CHAPTER 42…………………………………………………..
“Precautions?”
“Want to read them? I barely stopped them from making a customer version too. Are they trying to make the place go bankrupt?!”
Ensi pulled out several crumpled sheets of paper.
Just looking at them was enough to make her blood boil—at least, that’s what the explanation added.
‘Doesn’t seem like there’s a ghost here.’
After briefly glancing around the kitchen and the dining area, Raseil began reading the papers.
At least the first few lines looked normal…
But what followed were rules you’d never expect to see in an ordinary restaurant.
- If there is only one customer, do not seat them at a four-person table.
- As soon as a customer finishes their meal and leaves the restaurant, clear the table immediately.
However, if the customer has not yet left the restaurant, never clear the table. - Do not go down to the food storage room after sunset.
- If you see dark crimson stains in the kitchen, wipe them off immediately with a cloth soaked in salt water.
- If you hear strange noises from the underground food storage room, ignore them.
- Do not guide customers to tables 4 and 6.
- Please do not treat the staff rudely.
- Do not cause disturbances inside the restaurant.
- Do not react to any sounds coming from the kitchen, no matter what they are.
- All meat served in our restaurant is strictly managed and of excellent quality.
- Please do not question the cleanliness of the restaurant interior.
- Customers who scream, engage in self-harm, or are already deceased are not permitted to enter.
“There’s such a thing as taking a joke too far!”
Ensi exploded again.
Just looking at the paper seemed to bring her irritation right back.
“I seriously can’t believe this.”
“Was the menu always like this?”
Raseil asked after finishing all the precautions.
It was very different from what he’d seen about a week ago.
“The menu? Is that weird too? I’m going to lose my mind! If this is how it’s going to be, they might as well make me the owner!”
Leaving Ensi’s fury behind him, Raseil picked up the menu.
At least it was clean—but it definitely wasn’t normal.
- Nibala
- Meat Stew
- Bread and Butter
- Sandwich
- A Bird That Lives in the Black Forest
- When I Came to My Senses, Everything Around Me Was Bathed in a Dark Crimson Light
- Black Tea
- Meat Pie
Some items were foods he’d ordered to go before, while others had names he’d never seen in his life.
Ensi stepped closer, looked at the menu, and let out a sigh.
“Why are the menu names like this now? Has the owner suddenly become more sentimental? Trying out some artistic nonsense?”
“The owner changed it?”
Raseil searched his memory.
He was sure he’d heard that the owner had been away recently.
“Didn’t they go on a business trip a few days ago? Said they were going to buy something from another territory.”
“Oh, right! That’s true! Anyway, things felt off… but they didn’t touch the menu.”
Which meant someone else had turned the menu into this.
And with a high probability, that “someone” wasn’t human.
But Ensi didn’t seem to care much about that fact.
“Who the hell did this?!”
She immediately started furiously scrubbing at the letters on the menu.
It was pointless—the text kept reappearing—but still…
“Just disappear already!”
Seeing her try to overpower the writing through sheer momentum, it didn’t seem like there was much to worry about.
She didn’t look scared of the situation at all, either.
“I don’t even know why the bread turned weird! They dumped in so much tea leaves—were they trying to make an Earl Grey cake? Desserts and meals are different things, you know!”
It looked less like a supernatural crisis and more like a situation where Ensi might end up with stress-induced hypertension.
‘Not surprising, though.’
People living in this territory tended to have strong nerves.
And Ensi’s previous home probably had something to do with that too.
‘She said she was from the back alleys, right?’
It was slang for a dangerous slum with terrible security.
Apparently, she’d been born there, survived by sheer luck, scraped by doing information work, and then came to this territory a few years ago.
‘Elut brought her here, didn’t he?’
That person was still weak when it came to children.
Lost in old thoughts for a moment, Raseil soon snapped back to attention and looked at Ensi.
“Isn’t there some way to fix this? I’m seriously losing my mind!”
“…It’s not a ghost, so…”
It was clearly related to spirits, but it wasn’t a ghost.
Still, just in case, he decided to try communicating.
“Can you clear the table for me?”
Raseil pulled out the paper and planchette he always carried with him.
As usual, the paper was filled with a wide variety of questions.
“Are you here?”
After quickly preparing, Raseil placed his hand on the planchette and asked.
There was no response.
“Can you hear me? Are you here?”
Then suddenly, the planchette twitched—and slipped right out from under his fingers.
It was his first time seeing something like this, so even Raseil was a little flustered.
The planchette hopped forward and pointed to a sentence.
— I don’t know where this is.
It shook uneasily, then moved to another sentence.
— Why am I here?
After that, it began forming letters, spilling out all kinds of thoughts.
— It’s suffocating
— Humid and unpleasant
— I want to go out
— Warm
— I hate being tangled up
— Where is this place?
Communication was barely possible, but one fact was clear.
‘Are souls tangled together?’
A human’s thoughts couldn’t change this rapidly in just a few seconds.
It made more sense to assume that several souls had become mixed together.
“For now… I think it’d be better to listen to what it has to say.”
They would need help from the other spirits staying at the lord’s castle.
Whether it involved dark magic or spirits, this wasn’t something that could be resolved in a single day.
“It might be best to close the restaurant for a while, until things settle down.”
“That sounds better. We don’t have customers anyway—I might as well clean.”
With a long sigh, Ensi collapsed into a nearby chair.
She didn’t seem to care at all that it was stained.
“No wonder business has been so good lately!”
“Good?”
Rujea asked, puzzled.
She had never once seen this restaurant crowded with customers.
Harsh as it might sound, that was simply the truth.
“Customers just keep coming in. They say once they taste the meat, they can’t forget it.”
“Did you put something weird in the food?”
“…I didn’t think of that! Do you think something was mixed in?”
Since both of them were from the back alleys, the conversation instantly took a dangerous turn.
Raseil sighed quietly and cut in.
“The meat might have a spirit attached to it.”
Even that wasn’t exactly a normal explanation.
But given the circumstances, it was the most plausible one.
“Wasn’t there a similar story?”
There was a comparable ghost story passed down in the territory.
It probably dated back to before Raseil was even born.
“What story?”
“The one about fairies swapping meat and children.”
It was a little different from the version in fairy tale books.
They said fairies would take a human child and leave behind a lump of bloody meat in its place.
“That meat supposedly tastes so good you can never forget it once you eat it.”
“Who’d want to eat meat swapped with a kid?”
Rujea asked the most reasonable question imaginable.
Raseil had always wondered that himself.
“Who knows what people back then were thinking.”
“So what are we supposed to do? We can’t keep the place closed forever!”
Ensi asked, stretching after finishing the cleaning.
“For now, how about avoiding meat and selling other items?”
“Then there’s nothing left to sell!”
“After consulting the head maid, we might find a decent solution.”
“Come to think of it, I’ve heard a similar story before.”
Perching casually on a nearby chair, Ensi muttered.
“What kind of story?”
“One from when I was a kid. Something about being left in a basket in front of a door.”
It was probably a story told by whoever raised Ensi in the back alleys.
Thinking it wasn’t his place to comment, Raseil quietly listened on.
“They said the basket was so pretty that someone tried to sell it, but they were told to return it immediately.”
“Why?”
“They said selling something touched by fairies would bring a curse.”
“I’ve never heard that one before.”
Raseil considered himself fairly well-versed in this sort of folklore.
So naturally, an unfamiliar ghost story piqued his interest.
“It’s just something I heard, so I don’t know the details. Maybe it was made up because they couldn’t talk about my parents.”
The atmosphere grew heavy in an instant.
