LMRF 02

Episode 02

A Nasty Prank

“My apologies. I didn’t realize there was such a backstory.”

Raine offered a polite apology toward Lumian. Lumian gave a low laugh.

“You can repay me with a glass of Green Fairy, can’t you?”

Then, before Raine could answer, he shifted the topic.

“What brings outsiders to Cordu? Looking to buy wool or leather?”

A significant number of Cordu’s residents made their living through animal husbandry.

Raine secretly sighed in relief and didn’t miss this opportunity.

“We came to meet the parish priest of the Church of the Ever-Burning Sun here in this village, Father Guillaume Benet. But he wasn’t at home or at the church.”
“No need to specify which church. There’s only one church in Cordu.”

Pierre, who had become more amiable after drinking the absinthe Raine bought, kindly informed them. None of the other locals seated around the bar table, drinking their own drinks, responded to Raine’s question. They seemed unable to utter that name casually, as if it implied some kind of taboo or authority.

Meanwhile, Lumian, who had been sipping his drink, seemed lost in thought for a moment before speaking.

“I think I have a rough idea where the parish priest might be. Shall I guide you?”
“Then we’ll trouble you.”

Lia accepted without hesitation.

Raine also nodded.

“We’ll get up once you finish that glass.”
“Alright.”

Lumian picked up his glass and, with a gulp-gulp sound, drained the pale green liquid in one go. Then, placing the empty glass down, he stood up.

“Let’s go.”
“Much obliged.”

Raine expressed his gratitude to Lumian while instructing Valentine and Lia to rise. Lumian smiled and said,

“It’s fine. You listened to my story, and I drank the liquor you treated me to, so we’re already friends, aren’t we?”
“That’s right.”

Raine gave a slight nod.

Lumian revealed an even brighter smile and spread his arms as if to hug them. Simultaneously, he said enthusiastically,

“I’m so very pleased to meet you, my cabbages.”

Raine, who had been preparing to accept the hug, abruptly stopped.

“Cabbages?”

A bewildered and embarrassed expression appeared on his face. Valentine and Lia were the same.

“It’s our term for friends. Everyone in the Daller region knows it. It’s been that way for hundreds of years.”

Lumian explained with an innocent face.

“Trust me, my cabbages.”

Lia instinctively glanced around. The bells on her veil tinkled.
Pierre and the others nodded one after another, proving Lumian’s words weren’t false this time. But smiles hung on their faces, as if they were enjoying the sight of the outsiders awkward with this affectionate term.

Lumian stroked his chin and said,

“Don’t like it? Should I change it to something else? These are also terms used to call friends. Which do you prefer: my rabbits, my chicks, my ducklings, or my little lambs?”

Raine’s expression stiffened further. Valentine’s brow had also furrowed without him realizing. Lia laughed as if it was ridiculous and retorted,

“Cabbages are still better. That’s the most normal one.”

Raine, who had quietly sighed, pressed down on Valentine’s elbow and gave a slight nod.

“Each one a treasure of the household.”

Before Lumian could retort, he turned his body and said to the bartender,

“The bill.”
“2 Felkin.”

The bartender replied, glancing briefly at the glasses on the bar table.

While Raine paid, Lia changed the subject.

“Lumian… that’s a very rare name.”
“At least it’s better than Pierre or Guillaume.”

Lumian said with a laugh.

“If you shout ‘Pierre!’ here, at least a third of the people will answer. If you call for ‘Guillaume,’ another third will turn around. And this gentleman here…”

He pointed at the skinny Pierre drinking his free liquor and continued,

“…his full name is Pierre Guillaume.”

Lia laughed along with the situation, skillfully glossing over the conversation about the ‘cabbage’ appellation.

Before leaving the tavern, Lumian looked back once.

“What’s wrong?”

Lia asked. Lumian answered with a face that seemed lost in some thought.

“You three aren’t the only outsiders who came to the tavern today. There was one more earlier, but he’s already left.”
“What did he look like?”

Raine’s expression hardened instantly.

Lumian began to explain, searching his memory.

“It was a woman. She seemed very cultured, just looking at her you could tell she was from a big city. It’s hard to describe in words… should I draw it for you?”
“You can draw too?”

Lia, who had already grasped some of Lumian’s nature, asked back in a wary voice. Lumian burst out laughing.

“No.”
“Then let’s find the parish priest first.”

Raine cut off this conversation.

The village of Cordu had no streetlights, but the night wasn’t pitch black either. Thanks to the starlight twinkling in the high sky and the yellowish light seeping from the windows of houses lining the road, the party of four could walk without trouble.

Not long after, they arrived at the Church of the Ever-Burning Sun, located beside the village square.
In the dim evening, the village’s most majestic building only faintly revealed its outline, as if melting into the darkness.

“We’ve been here. There was no one.”

Valentine, who had maintained a cold, taciturn expression, spoke with a furrowed brow. Lumian smiled.

“Just because there’s no one at the main door doesn’t mean there’s no one elsewhere.”

Simultaneously, leading Raine’s party around the front of the church, he headed toward the vicinity of the public cemetery. There was a dark brown wooden side door there.

