Chapter 76
As she raised her upper body, April frowned at the excessively ornate bedroom.
“…Am I dead?”
It was a question worth seriously considering.
She got up and tried the door, but it was locked, and this time all the windows were securely padlocked.
Just as April was beginning to feel unsettled, the door opened and Fejin entered.
He started, seemingly having expected her to be asleep, and said, “You’re up early.”
“Where is this?”
“My house. I’m originally from here, you know.”
“No, you’re from the Grand Duchy.”
“That’s just what you think.”
Fejin said as he came in, tossing her a key and explaining, “It’s the padlock key. We locked everything up because I heard you escaped from the Academy.”
“Ah.”
Fejin, still seemingly unable to believe what he was saying, repeated, “That’s impressive. You escaped? From the fifth floor?”
“It looked doable.”
“You could have died from the fall.”
“I felt like I might die anyway if I just stayed put.”
“What do you think we are, neighborhood thugs? Do you think we have ways to secretly kill and dispose of a woman from a family of your standing?”
She understood now why Fejin Deus, whom she met on the Left Island, felt both familiar and foreign at the same time.
More than the “House Deus” Fejin she knew from the Right Island, this Imperial police officer Fejin Deus felt like someone she could never truly connect with.
April stood up to face Fejin.
“We?”
“Don’t nitpick my words.”
“Not there.”
April drew a circle around him and behind his back. Then, drawing another circle with her index finger between Fejin and herself, she said,
“This is ‘we.'”
“That’s up to how I see it.”
At his words, April asked mockingly,
“So? Is that how you see it?”
Fejin, who had recently been living as if he were quite the adult, felt his twenty-two years unusually young for once.
Conversely, April, childishly mocking him, seemed like an adult for the first time.
Fejin kept his mouth shut for a while as if thinking about his answer, but ultimately shifted his gaze to the clock without responding to her question.
“Let’s eat.”
“Not hungry.”
“It’s not poisoned.”
“I just don’t want to eat anything.”
When April refused, Fejin placed his hand on her forehead with visible irritation.
“You won’t get better if you don’t eat. You got sick from just one sea crossing? And you call yourself someone from the Grand Duchy?”
“I’m just tired from not sleeping.”
“Go back to sleep then.”
April, being very tired, returned to bed as if she’d been waiting for permission.
After Fejin left, she took the medicine brought by a maid and slept more. When she woke again, the sun was halfway down, and the air was relatively warm.
When April got out of bed, she found her condition had improved considerably, likely due to the effective medicine.
A white dress that appeared to be everyday wear was hanging in the room, with a note from Fejin.
Needed for the experiment
Though she couldn’t understand why the dress was necessary, April changed into it and left the room.
As soon as she opened the door, April stared in disbelief at the long gallery that stretched immediately before her.
Such galleries with completely open walls on both sides didn’t exist on the Right Island, where winter was perpetual.
If they were to build such a long connecting structure there, it would be constructed as an elongated house with thick walls.
As she walked into the gallery, she found it comfortable enough to move about without fastening an outer garment.
The temperature, slightly above freezing, felt like a warm breeze to someone from the Right Island who had lived in temperatures around negative twenty degrees for two months.
Hearing bustling sounds from beyond a door far from the gallery, April turned her head outside.
It truly felt like being in a completely different country.
Though bare now, seeing the abundance of flowers and fruit trees suggested an environment where such things could grow. April felt a bit envious of this fact.
As she left the gallery to observe the fruit trees, an iron gate opened and a carriage rushed in.
Fejin stepped out of the carriage that stopped near her.
Most attire in the Grand Duchy was influenced by the Empire. The same was true for uniforms, which, though slightly different, shared the same basic structure.
He wore a white uniform with silver buttons, perhaps having visited the Imperial palace, and compared to the extremely cold Right Island, it seemed to prioritize style over practicality.
“Why are you dressed up like that?”
When April asked, Fejin answered,
“They’re giving me lots of work since the Founding Festival is approaching.”
“Is that so?”
The Lasa Empire, being a nation, had its Founding Festival.
Though it made sense, it was an unfamiliar event from the perspective of someone from the Grand Duchy.
Fejin glanced at April, who wore a white, easy-to-move-in dress instead of the extremely ornate dresses typical of the Grand Duchy.
April looked down at her dress and said,
“The clothes are lighter here since it’s not cold.”
“Is it comfortable?”
“Physically. But why white? It’s not even sleepwear.”
In the Grand Duchy, where snow fell heavily, white wasn’t preferred, so this aspect seemed to bother April.
Fejin grumbled,
“You complain even when I buy you something.”
“It was just a question.”
“You don’t like it. It’s written all over your face.”
“Then I’m sorry.”
When April immediately apologized, feeling she had dismissed the thoughtfulness of the person who bought it, Fejin turned his head slightly and gave a wry smile.
“Ah, I didn’t use to laugh this easily.”
Fejin muttered to himself before extending his hand.
“Let’s go.”
“To the Academy?”
“Yes, we’ll go there, then see the festival in the evening before returning to the Lunos mansion.”
“Alright.”
Being under arrest, she thought that though they said Lunos mansion, when they returned to the Right Island, her destination would be the Grand Duchy’s prison.
However, since it seemed absurd to say “let’s go back to prison,” April let his words pass without comment.
❖ ❖ ❖
In daylight, the Academy was a beautiful building, contrary to the bad first impression created yesterday.
April entered, marveling at how different the atmosphere felt from her memory.
Both on the first day and today, the Academy smelled of flowers.
Looking at the potpourri pottery decorating the Academy, April was once again reminded of the gift Fejin had brought.
Though she didn’t know why that pottery kept overlapping in her mind, April tried not to divide her attention in that direction.
She was convinced she absolutely needed to know how the scholars here could create this mist.
Until now, April had firmly believed this mist was simply one of nature’s phenomena.
While it was a disaster for humans, she thought it was just nature following its destined course, firmly engraved in the flow of time.
But when she came here and learned that scholars could artificially create what she had believed to be a natural phenomenon, a small seed of doubt sprouted in April’s mind.
Being able to create it meant they knew the cause, so why hadn’t they informed the Right Island of this?
They said they would examine April to find ways to deal with the mist.
That was certainly a kind thing to do.
But why did they have to kidnap her for this kind deed, rather than formally inviting her?
What did they want to hide?
With these thoughts crowding her mind, April entered the laboratory where artificial mist had been created, just like yesterday.
As usual, she was confident that nothing would happen to her in the mist.
She had even wondered if she might actually possess a witch’s powers. That made her fear the church even more.
What if the church discovered some unknown power within her that she herself wasn’t aware of?
“…Huh?”
But April collapsed before taking even two steps into the mist.
She felt her breath suddenly catch in her throat.
“Miss April?”
She heard the scholar calling, but didn’t have the strength to answer.
April now finally understood the feelings of those who had collapsed in the mist, and that extreme terror.
The voice calling her name grew increasingly distant.
