Working at a Haunted Mansion Chapter 31

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Aiden suddenly spoke.

[I honestly want to tell you to throw it away right now.]

“That might be a little hard to do.”

Lily was startled. Aiden looked like he truly meant it.

Fortunately, instead of pushing the idea, he stared coldly at the ring and said,

[Of course. Julius’s soul might still be useful.]

Lily quickly agreed, worried Aiden might change his mind.

“Exactly! If we think about how shady His Majesty was acting, then he must be involved in something, and we have to find out what. Maybe we can figure out how it works using the ring.”

Both Wolfram and Julia seemed to agree with her. But Aiden still looked grim.

[Lily, the real issue is your safety. I can’t communicate with Julius right now, so someone else has to reach out to him. And that someone is clearly going to be you. Whether I like it or not.]

He looked at Lily seriously.

[But even just having it for a short while has already brought you danger. We have to solve that problem first. If anything worse happens to you, I won’t be able to bear it.]

At his heartfelt words, Lily’s eyes widened.

‘C-can he say stuff like that with other people around? Oh, wait, I’m the only one who can hear him. Still, what kind of person just… says things like that…?’

As Lily stared blankly, Wolfram asked what they were talking about. Lily snapped back to her senses and played the role of soul interpreter.

“His Excellency mentioned how dangerous the ring is. It’s not something we can throw away, but it’s also dangerous to keep it, so we should come up with a solution first.”

“At least the table hasn’t cracked.”

Julia spoke quietly.

At that, Lily looked at the table. Until now, she had been too focused on the ring to notice.

It had been sitting there for a while, but just as Julia said, the table hadn’t split or rotted. The ring simply lay there.

Wolfram spoke.

“Seems the ring’s effects are limited to the bearer.”

[Well, we don’t have to keep it on you. We can move it to a confined space where it’ll be easy to find if it tries to disappear.]

Lily added her opinion.

“Considering the Emperor might have emotional outbursts, it’d be best to keep it somewhere away from the main buildings. Somewhere where people won’t notice the commotion.”

Wolfram quickly picked out a suitable annex building. Once they discussed the transport method, the only thing left was how to have a meaningful conversation with Julius.

Lily described the Emperor’s soul’s reactions so far, then added,

“At least he screams or tries to run instead of destroying things. But honestly, even if we set up a proper place, I’m not sure we’ll be able to talk normally. So far, the only things I’ve heard are ‘Give me back my body’ and ‘My ring.’”

“Hold on. Let’s sort this out.”

Wolfram raised a hand to suggest.

“First, both His Majesty’s and His Excellency’s souls are bound to their respective protective items. That means they can’t leave the space those items are in, or stay far away from them. Correct?”

“And the shimmer in the protective item is synced in real-time with the state of the soul. Oh! Come to think of it, when I touched the shimmer, His Majesty reacted!”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, he suddenly grabbed his head.”

[Test it again.]

At the calm suggestion, Lily hesitated.

“U-um, His Majesty isn’t here though…”

[But the protective item is.]

“Are you okay with this?”

Aiden nodded. Lily carefully took out his rosary and placed it in her left palm. The shimmering light held her gaze.

She stared at it for a moment, then looked around.

“I’m about to test it using His Excellency’s item. Um, should someone else maybe—”

[You do it.]

“Miss Dienta should be the one.”

“He probably doesn’t want me to do it.”

All three responded at once. She figured this was how it would go.

She took a deep breath. It was just a rosary, but her hands were trembling.

“O-okay, here I go.”

Lily gently touched the pearl with her index finger and glanced at Aiden’s face. He furrowed his brows, looking slightly puzzled.

She grew bolder and rubbed the shimmer with her thumb, index, and middle finger.

[Wait.]

Aiden stopped her in a hurry. He covered his mouth, clearly flustered.

[Ah, so this is what it feels like. Hmm… Lily, let’s try not to touch that directly if we can help it.]

“Ah, did it hurt a lot?”

[It’s not painful—it’s just… weird. It feels like my soul is being touched. A little disorienting.]

