Chapter 158

When you think about it, there were more than a few strange things.

First of all, even if you set aside the most obvious question of why a mansion exists in such a remote forest.

However, the reason I hadn’t thought deeply about those strange things until now was that I had spent most of my time in the mansion in a hypnotized state, so I couldn’t even regain my senses, let alone contemplate the strange things. And after regaining my senses, escaping was the priority, so I didn’t have time to think about it.

Why is the mistress living alone in such a large mansion?

It’s true that she has an extraordinary ability to enchant people.

With that level of ability, even if it’s a deep forest where monsters appear, she wouldn’t have any problem living alone.

But having that ability and having to act that way are two different things.

If she has the ability to live alone in the monster’s forest, then Kurt should have lived alone in the dragon’s forest, not the monster’s forest.

And the second question.

It’s clearly a mansion where the mistress lives alone, but the mansion is unnaturally clean.

Although the traces of time were unavoidable and it looked quite old, the mansion, both inside and out, was kept clean.

Considering the size of the mansion, even if the mistress cleaned all day, it would be natural for one side to get dirty again by the time she cleaned from one end to the other.

However, the mansion always remained clean, even though it didn’t seem like the mistress was cleaning.

It was as if something invisible was cleaning for her.

And most importantly, the knights roaming the corridors right now didn’t feel like humans.

With such blatant clues, the two couldn’t help but realize.

Karina, who usually bravely fought monsters on the front lines, hugged Serena and screamed.

“Kyaaah! It’s a haunted mansion…!”

“Hey! Don’t say weird things!”

“It’s not weird. Really… I can’t feel the flow of mana that living beings should naturally emit from those knights! If they’re not ghosts, then what are they?!”

“Well, I don’t know… But even so, a haunted mansion is too fantastical!”

Serena denied Karina’s words, but even as she said that, her voice was trembling, as if she somewhat agreed with Karina.

But whether this mansion is haunted or a man-eating building, the fact that they need to move to escape remains unchanged.

So, the two walked cautiously through the corridor, avoiding the armored knights.

Perhaps because they thought they were ghosts, the knights, who only moved back and forth in a fixed area of the corridor, didn’t feel human.

That sight was terrifying for the two sneaking through the mansion at night, but the fact that they only moved back and forth like puppets in a fixed area was a great relief for the two, who weren’t very skilled at sneaking or hiding.

“Hoo… It’s a relief that the knights’ movements are more monotonous than I thought.”

“Right. I was scared for nothing.”

The two sighed in relief and carefully walked through the corridor, avoiding the knights’ eyes.

But the strange phenomena the two experienced while sneaking through the mansion weren’t limited to that.

As they slowly walked through the corridor, Karina spoke to Serena in an uneasy voice, as if something was bothering her.

“By the way, maybe it’s because it’s dark, but the paintings in the corridor feel ominous.”

“What’s ominous about them?”

“That woman in the painting over there feels like she’s watching me. It might be my imagination, but her eyes seem to move…”

Karina pointed to a portrait hanging on one side of the corridor.

“What? Are you serious?”

“I know. I know it’s probably just my imagination. But I can’t help but feel like her gaze keeps following me.”

“No, it’s not that. The painting hanging there is a landscape, isn’t it?”

“…What?”

At Serena’s words, Karina turned her head to look at the portrait again, but as Serena said, the painting was just a landscape of a spring flower field, and there was no trace of the human figure she had seen.

“…I must have seen it wrong.”

“Y-Yeah, right? Don’t scare me like that.”

“…Sorry.”

The two held their trembling hearts and continued to move through the mansion.

Before they knew it, they had reached the place in the exact center of the mansion where a mirror was placed.

“Now we’re halfway through.”

“Right…”

As they passed the mirror, Serena inadvertently caught a glimpse of something in the corner of her vision.

They were clearly passing in front of the mirror, but in the mirror, Karina and Serena were standing straight and looking at themselves.

“D-did you see that just now…?”

“See what…?”

“N-no. It’s nothing. I must have seen it wrong.”

But Serena didn’t have the courage to confirm that sight again, so she repeated to herself that they had a duty to check the mansion and passed the mirror.

As they searched for the room where their adventurer equipment was likely hidden while avoiding the knights’ gaze, they soon found the room where their equipment was expected to be.

But even though they found a suspicious room, they couldn’t be happy.

There were more than a few rooms in the mansion, so how could they have found the room where their equipment was hidden?

