A Bloody Honeymoon in a Haunted Hotel (3)

As soon as Katya saw the intruder’s face, she slammed the bathroom door behind her.

Outside, she could hear frantic running.

A cold sweat broke out on her back and her heart began to race as the old memories resurfaced.

“No, why is he here?”

“What’s wrong, do you know him?”

She nodded and whispered in Nikolai’s ear.

The middle-aged woman outside was Viscountess Borodin, the head of the Molniski Ladies’ Academy that the Smirnov sisters had attended and then dropped out of.

“Viscountess Borodin.”

The family name was all too familiar to Nikolai.

It was Oksana’s family, after all.

In fact, the Molniski Ladies’ Academy was one of the reasons Nikolai had come undercover.

After becoming the Grand Duchess, Oksana reached the pinnacle of power and pleaded with her husband to transform the national school, Molniski Ladies’ Academy, into a private institution.

Rising to the top of the foundation’s board of trustees, she entrusted the school’s management to her sixth cousin, Viscountess Olkein Borodin.

It’s no exaggeration to say that she practically ran the foundation.

Nikolai had received numerous anonymous tips that the Molniski Ladies’ Academy, which was supposed to focus on developing the country’s female talent, was hosting tax evasion and money laundering by families with ties to the Borodin family.

Northern boyanins had been avoiding taxation by transferring their wealth into secondary names and then funneling donations to the foundation.

Oksana, an outwardly upstanding woman, was secretly rolling in money behind the scenes.

In fact, the fact that she entrusted the operation of the school to her cousin, not a close sibling, was to make a hole for herself and her family to escape at any time.

Only the surname was Borodin, but it was as if she had built her own bulletproof vest by making her distant cousin, who was a nobleman in the local area, a fodder.

“Why is she here? Why is she in this room?”

“That’s what I’m wondering, too.”

“But why hide? Do they think we did something wrong?”

“They might not even remember my face.”

Katya said, grabbing a towel and pulling it over her head like a bandana.

“You said you dropped out after graded school. That’s been more than ten years ago, hasn’t it?”

“I was quite a celebrity.”

“Did you take their pants off there too?”

“Oh, come on, it was a girls’ school, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Anyway, the whole school knew my name, because every time it was quiz time, the headmistress would mention my name to the students to have me as a tutor.”

In fact, Viscountess Borodin was nine-tenths of the reason she left school.

Intelligent from a young age, Katya had excelled in her studies, but she had always flunked her manners.

The Viscountess, who was often in and out of etiquette classes as a nosy observer, would swat the young girls on the shoulders with her bullwhip to correct their posture.

When Katya and the other boyanin children didn’t do well in etiquette class, she would instead pick on commoner scholars or poor noble children to make an example of them.

Eventually, Katya grew impatient and one day charged right at her in class.

She literally rammed her head into Viscountess Borodin’s body like a rhinoceros.

“Rammed?”

“Well, people don’t usually realize it hurts until they’ve been hit. I got a good laugh out of it as she stumbled backwards, but from that day on, every time it was time for full inquiry, she would ask me how I was doing in front of the whole class, saying she was worried about how I was doing in etiquette class.”

Even at a young age, Katya could see that this was discrimination, not privilege.

She couldn’t say it outright, but she knew it was a subtle way of shaming her.

Nikolai’s eyes suddenly sharpened as he listened.

“What were you thinking?”

“I was writing it down in my head.”

“What?”

“Making a list of people to kill.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad. When I found out about it later, my mom got really mad and threw my dropout form in front of me. I’ve never seen her so angry.”

If Pavtisky had known, he might have taken legal action and smashed her office.

But the Duchess, who had known her husband’s fiery temper since their romantic days, kept it to herself.

“It’s time for a new headmaster.”

“Even though it’s not a state school?”

“They’re all under the government, after all. I was thinking of making it national again.”

“I see.”

“Why are you wearing a towel anyway?”

“Because I have a rather unusual hair color, and I thought she might remember me because of it.”

“Have you forgotten that you’re not a strawberry blonde?”

Katya’s head snapped up at that and she stared at her reflection in the mirror.

She remembered now that when Nikolai had dyed his hair with chemicals before they left, she had also dyed her hair with him.

She had light platinum hair like Bianca’s now.

“You didn’t notice, then?”

