Chapter 14
“Eek! Unnie!”
“Miss Marie! Are you all right?!”
I was starting to reach my limit. As expected, this guy should never have been allowed into the house.
Rita and Eugene Grandpa, both horrified, rushed over in a fluster. My back throbbed where I had been slammed into the wall.
“Should I kill him?”
Killian, with a feather duster slung over his shoulder, asked with a murderous expression. No one could bring themselves to speak first as the heavy rain poured down outside. He rolled his red eyes and added,
“Just say the word.”
For a moment, the feather duster looked like a sharp blade. I realized Killian was asking seriously.
“What—what are you all doing?! This madman is threatening me, a faithful servant of Lavalle! Are you just going to stand there and watch?!”
“Shut up.”
I coughed dryly and glared at him. I didn’t want to see the archbishop die, but that didn’t mean I could let his tyranny slide either.
“Are you all right, Miss?”
While I hesitated, Eugene Grandpa quietly stepped in, widening the distance between me and the archbishop. He wrapped my wrist with an old but clean handkerchief.
“Oh dear, what if it bruises!”
Only then did I notice the red mark left on my wrist where the archbishop had grabbed me.
“That was far too much! How could someone who has devoted himself to God do such a thing?!”
“Ah, no… I didn’t do it on purpose…”
When all the blame turned toward him, the archbishop’s face went pale. In a community, being singled out as a target was the most dangerous thing of all.
At least his survival instincts were intact; he twisted his swollen fingers together and drooped.
“…I will apologize. I was born of noble blood and raised in luxury, so I did not know proper conduct.”
Even now, he managed to boast about himself.
“But the weather has grown cold so suddenly. Shouldn’t we warm the house? Men might endure it, but a woman like you must keep yourself warm.”
“You’re just making excuses, but you’re not wrong.”
At some point, Killian had leaned against the wall with a sigh. He was watching the ominous rain beating against the window.
“Since the end of the world, each day has been unpredictable. It rains today, but it could snow tomorrow. An ice age might even come suddenly.”
“Ah… that would be a problem. If the house turns into an icebox, we might all freeze to death.”
After losing my parents and falling into poverty, I remembered the winter room where the boiler never worked and shuddered. There was a pile of firewood by the fireplace, but how much was really left was unknown.
Maybe I should check the diary. Just because we had a sturdy house didn’t mean we’d be safe forever.
“I’m against ruining our health just to save materials. Since the season practically changed overnight, we should all worry about our immunity.”
“Then why didn’t you just light the fire from the start?”
So Killian had planned to use the fireplace too. Clutching my aching wrist, I laughed weakly.
If those two hadn’t argued for nothing, I wouldn’t have been hurt like this. No—more accurately, it had been the archbishop’s one-sided rage.
“I only follow Marie’s orders.”
Killian shrugged as if stating the obvious. The archbishop glared at him with eyes no bigger than buttonholes buried in fat.
But when his gaze met Killian’s, he hurriedly turned away and pretended not to notice.
“Fine. We can’t afford to have another sick person in this house. Let’s use the fireplace today.”
“I’ll put in the firewood. Mr. Killian, please rest.”
Eugene Grandpa stopped Killian from approaching the fireplace. Perhaps the two men, who handled the household work, had reached some kind of agreement—Killian didn’t argue and came back to stand beside me.
Only then did something occur to me.
“Oh, right. We have to feed the horses outside.”
“That’s their name?”
“I just made it up. Killian, can you help me? Let’s bring back some fruit from the greenhouse too.”
Killian nodded like a gentle lamb. I told Rita to stay with Grandpa and left the parlor.
Behind us, the archbishop, who had already regained his energy, flopped onto the sofa and shouted,
“Oh, fruit! Fresh fruit, you say?!”
When we reached the entrance, the horses recognized me again and neighed happily. Since my wrist hurt, Killian took charge of leading them.
“Wait a moment. I need to grab something upstairs.”
Before heading to the greenhouse, I stopped by my bedroom and hugged my diary to my chest. Then I went back downstairs and toward the greenhouse.
“It’s raining a lot.”
