Chapter 15
Cyrus woke from a light sleep to loud noise coming from somewhere. His eyes, still heavy with fatigue, turned toward the window.
[……!]
[……!!]
Words like “my territory” and “get lost” drifted faintly on the wind.
“…….”
Cyrus raised an eyebrow at the odd choice of words—not exactly what you’d expect from an intruder—and slowly rose to walk over to the window.
What he saw was a flurry of motion in the distance—
“…A crow?”
He murmured in a slightly dazed voice.
Though his face remained as cold and sharp as ever, anyone who had observed him long enough would easily notice the surprise flickering in his violet eyes.
And for good reason: the place from which he had heard voices just moments ago… had no one there.
At least, no humans.
All that remained were a crow flitting frantically above a garden platform and a small puffed-up bird aggressively circling around it like a bouncing ball.
Wait a minute. Does that mean the voices he heard just now were…
“……”
No, that’s insane.
Brushing off the absurd thought that momentarily popped into his head, Cyrus swept his dark hair back from his forehead.
Beneath the blazing midday sun, his face—so beautiful that rumors claimed he had the blood of a witch—shone brilliantly.
But before he could even appreciate the sight, the crow performing dangerous aerial acrobatics suddenly shot downward like a dart.
And instinctively turning his head to follow, Cyrus found himself staring toward the edge of the great garden—at a figure who had been hidden behind the trees until now.
“……”
All he could see was a small back.
But the moment he saw the bright carrot-colored hair bouncing in rhythm with a light, cheerful step, Cyrus forgot to breathe.
Fwoooosh—
In that moment, what unfolded before his eyes was a farm so vast it was hard to believe it could actually exist.
A peaceful, harmonious landscape of crops and flowers growing side by side, things you’d never expect to blend so well.
And standing right in the middle of it all…
Pop.
But the image vanished in an instant, and what filled his mind next was a familiar feeling that had plagued him for months—
That frustrating sense of forgetting something, without knowing what it was.
“……”
One of Cyrus’s perfectly shaped eyebrows twitched upward, then dropped again.
‘I really must be sleep-deprived.’
To be having such ridiculous thoughts.
Clicking his tongue, he scolded himself—unaware that even as the bright carrot-haired figure disappeared into a rundown cabin, he hadn’t blinked once.
Creak.
The long-unused hinges of the door groaned with a heavy metallic sound.
The inside of the old cabin was a wreck.
Broken shovels lay beneath layers of dust like gray velvet, bundles of dried seedlings, a leaky watering can and fertilizer bags abandoned on the floor.
The fireplace was clogged with ash and dust. The wardrobe had one door hanging loose, and instead of a proper mattress, the bed was covered with rotting straw.
Most people would have walked right back out and never returned after seeing such a horrific mess.
But Lizzie didn’t flinch.
It was only natural.
Right now, this wasn’t what mattered most.
“Shit.”
This is bad. Really bad.
Storming over to the window and swearing, Lizzie grabbed her hair in frustration.
The calm demeanor she had earlier was gone, replaced by panic as she looked through the grimy window.
Originally, Lizzie Atkins’s plan had been simple:
-
Pretend to work while observing Cyrus Blanchard.
-
Confirm the side effects he was experiencing.
-
Secretly give him the cure and leave.
It was a simple, foolproof plan.
At least, until she actually arrived at the Blanchard estate.
“What if I get lost and end up as a skeleton archaeologists dig up a hundred years from now…?”
One, two, three, four…
Lizzie sighed as she counted the glass windows—hundreds of them, all gleaming in the sunlight—adorning the four rectangular wings of the mansion.
She had thought the small garden was a relief, but she never expected the mansion to be this enormous.
Without questioning her own warped sense of what constituted a “small garden,” Lizzie scanned the estate.
She had no clue which window might belong to Cyrus’s office—or his bedroom.
“……”
Until now, she had only seen mansions in Hollywood movies. She finally had to admit it:
Spying on Cyrus would not be as easy as she thought.
“I didn’t think the hardest part would be just finding where he is…”
Behind her, the door creaked open and tired footsteps echoed across the floor.
A moment later, the crow Garrett fluttered to the window and, like Lizzie, stared at the dazzling mansion with a deep sigh.
The dent newly formed in the back of Garrett’s head sparkled in the sunlight as he sighed.
“This mansion is insane.”
[You’re insane, warbler.]
Finally, they realized something:
Life in this mansion was not going to be easy.
Being an AS—an Anonymous Supporter—was not as simple as it sounded.
—Hello! I came to borrow a rake!
—It’s outside.
