Instead of Ban Yue’s own voice, a faint and ghostly voice akin to an old woman’s came out from the box.

  Even Ban Yue himself was startled with the way he sounded, so when he saw Ludville move a few steps back due to horror and surprise, Ban Yue thought Ludville’s reaction was much milder than he expected.

  Was it because he cimed to be the First Madame Eckart’s ghost?

  In Ban Yue’s defense, he hadn’t simply plucked his words out of thin air and decided to shamelessly run with it.

  He remembered from his own character profile that the box was rumored in the Eckart estate to be haunted by the First Madame Eckart’s ghost, so he thought it would be better to leverage on this fact rather than outright cim that he was a random well-meaning ghost that wanted to save someone due to some kind of dubious good will.

  After all, who in their right mind would actually believe that the creepy stranger who had been hiding in their room all this time had good intentions?

  Now, turn that creepy stranger into a creepy box-bound talking ghost whose background was completely obscure.

  With Ludville Eckart’s track record, he would surely take Ban Yue out and burn him right away!

  Ban Yue shivered at the mere thought of it.

  At the moment, he only had 71 out of 100 health points left. With how fragile he was, the slightest burning sensation would probably kill him instantly.

  Ban Yue didn’t count on the unlikely chance that Ludville would believe his dubious decration. Instead, what he was counting on was the seed of doubt he pnted in Ludville’s mind which could take the pce of “Ludville’s trust” so he would hesitantly work with him for a while.

  At present, a big part of Ludville must find Ban Yue’s cim hard to believe, but because of Ban Yue’s lie that was reinforced by the already circuting rumors in the Eckart estate, a small part of Ludville must already be wondering right now what he would do if Ban Yue’s words were true. He must want to know for certain and observe more carefully before he did anything drastic. This period of uncertainty was exactly what Ban Yue was aiming for.

  “…Are…are you really my mother?”

  Ludville’s green eyes shook while he spoke. He cautiously moved towards the suspicious box with his hands curled into fists in front of him.

  “My sweetie, why would this loving mother of yours ever lie to you? The day I lied to you would be the day I did so to save your life! Do you not recognize your own mother’s voice?” Ban Yue sniffed dramatically.

  Now, if anyone who already knew Ban Yue to his very core witnessed this moment, perhaps they would only shake their heads and say, “That person is going at it again.”

  This was because although Ban Yue preferred not to pursue things, he was by no means a robot who didn’t feel anything nor a saint who could never feel aggravated by worldly matters. Ban Yue, for whatever reason it was, turned out to be the type of person who smiled even when standing face to face with someone he disliked. In short, just as if a switch has been flipped in him, Ban Yue was someone who could change faces as quickly as lightning hit the ground without an ounce of shame.

  Upon hearing Ban Yue’s heartfelt words, Ludville’s resolve slowly crumbled. Tears started to well up in the corner of his eyes, and he began to choke on his words, “B-but if you’re really my mother, why show yourself just now? I’ve…I’ve been so lonely…”

  Ban Yue was starting to feel his conscience get to him. Although he was mostly indifferent when it came to others’ matters, he disliked lying to children. But at this moment where he had limited options, he squashed the guilt down to the very corners of his heart. He had already decided to let go of his integrity (?) in exchange for survival. He uttered a silent apology to Ludville.

  “Ludville, even though I’ve been reduced to this form, there has never been a day when I didn’t long to see your face! You lovely child of mine, you’ve taken after me so well. You have the same nose and eyes as I do...”

  “But the maids in the estate said I didn’t inherit any of my mother’s good looks. They said I took after my ordinary father from crown to toe…”

  “They are lying. You look beautiful in my eyes, my dearest.”

  “How can that be…even I know that I…that’s why I…” Ludville averted his eyes.

  Ban Yue couldn’t stand the sight. He thought whoever tortured this child so much that his self-esteem plummeted to this level deserved to be hit!

  “Ludville, come closer to your mother. I want to see your face.” Ban Yue said dotingly. Even as a box, Ban Yue’s shamelessness appeared to be boundless.

  “…Mother!” Ludville cried as he stepped a little closer. He scooped Ban Yue into his wide-open arms and hugged the box against him tightly. He squeezed so tight that a portion of Ban Yue’s body became crumpled.

  [Pyer Ban Yue’s HP has been reduced to 70/100.]

  [Pyer Ban Yue’s HP has been reduced to 69/100.]

  “Ack, ack, child, my back, my back. This old mother of yours is fragile and old already...”

