Rico shook her head, dismissing it. The maid strained her ears but heard nothing out of the ordinary.
As she’d suspected, the voice searching for Mavka was audible only to her.
She had no idea why she was the only one hearing it. Her anxiety, which had briefly subsided, flared up again as she reached the kitchen.
There’s someone here.
Assuming the presence was Mavka, Rico walked toward the sound without hesitation.
Making her mother worry like this, just to hide in the kitchen and sneak snacks… Though relieved, Rico resolved to give Mavka a stern scolding and warn her never to wander around at night again.
As the blurry silhouette grew clearer, the sound of someone eating reached her ears. Surely she didn’t wake up from a nap, get hungry, and start stealing food?
Amused by the silly thought, Rico drew closer.
The figure was completely absorbed in their meal, head bowed low, their back to the entrance. It was impossible to see who it was, but one thing was certain: it wasn't a small child.
The moment she realized it wasn’t Mavka, Rico swallowed a sigh and turned to leave. This wasn’t the time; she had to find Mavka. She didn’t have the luxury of lecturing someone for sneaking food in the middle of the night.
But as she turned, something squishy brushed against her leg. The skin-crawling sensation made Rico freeze.
A rat?
Coarse fur and a long tail, disproportionate to its body. What had brushed against her foot was definitely a rat.
Why now, of all times…
“Why is a rat…”
Before Rico could finish, a bizarre voice cut her off.
“Looks delicious, doesn’t it?”
Goosebumps erupted all over her body. Her senses sharpened painfully, her fingertips turning ice-cold as they trembled. Her neck tensed, a strange ringing filled her ears, and she clenched her teeth to keep from screaming.
The entity she had tried so hard to ignore lodged itself in her mind, grating on her nerves. What on earth was that person eating? And why was the chewing sound so… wrong?
There was a sharp crack, like something hard snapping, followed by a wet, squelching noise, as if someone were chewing through tough pulp. As the sound grew clearer, a cold shiver ran down Rico’s spine.
Looks delicious?
The voice, which had only been searching for Mavka, had uttered a different phrase—a shocking one. Looks delicious? Surely it wasn’t talking about the rat?
The thought alone made her want to vomit. As if possessed, Rico’s eyes were drawn to the rat. It sat perfectly still in front of her, almost as if it were being served on a plate. Then, when Rico made no move, it scurried away—straight toward the kitchen.
It ran toward the presence. Rico’s gaze followed its path. The rat that had just brushed against her foot was snatched up in an instant. Before Rico could even process it, the person shoved the creature straight into their mouth.
Rico averted her eyes, unable to watch. Was that the sound she had been hearing all along?
She gagged, covering her mouth as she stumbled backward. In her panic, she lost her balance and bumped into a shelf, sending a glass crashing to the floor with a loud shatter. At that exact moment, the chewing stopped.
The person in the kitchen began walking toward her. Paralyzed with fear, Rico stood frozen. Only when the figure drew close could she finally recognize who it was.
“Nigella?”
“Butler Rico.”
Rico nearly lost her mind. It was the last person she ever expected to see. For someone who had just swallowed a rat whole, Nigella looked incredibly calm. No, only her demeanor was calm.
Her eyes were bloodshot, pupils dilating and contracting erratically. Around her mouth, clumps of rat fur clung to her skin, matted with some kind of dried fluid.
“Do you… do you know what you just ate?”
“What did I eat?”
Nigella dismissed the question, claiming she remembered nothing. Rico couldn’t tell if she truly didn’t realize what she had done or was simply pretending not to know.
Wait. What happens if you eat a rat?
‘Amaranth,’ the thing the Duchess had summoned, possessed a tenacious life force. It would split in two and survive even if cut in half. To destroy it, Duke Hosaquin had ordered the lump of flesh to be finely minced and fed to the rats. He thought that would kill it. Instead, the rats had only grown more bizarre. It had been a terrible mistake.
No one had expected that lump of flesh to survive being eaten. Instead, it remained like a parasite, controlling its hosts. That was why Rico’s reaction to the rats was so different from others, who merely thought their numbers had increased. The very sight of them made her sick.
Thanks to the Duke’s rat-catching efforts, they hadn’t been seen in the main halls lately. So why had they suddenly reappeared? Moreover, the way the rat had stood still before her, making no effort to escape Nigella’s grasp… it was as if it welcomed being eaten.
Could eating a rat produce the same effect in a human? If so, then Nigella…
Before she could finish the thought, a wave of pure terror washed over her. Rico turned her back on Nigella and fled.
Driven by the instinct to get as far away from the kitchen as possible, she bolted up the stairs. Her body naturally guided her toward her own room.
But there in the hallway, she ran into Evangeline, who was standing there calmly.
Beside Evangeline was the beloved daughter Rico had been searching for so desperately. Except for her red, tear-stained eyes and nose, Mavka was completely unharmed.
“Mom!”
The moment Mavka threw herself into Rico’s arms, her senses returned. Color flooded back into the world. It felt like she had returned from hell itself. The churning in her stomach finally began to settle.
Mavka wept so sorrowfully it would break anyone’s heart. Rico had never seen her cry this hard since the day she was born. She was only six; it would have been stranger if she didn’t cry, but Rico felt it was all her own fault. She suppressed the urge to break down and weep along with her.
As Rico patted her back and comforted her, Mavka, who had been wailing at the top of her lungs, quickly fell asleep from exhaustion. That left only Evangeline Rohanson.
“Good evening, Rico.”
Evangeline offered a gentle smile. She acted as if she knew exactly what Rico had just been through. Not only that, but the auditory hallucinations Rico had been hearing seemed to be audible to Evangeline as well.
Was Rico hearing these things because she was going mad? Evangeline seemed to know the answer. After all, hadn’t she calmly promised Duke Hosaquin that she would rid the estate of its ‘rats’?
“First, Mavka seems exhausted. May I take her to our room?”
Evangeline nodded readily. Once inside, Rico laid Mavka down on the bed. She would have to ask her what happened when she woke up, but for now, speaking with Evangeline was the priority.
“So, why were you with Mavka, Lady Evangeline?”
Even while searching for Mavka, Rico had never imagined she would be with Evangeline. With her picture-perfect smile still in place, Evangeline replied.
“Mavka came to me crying, so I was comforting her.”
Coming from this heartless girl—who looked as though she wouldn’t spare a glance if someone clung to her feet begging for their life—the excuse sounded surprisingly human.
The lie was delivered without a single blink, making Rico even more uneasy. Evangeline simply smiled, a bright, knowing expression on her face, as if she could read Rico's every thought.
Through those crescent-shaped, smiling eyes, a cold gaze scrutinized her. It was a look that measured, that appraised. Rico suddenly felt like a piece of meat on a butcher’s block.