CH 5

I am Siegmund Stephan Archelaus.

I am the lord and marquis of the Archelaus estate, with a wife and daughter. I thought I had always worked for the people and country, and in turn, intended to protect my wife and daughter.

‘Intended’…past tense.

I did my best to deal with the coldness of our home environment. I scrambled to do something about it. But no matter what I did, their depression was getting worse and worse, and I didn’t know how to deal with my wife, Eleanor, whom I love so much. So two years were wasted.

Finally, the other day, Eleanor’s brother, Oedipus, pronounced clearly that Eleanor and Alice would be taken home with him. But I loved them both, no matter how much they had changed, so I asked him to wait and was given a small reprieve.

I pleaded that Alice had been laying in bed for a long time, and if I took her out suddenly and changed her environment, she could really die.

When Oedipus heard this, he made a pained, complicated face.

Oedipus was also one of the people who loved Alice very much. He agreed and left.

And so, just as I was sitting in my study with my head in my hands, thinking that the day I had feared was soon coming, Connie, the maid, rushed in, forgetting to knock.

“Master! The young lady!”

“Wh-What about Alice?!”

No way, no way, it can’t be.

It was too much momentum and I imagined the worst. But Connie cried, with joy on her face.

“The young lady is awake! She’s even sat up in bed…!”

The moment I heard that, I ran out of the study. Alphonse, the butler, followed behind me.

If I was to do as I had promised Oedipus, it might be time to say goodbye to my wife and daughter when Alice recovered. Still, I couldn’t help but run when I heard that my daughter had recovered enough to get up.

So I arrived at my daughter’s room, and I was surprised to see her appearance because up until then, she had always been pale and had a dark, frightened expression on her face.

When I entered the room, my daughter’s face was calm and gentle, and she had a childlike rose-colored hue on her cheeks.

“Alice…!”

I ran over and gently squeezed my daughter’s hand as she lay there. Here frail yet warm palms.

“I thought you might never wake up!!”

The last few days had been particularly bad for her. She was bedridden, and sometimes when she was finally awake, she didn’t even respond, just stared vacantly into the void. Her presence was weak and it felt like she would die at any moment.

That’s why I was so surprised.

My daughter turned her head slightly towards me and made clear eye contact with me.

“!!”

Had I even forgotten the color of my daughter’s eyes? She has eyes that were so different from those of before.

My daughter’s eyes were originally a beautiful color of pure gold, but now they have a tenderness and intelligence in them, a rich, lustrous honey-like light.

I trembled with emotion.

Then something even more amazing happened.

My daughter smiled like an angel to me!

It was as if she was trying to reassure me with that vulnerable yet warm expression on her face.

I broke down and cried, unable to do anything else. Behind me, Alphonse was sniffing, too.

But God’s blessing didn’t end there.

“……Fa…ther.”

A faint soprano reaches my ears and I turned to my daughter with a jolt. Was it my daughter who had just spoken?

“Alice…? Just now…the voice…?”

My daughter gave a small nod and continued.

“Please, I have a request…need to clear the area of people…and keep my maid Connie from talking about my condition…”

I could no longer keep up with the surprises, but the most important thing was her recovery. I suspect there was something important to talk about.

“Right…Alphonse, please!”

“Leave it to me!”

Alphonse was quite shaken as he was one of the ones who adored Alice, just like my brother-in-law, but my voice brought him back to himself and he moved quickly.

“Alice…Oh, my Alice. You’ve really recovered, haven’t you?”

I made sure the door to the room was closed and turned to my daughter and called out to her as I slowly stroked her cheek. My daughter wasn’t scared or rejected when I touched her, she just smiled and accepted it. It had been two years since I’d done that.

I felt an unending surge of love.

“Father, I’m sorry…I’m so sorry that mother and father are in so much trouble because of me…”

Surprisingly, my daughter seemed to have some idea of the current state of the mansion. But what has happened so far is not my daughter’s fault. It’s my fault for not being able to heal her or maintain everything well.

“No—It’s okay, it’s okay, Alice…just to have recovered like this. Just being alive is enough!”

I couldn’t stop crying at this miraculous recovery. I had never cried in public before, but I forgot how to stop the tears and my cheeks stayed wet.

“Thank you, father…But don’t tell mother yet…

I’m assuming this has something to do with needing to clear out the people in this area of the house. But why couldn’t we tell Eleanor?

“But why? I’m sure your mother has been worrying over your sickness more than anyone else. We have to tell her as soon as possible.”

I posed the question.

Then my daughter began to tell me the hair-raisingly repulsive truth of what occurred.

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T/N: Papa Archelaus joins the scene~