Achim hurried his steps toward the servants’ building.
Just as he was nearing the front of the building, he sensed a presence somewhere nearby and turned to look behind him.
……Martina?
The sight of her entering his field of vision made him frown instinctively. Achim ignored Martina and went inside the dormitory.
He opened the door to find, oddly enough, that Dora wasn’t in the room. Achim looked around, then placed the items he’d bought before heading out to meet Linus earlier in the day on top of Dora’s bed.
What Martina had stolen a few days ago had been feminine hygiene products. Since what had been taken was, of all things, a necessity, Dora had worked up the courage to approach Martina about it.
On top of that, it hadn’t been long since the day off, making it impossible to head outside the mansion right away — so Achim had gone and bought them on her behalf.
Achim looked at the clock hanging on the wall. 9:30 PM. It was already nearly ten o’clock at night.
Perhaps because she was at the age where she was still growing, Dora slept a lot — and she slept so soundly that she would crash out each time as if she’d simply blacked out.
So it was only natural to find it odd that Dora, who should have already been in bed and ready to sleep by this hour, was nowhere to be seen.
The oddness turned to worry as time passed. Even after he’d washed up and come back out, Dora still hadn’t appeared.
Where did she go. Achim muttered to himself, and in the end stepped out of the room just as he was, in his casual clothes. Linus’s words crossed his mind for a moment — but he’d already told himself this would be the last time.
He had left the room and was walking down the long corridor. Everyone had finished their shifts and the building was quiet, when he sensed a presence again, just like before, and Achim reflexively snapped his head around.
“……Martina?”
At the far end of the corridor, behind the wall beside the staircase that led to the upper floor, Martina stood casting a long shadow.
When Achim called out, Martina flinched violently, as if her body had been jolted.
Achim slowly narrowed his eyes. It was because he felt that Martina’s reaction was not ordinary. He was fairly certain that on that day, he hadn’t done anything that would have put that much fear into her.
He was still staring into the dark end of the corridor, trying to make sense of it, when Martina suddenly murmured no, no to herself, then spun around and ran up the stairs to the upper floor.
Why is she acting like that? Achim tilted his head, then looked forward again.
And just as he was about to take a step.
He stopped dead in his tracks. It was because a sudden sense of déjà vu had washed over him.
Come to think of it — hadn’t she also been following behind him at the front of the building earlier, as if she had something to say?
Achim spun back around sharply.
He stared at the end of the corridor where Martina had disappeared, and presently his eyes opened slightly wider. Because the only point of connection between the two of them was Dora and Dora alone.
Having pieced that much together, Achim immediately set off.
“Martina!”
He sprinted to the end of the corridor in an instant and took the stairs three or four steps at a time. Whether she’d caught on to his intention, Martina quickened her pace up the stairs even further.
But there was no way she could outmatch him in either speed or stamina. On top of that, the servants’ building was only two floors. Before Martina could even reach the stairs leading to the rooftop, Achim had seized her wrist.
“L-let go of this!”
Martina resisted desperately, trying to wrench herself free from Achim’s grip. She struggled so hard that Achim had no choice but to restrain her other wrist as well.
With both hands pinned, Martina thrashed her head back and forth wildly. Her already disheveled hair flew in every direction.
“I, I don’t know! I……. I……”
Martina kept muttering things that made no sense, on and on without stopping.
Achim, who had been staring intently at her, soon let his expression harden. The sight of her face, drained to a sickly pale, sent a creeping unease crawling up from his ankles.
Achim looked into her unfocused pupils and called out, Martina.
“I don’t, know, I……. I didn’t see anything.”
I didn’t see anything. Those words made Achim’s eyes go wide. The hand gripping Martina’s wrist tightened involuntarily. When Martina let out a pained groan, Achim thrust his face forward and demanded,
“Where is Dora?”
“Ugh……”
“Where is she, I said!”
Achim shouted at full volume. At that, Martina’s pupils stilled, if only for a moment.
“Dora, where is she.”
All of a sudden, tears dropped from Martina’s eyes. At the same moment, Achim went completely still.
A silence fell, as if time itself had frozen for a brief moment.
Then Martina began muttering again with those unfocused eyes, and Achim, his face drained of all color, set off.
There was no time to even bother with the stairs — Achim leapt straight out through the second-floor window. He landed soundlessly on the grass, then pressed one hand against the ground and pushed himself up.
— The storage……. the storage room……
Using Martina’s words as his only guide, Achim headed toward where the storage room was.
Dora, and the storage room. The two simply did not go together — and beyond confusion, a wave of unease was swelling inside him.
Surely nothing’s happened. He wanted to believe that, but Martina’s face kept surfacing in his mind, rendering that hope useless, and Achim clenched both fists tight then released them to try and shake off the dread.
The storage room was several dozen meters behind the servants’ building, and thankfully it wasn’t far — he reached it in no time.
The moment Achim arrived in front of the storage room, he knocked on the door a couple of times with his clenched fist.
But the inside of the storage room was silent. He tried pulling the handle, but it wouldn’t open, and when he pressed his ear close, he couldn’t sense any presence inside either.
Under normal circumstances, he would have turned around without a second thought. After all, it was well past the hour when the servants would have finished their shifts and gone home.
Could Martina have given him the wrong information? He was deliberating, on the verge of pulling his gaze away from the still storage room, when something kicked against his foot from between the closely trimmed blades of grass, and Achim looked down.
“……”
One black oxford shoe lay sprawled in the grass, catching a faint glimmer of dim light. Something about its shape felt strangely familiar, and Achim bent down to pick it up.
As he examined the oxford, his eyes soon went wide. The image of the girl who had proudly told him it was a gift from her brother flashed through his mind. And on top of that, there was only one person in this entire mansion who wore shoes this size.
……Dora.
The moment the realization struck, Achim snapped his head toward the firmly shut storage room door.
Dora, who had gone missing — and Dora’s shoe, lying on the ground in front of the storage room. It was ominous. Even if it turned out to be a wrong assumption, Achim knew, himself, that he would not be able to rest until he had checked what was inside right now.
Achim stepped back three paces from where he stood. Then he crossed his arms in front of his chest, and drove his heel forward with everything he had.
“……!”
He charged straight ahead and slammed his shoulder hard into the storage room door — and there came a crack, the sound of thick wooden planks splintering apart.
The force behind it, sharpened with technique, stripped the door of its function without so much as a fight, and it pitched to the side with a dull thud. As the door fell inward into the storage room, Achim rolled out the shoulder that had just taken the impact a couple of times.
It was then. Someone inside the darkened storage room met his eyes, and Achim reflexively dropped low. In the next instant, a pair of slender legs entered his field of vision. At the same moment, a man whose eyes gleamed through the darkness like an animal’s came lunging at Achim like a beast.
“Ugh!”
But the man was caught by the scruff far too easily in Achim’s hand.
The man’s face, throat seized in that iron grip, crumpled horribly. She was a woman, and not one of any particularly impressive build, at that. His expression said he had absolutely no idea where this kind of strength was coming from.
“Gkk……!”
Achim flung the man into the corner of the storage room. He had arrived at the conclusion that there was no particular reason to handle a man who was suspicious by anyone’s measure with any care.
Crash and clatter — the man went down along with the items that had been stacked up on one side of the storage room, sending a tremendous racket through the air.
