Chapter 44

I received the ring from Nixie and stared at it carefully.

Red Clover Ring

A ring filled with old memories.

The memories had faded, but just as the color of the ring had not changed, someone still remembered.

Moreover, the moment the ring entered my hand, I began to hear sounds.

‘……Woof!’

‘……Woof woof!’

Just as Nixie had said, the sound of a dog barking was clear.

‘But what does a dog’s barking have to do with this?’

While I was momentarily lost in thought, Nixie was already swinging a sword sprinkled with holy water at the ghost girl.

Kyaaaah!

At the moment the ghost girl screamed, the atmosphere changed.

The final boss of Rekorox, the ghost girl Lucy, had three phases.

The first was defeating enemies like the Noble Lady Wraith or the Black Mist Wraith.

The second was attacking the ghost girl as she floated in the air.

And finally……

Realizing what was about to come, I quickly covered my ears.

Kyaaaaaaaaah!

As the ghost girl screamed, the mansion trembled.

Even though I had blocked my ears, a ringing pain lingered in my eardrums.

Thud.

That was when I heard the sound of someone collapsing.

It wasn’t just one or two.

Karin, Lapin, Nixie…… and even Ren.

Everyone here had fainted.

Everyone except me.

Looking around, I pulled a flower crown out of my pocket.

‘I brought it just in case.’

The very one from Rekorox’s graveyard.

An item that allowed one to endure Lucy’s howling.

In the original story, everyone except Ren was supposed to faint, and Ren alone would defeat Lucy.

I had taken it to secretly observe that process.

‘I didn’t expect it would help in this way.’

I had even considered handing it over to someone stronger than me, like Curio or Torono.

But that could risk altering the original storyline again.

‘I can’t trust anyone but myself.’

In the end, it had become something I had to do.

I first checked my surroundings.

……Silent.

The noisy ghouls and Black Mist Wraiths had disappeared.

The only ones left moving here were Lucy and me.

Lucy looked at me and ascended the central stairs.

‘……She wants me to follow.’

I trailed after her.

Lucy climbed all the way to the fourth floor and proceeded into the hallway.

She hesitated at one point in the corridor, then passed straight through a wall.

‘……A secret room.’

I placed my hand on the wall Lucy had gone through.

When I pressed with strength, the wall pushed aside, revealing a hidden space.

I stepped inside.

Perhaps it had once been where a child received treatment.

There were dolls and a sickbed.

What was strange, however, was that countless soap bubbles floated in the air.

And everything shone in shades of gray, as though captured by a black-and-white camera.

This place……

‘The third phase, Lucy’s inner world.’

In the countless floating bubbles, fragments of Lucy’s past were reflected.

As I looked into them, a panorama unfolded before my eyes.

“Father, Mother! Look at Shurk!”

Baron Delrow had a young daughter.

The girl, with her beautiful brown hair, was named Lucy.

In Lucy’s arms rested a dog with a lovely white coat.

The dog’s name was ‘Shurk.’

He was given even the family name ‘Raymond’ and was raised like her own younger sibling.

Though poor, they were emotionally abundant.

It was a happy time……

But at some point, cracks began to form.

When Lucy was five, her mother, who had always been frail, passed away.

And worse still, Lucy, resembling her mother, inherited the same illness at an early age.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get better soon.”

Baron Delrow often said this to comfort Lucy.

But as a poor man, he had no power to cure the disease.

In the end, he took up the sword he had vowed never to wield again.

In exchange for swearing loyalty to a duke, he was promised Lucy’s treatment and granted a grand mansion.

Baron Delrow became obsessed with earning merit in war for Lucy’s sake.

But since he would not be home, Lucy needed an ‘other mother’ to protect her in his stead.

So, for Lucy’s sake, he remarried into a small noble family.

That was the beginning of disaster.

“I’ll fix your manners!”

“Mother, it hurts! It hurts!”

“Silence! Sit still!”

Claiming she was noisy for playing with the dog, the stepmother would shut her in dark places and beat her.

At night, she would sometimes lock little Lucy inside a suffocatingly small storage room that barely fit her body.

Each time, Lucy would cry and recall her father.

“Father, I miss you.”

When she remembered her kind father’s face, it was as if the pain faded for just a moment.

But only for a moment.

Soon, the cruel reality returned.

“This is the master’s order. Keep your back straight. Don’t make a sound when you walk.”

“Ah, it hurts……”

All the maids of the mansion sided with the stepmother.

Their cold, unfeeling behavior terrified Lucy as much as her stepmother did.

“Get inside this box.”

One day, the stepmother locked Lucy inside a box.

Would this be some sort of play?

Perhaps through this play, she hoped for reconciliation?

Lucy held a small hope, but it was pointless.

The stepmother shook the box violently.

The sudden shaking left Lucy dizzy and unable to steady herself.

“I’m dizzy! Mother! Please stop……. Ah!”

Inside the box, Lucy saw centipedes and screamed in terror.

“Mother! Please let me out! I’m sorry!”

All of this.

It was abuse, done under the guise of ‘discipline.’

Every trial within the mansion was a world born from the traumas Lucy had endured.

Lucy’s health eventually deteriorated to the point she could no longer even run.

A sickly child, subjected to brutal abuse.

