Surviving in the Cursed Mansion

Chapter 22: Two Royals (2)

“…Are you joking with me?”

“Does it look like I am?”

Asche’s crimson eyes were cold as ice.

Arsente felt a deep sense of unease at the transformation of her once-docile younger sister. 

That unease quickly rang alarm bells in her mind, compelling her to push the door open and flee.

Asche followed her sister out at a leisurely pace, soon witnessing the all-too-predictable reaction.

“W-What…! Why won’t it open? Did you lock the door while I wasn’t looking?”

“Since when do front doors lock from the outside?”

“Then, that means…!”

Arsente ran straight back to the room where she had changed. She grabbed a sturdy iron chair and hurled it with all her might at the window that overlooked the outside.

Bang!

The chair fell to the ground with a loud crash, utterly failing to break the glass. Undeterred, Arsente picked it up again and struck the window repeatedly with all her strength.

Bang! Bang bang! Crash!

Her frantic, repetitive actions continued until she had struck the window twenty times, leaving her panting. Finally, she had no choice but to accept it—this mansion was abnormal.

“This… This doesn’t make sense…”

“It does.”

“What…?”

“You’re lucky, though.”

At least she wouldn’t have to endure the agony of being chewed alive by the mansion’s monstrous jaws—her little sister had already taken care of that threat.

Asche muttered softly.

“Arschella… You know something, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Then tell me! What is this place?”

Arsente grabbed Asche’s shoulders and shook her.

“I…”

Thud!

Asche shrugged her off with a surprising amount of force and responded flatly, “Why should I go out of my way to explain it to you?”

“How can you say that?!”

“Quite easily.”

Asche’s fraught relationship with her elder siblings began at her birth.

The late emperor had four wives, including the empress and the imperial consort, but Asche’s mother had been a lowly dancer. This made Asche the daughter of a commoner and subjected her to constant scorn.

But fate wasn’t entirely cruel.

Although the late emperor didn’t publicly dote on her commoner-born mother, guilt and Asche’s status as his youngest child seemed to soften his heart. He cherished her greatly.

Asche had used this favoritism as a survival strategy, doing everything in her power to stay in her father’s good graces.

“…Which is why I ended up being the first to be cast aside.”

The exclusive affection she received only bred jealousy among her elder siblings, creating a vicious cycle.

Arsente was no exception.

She belittled Asche as a mere pet in social circles, spreading rumors about her. Some gossip painted Asche as a spoiled child indulging in luxury and vanity under the emperor’s protection.

Not wanting to be swayed by such nonsense, Asche had buried herself in her studies.

As a result, she became the only royal of her generation to graduate from the academy through official channels. 

This achievement further pleased the late emperor, perpetuating the cycle of envy.

“Haah… Tsk.”

Memories she had long buried resurfaced, like unwanted weeds sprouting anew, and she clicked her tongue.

She remembered standing vigil during her mother’s final moments, watching her rapidly decline. 

During the funeral, her siblings had tossed flowers onto the casket as if it were a chore and left without a care.

Such was the life of a princess.

The palace was a gilded cage, her haughty demeanor merely the ribbon adorning it. But beneath that facade, she was little more than an old, worn-out shoe wrapped in a fancy box.

That was all she had ever been.

“Don’t expect my help. I’ve never once believed we were family.”

“Are you seriously doing this?!”

“Yes, I am.”

Ignoring Arsente’s shrieking protests, Asche climbed the stairs.

A portrait of Belnacien, still beautiful despite the passage of time, gazed down at the quarrelsome sisters with an air of indifference.

Asche paused in front of the large portrait.

“…Why.”

Her lips trembled as she forced out the words.

“Why am I the one who has to be trapped in this wretched mansion?”

It felt ridiculous, venting her frustrations to a woman who had been dead for centuries.

“You’re the worst, you know that? You, the mistress of this cursed mansion. You probably didn’t even know what your husband was doing, did you? No wonder this family collapsed.”

Dark thoughts swirled in her mind, tightening their grip.

As a mere maid, Belnacien had seduced Helaise and taken the position of duchess. Life must have been so easy for her.

That’s probably why she could observe others’ suffering so indifferently.

Asche poured her negative emotions onto the dead woman’s portrait. If she didn’t, she might accidentally lash out at the butler instead.

With her head bowed low, Asche let out a sigh.

“…Huh?”

Her eyes widened. At her feet was something that shouldn’t have been there.

Slowly, she bent down and picked it up.

“…A coin? Why is this here?”

She tucked the coin into her leather pouch, her thoughts drifting to the past.

When she had first ascended to the second floor with the butler, there hadn’t been any coins lying around. 

She might have missed it if she had only glanced at the portraits and walked on, but they had lingered near the stairs for quite some time due to the butler’s sudden fatigue.

Even if Asche had overlooked it, the butler would have noticed it then.

“…Well, it’s a good thing, so I won’t overthink it.”

Considering the hardship she was enduring, even receiving 100 coins wouldn’t be enough compensation.

She decided to take the coin as a small token of repayment for her suffering.

Step, step.

Two sets of footsteps echoed in rhythm.

