Chapter: 10
“Ninety-six, ninety-seven…”
The voice counting numbers gradually slowed.
At the same time, Lysithea drew closer to it.
From the crack of a half-open door at the end of the corridor, a faint light spilled out—along with the voice.
And between the opened door, she saw limbs bent at grotesque angles.
It was a corpse that had died not long ago.
Stepping past what had only moments ago been a living person’s twisted arms and legs, Lysithea entered the room.
“Ninety-eight.”
Sunlight filtered through the gap in half-drawn curtains, dimly illuminating the room.
Though it was clearly midday, the atmosphere felt like dawn—or dusk.
In the shadowy room, a man reclined at an angle on a long chair with an armrest only on one side.
Even in the dim light, his hair gleamed like a winter lake.
A loose, half-unfastened tunic; pale golden hair fallen into disarray; long, thick-jointed fingers tapping against the armrest.
“…Ninety-nine.”
His Adam’s apple shifted as the voice that had led Lysithea here flowed from his throat.
Was he truly alive?
The man looked even more lifeless than the twisted corpse outside.
His pallid face resembled something other than human.
“Ninety-nine, ninety-nine…”
Hesitation crept into the previously listless voice, and the man soon let out a low sigh.
“Ninety-nine, one…”
The sequence resumed—but not with one hundred.
It was then—
Clink.
The shards of glass stuck to Lysithea’s shoe shattered, the sound intruding between the man’s counted words.
The man, who had been leaning elegantly like a still-life painting, lowered the arm that had been shielding his eyes.
At last, she met his gaze.
His eyes were the color of coral found only in shallow, warm seas.
Depending on the angle, they appeared blood-red or a translucent violet—an enigmatic hue.
The man with blood-red eyes stared at Lysithea and spoke.
“Who… are you?”
As if wrapped in a thin veil, his unreal voice rang out clearly, as though whispered directly beside her ear.
In that instant, Lysithea awoke from her dream.
***
“…M-Miss?”
“Hm?”
Lysithea, who had been lost in thought while gazing at the scenery outside the carriage, responded to Marie’s call.
“What were you thinking about so deeply?”
“I’ve been having strange dreams lately…”
Lysithea recalled the dream she had two days earlier.
Right after sending a letter to Grand Duke Cassius, she had been reading and had dozed off without realizing it.
In her dream, she wandered through an unfamiliar mansion and encountered a man endlessly counting numbers.
Dreams usually faded quickly after waking, but this time, the hazy sensation lingered unusually long.
How much longer until the Grand Duke’s estate…?
She estimated the remaining distance.
About fifteen minutes, perhaps.
I need to stay focused…
She had to face the Grand Duke with a clear head, yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake off the drowsiness.
Fo… focus…
Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier—until they stopped moving altogether.
The warmth of sunlight touching her eyelids was her last thought before her consciousness sank beneath the surface of sleep.
How much time had passed?
“…Miss, are you alright?”
Feeling the distinctive jolting of the carriage, Lysithea came back to her senses.
When she opened her eyes, Marie was shaking her awake with a worried expression.
“…Marie?”
She must have fallen asleep again.
Clutching her throbbing head, Lysithea barely managed to sit up.
It felt as though her head were splitting into hundreds of pieces. The pain always worsened after dreaming.
After chewing and swallowing a painkiller, she leaned her head against the seat.
I dreamed it again.
Perhaps because she had been thinking about it nonstop before falling asleep.
Just like two days ago, she had wandered through that unfamiliar mansion.
I’ve never had the same dream twice before…
She recalled the dream she had just had.
The beginning was exactly the same.
The grand, antique mansion. Broken windows. Recently deceased corpses. And the man alone among them, counting numbers.
As she retraced the dream in her mind, Lysithea slightly furrowed her brow.
Something… changed?
The ending was different.
In the dream she’d had two days ago, it had clearly gone like this—
“Ninety-nine, ninety-nine, one…”
It continued until the man in the dream noticed her—and then it ended.
But in the dream just now…
Lysithea looked down at her hands, then clenched them tightly into fists.
She lifted her head and stared out the carriage window.
Before she realized it, the dense forest surrounding the Grand Duke’s estate had come right into view.
Cassius Grand Duke Diamude.
He was the only blood relative left behind by Crown Princess Rueira, the eldest daughter of the late emperor.
The sole son of the Crown Princess who had been called the empire’s radiant future, the pride of its people, the Red Star incarnate upon this land.
