***
As if not allowing another intruder to visit, the Count, who had only moved aside enough for Rosha to pass by, closed the door immediately after the old woman had entered.
As Rosha looked around the dimly lit room, the sound of chains moving caused her to turn around. The Count had chained his room and fastened it tightly.
“Count……?”
She called out to the Count, cautious of his odd behavior, and the Count waved his hand and spoke.
“Don’t worry. I’ll let you out as soon as we’re done talking. Something that isn’t human might break in, I just locked the door……..”
“Yes, I understand.”
So far she didn’t understand his strange behavior up to this point, but after talking to him some more the story might be different.
Rosha sat down in the seat that the old woman led her to. Sadrak started to squirm in her pocket for a while, but Rosha calmed it down and waited for the Count to take his seat.
“So, where do you want me to start….”
The Count sat on the sofa, guarded by the old woman, and opened his eyes in frustration. Rosha observed him and led the conversation naturally.
“I heard you adopted a son.”
“Oh, yes. You’re still young, but you must have heard about the Beria case. At the time, I had lost both my wife and child when she died during childbirth. While I was wandering around in grief, I heard about the orphans who lost their parents in Beria.”
“So you went to visit those orphans.”
“At first I went to visit them to sponsor them……. There was a baby who was not even a year old. His golden eyes were truly adorable.”
“Is that your child now?”
The Count, who had been immersed in memories for a while, became afraid again.
“Yes. Besides, the person in charge of the adoption agency strongly advised me to adopt him, and I felt sorry for the child, so I chose to adopt him in the end.”
“But, as soon as you adopted your son, you start experiencing strange things?”
The Count shook his head.
“If it’s strange, it’s probably strange, but after I brought the boy home… ..I slept well.”
“…….”
“After the loss of my wife, my days of insomnia disappeared. Plus, I didn’t have to light the stove to feel the warmth in the house. It was also centered around the place where the child stayed.”
“Now, when did you start to become afraid of your son?”
“He was about three years old, I think. He started drawing pictures.”
Before Rosha could ask to see it, the Count beckoned, and the old woman brought out a bunch of papers from a drawer with a sweeping gesture.
“These are the drawings the boy started to make when he was three years old.”
When she received the painting, Rosha looked at it calmly.
Indeed, it was a bit eerie for a little child to have drawn it.
The margins were painted so black that she couldn’t see the white part of the paper, and the dozens of shining eyes made it seem as if someone was really watching. Rosha looked through the papers.
In the second painting, bright red rainwater was engulfing the earth. People were dying in the red rainwater.
In the third painting, several people were surrounded by swords pulling out their own hearts, and in the fourth painting, there was a tall tower. The tower towered so high that it was obscured by the clouds, and upon closer inspection, the architecture was made from people’s bones.
Rosha flipped through the papers with an increasingly swift hand.
In the fifth picture, a boy and a girl with quite a height difference were depicted. Both had brown hair, and the girl was holding hands with the boy with her hair braided in pigtails. It was an ordinary picture, but it didn’t take away the eeriness. Rosha moved on to the next one. Then she saw that the boy in the painting was alone and bleeding. Red blood was flowing from the boy’s stomach.
Why?
The boy in the painting looked somewhat familiar to Rosha.
Rosha also tried to pass the painting to the next one. But after seeing the bottom part of the next one, Rosha was hesitant to continue to look at the entire picture.
She could see the tail of a snake.
“Is there a problem?”
“…… No, it’s nothing.”
After a moment’s hesitation, the Count asked, and Rosha pretended to be unconcerned and looked at the next picture again.
Then, as expected, it was a painting of the demon, Ramia, with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a snake, appeared.
“…….”
Her fingers began to tremble. But Rosha held her nerves and turned to the next page.
A girl with brown pigtail hair and a girl with long blond hair were running away from Ramia, hand in hand.
And the next picture…….
The pigtail hair girl died.
Rosha looked roughly through the paper, not hiding her frustration. Then, on the next page, there was a picture of the blonde girl laughing as if the edges of her mouth were being torn off.
Rosha didn’t stop and flipped through the pictures. But in the next picture, and the next, and the next, there were still strange pictures, but no more pictures of Ramia and the boy and the girls.
“Aren’t they creepy?”
“…….”
“At first, I thought he wanted attention……. But at some point, people around the child began to die. The reasons were different. People who had laughed and said they were happy the day before committed suicide the next day, or they might fall to their death on a flat surface they hadn’t even slipped on…. ..Not only humans, but also animals, if he touches them, they won’t eat, they’ll hang around for a while, get sick, and starve to death…..”
“I heard there was also an attack by the demons.”
“As expected p, you knew it too.”
“I heard about it from my superior.”
“I thought it wasn’t the child’s fault, so I figured it was okay. Although the monster attack reduced the number of troops. But what I can’t stand is when I feel like my child has a problem.”
“What else happened?”
At Rosha’s question, the Count wrapped his arms around him and began to tremble.
“Once, I was angry at the child’s creepy behavior. But it was that night. I was in the middle of sleeping when I felt a strange sensation and looked up to see one of my old knights plunging a sword into me.”
The Count unbuttoned his shirt with trembling hands, exposing the shoulder area.
“This wound is from that day. His eyes were dazed, as if he was being controlled by something. I tried to avoid him, and he jumped out the window and killed himself.”
“…….”
“The moment I realized that the child’s special ability might turn into an attack on me, I became very afraid of him.”
Rosha was trying to listen to the Count’s words, but she couldn’t help but console herself in her heart.
That picture she saw earlier was just a coincidence. Noah told her so. The evil will play tricks on them to make sure they can’t find the child of God.
