“Lady Evelyn, where are you?!” Europa shouted frantically as she looked around. “Where are you?!”
She and Jackson had only just started their turn.
“Please! I cannot wait another second! Please, Lady Evelyn, do not hide! Come out and show this pitiful sow your beautiful form!”
She’d completely deviated from the point of the test of courage.
“Europa, if you keep making a racket, Lady Evelyn won’t be able to come out and scare you,” Jackson said calmly.
“But Lord Uncle!”
“I’m sure my sister and Lady Evelyn are hard at work thinking of ways to surprise us. This test of courage is special, isn’t it? Let’s try to enjoy it, shall we?”
Jackson’s words resonated in the hasty Europa’s chest.
“You’re right, Lord Uncle. Lady Evelyn is now fully devoted to scaring me. Oh! To think I live and breathe in Lady Evelyn’s mind! How exciting! Come, let us go!” Europa said, having regained a bit of composure.
She charged forward. Jackson, walking behind her, held up the lantern so he wouldn’t trip.
He scratched his head. “I’m actually a bit of a scaredy-cat despite how I look,” he admitted. “But I can’t leave you to face the ghosts for me.”
“Oh, Lord Uncle, you’re such a jokester. There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Europa said with a giggle, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Well, we can’t be sure, can we? They might exist somewhere.”
“Really, if they existed, where would—”
Just then, a pure white ghost leaped out from the darkness! “Boo!”
“Lady Evelyn! I’ve waited so long!”
“Huh?!” Evelyn said in a panic, still wearing the sheet. “How did you know?!”
“Aaaugh! A ghost! Run!”
Jackson, not realizing the spectre was actually Evelyn, grabbed a vine hanging from a giant tree and swung through the air.
“Aa-a-a-a-aa-a-a-a-aah!”
He disappeared into the depths of the forest, yodeling.
“Who else would such an adorable ghost be?! Come, my hugging ghost, take me into your arms! Eeek, I’m sooo scared!”
“Hey! Don’t be weird! I’m not a hugging ghost, I’m a sheet-wearing ghost!” Evelyn protested even as she retreated.
Europa was trailing after her, breathing heavily. “Oh, sheet-wearing ghost, is it? Why don’t you invite me to join you under that sheet, then?”
“N-No! You’ll do something weird! I know you will!”
“I will indeed!”
“I knew it!”
At that moment, something gripped the fleeing Evelyn’s slender ankle.
“Eeeeeeek!”
Evelyn fell on her rear, panicking, and the sheet flew through the air.
A raspy voice rose from the ground.
“Evelyn...help me... The hole is too deep... I can’t get out...”
“A z-z-z-z-z-zombie!”
“I’m not a zombie... I’m the crown prince... Theodore tricked me...left me here...”
“Nooo! Don’t bite meee! I don’t wanna be a zombieee!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“That guy...looks like an angel...but he’s a devil inside...”
“It’ll infect meee! I’m infecteeed! Waaaaah!”
The dirt-covered Alex clung tightly to the half-crazed, wailing Evelyn. Europa, who had been entranced by the lovely tears flowing down Evelyn’s cheeks, suddenly came to her senses.
“Curse you, Clown Prick! How dare you touch Lady Evelyn’s legs before I do!”
“Whatever... Just help me...”
“Not a chance in hell!”
“Guh.”
Mamaropa, who had been waiting in the darkness, was startled by Evelyn’s shrieks and fainted again.
✦ ✦ ✦
Hidden in the bushes, Mary and Karin were secretly watching the high priest and Igna prepare to depart. After getting their stone at the shrine, the two girls had run back through the forest as part of their strategy as scarers.
“Hee hee hee,” Mary chuckled, grinning. “They won’t expect a scare so soon after starting...”
Karin’s small head sat atop Mary’s.
“That old man gave me hell for getting Evelyn kicked out of the Grand Basilica,” Mary muttered. “I’ll scare the wits right out of him. Watch me be the best ghost.”
“Ms. Mary, wait. Something’s not right,” Karin whispered.
Mary tilted her head. “Huh?”
She focused on the two men’s conversation, faintly audible in the distance.
“—hear voices coming from the forest,” Igna said. He was standing at the starting point, arms crossed.
The rule was that after enough time had passed, the next pair was up. He and the high priest hadn’t started yet because they kept hearing people shouting in the woods.
“No way this is just because of the scarers,” Igna muttered.
There was no answer. The prince glanced to the side.
“What’s wrong, Your Eminence? You’re fidgeting. Do you need to take a leak?”
“N-No, you fool!”
