TEB Ch 72

“What are you doing, Renard? You should at least say thank you.”

Even though Liev gave a subtle hint, he still didn’t eat much and immediately put down his knife.   

“Okay, can we get to the point now? I feel like there’s been something you’ve been wanting to talk about since before I arrived.”   

“Hey. Just a little bit.”   

“Renard, can you please wait a bit?”   

Then, Renard put his hand on Liev’s shoulder and pressed it as if telling him not to intervene any further. Liev couldn’t understand why Renard was reacting so sensitively. Everyone else couldn’t hide their surprise at Renard’s uncooperative attitude, but the Lord soon regained his calm expression and opened his mouth.   

“A few months ago, my wife started talking about strange things. She said a ghost appears in the castle every night.”   

A ghost? What a strange thing! The group had been moving all kinds of requests with construction, moving crops, and taking care of livestock, but this was the first time they had heard of something as ridiculous as a ghost.   

“What? A ghost?”   

Albert couldn’t help but interject and ask for an explanation that was unexpected, to which the Lord calmly continued.   

“Yes, that’s right. At first, I thought it was just a story made up by my daughter. But as time went by, I heard more and more stories about people seeing ghosts in the castle. First it was a kitchen maid, then a chambermaid, and then a stable boy… Now, every servant in the castle has seen it at least once.”   

A ghost that is seen so frequently by the servants. Liev, who didn’t believe in ghosts in the first place, wondered if they were just mistaken about a different situation for something else.   

There was a similar commotion. Suhyuk was a student at the College of Veterinary Medicine. In the public lounges provided by the department for students, the place resembled a warehouse-like room, tucked away in the darkest part of the room. Anyone from the department could use it, so it was always crowded, unlike the fruit room or the girls’ lounge, which were always crowded. It was a place where young university students could sleep peacefully in a makeshift bed, as long as they had a place to lean on their backs.   

There were various reasons why young, energetic university students avoided that place. First of all, it was too cold because it was a basement, and there was a rumor that it was a place where research specimens and corpses were stored, so the atmosphere was even more gloomy. On top of that, if you slept there, you “would” be stabbed by scissors without even knowing it. There was also a time when Suhyuk went to sleep, ignoring the rumors, but he woke up in a cold sweat.   

For a moment, he wondered if the rumors of ghosts or scissors were true. Soon, the cause of all the problems was revealed.   

“Wow, we almost died for real.” 

It turns out, there was a gas leak near the window that connects to the basement, and it had reached a level that could cause mild poisoning. After fixing the leak, the rumor about being attacked with scissors soon disappeared.   

Since that day, Suhyuk no longer believed in ghosts or spirits. Fear is ultimately an emotion that takes root in people’s hearts. Our bodies are very sensitive to changes in our surroundings, and we tend to believe what we think we see, so I thought this incident was probably the same.   

“Why a ghost?”   

When Liev, who had been quiet all this time, suddenly asked a question, Sigrid smiled proudly, as if he were an elementary school student giving a presentation. Liev tried to look away from that direction and looked at the castle Lord.   

“Um… Actually, I’ve never seen one. Margaret, will you explain?”   

The girl who had come to see Renard last night and ran away in a hurry at the castle Lord’s instructions answered with a nervous look on her face.   

“Yes, so… a woman in a white dress appears throughout the castle every night. Sometimes she’s on the top floor of the tower, and sometimes she appears in the basement. And sometimes she moves distances that are impossible for humans to travel, so I thought it must be a ghost…!”   

A ghost in a white dress. It was such a typical description. There was a high chance that people just saw someone passing by or mistook a piece of fabric.   

“Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand a curtain or a piece of fabric?” 

When I first asked about the most common situation that came to mind, Albert must have had the same thought because the girl immediately shook her head.   

“No! It’s not like that! There are no rooms in our castle with white curtains!”   

If she was so sure, the only thing left to do was to check for ourselves.   

“Okay, then let’s wait until after sunset, when she appears.”   

After that, Sigrid received the complaint, but the rest of the group was already tied up with other tasks and couldn’t move. It was difficult to finish the work quickly, and while taking a few days off wouldn’t delay things too much, they still couldn’t criticize Sigrid.

“Well then, shall we explore every corner of the castle until then?”   

Even if the ghost only appears after dark, they can still investigate the structure of the castle during the day. There was no time to waste, as soon as the large breakfast and lunch were over.   

Because the castle itself is so large, we divided the search team into three groups. Each group was divided into areas they were good at, each had different specialties. First, the mages, Rowena and Sigrid, used Rowena’s ability to detect magic to see if it was a supernatural phenomenon caused by accumulated ether.   

The remaining fighters, Palvin, Albert, and Katrice, were assigned to patrol the entire tower and check for any suspicious intruders who may be living there. The other two, or rather one person and one dragon, who didn’t belong to any group, were tasked with looking for any suspicious areas on their own.   

“Let’s start moving too.”   

“Okay.”   

Although Renard was a dragon, he wasn’t particularly skilled at resolving strange occurrences like this. They might not be of great help, but if they find any clues, it will be worth it. With that thought in mind, Renard followed Liev, who suddenly wrapped his arm around Liev’s waist.   

“Hey.   

Liev immediately caught onto the ominous gesture and glared at Renard. Renard looked down at Liev with a puzzled look on his face.   

“This is okay. I won’t touch further than here. I feel stable when I’m close to Liev like this.”   

“What’s okay? I’m not okay.”   

It’s a good thing there’s no one else here. If this happened in front of others, he would have been embarrassed and probably ended up with a fried egg on my face. Liev grumbled, but deep down inside, his heart was pounding. It was hard not to be conscious of Renard’s body.

Why do I feel like my heart is pounding? Why was he becoming more aware of it the more he tried to ignore it? Liev felt like he was going to get caught if he was too conscious, so he quickened his pace. As a result, they found themselves walking down a dimly lit hallway. When did they come this far? When he turned around, they had already walked quite a distance, but the hallway ahead of them still seemed quite long.   

“Is this a different place from the one we passed by when we first came here?”   

Liev asked to confirm what he already knew. Renard nodded his head.   

“Yes, it’s a different place.”   

“I should have brought a lamp. It’s so dark that it’s hard to identify anything right in front of me.”   

In the pitch-black darkness, Liev could only rattle his glasses in the darkness. Then, Renard noticed that Liev was having difficulty seeing and created a small flame at the tip of his finger.   

“Here, with this, you can see better.”   

“Ah, thank you.”   

“You don’t have to thank me for every little thing.”   

“Still.”   

As if to match his confident words, a bright light appeared in the darkness, instantly illuminating the surroundings. Thanks to this, they noticed that something resembling paintings was hung at regular intervals along the corridor they had been walking through.

“What are these paintings? They seem like a series.”   

Upon closer inspection of the one nearest to them, there was a painting of a magnificent dragon that appeared to be Lindgren, the long-standing legend of this family.