Two Friends (3)

After graduation, she naturally lost touch with her friend.

There were plenty of job opportunities, but feeling betrayed, Judith turned them all down and returned to her hometown.

During this time, she fell in love with her childhood friend and decided to get married.

The first time she heard from her friend was when she was in the middle of her wedding preparations.

She told her that she had heard the news and wanted to congratulate her and apologize for everything that had happened.

It was a courageous gesture of reconciliation, but it seemed ridiculous to Judith.

She couldn’t bring herself to reply in kind.

?What’s the matter? Do you expect me to forgive you now, so your heart can feel at ease? But let me tell you, all the suffering in your life is a result of your own actions. It’s karma returning everything you’ve inflicted on me. That’s your doing.?

Despite serving as Baron Lanzkoi’s apprentice for two years now, her friend hasn’t even had a debut announcement, let alone being introduced in the media as his pupil.

Her friend, who she thought would soar freely like a bird with wings of talent, surprisingly struggled and is still stuck on the ground like a chicken.

If she didn’t fulfill her talent, she would be no better than Judith.

So the moment she wrote the letter, she wanted to laugh at her to her heart’s content.

?I’ve completely erased you from my life, so I have no intention of becoming a diary for you to spill your guts in the name of friendship again. I hope I never have to see you again.?

I don’t know if she understood, but she didn’t reply.

One day, barely a week before the wedding.

She heard about her from another classmate in Vasnetsov.

She had taken her own life a few months ago.

The timing coincided with Judith’s malicious letter.

The friend had died shortly after receiving the letter.

After canceling the wedding, Judith came back to Vasnetsov in a daze.

She visited the hotel where she was said to have died.

It was almost out of business, with rumors of the dead woman’s evil spirit driving away customers.

‘I wonder what happened to you. You seemed to have everything.’

Why didn’t you want to live?

Was the letter you wrote to me your last struggle to live?

Judith’s heart sank as she realized that her friend must have felt like she was grasping at straws.

Judith was found room 404, where her friend had stayed before throwing herself off the balcony.

“If this place really is haunted, I want to see your ghost.”

I want to see her again. I want to see her again and–

“I want to say I’m sorry.”

At the time, she felt like she had to hate her friend to live.

She felt like the only way she could live was to hate her, to believe that she had taken what was hers, not because she wasn’t good enough.

Filled with self-pity for her thwarted dreams, she let her hatred fuel her life.

Judith sank to the floor and sobbed for her friend.

There was no use in regretting it now.

She had already crossed the river of death, never to return.

As she lay on her stomach and sobbed for a long time, she noticed a familiar object in her line of sight.

She reached out and picked it up, peeking out from between the vanity and the curtain.

Sure enough, it was the exchange diary she used to write with her friend.

When she opened it, it was filled with faded memories.

In it, the two girls were chatting excitedly about nothing in particular, not knowing what the future held.

As she flipped through each page, the paper, which had been glowing yellow, turned red.

She looked up and realized that the sun was setting outside.

She flipped to the back page, thinking it would be blank since she hadn’t written in the exchange journal since the day she met Baron Lanzkoi, but it continued.

Alone, her friend continued to write toward the unresponsive Judith.

Just then, she heard footsteps in the hallway.

“Are you sure no one is here?”

“Sure. Who would come to a haunted hotel?”

Judith quickly ducked under the bed, thinking it was an employee.

The hotel was closed, but it was someone else’s property, and they could be charged with trespassing.

She wondered if it was a staff member on patrol, but the couple walked in without passing 404 and jumped on the bed together without a second thought.

Judith clamped both hands over my mouth to prevent my breath from escaping as I watched the bed shudder in front of me.

“You mean she really died here?”

“Why, you don’t think our pious Viscountess Borodin is afraid of evil spirits, do you?”

Judith’s pupils dilated at the words.

The voices sounded familiar, and she recognized the two men on the bed as the Headmistress of Molniski and Baron Lanzkoi.

Why on earth would they be here at this hour?

“Do you think I’m afraid of evil spirits or something? I have the gods to protect me, what could I be afraid of? Besides, she’s more of an unbeliever who doesn’t even attend the temple services, and I always do my best in the service.”

“Well, isn’t being born a commoner a sign that you’ve already been abandoned by the gods? Boyanins like us were chosen from birth.”

“I guess we understand each other well, don’t we?”

Viscountess Borodin smirked.

“That’s why you left your husband to see me.”

