TGBAP 29

“Anyway, that’s how I became close with Ria after that day.”

[Because you can’t stay long when you’re young, you came sometimes and told me stories about the outside world. Honestly, if it weren’t for you, wouldn’t I have gone insane long ago?]

“……W-what. Why are you suddenly praising me?”

Embarrassed by the praise, Kaiser twisted around. But Ria meant it.

Because he came periodically and became someone she could talk to, and because he brought many gifts from outside, her endlessly repetitive days were refreshed.

“It’s not that big a story, right?”

When Kaiser, with red earlobes, turned his attention to Lucian, Lucian shook his head with a flushed face.

“No! It’s super, super special! It means hyung was Ria’s first friend!”

“Ahem, that’s about right.”

“I wish I could’ve been there too.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. At best you’ll only live sixty years. It’s better to think it’s lucky you met her now.”

“Why?”

“Because in five years I’ll be a full-grown dragon! When I become a full-grown dragon, there won’t be any restrictions!”

Right now, since he hasn’t undergone the adult dragon ceremony yet, he can’t stay out here for long.

And if Kaiser had met Lucian when he was young, there’s no guarantee they would have gotten close like now.

Kaiser back then was more arrogant and willful than now, so it’s questionable whether he would have accepted Lucian, a mere human.

“Ah, but hyung. Do you not want the mansion anymore? Or did you find another villa?”

Kaiser’s reason for coming to the mansion in the first place was to have his own villa.

But right now this mansion isn’t Kaiser’s.

He visited regularly not to claim the mansion, but to interact with Ria. Still, hearing it, Ria was curious too.

“No, no villa. Since I’ll have my lair soon anyway, I don’t need it anymore.”

[Huh? Really? I thought you already got a new one because you never asked for the mansion anymore.]

“If I ask, will you give it?”

[Of course not.]

“I figured.”

Kaiser clicked his tongue, calling her stingy.

“Back then, I needed my own space, so I looked around, but thinking about it, I realized I don’t really need one. Even if it’s a villa, I’d visit once or twice every five years at most, and if I settled in a human village, wouldn’t people find it weird?”

True—he can only stay for a month at most, so if lights came on in the mansion only once every five years, humans would find it odd.

“And something I learned later: this mansion doesn’t lack an owner. It belongs to the imperial family.”

[Huh? Really?]

“Really?”

When Ria and Lucian were startled, Kaiser looked sulky, asking if they didn’t even know that.

“Yeah. After I heard that, I gave up completely. My parents told me never to get tangled up with the imperial family. And once in a while, humans used to cling to this place, too.”

[They did.]

The time they lived here and the timing differed, but once every thirty to forty years, someone would always come in and live.

“Come to think of it, what happened to all the guys who lived here?”

[They died.]

“Cough! Seriously?”

Ria nodded at Kaiser, who choked. He shivered, saying it was creepy.

“If you think about it, there are no baseless rumors here. It’s true the place is haunted, it’s true people keep dying, and it’s true that none of the humans who come here leave in one piece.”

[What are you saying. I don’t kill people.]

“That’s not what I mean. Is there any human who comes here and walks out fine? They all faint or piss themselves.”

Hmm…… is that so? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.

[Ah, come to think of it…….]

Something brushed past Ria’s mind.

At Ria’s reaction, Kaiser’s eyes gleamed.

“What, something bothering you?”

[Hmm…… how do I put it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the humans who lived here die with my own eyes—not even once.]

“Huh?”

[Now that I say it, it’s weird. I didn’t see them die, so why did I think they died all this time?]

A human who was fine yesterday would suddenly vanish the next day without a trace.

“Then maybe they didn’t die—they just left the mansion?”

[It’s not that…… usually if you’re going somewhere, you pack your luggage, right? But I never saw that even once. And all their belongings were left here, too.]

That’s why she decorated rooms themed after the humans who lived here, wasn’t it?

“Ria, you don’t sleep. Before they vanished, didn’t you notice anything strange?”

[Well…….]

Like Lucian said, Ria is a ghost, so she doesn’t sleep.

She’s conscious twenty-four hours a day, but for some reason, on the day humans vanished, her memory was hazy, like clouds hanging over her head. Then Ria opened her mouth without realizing it.

[……Once every ten years, there’s a time when I have no consciousness.]

This was something she hadn’t even told Kaiser. And that’s because she only discovered this fact thirty years ago.

“What are you talking about—no consciousness?”

[Exactly what it sounds like. Once every ten years, my entire consciousness disappears.]

At some point, like a puppet with its strings cut, her consciousness vanishes completely. And when dawn comes, she returns to normal.

It took a long time to notice because even Ria couldn’t perceive the process; it connected so naturally.

[Ah, wait.]

Something stabbed into her mind. She stood and headed to her room.

She could feel Kaiser and Lucian panicking, but she had no time to look back.

The moment she entered her room, Ria rummaged through her diary. The diary she began writing when she’d lived here about a hundred years.

When she traced, one by one, the times the humans who lived here vanished, she found one commonality.

[Ha, haha…… insane…….]

Her soul trembled. To think she hadn’t realized something this important until now.

Year 137, 187, 207, 217, and so on…….

They were all the years when humans vanished.

They all end in “7.” The cycle varies, but that isn’t the important part.

[My consciousness disappears on a ten-year cycle…… and the years when my consciousness disappears are…….]

The last digit is always 7.

Ria’s periods of lost consciousness and the times humans vanished overlap perfectly. Realizing the shocking truth, Ria clenched her fist tight.

Even if she only wrote two short lines, she never once skipped writing in her diary.

Then one day, while organizing her diary, she found she had skipped a day’s date.

Why did she skip it? As she thought about it, she realized she couldn’t remember what happened that night.

