The Daughter of Evil - Volume 4 - Chapter 2.17

chapter 2, section 1-hometown of misgivings; scene 7
Praefacio of Blue, page 75-77

♣ Yukina ~The Country of Marlon, “Freezis Estate/Storeroom”~

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Three rooms down from my father’s room was a storeroom.

Though calling it a storeroom would make him mad. To be accurate, it was a “museum” where my father’s collection could be on display.

I just couldn’t understand that collecting mania of his. It was just an inconvenience, gathering so much junk. When I told my mother that, she’d just smiled and said, “You think that because you’re a girl, Yukina.”

Anyway, that aside I was now standing in front of the doorway to his “museum”–naturally I had a reason for that. I had a trifling task to take care of here.

I held in my arms the wooden Almoga Mobarez mask. It was the one that Germaine had worn as a disguise when we’d gone to the ex-Lucifenian palace. In truth, the mask itself was one used by none other than the genuine Almoga Mobarez. She had gotten her hands on it when she visited Asmodean.

My father had wanted it very badly, and as she had no great attachment to it Germaine agreed to hand it over.

By all rights it was the role of a servant to bring it here. But the servant boy who had been ordered to do it remembered that he’d been tasked with some urgent business by my mother, and he flew into a panic realizing he couldn’t get both jobs done simultaneously. I, the kind-hearted Yukina Freezis, decided to lend a hand to him as I was passing by him in the hallway.

“I–I’m very in your debt! I entrust this to you!”

The boy deeply bowed and headed out to town to do the shopping.

Well, thinking about it calmly, taking the mask to the storeroom by itself would take probably all of five minutes. He seemed to be the type to get pretty senseless when he was flustered.

I opened the door to the storeroom, deciding that I would just get it over with quickly.

The room was long in construction from front to back, and had various curios set up on the shelves on either side. There were no windows, and as the lamp wasn’t lit, it was very dim.

Huh, Mama? What are you doing in here?

In the corner of the room, my mother was whispering something quietly, back facing me. She didn’t seem to have noticed that I’d entered.

Is she talking to herself? Or is she talking to someone?

“Mama, is there someone in here?”

When I spoke up to her, Mom shook her back with a start.

“–! Yukina, what are–what are you doing here?”

“Ah, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I came to set this in here.”

I showed her the mask and explained the circumstances.

“–Right. This is the room where your father keeps his most prized collection. Don’t go around touching anything.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

She left the room.

There was no one else inside. In the end I was still in the dark on what she’d been doing in here.

When I got close to the place where she’d been, I caught sight of a strange item.

It didn’t look like one of my father’s collection pieces. I thought maybe it was something my mother had forgotten…

“A…green onion? What’s this doing here?”