  Ludville walked around the Clodine Becket Academy’s campus grounds with a small box in his arms. It was already 10AM in the morning, but instead of the murmurs of students inside cssrooms, only Ludville’s chatty voice could be heard as he walked along the cold and empty outdoor hallways.

  “…And when I was 13-years old, I received an award in a painting contest I joined secretly in town. It was a painting of a garden I saw in one of my dreams when I was seven, and I thought you might have loved to see it, so I drew you in the same yellow dress that I saw you wearing in your old portrait in the same piece…”

  When they reached a fork in the road, Ludville veered away from the main path and stepped onto the grass. He walked over to the marble fountain and sat on the edge of the basin. He propped Ban Yue on the space beside him and continued to tell Ban Yue about what seemed to be stories of his childhood.

  Ban Yue’s attention shifted to the fountain behind them.

  It was the same fountain he had seen during the cutscene in the beginning of the scenario. Ban Yue had only seen it from afar before, so he thought it was just like a typical fountain. But now that he was finally seeing it in front of him, Ban Yue realized that it was actually much bigger, wider, and more intricate than he thought.

  There were many detailed carvings on the side of the fountain’s basin that seemed impossible for a machine to replicate, and right in the middle, on the highest tier, was the statue of a person so life-like that it almost felt like it would come to life any moment.

  Ban Yue had no doubt that this image which was holding so determinedly and firmly on a tall staff belonged to Clodine Becket, the individual who was so well-respected that an entire academy was named after him. Ban Yue couldn’t deny that even as a statue, Clodine Becket looked rather imposing despite his graceful lines. He imagined that this fountain must’ve looked much more grandiose back in the days, but after being neglected for so long, some of the protruding edges had started to chip off while the water inside had become dark and filled with dying leaves.

  “…It…it w-was just a shame that my father found out. He disliked it whenever I did something unreted to my studies so– “

  It was at this moment that Ban Yue finally decided to address the gring problem. Ban Yue’s ghostly voice interrupted Ludville in the middle of his speech.

  “Ludville, don’t you think there’s something wrong with this pce?”

  Ludville’s voice stopped abruptly, and he instantly shriveled in his seat.

  Ban Yue had noticed it since the moment they stepped out of Ludville’s room – that the tremors on Ludville’s hands seemed to only intensify the more they ventured away from the dormitories. He had noticed the small stumbles in his speech and counted the times he had bitten on his tongue as if he was trying his best to contain his shaking voice. This child wasn’t willingly telling these painful stories due to excitement or enthusiasm after a tearful reunion. He was merely using them to fill the deafening silence and distract himself from the uncanny things in this pce.

  It was clear to Ban Yue that Ludville Eckart was scared.

  “I…I don’t know,” he rubbed his arms as if he was suddenly feeling cold. There was a brief pause before Ludville started to speak again, “…Truthfully, I was trying to ignore it. I was thinking that maybe I got here too early, or maybe the details on the brochures I received were wrong…but this pce is really weird!"

  Ludville finally broke into tears.

  “I looked all over, but I really didn’t find anyone. But yesterday…when I threw you away because I thought you smelled bad, I saw some students walking around and tried to talk to them. But they seemed really strange. They only ignored me as if they couldn’t see me, and their skins felt really cold to the touch. I thought my family finally got rid of me because I was turning crazy, so I tried to pretend that everything was fine. That perhaps everything that I was seeing was just a hallucination, and maybe they would come one day to check on me and see that I was finally doing alright but...”

  Ludville’s words streamed out of his mouth quickly in between tears. It was as if he had been keeping this to himself for a long time, and now that he had finally found someone who could tell him that he was in fact not the strange one, he felt extreme relief and his thoughts poured out like raging water from the floodgates of a dam.

  Ban Yue’s lips pressed into a line. It seems Ludville’s emotional wounds had been left open for so long that it has festered to the point that even Ludville could no longer believe himself.

  “Ludville, you’re not going crazy. If you know anything about this pce, it’s important that you tell me now.”

  “…I…I…”

  “You’ll be okay. We’ll get out of this pce together.”

  Ludville swallowed hard when he heard Ban Yue’s serious tone.

  Ludville had heard a lot of empty promises in his life, so he knew not to get his hopes up. But when he heard Ban Yue say those words with so much certainty, Ludville couldn’t help but feel like this box ghost – whether he was really his mother or not – would keep his promise.

  For once, Ludville felt like he was no longer alone.

  Thinking this, Ludville clenched his fist, and with determined eyes that he didn’t have before, he lifted Ban Yue up into his arms and stood up.

  “Come with me.”