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Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
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Chapter 161: There Are Safety Rules for Servants in That Mansion
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I stopped staring at the place where the Housekeeper had left.
I began reading the Gardener's final diary again.
[It has been contaminated. It is an infectious disease. Run. We all have to go back there. There is still something left undone. We cannot stay here. How irresponsible! I am not qualified.
Mother, do you remember? They cut open your stomach, took out your intestines, and had them stuffed. They ambushed Father from behind, each of them holding one of his limbs, and strangled him. They mixed strychnine into the sugar my little sibling secretly snuck every night. They beat me with my stolen violin until they were satisfied. Do not lie. According to The Ethical Desert by political philosopher Rowan Napierson, in a society where the standards that define ethics and immorality have collapsed, humans
Itisnothuman
I have frostbite! If I do not cut it off immediately, the rotten shadow will reach my heart!]
That was where the diary ended.
The handwriting varied wildly.
Some parts were scrawled, while others had been carefully pressed onto the page.
The way its contents wandered without any order resembled the butler's muttering in the kitchen earlier.
Was there some strange phenomenon or monster in this mansion that caused delirium?
The boy and girl with sacks over their heads.
Could those two, who loved scary stories, be the culprits?
Still, I did not know whether scary stories were really what they wanted.
Would telling them a scary story let me leave? Did I need to get out before my turn came to tell one? Or was there another way entirely?
...But who exactly were that boy and girl?
How long had they been in this mansion?
I could not remember.
* * *
Girl: And so the woman came to stay at the hunter's house. The hunter looked rough and was rather blunt, but he wasn't uncaring.
The boy rose and slowly walked around, pointing here and there around the attic.
Girl: He even explained the layout of the house to the woman, who could not see...
The boy took a chipped bowl and spoon from a box. I did not know how long they had been there. He pretended to feed the girl, then adjusted the blanket over her shoulders.
Girl: He made sure the woman, whose ankle was injured, did not have to move around too much. The woman had been wary at first, but she could tell that the hunter meant her no harm, which only made her more confused. She had never met anyone like him before!
The boy touched the girl's ankle.
Girl: (in a woman's voice) “Why are you so kind to me?” The woman finally could not hold it in any longer as the hunter checked her injury. Then the man replied bluntly. (in a man's voice) “You need to recover quickly if you are to leave this forest. There is no place for you here.” The woman felt somehow embarrassed and hurt. So he only wanted me to leave as soon as possible. The instant that thought occurred to her, she was surprised at herself. Why did she feel this way about a man she had only met the day before yesterday?
Woman: She has no eye for men.
The boy and girl clutched their stomachs, their shoulders shaking.
There was no sound of laughter.
* * *
I tucked a page of the Gardener's final diary into my pocket and left the drawing room for the entrance hall.
I could see the central staircase, forbidden to servants, and the antique front door.
The footman responsible for this door was nowhere to be seen.
It should have been time for the footman to sleep.
No. The footman was awake.
Creeeak...
Without anyone stopping me, I opened the mansion door and went outside.
* * *
Girl: If only she could stay here a little longer, just a little longer. The woman wished her ankle would not heal quickly. While the hunter was out in the forest, she even deliberately sprained it worse. Then one day, as the hunter was treating her, he suddenly seized her shoulders and pulled her close. They were close enough for their breaths to touch.
The boy pulled the girl toward him. The yellowish-white sacks over their heads nearly touched.
Girl: The woman gasped in surprise, and the hunter spoke in a whisper. (in a man's voice) “Do you take me for a fool? Do you think I am an idiot? At first, you made me kill without purpose. Now you make my kindness meaningless. Why are you doing this to me?” At last, the woman burst into tears and shoved the hunter's hand away.
The girl pushed the boy's hand away. The two black stains on the sack over her head darkened.
Girl: The woman shouted as though she had exploded. (in a woman's voice) “I don't know! I don't know why I'm like this either! But I know one thing! I want to stay here. Not out there, where people only see me as a blind orphan girl, but here, where someone tells me I have a place out there! I want to live here, in this forest...” The hunter caught the woman as she collapsed, sobbing.
The boy supported the girl's tilting body.
Girl: The hunter silently looked at the woman's face, then opened his mouth. (in a man's voice) “You finally said it. That you want to live.”
The boy pretended to wipe the black stains from the girl's sack.
Girl: “Thank you. Falling for a woman who wants to die was bad enough. I did not want to become a pitiful man who let that woman go with his own hands.” He was still blunt, but the woman could feel the hunter's affection in his voice. And so, the two shared a passionate embrace.
The boy and girl hugged, then let each other go.
Girl: The blind woman and the hunter, who had sworn their love, lived happily in a little house deep in the forest!
Woman: (tilting her head) Huh? That's the end? It wasn't scary at all.
Girl: Wait. There's still a little left.
* * *
Outside the mansion, I saw a forest.
A distant forest, buried deep in the darkness of night.
The mansion was surrounded by it. Like a prisoner trapped inside the enormous fence of a forest.
Did I need to escape this forest? Could I?
A stable stood a short distance from the mansion.
Creeeak...
