Chapter 8. Giving a Name
Thud.
Bella’s sword dropped to the floor.
At the same time, the intruder’s bloodied axe embedded itself into the wooden floor.
A moment of silence passed. The intruder coughed up blood.
“Urgh…”
“How much pain do you think those people suffered? When you hurt someone, you should remember—you could suffer just as much.”
Was she supposed to fight with chivalry against someone bleeding from a severed ankle?
Bella shrugged once and picked up her sword again.
When the intruder raised the axe high to strike, Bella calmly tapped his severed ankle with the tip of her sword.
Naturally, the axe veered off course and barely grazed her skin. As the axe hit the floor, the intruder lost balance and fell straight into a trap hidden beneath the floorboards. That’s how traps should be used—strategically, in combination.
If a trap could catch a bear, how could a mere human possibly survive?
Bella silently stared at the now-dead intruder below, then turned sharply.
“I should’ve learned swordsmanship properly.”
Her talent, clearly, was in cleaning up brutal messes like this one and making the mansion shine again.
She should’ve learned more from Baron Oshik when he was still her father. Even a wandering lowborn commoner must’ve had real skill and talent to earn a knighthood.
Bella yanked the embedded axe out of the floor in one clean motion.
“Sigh… I’ll have to call someone to fix the flooring. What a mess.”
She looked at the scratched floor and sighed softly.
She’d always heard owning a house was hard, but she didn’t know it’d be this hard. She’d barely bought her own place, and already an assassin had broken in, and now her floor had an axe gouge in it.
“Sigh. When am I going to clean all this up?”
Bella lifted her wistful gaze to the ridge glowing with dawn.
Even the view outside the window was breathtakingly beautiful. This mansion truly looked like a place where a duke once lived.
She couldn’t give it up. Bella had never seen a mansion so beautiful, even when working for viscount or count families.
“Are you here?”
As soon as Bella asked, a cold chill crept beside her.
So he was close. Relief quietly filled her chest.
“Do you wonder why I don’t leave this mansion? With the money I spent on this place, I could’ve bought a small house in a quiet village on the outskirts.”
“……”
“But do you know what I realized while working as a maid?”
“……”
“If I live like that, I’ll be doing menial work until I die. Crawling to the lord, struggling to pay skyrocketing taxes.”
Bella gave a bitter smile.
In a caste society, there was very little a commoner could do.
Or rather, that had been the case—until now.
If Bella’s predictions were correct, a great change was coming to the kingdom. And she had no intention of letting the opportunity slip by.
“I don’t want to grow old without a penny saved, hoping my children will pity me enough to care for me, marrying some man with ‘decent’ conditions like I’ve been sold off.”
Unconsciously, Bella tilted her head slightly toward the cold presence. Of course, she couldn’t touch him, and her head stopped in midair—but it somehow felt like she was resting her head on the ghost’s arm. A quiet smile formed on her lips.
She had grown used to the eerie chill that came when the ghost was nearby. Ghosts were better than people.
When she was with people, they felt like a pack of wolves, always eyeing her. But with the ghost, even the chill felt comforting. Maybe it was because he couldn’t speak.
“I read the newspaper every day, and lately something feels off. The usual checks and balances between royalists and the nobles—that’s always existed. But now, something’s different. Even the temple has joined the power struggle. The only side left to give them legitimacy is the people.”
“……”
“When the upper classes fight, do you know what phrase they always toss around the most? ‘Beloved citizens.’ It’s sickening, but ironically, this might be the only chance commoners get—to build a third power.”
“……”
“I’m going to build a new power here that all the existing powers will want to control. Starting from this mansion. Without fail.”
Bella had always thought her life was dull and tedious. If it were written in a book, it’d be no thicker than a collection of short quotes.
But it was time to add variation to that monotonous life. This mansion was her opportunity. If she were going to run away from an assassin, she wouldn’t have bought it in the first place.
Instead, her competitive spirit flared. What secrets were hidden in this mansion that powerful people would stoop to such dirty tactics?
That dead assassin was clearly not someone you could hire with just mediocre pay.
Someone powerful had killed everyone who ever bought this mansion, then blamed it on the ghost. But why? The answer must lie there.
