To My Beloved, I Present My Exquisite Nightmare - Chapter 59

The two entered the outskirts of Hoierhis. Laila fiddled with the badge on her chest as she stared blankly at the desolate scenery.

“I’m starting to think we should have gone to Bintoshis instead.”

Eustar calmly responded to her words.

“Even if we’d gone there, you’d have thought the same thing, Laila.”

But he could understand why she said that. They could only see the roofs and windows at the village entrance, yet everything felt unpleasant.

“The houses seem relatively intact. It looks like it’s been at least ten years since people lived here.”

Laila agreed with his observation.

From the moment people stop living in them, houses tend to decay rapidly.

Mold and moss start growing on walls and floors, and dampness rots the beams. Roofs collapse and windows crack, and with no one to repair them, they’re left abandoned. In two or three years, only traces of what were once homes remain.

This wasn’t some bizarre phenomenon or ghost’s mischief. It was the natural power of time.

Yet the houses in Hoierhis, though empty and emitting eerie sounds, hadn’t crumbled into ruins. As if something invisible was supporting them.

Laila approached the nearest house and touched its outer wall.

“It’s very cold.”

“Isn’t that because it’s stone?”

Laila shook her head.

“I don’t think that’s all. You should feel it too.”

Then she grabbed Eustar’s wrist and made him touch the wall. Surprised by the sudden action, he reflexively curled his fingertips before slowly spreading his hand with a meaningful expression.

The moment his palm fully touched the rough stone wall, something like a sharp wind sound pierced his head. Startled, Eustar quickly pulled his hand away from the wall.

“Isn’t that what I meant?”

Laila asked, as if pressuring him. Eustar didn’t answer immediately, but his expression was enough to confirm her words.

He remained silent as he stepped away from the house. Then he looked up at the roof, which still maintained its shape.

There were clumps of grass sprouting between the wooden frames and empty nests left behind by birds, but that was all. It should have rotted away long ago.

“I wonder why?”

Eustar muttered, almost to himself, without taking his eyes off the roof.

Laila was inwardly surprised to sense his faint anxiety. Until now, he had been someone who never showed confusion or unease no matter what they encountered, but this village was unsettling him.

Laila said,

“Something is still here.”

“Souls? Or some kind of grudge?”

“Maybe. It could be both. But I don’t think it’s just one thing. They’re very small and weak, but there are many. Like a swarm of ants.”

Her words were strangely impressive. Eustar shook his head, trying to shake off the momentary anxiety he felt.

“Alright. A swarm of ants. That gives me a bit of courage. At least we can step on them.”

However, contrary to expectations, no matter how thoroughly they searched Hoierhis, nothing notable was found.

The two first walked along the main street of the village, examining the houses.

Like the ones at the entrance, all the houses had stone exteriors, and touching them gave a strange, unsettling chill. Even though the sun was still up, the interiors visible through the windows were uniformly grayish and dark.

“Look over there, Laila.”

Laila raised her head towards where Eustar was pointing. There stood a mansion. Unlike the other houses, it was on slightly higher ground, surrounded by a proper fence. The walls were covered with ivy.

“It looks like the former lords’ house. Do you see the balcony at the very top? Standing there, one could have overlooked the entire village.”

Laila made a visor with her hand to shield from the sunlight.

The balcony Eustar mentioned had a semicircular front, behind which long windows that could be opened on both sides were visible. Like all the houses they had passed so far, not a single pane of the mansion’s windows was broken.

The mansion looked solemn, exuding an atmosphere like a harsh temple. As Laila looked up at the stone walls that seemed they would never crumble no matter what, she pointed near the balcony.

“Look there. It’s a vine.”

“The ivy? It’s covering the entire wall.”

“No, look closely at the balcony area, Eustar.”

The area Laila pointed to was partially obscured by a protruding decorative column. Moving a couple of steps towards Laila, Eustar could finally see what she was talking about.

“The vines have been deliberately intertwined.”

“You could climb up using that. Someone must have made it on purpose… But why?”

“Well, maybe for secret meetings. Perhaps one of the mansion’s owners called in a beautiful lover, avoiding their partner’s eyes for some mischief.”

Laila’s face reddened slightly. Then she quickly hardened her expression as if angry. Eustar found this immediate change amusing, but it didn’t seem appropriate to mention it now.

Although they circled all of Hoierhis, there was ultimately nothing worth harvesting. All that existed were empty houses and dry gardens that looked in need of hoeing. But there was one more problem even bigger than that.

“It’s still not moving.”

Eustar sighed, clutching the sicker. The magical tool for finding sync had remained quiet throughout. The needle would twitch slightly but quickly stop, and they couldn’t measure the distance to the sync.

