***
“Excuse me, hey……You…….”
Rosha had a few words prepared in advance.
‘Hello, kid. I’ve heard that you have special powers. I am the one the Count has called here to help you. Can we talk?’
However, all the words she had prepared were useless.
Due to Sadrak’s unexpected escape and the boy’s unexpected behavior.
Rosha just looked down at the little head of the boy holding her helplessly. Perhaps sensing her gaze, the boy looked up and smiled, resting his chin on Rosha’s stomach.
He was the child who had made the Count into a coward who feared his adopted son.
This was the child who painted bizarre pictures, dark and strange and full of blood.
In fact, Rosha had unknowingly defined this child as a very gloomy child. That was why she was so puzzled by the appearance of this adorable boy who was the opposite of what she expected. With his white skin, matched this pure white landscape, and his golden eyes as clear as jewels, the child reminded her of a snow fairy in a fairy tale.
“Can you let go of me first?”
“Yes.”
Even the boy’s surprisingly straightforward fall was puzzling. It was a situation Rosha didn’t expect.
At that moment, Sadrak, who hadn’t come no matter how much she called, ran quickly to Rosha’s feet. Quickly grabbing Sadrak out of the boy’s reach, Rosha took a couple of steps away from him.
“Eh-hem. How do you know my name?”
“I saw you.”
“What did you see?”
“Today is the day we meet like this!”
“….. Well, yes. Well, first of all….”
It was the kind of dialogue that would take a long time to talk over a cold snowfield. First, Rosha regained her composure and later introduced herself to the boy.
“I don’t know how much you know, but I’m the one who’s here to help you. And you are …..?”
“I’m Joshua von Baldwin.”
“…… Joshua, it’s nice to meet you.”
Rosha asked the little boy to shake her hand. Joshua took it cautiously, looking down at Rosha’s hand softly, unlike the way he had looked when they first met.
“It’s very cold here right now. Can I go inside?”
Shivering lightly as Rosha tucked Sadrak into her coat, and Joshua nodded with an embarrassed chuckle.
“Follow me!”
Joshua walked ahead of her and Rosha followed, heading inside the annex. Once inside, she tried to feel the special energy coming from this place, but she felt nothing.
Likewise, no evil energy could be sensed, except for the fact that it was so uninhabited. Still, she didn’t know if she could feel the sacred atmosphere yet either.
Is it that the boy’s innate atmosphere is mysterious and makes her feel that way, or is this momentum genuine…?
Rosha followed after carefully observing the back of the boy, who even looked cute.
It was a problem for the boy, the Count’s family no longer had many servants and the boy avoided contact with others, suddenly the boy did not look like a nobleman and seemed to live here in complete isolation.
Crossing the cold stone wall, the boy opened the door and entered the room. Following him, Rosha looked around inside and saw that it seemed to be the boy’s bedroom.
The fireplace only had firewood in it, but there was no fire at all, so the room was cold without much difference from the outside. With a light hand gesture, Rosha brought her hand close to the fireplace and lightly snapped her fingers. Then the fireplace, which had been empty, lit up.
“Wow!”
Leaving the curious boy behind, Rosha approached the bed and dragged a thick blanket, which looked old and unwashed, across the floor. She then draped the comforter over Joshua’s body, who sat down on the couch absent-mindedly. It was practically a tossing motion of the blanket, though.
Joshua struggled as he swam under the covers that covered his head, and finally managed to pull his face out.
Not paying attention to the child’s cute gesture, Rosha brought over a rocking chair in front of the fireplace and sat down across from Joshua.
“As I said before, I’m the one who came to help you. I heard you had a …… little problem.”
“……..”
“Of course I want to talk about your condition. Can you tell me if you’re ready to answer me honestly?”
Rosha was normally blunt when dealing with children, even though Joshua was only five years younger than her.
However, Rosha tried her best to be nice to the child.
What if the child became mischievously stubborn or uncooperative here, Rosha was terribly worried. But Joshua, who had been staring up at Rosha so intently that such worries overwhelmed her face, answered cheerfully with a straightforward nod.
“Ask me anything!”
Rosha looked relieved. Now that the child had agreed, there was no need to hold back any more questions.
“How did you know my name?”
Joshua looked around for a moment at Rosha’s question. He didn’t seem to be thinking about what to say.
“We’re the only ones in the room, what are you looking for?”
Rosha followed him and looked around the room, but she didn’t know what Joshua was looking for.
After a moment, Joshua whispered quietly as he leaned his upper body toward Rosha.
“They showed it to me.”
“They? No way… …Are they demons?”
“…… Who could they be?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know what they look like?”
“It’s …just black.”
“What?”
“It’s a human figure, but it looks black like a shadow.”
While listening to Joshua’s reply, Rosha kept thinking in her head.
