STUT 49

Chapter : 49

You Again

Charlophe threw off the blanket and leaned back against the cushions, tilting her head.

Her dark crimson hair flowed down in loose waves.

Heat pooled in her eyes, leaving them aching.

Her throat felt rough and scratchy.

I’m thirsty.

As Charlophe traced from her throat down to her collarbone with her fingertips, someone caught her wrist.

“Were you nearby?”

“I just came back from the training grounds.”

His gaze settled on Charlophe’s neck.

“…Why?”

“I thought you were strangling yourself again.”

His concern was justified.

Her complexion was pale and bloodless, and the bluish veins beneath her skin stood out starkly.

Given how she had been lately, it was natural for him to worry.

“I suppose you can tell what I’ve been like recently.”

At her words, Benjamin fell silent.

For some reason, it was hard to read him. It felt as though he was holding something back, deliberately keeping it out of sight.

While Charlophe was studying him, Benjamin shook his head as he looked down at her.

“Finish getting ready and come out. There’s something that child has to tell us about the Tutye family.”

He sent in the head maid and left.

“I’ll wait outside, then.”

Having just woken up, her head felt foggy. Charlophe pressed her forehead and ruffled her disheveled hair. What did I do before falling asleep last night…?

She felt as though she’d had a conversation, but the memory was blurred.

“Yesterday, Your Majesty requested a sleeping draught.”

“Ah, no wonder I slept so deeply for once.”

She hadn’t even realized when she fell asleep.

After finishing her preparations, Charlophe stepped outside.

“His Majesty has already arrived.”

The maids knocked twice and opened the door.

“Y-Your Majesty the Empress!”

“You look better than you did yesterday.”

“…I’m sorry about that day.”

Henrietta spoke of what had happened that night.

“T-that darkness saw me. I-it opened its mouth and spewed monsters, and stretched out its neck from under my feet, begging to be let out. I-it sought people with that mouth… and it was there. Father was standing on top of it.”

So that was why she’d been pursued.

“It looked like a person, but it wasn’t human.”

“Did your father see you there?”

“…Yes. He saw me.”

“Just as you saw him, he must have seen you as well.”

There was no way the head of the family didn’t know.

The child wasn’t skilled at hiding her presence, and the fact that she alone remained here was likely the head’s intention.

So he let her live on purpose.

Charlophe pressed her eyelids firmly.

“…Did he say anything else when you left?”

“I—I couldn’t hear well. My ears were ringing, so it came through in fragments.”

The child, who had once had her breathing cut off, let out a sigh as she spoke.

“He said to wait for that day. After that… I don’t really remember.”

It seemed the child couldn’t recall much after that either.

Charlophe exchanged a glance with Benjamin, and a quiet command followed.

“Prepare to leave.”

He checked the child’s ankle as he spoke.

“Your guardian will be here soon.”

“Ah…!”

“Fortunately, they managed to avoid the situation and are safe. There’ll be a brief background check afterward, but once that’s done, you’ll be reunited soon. You’ll move to an imperial residence, so you can leave straight away.”

There was no one left in the Tutye estate now. With everyone gone, even the traces of people had been erased.

“If you need anything afterward, tell the maid outside.”

The door to the annex closed, and the two walked out quietly.

Charlophe gestured toward the closed door and whispered,

“You sent that child on purpose.”

“…I used her as a messenger.”

They didn’t speak long.

“Has the pact been broken?”

“If it had, the taboo would have shattered. It wouldn’t be this quiet.”

“Then will it be broken soon?”

“That, too, needs to be confirmed.”

Perhaps they had already suspected as much. What they lacked was clear evidence to confirm it.

“You may soon have to kill him.”

His words trailed off.

One couldn’t very well congratulate someone who might soon kill their own father.

Benjamin passed through a dimly lit chamber. The sharp smell of disinfectant hung in the air.

“Is the investigation finished?”

The examination of the servant declared dead the night before continued.

“The body was poisoned. The toxin rotted the inside of the body—it resembles the poison exhaled by monsters.”

“Are the blood results back?”

“The toxin was dissolved in the blood as well. The blood was dark, and the corrupted poison pooled and coagulated throughout the body.”

The intelligence officers reported their findings.

Traces of monster poison remained in the body. Such poison was usually found in the corpses of mercenaries killed after fighting monsters, lingering most strongly in the blood.

“He was being chased.”

“If he was chased, they wouldn’t have let him escape.”

“He didn’t escape. They let him go.”

The officer lifted the cloth covering the body. The flesh around the ankle was torn, the bone shattered.

“The ankle was bitten and torn. In this state, he couldn’t walk. Judging by the coagulation of the blood, the deceased was already dead at that point.”

Though he fled as if being chased, he was already dead.

“They delayed his death and sent the dead man back.”

The officer finished his report.

“The origin of monsters and interference with death belong to the domain of black magic, which was banished in ancient times.”

“So it’s confirmed.”

“It’s a violation of the pact.”

The taboo of the ancient pact still held, but as the pact faded from memory, they crawled out through the cracks.

They violated the pact’s taboo.

The dead trespassed into forbidden ground and defiled the realm of the living.

