Chapter 09

The crow just looked back and forth between the bread and Ian for a moment without showing any signs of movement. Thinking it was because the bread piece was too large and about to break it up, before Ian could even move his hands, the crow quickly grabbed the bread piece with its beak and leaped backward.

Just as Ian, startled by that action, also stepped back, the sound of knocking at the study door came. When he briefly turned his gaze toward the door then looked back, the spot where the crow had been sitting was empty. As Ian hurried to the window to look, the person beyond the door, who had hesitated for a moment, carefully knocked again.

“Ash! You can come in.”

At his loud call, the door opened and a small face peeked in—it was indeed Ash. The child who carefully entered blinked his eyes.

“How did… you know it was me?”

“Your brother knows everything. Did you come to read to me?”

Since Ash was the only one in this house who knocked on doors with small fists like that, it wasn’t very difficult to predict. In front of the child who widened his eyes as if amazed, Ian shrugged his shoulders as if he had some great ability.

Ash, who had been staring intently at Ian as if trying to figure out how he’d known, soon remembered his purpose for coming to the study. He lowered his gaze and gripped his trouser hem with the hands that had been hanging down, making fists.

“I… well…”

The child hesitated for a long time, moving his lips. Thanks to reading books together, coming to visit had become natural, but there hadn’t been much occasion for making special requests. Ian waited patiently and bent his legs. Though they hadn’t known each other long, the child seemed to have grown taller in those few days, and without realizing it, Ian raised his hand to stroke Ash’s head.

“You seem to have grown a bit in the meantime—shall we mark your height somewhere nearby?”

The child’s hair was smooth and soft, dense like fine black silk threads planted one by one. At the gentle touch that ran through his hair, which looked even blacker in contrast to his white skin, the child closed his eyes as if pleased.

“Why would you do that…?”

At the child’s question, Ian hesitated briefly. Ash, isolated in the manor and never having mingled with children his age, didn’t seem to know such games well. Having never thought about why such things were done, Ian was momentarily at a loss for words, but he smiled and said:

“…Because it’s fun? And you can know how much you’ve grown.”

Ian soon brought a small knife used for opening letter envelopes. And he stood Ash against an empty wall in the study. While the curious child rolled his eyes around, Ian touched the wall where it met his head with his fingertip to mark it.

“Hmm, that’s it. I need to draw a line here.”

Ian drew a straight line with the knife below his fingertip. Once the line was drawn, he simply carved initials there. After doing that, somehow it felt incomplete having only marked Ash’s height, so he pressed his own body against the wall. While the child watched with round eyes, Ian marked with his fingertip, turned his body, and drew a line.

Ian wrote his own initials on the line he’d drawn. The child looked back and forth between his and Ian’s height marks.

“This way you can compare how much you’ve grown, so it’s useful. Someday you’ll be able to catch up to your brother’s height.”

Since men usually grow taller even in their early twenties, thinking he might grow even more, Ian said this, and the child slightly frowned as if subtly displeased.

[System: Ash will remember this.]

Like before, seeing the sentence that suddenly appeared in the upper corner, Ian unconsciously tilted his head.

‘Why that again?’

The system message, appearing by unknown criteria, soon smoothly disappeared. Ian, who had been blinking, soon stopped thinking about it and looked down at Ash. The child glared at the wall as if he could surpass Ian’s height by continuing to look.

Ian smiled soothingly and said:

“But didn’t you say you had something to tell me?”

At those words, the child turned around as if he’d forgotten, and opened his mouth again carefully, but more lightly than before.

“Well… I want to move rooms.”

“Really? There are many rooms, so you can move to whichever room you want.”

In a large manor, changing rooms wasn’t particularly difficult, so Ian nodded. Though he was slightly worried because of yesterday’s dream.

At Ian’s permission, the child’s face brightened considerably.

“…Can I move to the room next door…?”

Though the first words were unclear, the nuance was pointing to Ian.

“Me?”

When Ian pointed to himself with his finger, the child quickly nodded vigorously.

“But then wouldn’t you be too far from the playroom next to your room?”

Ash’s room at the end of the third floor was connected to the adjacent playroom. At that question, unexpectedly, the child furrowed his brow and made a determined expression.

“I’m not a little kid anymore, and the playroom is fine. It seems too far to come down from the third floor to the study…”

Though he was well past ten, he looked much younger, so Ian found those words only cute. When Ian got up and put his hands under Ash’s armpits and lifted him with a grunt, the child’s face turned bright red.

With his original body it would have been easy, but his weak body couldn’t exert much strength, so when he lifted with a grunt, Ash’s feet barely floated in the air. And when he soon set him back down, though it had been brief, light sweat had beaded on his forehead.

Nevertheless, Ian smiled as if nothing had happened and said:

“…Right, you’re definitely not a little kid.”

