Everything passed by in a blur.
I watched it all blankly, devoid of any sense of reality.
It was all no different from a play.
“Good heavens, where did Lady Marie disappear to?”
A black shadow cried out in surprise.
Soon, the people within the castle were summoned.
The Archduke appeared and, with a somber face, ordered them to find his fiancée.
The investigation into the incident proceeded systematically, and about ten witnesses appeared.
“I saw the young lady,” a certain black shadow said.
“Head Maid. You are saying you saw Lady Marie last night?”
“Yes. She was running frantically down the dark hallway. I hurriedly asked where she was going, and she said she was running away.”
“Running away? From what could my fiancée be fleeing in my own castle?”
“A vengeful spirit. She was running from the ghost of the former Archduchess.”
The crowd stirred at those dramatic words.
The Archduke asked calmly, “And? Did you just stand there and watch her?”
“Of course, I tried to soothe her. She pointed into the empty air and asked if Lady Elise wasn’t right there, but I saw nothing. When I told her the truth, she began to sob. She said Lady Elise was calling her to a dark, cold, and deep place, and that the only way to escape her resentment was to grant her wish.”
“My God! Such a thing…!”
“While I was momentarily caught off guard by the shock, she shook me off and ran away. It seemed I wouldn’t be able to catch up. So, I went to find people to help.”
“We heard the situation and searched for the young lady along with the Head Maid,” about ten servants said in unison.
They were those who were not covered by shadows.
“While we were searching for her together, the Head Maid suddenly looked out the window and screamed. We turned around, and Lady Marie was standing before the cliff.”
“Are you certain it was Lady Marie?”
“Yes. That pink loungewear and the sparkling blonde hair that fell to her waist… it was undoubtedly Lady Marie.”
“And then? Marie, who was standing before the cliff?”
“She stood before the cliff for a long time. We shouted for her to come back because it was dangerous, but it was no use. A moment later, she threw herself down the precipice.”
“Ah, how could this be!”
Lies. It was all a lie.
I thought with a dazed mind.
‘Marie doesn’t wear pink loungewear to bed.’
People might not have known since she always wore pink clothes, but what Marie was obsessed with wasn’t the color pink, but plays.
Marie used a striped prisoner’s uniform from a play she liked as her pajamas.
Of course, she had looked very tired the previous night, so she might have fallen asleep without being able to change her clothes, but…
‘If that were the case, there’s no way her blonde hair would’ve been flowing freely.’
After learning how to braid hair from Lure, Marie always kept her hair braided. Unless she had painstakingly unbraided it the night before, her blonde hair wouldn’t have been flowing down to her waist.
If she had fallen asleep in her pink loungewear, her hair would have remained braided. If she had unbraided her hair, she would have changed into her pajamas.
Therefore, what those people witnessed was not Marie, but someone else. The person who fell from the cliff and left not even a trace was not Marie.
There was no way Marie was dead.
‘Right. There’s no way Marie is dead.’
As I repeated those words with conviction, my senses seemed to return.
My muffled ears cleared, and the voices of the frantically whispering people reached me.
“The prospective Archduchess jumped from a cliff? Does that even make sense?!”
A certain cantankerous old man asked, as if demanding an explanation.
“What were the people guarding her doing to just stand by and watch!”
Just as I was about to say something, an unexpected voice cut in.
“It is all my fault, Baron.”
“Y-Your Grace?”
“At Lady Marie’s request, because she was worried about her maid, I assigned all the guards to the maid. Last night, there was no one to protect Lady Marie.”
“But… isn’t that person over there?”
The old man’s wrinkled finger pointed at me.
“Lady Marie used to walk around the castle saying that person was the knight guarding her. So what on earth was he doing last night to let…”
Those words stabbed painfully at my heart.
[Sir, it’s because I believe you’ll protect me!]
Marie’s bright voice would not leave my head.
“Sir Heis was merely playing along with Lady Marie’s games; he is not a real knight. Do not place excessive responsibility on him,” the Archduke said, pretending to be dignified.
I wanted to kill him.
“But… a ghost. Did a ghost really kill Lady Marie?”
To the confused servant’s words, the Archduke replied, “That cannot be. I didn’t mention it before because I thought it was impolite to spread a lady’s secrets, but in truth, I have a suspicion.”
Even before the Archduke opened his mouth, I knew what he was going to say.
“In fact, it seems Lady Marie had been suffering from a mental illness for a long time.”
That was the sincerity Marie had offered to that man last night. Her most intimate secret, which she didn’t want to tell anyone.
“I’m told that’s why she rarely appeared in public and why she readily accepted my marriage proposal after having no fiancé for a long time.”
That man ruthlessly dragged that sincerity out in front of everyone.
“In the midst of that, she seems to have been greatly shocked by the death of Lady Elise, with whom she was close. Since then, her hallucinations grew worse, and she even had nightmares about Lady Elise every night. Last night, her condition must have deteriorated.”
To cover up his own crime, the Archduke ruthlessly slaughtered another’s sincerity and displayed it as a mere spectacle before the people.
‘I want to shut that mouth.’
A sudden impulse flared up within me.
The room was in chaos, and the Archduke was right in front of me.
If I were to rush out right now and strike that shadow without a care for the consequences… if that man were to roll miserably on the ground…
‘The opportunity to save Marie will also disappear forever.’
Slowly, the strength in my fists faded. I suppressed my anger and silently listened to the Archduke’s story.
