"I begged you, please, to stay put in one place. Someone as unwell as you, every single time…!"
It was the very moment the girl, face crumpling as if to cry, set foot into the room.
"…Huh?"
The instant she spotted the presence of Kwon Do-heon, who stood there awkwardly, the girl's gently drooping eyes sharpened in a flash to something bestial. The fog filling the room writhed and bore down on the air.
From somewhere in the girl's body came a crrk, and pure-white feathers showed faintly behind her back.
"Who is that man? Why has he so rudely set foot in the lady's room?"
'Somebody help me.'
At the critical moment the genre threatened to lurch into a thriller, the 'lady' spoke.
"Greta."
"He's a child I requested directly from the main house."
"You, milady? Yourself?"
"Tending the greenhouse is grueling, isn't it."
"But that's work I ought to do."
The moment her tender voice brushed the ear, the murderous intent and toxic aura coiling around the girl subsided as if it had all been a lie. As though she'd never been so menacing, the girl's face crumpled tearfully.
"I'm relieved he isn't an intruder, but no matter how I look at him, he seems a dull, ignorant laborer. If any bad air were to touch your precious body, milady, it would be dreadful."
The girl didn't lower her oddly wary glare at Kwon Do-heon, yet she scurried to her lady's side and carefully gripped the very hem of her garment. And she asked, worried,
"Was I greatly lacking?"
"You promised to stay by my side, didn't you."
Swish—
Slender fingers tucked 'Greta's' hair behind her ear.
"You, who are to touch my hair and dress me… how long did you mean to keep letting your hands soil themselves with dirt and dust? You know I'm terribly vulnerable to filth, child."
"Ah, well."
"Give me your hand."
The 'lady' grasped 'Greta's' hand—gently, but firmly enough that she couldn't pull free. The girl's face flushed all at once, and she didn't dare shake the hand off.
"……."
"Ah, milady…."
Greta's 'lady' went on.
"You really will need to become a little cleaner after all."
Face reddening, Greta bowed her head deep and answered anxiously.
"I—I'll bear it in mind."
"The dirty, grueling work you can now leave entirely to that child. I took him in to keep you at my side, so read my heart and don't look on it too sourly."
"Of course. It's your wish, milady."
Hastily tidying her own hair and clothes, the girl added with feigned primness,
"But if he hurts you, milady, I'll drive him out at once."
"I always trust you."
The lady curved her red eyes softly and smiled. The back of her pale hand touched the girl's face, and a finger drew a long stroke down that cheek flushed near to bursting.
"If not you, then whom would I trust, Greta."
Watching it, cold sweat trickled down Kwon Do-heon's spine.
'Fuck, that's terrifying….'
The sprightly eighteen-(plus-one)-year-old, never-dated Kwon Do-heon developed a fear of women.
***
It was a fear the 50-year-old adult man Lee Yeon-woo would have found deeply unfair, had he known.
***
The girl said this place was a 'garden.'
"You there, laborer, standing about so dully. Disturb even a little of the lady's garden and I'll snap your neck this instant and bury you beneath it, so move carefully."
"Uh…."
At that chilling threat, Kwon Do-heon made a revolted face and checked the system window.
'She calls the greenhouse a garden.'
▶ [SYSTEM] Entered the first clue area, 『The Witch's Greenhouse』.
▶ [SYSTEM] Collect the lost fragments of 'eternal love.'
Even though the 'lady' herself called this place a greenhouse.
"……."
At the sense of déjà vu, Kwon Do-heon frowned in spite of himself.
'It does look like that greenhouse I saw in the hotel back then. But somehow, calling it that….'
Once more he grasped that this was not a physical place in reality, but a world woven from the unconscious and memory of the 'White Crow.'
That ceiling was—
"……."
very high.
'…I can't even see where it ends.'
Maybe it was simply invisible to his eyes, but the feeling that there was no ceiling at all likely wasn't just his imagination. Little by little, Kwon Do-heon was adjusting to his own 'eyes.'
'Nothing inside the greenhouse is lodged in place sanely, either.'
Whether they fed on darkness instead of sun, the bright-red poppies growing rampant even inside this strange greenhouse had not put down roots in the soil. Kwon Do-heon rolled his eyes.
