Chapter 128
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 128
Rico had hoped I would show enough tolerance to remain loyal to Lady Agera after hearing the whole story, but I couldn’t keep my composure. With every detail Rico recounted about the past, a storm of questions raged in my head. No, seriously, what on earth is this?!
When I first heard the fragmented rumors about Lady Agera practicing sorcery, I had tried my best to put a positive spin on it, convincing myself it was all just Bishop Marik's underhanded scheming.
Since Duke Hosaquin, a man who seemed destined to live out his life estranged from me, had suddenly become my ally, I’d assumed Bishop Marik was playing dirty tricks to drag him down. I had no idea it was a disaster of their own making.
“Lady Agera loved Lady Amaranth very dearly.”
I knew that much. Suddenly, the bright face of the elderly woman who resembled me flashed in my mind. She had called me Amaranth. How deep must her love have been for a senile old woman, who’d forgotten her own age, to still remember her daughter so vividly?
Though the Duke had forced her to cut ties, she had cherished her daughter in her heart. I could tell that beneath it all, she was drowning in a profound sense of guilt.
“That love bordered on obsession, and Lady Agera ended up crossing a line. She tried to use sorcery to summon Lady Amaranth back.”
Excuse me?
She tried to summon a dead person? Was she insane? Well, to be blunt, she wasn't in her right mind. Since she suffered from dementia, she probably didn't grasp the true dangers of sorcery.
Since Rico said she used sorcery to summon ‘something,’ it sounded less like simple necromancy and more like human transmutation. What a headache. Lady Agera attempted human transmutation? Sorcery was bad enough, but human transmutation was the ultimate taboo.
Was this some kind of other-world logic? Then again, since sorcery itself was a wicked act of summoning demons, I suppose both would look the same to an outsider.
“The Duke refused to acknowledge the thing Lady Agera summoned as his daughter.”
He shunned me, his actual granddaughter, so there was no way he would accept some creature conjured by sorcery as his daughter. Given his fastidious personality, it was a miracle he hadn't tried to kill it on the spot.
“So, he tried to kill the summoned entity.”
See? I knew it. At this rate, someone should award me a degree in Duke Analysis.
“But it did not die.”
Oho. So the opponent was formidable. As the story took a sharp turn into full-blown, self-aware fantasy, I temporarily forgot the gravity of the situation and felt a spark of curiosity. An immortal being? This was just like a novel. Well, it is a novel.
Rico continued her explanation.
“It didn’t die. Instead, it kept multiplying, surviving through division. If you cut it in half, both halves lived. The same happened even when it was split into multiple pieces. While brainstorming ways to destroy it, a suggestion was made to grind it up so finely that its very form would be erased, and then feed it to animals.”
Rico, who had been bowing her head deeply, looked up at me. Her expression suggested I should have some idea of what she was talking about. And she was right—the mention of animals sparked an instant realization.
“The rats?”
The rats submerged in the water tank. The rat that spoke in a human voice, looking for Mavka. The rat that the maid, Nigella, had supposedly eaten. The only animals in this mansion were those rats.
Rico gave a quiet, almost imperceptible nod. Her movements were heavy with hesitation, as if she desperately wished she could deny the truth.
“Yes, that is correct. They fed it to the rats.”
Goosebumps erupted all over my body. Just moments ago, it had been an intriguing tale, like something a bard would recite in a tavern. Now, the mere thought of that scene made my skin crawl. I could overlook the killing. Human rights aside, it wasn't like I hadn't seen a dead body since transmigrating, and I could understand it, given the historical setting of this world.
But feeding it to animals was a different story entirely. The fact that they had fed the thing Lady Agera summoned as her ‘daughter’ to mere rats made me physically ill. I barely managed to suppress the urge to swear.
“But there was something we overlooked. Lady Agera had used ‘sorcery,’ and its consequences could not be resolved by ordinary people. We thought everything was settled after feeding it to the rats, but sorcery operates far beyond the comprehension of people like us.”
Only now did I understand the chain of events that led to what I’d witnessed yesterday. I had guessed it was related to sorcery, but I never in my wildest dreams imagined this was the true nature of the ‘rats.’
“The rats that consumed it… became it.”
So, to sum it up, the thing Lady Agera summoned was like a planarian that reproduced by fission, but it was also a parasite, like cordyceps, that took over its host. Judging by how it was looking for Mavka and telling people to eat it, it seemed to bewitch humans into consuming it.
Nigella wasn’t a sorcerer; she was just a pitiful victim who had fallen for its tricks. And the culprit behind it all was Lady Agera—the one person I thought was the most innocent. I should have known. The classic trope of ‘the least suspicious person is the culprit’ would apply here. Right, I’d forgotten. This place was a work of fiction, after all.
Ha… I couldn’t even bring myself to laugh. Seriously.
Wasn’t this supposed to be a Family Regret novel? Why did the genre suddenly shift from RoFan to a post-apocalyptic thriller?
You don’t even get infected by a zombie bite; you get infected by eating a rat. What kind of ridiculous setting was this? But it was the reality staring me in the face.
