Time of the Blind Beast - Chapter 6

“He can’t see anything? Completely?”

“It seems so.”

As Akenaus sent her parents back home, he couldn’t hide his sly smile. At first, he had been unsettled by Ezekiel’s blindness, but after thinking it over, he found it preferable.

“Yes, no matter how much I hate him, killing a blood-related brother would be too cruel, wouldn’t it? Now, he can’t even shoot his precious rifle, and he spends all day lying in bed. I went to see him yesterday and stared at him for a while, but he couldn’t grab hold of me. He just flailed his arms around.”

He said it with a face so gleeful it seemed like he might burst from happiness.

With Akenaus’s silent consent, her parents’ theft was covered up. He even sent them off with a substantial sum of money in their hands, a payment for making the war hero blind.

Even if the Valdemaira estate remained silent, neither Rose nor her parents could continue living in Claris. Claris had become a city of sin for them. As long as Akenaus was watching with both eyes open, Rose and her parents could be dragged down by their guilt at any moment.

Their escape in the dead of night was swift and quiet.

“Even if Akenaus Valdemaira isn’t actively pursuing us right now, it’s dangerous for us to travel as a family. If he changes his mind and decides to track us down, the first thing he’ll ask is where a family of three travelers went.”

“Then what should we do?”

“For now, you should return to school. This money will be enough for you to finish your studies. We’ll find a place for ourselves.”

The family separated. Her parents decided to visit relatives while looking for a new place to settle, and with nowhere else to go, Rose returned to school.

It was winter.

The town of Cielsa, where her school was located, was known for its erratic northern weather. It was especially famous for having far more gloomy days than clear ones, with fierce snowstorms that raged until late winter being the most notorious. Even when the seasons changed, the snowstorms would often transform into spring downpours accompanied by strong winds, making it hard to relax.

This year, the winter was harsher than ever. A chimney collapsed under the weight of the snow and wind, leaving the students to face the brutal cold without a fireplace. A wave of severe colds swept through the school, and Rose wasn’t spared.

The headmaster scrambled to find a doctor, but for some reason, there wasn’t a single one available to make house calls in the area. When they finally managed to bring a doctor to the school, Rose overheard something peculiar during her examination.

“There are no doctors around here right now. Every doctor in the area has been called to Derosa.”

“Derosa? Why?”

“That’s where the Valdemaira villa is, you know.”

The very name that had driven her out of Claris suddenly caught her attention, and Rose listened carefully without meaning to.

“They’ve been summoning doctors to that villa, especially those with a lot of experience and expertise in pharmacology. I didn’t meet their requirements, so I didn’t even get to see the patient. I was sent away at the gates. But that mansion—it’s something else.”

“…What do you mean?”

“Well, they’ve got curtains drawn so thick and tight that even in the middle of the day, the place feels as dark and eerie as night. It looked like something straight out of the old legends about Elizabeth Bathory’s castle. I wouldn’t have been surprised if something had jumped out at me. Honestly, I’m glad I didn’t get in. The people working there gave me the creeps too.”

Rose’s instincts told her immediately—it was Ezekiel. The second son of Valdemaira had hidden himself away in Derosa.

That day, Rose packed a small bag and left the school.

Her destination was Derosa, where the mansion was located. She had no idea what she would do once she got there, yet she forced her way onto the shaky carriage that made the journey just twice a day, bouncing along the rough road.

By then, rumors had already begun to spread about Derosa. The source of the gossip was the servants who had been dismissed for failing to meet the eccentric master’s standards. The general consensus was that it wasn’t a place where one could last long. People had started calling it the Beast’s Mansion.

Late at night, Rose knocked on the door of the mansion.

What had driven her to come here in the end?

Some might call it hypocrisy.

Others might call it atonement.

Neither answer was wrong.

“Do you know who ruined my eyes? It was a maid just like you.”

Ezekiel wasn’t wrong to suspect her.

She understood his anger. He had every right to be furious. Even when his rough hands clamped down on her neck, squeezing as if to kill her, and the fear of suffocation overwhelmed her, part of her accepted it as her due punishment.

