Chapter 2
It was just as Esdel, having steeled her heart, slightly lifted her head that had been bowed low. Her eyes met squarely with those of a hooded man. In that instant, she froze, forgetting all her efforts to avoid looking at the man’s face.
The man was like a sculpture carved from snow.
On the face of the man, who stood with an impeccably straight posture, there wasn’t a single clue to be found that might hint at his emotions. His expressionless countenance was so serene it was hard to believe he had just committed murder, and he carried an elegance that seemed as if it had no connection to such a brutal act in the first place. Had she not met him in a place like this.
She would have surely guessed him to be a foreign nobleman.
Except for his eyes.
The blue eyes, set beneath straight eyebrows, captivated her gaze. They were a tranquil, yet ferocious gaze, as if they had devoured winter all on their own.
‘But what is that?’
Esdel spotted something floating within the man’s pupils. At first, it looked like a black pattern, but upon closer inspection, it seemed to be some kind of script. Without realizing it, she found herself staring into it.
It was clearly written with some kind of system, but it was unlike any script Esdel knew. She was just about to examine the characters more closely.
Every nerve in her body screamed a frantic warning signal. Her whole body tingled. Her thoughts stopped, and her breathing slowed.
Then, the abyss swallowed her mind whole.
…don’t you want? …don’t you want to…?
Voices came from all directions. The voices were as ecstatic as a song one moment, then transformed into horrific screams that tore at her ears, repeating the cycle over and over.
“Ghk, heuk….”
She couldn’t breathe. Esdel fumbled to raise her hands and clutched at her throat.
Just as the tears welling in her eyes were about to fall, a large hand covered her vision. The moment her sight was blocked, the voices in her ears also ceased. The hand pressing heavily over her eyes smelled of blood.
“You shouldn’t be looking at that just yet.”
“Heok, heuk, cough, cough….”
The man soothed her in a dry tone.
“Breathe in slowly. You’ll be alright in a moment.”
Esdel gasped for breath and collapsed right where she stood. Even the pool of blood on the floor could no longer frighten her. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be as terrifying as what she had just faced.
A hand touched her back as she coughed and choked.
“You can open your eyes now. Your head might ache a little, but there are no major problems.”
“Ugh, cough, heu….”
The man patted Esdel’s back. Each time the warm hand touched her through her nightgown, she shuddered at the thought that the bloodstains on it would transfer to her.
Esdel tried to recoil in horror, but the man’s hand continued to follow her as she backed away.
“Tsk.”
When her breathing showed no signs of calming, the man bent his knees to look down at her. His face suddenly loomed before her eyes. Startled, Esdel gasped and fell backward onto her bottom.
“Ack!”
“Are you alright?”
“…Please, just, take your hand away….”
As Esdel huddled with her back against the front door, the man finally withdrew his hand as if realizing his mistake. The black shoes that had been wavering in her vision moved back two steps.
Her ragged breathing finally began to settle. Esdel looked up at the man from her huddled position. A glint of resentment filled her eyes.
‘If I wasn’t supposed to see it, you could have told me sooner….’
She didn’t know what it was that had been floating over the man’s pupils. The only thing she knew for sure was that something very bad had been about to happen to her just a moment ago.
But thanks to that, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t learned anything. The man had reacted keenly the moment he noticed something was wrong with Esdel’s condition. Whatever he wanted, she became certain it wasn’t her death.
Esdel pushed herself up, putting strength into her trembling legs.
Feeling his gaze fall upon the top of her head, she fixed her eyes on the area around the man’s nape. As long as she didn’t meet his eyes, she felt a little braver.
Esdel took a deep breath and spoke.
“Do you know me?”
She felt his gaze. It felt like she had asked a surprisingly sensitive question, but what’s done is done. Esdel steadfastly waited for the man’s answer.
The reply that came after a short silence was ambiguous.
“If you put it that way… yes, I suppose I do.”
“Why did you come here?”
“There is something I must do. And, there was also something I wanted to do.”
“May I ask what that is?”
The man was silent for a moment, then kicked the suitor’s corpse that was lying face down on the entryway step. The body rolled across the pool of blood and came to a stop in a corner of the garden.
“The thing I must do was to take care of this. As for the thing I want to do, I’m about to start that now.”
