Time of the Blind Beast - Side Story 1

1. IF – A Certain Beginning

“Lissy. Here, you have to stay quiet, very well-behaved.”

Young Lisanne widened her eyes and kept looking all around, nodding her head. Everywhere her gaze landed was so splendid and dazzling that she had no idea where to look first.

So this is the Valdemaira mansion.

The grand mansion she stepped into for the first time was another world entirely. The only thing it had in common with her own home in Claris, which had only two rooms, was the fact that they were in the same city. This mansion was so enormous it should be called a castle, and the gardens were so vast they could be mistaken for a forest.

It felt like being a tiny person dropped into a giant’s world. To young Lisanne, everything belonging to House Valdemaira was too big, too tall, and too wide. Before she could even marvel at it all, she was already overwhelmed into shrinking back.

If one lived in a house like this, even family members wouldn’t have time to see each other. A day could pass without even knowing who was where.

She stopped mid-thought.

Hm, that would be… lonely.

“Who’s this child?”

“Lisanne. Our daughter.”

“Oh, the one who goes to school?”

“Not just any school, it’s Milena Girls’ School.”

Lisanne’s mother quickly corrected the wording. Among the families of modest means who worked as servants, they were the only couple who had decided to send their child to school.

Though House Valdemaira was generous with the servants’ wages, schooling was another matter entirely. A school that took in a child for years, taught her, fed her, clothed her, and housed her required considerable expense. After searching for the cheapest option, they had chosen Milena Girls’ School.

Education for their daughter was the first and greatest luxury for the frugal couple. Her mother continued proudly, “Normally, she stays in the dormitory, but since she came home after a long while, I brought her along. To give her some good meals too.”

“Well, there’s always extra food here. Lord Akenaus is so picky with his meals. If anything is even slightly off, it’s, ‘Bring it back, remake it.’ After meals, there’s always a heap of untouched dishes. It’s nice for us since we can eat the leftovers. …My, but the girl looks just like a doll. She’ll grow up to be a beauty.”

The servants roughly patted Lisanne’s head with their large hands.

But that was the extent of their attention. The peaceful and tranquil scenery of the mansion was maintained only by the servants, dozens of them, bustling like swans paddling frantically beneath the water. The bells summoning them rang constantly. Lisanne’s parents had many duties too, leaving her alone in the kitchen corner as they came and went. Knowing their daughter to be unusually mature and calm for her age, they left without much worry.

I should have brought a book.

Lisanne sat on a chair in front of a table piled with ingredients, swinging her legs and suppressing her boredom. After nibbling on the snacks the adults gave her and looking around for an hour, nothing seemed new anymore. If she had been allowed to explore the mansion, she would never have grown bored, but she wasn’t a guest. She was an uninvited tagalong, not wanting to be left alone at home while her family went to work. It would be rude to wander freely through the mansion.

So she stayed still, helping with little tasks like drying plates with a cloth or rinsing ingredients in water. But even those ended quickly. No matter how much she wanted to help more, there was little a ten-year-old girl on her first visit to a grand mansion could do among the clockwork efficiency of the servants.

“Oh dear, where did I drop my necklace? Did the knot come undone when I was scrubbing upstairs earlier? I can’t leave right now… Hey, your name’s Lisanne, isn’t it? Could you run a quick errand for me?”

So when one of her mother’s coworkers asked her for a small favor, Lisanne actually felt relieved.

“Yes.”

“Go upstairs, there are rooms lined up. Open each door and see if there’s a necklace on the floor. It’s a silver chain with an amber pendant. You know amber, right? That orange stone that looks like candy. But don’t go higher up, only the floor right above this. That’s all empty guest rooms, so it’s fine. The masters are on the upper floors.”

“Yes, I’ll go right away.”

Lisanne hopped down from the chair.

As she asked for directions and climbed the stairs, the girl could hear her heart pounding. For some reason, even the guest rooms of this mansion did not seem ordinary.

I’ll look around slowly while I search.

With excitement fluttering in her chest, Lisanne opened the first door she noticed.

Wow.

She realized at once that when you’re truly astonished, even exclamations don’t escape out loud. The room, with its high ceiling and open airiness, was painted golden-yellow by the fragments of sunlight drifting gently through.

If I fell asleep in a room like this, I would feel like the protagonist of a masterpiece painted by a great artist.

Lisanne imagined draping a glossy velvet dress over the plain muslin frock she wore. She straightened her back and shoulders, stepping carefully so the worn heels of her shoes would not clatter foolishly against the floor. Graceful steps, posture, hand gestures—these were virtues she had to learn if she ever wanted to work as a governess. Of course, those quickly taught virtues could never match the level of the “true nobles” born into houses like this, who embodied elegance as naturally as breathing. At best, it was only enough not to offend their eyes.

As she looked around a real noble’s mansion and a real noble’s room, a thought came to her.

With the year’s end approaching, the students of Milena Girls’ School were divided by admission year into teams to prepare a play to perform before the entire student body. They had to write the script themselves and act it out. Just thinking of that performance weighed Lisanne down with dread.

By nature, she was introverted. If only she could play a passing extra and exit quickly, she might endure, but because she was considered pretty, her classmates had forced her into the role of a proud young lady. Worse, the prop dresses, clumsily stitched together from poplin and patched with mismatched lace, looked hideous. The props were all shoddy as well. Such things might suit a childish game, but to stand before others in rags pretending to be a young lady was unbearable for someone as shy as Lisanne.

But this room naturally made her feel like a fine lady. Pointing to the paintings filling the walls, she practiced her lines.

“Look, these paintings are by the artist Remble. The lines are bold and the colors daring.”

Lisanne had no idea whether the paintings in the bedroom were really by that artist. It was just the name of a famous painter she had picked up somewhere.

As she tiptoed around the room reciting a few more lines, a low chuckle startled her. Just a brief sound, but enough to send the cautious girl leaping in fright.

Lisanne looked back toward the door.

Whoever had witnessed her little scene had already closed the door, as if granting her the courtesy of being left alone to her play. All she had glimpsed through the crack was dark-colored hair.

Her cheeks burned with shame. Sulky, Lisanne dragged her fingers across the soft bedding and retied the ribbon on a curtain before slipping out of the room. From then on, she focused only on searching for the missing necklace.

It was as she went from room to room.

“…Huh?”

She grasped the handle of the next door and heard a rattle. It was locked. Though the doors had all been closed, none had been locked, so Lisanne was a little flustered.

She jiggled the knob. She had been told all these rooms were empty guest rooms, so why wouldn’t it open?

How did it get locked? Did something get stuck? Or was it broken? Should I fetch someone?

As she hesitated, the door suddenly jerked open from the inside. With no time to react, Lisanne stumbled and fell back.

Sitting dazed in the doorway, blinking in confusion, she saw a woman rushing out from the dim interior, clutching her loose collar with one hand. Her gait was unsteady, as though she had difficulty walking, and she brushed past Lisanne awkwardly. The corners of her eyes had been red.

But there was no time to dwell on it.

“What’s this? A little rat?”

Suddenly, a chilling voice crashed down on her head.