The story of a frail and unfortunate girl who had suffered from mental illness for a long time did not contain even a shred of the person I knew as Marie Menzel.
After listening to the Archduke’s story, the people chattered as they pleased.
“My word, mental illness!”
“The prospective Archduchess was a madwoman?”
“Perhaps it’s better that it ended now, before the marriage…”
“You! How can you say such a thing!”
Amidst the chaotic commotion, a few people shot accusatory glares at me.
“Even if he’s not a real knight, how can the one called her guard not know when such a commotion was happening in the middle of the night?”
“People will point fingers at the Archduchy again, saying another Archduchess has died. Isn’t this all because that person didn’t do his job properly?”
Their accusations did not reach my ears.
The only thing important to me right now was Marie’s safety.
‘First… I must check the person who allegedly jumped from the cliff.’
Of course, that person couldn’t be Marie. There was absolutely no way it was Marie, but… it wouldn’t hurt to check.
I took hurried steps toward the servants who had just testified.
I had to confirm the location of that cliff first.
***
*Fwoooooooosh.*
The wind let out a desolate, ghostly cry.
The castle towered high atop a cliff on the coast.
It was surrounded by precipices on all sides, but this place looked particularly dangerous.
“The ground has split.”
The foundation here was unstable.
Cracks ran through the ground in various places; if I took a wrong step, it felt as though I would plummet down with the very earth I stood upon.
At least the white snow camouflaged the cracks as if filling in minor flaws, but that only worked for cracks of a certain size.
The place where someone had supposedly fallen was a particularly wide and large fissure.
It was massive enough that someone falling would be an easy feat, and it was so dark inside that I couldn’t even see how deep it was.
A dark, cold, and deep place.
The place where Elise had called Marie.
[I wanted to try it at least once. Jumping off a cliff.]
An unnecessary thought came to mind, and I hurriedly shook my head. Now was not the time to think of such things.
‘It might not be as deep as I thought.’
It might look deep because of the shadows, but in reality, it might only be about the height of a person.
‘Even if she fell, if I pull her up now, I might be able to save her.’
I bent my waist, trying to peer a little further into the fissure…
“You!!!”
“Gah!”
I was so startled I nearly fell right in.
“What are you doing there so dangerously!”
Looking back, a strange man was standing there.
“Are you planning to jump? You can’t do that, no way. Even if you’re going to leave, shouldn’t you at least avenge the young lady you served before you go?”
“Who are you?”
“Ah, me? I’m someone a commoner like you couldn’t even imagine.”
The man acted pretentious as he adjusted his monocle.
“By the way, when I say ‘commoner,’ I don’t mean a criminal, but a plain, ordinary person. Someone just like you — someone who has no connection to things like this but was unfortunately thrust into a crime scene. But I am different. I am one trained professionally to handle such matters! A detective, so to speak.”
He was someone who spoke in a very unproductive manner.
“So, you’re a detective.”
“Exactly! Helping a pitiable person like you is my profession.”
He didn’t seem very reliable, but I was alone right now, without even Lure. It wouldn’t hurt to have an extra pair of hands.
“Are you going to help with the search?”
“Hmm? Search?”
However, the man only tilted his head as if puzzled.
“How can you find someone who fell into that gap? Such a thing is pointless.”
“…”
“What I meant by helping was your revenge. Shouldn’t you avenge the dead young lady? Isn’t that right?”
The man tried to put his arm around my shoulder in a friendly manner, but I dodged him.
I didn’t want to associate any further with someone who said Marie was dead.
He flailed for a moment before barely catching his balance, then shouted as if embarrassed.
“Ah, what an impatient friend! Well, it may be natural for you, who knows nothing, to react that way, but to my eyes as a detective, the suspicious points of this case are visible! This death is fishy!”
I know that much.
“Looking at these footprints, there’s more than one or two suspicious points!”
At those words, I looked back at the man.
“…Footprints?”
“You finally looked at me! That’s right! You, take a look at these footprints!”
The man pointed toward the ground.
Footprints were stamped into the snow-covered earth.
“They might not be visible to the eyes of an ordinary person like you, but they are clearly visible to me. The footprints of the woman who was standing here last night!”
They were clearly visible to my eyes as well. Footprints from boots that were small in size, likely a woman’s.
They started from the castle and ended at the edge of the cliff. But what about these marks?
“I shall walk along the footprints. Don’t you feel something strange?”
The self-proclaimed detective ran back and then walked toward me again.
The gait he reproduced was, quite obviously…
“She was limping.”
“Right! The stride of the right foot is narrower compared to the left! It’s not a glaring difference, but a trained detective like me can tell at a glance!”
But Marie had never injured her foot.
It felt like another piece of evidence had been added to prove that the person who fell from here was not Marie.
‘Then, the one who jumped was a woman with an injured foot…’
No, wait.
Isn’t that a bit strange?
I examined the footprints more closely.
As I looked here and there, I eventually crawled around on all fours to be certain.
“Haha. Are you checking that diligently? Well, I suppose it makes sense. For some reason, many of the footprints have been erased. Especially near the cliff, there are many erased spots, so if you don’t look closely, it will be hard to even catch a glimpse of my wisdom. Ah, by ‘glimpse,’ I mean…”
Leaving the noisy background noise behind, I finally found the trace I was looking for.
Right in front of the cliff. Amidst the snowdrifts, where the dirt ground was revealed, there was a single, round, sunken mark.
“Found it…”
A smile formed on its own. This was certain proof that Marie was still alive.
Yes. There was still a chance to save Marie.