Still, catching the high priest’s constant fidgeting in his peripheral vision had Igna curious.
“Did you soil yourself already?”
“Stupid! Fool! Dumb idiot!” Igna easily caught the high priest’s staff swing, and the old man’s cheeks flushed. “Such strong arms...”
“So, what’s the problem, then?” the prince asked, suspicious of the high priest’s uncanny reaction.
“D-D-Don’t misunderstand! I don’t like you or anything!”
“Sure. I don’t like anyone besides Europa either.”
The high priest clutched his chest at the frank rebuke.
“What now?” Igna asked. “Heart attack, or...?”
“N-No. This is...”
Igna’s eyes widened. There it was. A voice coming from the woods, shouting, “Lady Evelyn!”
“That voice...!” he exclaimed, gleefully taking off into the woods. “Europa! I’m coming! Be as disgusted as you please!”
Lantern in hand, the prince rushed away without looking back. The high priest was left behind, watching Igna’s figure disappear between the trees.
“Why...am I attracted to this ogre? This horrible, inconsiderate man,” he murmured softly, his words reaching no ears. “Ugh, enough! I’ll put a lid on these feelings! He’s Rupy’s fiancé. I never stood a chance!”
Sounding like he was trying to convince himself more than anything, the high priest began to walk, supporting himself on his staff.
“Hey! Igna! Don’t leave your partner behind! Why are you following a beast trail, anyway?! Rupy won’t be that way!”
Mary and Karin, still hiding in the bushes, had watched the entire exchange. After a long silence, the two exchanged glances, the exact same thing written across both their faces.
“Let’s...not tell anyone about what we just saw,” Karin proposed. “For His Eminence’s sake.”
“Yes, I think that would be best,” Mary said, nodding firmly.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Well, despite...all sorts of things, the test of courage was a resounding success! Excellent work, everyone!”
Was...it a success, really?
Standing with everyone else in front of the tent during the closing ceremony, I was baffled. Perhaps I should’ve expected it, but I felt like I was the only one who’d had a bad time. The knights, after conducting an emergency search, had found Lord Jackson, Prince Igna, and the high priest wandering the woods. Prince Alex was ultimately rescued too but had to be pulled out of the ground by three men.
But beyond that, there had been various other incidents that would take far too long to explain, like Lord Theodore getting shoved into a giant hole by Lady Europa when he’d rushed over to me.
Lady Mamaropa, who had fainted a second time, was sleeping peacefully on a stretcher. Lord Dadapopa was on his way, so she would be fine, I was sure.
“It was a very meaningful experience. Let’s do this again sometime!”
I had no idea where the meaning was. This had been awful! I’d been terrified, Lady Europa had chased me around, and Prince Alex had nearly made me jump out of my skin.
“Yes, let’s do it again,” Prince Oz said.
“Next time I’ll be in Europa’s team,” Prince Igna muttered.
“It was fun hanging out with Ms. Mary,” Karin added.
“What?” Mary asked. “Oh, I mean, I guess it wasn’t that bad...”
Huh? People are surprisingly receptive...
The only ones who looked like they were absolutely opposed to the idea were me and the dirt-caked Prince Alex. Why?
As I looked at the faces of the participants discussing their opinions of the test of courage, I noticed something wasn’t quite adding up.
“Wait, was one of the teams a trio?” I asked.
“Huh? What do you mean, Evelyn?” Lord Theodore asked, tilting his head.
He’d left the scare role to Prince Alex and had apparently been searching for me, hoping to meet up. Since we’d barely had any chance to talk during the test, he was now standing firmly next to me.
“Look, there were thirteen participants total, right?” I asked. “Since that doesn’t divide evenly by six, I thought maybe one team had three people...but I only see twelve people here?”
Lord Theodore gave me a quizzical look. “Evelyn, there were only ever twelve people.”
“Huh?”
“Every team was a pair,” Lord Theodore said, completely serious.
I gave an awkward smile. It was unusual for Lord Theodore to be so mischievous, but I couldn’t play along with whatever scheme he’d come up with.
“L-Lord Theodore, honestly! You can’t scare me like that. I know I counted thirteen.”
“I’m serious. I approached each participant myself to help Europa set things up, so I’m very certain.” He began to count on his fingers. “It was you, me, Kira, Europa, Lady Mamaropa, Karin, my father, Mary, Prince Alex, Prince Igna, Prince Oz, and the high priest. Twelve people, see?”
A chill crawled up my spine.
“So what I saw at the start was...”
My fingertips grew cold and my breaths became ragged. My mind volunteered the terrifying explanation...
...and I fainted.