The blood-colored blossoms bloomed grotesquely from the cracks of a wardrobe rammed upside-down into a wall, or atop silver candlesticks floating in midair for no discernible purpose.
"……."
"Milady, the scent is lovely, isn't it."
Smiling shyly, the girl led the 'lady' deeper into the greenhouse.
"It's all thanks to your loving care, milady."
"Is that so."
"It's precisely because you're a lady who can coax out flowers like these that you are so very beautiful."
"A gladdening thing to say."
"Breathe in this scent and even the sickest soul would grow well…."
Kwon Do-heon couldn't bring himself to accept it.
'Where does she get off bullshitting.'
It was absurd.
'No. Or did they really believe back then that breathing this in would make you well? For one thing it's the 16th century, so superstition would've been rampant, and on top of that, she was an actual black mage….'
The air was sultry as if boiling, and the sweet, acrid toxin of poppies pooled thick throughout, so that with every breath he took, it felt like his brain was melting.
'But even I'm dizzy like this right now—so how could breathing this make a frail person healthy…?'
Right about then,
▶ [SYSTEM] Mental protection applied. The rise of the [Madness Contamination] value is halted.
'Ah.'
Kwon Do-heon glanced back at the 'lady'—at Lee Yeon-woo.
'It really is the Mr. Lee Yeon-woo I know.'
Honestly, he'd been a little shaken. Even to Kwon Do-heon's 'eyes,' that person just looked like the 'lady.' That was probably how 'Greta' had been fooled, too….
'What in the world did he even do.'
At moments like this, he really didn't seem human. No—even having been told he wasn't, that was a separate matter.
'He's just like a game NPC or the system.'
Should he say GM?
'Maybe that's not wrong…?'
While he was having such unproductive thoughts, something familiar again caught Kwon Do-heon's eye. It was a vanity mirror sitting all alone at the foot of a grotesquely elongated marble pillar.
"……."
Unlike the one he'd seen in the hotel, it was clean and gleaming.
"Milady, over here…."
"I'm in your care today as well."
"I won't harm a single strand of your hair."
When the lady settled quietly before it, the girl, as if by prior arrangement, drew an old silver comb from her bosom and gripped it. Belatedly, Kwon Do-heon looked at that comb.
▶ [An old silver comb, finely embossed with a poppy pattern]
"……?"
For whatever reason, in this unconscious world, that alone looked old and worn.
'Anyway, so… I have to find the clue that proves love within this scene, is that it.'
At least it was some comfort that, judging by how the 'object of reminiscence' openly gleamed and caught his eye, this place too seemed to have game-style conveniences built in.
Kwon Do-heon began cautiously observing the two of them.
"Milady."
In the quiet greenhouse, the sound of combing rang strangely clear.
"Does it hurt at all?"
"How could it hurt when you're the one combing?"
As if drunk on that smile, the girl wore a look of pure rapture.
"……."
Inwardly, Kwon Do-heon was revolted.
'She's like a pervert….'
The present sight resembled the 'flashback' Kwon Do-heon had seen in the hotel, yet at the same time much of it was different. The rapturous face of the 'White Crow' in the shape of the girl was another piece of that proof.
'Whether her earlier viciousness was the White Crow's disposition bleeding through, or she was like that from the start, I can't say… anyway, she's not sane.'
Just then, 'something' caught Kwon Do-heon's eye once more.
"……."
Ah.
'…So this is what it feels like.'
Thanks to it, Kwon Do-heon could tell what sort of 'game' this was.
***
"This is really strange."
A world that had stopped.
Kwon Do-heon, the only one able to move within it, hesitated, then cautiously stepped toward the vanity. At that, Lee Yeon-woo—inside the 'lady's' body—answered.
"My apologies."
"Huh? Out of nowhere?"
"Strangeness does share a vein with unpleasantness."
He spoke while still seated before the vanity.
"For both my colleague and me, this is the first time attempting such a situation, so there may be some awkwardness. Have you played games often, Kwon Do-heon?"
"The games you play when you don't feel like studying are freaking awesome, obviously."
"……."
Lee Yeon-woo said nothing for a moment. Kwon Do-heon was flabbergasted.
"Don't tell me you're being like this because I said 'freaking awesome'?"
"You misunderstand."
"You totally are—you're looking at me like some brat with no manners right now."
"Hardly."
"I didn't peg you for it, but you're secretly a bit of an old fogey, General Manager."