“Ghost.”
“……”
The hallway reeked of blood. Pale blue dawn filtered in through the huge arched window. A woman stood in the light, calm and unwavering, her violet eyes gleaming.
“I heard when a ghost gives a person a name, it means they’re offering their soul. When a person gives their name to someone, it means trust.”
“……”
“My name is Bella.”
Ah.
The ghost stood frozen, silently staring at Bella.
Bella. Brave and naïve Bella.
When a person tells another person their name, it might be a sign of trust. But when a human tells their name directly to a spirit, it means something entirely different—
It means granting the spirit permission to themself.
It was something that should never be done.
The ghost’s lips slowly curved into a smile.
Unaware of this, Bella focused only on how to protect the mansion. She never imagined what would happen the following night.
* * *
“Alright then, Ghost. I’m heading out.”
In response, the flowers in the vase gave a little tremble. That seemed to be the limit of how much the ghost could interact with physical objects.
They’d tried writing, but even if he lifted a pen, he couldn’t write anything detailed like actual letters. A shame, but Bella had decided to be content with this much.
Today, she took a hired carriage from a nearby village into the capital. After stepping off, she spread her arms and took a deep breath.
“Mmm… That familiar sewer smell.”
The nauseating stench hadn’t changed. Maybe because of all the crazy things she’d experienced in the mansion, even the awful smell now felt a little nostalgic.
“Urgh…”
Or maybe not.
Bella quickly covered her nose with a handkerchief and hurried along, not forgetting to buy a newspaper on the way.
“Welcome.”
Ding! A cheerful bell rang as the shop clerk greeted her.
Bella often came to this peculiar shop to grow her savings.
“I’m here to make a bet with the shop’s master.”
At her words, the clerk’s eyes narrowed slightly. Fortunately, she’d visited before. The clerk soon smiled again and gestured toward the back door.
“May it please the master.”
“Thank you.”
Bella opened the indicated door and stepped inside.
Unlike the store’s flashy front, the back room was unexpectedly classic and tidy. A man wearing a mask gestured to the chair opposite him.
“It’s been a while, Miss Bella. Please, sit.”
“Thank you.”
This shop put a price on everything. They were known to have nearly all the information in the kingdom.
Information equaled wealth and power. No one knew the shop owner’s true identity—his face changed each time. People simply called him the “Misty Master.” The shop was even named Misty Trading Company.
“So, what’s this about making a bet with me?”
“First, let me show you this.”
Bella slapped a newspaper down onto the table. One headline stood out.
[Who Is the Woman Who Bought the Haunted Mansion?]
Without even glancing at it, the Misty Master let out a relaxed chuckle.
“Haha. I already know.”
“Aren’t you curious? About why I’m still perfectly fine?”
“Well, you don’t look entirely fine.”
He joked playfully—though partly in earnest.
The Misty Master already had a good deal of information on Bella. She’d once jumped into a river to save a drowning viscount’s daughter and had earned trust after being scouted by a count’s family.
It was rare to find a maid as capable as Bella. Most just struggled to get through each day.
Bella didn’t know it, but the Misty Master had already taken a great interest in her.
“Sorry, but I’m perfectly fine. More importantly, I heard everyone who’s lived in that mansion died. The longest anyone lasted was… three months?”
“Three months and a week,” the Misty Master gently corrected.
Bella ignored the correction and continued.
“How long do you think I’ll survive in that mansion?”
“Let’s see… Judging from now, maybe three months.”
He laughed again.
Bella frowned. Why did he keep laughing like that right to her face?
But she needed his help. She quickly erased her scowl and slammed her palm on the table with confidence.
“I’m going to survive six months.”
The Misty Master’s eyes sparkled with interest behind the mask.
The haunted mansion. Even he didn’t know what secrets it held.
And now Bella was boldly declaring she’d survive more than six months there.
Well, if there really was a ghost, anyone who didn’t run screaming at the sight of that madwoman might stand a chance. The bet was risky—but winnable.
After thinking, the Misty Master leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands.
“Hm? And what do you want if you win? And what do I get?”
Bella swallowed hard, then slowly opened her mouth—
