Chapter 13

Chapter 13

“Of course. Things like this are hard to come by.”

The world had to be going mad. This hideous thing was that expensive? More than a diamond? I sullenly studied the finger I was holding.

The finger I’d wanted to toss away felt different now that I’d heard Zelda’s explanation.

A strong halo seemed to radiate from the shriveled finger.

Dazzled by that brilliance, I slowly closed my eyes and opened them again.

Resting on that pointless velvet cushion, it strangely looked like the finest of treasures.

So this was the placebo effect I’d only heard about.

I had been holding the very edge of the cushion to avoid touching the finger as much as possible, but I quietly changed my grip and supported the cushion respectfully.

It was absolutely not because I was a snob. It was because the thing was worth more than a diamond.

That was the only reason.

“But Zelda, even at its best, it’s a human finger. Why is it so expensive?”

“It’s a witch’s finger, I’m telling you.”

“Sorry. I don’t know much about that kind of thing.”

“Goodness. You don’t know something this famous! Since you don’t, let me tell you. If anyone in the Empire so much as keeps the finger of the great witch Kirke , they’re safe from evil spirits. It’s a sort of absolute talisman.”

“An absolute talisman…”

“Kirke was a witch who also worked as an exorcist of evil spirits. She went missing half a century ago, leaving only her finger behind.”

“So then…”

Had Delia bought the expensive finger because of evil spirits?

“Goddess! We’ve done nothing wrong! Save us who suffer from the evil spirit!”

I suddenly remembered the maids in the dining hall praying to be saved from evil spirits.

Was the mansion really haunted?

It made sense. Otherwise, there was no way a finger could cost more than jewels.

In that case, even after buying the finger, had Delia been so uneasy that she fled in the night?

The damp, yin-heavy air I’d felt in the mansion might really have been because of ghosts.

‘Then somewhere in this mansion, there really is… a ghost…’

A sudden chill raised goosebumps on my skin.

“Um, well, Gretchen.”

“Yes?”

“I know it came out of your apron, but… could you possibly give me this finger?”

“No.”

The answer came out before I’d even thought.

I wasn’t the type to believe in evil spirits or ghosts. Still, wouldn’t it be good to have at least one talisman like this?

I’d been trying hard to ignore it, but something about this mansion felt off. The servants’ reactions in the dining hall had been unsettling, too.

Despite my refusal, Zelda doggedly pressed on.

“You seemed to find it disgusting earlier, so how about leaving it with me for a while?”

“It’s not disgusting. It’s lovable.”

“Don’t lie just because it’s expensive.”

“It’s true. I grew attached to it while looking at it.”

“To a severed finger.”

“Yes.”

If it turned out to be useless in the end, I could always resell it at a high price.

I take back calling it hideous. Let’s call it my Treasure Number One.

It was a bit disappointing that my first treasure after possessing this body was a shriveled finger.

‘And after looking at it with such horror all this time, she can say that without so much as a change of expression…’ Zelda shook her head in disbelief. After that, she urged me again and again to hand over the finger, but in the end she gave up in the face of my iron wall.

“Fine. Fine, all right. The finger is yours. First, let me give you your work. Originally, you and Marie were supposed to clean the hall together, but…”

Zelda glanced at Marie, who was still lying on the floor, and hastily changed course.

“The hall is so large that you couldn’t manage it alone. I’ll leave the hall to someone else. Gretchen, dust the lobby. The duster is in the storeroom, so be sure to take it. Take a cloth too. The dust might make you cough.”

“Will Marie be all right? She fainted a while ago and still hasn’t opened her eyes, so I’m worried.”

Marie was breathing, but she hadn’t regained consciousness. The longer she lay there, the more anxious I became.

When I cast a worried look at Marie, Zelda reassured me.

“I’ll take her to the infirmary. Don’t worry. Trust the Grand Duke’s household physician and wait. If you’re truly concerned, I’ll give you free time after your shift and you may go see her. Oh, and take the map too. It would be a disaster if you got lost.”

