Chapter 12……………….
Irenes forced himself to hide his swirling thoughts as he followed Raseil into the abandoned mansion.
‘Have I become useless already?’
Raseil, who had already slipped the monocle he’d just used back into his pocket, patted it to check its condition.
The monocle was a magical tool he’d received on a Christmas morning several years ago.
It had been beautifully wrapped with a ribbon, but he still didn’t know who had given it to him.
In any case, it had proven more useful than expected, and he’d used it well… but—
‘Lately, the thing’s been acting strange.’
After using it for so long, its stored mana seemed almost depleted.
It would probably only work about three more times before becoming useless.
“Wait a moment—there should be a rulebook around here.”
Right after stepping inside, Raseil stopped Irenes and fumbled around a desk and drawers.
This abandoned mansion was one of the most dangerous places in the territory, and there were rules one had to follow.
“There’s… something like that?”
Irenes, becoming slightly more anxious than before, accepted the rulebook with trembling hands.
“You should read it before we go farther.”
“Thank you…”
The rulebook was shorter than expected. But that didn’t mean Irenes felt any relief.
[Precautions]
- Never go down into the basement. If you must, make absolutely no sound.
- Once you enter the house, they have already noticed you. Avoid causing disturbances.
- If you hear sounds inside the mansion, ignore them. They gain power through human attention.
- Before entering another room, knock if possible. Nobody likes being disturbed.
- If you meet someone inside, do NOT talk to them. Do not trust your companions either.
“…….”
The last line alone sent Irenes’s fear skyrocketing.
“Is there a reason these rules exist?”
Desperate to calm himself, Irenes clung to any possibility that the rules only sounded scary for trivial reasons.
Maybe someone actually lived in this place, and accidents had happened because no one knew.
“Kids often come here to test their courage. After the previous owner died, ghosts started appearing…”
With a single sentence, Raseil shattered his fragile hope.
Irenes instinctively reached toward the handle of his sword before managing to collect himself.
“Where should we go first?”
“…If we follow the rules, shouldn’t we avoid poking around the mansion at all?”
It seemed obvious that they should simply leave quietly.
As Irenes tried to keep a straight face, a question suddenly crossed his mind.
“If ghosts were already appearing, shouldn’t someone have dealt with them sooner?”
“The village kids use it as a courage test site.”
“…What…?”
“But normally, the ghosts are quite friendly.”
“Fri—friendly…”
Irenes glanced deeper inside the mansion.
Nothing looked “friendly” at all—doors creaking as they moved on their own, windows cracking repeatedly, someone sobbing in the distance…
“They’re usually less active than this.”
Raseil tried to reassure him quickly, but Irenes’s trust in the place had already evaporated.
Not that trusting an abandoned mansion made any sense to begin with.
‘Not that Sir Ja’en is weird or anything!’
Irenes attempted to regain his sanity—but the moment he met Raseil’s eyes, it vanished again.
No matter how dangerous the mansion was, coming along had been worth it just to see Raseil working.
‘He hardly ever spars with me normally!’
As the only two swordmasters, they were each other’s best training partners—but they had never properly sparred.
Raseil belonged to House Resean, and Irenes to House Sieren.
The two ducal families got along well, but if either heir were badly injured, the story would be different.
And accidents always happened when least expected.
‘It would be amazing to cross swords with him at least once…’
Raseil’s swordsmanship was very different from his own—while Irenes used flashy, misleading movements to gain the advantage, Raseil relied on solid fundamentals and classical forms.
Sometimes he even used techniques from centuries ago, which was fascinating.
“Lord Sieren?”
Pulled from his daydream, Irenes looked back at Raseil.
Good-looking as always—but right next to his face was something very strange.
“Is that a ghost or a zombie?”
Either way, it wasn’t good.
Irenes stared at the disembodied head Raseil was holding and began mentally fleeing reality again.
It wasn’t as grotesque as it could have been, since the severed part wasn’t visible, but the fact that it was a head was disturbing enough.
“Lord Sieren? Are you all right?”
“I–I’m fine. Probably a ghost?”
“No.”
“You s–said—!”
It wasn’t a ghost—it was a zombie.
Irenes jerked in shock, but soon relaxed.
If it was just a zombie, then he could cut it down.
Nothing to be afraid of.
“A zombie?”
“Probably.”
“I’d say so.”
The last answer came from the head still in Raseil’s hand.
“…Are you the homeowner?”
Raseil asked without prejudice—and amazingly, he was correct.
“This house? Of course I’m the owner.”
“Then the other ghosts…”
“Oh, them. Could you deal with them for me? I’ll pay handsomely…”
The head paused, as though thinking hard about what payment he could offer.
“…Um, if you go to the basement, my body should still be there. You can have it.”
“…What?”
The most useless thing in the world was a headless corpse.
“If you sell it to someone studying anatomy, you could get—”
“Look! Something’s there! Might be a ghost—we should go check!”
Irenes shouted quickly.
He could easily separate live heads from live bodies, but he was absolutely not prepared to hold a conversation with a severed head.
He needed to get out before things got even crazier.
“No need for payment—we’re here to deal with the ghosts anyway.”
Raseil neatly wrapped up the conversation and followed after him.
“Ah—wasn’t the body supposed to be down here?”
“…….”
Only then did Irenes realize he’d made the worst possible choice.
Of all places, he had run into the basement.
“Well, good timing—the basement is the biggest problem area!”
Seeing Raseil smiling brightly made Irenes’s heart race in its usual ridiculous way.
While his heart and brain failed to reach any agreement, Raseil finally began explaining.
In short, the haunting had become dangerously severe.
This had once been safe enough for children to use for courage tests—
“Safe? No—sorry. Please continue.”
—safe in the past, but now it was hurting people.
The house had even started actively luring people inside.
Sometimes, hands would burst from the ground in the garden and grab passersby by the ankle.
And worst of all, the noise from the basement had become so loud that no one could sleep anymore.
If not for the noise, people might not have complained so much.
“That’s really the—no, sorry. Go on.”
There were dozens of things more dangerous than basement noises.
But this was already Irenes’s second time visiting the territory—he’d had more than enough time to learn how odd the locals’ idea of “normal” was.
“Do you have any guesses?”
While Irenes rationalized his way through panic, Raseil posed the question to the severed head.
Since he was holding it like a crystal ball, he looked a little like a fortune-teller consulting an orb.
…Though the shape of the orb was, admittedly, a problem.
“Hmm?”
Creaaak—.
“Has anything changed recently?”
Creaaak—.
“Hm. It would be nice if you knew something.”
Creaaak—.
“……?”
Strange noises began slipping into the conversation.
Irenes blinked and scanned the surroundings.