They belonged to Asche and the butler.

Click, click.

However, a third set of irregular footsteps followed behind them.

“I can’t believe I have to tread so carefully around them…!”

The footsteps belonged to Arsente, keeping her distance as she trailed after them.

Asche’s demeanor was entirely different from her time in the imperial palace, and Arsente, for all her flaws, wasn’t oblivious to this change.

The mansion itself felt deeply unsettling.

Even the portrait of the duchess she had seen earlier seemed eerie, its smiling face disturbingly ominous, prompting Arsente to quickly move past it.

“But… I’m so tired.”

The long chase in the pouring rain had drained her. Honestly, she felt like she needed a nap to recover.

“No, this isn’t the time to relax.”

Pinching her thigh, she shook off the drowsiness.

Thinking rationally, the most suspicious person here was the butler walking beside Asche. For someone to act as a servant in a place like this, they couldn’t be in their right mind.

But even an unhinged person might hold valuable information.

Resolving herself, Arsente quickened her pace to catch up with the pair.

“Hey, you, the butler of this mansion, right?”

“That is correct.”

The moment they exchanged this single line, Asche, who had been watching them with displeasure, gently tugged on the butler’s sleeve.

“Butler.”

“Yes, Asche.”

“You remember our agreement, don’t you?”

“…Understood.”

The promise not to betray her.

She was referring to the verbal agreement they had made in the first-floor lounge.

The butler couldn’t understand why she was bringing it up again now, but he let the uncertainty sit unspoken.

An awkward tension settled between them.

Still, Arsente didn’t give up and kept talking.

“Hey, what is this mansion, and why is it trapping us?”

“Didn’t Asche explain it to you?”

“She didn’t.”

The butler turned his head to stare at Asche, who puffed out her cheeks slightly before avoiding his gaze.

“…Sigh.”

The butler quickly realized that the relationship between these two sisters was far from harmonious.

He had initially assumed that they’d be relieved to find someone they could depend on, but it seemed their bond was fraught with complications.

“If you wish to escape this mansion, you must unravel its secrets.”

“Secrets?”

“Yes, secrets.”

The butler began explaining the overall situation to Arsente, including the relationships he had uncovered in the maids’ diaries and the chase with the hunting dog.

As the story progressed, Arsente’s face grew pale.

“This… This can’t be! It’s not just the atmosphere that’s creepy—this place is a real monster mansion?!”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“This is ridiculous…!”

Angered, Arsente recalled Asche’s earlier words:

[This isn’t the kind of place where you can maintain your refined composure.]

[You’re trapped, Sister.]

At the time, she had dismissed them as the ramblings of a mentally unwell sibling who had lost her grip on reality. But now, it was clear that those “ramblings” were the harsh truth.

Doubting her senses, Arsente pinched her thigh once more.

“Ugh!”

The sharp pain pulled her back into the grim reality she faced.

“First things first… I need to win over this butler. If he’s managed to survive in a place like this, he must know some tricks.”

Resolving to act pragmatically, Arsente struck up a conversation with him.

“So, how long have you been working here?”

“I didn’t realize it myself, but it seems to have been around 500 years.”

Both Asche and Arsente froze in shock.

“What?!”

“…A joke?”

Regardless of their reactions, the butler didn’t bother to clarify. His expression remained as unchanging as if he had forgotten how to smile.

Oddly, this silence lent his claim a strange credibility.

“Hah… Haha.”

Arsente let out an awkward laugh.

Her instincts told her that the butler was undoubtedly the strongest lifeline in this mansion.

Whether what he said was true or false, she decided to prioritize building rapport with him through casual conversation.

“Oh, by the way, you call Arschella by the nickname Father used to use, don’t you?”

“That’s correct.”

“Wow, you seem closer to her than I thought…”

Overhearing the exchange, Asche’s thoughts were struck like lightning.

“…Wait. She’s right. I completely forgot to question it—how does the butler even know my nickname?”

She cast a curious look up at the butler, but he showed no intention of answering.

“It’s surprising to see a servant addressing a royal by a nickname. You two must not have an ordinary relationship, huh?”

“I didn’t know her real name at the time.”

“Oh my, so you must have thought it was an alias.”

“…It wasn’t,” Asche muttered defensively in a low voice.

“Well, at least now you know her name. That’s good. She’s at the age where she should be considering marriage prospects, after all.”

Arsente’s remark was a subtle suggestion for the butler to use Asche’s real name. It was a reasonable opinion.

The butler turned to Asche, who was frowning, and politely addressed her.

“If my use of your nickname has made you uncomfortable, I sincerely apologize. If you permit it, I’ll call you by your proper name from now on.”

“NO!!!”

Asche immediately rejected the idea.

“…You can keep calling me Asche. If you change it now after using it so much, it’ll just get confusing.”

“As you wish.”

As soon as the butler replied, Asche tugged his sleeve even harder, pulling him closer to her.

Then she shot a sharp glare at Arsente.

Words carry power.

Both Asche and Arsente, as members of the royal family, understood this all too well.

The two sisters engaged in a subtle but fierce battle of wits, their words laced with unspoken meanings and hidden tension.