Where had the horses gone?
The stable was empty.
The coachman was pretending to sleep.
I was an unwelcome guest.
I left the stable and headed into the mansion garden.
What had once been flowers were withered and dry. Only the thickly grown weeds boasted any green.
A dirt-covered shovel and pitchfork lay carelessly in one corner of the garden.
They were rusted a dark red.
What had they been used for?
Judging by the state of the garden, they did not seem to have been used for tending a field.
They would need to find a new Gardener.
Grrr...
I picked up the shovel and pitchfork, then followed the faint trail on the ground.
A path where the soil had fallen like cookie crumbs, as though something had been dragged along it.
* * *
Girl: The blind woman and the hunter lived simply, but they were truly happy. When the hunter caught game and skinned it, they made clothes from the hides and prepared meals with the meat... The two worked harder and stayed busier than ever. Winter was approaching, and they were expecting a baby. (pause) Then one day, the hunter went outside the forest to sell game and plants. The woman wanted to clean for the hunter, who worked so hard. Even though she had become familiar with the inside of the house, the hunter always insisted on doing all the cleaning himself. So the woman slowly began to clean. She cleared away a rug she had no idea when it had last been washed, and wiped the dust that had piled up in every corner...
The girl got to her feet, spread the blanket on the floor, then lifted it again and set it aside. She moved slowly here and there, pretending to clean.
Creak, creak.
The sound of wood creaking.
Girl: That was when it happened. (in a woman's voice) “Ah!”
The girl staggered as though she had tripped over something, barely catching herself. She bent down and felt along the floor, then picked something up and held it high for all to see. It was a very small, sharp nail. I did not know how long it had been there.
Girl: Beneath the large floor rug she had just cleared away, there was a nail. Where had it come from? As the woman felt along the floor, she quickly found the answer. A loose nail had come out of the wooden floorboards. The hunter had put away tools like hammers and saws for the woman's safety, so she left the floor as it was and continued cleaning. When the hunter came back, she merely handed him the nail she had set aside and said, (in a woman's voice) “I tripped while cleaning, and it seems a nail had come loose.” The hunter said nothing for a moment, then pulled the woman into a tight embrace.
The boy hugged the girl.
Girl: (in a man's voice) “Weren't you hurt? Then that's a relief. From now on, leave the cleaning to me. You only need to stay healthy.” The woman was happy. A few months later, the two had a child and lived happily ever after. Having raised their fox-like son and wolf-like daughter well, the couple closed their eyes on the same day, at the same time.
Woman: Is that really the end?
Boy: Is this the real Nail Shell Story you imagined?
Girl: Yeah. But there's still an untold story, a very short story that neither the blind woman nor the hunter revealed until they died.
* * *
As I followed the path, I came upon a patch of ground at the entrance to the secluded forest that looked out of place.
Small mounds rose low from the earth, like furrows in a field.
No. Mounds.
They stood in rows on the empty ground between the mansion and the forest.
Like very low burial mounds, as though people had been buried there.
Dozens of mounds.
* * *
Waaah, waaah.
The sound of a baby crying.
Girl: This is a story from one day when the blind woman and the hunter's first child had not yet begun to walk. The hunter had gone outside the forest again to sell various things. The village was quite far away, and the forest was dangerous at night, so the hunter was not meant to return until the next day. (pause) Why now? Was it because it was exactly this time of year last year? The woman suddenly remembered the nail that had been sticking out of the floor and had come loose. (walking quietly) And the subtly different sound she heard whenever she walked around it...
Creak, creak.
The girl took a claw hammer from the box. I did not know how long it had been there. She pretended to pull the nails from the floor with it.
* * *
Thump.
The sound of a shovel plunging deep into the ground.
Thud, thud.
The sound of scooped-up dirt falling over bare earth.
There was only the sound of silently digging up the secrets buried underground.
No. These were no longer secrets...
What lay beneath this ground...
* * *
Creak, creak.
The creaking of wood stopped, followed by a Clunk!
The girl looked down at the floor.
A faint sound of wind could be heard.
Girl: (in a dazed voice) There was a basement room. And inside it...
The girl slowly raised her head and looked at us.
The lights went out.
* * *
Corpses.
There was nothing strange about finding corpses in dug-up graves.
Given the number of graves, even the number of corpses was not surprising.
But...
How should I put this?
It looked less like a cemetery and more like a corpse farm.
One where they experimented with the process of human decomposition.
I could tell at a glance which ones had been buried first and which had been buried last.
From the far right of the last row to the far left of the first, the degree of decay worsened.
And every grave held two bodies.
I stood still and looked down into the earth.
People should not be buried this shallowly.
...Was it fine because they were not people?
All the bodies buried two at a time wore identical pajamas and had identical cloth sacks pulled over their heads.
Some had their abdomens hideously torn open, their insides exposed. Some had slightly visible limbs turned a dull blue. Some had bodies bent at nearly right angles. Some had the sack portions turned reddish brown and crushed...
When I slowly lifted my head, I saw the old Gothic mansion.
As though someone living there had killed and buried identical boys and girls in different ways every single day...
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