MTMD 2

Chapter 2

“Huk,”

As her concentration scattered, the possession state released.

Immediately after, Eloise covered her eyes with both hands.

“Ah…….”

Along with a tingling pain, she felt her vision blur before her eyes.

The surrounding voices buzzed and couldn’t be heard properly either—it seemed it would be like this for a good few hours.

They say there’s no power without a price, don’t they?

In the novel, after Eloise borrowed a ghost’s power through possession, she suffered severe damage to that body part depending on the degree of the power and the duration of use.

It was described as temporary, but usually pain would come or numbness would set in……

“Good heavens…….”

This was not the kind of pain that could be brushed off so casually.

In the original work, she supposedly used this often.

Facing such distant, overwhelming pain, the character Eloise—who had seemed merely indecisive—looked different now.

“The marriage talk with Marquess Eden will definitely be settled today.”

Because it was said that the matter was concluded in a corner of the Flodel banquet hall where Duke Edgart was present.

That banquet is right now.

With what she had just seen, the future was certain.

If she stayed still like this, she would have to live a dreadful married life with Marquess Eden.

She bit her lip.

To keep that from happening……

It didn’t take long to make up her mind.

“Is there anyone who could do me a small favor?”

She opened her mouth toward the full-length mirror.

“Oh?”

To begin with, there were few people who could see ghosts, much less those who could converse with them.

Naturally, the ghosts gathered, eyes sparkling at the voice calling for them.

They were the ones who had been hovering around ever since she’d spoken to another ghost earlier.

In the original work, Eloise tried hard to pretend she couldn’t see them, but that wasn’t the case now.

If she had an ability, it was time to use whatever she could.

“What kind of help?”

The ghosts asked her.

Dangerous beings with unknown powers. But if she could just borrow that power……

She could certainly have a win-win relationship with them.

Eloise could give them—who had been wandering the world bored after death—a chance to interfere with the world,

and they could give her a chance to escape this hell.

Struggling to ignore the stinging pain in her eyes and the burning pain in her ears, she directed her gaze into the mirror where they were reflected.

“What do we need to do?”

Perhaps because ghosts with various abilities from their past lives had gathered, even through her blurred vision she could see light shining from all sorts of places on the ghosts.

The pain she’d have to endure when possessing would be considerable, but now was not the time to be picky.

“I’d like you to deliver a single letter.”

Above all, delivering a letter wouldn’t even require possession.

She intended to send a single letter with their help.

To a man who had the power to break off her engagement to Marquess Eden, yet could not refuse her “proposal.”

Flutter.

Soon, a single letter flew up from Eloise’s room.

It was being carried by a ghost, but to anyone else’s eyes, it would merely look like a letter envelope fluttering through the air.

Soon it rose high, very high, disappearing beyond people’s sight.

That night, a strange letter arrived for Duke Edgart.

A letter that should ordinarily have passed through trustworthy men under Duke Edgart’s command.

Tok tok.

Having no detectable magic whatsoever, yet flying like magic to tap on the window of the room where he was.

It was a very bizarre sight.

Edgart was a family that for generations wielded swords imbued with vital energy—a power diametrically opposed to magic.

For such a letter to arrive at the residence of the head of that family.

There are many who target Duke Edgart Castian.

Naturally, it was basic to be careful about food and movement routes, as well as the letters that came and went.

And yet, a letter was knocking and fluttering before his window?

“A letter has arrived, Kandela.”

The Duke spoke.

Kandela—his loyal subordinate who, by order of the previous Duke Edgart, had served the young Castian all this time—sensed displeasure in his voice.

“Is it a letter you know of?”

He waved the letter.

Kandela held his breath in tension.

The head of the family, who had grown capable of bending his surroundings to his will even with a leisurely expression, never vented his anger on his own subordinate.

Instead, like this, he merely scattered his energy around so oppressively that even the air one breathed became heavy.

“……It is a letter I have never seen before. I apologize.”

“If Dofran knew my room’s window was this open, he’d be delighted.”

Dofran was the name of the man who opposed him.

Kandela bowed his head deeply.

Meanwhile, Castian tapped the window.

“At night, it came fluttering like this and tapped on the window. It was just like a knock, but no magic could be felt.”

He looked at the envelope, then scratched across the letter with his fingernail—shhk.

The envelope split open as if the paper had been cut by a sharp letter knife.

“My lord!”

There was no telling what tricks might have been set on the letter—and to open it so defenselessly……!

“If I were going to die from a scrap of paper like this, I wouldn’t be standing here.”

He unfolded the letter that had arrived by unusual means.

“Who could have played such a prank…….”

His eyes—red pupils that nevertheless seemed to carry a cold aura—examined the letter.

Then his brow furrowed slightly as he read.

It was the reaction of someone faced with something unexpected.

“……My lord?”

Kandela called him cautiously.

Then Castian soon laughed.

“To think she couldn’t even appear at the banquet because she was ill.”

Just as Kandela tensed at the corner of his lips, slightly raised as if in disbelief—

interest settled on his expression.

“To think the word ‘Covenant’ would come from the mouth of someone from another family.”

He handed the letter to Kandela. Kandela was horrified at its contents.

[I hear you are searching for the whereabouts of the ‘Key of the Covenant.’

I can help you with that. By the same method this letter was delivered.

If you are willing to protect me in exchange for my help in that matter, please reply to this letter.]

It was because a secret that outsiders could never know was written there.

“Investigate the sender.”

At his words, Kandela’s gaze turned to the sender’s name.

[Eloise Flodel]

The sender who discussed the whereabouts of Edgart’s top secret, the “Key of the Covenant,” and boldly revealed her own identity—

was the daughter of the Flodel baronial family, the “girl of strange rumors” who was at the center of rumors of marrying into Edgart’s enemy faction, yet who could not appear at the banquet claiming illness.

It was half a day later that Eloise’s vision and hearing—all but lost as the price of her possession ability—properly returned.

“Ah…….”

Still feeling the tingling sensation, Eloise closed her eyes. Then she spoke to the ghost beyond the mirror whose power she had borrowed.

“Your eyes and ears are quite excellent.”

The ghost that had lent its power shrugged.

“Isn’t it that your body, which has to withstand the power, is weak? With vitality this lacking—tsk tsk.”

This ghost, who clicked its tongue yet would never admit its own power was weak, seemed to be quite proud of its abilities from its past life.

“Did the letter arrive properly?”

“Of course.”

Her body had recovered enough that she could only ask that after sleeping and waking.

The ghost that had written the letter on her behalf and taken it—since she could barely see—was nowhere to be seen.

It had probably disappeared somewhere or gone off to find something interesting.

But it would return soon.

After all, they were beings who couldn’t affect the real world without borrowing her power.

Now what she had to wait for was an event that would be both a crisis and an opportunity.

And before long—

“Eloise Flodel!”

The Baroness Flodel suddenly burst into Eloise’s room.