A Strange Rumor
These days, I’ve been writing a diary.
At first, it was to save even one drop of the precious Chaos Meter. I had expectations that if I recorded unusual occurrences and controlled variables, life would be a bit more comfortable.
However, as time passed, personal records were added line by line.
Now I more often recorded about Lenox and the northern fox, those two. To the extent that it could be called a childcare journal.
‘Habits are scary things.’
In the past, I wrote a growth journal for my younger sister, Yeongwon. It started with the hope that the kid, who lost her parents early and only had a taciturn older brother to lean on, wouldn’t be lonely.
At some point, that record changed into a medical journal, and eventually became sporadic amidst the resignation that it could never reach the person in question.
And then finally at the end…
My gaze lingered long over a sentence neatly written in the diary.
[I hope you both live long and without pain.]
When I closed the diary, my vision spun dizzily. Still, I was used to this much by now.
Blanc, my only solution, still hadn’t properly shown himself. I had visited that white space in my dreams a few times, but that was all. The only harvest was hearing a voice a few days ago saying he’d come see me soon, so please wait a little longer.
‘When is that “soon,” exactly?’
Even if I wanted to question him, it was useless since I couldn’t meet him. The investigation into the Magic Tower wasn’t going smoothly either. It was truly maddening.
Since there was a limit to causing trouble, the backup plan was to keep the fox nearby.
After conducting various experiments with the fox, it became clear that when it was close and touching me, the ‘Chaos Meter’ would rise, albeit slowly.
Of course, this is only until Blanc returns. Once he comes back, borrowing the fox’s power will end too.
When spring comes, I’ll send the beast away. No matter how cute it is, I can’t grow weak. I’ll really send it back without mercy…
“…”
At that moment, my thoughts stopped at the clattering sound from the doorway. When I raised my head, I saw Billy, who had come with tea brewed from herbs said to be good for fever reduction.
My gaze swept over the staggering Head Steward. With sunken shadows under his eyes, he looked quite exhausted.
“You look tired?”
“I apologize, Your Imperial Majesty.”
Billy, who had set down the teacup in front of me, straightened his back. That didn’t make the fatigue permeating his entire body disappear, though.
“I’m not scolding you, I’m asking out of curiosity. What, are you having bad dreams like Lenox too?”
The nightmares visiting Lenox were being resolved little by little with time. I would call in a reliable counselor to manage them, and occasionally on days when work wasn’t busy, I’d pretend to lose to the kid barging into my bedroom and accept him.
Everyone has bad dreams. I too have nights when I wake up drenched in cold sweat and gasping for breath, and the day after, I carry that fatigue around all day.
But unexpectedly, Billy shook his head.
“I’d rather it be a dream. Or perhaps? Maybe I was so tired I had a dream with my eyes open. Your Imperial Majesty, should sleepwalking also be shown to a doctor?”
I spoke indifferently.
“Speak so I can understand what you’re saying.”
Then he hugged the tray tightly and answered in a serious voice.
“Your Grace the Grand Duke. Have you heard the rumors about a ghost that’s been wandering around the castle lately?”
I knew strange stories were circulating. There are things you learn when you overhear knights chattering in the training room.
“That thing that silently wanders the corridors when night deepens?”
“Yes, exactly that. Either pitch black like a shadow, or grayish white like fog, anyway its form is unclear and it doesn’t acknowledge you even when you speak to it… but it keeps wandering the corridors and then disappears without a trace—that very ghost.”
“Its form is unclear?”
“Ah, that. People’s accounts are subtly different. Some say it was a large man, others say it was a woman. What I saw was a beast about the size of a fox. The patrol guard said it seemed like a kid around Your Imperial Majesty’s age.”
“Mm…”
When I made an expression showing I didn’t believe any of it, Billy gripped the tray and continued.
“I also thought it was nonsense at first. How tight has the castle’s security become since that bastard who attacked Your Imperial Majesty appeared? Yet I saw that thing, I really did!”
Since he was so aggrieved, I felt I should at least humor him a bit.
“Where did you spot it?”
“In the corridor between Your two Imperial Majesties’ bedrooms.”
“Who else spotted it?”
“My older brother, and the knights in charge of Your Imperial Majesty’s escort, Sir Wieg, and the magic teacher all said they saw it.”
“Hmm.”
After pondering for a moment, I nodded, recalling one commonality among them.
“They’re all overworked. I’ll give them leave.”
“Your Imperial Majesty!”
Billy, thinking I’d dismissed his words as hallucinations seen in an overworked state, began to feel wronged.
“No, Your Imperial Majesty. I really saw it clearly.”
“The condition is serious. I was going to give three days, but I’ll specially extend yours to five.”
I clicked my tongue and tapped the closed diary with my fingertip.
Where in the world are there ghosts? The notion that the dead might be wandering somewhere in the world is merely a delusion of the living.
Death is just death.
Once an existence disappears, they don’t return, and those left behind can’t find a single piece of them. Just as I could never see my parents again no matter how much I was consumed by longing.
In the end, those who claimed to have seen the ghost were given leave. Billy significantly raised my ‘Chaos Meter’ by saying I wouldn’t believe him to the end, but unfortunately, the rest were secretly moved to gratitude, rendering it futile.
Winter is already almost over, yet my life—closer to a possession scam—still isn’t getting any easier.
***
After the day I heard that nonsense, I developed a strange habit. That was to look around at the darkness-stained surroundings when walking alone in the corridors at night.
‘Ah. You mean the boy ghost, Your Imperial Majesty? What I saw was on the small side. About this much… similar in height to the young Your Imperial Majesty, or maybe even shorter. So at first I thought it was His Imperial Majesty Lenox, but looking closely, it was a bit different. The appearance was grayish white, and most of all, the eye color.’
‘What boy? It was a man at least a span taller than me! The hair was long so at first I thought it was a woman… but realistically, how many women that big are there in the world? The build was strangely large too.’
‘I couldn’t see properly because it was dark all around, but I remember those eyes clearly. They flickered like a lamp in the pitch-black darkness.’
‘Golden? No. It was a bit deeper than that… Right, it seemed similar to topaz.’
‘I was determined to catch the truth behind that strange rumor, so yesterday I battled with that thing for a whole hour. I thought I definitely cornered it at the top of the castle, where we send messenger birds. But it disappeared in an instant. Isn’t that strange? It couldn’t have fallen from there!’
The rumor growing day by day was no longer at a level that could be dismissed as hallucinations seen by tired people.
‘…Could it be a ghost?’
Thinking about it, this place is different from where I used to live. A place where there’s magic instead of smartphones, and carriages instead of cars. In a world where wyverns and sacred beasts exist, whenever the thought crept up that ghosts might exist too, my spine would grow cold for no reason.
But what really bothered me was that, contrary to most people related to me claiming they’d seen it, I had never seen it even once. Even though I was the one who frequented this corridor the most.
Today too, as I left the office heading to my bedroom, I looked around pointlessly and recalled the rumors people had been chattering about.
All around is silent, and only the winter wind, gradually losing its edge, carelessly taps the window. The only light is the lamp in my hand, precarious with its oil nearly spent…
Flicker, flicker, flicker.
The light that had been gradually diminishing was finally gulped down by the darkness.
The moment I unconsciously swallowed dry saliva and turned around—
“…”
In the deep darkness, two faint lights flickered in my view.