A member of the imperial family, second in line to the throne after his mother.
A child born amid blessings and anticipation, raised in love—the most precious of all.
That was Diamude.
But when he was five years old, Crown Princess Rueira and her husband were killed in a magical terror incident known as the Tus–Lor Affair, and his brief happiness came to an end.
Diamude was the sole survivor of the Tus–Lor tragedy, which had claimed hundreds of lives and plunged the empire into grief.
Tus–Lor was a term used to refer to the area where the most impoverished people of the land lived.
Those who learned that Crown Princess Rueira would visit the first school built there carried out a magical terror attack.
Despite voices opposing the visit on grounds of safety, the Crown Princess had pressed forward—so fierce debates followed over where responsibility lay.
Those who claimed the tragedy was her fault demanded that Diamude be stripped of his right to inherit the throne.
Meanwhile, her loyal retainers, unable to forget Rueira, mourned the cruel truth that it was not their liege who survived that day, but her young son.
Worse still, in the aftermath of the incident, Diamude lost control of his magic—likely due to severe psychological trauma.
The emperor, who had lost his beloved heir overnight and fallen ill, named not his grieving grandson but his already-grown son, who had a power base, as the next emperor.
An imperial decree followed, suspending Diamude’s succession rights until his magic stabilized.
When his grandmother—the former emperor—passed away and his uncle ascended the throne, Diamude fell into complete disgrace within the imperial family.
The nickname “the ill-fated prince, ranked zero in succession” was a mocking reminder that he should have ranked even higher than the current emperor.
From that point on, the portraits of the young imperial child that had once been distributed across the empire every year on his birthday suddenly ceased.
The porcelain-doll-like child, once so lovely and delicate, disappeared from all official events after the age of five.
At twelve, he was granted a nominal ducal title along with the new surname Cassius—and expelled from the imperial palace.
As he shut himself away in his estate, people hurled every kind of rumor at him.
Calling him a coward who begged the emperor for his life was among the milder accusations.
Disappointed by Diamude’s complete inaction, some even claimed he had survived by making a pact with a demon.
Yet the man who had never reacted to such slander reached out and took Lysithea’s hand.
Even she didn’t know why.
The story she had read focused mainly on the protagonists, Joel and Lillian, and mentioned Diamude only in passing.
Almost all references to him came from brief lines of dialogue spoken by Joel after hearing of Lysithea’s actions.
“Why on earth did the Grand Duke Cassius take Lysithea’s hand?”
You idiot, Joel Spencer—what do you even know?
If the Joel in the story had known the reason, then Lysithea would have known as well…
Still, she wasn’t particularly worried.
The story she had read always came true.
Just like in that story, the real him would undoubtedly take her hand.
The forest encircling the Grand Duke’s estate grew narrower the deeper the carriage traveled.
When they emerged from the tight woodland path, the mansion finally revealed itself.
Lysithea stopped Marie as she was about to step down from the carriage.
“Marie, go back from here.”
“…What? M-me too?”
“Go into the city and rest. Come back by four o’clock. If I’m not out by then, contact Scylla.”
Scylla was a freelance mercenary who had never failed a mission.
Well—technically, she had failed once, when Lysithea asked her to stop Joel Spencer at the entrance to the Black Forest.
But even so, Scylla remained one of the most capable mercenaries on the continent.
Her fee was astronomical, and she was so elusive that even making contact with her was difficult.
That Lysithea had managed to strike a deal with Scylla at all was sheer luck.
“…Alright. I’ll do as you say, Miss. Please be careful—and just in case, take some medicine with you.”
After handing over the painkillers she carried, Marie hesitated, looking back several times before finally leaving the forest with the carriage.
***
Lysithea stepped into the elegant mansion nestled like a painting within the silent forest.
Creeeak.
She pushed open the half-open door—unguarded—and stopped, sweeping her gaze across the interior.
Antique decorations, refined lines and placement, an excessively quiet interior, and a dimness that felt strange for midday.
She had been here before.
Or rather—was it correct to say she had seen this place before?
Creeeak, creak.
As the doorframe let out a chilling scream in the wind, she passed through a corridor with shattered windows.
Jade-colored curtains fluttered, brushing through her field of vision.
Her heart began to pound.
She stopped, holding her breath and listening.
“Ninety, ninety-one…”
She waited for the voice she had heard in her dream to sound again.
A voice like a rainbow after rain, like thinly spread sugar syrup—fragile, beautiful, and dangerously so.