Luckily, there was a roof along the way. The chill I felt as we walked through the corridor made me shiver.
“Better than burning to death. At least there’ll be drinking water.”
“Do you think the people who survived outside are still starving?”
“What, are you going to go share food with them?”
I paused with my hand on the greenhouse door handle. I had no intention of ever going outside—what a pointless worry.
“I’m not that kind-hearted.”
“Good.”
Good for what, exactly? Feeling conflicted, I turned my back on Killian and pretended to look for ripe red apples.
After letting the horses graze freely, he began picking fruit into the basket he’d brought.
“Is this not enough? I have a bad feeling that pig will eat it all.”
“Let me see. There are lots of peaches, so maybe we should pick some more of those?”
“There’s a way not to waste food. Want me to show you?”
Suddenly setting the basket down, Killian strode off somewhere. He soon returned, smiling at me.
“Pretty, right?”
“W-what is?”
He had a thick, sturdy rope slung over his arm. I didn’t want to know what he meant, but I felt like I did.
Mentally exhausted, I repeatedly wiped my face with dry hands and turned away from him.
✦ ✦ ✦
Rumble, crash!
When we returned, the parlor looked as dark as midnight despite it being early morning. Thick clouds covered the sky outside, and its original color was nowhere to be seen.
“U-Unnie! This house will be okay, right? The ceiling won’t suddenly collapse, will it?”
Startled by the consecutive thunderclaps, Rita clung tightly to Eugene Grandpa’s side and asked. She panted as if traumatized by the last disaster.
“It’s fine. I told you, this is a magical mansion.”
“R-right? I’m scared…”
I patted Rita’s head. With no lights on, the parlor was so dark that we could barely make out shapes by the glow of the fireplace.
“Butler Grandpa, we found this in the greenhouse—can we eat it?”
“Oh, this is derangcho leaf. It’s a type of medicinal herb, very good for colds.”
Grandpa said cheerfully from near the fireplace.
“The tender leaves can cause stomach pain, so they’ll need a bit of trimming.”
“Then please do. Do we drink it as tea?”
“Yes, usually.”
I was grateful for Eugene Grandpa’s presence once again. In the greenhouse, one of the horses had pulled up some grass and given it to me, so I brought it along—and it turned out to be exactly the medicine we needed.
Hearing it was good for colds, Killian looked satisfied and went to sit in a corner. In his large, solid hands were a silver knife and an apple.
“Ahem. While I peel fruit, I shall give a short sermon.”
“….”
Around then, the archbishop, who had been enjoying the warmth buried in the sofa, suddenly stood up. No one in the parlor reacted to his words, but he didn’t care.
Scrape, scrape—
In the silence that settled over the room, only the sound of Killian peeling the apple could be heard.
Standing with his back to the window, the archbishop spread his thick arms wide.
“The world has perished!”
So that’s what he wanted to say.
I shot him a cold look.
Is he a stage actor or something? Why does he talk like that?
“And?”
Killian asked without even looking up. The next moment, the archbishop began quoting scripture and shouting about the end of humanity. Right then, a blue bolt of lightning struck.
Crash! Rumble!
“It is exactly as the ‘Book of Lavalle’ foretold! ‘Thousands of pillars of fire shall pierce the earth, and the whole world shall be filled with soot! The enraged Lavalle shall bring sinful humanity to its end!’”
I quietly closed my diary and stood up.
“That’s enough.”
“You are the last woman in the world. You have a duty to labor for humanity—”
“No, thanks.”
“You are not inferior to me in looks or status. Come now, how about we work together to create a new history for mankind—ack!”
A well-honed silver knife flew straight into the center of the archbishop’s shiny forehead.
After invoking God, causing endless trouble, and finally even harassing me, the archbishop collapsed with a scream like a slaughtered pig.
Rita hiccupped in terror, and Killian, holding the cat in his arms, handed me an apple carved into the shape of a rabbit.
“Marie, want some apple?”
As if nothing had happened.
As my brain froze at the sudden murder and I was about to reply, “Uh, sure, apple’s fine,”—
“What in the world is going on here?”
Leaning weakly against the wall, Sir Barren appeared in the parlor with a pale face and asked.