Just as Katya was about to breathe a sigh of relief, they heard a commotion in the hallway.

They went out together, and there was Viscountess Borodin grabbing the manager and protesting loudly.

[What are you doing letting people into such a dangerous place!]

[What are you talking about when you say dangerous?]

[Doesn’t the manager know that, room 404 is a cursed room, haunted by evil spirits!]

Hearing Nikolai’s translation, Katya felt uncomfortable.

She wasn’t the one who entered the cursed room of her own accord.

Moreover, from the moment she opened the door and stepped inside, to the act of taking out the comb from the drawer, every movement and process seemed natural, as if performed by someone who had been here many times before.

The comb was not a standard item provided by the hotel.

“Grand Duke, please go back inside and lock the door for a moment.”

Nikolai didn’t understand why, but he did as she asked.

Clank. As soon as she heard the sound of locking from inside, Katya pulled the doorknob.

As expected, the door opened right away.

“It was definitely locked, right?”

Nikolai said, standing in front of her with a puzzled look on his face.

If it’s your first time here, usually, instead of grabbing the doorknob right away, it would be appropriate to start by inserting the key.

But Viscountess Borodin came in without a key and just flung the door wide open.

As if she knew the doorknob was broken.

She continued to question the manager, unaware that Katya and Nikolai were watching.

Suddenly, from the other side of the deserted corridor, someone called out to Viscountess Borodin.

“Headmistress!”

“Who is this?”

Recognizing the woman in front of her, the Viscountess approached her with delight.

“Aren’t you Judith?”

“Do you remember me?”

“Of course! What a good student you were.”

“I’m sorry, I should have come to see you after I graduated, but I was busy getting a job.”

“You got a job? I thought you were getting married?”

“It just so happened, I had some things I wanted to do afterward.”

The woman, who called herself Judith, seemed to be a graduate of the Molniski Ladies’ Academy.

Katya felt increasingly strange.

From the way she was talking about employment, she assumed Judith was a commoner.

What had changed in the attitude of Viscountess Borodin, who had been at the forefront of discriminating against and harassing commoners, when Katya had attended?

What had happened at the Molniski Ladies’ Academy since she dropped out?

“That’s right. The teacher always supports your dreams. Women should have dreams, not just men.”

“I always take your teachings to heart.”

“It seems like just yesterday you were just a little girl, and now you’re a grown woman. How come your makeup is so good? What do you put on your lips? They’re very pretty, dear.”

“I have one more of the same rouge, would you like me to give it to you?”

“Gosh, I don’t know if it’s okay for an educator to accept this from a student.”

“I’ve graduated, what’s the big deal?”

Judith smiled wryly and pulled a tub from her pocket and placed it gently on her teacher’s hand.

“Well, these days, it’s the dry season, and my lips are getting parched. Losing my lip balm earlier was quite a predicament, you know. Oh well, I’ll manage without it.”

“I’m glad to hear you needed it.”

“So where did you get the job?”

Viscountess Borodin asked, overjoyed at the unexpected gift, as she slipped the tub into her bag.

“That’s…….”

“Judith, what are you doing here, come upstairs when you’ve finished unpacking.”

Before Judith could finish her sentence, a man came down the stairs behind her.

When he made eye contact, Katya saw the viscountess’s pupils flutter for a moment.

“Judith, who is this?”

“Oh, this is Baron Lanzkoi. He’s famous in the art world, so you might have heard of him. I’m working as the Baron’s assistant now.”

“I see……. Nice to meet you, Baron. I’m Viscountess Borodin. Judith is a graduate of the school where I am the headmistress.”

“A pleasure to meet you.”

Baron Lanzkoi, a well-known painter from Hersen, kissed the back of Viscountess Borodin’s hand in greeting.

At that, Katya and Nikolai’s gazes met.

They both thought the same thing.

They knew each other, but they were pretending they had never met.

“By the way, I thought I heard a loud bang earlier, did something happen?”

“No, I don’t know, I was in room 404–!”

The Viscountess thumped her chest in frustration, as if she’d just remembered, and turned in the direction of room 404.

She realized that Katya and Nikolai were standing in front of the room.

“Speaking of evil spirits in our room, can you give us more details? We’re here on our honeymoon, and it’s a little too spooky to ignore.”

Katya asked, looking the Viscountess straight in the eye.