On the spot where the body had been, the man knelt on one knee. Splattering blood splashed onto the hem of Esdel’s skirt as she cowered by the door.
As her eyes met the man’s, Esdel squeezed her eyes shut and shouted.
“W-wait a minute! You said I shouldn’t meet your eyes….”
“You can look now. I’ve suppressed ‘it.’”
“If you could do that, why didn’t you suppress it sooner!”
To the words that had burst out of her unintentionally, the man replied calmly.
“It slipped my mind. I apologize for that.”
The straightforward apology only fueled her anger, but it was obvious which side needed to be deferential right now. She cautiously lifted her eyelids.
The first thing she saw through her narrowly opened eyes was a pristine white rose. It must have been tucked in his clothes, as the petals were crumpled to one side, but that wasn’t what was important.
The man was kneeling on the floor on one knee, holding out a single white rose.
Excluding the facts that she didn’t know the man’s name, that she had seen him for the first time today, and that the floor at her feet was soaked in blood, the meaning of the current situation was crystal clear.
It was a marriage proposal.
“Esdel Elizabeth Reinhardt, please marry me.”
Esdel swallowed dryly. The blue eyes, no longer showing the black patterns, gazed steadily at her. There was not a hint of wavering in that gaze.
‘He’s insane.’
That man, he had to be insane.
Facing the greatest crisis of her life, Esdel chose her words carefully. Buying time was the most important thing. Someone must have woken up from the scream she let out earlier, so the knights would soon notice the situation.
Esdel asked in a trembling voice.
“If I refuse your proposal, will you kill me?”
“That is not my intention.”
“Will my limbs be cut off, or will I be blinded, or will my family go bankrupt, or maybe I won’t die but the people around me will… is it something like that?”
“I would prefer to resolve this in a peaceful manner, if possible.”
‘If possible?’
Is he really saying that right now?
Esdel felt the blood in her body run cold as she backed away. But before she could take more than a few steps, her heel caught on the threshold.
This was do or die. She gritted her teeth and lifted her head high.
“If you wanted to resolve this peacefully, you shouldn’t have proposed this way. Who proposes by turning the front of a house into a sea of blood and then offering a flower?”
“…Ah.”
The man’s eyebrows shot up. He looked as if he’d been pointed out something he had never once considered. He glanced around at the blood-soaked surroundings, then pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket.
“I see. I failed to consider that point.”
The man bowed his head slightly as if asking for her understanding, then placed the handkerchief in Esdel’s hand.
“Wipe the blood from your hands. I shall gift you new clothes later as a token of my apology.”
“No, it’s alright. There won’t be a next time for us to meet. I appreciate the proposal, but I refuse.”
“May I ask the reason?”
“I’m not courageous enough to promise my future to a man I’ve just met.”
“I see. I understand.”
The man nodded obediently and put the proffered flower back into his clothes. Esdel flinched, shrinking back. The large shadow cast over her created the illusion that it was about to devour her.
However, the man posed no threat to Esdel. He simply adjusted his clothes, which had been disheveled from kneeling on one knee, and stared at the sullied entryway with a frown.
“Then, I wish you well until we meet again.”
With that quiet farewell, the man’s back receded into the distance. Esdel stood rooted to the spot, watching his shadow leave the lamplight’s reach and exit the main gate. And as soon as he disappeared from view, she collapsed.
In the distance, small lights were rapidly approaching. They were clearly the lanterns held by the knights. They didn’t come when she was waiting so desperately, and now they show up only after the situation is over.
“Oh my, Lady Esdel, what in the world happened! Quickly, come this way!”
“Gasp, milady, are you alright?”
“Why, only now…”
“Milady, the blood, blood, blood!”
“It’s not my blood….”
The moment her maid, Marie, grabbed her by the shoulders, Esdel blacked out. It was, without a doubt, the worst day of her life.
👑🏰
The Reinhardt territory was turned completely upside down.
Not only had a suitor shown up at the door in the middle of the night, but he had been murdered right in front of it. No matter how much they tried to keep it quiet, they couldn’t stop the story from leaking out.
Based on Esdel’s testimony, the knights set out to find the man she had witnessed. In a remote territory where everyone in one house knew the people in the next, a new person wandering around should have been immediately obvious.
