Between Your Letter and My Reply

Chapter 45

[Translation By Divinity]

It couldn’t be possible unless an entire village was possessed by ghosts. Or perhaps, only Damian was the one possessed.

At this point, he even doubted whether anyone had actually lived there.

“Hey, you… Are you alright?”

Carl shook Damian’s shoulder, who was squatting in front of the carriage with a vacant expression. Damian blinked and looked at him.

“So you’re saying that no one in this village… no one who lived in the Benbrick mansion remembers what they looked like?”

“Th-that’s right.”

“Is this even possible?”

This time, Glenn, who was still with Damian, slowly shook his head. Damian asked Glenn in a slightly urgent tone,

“Do you have any other photos left?”

“I think I had a few, but they’re probably all…”

He turned his head towards the burnt-down Benbrick mansion.

Damian felt a sense of emptiness wash over him.

“Huh…”

“I don’t understand what’s going on either.”

Glenn, equally confused, scratched his head and sat down next to Damian.

“I definitely hung out with her. I remember teaching her how to fish. But I can’t remember her face…”

Glenn muttered repeatedly, feeling wronged, insisting to Damian that he was close to Seyra.

“Was there anyone else besides you who was close to the Benbrick family?”

Damian asked, hoping to find even the slightest clue. Glenn shook his head.

“Actually, the people in that mansion rarely interacted with the villagers. Lintray was the only one who would occasionally show up in the village. And because of that, the villagers didn’t really try to get close to them either. They all thought, ‘The noble lord doesn’t want to mingle with commoners.’ There were a few kids around my and Seyra’s age, but Seyra didn’t seem interested in getting close to them. She didn’t pay them any attention.”

Damian raised an eyebrow and asked,

“Then why did she hang out with you?”

“Th-that’s… To be honest, Seyra was quite pretty. Even though I can’t remember her face now… Anyway, she was a pretty noble lady, so of course I was curious! So I approached her first and became friends.”

Damian frowned at Glenn.

His thought that no man would spend time with a woman they weren’t interested in was proven right. He regretted not badmouthing Glenn more to Lady Lintray.

“Baron Benbrick and Lintray seemed to disapprove of my friendship with Seyra. Maybe it was their noble pride? I’m still not sure how they saw me. But they didn’t stop me from seeing her. So I’m the only one in this village who can call himself Seyra’s friend.”

“I see…”

The more he heard, the more Damian felt annoyed and wanted to find fault with Glenn. Just then, something small approached Damian, and he felt something soft and wet touch his hand.

Surprised, he looked down and saw a dog licking his hand enthusiastically. When their eyes met, the dog wagged its tail and rolled over, exposing its belly.

Damian hesitated for a moment, then absentmindedly scratched the dog’s belly, inviting it to be petted. The dog immediately jumped up and rubbed against Damian.

Damian was about to push the dog away, finding it a bit bothersome, but then he realized it looked familiar.

“Come here and sit.”

As if understanding his words, the dog sat in front of Damian.

It looked like a mixed breed spaniel… and it had the same markings as the puppies that were with Timo. There was a star-shaped mark on its forehead, which he remembered from the photo.

Damian called Glenn over and pointed at the dog.

“Isn’t this dog the one Lady Seyra used to raise?”

“Ah, Maple? Yeah. It’s one of Timo’s puppies. Some of the other puppies were taken in by the villagers.”

Glenn also petted Maple and replied. Damian stared at the dog named Maple with a blank expression.

“So Timo, the mother dog, did exist.”

“Right?”

“It didn’t burn to death…”

“As far as I remember, the remaining puppies were all sent to other homes, and only Timo was left… Come to think of it, I don’t know what happened to Timo. If it got caught in the fire, there would be some traces, but there weren’t any. Did it run away? That dog was smart.”

Glenn mumbled, and Damian buried his face in his knees. Some things left traces, while others disappeared; everything was a mess.

His mind was noisy, and after thinking too much, he couldn’t think anymore. Damian stood up weakly.

“Hey, where are you going?”

Glenn called out to Damian, but he ignored him, moved his stiff legs, and got into the carriage. He asked Carl to take him back to the train station.

“Are you leaving?”

Carl asked, surprised, and Damian sat down weakly on the seat.

“There’s nothing more to find out about Lady Seyra in this village.”

“That’s true… We haven’t really looked into what happened to Lady Seyra after the Benbrick mansion burned down…”

Carl smacked his lips. Glenn, still wary of the suspicious stranger, asked,

“Hey, are you really Seyra’s friend?”

“Are you even qualified to ask that when you don’t even remember Lady Seyra’s face?”

“Well, I can’t argue with that…”

While Glenn fumbled for an excuse, Damian took out a notebook and a pen, painstakingly writing with his left hand. The handwriting was still messy, but the note was legible enough. He handed it to Glenn and said,

“If you remember anything related to this, please contact me. You can call or send a letter.”

Damian had given him the address and contact information of the boarding house where Lilliana was staying. He would be moving there soon, so he shared that contact information.

Glenn looked a bit reluctant but took the note.

“Well, I’m also frustrated, so…”

Damian nodded at Glenn, and the carriage started moving. He looked out the window at the village scenery on the way to the station.

As ‘Lady Lintray’ had described, it was a quiet village with few people, seemingly far removed from any incidents or accidents. But it was strange, incredibly strange, that in a village this small, where everyone knew each other’s business, no one could remember the faces of the three people who had lived in the Benbrick mansion.

It was undeniably strange.

Even after parting ways with Carl and boarding the train, Damian still couldn’t figure out what had happened to the people who lived in the Benbrick mansion in Edenfallen.

And as for the identity of ‘Lady Lintray,’ instead of finding clues, he returned with even more confusion.

Damian no longer had the confidence to find out who ‘Lady Lintray’ was. He wasn’t even sure if she was someone he could find or if she even existed.

Damian closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against the corners of his eyes. He was tired.

‘I still want to meet Lady Lintray.’

He had to meet her and apologize for not replying to her letters. And he had to thank her too. But he didn’t know who to say these things to, and it made his head ache.

He missed the conversations he had with her through letters. The only person Damian could share these kinds of worries with was ‘Lady Lintray.’

That’s why he felt terribly lonely today.