Even if she served by his side for the rest of her life, it wouldn’t be enough to absolve her of this sin.

Because of her actions, a noble soldier had been brought down.

Akenaus had already wiped his blind brother from his mind completely. As both a soldier and the heir to the family, Ezekiel was now as powerless as if his limbs had been cut off. He was no longer a threat to Akenaus.

Rose clutched the glass bottle in her hands. It was so light it felt weightless, yet her arms fell limply onto her knees, as if the bottle were made of lead.

The weight pressing down on her hands was heavy—the weight of the crime she had committed.

Chapter 2: The Lie Begins

Standing at the end of the long hallway on the first floor, Rose closed her eyes.

Her vision blurred and scattered. She wasn’t used to this feeling yet. She pulled out a handkerchief and tightly wrapped it around her eyes.

Finally, complete darkness.

She thought she had memorized the width and length of the hallway, but once her vision disappeared, so did her spatial awareness. It felt as though something might leap out and collide with her, or the floor might suddenly drop away.

He must live with this feeling every day.

Rose carefully took a step forward. Tentatively groping at the air, she took another step, then another. Everything around her felt like a swamp, and she couldn’t take large strides.

She now understood why the furniture had been moved to the second floor, leaving only the bare essentials on the first. A small decoration could easily cause a severe injury if one were unlucky enough to bump into it.

She was trying to guard herself by feeling along the wall for orientation, but unexpectedly, the wall appeared in front of her instead of beside her. It blocked her so suddenly that she had no time to react. Rose collided face-first into it.

“What the hell? Who is this?”

She had crashed into a muscular, solid figure. Before she could process it, a strong hand grabbed her shoulder and shoved her back with force.

It was the strength of a man who had served as a soldier. With her eyes covered, she had no chance to regain her balance as she stumbled backward.

Rose tumbled to the floor.

Had she been able to see, she would have braced herself with her arms to avoid serious injury, but her blindness left her no such luxury. The best she could do was instinctively wrap her arms around her face to protect her head.

She was too shocked to scream. Her shoulder and wrist twisted painfully as she landed awkwardly. A sharp heat and throbbing pain shot through her body. She pressed the handkerchief to her eyes, blinking back tears.

“Didn’t Serva tell you? There shouldn’t be any obstacles on the first floor.”

A low voice came from above her.

Rose immediately bowed her head. “Yes, I was told.”

“Even the blind furniture doesn’t get in my way. What excuse do you have for being an obstacle?”

“I’m sorry.”

Rose hurriedly tried to undo the knot in the handkerchief. But she had tied it too tightly, and it wouldn’t come loose easily.

At that moment, the sound of Madam Serva’s cane tapping echoed down the hallway.

“Lord Ezekiel, how many times have I told you that my old knees can’t keep up with your quick pace… Rose? What are you doing here?” Madam Serva looked down at Rose in shock.

Just then, the knot came undone, and Rose quickly balled up the fabric in her hand.

“Rose?” Ezekiel repeated her name. It was a name that seemed familiar, yet distant.

Madam Serva chimed in, “She’s the new girl in the laundry room.”

Ezekiel sniffed the air. The familiar scent of laundry soap brought back memories from a recent night. The girl who had entered his room during the thunderstorm.

“Ah, so it was you.”

“Yes, you’ve seen her before,” Madam Serva said, hastily correcting herself. “Or rather, you’ve met her once.”

Madam Serva glanced over Rose’s appearance. “But Rose, what are you doing here? Why were you covering your eyes? Are you hurt?”

“So that’s why you were stupidly wandering the hallway—were you planning to play blind man’s bluff or something?”

Ezekiel’s words were dripping with sarcasm.

Rose looked up at him, flustered. She hadn’t meant it as a game. She simply wanted to understand the discomforts he faced, the ones no one had told her about.

She hurried to explain, “No, I simply wanted to prepare in advance for any inconveniences you hadn’t mentioned…”

“And what does that have to do with you?” Ezekiel cut her off, his tone cold.