The Secret Garden (4)

Nothing in my life comes easily.

After finishing that unplanned duel with Demon Eye, the building we arrived at was completely empty. While I was fighting him, they had already taken the Marquis and fled…

“A villa! There’s a villa a short distance from here!”

When I lightly suggested that he should think carefully about where the marquis might have gone, Eltora quickly pointed to a villa.

“A secret villa known only to the Marquis! It’s somewhere in District 4.”

“If you know about it, doesn’t that mean it’s not a secret villa?”

“It really is a secret hideout! I only know about it because I went there once when I was little. No one else in the family knows about it!”

“When you were little…?”

When I frowned, Eltora realized I had misunderstood something and hurriedly continued.

“I mean when the original owner of this body was little. There was a diary written by the original owner in my room. It mentioned the secret villa.”

Wow. So this bastard not only started out as the chancellor’s son, he also had the original owner’s diary? When I first woke up, I had to worry about whether I was about to get my head chopped off.

“Father took me to the villa… there was a garden with beautiful flowers, and I was surprised to see Father tending to the garden himself…’ That is what the diary said!”

“Hmm?”

“Anyway, later on, I secretly tried to find the location of the villa so that I wouldn’t be exposed as an evil spirit. But even after searching through all the Marquis’ assets, I couldn’t find a trace of it.”

“Oh? Then how did you find it?”

“Thanks to Countess Phefroc. After she appeared, I investigated her just in case. It turned out she owned a piece of land. Even the countess herself didn’t know she owned it. When I went there later, it was a villa with only one elderly gardener hired to take care of it. After talking to him, it turned out the gardener didn’t even know the Marquis was the one who hired him.”

Oh, I see.

It definitely sounds suspicious.

Except for one contradiction.

“But if it’s such a secret place that no one knows about, how could the Marquis run there? Right now the Marquis is unconscious.”

Eltora let out a surprised breath when I pointed out that problem, clearly having not considered it before. Still, he did not seem willing to give up.

“Still… wouldn’t at least one of his close aides know about it?” he said, glancing at my reaction. When I stared at him, he averted his gaze, clearly aware his logic was weak.

But…

“Fine. Let’s go there.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah. It’s better than just standing around here doing nothing.”

So I decided to check out the “secret villa” Eltora mentioned.

After all, the chancellor knew this guy was an evil spirit.

It was possible that one of the Marquis’ close aides knew about the villa and brought him there.

Well, that seemed unlikely, but…

‘Still, if it’s that kind of place, I might get something else out of it.’

Even if it turned out to be a wasted trip, confirming the Marquis’s secret villa was worth it.

Perhaps I would uncover some secret, just like when I searched the secret room in the Marquis’s office.

“So, where exactly is this villa?”

“It’s not far from here!”

With the new destination entered into my navigation system, it did not take long for us to reach it. The place was surrounded by a tall wall, and the building itself was a modest two-storey structure.

For some reason, the moment I saw it, it reminded me of ‘that house’ where I had stayed with Erwin.

As we climbed the wall and entered the grounds, I saw the beautifully manicured garden that Eltora had described.

Amelia looked around briefly after landing in the garden and gently brushed the flowers with her fingers and continued.

“…It’s well-maintained.” she observed. “Someone looked after these flowers recently. Two days at most. Possibly even yesterday.”

I had no clue how anyone could tell when a garden was last tended, but if Amelia said it, it was probably true.

“Anyway, it feels like we might have guessed wrong… but we should investigate the inside of the building just in case. There might be a hidden space inside, and the Marquis could be hiding there.”

“Agreed.”

We were about to start searching the villa thoroughly when Amelia suddenly turned her head sharply towards the building and signalled to me.

It seemed she had sensed a presence inside.

Step, Step.

I didn’t even need to focus to hear footsteps coming from inside the building.

One person.

I wondered if it might be the old gardener Eltora mentioned, but…

The person who appeared was completely unexpected.

“Baron Jandel. It’s been a while.”

Eltora was the first to respond to the woman’s greeting.

“Harin Savy…? Why are you here?”

“It is good to see you again, Lord Tecerion. You visited this place not long ago, did you not?”

“What do you mean I visited recently? Wait… don’t tell me… back then too…”

“Yes, I was hiding over there, watching. From the moment you started searching the villa until you finally discovered the secret.”

At her calm admission, Eltora’s expression stiffened.

Then—

“You bitch, what exactly are you planni—Ack!”

He got punched once and his expression returned to normal.

“Stop running your mouth and stay quiet.”

“…Ah. Understood.”

Seriously. Calling someone else’s ex-girlfriend a bitch like that.

After one slap was enough to quiet Eltora, I continued the conversation in his place.

“Harin Savy. Why are you here?”

Yeah, let’s start with this.

Why on earth was Hyun-byeol at the Marquis’s secret villa?

“I’ll ask again. Why are you here?”

I asked firmly, wanting a clear answer, and Hyun-byeol replied:

“Uh… didn’t you come because you knew…?”

“What?”