“Thank you, Zelda. For looking after Marie too. I’ll never forget this kindness.”

“If you truly want to repay me, why not hand over the finger?”

“Thank you for your help. I’ll cleanly forget this kindness.”

I politely thanked Zelda and headed for the storeroom to fetch the duster.

＊＊＊

A big house is nice to look at, but not for the person cleaning it.

If the house is twice as big, the cleaning is twice as much.

“When will this end…”

No matter how much I dusted, there was no end to this wretched dust. At first, even this work had been interesting in its own way. From the hotel lobby to the foot of the stairs, there were so many statues that they were a pleasure to look at.

It was like being in a museum or an art gallery, and above all, I marveled at how delicately the white marble had been carved.

Some statues even had muscles and tendons depicted like a real person’s, which startled me.

But that didn’t last long. Once I realized that all of those beautiful works of art were my workload, the fun was gone.

I dusted, and dusted, and dusted, and dusted the piled-up dust until I was simply worn out.

“There’s more. Again.”

After the war with the statues, the war with the portraits began. In the center of the lobby there were many pictures, and my task was to wipe the dust off the tops of the frames.

Among them was even a group photograph of the servants.

It showed the head cook, the kitchen maids, and the Head Maid in her younger days.

The servants’ photographs hung side by side along the very bottom on both sides, and the higher the frames hung, the more important the people seemed, as both the size of the frames and the finery of the clothes grew grander the higher I looked.

‘At this rate, might I even get to see Theodore?’

A picture of Theodore in his childhood. Theodore was a damned brat and stubborn as an ox, but I had to admit what was true. Theodore was a considerable beauty.

He was a beautiful boy even now, so how pretty must he have been when he was little?

For a beautiful boy like that, his childhood was clear even without seeing it.

Theodore with chubby cheeks. I swallowed hard.

He wasn’t someone I’d ever be connected to anyway, so I had no ulterior motive.

It was just… Isn’t loving beautiful things human nature?

I was absolutely not a lecher who only cared about faces. I wasn’t, but I couldn’t help being curious all the same.

Surely a little peek wouldn’t hurt. Looking while cleaning was perfectly legal.

At the thought of seeing a photo of young Theodore, my hands grew busy all on their own.

I stepped up the ladder one rung higher.

The moment I climbed up, what I saw was an enormous frame.

It was a portrait of an entire family. I could see a well-to-do couple and two small children. Judging by its being the grandest and largest, it was indeed the Theodore family portrait I’d been looking for.

I was secretly curious about the bald Grand Duke of the North, so I checked the Grand Duke’s face first.

Perhaps this was before his hair loss set in, because the Grand Duke had thick black hair. He wasn’t at the level of making me exclaim the way Theodore did, but still, the Grand Duke had a neat and handsome appearance of his own.

As expected, it didn’t stray from my prediction: black hair.

‘Right. That can’t be helped.’

Even if everyone else were blond, a “Grand Duke of the North” had to have black hair.

Say what you will about this novel’s genre being total garbage, it did at least get one cliché right.

Feeling a bit reassured, I shifted my gaze to the person beside the Grand Duke.

The person right next to him, arms folded, was a strikingly haughty beauty.

Her looks were so dazzling that I wouldn’t have noticed even if she wore large emerald earrings, and I forgot all about dusting.

The Grand Duchess seemed to like roses, because she was decked out in a dress and shawl printed with rose patterns.

Gazing at the glamorous Grand Duchess as if enchanted, I suddenly noticed something strange.

The Grand Duke had black hair and gray eyes, and the Grand Duchess had red hair and red eyes. But Theodore…

“Blond hair and blue eyes?”

Sensing that something was off, I hurriedly checked the other pictures.

Even going back several generations, there wasn’t a single person with blond hair or blue eyes.

Then there were two possibilities.

Either Theodore was adopted, or…