"If you've played games often, you likely won't find the present situation so difficult."
"Are you changing the subject?"
Lee Yeon-woo doggedly changed the subject.
"I don't know whether there's a mystery game among the ones you've played, but have you heard of 'point-and-click'?"
▶ [Selective Observation: the old craftwork on the vanity]
▶ Clue-acquisition condition met! Point & Click activated.
Kwon Do-heon picked up the silver comb the 'girl' had set on the vanity.
"So this is, uh…."
▶ [Item acquired!]
▶ [An old silver comb, finely embossed with a poppy pattern]
▶ [Detail: Fragment of ■■■ (25%)]
"—the condition?"
"Once you've watched the entire 'flashback,' from then on it's your turn."
The 'world' stops, just as now.
"Find the 'object of reminiscence' that exists in this world once more, and from then you can look for 'clues.' Since this is the first mini-game of its kind for both you and me, shall I help a little?"
Kwon Do-heon asked boldly,
"Can't you just tell me?"
"I'd appreciate it if you'd remember that I'm a being under constraints as well."
"You've been doing all kinds of crazy stuff, and now all of a sudden?"
"This game was also made as part of the hotel, so I've no power to defy it. I'm a feeble man who can't even check you out if you fail to meet the conditions."
Lee Yeon-woo continued calmly.
"Much less could I simply send off a Human Guest who wandered in lost."
He added, "That is, if you request lodging of me."
"It's because I'm this hotel's General Manager. The same principle as being unable to refuse a guest."
"What kind of General Manager is this."
"A General Manager is, after all, only a powerless hireling."
"You said you were a co-owner!"
"Since I was entrusted with operations alone, my authority is limited."
"This is really driving me nuts."
Anyway, Kwon Do-heon nodded even as he let out a groan.
"So then, um… how—how do I go about this. This thing."
"There will be a 'clue' that comes into your sight, Kwon Do-heon."
"Can't you make it flash all shiny? I don't get a single bit of it."
"Gaze at it with those eyes of yours."
The first one.
"What sort of person is the 'lady'?"
A 'clue' entered Kwon Do-heon's sight.
▶ [Sight: sickliness masked behind a compulsively clean façade]
▶ [Skin so translucent from never having been exposed to sunlight that the veins show through. Clean and perfect to the eye, but the gaunt shoulders and dried-out line of the body reveal that this body is steeped in illness.]
"Uh…?"
"Can you see it?"
"I—I can, but. What even is this."
"You do have good eyes—seems you obtained the 'visual clue' first. But a person has more than sight."
Watching Kwon Do-heon through the vanity mirror, he asked,
"What comes next?"
***
▶ [Hearing: the breath of a compulsive smile]
▶ [Beneath the soft, elegant tone, breath that catches thinly. A manner of speaking that tries to control itself obsessively. From deep in the throat comes the faint, bloody tremor of welling hematemesis.]
▶ [Smell: toxin and disinfectant]
▶ [The acrid poison-scent of red poppies steeped deep into the surface of her skin. Yet hidden behind it, a cold, biting smell of disinfectant, as if to mask and erase the impiety of black sorcery.]
"……."
▶ If you examine a few more places, it seems you can combine the clues.
***
"It's a cleanliness obsession, isn't it."
Kwon Do-heon spoke.
"The 'lady' is a mysophobe who can't tolerate a single speck of dust. She'll have an aversion to others' touch, too. Filth is filth, but another person's body heat… I don't think she'd like that either."
"And?"
"'Greta' disposed of a corpse just last night. There's dirt and corpse-blood she couldn't fully scrub out lodged under her nails. Above all, she never properly trained as a maid, so she's careful but clumsy at service. That—the combing, for one."
Several strands of white hair torn from the 'lady' were tangled filthily in the silver comb.
"If the 'lady' had truly treated 'Greta' as no more than a one-sided sacrifice to steal a body, then, uh… with that perfectionist streak of hers, I don't think she'd have put up with all of this."
Moreover,
"The silver comb came out of 'Greta's' pocket, not the vanity."
"Silver was precious back then, too."
"That would've been a silver comb the 'lady' had specially crafted for 'Greta.' Sure, it could've just been a scheme to gaslight her and exploit her loyalty—but the 'lady' lives in seclusion, doesn't she."