That was how she happened to learn the fact—and realized it wasn’t a simple mistake, but a clear flaw.

For several days before her consciousness disappears, she often drifts off without realizing it, and she turns into a mindless ghost like other ghosts.

In the end, as darkness falls, she finally loses consciousness, and when she opens her eyes again, dawn is rising outside the window.

It was strange, but she hadn’t worried much. Being a ghost isn’t normal to begin with, and being unconscious for half a day didn’t seem like it would cause any problems.

But now it’s different. Lucian lives with her.

If some awful thing happens during that half day when she has no consciousness—what then?

[What year is it now……?]

Year 315. There are only two years left until the last digit becomes “7.”

[Damn it, that’s not far away at all.]

Why did she think so lightly of it? If she had suspected it and dug deeper, she might have found some solution.

Ria—! Where did you go—!

Hey! Where did you go all of a sudden! What’s wrong with you!

While she was holding her head in anguish, she heard Lucian and Kaiser’s voices.

‘Right. There’s no point in brooding alone.’

And since it isn’t this year but about two years away, she can ask Kaiser for help somehow.

Ria, wanting advice from the two, came down from her room and headed to the living room where they were.

When Ria descended from the ceiling, the two rushed over.

“Why all of a sudden? You look pale.”

“Hey, a ghost’s face is pale by default.”

“Ah.”

Ria ignored their wordplay as best she could and told them what she had found out.

Hearing it, Lucian burrowed into Ria’s arms, saying it was scary, and Kaiser, realizing it was serious, crossed his arms and tapped the table with his finger.

“Are you sure? That it’s a ten-year cycle?”

[I told you. That time is the only time I didn’t write in my diary.]

“Do you know since when it’s been happening?”

[At least ever since I started writing my diary. I started writing after my hundredth year, so that’s nearly two hundred years.]

“It’s been happening that long?”

[That’s the minimum, not the maximum. It might have been happening even before I started writing. I just don’t know.]

It’s a shame she can’t remember anything from that far back.

[There are two years left. It would be fine if nothing happens, but with Lucian here, I’m worried.]

When Ria hugged Lucian tight, Kaiser stared at her.

“It’s definitely suspicious. When someone disappears once, they disappear forever—who disappears and then shows up again?”

“Ria disappears? No! Ria can’t disappear!”

As Lucian shed big tears, Ria offered an explanation that wasn’t quite an explanation, saying she wouldn’t disappear forever.

“Who knows. This time you might really disappear forever.”

“Waaah! They say Ria’s going to disappear……!”

[Lucian, that’s not what I mean. Kaiser, why are you making him cry!]

“It’s my fault he’s crying? If we’re being fair, it’s your fault for hiding something like that.”

When Ria glared while soothing Lucian, Kaiser turned away as if he didn’t know.

It took some time to calm Lucian down. Once he’d settled a bit, with a reddened nose and sniffling, he looked up at Kaiser with pleading eyes.

“Hyung, hyung, you’re a dragon. Don’t you know a way to stop Ria from disappearing?”

“How would I know. She said it took her a long time to realize it. Unless I witness it myself, it’s hard to find the cause.”

At the firm answer, Lucian’s face crumpled.

“Fine, we know it happens every ten years. Then what about the timing?”

[The timing?]

“Yeah. Not the year—do the dates overlap too?”

She hadn’t thought about that. Ria went back up to her room and checked the dates she had marked in her diary.

And then she found something surprising.

[It all happened in summer. From late June to early August.]

“Then we should assume it happens around July. Exactly two years from now…….”

Kaiser pondered deeply, but since he couldn’t find a clear solution, he ruffled his hair.

“For now, I’ll come around this time two years from now. You said there are warning signs, so we can respond roughly. If we’re lucky, we might even find the cause.”

[If it looks like something dangerous might happen, prioritize Lucian no matter what. Lucian has to be safe.]

“Hmph, what do you take me for. Of course.”

Even while grumbling, he’s kindhearted. It was a relief Kaiser agreed so readily.

“Anything else strange? I don’t think there’s anything left that could surprise me.”

Kaiser whined that they should gather even crumbs of clues. Now, what else is there to hide…….

“Ah! The basement! Ria, don’t you think there might be something in the basement?”

……There is. There is.

“The basement? What’s that. There was a basement here too?”

Since she had the basement locked most of the time, it wasn’t strange Kaiser didn’t know it existed.

Lucian told him what he had experienced when he went to the basement before.

Hearing it, Kaiser made an incredulous expression.

“No, why are you telling me that now! That’s the most important clue!”

[……I forgot too.]

“Yeah, I can tell your memory is something else.”

She bristled at the mocking tone, but since he is the only one—no, the only dragon—who can explore the basement, Ria just trembled instead.

“Guide me. I’ll check it.”

Ria headed for the basement with him. Lucian, who had trauma from the basement, followed close behind while clutching Kaiser’s clothes.

When Kaiser saw the small door in the remote corner, he arched one eyebrow.

“So that’s why I didn’t know. I thought it was a storage door and never even considered going in.”

“It’s dark, so take a lantern. And the room I told you about—absolutely! Absolutely! Don’t go in!”

Kaiser took the lantern Lucian handed him and patted his head.

[Then I’m opening it?]

Shrrrk—

The magic circle she had set earlier was revealed. When she dispelled the magic, the sound of locks opening rang in succession.

“Hyung, be careful.”

[If something happens, scream. Got it?]

“Hmph, do you think there’s something in this world that scares me? Other than my mom, there’s nothing scary in this world.”

With confident swagger, Kaiser flicked his hair and headed down the stairs.

Ria and Lucian gripped each other’s hands tightly and watched Kaiser descend.

He needs to find something…….