Aiden’s face looked more than a little disoriented. He was smiling politely, but it was obvious he hadn’t fully recovered.

Lily quickly placed Aiden’s protective item far away from the ring.

[Ahem. Anyway, now that we’re sure the ring is completely synced with the soul, let’s try using that.]

He gestured at the rosary he couldn’t actually touch.

[The protective item holds back the soul against heretical spells. If we can strengthen the divine power within it, it might positively influence the connected soul. If Julius’s soul becomes purified and returns to a stable state, communicating with him should become easier.]

Lily asked Wolfram,

“Could we get another blessing from the High Priest for the protective item?”

“It’s impossible to bring the High Priest here. He never leaves the cathedral. But I’ll try to obtain some holy water. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to bring the item there directly.”

With that, all urgent matters were handled. They decided to monitor Julius’s condition for now and plan the next steps accordingly.

But realistically, even if Julius returned to his senses, it would be hard to expect him to cooperate willingly.

He was someone who screamed and ran just at the sight of Aiden. Cooperation wasn’t likely. They would need a strategy.

‘In books, what do people usually do in these situations…?’

Lily flipped through the only source of knowledge she had—literature.

From children’s fairy tales to those secret novels that bookworms passed around in secret. Among them, there were quite a few where the heroine tricked a powerful man.

And so, Lily remembered the strategy that usually had the highest success rate with male leads.

‘That’s it! A honey trap! I’ll use a honey trap!’

 

 

****

 

 

Unfortunately, Lily couldn’t carry out her grand scheme right away. With guests still staying at the duke’s estate, she couldn’t afford to do anything attention-grabbing.

Thankfully, the fake emperor left the day after he tore through the estate. It seemed he had decided to return the moment he came up empty-handed.

Though he had only stayed for three days, Lily felt as drained as if they’d been there for three years.

She had been constantly on edge, worried they might discover Aiden’s soul, or worse, barge into the servants’ quarters looking for the protective item.

Luckily, none of those fears came true, and the maids and servants of the estate were now busy cleaning up after the visitors’ departure.

Lily rolled up her sleeves and got to work on the office relocation she had been putting off. The job was to move the office from the main building to the east wing before major repairs began.

To be precise, she was organizing ledgers, books, and other items from the crates that filled the room.

But not as a maid. And here’s the surprising twist! She no longer wore a maid’s uniform!

After Wolfram relayed Aiden’s firm request to Angela, they agreed to reassign Lily from the maid department to be Wolfram’s assistant aide.

She now wore plain clothes and was given a private room right next to Julia’s in the east wing. Most of the staff now had to address her as “Miss Dienta.”

Lily worked diligently, doing her part in sorting out the office.

[I wish I could hurry and find my body, so I could help you.]

Startled by the sudden comment, she turned her head and saw Aiden wistfully stirring through the inside of a crate.

He had asked her before to help recover his body, but this was the first time he’d so clearly said he wanted it back. Lily was taken aback.

‘Is he really that desperate just because he can’t help with chores? Oh, wait—I’m not a maid anymore. Still, even if he had a body, it’s not like he’d actually be helping…’

She couldn’t exactly ask a duke to sort through boxes.

Still, Lily didn’t feel the need to ruin the sweet, deluded thoughts of a nobleman. It was enough just to remember that his heart was in the right place.

“You’ve already helped me plenty.”

She said, lifting a stack of books in her arms.

“I’ve received more than I ever dreamed of—more than I deserve.”

[More than you deserve? Compared to all your hard work, it’s nowhere near enough. Honestly, I wish I could just make someone else do this sort of task for you…]

“If you did that, my reputation would be ruined. People would say Lily Dienta’s gotten too proud just because she took off her apron.”

[I figured you’d say that.]

Aiden let out a small sigh. Then he bent forward slightly and reached into the crate, swiping at it uselessly.

The way he moved reminded Lily of a cat pawing at a ball of fluff, and she couldn’t help but let out a quiet laugh.