Before Raine could knock, Lumian suddenly reached out and fiddled with the keyhole a few times. Then, with a creak, he opened the door.

“Isn’t this… rather rude?”

Raine asked with a furrowed brow. Lia nodded along with the tinkling of her bells.

“We came to meet the parish priest, not to fight him.”
“Understood.”

Lumian was remarkably receptive to others’ precise opinions.

He pulled the wooden door shut, then lightly knocked on it.

“Hello? Is anyone there? If there’s no answer, we’re just coming in.”

His voice was as small as someone talking to themselves in the dead of night. The church remained utterly silent.

The next moment, Lumian, who pushed the door open, pointed inside.

“Go on in.”

Raine, who had originally intended to refuse, hesitated for a moment at the pitch-black darkness filling the doorway, then exchanged looks with his companions.

“Alright.”

Then he stepped forward with slow, deliberate steps. Lia and Valentine followed closely behind. For some reason, the four silver bells on Lia’s boots and veil made no sound this time.

Advancing through the pervasive darkness, Raine suddenly stopped and said in a low voice,

“I think I hear something.”
“Correct.”

Lumian expressed strong affirmation. Almost before his words finished, he flung his body sideways and opened another door with a bang.

The place connected to that door appeared to be the church’s confessional. Dim starlight illuminated a simple low bed and a naked middle-aged man. Beneath the middle-aged man lay a white female form.

Instantly, everyone including the middle-aged man and the woman pinned beneath him froze in shock. A few seconds later, the middle-aged man who had sharply turned his head toward them roared at Raine and the others.

“You bastards! How dare you profane the sacred church!”

Amidst the echoing roar, Lumian, who had long since retreated behind Raine’s party, waved his hands frantically with a smiling face and said quickly,

“It seems you’ve found the parish priest. My cabbages, see you tomorrow!”

Simultaneously, as he dashed out through the side door, his voice grew fainter and smaller with distance.

Instantly, the same words flashed simultaneously in the minds of Lia, Raine, and Valentine. The words spoken by that middle-aged man, Pierre Guillaume:

‘He’s the village’s worst prankster. You’d do best to stay as far away from him as possible.’

✧ ✧ ✧

Under the starlight pouring from the high sky, Lumian began to whistle. With his hands thrust into his pockets, he was strolling leisurely along the village road.

So the parish priest really was having an affair with Madame Poiris.
Those outsiders looked like people of some status, so even the parish priest wouldn’t dare do anything to them. The priest would have to pay an enormous price to prevent rumors of his affair inside the church from spreading, right?
Ha, serves him right for coveting Aurore. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a very long time…

Muttering to himself, Lumian arrived at a house located on the village outskirts. This semi-basement two-story house had a combined living room and kitchen on the first floor, containing an oven and a sizable fireplace.

“Aurore! Aurore!”

Lumian called for Aurore as he ascended the stairs. But no one answered his call. The three rooms and one bathroom on the second floor already had their doors open.

Lumian continued searching the house but couldn’t find his sister. After a moment’s thought, he reached the end of the hallway, climbed the ladder placed there, and went up to the roof.

Sitting in the center of the orange roof shrouded in darkness was a person. That person, sitting with knees hugged, was quietly gazing up at the night sky.

The woman, strangely beautiful, possessed abundant, long blonde hair, pale blue eyes, and finely carved features. With her serene expression and sparkling eyes focused on the night sky, she looked just like a statue.

Lumian silently approached and sat beside her. He tilted his head slightly, looking toward the distant forest, and for a while listened to the sound of the wind passing through the trees.

How much time passed? The woman, raising her arms, stretched without a care for appearances.

“Aurore, I don’t really understand if the scenery here is so magnificent that you have to come up to the roof so often.”

Lumian said.

“Call me ‘Sister’!”

Aurore bent her finger and lightly thumped Lumian on the head with her knuckle.

Subsequently, she sighed, and her expression darkened.

“A philosopher once said, there are only two things in this world worthy of awe: the moral law within, and the starry sky above.”
Lumian, looking at his sister’s somewhat gloomy face, deliberately laughed and said,
“I know the answer to that! It was said by Emperor Roselle!”
“Pfft…”

Aurore laughed out loud.

Then, sniffing the air, she lifted her pretty golden eyebrows.

“You’ve been drinking again!”
“This is what’s called social life.”

Lumian seized the moment to tell her what had just happened.

“I met three outsiders…”

Aurore laughed as if she couldn’t help it.

“I’m worried the parish priest might get so shocked he catches some illness.”

The next moment, her expression turned quite solemn.

“Lumian, don’t mess with the parish priest again. He can’t do anything to me. If a new priest comes, it’ll be even more troublesome.”
“But I really dislike him…”

Before Lumian could finish his sentence, Aurore stood up. She looked down at her brother and smiled.

“Now then. It’s time for bed, my little drunkard brother.”

Simultaneously, Aurore swung her hand, scattering silver powder. Then she began to float upward and, like a small bird, slowly descended from the roof and entered a second-floor window.

Watching the scene quietly, Lumian shouted urgently,