Maybe that painting was one of those tricks. She reminded herself that she will be looking for Lily soon, and she will not be fooled by the tricks of the demons.
It was about observing and protecting the candidate who might be the Son of God. It was on the premise that this mission would be a priority that Noah sent Rosha on this mission. It was only by successfully completing the task assigned to her that she was able to go and find Lily. And yet, she couldn’t afford to be so devil-may-care anymore.
“Wasn’t there anything else?”
Count Baldwin turned red and blue at Rosha’s question. Perhaps now the Count was hesitating whether to bring up the subject he least wanted to.
Rosha said with strength in her voice.
“You must tell me everything, and not leave it out.”
At that moment, the Count made a strange noise, as if he was about to cry out.
“My deceased wife visits me every night…!”
“…….”
“I can see the dead knight who stabbed me walking down the hallway, and every night my dead wife lies down beside me…..I haven’t slept peacefully for just one day!”
There was no need for further delay.
Rosha asked the Count to let her see the boy. The Count nodded with the same fearful and hopeful expression and beckoned to the old woman.
“Show her the child.”
“Yes, Master.”
When Rosha got up along with the old woman, the Count hurried forward and unbolted the lock and chain, and opened the door. Rosha bowed to the Count out of courtesy and left the room.
“That boy….!”
Just as she was about to walk down the hallway, Rosha turned her head at the voice behind her. The Count looked horrified, and said in a small, insinuating mumble.
“Do anything…..”
It might have been a misunderstanding, but it sounded as if he wanted Rosha to kill the boy.
When Rosha did not answer, the Count hurriedly closed the door again, perhaps interpreting silence as positive. The sound of chains could be heard again inside the door. Rosha continued on with the old woman.
“Is the reason why there are no people in the Count’s castle because of the rumors about the little boy?”
“Yes. The only ones left are the Count and myself.”
“I guess you serve this family for a long time.”
Rosha talked to the old woman to get rid of the awkwardness because there was quite a long way to meet the Count’s son. The old woman, with an indifferent look on her face, was happy to engage Rosha in conversation.
“I was looking for a job for a long time, and I was just lucky enough to get one here. I’ve been working here for about ten years now, since the Young Master was adopted.”
“Aren’t you afraid of the Young Master?”
“pfft!”
“……what is it?”
The sudden appearance of the old woman suddenly bursting into laughter made Rosha curious. And it was almost a mocking laugh, so she even wondered.
What on earth could be so funny?
“Young Master….”
The old woman’s laughter didn’t last very long, but it was rather unnatural and abruptly cut off.
The person who had been laughing just a moment ago was looking at Rosha with an expressionless face.
“He is the most beautiful, precious and holy being on earth.”
“…… What?”
“If you follow the rear garden all the way there, you’ll find the annex, so you’ll be on your own from here.”
“…….”
“Young Master is a sensitive person and doesn’t like to be approached by a lot of people, so I’ll leave you to it.”
Even though Rosha couldn’t calm her feelings of surprise at the old woman’s sudden change in attitude and behavior when she spoke about the little boy, the old woman just smiled and left.
“All the candidates born in Beria that year had strange powers. Don’t let a mere thing like this give you the illusion that he is something special.”
Maybe that old woman was also playing a trick of the devil using the child.
Feeling emotionally upset from the first day, Rosha consoled herself and headed to the annex along the garden path.
Rosha moved forward, leaving her footprints in the snow-covered field. It was a dazzling landscape because the sky was white all around and the earth was white as well. As she gazed at the white landscape, she saw a small shadow above her head.
Feeling a presence, Rosha looked up and saw a snow-white dove passing by.
It was about that time when the figure was like a picture and captured her gaze.
Sadrak, who had been buried in Rosha’s coat all day, stuck his head out.
“Sadrak!”
And without enough time to catch him, Rosha ran down the snow field. It was always in Rosha’s arms. Maybe it was the snow, or maybe it was the wonder of his first sight, but Sadrak didn’t even stop at Rosha’s call, he just kept jumping around.
Coincidentally, Sadrak headed to the annex like the dove.
“Wait, Sadrak!”
Rosha had no choice but to start running to catch Sadrak. Rosha ran in the same direction to catch the mischievous white wolf that had already disappeared into the distance. When she finally reached the annex, Rosha’s legs spontaneously stopped.
Several pigeons were gathered in a circle in one place. They were surrounding a boy.
Then the pigeon that sat on the boy’s head flapped its wings and fell to the ground. Still, the pigeons entrusted their faces to the boy’s hands and expressed their affection by rubbing the boy’s cheek.
The boy with silver hair and golden eyes smiled brightly like a work of art.
He looked like a child angel in the torchlight.
Doves were not the only animals that approached the angelic boy. There was also Sadrak, the white wolf. The boy cautiously reached out his hand, tilting his head at the appearance of the strange beast.
It was then.
“Not only humans, but animals as well, if the boy touched them, they won’t eat, suffer from depression for a while, and starve to death…”
Rosha remembered what Count Baldwin had said.
“No, Sadrak!”
At Rosha’s desperate cry, the boy’s hand stopped approaching Sadrak.
Instead, the boy’s eyes reached Rosha.
The boy’s golden eyes grew larger as they met Rosha’s startled eyes.
Then.
“Rosha!”
He jumped up from his seat and ran towards Rosha. That too while calling out her name which she hadn’t even introduced herself.
Rosha tried to take a step back, but the boy, who had not hesitated, was faster.
The boy plunged into her and hugged Rosha’s waist tightly.
“I missed you so much!”
Rosha swore to the heavens that she had only met the boy for the first time today.
However, as soon as they met, the boy, who knew Rosha’s name, whispered to her in a wistful voice.
“I was sure you would come to see me one day…….”