Welcome to the Rose Mansion - Chapter 110
Richelle and Alan returned to the kitchen, each grabbing a bucket of water.
“He seems like one of Rogéros’s victims,” Alan muttered while dousing the hearth with water.
“Let’s give it a try. The chef being weak to water was true, after all.”
“I agree.”
The flames scattered around the kitchen were, just as the man had said, shrouded in a strange purple hue.
They poured water over them, and the flames went out without resistance. After repeating the process several times, complete darkness settled over the kitchen.
When they checked the bucket where they had placed the chef’s remains, the jelly was gone without a trace. Just in case, they filled the bucket with water again and returned to the refrigeration room.
“He’s finally dead!”
As soon as they opened the door, the man’s excited voice rang out.
“He’s dead! That monster is finally dead! Oh, you have no idea what a horrific bastard he was.”
The man laughed loudly, his body shaking. Alan reached out to push Richelle behind him.
“Now talk. Who are you? What happened to you?”
“Oh, right. I should tell you. But first, thank you, my nameless saviors. Thanks to you, my long-held wish has been fulfilled.”
The man closed his eyes, and for the first time, his face looked peaceful.
After a moment of silence, he finally began to speak.
“My name is George Cameron. I was hired as a gardener for Bertrand.”
“A gardener?” Alan asked, his brow furrowing slightly.
“Do you remember who the eldest son of the Otis family was when you were hired?”
“Well, I never met the eldest properly… but I believe he was called Master William.”
Alan raised his eyebrows and lowered his voice so only Richelle could hear.
“If it was William Otis, that would be my grandfather.”
“Your grandfather? That means this happened decades ago.”
In other words, this man had been trapped, bound in thorns in the refrigeration room, for a very long time.
They looked at the man again. He didn’t appear older than his early twenties, at most.
Richelle took a step closer to him.
“Was it Rogéros who did this to you?”
“Rogéros? Ah, you mean that eerily beautiful tutor. Yes, he’s the one who drove a rose into my heart. I’m a failure, after all.”
George Cameron took a deep breath.
“You must already know about the Bertrand rules, right? I’m sure that’s how you got this far. Well, I used to think it was quite an interesting game.”
His colleagues had all acted strangely, and life confined in the mansion was dull and monotonous. There wasn’t much to do. The roses in the garden were always vibrant, so all he needed to do was a little pruning.
So, he crossed the forbidden line.
“I started digging into the rules of Bertrand. I wandered near the staircase leading to the fourth floor and even poked around the fifth garden. Eventually, I made my way down to the kitchen.”
He sneaked in while the chef was away delivering meals. But instead of uncovering some intriguing secret of the mansion, he was greeted by the Otis family’s beautiful tutor.
—I’ll commend you for following your curiosity this far.”
Rogéros had said, giving George Cameron a disdainful look.
—But you’ve failed. Now, are you ready to pay the price for your inappropriate curiosity?
With a snap of his fingers, the burning pain started in George Cameron’s chest. He immediately lost consciousness.
When he woke up sometime later, he found himself wrapped in thorns, like a well-packaged piece of meat.
“Since then, I’ve been here. I don’t even know how much time has passed. All I know is that I haven’t died. I haven’t aged, either. I’ve been preserved in the exact state I was when that rose was driven into my heart. You see?”
George wiggled his leg, revealing his thigh through the torn fabric of his clothes.
“There isn’t a single scar, is there? So smooth. Why is that, I wonder? Even though my flesh has been carved out countless times.”
“……”
“Sometimes the chef would come. Every time, he would thinly slice my thigh with a sharp knife. I was his delicacy. Never rotting, always fresh… No matter how much he ate, my flesh kept regenerating! Haha!”
It was a horrific tale. For merely attempting to uncover the mansion’s secrets, this man had been condemned to eternal torment.
Unable to die, trapped in the cold of the refrigeration room, with the flesh of his body being slowly consumed by a flesh-eating monster.
“I wanted to go mad, but I couldn’t. This rose, this rose embedded in my chest, kept my mind clear all the time… Why?! What did I do to deserve this!”
The man began to bang his head against the floor. His forehead split open, only to immediately heal again. With each thud, Alan’s entire body stiffened, as though he were trapped in a living nightmare.
Richelle interlaced her fingers with his.
“…!”
The young man flinched and looked at her. Without saying a word, Richelle gently massaged Alan’s cold hand.
It’s okay, it’s alright. This isn’t your fault.
Such silent but desperate comfort, hoping it would reach his heart.
Cold hands met cold hands, and warmth began to bloom. Slowly, Alan started to take deep breaths, calming himself bit by bit.
“Because I didn’t lose my mind, I never gave up on the hope of escaping this hell.”
Meanwhile, George Cameron had slumped over. With an exhausted face, he continued his story slowly.
“Then I saw it. That beautiful tutor… taming the chef.”
“Taming? What do you mean?” Richelle asked.
“It seems the chef did something that displeased him. The tutor put out all the fires in the kitchen except for one, and the chef shrank down, almost disappearing. When the fire was lit again, he returned to his original form.”
From that point on, George Cameron carefully observed the chef.
He noticed how the chef’s body would melt when touched by water. He observed the peculiar purple hue that surrounded the chef’s flames. He saw how the tutor would occasionally come down to adjust the amount of flame, preventing the chef from gaining too much power.
He desperately absorbed every piece of information he could.
“I couldn’t move because my limbs were bound, so I hoped that one day, I’d meet someone alive and ask them to kill the chef for me. And finally, I met you.”
“Is there anything more I can do to help?” Alan’s voice, though strained, was calm and respectful.
George Cameron’s eyes widened. Then he let out a weak laugh, like someone who had finally delivered an important letter after running barefoot to the ends of the earth.
“Thank you. Then, if it’s not too much to ask… could you please… kill me?”