No matter how good the treatment, what meaning did it hold?

In the end, Lucy could not endure and breathed her last.

When Baron Delrow returned with news of victory, all that remained was a small grave.

He had returned far too late.

“Why was I such a fool…… I should have been at your side, not the battlefield……!”

But regret changed nothing.

More than any wealth or honor, the days spent with Lucy in poverty were happiness itself.

A life without Lucy now had no meaning.

Baron Delrow succumbed to illness.

“Lucy. Ah, my Lucy……!”

The man once called cold-blooded on the battlefield wept day after day.

His heart grew hollow, and with each passing day, his yearning for Lucy only deepened.

And before long, he took his own life.

For reasons unknown, the stepmother also went mad and threw herself into a well.

The grand mansion was left with no one.

This was the tragedy of Rekorox Mansion.

I turned my gaze away from the bubbles.

‘……Was it waiting for me?’

The ghost girl Lucy stood silently before me.

……No.

It was only ‘the appearance of Lucy.’

You are not Lucy Raymond.

You were simply ‘the perspective of a third party’ who had watched this tragedy up close.

‘So that’s how it is.’

A sigh slipped out before I realized it.

It was quite surprising to face a backstory that had never been expressed in the game.

Having solved the answer, I quietly responded.

“……Shurk.”

I took a step forward.

“Shurk Raymond, that is your name, isn’t it?”

……

As I stroked the ghost’s head, it silently nodded.

‘So you wanted to protect this world, the only remnant of Lucy.’

For more than a hundred years, the loyal dog had remained in the mansion, watching over Lucy.

Even in death, unable to forget its master, it disguised itself in her form.

To drive away the stepmother who sought to claim the vast mansion, it became a ghost in its master’s form and protected it.

And this continued for more than a hundred years after the stepmother’s death.

“You poor thing.”

Perhaps it had all been meaningless.

But for the sake of its master, it had fulfilled the duty it was given.

“Your master has already gone to heaven, so you may rest as well.”

But.

It shook its head.

There was still a reason for it to remain in this world.

“……You still have something left to do?”

According to the story, Shurk was an evil spirit that must be destroyed to prevent future misfortune.

This was not a choice, but the only way to avoid a bad ending.

I was supposed to kill Shurk right now.

But I had doubts.

‘This is supposed to be an evil spirit?’

It was still a pure soul, unstained by corruption.

Before it fell, it simply had to be prevented from falling.

‘To kill something like this…… The developers really were cruel.’

In the game, the backstory of Rekorox was never fully revealed.

Because of that, the Rekorox Mansion episode had only been treated as raid content to exterminate evil spirits.

‘I almost killed Shurk.’

For the sake of my future, the story had to follow the original flow.

But.

‘I won’t kill Shurk.’

No, there was no need to kill it.

That was the conclusion I had reached.

Everything went as expected.

As if confirming that my judgment was correct, system text flashed before me.

A new Animal Friend is within a 1m radius!

‘That’s how it should be.’

I let out a small laugh as I read the message.

The only way to eliminate Shurk’s lingering regrets without killing him.

A method only I could use.

‘Earlier, it said there was a third Animal Friend.’

When I had first encountered the ghost girl.

At the time, I dismissed it as a simple bug, but it hadn’t been a bug.

I lowered myself to one knee.

I met Shurk’s eyes at the same level.

“I will take you in.”

……

Shurk silently gazed at me.

Before long, as if it had come to a decision.

……Woof!

At some point, Lucy had vanished, and in her place stood a large, pure-white dog.

It wagged its tail gently while sticking out its tongue.

‘Did it acknowledge me as its second master?’

Was it because I was the only one who had understood its master?

Or was it because it realized its corruption was drawing near?

Whatever the case.

“Will you come with me?”

Woof!

“Good.”

I held out my hand, and Shurk placed its paw upon it.

A small light flickered, and new system text appeared in succession.

The registration of the Immortal Phantom ‘Shurk’ has been completed!

A third Animal Friend has arrived at the Farm!

After confirming the text, I stroked Shurk’s head.

Then I took the flower crown from my pocket and placed it on his head.

“You’ve done well.”

Woof!

Wearing the flower crown, Shurk barked one last time before disappearing into the system.

I looked around me.

Cracks appeared in the world as it began to collapse.

As a huge fragment of the ceiling fell down upon me, my vision went black.

Chirp, chirp—

I opened my eyes to the sound of small birds.

When I rose from bed and drew back the curtains, dazzling morning sunlight poured in.

This was Rekorox Mansion.

Room 308, my designated room from the first day of the school trip.

There were no wounds or aches on my body.

Even my belongings remained exactly as they were.

As if everything that had happened until now was only a dream.

Step, step.

I opened the door and walked down the hallway.

I descended the central stairs into the lobby, yet still felt no sign of others.

It gave me the illusion that I was the only one left in the mansion.

Everything was quiet, like the still waves of the sea.

Creak.

That was when I opened the mansion door.

Something translucent appeared before me.

A young girl with light brown hair.

She smiled brightly at me.

Thank you for taking Shurk with you.

And with those words, her figure slowly faded away.

Her voice did not reach me.

But it was conveyed to my heart.

I smiled faintly and turned my eyes toward the garden.

And there……

There was no longer a withered, desolate garden.

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