But even after combing the territory with a fine-toothed comb, the knights could not find the suspect. The man had left no trace, as if he had vanished into thin air.
So, the knights turned their attention elsewhere.
In the first place, why was the suitor, Alfred, there in the middle of the night?
In a meeting with the Count and Countess and Esdel, Sir Lars, the captain of the knights, raised his index finger and said,
“We were unable to find a man matching the description you gave. Instead, we examined the body of the young lord Baron Alfred Maxwell… and it’s a bit, suspicious.”
“Suspicious, in what way?” the Countess of Reinhardt asked, frowning.
“As you know, there were two weapons found at the entryway that day. The iron skewer embedded in the young lord Baron’s chest, and a dagger that was on the ground in front of the door. At first, we thought both belonged to the culprit.”
“But?”
“Her Ladyship mentioned that the young lord Alfred was holding something in his hand that day. She said that as soon as the door opened, he was about to swing his hand at her Ladyship when he was attacked from behind and dropped it. We presume that this was the dagger.”
Lars placed a dagger wrapped in a handkerchief on the table. Although the hilt and blade were caked with bloodstains, its original shape was not hard to discern.
“The blade is well-sharpened. This means it’s highly likely it wasn’t used for everyday life. In the first place, the dagger is brand new, without a single scratch on the hilt.”
“What does that mean?”
“In our opinion, we believe the young lord Alfred Maxwell was carrying it with the intent to harm someone.”
“Whom? Our Esdel?”
The Count, who had been listening from the side with a worried face, interjected. The handkerchief in the Count’s hand was already soaked with sweat.
Lars nodded and replied.
“With all due respect, yes. It seems so. The question now, however, is the reason why… Milady, did anything happen between you and the young lord Maxwell?”
Lars’s gaze turned toward Esdel.
Esdel, who had been lost in thought while sipping her tea, slowly set down her cup.
“As you know, the young lord Maxwell came to propose to me that morning. At that time, I tripped over his handkerchief and discovered he was wearing height-increasing shoes… and he left in a rage. Marie should have already told you about this, no?”
As Esdel’s words ended, Lars tilted his head.
“Yes, I did hear from Miss Marie, but… is that really all there is to it?”
“That’s all.”
“Well… that’s strange. I was sure he must have at least gotten punched by you, milady.”
While continuing to glance at Esdel with a disbelieving expression, Lars proceeded with his deduction, for now assuming her words were true.
“In that case, it’s clear he felt ashamed at having his proposal rejected and his secret exposed that morning, and so he came to do something terrible to you, milady. According to what we’ve found, he was heard cursing you on his way out after visiting the mansion for the proposal.”
“He cursed me?” the Countess quietly repeated. Lars cautiously glanced at her before adding a few words that a footman had overheard.
“Well, to put it mildly… he said you were an immodest woman who only cared for looks, and cursed that you would soon face a great misfortune. He said you were just like your mother….”
The Countess’s eyebrows shot upward. She ordered coldly.
“Burn the body as soon as the investigation is complete. Send only the ashes to the Maxwell barony.”
“Yes, milady.”
Lars, who had maintained a stiff expression the whole time, finally looked relieved. The thought of returning the body of the man who tried to harm Esdel to his family intact must have been weighing on him.
He continued, his face bright with excitement.
“And, my Lord, I don’t think the Maxwell barony will protest much. That bastard, he had a hideous tattoo on his body. The rumor hasn’t spread, but it’s clear he was a child his family had already cast out.”
Esdel, who had been drinking tea while sitting between the Count and Countess, lifted her head at those words. Hearing what Lars said somehow reminded her of the black letters that had wavered in the man’s pupils.
Esdel asked, as if in passing.
“What kind of tattoo was it?”
He stopped just as he was about to leave the office. After seeming to search his memory for a moment, Lars finally spoke.
“It was black… a bunch of unreadable, letter-like things were tattooed all over his side.”
👑🏰
Back in her room, Esdel sipped the tea Marie had brought and replayed the events of last night.
“He told me to stay healthy until we meet again.”
At the time, she was too frightened to react properly, but thinking about it now, the man’s behavior was quite suspicious. There were many things that didn’t add up if he were simply a murderer.