And if it’s them, it’s not just one, it’s many.
Are the shadowy forms of demons grouped together?
The answer, however, came quickly.
As far as the Golden Dawn Society knew, such a demon did not exist.
“How long have they been with you?”
“Since the beginning. That’s why I thought they could see you.”
“Do you talk to them?”
“I’ve tried a few times, but they never answered me. Instead, they just tell me what they want to say.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a bad word.”
“What kind of bad words? Are they still whispering them to you?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“Die, you’re no good.”
“……..”
“……Say.”
The boy’s rough words and actions, which had come suddenly and without warning, startled Rosha’s confused mind for a while.
“It whispered as if it was its feeling. It’s not mine.”
Pretending to be unconcerned and keeping her expression in check, she continued to listen to what Joshua was saying.
“If someone hurts me, I whisper, “I want to kill them,” just like I would if they hurt me. So many times people whisper that to me that I sometimes think it’s how I feel.”
Crackle.
Joshua’s story continued in the quiet room, where the only sound was the fire burning in the fireplace.
“I can’t stop thinking about it. I really want that thing to die.”
“When you think about it, what changes occur?”
“The object of my thoughts really dies.”
“…….”
“I didn’t mean to hurt the animals either. I just touched my horse, rabbit, and dog to comfort them when they were depressed, and they died. But I didn’t force myself to touch them. The animals like me, and they come to me.”
“…….”
“I’m not sure if it’s something they’ve done or something I’ve done. People tell me I’m weird. They say I’m scary and give them goosebumps. Are you scared too, Rosha?”
“Yes.”
Rosha answered at once, without hesitation.
Joshua’s eyes visibly shook as he was shocked by Rosha’s firm answer. In order to win this child’s heart, it would be right to pretend not to be afraid. However, Rosha wasn’t going to lie.
“Then, when I hugged you earlier..… It must be uncomfortable.….”
“We’ll do this one thing right.”
“…… What is it?”
“I have an eagle and a wolf.”
As soon as the words were finished, Sadrak jumped out of Rosha’s coat.
“Don’t touch them. Because the last thing I want is to lose something that is mine, be it human or animal.”
“What about Rosha?”
“Me ……?”
“Shall I not touch Rosha too?”
“I don’t mind.”
“But you’re afraid of me.”
“I was just afraid you’ll harm the animals.”
“What if I want to hug Rosha?”
“You can hug me if you want to.”
It would be troublesome for the child to attach to her, but she was inclined to be gullible, since she had come in the name of protection anyway.
To Rosha, Joshua was an object that she could use in the name of her mission and her stay here to find Lily, nothing more and nothing less. However, the boy, who had no idea how Rosha was treating him, looked very touched.
Joshua came a little closer, with the covers draped over his body, and hugged Rosha. Rosha pulled the boy away with a vague gesture and forced him to sit there again.
“…I feel pressured, so don’t stare at me. My question is not over yet.”
“Okay.”
Joshua quickly bowed his head when he was told not to look.
She didn’t mean to do that, but are kids at that age usually extreme?
Rosha shook her head and asked the question she had finally tried to ask.
“You said you knew about me beforehand because they showed it to you.”
“Yes.”
“What did they show you about me?”
Rosha remembered the painting of Joshua that the Count had shown her. At first she wasn’t sure, but when she saw Joshua, who knew her from the beginning, she was convinced. That picture was about herself and Lily.
‘Then maybe he knows where she is.’
She was almost certain that Lily was at the orphanage here, but she still wanted to be sure, just in case.
‘It’s strange how the shadows showed this boy about me and Lily…….’
It was not too late to talk to Noah about it later, through Kashin. It was a pity that she couldn’t get Noah on the phone, since this was a foreign country of all places.
“Rosha……”
Finally, Joshua opened his lips.
Rosha gulped nervously.
“She was very fond of me.”
“Oh…..?”
But Joshua’s words came out unexpectedly.
“She patted me on the head and smiled gently. She even said I was cute.”
“Me?”
It didn’t really fit with Rosha’s personality.
“And then she hugged me and cried.”
“…….”
“No one has ever cried for me before……”
“Stop.”
It was hard to listen to more. The shadows seemed to instill vain delusions in this child.
“Other than that, is there anything else?”
“…… I’m not sure. It’s always a jumble of things that they show me….”
“That’s fine.”
It would be better to go look for Lily herself than to look for clues about her from Joshua.
Without hesitation, Rosha stood up and turned away.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to go out for a bit.”
Rosha said casually, looking down at the boy who was sitting there under the covers before leaving the room.
“I’m going to stay here for the time being, so….”
The boy’s face, which had looked sad, immediately broke into a smile.
Rosha closed the door without giving Joshua a side glance.