“…I sent you a message. To come here, on that paper.”

Ah, the “love paper”…

“Did you… not see it?”

Uh… I didn’t exactly have the time to check that.

As I let out a cough of embarrassment, Hyun-byeol shook her head.

“Forget it. Whatever the process was, you came in the end. This actually feels more fated and nice.”

“…Fated?”

Amelia muttered, making Hyun-byeol shrug in response.

“Yes. No matter how much things get twisted or diverge, the people meant to meet will meet eventually.”

“That’s… a rather interesting thing to say.”

“I’m glad you find it interesting. Nice to meet you, Amel… oh, Emily Rains, right?”

Harin paused mid-introduction.

It looked like a slip at first glance.

But to me it felt deliberate.

She was subtly revealing something.

That she knew Amelia’s real name.

…Though I didn’t know why she chose to reveal that.

Anyway.

“…Yes. Nice to meet you. Harin Savy.”

After the brief greeting ended, Harin returned to the main topic and looked at me.

“So you asked why I’m here, right?”

“I did.”

“Come inside. Let’s talk there.”

And so we entered the villa.

***

The interior of the villa was quite humble.

Although every item inside looked expensive on its own, the place was not as extravagant as the marquis’s secret villa I had imagined.

In fact, the atmosphere didn’t match the Marquis at all.

It felt simple… warm…

Like the home of a happy wealthy family.

 

“I’m sorry, but could the others step out for a moment? I have something confidential to discuss with him. There’s a very comfortable room over there where you can all rest.”

“I refuse.”

Amelia immediately rejected the request.

Harin glanced at me silently.

…Sigh.

I sighed internally and spoke to Amelia.

“Sorry, but step outside for a moment. Let’s at least hear what she has to say.”

“…Alright.”

Amelia led the group to the room Harin mentioned.

Left alone with her, I sat on the sofa with a strange sense of discomfort.

“Oh, one moment.”

Harin pressed a button on something that looked like a recorder and placed it on the table.

But despite its appearance, it wasn’t a recorder.

It was a magic tool that prevented sounds within its radius from leaking outside.

“You’re still the same.” I said in a dry tone.

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“It is just like you always said. The one with power is not the one who makes the decision, but the one who creates the moment when the decision must be made.”

“You can relax a bit around me, you know.”

“…It just feels awkward talking like this in this body. Anyway, tell me. What exactly is this villa?”

When I adjusted my speech to Lee Hansu’s usual tone, Harin finally smiled.

“Well… how should I put it?”

“In simple terms… this place is Chancellor Tercerion’s memory box.”

“A memory box…?”

“You know. A box where you store precious items that hold happy memories. Don’t you have anything like that, oppa?”

“No…”

“Then what did you do with the letters I gave you before?”

I threw them away. I thought keeping them in my room would only stir up unnecessary feelings.

But I couldn’t say that.

Seeing that I was silent, Harin nodded as if she understood.

“No wonder I couldn’t find them no matter how much I searched your room.”

“…I think we’re drifting off topic.”

“Ah, right… Anyway, this place is a memory box. A place the Marquis came to hide whenever things got difficult.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because the Marquis sent me here.”

“…What does that mean? Can you just tell me the point?”

“Countess Phefroc is asleep in the underground bunker below us. And the Marquis sent me here to guard and take care of her.”

“So, the Marquis isn’t here?”

“No… right?”

“And you don’t know where he is?”

“No. How would I know that?”

“I only asked just in case. You were the one who told me Aynar was going to be executed.”

“Oh, that was something I found out by pure coincidence. The Marquis stopped by here briefly back then. I asked how the war was going, and he ended up chatting with me about various things, just like when we used to chat before.”

“…You chatted with the Marquis?”

“He’s surprisingly gentle. And a bit of a romantic too. For someone his age, he’s quite lonely.”

Well.

I couldn’t exactly agree with that.

But then again, everyone has unexpected sides to them.

“He loves his daughter very much. I guess he sees me quite fondly as well, since I’m both his daughter’s friend and her right-hand.”

“That so…?”

“Oh, have you not been paying attention? The marquis started this war for the sake of his daughter.”

At that, I flinched and raised my head. Harin merely shrugged and pulled out a book.

I gave her a look asking what it was, but she simply gestured for me to read it.

Rustle.

Following her cue, I opened the first page and began reading from the top.

Before long, I realized what this book was.

[There is a certain ghost story that haunts the Palace of Glory. It is the tale of a nameless girl who appears inside the ballroom.]

[According to eyewitness accounts, the girl is incredibly beautiful and small, possessing innocent eyes and a bright voice.]

[However, when smitten noblemen approach her and ask for her name, she suddenly falls silent and cannot answer. Moments later, she vanishes before their eyes like a ghost.]

[When I first heard this story, I laughed it off, thinking here we go again.
But surprisingly, the rumor turned out to be true.]

[On the sixteenth day of the seventh month, in the height of summer when the hot winds lingered even through the night, I attended a palace ball with my father and met that nameless girl.]

…It was the Marquis’s diary.

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