Chapter 77
Meanwhile, Lance lingered around Lavian, cheekily asking, “Lady Lavian, what are you looking for? Can I help?”
Instead of answering, Lavian changed the topic.
“Are they always like this?”
“Huh? You mean the captain of the royal guard?”
“No, your seniors. Do they usually drink like this every day?”
Lance and the captain exchanged a blank look for a moment.
Lavian climbed onto the bed, peering into the chandelier, and added,
“Huh? Even if it’s only been two months, you must have seen something.”
“Yes. Honestly, the atmosphere here is a bit… like that.”
“What does ‘like that’ even mean?”
“The atmosphere between you and that maid just now.”
Lance scratched his bald head, replying innocently.
As the captain groaned in discomfort, Lavian smiled faintly and lowered his arm.
“I found it.”
A small, marble-like object that fit in the palm of his hand.
Its normally transparent glow had turned a dull gray—it seemed to be broken.
“What exactly is that?”
The captain approached, peering into Lavian’s hand with curiosity.
“An image stone.”
“Was there an image stone here?!”
The captain’s surprise was understandable.
Image stones powered by magical gems could only be detected with special tools unless one was a royal by birth or a magical creature.
It was likely that no one in the princess’s quarters even knew this image stone existed.
“Seems like it. Though it’s broken.”
“Ah… so there’s no way to fix it?”
“Well… it depends on the purpose.”
“Excuse me…?”
If it were for the daughter’s safety, the best approach would be to replace it with a new one.
Lavian felt his doubts deepen.
‘Why did my brother just leave a broken image stone like this without even checking it?’
And to top it off, he’d lied about moving it because Nina felt uncomfortable.
The more Lavian thought, the more suspicious it became.
‘What is going on? He lost his mind over losing the baby, no doubt about it. What’s he hiding?’
Even if the image stone had been fully functional, it wouldn’t have helped much with investigating Nina’s kidnapping.
As long as the culprit was Mercy, the stone would have been useless.
Of course, Lavian didn’t just want to find it to check its existence.
‘Can I see what was recorded before it broke?’
He didn’t know how long it had been in this state, so he didn’t have high expectations.
To restore a gray image stone to its original state, it had to be taken to a repairer who owned a brain stone, since a certain amount of current was required.
But since Lavian’s own element was brain-lightning, he didn’t need a repairer.
He sent current through the dull gray orb, sparks crackling, and the image stone turned bright white.
Even then, Lavian couldn’t imagine what he was about to see.
“Kiddo, close the curtains.”
“Huh? Okay.”
Once all the curtains in the bedroom were drawn, Lavian placed the image stone on the table opposite the bed, crossed his arms, and perched on the bedside.
Lance and the captain awkwardly stood on either side of him, serious faces fixed on the images streaming from the stone.
As expected, the video quality was poor, having been left broken for quite some time.
For the first few minutes, only a blurry flicker passed by, until finally a clear image appeared.
The bed came into view.
It seemed to be the same bed Lavian was now sitting on.
On it lay a baby.
Golden curls and blue eyes.
Nina.
‘She’s tiny even now, but back then, she was even smaller.’
Swallowing the silly thought, Lavian instinctively leaned forward slightly.
Nina lay quietly, staring blankly at the air.
Since she neither cried nor fussed, someone was probably in the room.
‘Who’s there?’
For a long time, similar images continued.
Nina lay quietly on the bed as if she were with someone, never crying or fussing.
But she didn’t look satisfied or happy either.
The feeling that something was wrong started around then.
At some point, Nina began staring blankly at the air, fidgeting her hands randomly, then suddenly rocking her small body back and forth repeatedly.
It looked as though someone were shaking the bed.
This scene repeated several more times, filling the room with an eerie silence.
Lance muttered absentmindedly,
“Someone must be shaking the bed… right?”
“No.”
Lavian’s voice cracked harshly.
The bed wasn’t a crib light enough for an adult to shake like that.
“Then…”
“There’s no one there.”
The captain and Lance stared blankly, but Lavian didn’t move, eyes fixed on the screen.
On screen, Nina had grown, now looking about two or three years old.
They say two-year-olds are the cutest.
She looked different from when she was a baby, but her expression was still blank.
Someone, presumably a maid, fed her baby food and placed an old teddy bear on the bed.
Nina glanced at it with incredibly indifferent eyes before turning away.
Her gaze was so detached it was almost unsettling.
The combination of her doll-like appearance and that emotionless look made her seem less like a living child and more like an unfeeling entity.
As before, she stared blankly at the air, then suddenly lifted her hands to pull her own hair.
That was the extent of her movements.
Pulling her hair, fidgeting hands and feet, rocking side to side—she repeated it endlessly without any change in expression.
She neither cried nor laughed.
No frowning, no smiles.
Her face showed absolute indifference, almost as if resigned.
It was eerie and deeply unsettling.
Because most babies are not like that.
To an untrained eye, it might look as though something was seriously wrong, or that a ghost had possessed her.
“Why is the princess acting like this…?”
Lance’s foolish question went unanswered.
It wasn’t that Lavian didn’t know.
He knew perfectly well why Nina in the video behaved this way.
And it wasn’t because her mind was broken, nor due to a ghost or spirit.
Lavian had seen children behave exactly like this before.
It was at a facility he visited near the end of the war.
All facilities were packed with war orphans, and while the victorious side fared better, there weren’t enough caretakers for so many children.
Most of the children were born during the war.
They behaved exactly like this.
Some empire soldiers, who liked children, tried giving them snacks and playing with them, but the children didn’t react.
It wasn’t the natural fear of strangers—it was different.
They sat with a resigned gaze, pulling each other’s hair or shaking their bodies as if expecting to die tomorrow.
For the naïve officers of noble blood, it was shocking.
Because the children they knew weren’t like that.
To them, children were noisy, energetic, and bright—even amidst the darkest wars, they were a ray of hope.
Hadn’t they all learned that?
So what were these indifferent ghosts?