If I had known the situation was this dire, I would never have so confidently boasted to the Duke that I would handle it. What was this? They needed an exorcist, but instead, they got pest control. And to make matters worse, I wasn't even an exterminator—I was just a cat owner.
Ignoring my spiraling thoughts, Rico kept talking.
“Normally, we would have sought help from the Temple, but… in our current situation, that is impossible.”
Her voice trailed off. Of course they couldn’t go to the Temple. The person who had performed the sorcery was none other than the Duchess herself. Reporting this would be tantamount to begging for the destruction of their entire house.
“If Sir Gabriel hadn’t supplied us with holy water, the mansion would have become a breeding ground for those ‘rats’ by now.”
Now I understood why the Duke had piled the rats in the water tank. It wasn't just ordinary water; it was holy water. How much did that even cost? If he was getting that kind of support, granting me a full pardon should have been a piece of cake.
No, wait, that wasn’t the point. If I burned those rats to ashes, did that mean a person could get infected by ingesting the ash, too? Was I already infected?
While cleaning up after my little bonfire, a massive cloud of soot had scattered everywhere, and I was pretty sure I’d inhaled some of it. No wonder Rico kept her distance from me yesterday! She was trying to save her own skin!
I was about to grab her by the collar and shake her senseless, but Rico beat me to it, bowing her head again.
“This is the whole story.”
Rico finished her explanation. My will to live hit zero.
“Lady Rohanson, you have already proven your capability by disposing of the rats in the water tank. I beg of you. Please, save House Hosaquin.”
Rico bowed so deeply it looked like she might prostrate herself on the floor. I couldn't even bring myself to tell her to stand up; I just stared down at the crown of her head. How incredibly shameless. It was even more shameless that she had intended to discuss this in front of Mavka.
Keep heavy topics away from children! I wanted to stop calling her Rico and start calling her ‘Rico the Shameless.’
So, you want me to get rid of a planarian demon that infects you if you eat it?
I thought the Duke was my lifeline, but I had miscalculated. Family Regret? It was my fault for forgetting that this genre was actually dark angst. How could there be family regret in a dark angst story? No, wait, it was possible. If I were him, and someone got rid of these troublesome ‘rats’ for me, I’d probably coddle them and call them my precious child, too.
Yet even in this situation, the Duke held his head high and left me to my own devices. To be fair, he never had high expectations of me in the first place.
If I stayed here, I would just end up being slaughtered along with House Hosaquin. I needed to return to House Rohanson right this instant. The secret of my birth, the traitor in the Rohanson mansion—none of it mattered. If I stayed, I was dead meat.
If it had approached Mavka, it must have approached the other servants as well. The Duke claimed it targeted Mavka because none of the servants could be bribed, but that wasn't the point.
The real issue was that Bishop Marik was keeping a close eye on House Hosaquin. Creating an excuse to interfere would be easy, and besides, the literal aftermath of sorcery was manifesting right here in the estate. Even if Bishop Marik attacked them now, it wouldn't be a false accusation.
Once they wiped out House Hosaquin, they could hold them up as a textbook example of what happens when you dabble in sorcery. There would be no room for excuses.
Alright, time to run. Leaving the bowing Rico behind, I opened the door.
“My Lady?”
“…Mavka.”
If it hadn't been for Mavka standing right outside, I would have bolted. She was already back. Her hand was raised, as if she’d been about to open the door herself, but she quickly hid it behind her back in embarrassment when she saw me.
“Why is Mom bowing? Are you leaving, My Lady?”
Mavka tilted her head innocently. Pudding leaped from her arms and lunged into mine. He began kneading my shoulder urgently, his cotton-soft paws conveying a desperate plea to get away from House Hosaquin and Mavka immediately.
But looking at Mavka, my panic instantly subsided. It was as if a bucket of cold water had been dumped over my head, snapping me back to my senses.
It was because of the voices that had been desperately calling for her yesterday.
If I run away now just because I don't want to get involved, what will happen to Mavka?
The image of Mavka crying as if the world were ending overlapped with her bright, smiling face. Thoughts of my precious younger sisters back home, Mary and Daisy, and Mrs. Kinder's tragically deceased son flashed through my mind one after another. Sigh…
The ‘rats’ were targeting Mavka. She would be in grave danger if I ran away. And the Temple was watching her, too. If I abandoned Mavka to save myself, how would I be any different from that scoundrel Count Rohanson, who abandoned his own daughter to save his skin?
“No, where would I go? I just opened the door because I figured you’d be back by now, Mavka.”
This is my fault for having a soft spot for kids.
I turned back and sat down.
“Rico. Raise your head.”
Rico hesitantly lifted her head. Was she feeling guilty? She had kept her distance from me yesterday to avoid getting infected by the rats, so she must have felt at least a little sorry that I was now trapped here, playing exorcist for the Duke's family.
“I’ll help.”
“Lady Rohanson!” Rico cried out, deeply moved.
“Because I can’t just stand by and let some creature dare to claim to be my ‘mother.’”