Yesterday, the man had said he had something he must do, and something he wanted to do. The thing he must do must have been killing Alfred Maxwell, and the thing he wanted to do seemed to have been the proposal.
Putting together the Knight Captain’s report from a little while ago and the circumstances of that day, Alfred had intended to harm her. Therefore, the man’s act of killing him was, in effect, the same as saving her life.
Also, don’t proposals generally happen when one has at least a minimal amount of goodwill toward the other person?
‘But why on earth?’
To Esdel’s question of whether he knew her, the man had vaguely dodged the answer. But no one would come in the middle of the night to save someone they didn’t know, and even less so would they propose to that person.
Esdel sighed and dropped two more sugar cubes into her teacup. Watching them dissolve softly into the black tea, she murmured.
“If I had ever seen someone who looked like that, there’s no way I would have forgotten….”
“What did he look like?”
A voice suddenly came from the direction of the window. When Esdel turned around, she saw Lin, dangling from the windowsill from behind the curtain, poking her head inside.
“Lin, I believe I’ve told you not to come in like that.”
“I won’t do it next time. So, what did he look like? You’re talking about the man who murdered the height-increasing-shoes suitor last night and ran away, right?”
“I don’t know.”
Esdel replied curtly.
Lin, who was stepping onto the windowsill to come inside, glanced at Esdel and closed the window. She then even drew the curtains neatly back into place.
“…Uh, should I wipe the windowsill too?”
“Don’t say things you don’t mean. Come here and sit.”
Esdel pulled the bell cord and asked Marie to bring another teacup. Lin poured tea into the cup Marie brought until it was about to overflow, then drank it down.
After wetting her throat with the tea, Lin wiped her mouth with her sleeve and asked again.
“So, was his face so handsome you could never forget it, or the opposite?”
“…He was handsome.”
Esdel fell into thought for a moment, then nodded once more.
“Yes. He was handsome.”
A lunatic was a lunatic, and handsome was handsome. Last night, she had been too out of her mind to get a proper look, but recalling it now, his appearance was no ordinary one.
Esdel looked at the beaming Lin and retraced her memory.
“His eyes were blue, and I think his hair was black. It was dark, so I couldn’t see the shape of his features properly, but he had a high-bridged nose and a sharp jawline. At least among all the people I’ve seen so far, he was the best-look….”
“Whoa, he must have been seriously something else, huh? You weren’t planning on seating him next to you, so why did you look so closely?”
Lin, with a playful face, hooked her index finger through the handle of the teacup filled with black tea and dangled it. Esdel, momentarily at a loss for words, flinched.
“Well….”
“What? Were you really thinking of seating him next to you? Was he that good-looking?”
“What do you mean, seat him next to me. I got a proposal, and I already refused it.”
Esdel replied, feigning nonchalance, and snatched the teacup from Lin’s hand. As she was placing the teacup, rescued just before the tea could spill, on the table, she saw Lin’s jaw drop.
“You got a proposal? From who, when?”
“Last night. He kicked Maxwell’s corpse aside and then proposed right there on the spot.”
Upon hearing this, Lin’s eyes sparkled.
“Does the Count know you got a proposal from that man?”
“Of course not. What would telling them do but make them worry more? They both already look half their normal selves, I don’t want to add to their worries.”
“True, it’s probably better not to tell them.”
Lin nodded her head and then grabbed Esdel’s shoulders. She then advised with a very serious gaze.
“Esdel, you… if you have no feelings for that man, don’t even think about leaving the mansion for a while.”
“Why?”
“I think he’s the same type as my mother. There’s no way he’ll back down so obediently. He’s definitely planning something shady behind the scenes.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’ve found that people who say ‘we’ll see about that next time’ never actually show up.”
Esdel shook her head, but Lin’s face was full of conviction. She said something about her animal instincts reacting, as someone who had a similar person for a mother.
“One may forget an enemy, but one never forgets love.”
“Love? It’s not like that.”
Esdel immediately refuted Lin’s words.
Esdel, who had faced the man directly, knew. She didn’t know why that man had proposed to her. But if there was one thing she was sure of, it was that the reason was not love.
She set down her teacup and murmured.
“Who in the world looks at someone they love with such emotionless eyes.”