—Hello! I need to grab some fertilizer—
—It’s outside.
—Hi! I brought snacks…
—They’re outside.
—Hello! I was looking for an indoor tapestry decorated with pumpkins…
—It’s outside.
—Why is everything outside?
After a week of persistence, Lizzie Atkins understood something:
The butler—who had been extremely strict from the first impression—had no intention of letting the new gardener inside the mansion.
She was a window. The butler was a wall.
If he had been a shield, she could at least try stabbing. But a wall? There was no getting past it.
“Damn it, I should’ve applied as a maid…”
She muttered as she helped some limp Retia flowers in the flowerbed grow upright, away from prying eyes.
“Sure, the work might’ve been harder, but at least I’d have an excuse to walk around the mansion.”
Or maybe she could’ve at least run into the Duke during his rounds.
“I wasn’t asking for a tea party! Just a little walk around the place! When he was at the farm, he used to go out all the time, but now that he’s home, he’s completely shut in!”
[Crazy warbler.]
The familiar insult now functioned as a greeting, muttered as a crow with dents all over its body landed softly in the Retia flowerbed.
It was Garrett.
[I couldn’t find him again today.]
“Damn.”
Lizzie cursed under her breath.
It had already been four days since she started sending Garrett to scout the mansion, since she couldn’t do it herself.
But the mansion was so huge that it was proving difficult even for the crow.
His dents were increasing daily—thanks to attacks from the warbler.
“Want me to make a sleep potion for the warbler?”
[No thanks. I think there’s a cat in this garden. What if I fall asleep and get eaten?]
“Then I’ll make one for the cat too.”
[Even if you drugged all the animals in this garden, you still wouldn’t find that sparkling human.]
“Goddamn it.”
Garrett’s painfully accurate comment made Lizzie clench her fists.
Shoop!
A Retia flower suddenly sprouted high above the others—but Lizzie didn’t notice.
“We have to figure something out. I can’t go back empty-handed after coming all this way.”
[Like what?]
“If I can’t get into the mansion, I need to find a way to make Cyrus Blanchard come out.”
It wouldn’t be easy.
If she drew too much attention, she’d be kicked out before he even appeared. But if she failed to get enough attention, nothing would happen.
Garrett tilted his black head in thought.
[What if you grew the Retia flowers taller than you?]
“Then I’d probably be hauled off as an experimental subject for being a druid thought to have vanished 200 years ago.”
[…]
While the crow muffled his beak with a wing at that chilling idea, Lizzie tapped her chin and said,
“Or maybe I could spell out a message in the flowerbeds? Like, ‘Cyrus, come outside’?”
[Before that strict guy bulldozes the flowerbed and fires you on the spot.]
“…You’re right.”
She sighed, recalling how the butler had always appeared like a ghost whenever she tried to sneak into the mansion.
(“Um, this is a dagger made from Krautz bone, from two centuries ago…”)
(“It’s outside.”)
No matter what message she tried to send Cyrus, the mysterious butler would surely stop it.
Just then, while Lizzie was groaning and rubbing her forehead in thought—
[What if…?]
Garrett suddenly raised his head.
[What if you try fixing up the rear garden?]
“The rear garden?”
Lizzie blinked.
“The butler said I didn’t have to worry about it.”
[Yeah, but I’ve flown around the mansion. That garden is a mess.]
“…Really?”
[So if you clean it up a bit and plant some of those cool tomato seeds from the farm, maybe the sparkly guy will take notice. He seemed to really like tomatoes last time—he couldn’t take his eyes off mine!]
“Uh…”
She didn’t say what she was really thinking: If I plant tomatoes in a Duke’s private garden, I’ll probably be fired.
Still, even if the approach was a little off, it wasn’t a bad idea.
Yeah—there’s no way they’d fire a gardener just for sprucing up the rear garden.
Unlike the main garden, where big changes were hard to make, the rear garden could be transformed dramatically.
Cyrus might even come out to look.
Or maybe, she could earn enough goodwill to break down a corner of the butler’s wall-like defenses and finally get inside the mansion.
If she could just make it inside safely…
“Hey, that’s a great idea.”
[Right? Told you I’m a genius.]
“Yeah, yeah.”
Giving Garrett a half-hearted compliment as his dented head glinted proudly in the sun, Lizzie clenched her fist with renewed determination.
“All right! Starting tomorrow, it’s the rear garden.”
Shoop!
Another Retia flower shot up fast—but again, Lizzie didn’t notice.
Nor did she notice—
“……!”
That Cyrus Blanchard, watching from his window, was momentarily frozen as he stared at that very scene.
🏷️