“Could it be appearing and disappearing like before?”

When Laila expressed her doubt, Eustar tilted his head ambiguously.

“Well, it could be. But you read the report, didn’t you? If such a phenomenon had occurred, they probably would have thoroughly investigated this area. It’s not common.”

“Then what about the possibility of natural dissipation?”

“Sharp observation. It’s very rare, but it could happen. But isn’t the timing too coincidental? The sync that definitely existed until just three or four days ago naturally disappeared right as we arrived?”

Laila, deep in thought, touched her nose and lips before speaking.

“We should go to Bintoshis.”

Eustar agreed.

“Yes, let’s hope we can find something there.”

Returning to where the signpost was, the two saw an old man sitting under a fir tree.

His back was hunched, and the ankles visible below his rolled-up trouser legs were thin as if only bone remained. His skin color was dark, with age spots here and there, like someone who had labored all his life.

Seeing the two coming from the direction of Hoierhis, the old man narrowed his wrinkle-filled eyes and said,

“Are you ghosts? Or people?”

Eustar answered with a slight smile.

“Fortunately, we’re people.”

“Then why are you coming from there?”

“We have something to investigate. We’re knights from Tentinella. We came to investigate because there were reports of many people experiencing strange things in this area.”

Suddenly, the old man wore a chilling sneer.

“It’s a weird village, isn’t it? Everyone said to demolish those eerie places, but in the end, no one dared touch them. They were afraid of being cursed.”

Eustar and Laila’s eyes met.

The magic of the wind blowing from the mountainside whispered an unwanted premonition in the ears of the two and passed by. The branches shrank, making rustling sounds. The birds folded their wings and hid under the shade of the leaves.

Eustar took a step closer to the old man. Though the old man was so weak he had to lean on his cane even while sitting, he glared at Eustar with a very hostile gaze.

“You know something about the two villages, don’t you, sir?”

“What if I do?”

Eustar looked at the old man with a thoughtful expression.

“Nothing, sir. We won’t do anything to you. But… if you know something about the two villages, could you tell us?”

The old man looked at the two alternately with meaningful eyes. His expression was as cautious and cunning as a criminal evading the police.

“Bintoshis and Hoierhis were not just village names, but also family surnames. The last masters who led each family were Terpen Bintoshis and Bemaier Hoierhis.”

He slowly stroked his wrinkled chin and then was silent for a long time. It was unclear whether it took time to recall old memories or if he was just lost in thought.

“Then were all the people living in those villages family or relatives?”

When Laila asked, the old man smiled, letting his sagging mouth droop, and tapped the ground with the tip of his cane.

“That’s right. The two villages were very old clan villages. Helos, the village you probably entered through, didn’t exist long before Bintoshis and Hoierhis. The master’s mansion is like the castle of old lords. Maybe actual lords lived there once. Lords who ruled over serfs.”

Just as Eustar was about to say something, the old man laughed, his throat rumbling.

“The place where the fork in the road begins, right here where you and I are. They used to say if people from the two villages met here, it was a day for the gravedigger to buy drinks.”

“What does that mean?”

The old man stared at the two intently.

“Left and right cannot coexist. They always try to go in opposite directions. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

After being lost in thought for a moment, Laila answered.

“They didn’t get along. Right?”

A day for the gravedigger to buy drinks. That phrase meant the gravedigger earned a lot of money. It meant someone always died when people from the two villages met…

The old man looked at Laila more closely and continued.

“The people of the two families couldn’t even stand accidentally meeting each other, so they made a rule. A very funny rule… They decided to take turns coming out to Helos village every fortnight. To buy necessities or something like that. Back then, Helos wasn’t a separate village. It was more like a kind of downtown area.”

“And then?”

Laila asked, as if urging him on.

It took a bit more time for the old man to speak again. A small ant slowly crawled under his worn leather shoes.

“When that rule was followed, things were more or less peaceful. But then something happened in Hoierhis that broke the rule.”

At that moment, the old man’s voice, which had seemed calm all along, wavered for the first time. Eustar tried to gently stroke the old man’s hand that was tightly gripping the cane as if to comfort him, but the old man stubbornly moved his shoulder to reject him.

Eustar asked,

“Who broke the rule, and why?”

The old man’s chest swelled with a deep breath. His exhaled breath smelled like old ointment.

“A woman named Caoli from Hoierhis went into premature labor, but the baby born couldn’t breathe properly. So they had to leave the village to call a doctor living in the downtown area… But the young men from Bintoshis guarding the fork in the road stopped them.”