Originally, if they had just avoided the mistress’s eyes, there wouldn’t have been many restrictions on their actions, so they planned to search each room one by one, but in the late-night corridors where knights were roaming, even moving became cautious, so they couldn’t use that method.

But even so, the two could confidently say they had found the room where their adventurer equipment was likely hidden.

It was because of the knights guarding a suspiciously empty room.

Just one of the many guest rooms scattered throughout the mansion where no one stayed.

It wasn’t the mistress’s room, nor did it have any special purpose, but two knights, who didn’t emit any signs of life, were guarding it.

As if there was something they had to protect.

“Is our equipment in that room?”

“I don’t know if our stuff is there, but it’s clear that something important is there.”

Seeing that, Karina carefully looked around and, thinking it might be necessary, took out a table knife she had prepared during mealtime and threw it in the opposite direction.

*Clang*

As the metal knife hit the mansion floor and made a metallic sound, the knights guarding the door turned toward the sound with unnatural movements, like puppets controlled by a puppeteer.

*Whoosh*

In the moment the knights’ gaze was drawn to the suspicious sound.

That moment was enough.

Karina quickly ran and subdued the knight from behind.

Wrapping her hands and feet in a faint aura, she struck the first knight and immediately applied a joint lock to the second knight.

It was a cold and clean combination worthy of the name Silver Rank Adventurer.

But what followed was something even Karina, who had skillfully subdued the two knights, hadn’t expected.

*Clang*

The knight she had kicked collapsed more easily than she had expected, and as he fell, his armor shattered and separated, as if it had barely held its shape.

The hollow steel rolled several times down the mansion corridor, making a hollow sound, and the upper and lower halves of the armor separated helplessly from the impact of the fall.

And there was nothing inside the armor.

*Creepy*

“There’s nothing inside the armor…? I clearly saw them react to the sound of the knife and turn their bodies…”

But Karina’s confusion didn’t end there.

The hand that had been subduing the knight’s joint suddenly felt lighter, and when she turned her head, the armor she had been holding by the spine and jaw had separated into head and body, and she was now holding only the head.

Moreover, the headless armor was also completely empty inside.

“What the hell is this…?”

*Shudder*

*Flail*

“Eeek…!?”

Even though it had no head, or even though the upper and lower halves were separated, the knight—no, the armor—continued to flail its limbs, and Karina felt an indescribable fear, throwing away the knight’s head she had been holding and jumping up like a cat.

Using the recoil from jumping, Karina distanced herself from the empty armor.

From what had happened so far, she had thought they weren’t ordinary knights, but to think there was nothing inside the armor…

That would make them no different from ghosts.

But Karina hadn’t attacked the knights just to defeat them.

While Karina dealt with or subdued the knights, Serena was supposed to enter the room where their adventurer equipment was likely hidden and retrieve their stolen weapons.

At least if Karina could retrieve her Battle Axe, their combat power would more than double, and then they could not just hide and avoid the knights roaming the corridors, but also counterattack.

So, while feeling creeped out by the empty armor knights, Karina looked back at Serena to check if the plan was going well.

“Hey! Serena! How is it? Are the weapons in there?”

“Yeah! Jackpot! They were indeed stored in this room!”

Serena handed Karina the Battle Axe and two Hand Axes, and Serena gathered her and Karina’s adventurer outfits.

“Now that we have our weapons, all that’s left is to escape the mansion! With this Battle Axe, there’s nothing to fear anymore!”

“Aah… Aah…”

But at that moment, Serena’s moaning voice.

“Serena?”

Karina instinctively turned her head toward Serena and eventually saw what Serena had seen.

The window in the room.

Outside the window, the mistress was watching them with an expressionless face.

“Oh no…! We’ve been caught! At this point, we’ll have to fight!”

“Aah… Aah…”

“Serena! Snap out of it!”

“N-no… This is the third floor…”

“…What? What do you mean…? If this is the third floor, how is the mistress standing outside the window? There’s nothing to stand on outside.”

Karina desperately tried to avoid the word that came to mind at Serena’s words and argued back.

But despite Karina’s efforts, she eventually noticed something strange about the mistress’s face.

Behind the mistress’s face, which was watching them through the window, the moon was shining.

Not from the right or left side of her face, but directly from behind.

The moonlight passed through the mistress’s face and illuminated the room.

The mistress’s face was translucent.

And the mistress passed through the window and entered the room.

As she entered, her lower body was blurry.

Like a ghost.

Seeing that, Karina couldn’t help but utter the word she had been trying not to think of.

“A… haunted mansion…”

And so, Karina and Serena.

The two lost consciousness.