Esdel clearly remembered the man’s eyes as they looked down on her. The blue eyes held only boredom and indifference, and a pinch of cynicism.
👑🏰
A month passed since then. And Esdel was once again sitting in the office with the Count and Countess.
She quickly scanned the documents laid out on the table. The materials prepared by the Knight Captain summarized the incidents that had occurred in the territory over the past week.
“This is a serial murder.”
The Knight Captain, with a face full of conviction, began to explain the connection between the different incidents. He said that although all the murder weapons were different, the very variety of them suggested it was the work of the same culprit.
The Count and Countess tilted their heads, but in Esdel’s opinion, it wasn’t an entirely wrong assertion.
The people who had died over the last three days had all been killed with unconventional tools. A kitchen knife was on the mundane side; there was also a flower vase, a pot, a stone, and even someone who died from a half-eaten apple.
“His face was pale, so we suspected asphyxiation, but when we checked inside his mouth, we found two pieces of apple in his throat. There were signs that someone had shoved them in.”
As Lars shook the apple pieces he had prepared in advance, the Count nodded his head unwittingly. While the Countess gestured with her chin for him to continue, her expression
frowning, Esdel naturally thought of one person.
That man, who had stabbed Alfred to death with a garden skewer.
“This isn’t the only commonality among the victims. Upon examining the bodies, we found that all of them had strange patterns tattooed on them. They were similar in shape to the one that Alfred, that bastard who deserved to die, had. The murderer is undoubtedly marking his victims with his own sign.”
Esdel’s thoughts raced. The tattoo with the same pattern as what was in the man’s eyes, the inconsistent types of weapons, and the ability to kill so many people so quickly in a short time.
At this point, it would be stranger if the murderer wasn’t that man.
Lars added, shuddering with rage.
“I don’t know who he is, but he is clearly a monstrous bastard. A man who doesn’t see people as people. To kill a person like one would kill a bug they happen to come across, squashing it with whatever object is at hand….”
Having finished his report, Lars stood up straight and declared.
“But do not worry. I! will personally catch that bastard and bring him before you!”
Listening to his mission-filled words, Esdel prayed that this series of events would come to a swift end.
However, before Lars could produce any significant results, another incident occurred.
👑🏰
Esdel, having changed into her nightgown, was just about to lie down in bed. An urgent knocking sound came from the door. The clock she reflexively checked showed it was past midnight.
“Come in.”
The person who opened the door and rushed in was the maid, Marie. Marie placed the lantern she was holding on the table, then carefully began to speak.
“I’m sorry for the late hour, milady. Did I disturb your sleep?”
“No, it’s alright. What is it?”
Esdel sat up in bed and tidied her loosened hair, sweeping it to one side. If Marie had come all this way at this hour, it was clearly not a trivial matter.
Standing before the table, Marie spoke in a worried voice.
“I don’t think Roan has returned to the mansion yet, milady. She’s not in the attic, and when I looked for her, no one said they’d seen her.”
“Roan?”
Esdel quickly recalled who that was. Roan was the maid who had gone out to deliver a letter Esdel had written to Lin.
Esdel thought about when she had given the order to deliver the letter, and soon became perplexed. Roan had left the mansion just after lunchtime. So, according to Marie, Roan had yet to return even now, twelve hours after leaving the mansion.
Her sleepiness vanishing completely, Esdel got out of bed and asked.
“Have you told the knights?”
“Not yet. I was going to ask for a search after reporting to you first, milady.”
“Alright. Then go to the knights on duty right now, and ask them to check the path to Lin’s house. I’ll be waiting up, so be sure to report back after you return.”
“Yes, milady.”
Marie nodded and hurried away. Watching the maid’s back as she exited the room, Esdel frowned. A strange anxiety squirmed in her chest.
“…It can’t be.”
She tried hard to erase the blue eyes that flickered before her. That suspicious man, the prime suspect in the serial killings.
It had already been a month since she had faced that man at the front door. But when she recalled the black letters that had passed over the man’s pupils, her breath still hitched. The fear of losing herself showed no signs of fading.
Esdel took a deep breath and, for the time being, sat down at the small table in her bedroom. Panicking and running around in confusion often makes even solvable problems worse.
She had sent the knights, so if she waited for about two hours, she would find out what had happened.