“……”

“But wouldn’t next to the study be better? The only usable room near my room is the one your father used…”

The room the previous family head had used was at the opposite end from the study, and after the family head’s death, it had been thoroughly cleaned and all furniture covered with cloth. Somehow, looking at that room’s door reminded him of what had happened that day, so he didn’t even glance in that direction.

When Ian asked worriedly, Ash made a serious face again.

“I’m fine. I’m not a little kid anymore.”

‘No, adults are scared too…’

Having spent his whole life only in this large, gloomy manor, perhaps he was used to it—Ian inwardly shed tears at the determined light in that tiny face. Perhaps the protagonist of a horror game was different from the very beginning.

Ash, having received permission to move rooms, headed to the bookshelf with a brightened face as if a big worry had been resolved. The book he chose this time wasn’t a thin fairy tale book but a fairly thick book about northern ecology. It was written by a traveler about northern native plants and animal habits, and the lives of northern people.

The child sat on the sofa with a book larger than an adult’s palm and as thick as half an adult’s finger span on his knees. Listening to his slow, clear reading voice, Ian sat at his desk and began reading the documents Gale had left.

Listening to the child’s bright voice while looking over troublesome documents—it was a peaceful yet boring time. Perhaps tired from lifting Ash earlier, which was quite an exertion, Ian’s head began slowly bowing toward the empty air. After nodding off like that for a while, he suddenly lifted his head at the approach of a nearby presence.

Seeing the child leaning his chin against one side of the desk and looking in, Ian blinked and quickly wiped his chin with his hand. Fortunately, nothing came off, so he sighed in relief and muttered quietly.

“I dozed off for a moment.”

“You must have been tired.”

He was grateful for such understanding.

“But what kind of place is the north?”

At Ash’s sudden question, Ian scratched his head and pretended to smooth out the documents crumpled from dozing.

“Uh, well…”

“You came from there. The book said it snows a lot in winter… it said you have to dig tunnels between houses to come and go.”

“Then, what’s it like here?”

At the question he subtly turned around, Ash tilted his head to one side then soon answered.

“It snows quite a bit, but probably less than in the north.”

“Do you like snow?”

“…Hmm, I don’t dislike it.”

Though he said he didn’t dislike it, his eyes couldn’t hide his anticipation. When Ian thought of snow, he first thought of roads freezing into ice rinks, which showed his childlike wonder had long since died.

Ian rested his chin in his hand.

“When winter comes, we can make snowmen.”

As if hearing the word ‘snowman’ for the first time, Ash tilted his head briefly, then as if wanting to say something he knew, opened his mouth again.

“When winter comes, the nights get longer.”

“How smart.”

Ian was smiling, thinking that since this place was also modeled after the world he’d lived in, it probably worked similarly, when:

“You mustn’t wander outside your room at night. Please remember that.”

At Ash’s sudden words, the disturbing nightmare flashed through Ian’s mind. Screams and giggling laughter, being chased by someone in the corridors all night then caught… Perhaps it really wasn’t just a simple dream.

Ian moistened his dry lips and asked as if nothing was wrong.

“What happens if you wander outside your room?”

“Sally disappeared at night.”

Clear violet eyes reflected Ian’s pale face. Though the word ‘disappeared’ was strangely chilling, like saying a toy had disappeared, Ian rubbed his face with his hand as if nothing was wrong. His skin felt unusually cool. He hesitated about whether to stop the conversation, but not wanting to block the rarely opened dialogue, Ian asked again.

“Who is Sally?”

“She was my nanny.”

Ash stepped away from the desk and stood on his tiptoes, raising one hand high. He seemed to be showing the height of the disappeared nanny. Though he couldn’t know her age, she seemed to be a woman of small stature.

“She always said the manor was scary. When doors suddenly closed, she’d scream in surprise, and though she said there seemed to be strange things, everyone said she was being dramatic. Then she disappeared, so the other people in the manor said Sally had run away from the manor… Clayton said he’d find a new person, but…”

As his words reached the end, Ash’s shoulders drooped.

“They said no one comes to this manor. Because it’s too remote. But…”

The child moved his mouth for a moment, then glanced up and looked at Ian. At the end of the child’s gaze was a young man with fluffy straw-colored hair and a delicate appearance.

Since the relative he didn’t know existed had entered the manor, the child’s life was slowly changing from before.

“I’m happy you came, brother.”

The voice was so small it could barely be heard even with concentration, but in the study with just the two of them, it was clearly audible. Ian, whose pupils had been shaking as he tried to process the suddenly incoming information, hurriedly nodded.

“I’m also happy to have gotten to know you.”

Ash smiled brightly for once, pleased by those words. With a subtle blush, his violet eyes shone mysteriously. Ian felt somewhat proud watching that.

The child soon ran out saying he’d ask Clayton and Mrs. Gauner to let him move rooms. Ian, left alone in the study, thought about the disappeared nanny. Goosebumps rose on his arms.