Kwon Do-heon had been forcibly set up as a 'laborer requested from the main house,' but for that to actually be possible, matters would grow quite complicated. A specially crafted silver comb—far harder to procure than a mere laborer.
"Which means there was a reason to show at least that much 'sincerity,' isn't there."
"Splendid."
Lee Yeon-woo said with a smile.
"The 'lady' was not a person who would show that much sincerity merely for the loyalty of a card she'd use and discard someday. That's how frail her body was, how little say she had, how much of a compulsively-clean perfectionist she was."
At those words Kwon Do-heon fell briefly silent.
"……."
"I know what you're thinking, but I'm not the 'lady.'"
"You're still reading my mind?"
"I'm not so tactless a person as that, but seeing your gaze and expression, it's not hard to tell. Anyone, not just me, would."
"No, it was definitely mind-reading."
Forcing his point, Kwon Do-heon asked,
"But 'Greta's' view isn't… entirely wrong either, is it?"
"The 'lady' certainly loathed the 'dirty warmth' 'Greta' brought."
Lee Yeon-woo looked at the girl reflected in the mirror.
"And yet her own body was cold, and this place was always chill. The 'lady' was a body that couldn't so much as step out under the sun and bask in its light."
She, too, had unavoidably needed warmth.
In the end, when the 'lady' gifted 'Greta' the silver comb, laid her cold hand over that rough hand and whispered 'stay by my side,' it wasn't only a play staged for deception.
"Congratulations on confirming the first clue."
FLAAAASH—!
Light burst forth.
"Guh, my eyes!!"
"Oh dear."
The instant Kwon Do-heon's deduction was complete, the acrid, bloody poppy toxin that had filled the whole greenhouse was swept up in pure-white light and scattered in a single moment.
▶ [SYSTEM] Truth uncovered: the lady's first hidden true feeling, 『The Mysophobe's Concession』
▶ [SYSTEM] First [Object of Reminiscence] Offering successful (1/4)
▶ The Lover of Dawn's cognitive barrier begins to collapse.
In that moment, the world began to move again.
"…Ah…."
The girl who'd been combing the lady's silver hair with the comb gazed blankly down at the back of her own rough hand.
"Milady."
"What is it, Greta."
"No, it's just…."
Pressing her fluttering chest, the girl whispered with a face waking from rapture.
"…It felt like I had a soft, warm dream…."
At those words, the greenhouse's geometric walls twisted once more, throwing open a passage to a deeper room, where the clue of the second object of reminiscence—the 'broken hand-mirror'—waited.
***
In a cold prison.
In a musty solitary cell.
Before a burning stake.
"……."
Kwon Do-heon quietly traced the 'clues' one by one.
Throughout that whole time, Lee Yeon-woo silently supported Kwon Do-heon from behind. In Kwon Do-heon's eyes, he could see Lee Yeon-woo bearing the full weight of this 'game's' cause and effect.
Whenever a cruel scene came, he covered Kwon Do-heon's field of view. Not once did that hand waver.
"Ha…."
And so Kwon Do-heon couldn't help but know.
Had the lady merely envied the girl's healthy flesh, she wouldn't—possessing a hand-mirror that could swap bodies—have coveted the body of a commoner about to be burned at the stake, of all things.
Had the lady thought only of swapping the girl in as a stand-in sacrifice, she wouldn't have, far from fleeing in that healthy body, hurled a curse with no magic behind it before the villagers.
"—May this village burn forever!"
Bound and standing at the filthy,
hot,
clamorous stake.
"Kill the witch!!!"
"May this village be sealed within eternal love…!"
"Kill the witch!!!"
"And may my love, too,"
She wouldn't have smiled so brightly, like a child.
"be eternal within it."
***
The woman wondered.
Can we truly call even a flight into a haven love.
Can even the possessiveness born of it be called love.
"Even if you loved only my useful body…."
"……."
"I love you."
I told you a wicked witch cannot go to heaven.
"Somewhere in this hell, I will surely find you."
Because the world of the living is always hell, I wished for despicable you to wander that hell and search for me without end. Cursing me, who would remain somewhere as a being less than dust.
Would you be able to call even this love, is what I mean.
"……."
"…I love you, milady."
One thing was certain: it had to be your body, no other.
Only Greta.
I wanted you.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter