Chapter 13
“So Duke Blanchard killed someone named Malone, then killed the elders, then even the servants who worked in the mansion, and what?”
With her chin propped on her hand, Lizzy asked the question indifferently. Ben, the traveling merchant, who had just finished a ninety-minute deep-dive analysis titled The Tragedy of House Blanchard: Where Did They All Go?, launched right back into his explanation without even taking a breath.
“He buried them near the garden pond! I’m telling you, it’s true. Willard, the guy who used to work there as a gardener, told me so!”
“……”
“Apparently the plants near the pond grow twice as fast as others every time something like that happens! They must be absorbing nutrients from the corpses! As soon as Willard realized that, he resigned on the spot!”
Ben thumped his chest in frustration at Lizzy’s silence.
“I swear it’s true! Anyway, after that, all traces of the color purple disappeared from the territory. Isn’t that weird? His eyes turned purple and the man, already like a devil, became even more devilish.”
Lizzy raised an eyebrow.
‘Hmm, rather than a devil…’
[Wasn’t he a farmhand?]
“Whoa! That scared me!”
Startled by the sudden cawing sound, Ben looked toward the crow, only to tilt his head in confusion. The pitch-black crow was still perched calmly on its perch, as if it hadn’t made a sound.
And the healer before him didn’t look surprised at all, which made Ben awkwardly continue.
“Anyway, he supposedly hates being touched so much that he fired a servant just because their hand brushed his while serving food. The only reason he didn’t cut them down on the spot was because the other servants risked their lives to stop him.”
I heard that from Willard too.
He added that part in a small voice, but then fell silent.
“……”
Lizzy said nothing. She just kept fingering the purple gemstone in her hand, lost in thought.
‘So it’s because of the side effects.’
In the end, the original story hadn’t changed.
Cyrus Blanchard had become the villain as planned, spreading fear and dread among people.
If things continued as they were, soon the protagonist of the story—the Empire’s First Princess, Helena Leighton—would visit his estate to issue a warning.
Helena, the silver-haired beauty, would trigger Cyrus’s obsessive madness.
Then, all the evil he committed in the name of love would serve as the reason for his exiled cousin, Evan Blanchard, to return.
And once Helena and Evan met by chance and their true love blossomed as they fled Cyrus’s obsession, Cyrus Blanchard would eventually…
“……”
Lizzy’s fingers, still playing with the purple gem, suddenly froze as if she had made a decision.
“Well, anyway…”
Meanwhile, Ben, who had expected her usual reaction (“Oh my goodness! What a horrible person!”), looked a little deflated and opened his mouth with a sigh.
“I’m just saying you probably shouldn’t buy that gem…”
“I’ll take it.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll buy it.”
Lizzy’s reply left Ben dumbfounded.
“Wait, were you even listening to me—?”
“I’ll give you all the sword beans outside.”
“Huh?”
Ben’s pupils rolled around in shock at the unexpected offer.
He looked like he was seriously trying to understand what she meant.
“……!”
And when realization finally struck him, he jumped up as if hit by lightning, scrawled something on a slip of paper tucked into his ledger, and handed it over.
A receipt.
There was no need to calculate what the better deal was.
To be able to get all those sword beans in exchange for a worthless purple gemstone—!
Ben was a fairly honest merchant, but he wasn’t dumb enough to kick a blessing away.
“I’ll throw in a few small gems too.”
Feeling slightly guilty, Ben handed over a few smaller stones and quickly began stuffing the remaining gems on the table into a small cloth pouch, his face flushed with excitement.
Watching calmly, Lizzy spoke in a measured voice.
“I’m not going to cancel the deal, so relax.”
“Yes, of course! Who wouldn’t trust a healer like you? I’m completely calm right now!”
“……”
He sure had a long-winded way of saying he wasn’t calm.
Lizzy clicked her tongue and slowly stood up to help when—
“Whoops!”
Ben’s bag, which he had just packed, fell to the floor.
His hands were shaking so badly from excitement that the whole thing spilled.
“Oh no, look at this mess…!”
“I told you to calm down.”
Shaking her head at Ben as he frantically scooped up scattered gems, Lizzy bent over slowly.
But it wasn’t just gems that had fallen out of the bag.
“What’s with all these papers…?”
Picking up a bunch of papers scattered across the worn wooden floor, Lizzy suddenly fell silent after reading a few short lines.
They were announcements.
In other words—
“This is from House Blanchard, isn’t it…?”
“Oh, the gardener job posting?”
Still prying a small gem from between the floorboards, Ben replied offhandedly.
“I told you, didn’t I? Willard quit. The steward asked me to post these around all the town squares and gave me a little pay. Since I’m always on the road anyway, I said sure.”
“……”
“But honestly, I think it’s a waste of time.”
Standing up after collecting the last gem, Ben added,
“I mean, who in their right mind would agree to work as a live-in gardener in a mansion where corpses turn up daily? The steward’s just wasting his energy. He’d have better luck forcing a strong servant to change jobs.”
“……”
Among Ben’s rapid-fire words, only one phrase stuck in Lizzy Atkins’s mind:
‘Live-in gardener.’
In other words—
‘A job where I can observe Cyrus Blanchard all day.’
“……”
Ben, tilting his head at Lizzy who was staring at the notice, spoke curiously.
“Healer?”
“Huh?”
“I’d like that too, if you don’t mind.”
His gaze was fixed on the notice in her hand.
“Oh, right.”
Nodding, Lizzy handed him the stack of announcements.
“Here you go.”
“Thanks! Well, I’ll be off then. The sword beans—”
“I told you. Take them all.”
As Ben’s face lit up with joy, Lizzy added,
“Oh, and if there’s space left in your cart, you can grab some of the pumpkins lying around too.”
“P-p-pumpkins too?”
“If you find any other crops in the field you like, feel free to take them.”
“Oh my…”
Ben barely stifled a scream with his fist and thanked her repeatedly in a voice a pitch higher, before leaving the cabin.
After a few grunts and huffs, the cart loaded with giant produce rattled its way down the mountain.
As the sound faded, Lizzy turned her gaze back to the purple gemstone.
“……”
[……]
A low silence filled the cabin.
And finally, the one to break it was Garrett, asking sincerely:
[Can we grow tomatoes in the mansion too?]
At the 17th square, Ben posted another notice and realized it was his last.
“That’s odd.”
He rummaged through his now-empty bag.
“There should be one more. The steward never makes mistakes.”
There were 18 squares in the Blanchard territory. The steward, who knew that better than anyone, always gave Ben 18 announcements.
But with one square left, the bag was empty.
“Did I drop one while coming down the mountain?”
Ben tried to recall the road he’d traveled, then shrugged.
“Oh well. No one’s going to apply anyway, right?”
Exactly.
Stories about the horrific mansion had spread throughout the region, thanks to Willard’s drunken gossip.
No amount of money would convince someone to work there.
“Who’d be crazy enough to apply for a gardening job in a place with corpses buried in the backyard?”
So Ben decided not to post the final notice at the last square.
Content with his decision, he headed home as the sun dipped low.
He thought of the trade he made with the healer a few days ago. The missing notice no longer bothered him.
To think he got all those huge crops for just one unsellable purple gem!
“Such generosity… that, uh, generous…”
Trying to recall the unusual yet kind person who gave him such a deal, Ben’s expression grew muddled.
The image of the cheerful, odd individual was already fading from his mind like cotton candy dissolving in a stream.
“Generous… uh, who was it again?”
Now, all he could remember was what was written in his ledger.
“…Was I charmed by a witch?”
Muttering to himself, Ben hurried home with a worried look.
A strange thought struck him—maybe it was all some mischievous trick by a wizard.
Bang!
He opened the storage shed and sighed with relief.
The massive produce was still there.
“Well, it doesn’t really matter who they were, does it?”
As long as the crops he got in return were safe, that was all that mattered.
But then Ben frowned slightly.
“These past few days really have been weird.”
A lucky trade, the missing notice, and a face he couldn’t recall.
As he thought back on the strange events, Ben clutched his head and headed to bed.
“If you don’t understand it, best not to try.”
Muttering that to himself, Ben had no idea—
That something even more incomprehensible would happen exactly one week later.
“Who’s applying?”
“The gardener! For Duke Blanchard’s estate!”
“Seriously? Who in their right mind would enter that mansion after hearing Willard’s story?”
“I don’t know, but she didn’t seem like a local. They say she had carrot-colored hair. Carrot! Have you ever seen such a hair color?”
“Me? Well…”
At that moment, something flickered in Ben’s mind, but the memory disappeared instantly.
“…Of course not!”
It truly was strange.