“Don’t talk about him. It’ll ruin the good mood.”

Lanzkoi removed his arm from the arm pillow and shifted to straddle her.

“Doesn’t this feel good?”

“What?”

“If that bitch’s evil spirit really is here. Does the thought of her watching us turn you on even more?”

“Gosh, that’s just so distasteful. How can you say such things to a woman who tragically passed away while carrying your own child?”

Viscountess Borodin giggled incessantly as she spoke.

Judith was in shock.

She was pregnant with Baron Lanzkoi’s child?

After the coming-of-age ceremony was over, they started getting closer to each other, so it wasn’t strange for them to share the same bed.

Although the society emphasized the chastity of women, even nobles from conservative families were careful not to get caught.

Playing with fire in secret was always more exciting.

But her friend had a rule that she would never have a relationship with a man before marriage.

Then she got pregnant out of wedlock.

“Don’t tell me it’s mine. How can it be mine if it’s carried by a lowly peasant girl like that? She could have gotten it somewhere else and claimed it as my own.”

“That’s why you only meet girls I put you in touch with through the Despot Club.”

The Despot Club was a venerable social club for a small group of Hersian National Academy students and alumni.

It was no exaggeration to say that the Despot Club ruled Hersen, with its members dominating government positions, academia, and the arts.

The youngest son of a high-ranking aristocrat, Baron Lanzkoi, was also from there, and when Judith first heard about it, she thought he was a nobleman through and through.

What came out of their mouths afterward tore Judith’s heart to shreds.

The Viscountess Borodin had a very special relationship with the Despot Club of the affiliated Hersian National Academy.

The Borodin family not only provided money laundering services for the nobles they were in alliance with but also went so far as to cover up their children’s misdeed. One of these instances involved arranging encounters between Despot Club members and Moniski Ladies’ Academy students.

They chose only commoner students who were pretty, educated, and cultured, but ignorant when it came to gender relations.

The members of the Despot Club fit the bill, as they wanted women who were somewhat articulate and could be played with before marriage.

The members would take the unsuspecting girls they were introduced to at parties and move them from place to place.

They rent out a whole hotel and reassure the women who are hesitant to stay overnight that they’ll take the fourth floor because they’re a mixed group, and they’ll take the fifth floor.

Then, when the drunken women are asleep in their rooms, the members descend through the balcony to the rooms of their favorite women and sneak under the covers.

He confesses his love to the surprised and rebellious woman, assuring them that he will marry them and take responsibility for them, and threatens them that if they scream out here, they will only be misunderstood as having lost their virginity, and eventually gets what he wants.

These evil masters then romance these women and torture them with hopes of marrying them, only to abandon them mercilessly when they eventually marry other boyanins.

Such was the time-honored tradition of the Despot Club.

On that day, in room 404, there was a friend of Judith, whom Count Lanzkoi had taken along.

When her master sneaks into her bed and asks her to marry him, she fears that he will be stripped of his title if she refuses, and is swept away by her crush on the Baron.

Thus began a relationship that was destined to end.

Like most women, her friend had no idea that it would end in tragedy.

“I’ve been picking all the quiet and obedient girls at my school. And now, all of a sudden I’ve got a girl like that. Just because I had a child with her doesn’t mean I have to take responsibility and be tied down. She’s a stubborn girl, so foolish and full of herself, tsk tsk.”

It was the reality of the painter whom Judith admired so much.

“Eating the same fixed menu gets boring, you know. That’s why I tried going on an adventure.”

“Usually, when I hear the news of someone getting married, it hurts and shakes me inside, but that person seemed quite composed. It’s not all because of our involvement. Why did you meddle with the court lady?”

“Then I thought she would put more love into my painting and work even harder on it. In the end, my assumption was correct. Foolishly, she believed that I was doing it out of love while creating my masterpiece.”

For Baron Lanzkoi, who was in a slump when he left for the guest lecture, she was a welcome relief.

Completely abandoned by his marriage, she begged him to give her back the paintings she had created.

But the baron dismissed her, saying that because she had published them under his name, they were recognized by the critics and therefore belonged to him.

“Them commoners are all so unconscionable, filthy, and stupid. Why are they pretending to be a victim when they’re just a snob who wants to rise up the ranks? I’d like to ask her if she’s an evil spirit or something.”

“That’s right, kids these days are all about blaming others. She died a good death. How could she have survived in this harsh world if she was so weak?”

Judith felt murderous toward these hooded monsters.