Chapter 8 – 008. The Ghost of the Divine Tree (1)
Even though Eunhyeon became the ‘witch’s lover’, the lives of the two did not change greatly.
Illyana, who usually hates going out of the house, rarely has private meetings with others except for her official duties at the Royal Magic Library, and even at home, she wonders how she lived for 20 years. Was enough to make the
In the end, she was leading her life by taking care of Illyana’s personal errands with the official title of ‘witch’s assistant’.
Why did she revive herself? She was a good motivator for Eun-hyeon, who had lost her meaning and wandered about what she was going to do in the future, to continue her current life.
“Hyunah. Just take care of one thing.”
As her lover, Illyana, who learned some of Eun-hyeon’s secrets, she could read his inner thoughts and feelings, and she was worried about him who was wandering, so she decided to make Eun-hyeon work. It was the result.
“… Day?”
Recently, Eun-hyeon used her title as her assistant to take care of the secret requests from the kingdom to her great hero, the ‘Black Witch’, instead of her.
Just recently, it was a very rare case to entrust another job as soon as the books in the Magic Library, which had been seemingly endless for these two weeks, had been sorted out.
“A strange thing happened.”
“Hmm, okay? What happened again?”
Eunhyun crossed her arms and looked at her, telling her to continue talking.
“A noble lady is missing.”
“Wouldn’t you make me work simply for missing you?”
Illyana took her eyes off the papers she was looking at and nodded her head.
Looking at Eunhyun who continued to listen, she put her forehead on her forehead and put on a tired expression.
“The missing girl is in a bit of a complicated situation.”
“Hmm.”
“Do you remember the embezzlement case of Baron Hersha that happened two weeks ago?”
Eunhyun didn’t answer, but she nodded her head.
It was a case in which a government official was accused of massive breach of trust and embezzlement in Pernin, the capital of the Kingdom of Pernias.
A single official tampered with the kingdom’s budget account book and siphoned off a portion of the national budget for about three years.
Later, the Baron Hersha, ‘Renion Hersha’, was executed.
It is known that her older brother, Elvin Hersha, is being pursued by the Knights after escaping with gold coins that her father had hidden.
Eun-hyeon remembered that her sister, ‘Erin Hersha’, was rumored to have been left alone because her father had been executed and her brother had fled.
“You know, you know. Pretty noisy isn’t it? Because of the fact that a low-level official who is not a noble, but a semi-noble, stole a large amount of gold coins.”
It was revealed that she was stealing the country’s budget, and this would be remembered as a disgraceful incident in the kingdom that failed to properly manage the country’s finances.
There is no way that a low-level civil servant, who is not even a noble but a nobleman who is only in charge of administrative processing, can do a great job if he siphons off part of the national budget.
Eun-hyeon thought she might not have been the result of a high-ranking, high-ranking nobility.
Even if that semi-aristocrat really did such a crazy thing without anyone’s help, wouldn’t he be a great resourceful man who has great guts and bakes the upper ranks?
“The missing schoolgirl is the daughter of that semi-nobleman.”
“Hmm.”
I guessed it roughly from the time I brought up the story of this incident, but I wonder if it’s the same.
Eunhyun calmly nodded.
It was because Illyana knew what she was asking for.
“How specifically did you go missing?”
“Three days ago, he suddenly disappeared. Neither mouse nor bird knows.”
Eunhyun narrowed her eyes and said to Illyana.
“That’s not what you’re asking.”
Illyana received Eunhyun’s gaze and smiled bitterly.
“Sorry. But I really have no clue. Neither eyewitnesses who saw the child nor the circumstances have come out.”
Wouldn’t it be faster to find a needle in the sand?
Eun-hyeon said he wanted to ask if that made sense.
In public, she never thought Illyana would play her prank on herself with her nonsense.
However, it never occurred to him that he would really have to look for people with just this amount of clues.
Knowing that even Illyana wouldn’t give an unconscionable order to find someone with just this much information, Eunhyeon quietly waited for her to continue her words.
“Instead, I got a strange rumor.”
“Rumor?”
“Rumors about a female student who committed suicide by jumping off the roof of a building in Aether.”
“Is Aether a school in this country?”
“Huh.”
Aither Royal School is a school that educates children of noble families with donations from the country’s core figures, the royal family and the wealthy, and the national budget.
I heard that the conditions for admission were the rich people who made a certain amount of donations, the children of noble families in the kingdom, and the children of noble families in other countries.
“Is the missing Erin Hersha a student of Aether?”
“That’s right. First of all, it was the status of a baron given to her by her father.”
The status of ‘quasi-baron’ in the kingdom of Pernias is not a nobleman, but a title bestowed on commoners who are treated like nobles.
Most of those who received the title of baronet served in the royal court.
Renion Hersha’s job was as a human resources official who paid salaries to soldiers in the armed forces subordinate to the state.
At the same time, it was also the reason why he was able to steal a large amount of gold coins by manipulating accounting information.
First of all, even the status of a ‘quasi-baron’ could be treated as a nobleman who was given a title.
