The Strongest Daughter-In-Law Of The Black Lion Family [EN]: Chapter 56

#56.

“Cersia!”

“Lady Cersia!”

The calls for me echoed, one after another, but I didn’t stop. I dashed recklessly, ignoring everyone I passed.

Since I was just running inside Xavish Castle, there was nothing to fear. I ran like that for quite a while.

As my stamina dwindled, my speed naturally decreased. Only then did I begin to notice my surroundings.

“Huh?”

I stopped abruptly. I had been running so mindlessly that I found myself in a place I had never seen before.

“Where is this?”

Xavish Castle was incredibly vast, surrounded by a dense forest, making it easy to get lost. Normally, I would have stuck to the paths I knew, but I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I didn’t realize it.

“I think I’ve gone too far.”

I tried to retrace my steps, but I couldn’t figure out exactly where I had come from.

“Haa, how foolish.”

I sighed deeply and decided to get out of the forest first. Once I was out, I would find a familiar path.

After pushing through the dense forest for a while, a wide field opened up before me.

“Hmm? What’s that?”

I tilted my head, noticing an oval black door standing alone in the field.

It was literally just a door standing there. The space around it didn’t seem to have any special mechanisms or features.

It looked like a strange gateway, like a checkpoint before entering a temple. The Xavish insignia was engraved in relief on the door.

Since it was inside Xavish Castle, it couldn’t have just been placed there randomly.

I had a strong feeling that there was something dangerous beyond that door. At the same time, I felt compelled to open it, as if it had led me here.

“A secret warehouse, maybe?”

As I was hesitating in front of the door,

“Why? Trying to rob it again?”

I was startled by the voice suddenly coming from behind and turned around. Zerachiel was standing there with a nonchalant expression.

“Huck!”

My heart pounded like someone caught in the act.

“Give me some warning. You scared me.”

“I’ve been following you for a while, but you didn’t notice at all?”

“Ah…”

“Well, I was curious to see how far you would go, so I concealed my presence.”

I must have been too preoccupied with Zachary to notice. Besides, if Zerachiel had deliberately hidden himself, there was no way I could have detected him.

Before I knew it, his gaze turned to the black door.

“Are you going in there?”

There was a strange tension in his casual question. I pointed to the door and said,

“Do you know what this is?”

“Did you forget that I’m the owner of this place?”

“That’s why I’m asking. I figured you would know what it is.”

Zerachiel smiled faintly at my bold answer.

“Of course, I know.”

His languid eyes stared at me intently, as if contemplating whether to tell me or not.

After a moment, he said,

“That place is…”

Zerachiel paused, uncharacteristically, and I swallowed nervously. After a moment, he said,

“That’s the Xavish tomb. Where the past heads of the family are sleeping.”

“Tomb?”

I had never heard of a cemetery inside the castle. Besides, beyond the door was just a field. It seemed that if you opened the door and went inside, a different space would unfold.

“It’s called Xavish’s Secret Garden.”

“Aha.”

The words ‘Secret Garden’ reminded me of the garden in the original story. There, only dried flowers were preserved in glass cases; there were no coffins or tombstones.

‘Come to think of it, the names of the Xavish direct line were written under the glass cases with the flowers.’

Zerachiel’s name was also written on the flower he was looking at. At the time, I just thought it was a flower he was growing.

Xavish’s tomb.

That meant that what Zerachiel was looking at in the original story was nothing more than a floral tribute offered in advance for his death.

Planting flowers instead of tombstones, and dead flowers at that.

Why would they do that?

I was dumbfounded by the incomprehensible custom when Zerachiel took a step closer and whispered,

“Do you want to go inside?”

“I heard only the direct line can enter.”

“To be exact, it means a beastkin with Xavish pheromones.”

His gaze turned to my wrist. I unconsciously hid it, and he said,

“That’s also why Father never imprinted on Mother.”

Imprinting.

It was the act of permanently marking someone with one’s pheromones, leaving a trace.

In other words, the Secret Garden, which only the Xavish direct line could enter, could also be entered with the imprint of the direct line.

“He was afraid. Afraid that Mother would go in there and find out everything, and become like Grandmother.”

Zerachiel’s eyes looked unusual as he stared at the door. Was the reason he hid his presence and followed me to stop me?

But even so, Zerachiel’s face was calm. It was as if he wanted me to know about this place.

More precisely, as if he was trying to test me.

I stared at the door silently. The secret of Xavish lies beyond that. And he says he’ll let me in if I want to.

This kind of opportunity won’t come easily. But for some reason, it didn’t feel right to go in now.

Until just now, I had been eager to go in, but seeing Zerachiel’s expression in front of me made me hesitate.

Then Zerachiel grinned and made a terrifying statement.

“Most of the people who went in there died unhappy deaths.”

“…”

“Do you still want to go in?”

It was obvious that he was trying to scare me. But strangely, it didn’t just sound threatening.

Rather,

It was like…

He seemed scared. I made Zachary as an excuse, but wasn’t Zerachiel actually scared and stopping me? That thought suddenly occurred to me.

I felt a fleeting emotion and stared directly at Zerachiel, as if trying to figure out the intention behind his question.

“What about you?”

“Huh?”

“Do you want me to go in there?”

“What?”

I moved away from the door and took a step toward Zerachiel. He instinctively took a step back.

Regardless, I held out my wrist to him and asked,

“Do you regret imprinting on me now?”

“Why are you suddenly saying that?”

“No, it just seems like you regret it.”

Zerachiel looked caught off guard by my probing words.

Right. It was a mistake that he looked so calm. His default expression was so indifferent that I didn’t notice it right away.

Zerachiel had a tendency to suppress his emotions, so when his emotions were about to get intense, he would become even more indifferent and cold.

Just like the Zerachiel in front of me right now.

Zerachiel was particularly sensitive to me running away. He was so quick to notice that I wanted to run away that he knew it even before I jokingly said it out loud.

I just thought he was quick-witted, but after hearing the inside story from Rachel, it was interpreted differently.

‘He instinctively feels the timing of being abandoned.’

A person who has been abandoned is the first to notice the changes in the person who is trying to abandon them. And they protect themselves with their own defense mechanisms.

Maybe Zerachiel instinctively imprinted on me so I couldn’t run away.

And now he’s scared that I’ll go through that door.

Could it be because he’s not an adult yet?

Unlike the Zerachiel in the original story, the Zerachiel in front of me didn’t seem to be good at hiding his feelings.

If it were the Zerachiel in the original story, he wouldn’t have been caught off guard by this level of provocation.

Rather, he would have only thought about using the imprint as an excuse to trap me. He might have even shown me the Secret Garden outright and instilled fear in me.