“This was done deliberately.”

“How bold.”

“As for the other missing persons—”

“Do you remember what kind of temperament the head of the Tutye family had?”

He was a man steeped in vanity.

“If he’d killed them all, he would’ve scattered the bodies around the estate and begged us to witness his slaughter.”

“I’ll dispatch an internal investigation team.”

He wasn’t the type to vanish without a trace like this.

“…Do you remember when the former emperor passed away?”

When the former emperor died and the throne was ascended, even that death had felt unsettling.

Driven mad by obsession, the former emperor’s complexion darkened at the end, his flesh rotted, and he died like that.

Days filled with withered corpses as if their life force had been drained, and a string of suspicious deaths followed.

“It’s almost the same as now.”

“Then they, too—”

“There’s no need to understand them. They’re the ones who led things to this state.”

There’d been no chance to examine the former emperor’s body, so those deaths were buried with time.

“Trace their footsteps.”

Their intent had been confirmed, and past suspicions now had a foundation.

“The strategist has arrived.”

The door to the dark chamber opened and Roskella entered, wrinkling his nose at the heavy scent of medicinal herbs.

“Is it finished?”

“They violated the forbidden domain.”

A few foolish individuals had disrupted balance and order.

As Benjamin covered the body with cloth, he spoke.

“Find the heretics and kill them.”

“I wanted to pretend not to know a little longer.”

Charlophe murmured, brushing her lips.

“But I’ve reached a point where that’s no longer possible.”

It was time to retrace things—why that death happened, and where it all went wrong.

Her life bound to the estate had been utterly cut off from the outside world.

After marriage, even more so.

So my death, too, was caused by external factors.

From where to where had she been entangled with them? And where did it end? Had there ever been an end?

“Your Majesty. Are you listening?”

Pulled from her thoughts, Charlophe loosened her stiff shoulders.

She brushed down her collarbone, loosened the seams of her robe, pushed back the blackout hood, and removed the fur stole.

“There was no need for you to come in person.”

“It’s better to see things with my own eyes.”

The search of the estate continued. The mansion once filled with servants was now desolate.

Standing alone in the place everyone had left behind felt strangely familiar. Katarina watched Charlophe closely.

“You don’t need to worry about my feelings.”

“…Your Majesty.”

“I severed ties with the family long ago. What lingering attachment would make me pity them now?”

Charlophe narrowed her eyes languidly.

Her reddish-brown gaze swept the surroundings. The Tutye estate was sealed.

The servants were gone, and all traces of them had been cut off.

It had been a bad relationship, and there were no good feelings left.

The estate felt both familiar and strange.

“Is there anything in particular that stands out?”

“I lived with them for a long time, but I don’t really know them.”

Brooms once used by servants to sweep the floors, laundry headed for the washhouse,

Documents and quills lay abandoned on the ground.

“It’s as if the traces were erased.”

Katarina turned her head.

“As if no one was ever here.”

As Charlophe murmured this, a fur muffler was wrapped around her neck.

“Don’t wander alone.”

Benjamin tied the muffler neatly.

“Are you planning to stay outside?”

“The search team hasn’t finished yet, so moving around too freely feels risky.”

“Looking around this much is fine.”

Charlophe followed him into the estate, each step heavy.

The floor creaked. Its balance was warped, some places sunken in.

“Is there anything you want to take with you?”

“There’s nothing now.”

“No regrets, either.”

“I’ll just go up to the third floor.”

Charlophe slowly retraced her memories.

She climbed the stairs at an unhurried pace.

This was the room her mother had only left after her death.

“This is where my mother passed away.”

“…Everything’s been covered.”

All the furniture was draped in cloth.

She bumped her hip against a side table.

The drawer slid open, and the cloth slipped down.

Other cloths fell away here and there, revealing what lay beneath.

“Ah…!”

Benjamin covered Charlophe’s eyes.

“What a vile inclination.”

It was the body of a dead bird.

A pure white bird lay atop a white sheet.

“It’s still breathing.”

She’d thought it a corpse, but it wasn’t.

Instinctively, she could feel its breath.

Death was tightening around its throat, and that breath was slowly fading.

Red blood stained the sheet, and feathers scattered into the air.

“It’s dying. Its breath remains, but the vitality of life is gone.”

Charlophe lowered his arm and stepped forward slowly.

“It was forcibly bound with black magic. Dark power interferes with death, and once death has been interfered with, the end is already decided. It’ll soon be devoured by death.”

Just then, intelligence officers burst in.

“Residual dark power detected, Your Majesty!”

Glass shattered with sharp cracks, shards raining down all at once.

“My father still hasn’t let go of me.”

The white bird aimed its beak and narrowed its eyes.

“Borrowing heretical power—”

Its feathers began to rot, releasing a fetid, bloody stench.

With its torn tongue, it wrapped around Charlophe’s wrist and drove its beak in.

The beak was already rotten, exuding a thick poison that burned her skin.

“He intends either to kill me,”

Her flesh was torn away.

“Or to tear my flesh apart and carve his existence into me.”

The bird’s eyes split open.

I knew you would come.
I waited for you.

It seemed to speak so.

“Unfortunately—”