Because of that, it didn’t matter much if her brother, Elvin Herscha, or her younger sister, Erin Herscha, went to school.
Eunhyeon paid more attention to the fact that a female student committed suicide from the roof of the school building.
“But are you still quiet?”
Aether is a royal school that is operated with donations and budgets from the royal family, nobles, and wealthy people who are the owners of this country, the kingdom of Pernias.
It is the representative educational institution of the kingdom that teaches various things such as etiquette, culture and history, magic and swordsmanship of the sons of nobles who will lead the kingdom and regional territories.
It was so strange that the school was quiet even though there were students who committed suicide in a place where the honor of the school was so important.
Eunhyun, who was thinking hard about it, understood Illyana’s intention.
“I can’t find any clues about the missing person, Erin Hersha, so you’re asking me to investigate this way, right?”
Illyana saw that the two incidents were related.
The two bizarre incidents related to the school could not be found on the surface.
However, it was nerve-wracking enough for her that rumors about her two affairs broke out at the same time around this time.
“Answer.”
Illyana saw her grace that exactly matched her own intentions, and applauded her in praise.
“How did the rumor of the suicide jump get out?”
“Oh, that has an eyewitness.”
“Witness? Did you witness a student commit suicide?”
Illyana nodded her head.
“If she witnessed a student committing suicide, wouldn’t she be able to ascertain whether or not the student was Erin Hersha?”
“That’s right. It’s kinda weird Well, now that it’s like this, let her hear it herself.”
“Me?”
Smart
“I heard that even a tiger will come when I say it. Good timing. Tell them to come in.”
Illyana allowed her to enter the room with a light knocking sound.
“This way.”
A girl, guided by her librarian, entered Illyana’s office hesitantly.
Perhaps because she knew Illyana’s identity, the girl’s expression was very intimidated.
“Ah… Hello.”
“Huh. Hi. Have a seat.”
The girl who greeted her with a nervous expression saw her Illyana smile and blushed as if her mind had been stolen for the moment.
The girl sat on the sofa, unable to properly meet her gaze.
“It’s black tea.”
“Ah… Thank you.”
From the moment Eunhyeon entered the director’s office, she was already playing the role of ‘Illyana’s assistant’.
She had intended to ease her tension by making a quick cup of tea and handing it to the girl.
“Whoa…”
Illyana asked the girl, sitting on the sofa in the middle of her, crossing her legs.
“Innis Malenu. Right? A student who witnessed a female student commit suicide in the middle of the night.”
“Yes…”
The female student looked at Illyana and stiffened her body with a tense expression.
Eun-hyeon thought that she must be nervous now that she has seen the ‘black witch’ that she might only see once in her life.
“Can you elaborate?”
“Do you really believe me?”
“You have to listen and judge. That is why I called you.”
Innis must have been encouraged by Illyana’s words. She took a deep breath and explained what had happened that day.
“It was a really dark night with nothing to see. I had to sneak into the school because I had something to look for. I somehow climbed the fence and entered the school, and when I walked down that dark hallway alone, I felt so spooky. I walked down a long hallway and arrived at my destination, in front of the classroom, and I immediately opened the door and entered the classroom.”
After entering the classroom, Inis headed for her seat by the window.
I was even more nervous about the act of sneaking into the school alone in the middle of the dark and the spooky atmosphere, and I broke into a cold sweat.
Innis wanted to get some fresh air to cool off, so he paused looking for things and moved toward the window.
When I opened the window, a cool breeze came into the classroom, and while I was cooling the cold sweat on my face, the cold wind hit my face.
Something was falling on Innis’s head.
A woman with her long hair was crashing towards her ground.
The woman’s hair, which had become scattered with the strong wind, tickled Innis’ face.
For a very brief moment of just a few seconds.
It was before he properly recognized what he was seeing with his own eyes.
The falling woman looked at herself.
The moment Innis, who was looking at the woman with a blank expression, met her gaze.
Shit.
Even in the middle of the fall, the woman looked straight at Innis and smiled.
Innis smiled incomprehensibly to herself and she felt an unknown goosebumps at the sight of the woman falling.
Terrified and startled, Innis fell from the window and sat down.
After recovering his sanity, he headed back to the window to check the body of the woman who had fallen to the ground and had her head broken.
But there was nothing like a woman underneath.
At first, she thought she might be hallucinating.
However, the feeling of the woman’s hair tickling her face was too vivid to be her hallucination.
So frightened that she forgot what she was looking for, she ran out of school in a huff.
Immediately she went home, but she did not sleep until morning.
She went to school with her eyes wide open, fatigue, and an indelible sense of fear.
Ennis felt a strange sense of alienation at the normal daily life of the school.
As if nothing had happened.
He and only he knew about the incident at school last night.
Afterward, he explained his experience to his friends and professor, but no one believed him.
She went to the Knights and appealed, but the Knights were not in a situation where they could easily accept her eyewitness account.
It was because the staff of the Knights Templar were also very busy due to the incident with Baron Hersha’s family and various other matters.
A few days later, Innis felt even colder when he heard rumors that a girl named Erin Hersha had stopped coming to school and that she had disappeared altogether.
