Chapter 125
She immediately headed for the first floor.
Fortunately, today, Segleninde’s clones seemed to have decided to wait for her in the Sky Garden, so they didn’t come looking for her, and the servants only greeted her brightly as usual, thinking she was just touring the mansion as always. Thanks to that, she safely arrived at the utility room in the corner of the first floor.
She carefully opened the door, and sure enough, there was a glass case containing the teddy bear.
“Teddy, are you okay?”
Cynthia made sure to close the door tightly and approached the bear. The teddy bear didn’t respond.
Come to think of it, hadn’t it said before that it couldn’t speak while inside there?
“Just wait a second. I’ll get you out right away.”
The glass case was firmly shut, but Cynthia now had the ‘Segleninde’s Consort’ title. Fortunately, the glass case requiring a key also counted as a ‘locked door’, so thanks to the title effect, Cynthia was able to open it easily and take the teddy bear out.
[……] [Ah, you finally came!]
After a moment, a small message appeared before Cynthia’s eyes. The bear’s eyes, once out of the case, finally regained their vitality.
Relieved, Cynthia set the teddy bear down on a nearby table and asked,
“Have you been here the whole time?”
[Segleninde’s magic was cast on the case, so I couldn’t even talk to you.] [I was originally trapped deeper down, but luckily, before I got locked in here, I managed to brainwash a creature with magic to move my case to this place.] [But what about you? Were you safe? To be honest, I’d given up. I thought you were already dead.]
“Dead? I’ve been doing almost too well.”
The teddy bear looked completely bewildered when Cynthia said she’d been not just fine, but thriving. As she hugged the bear and told it what had happened, it looked even more incredulous.
[No, he must be hiding something. Definitely!]
“Um… I understand how you feel, but I don’t think Segleninde is deceiving me. I’ve already been living here for three months.”
There were just too many things, like the ‘Segleninde’s Consort’ title, that couldn’t be explained if he weren’t sincere.
But after all, wasn’t this teddy bear inhabited by the previous protagonist who had died because of him? It made sense it would be wary, so she added a more detailed explanation.
“And we’re getting married. Preparations are already underway…”
[What? No way! I can’t allow that!]
A big message popped up, as if the teddy bear was shouting.
Cynthia was startled and a bit bewildered.
“This is my life, why can’t you allow it?”
“I get where you’re coming from. Of course you don’t trust Segleninde. But we’ve found a way to coexist, and there aren’t any more problems.”
Even though she patiently tried to explain, the teddy bear kept making a fuss about how it was unacceptable, filling the air with message windows to try and stop her.
At that point, Cynthia just wanted to leave the teddy bear there and pretend she hadn’t seen it. But she felt sorry for confining something with a consciousness to a glass case, so she put it in her inventory instead.
Maybe later, if she left it somewhere sunny and aired it out, she could talk with it again and persuade it.
‘It must’ve been mentally unstable after being trapped somewhere so dark all day.’
Trying to be understanding, Cynthia ignored the barrage of message windows from the teddy bear and left the utility room.
But then she noticed the servants bustling around.
None of them were acting as their creature selves. They were all in human disguise. Just then, Cynthia spotted Melissa directing things in the main hall, orchestrating the servants, and hurried over to ask,
“What’s going on? Did something happen?”
“Milady, please don’t be alarmed.”
There was a tense look on Melissa’s pale face. And then Cynthia realized—
“Count Obel, your father… He’s come to visit.”
The true cause of the unease she’d been feeling all this time.
Discussion
0 CommentsReactions
No comments yet.