#080
I first arranged the letters in a row.
E B Y I C A L E D E M S I V A R
This wasn’t a full-fledged puzzle game, and when mini-games like this appeared, they usually scattered hints all around, but even looking carefully, there were no hints being given for free. There was nothing sparkling and eye-catching that would be given as a player’s privilege. Did this mean it was a problem that could be solved sufficiently with just the story in my head?
“Carlisle.”
I called out to Carlisle as I approached him to confirm whether the story I knew was correct. He was also examining the personal records like letters that I had taken out from the drawer after surveying the room like me.
“Do you happen to know any stories passed down about this mansion?”
Carlisle glanced toward the portrait I had been looking at, thought for a moment, then nodded.
“Roughly. Well, it’s a predictable sad ending story for a cursed mansion like this. The mansion’s owner had an arranged marriage with a woman from the desert, but the bride got homesick not long after the wedding and wanted to return home, but the owner wouldn’t let her go. The bride’s illness worsened and she was on the verge of death, but only then did the cruel owner drive the woman out into the bitter cold without even properly preparing her for travel. In the end, the woman couldn’t return to her hometown and froze to death trapped in the snowy mountains. And her resentful soul became a ghost that returned to the mansion and froze everything as revenge.”
‘As expected.’
The story Carlisle told was almost identical to the explanation the guide gives just before starting the haunted mansion event in the game. The story recorded in the library books would probably follow the same flow. But the story I knew was different.
“Do you happen to know what that bride’s name was?”
I asked while carefully examining the puzzle alphabet.
“I don’t know that much.”
Carlisle gave a negative answer, but soon after, he waved the letter in his hand and grinned.
“Fortunately, there’s a hint in the letter. It’s Celia. Celia Moore. C, E, L, I, A, M, O, O, R. Is the name there?”
I nodded and picked out CELIA from the arranged letters. There didn’t seem to be MOORE, so I excluded it. Then the remaining letters were:
B Y A E D E M S I V R
“The story I know goes like this.”
While mentally combining those letters, I began telling Carlisle the story. In the story I remembered, the mansion’s owner also took a woman from the desert as his bride through an arranged marriage. But the woman didn’t want to return to her hometown.
The woman loved the mansion’s owner and wanted to stay by his side. Moreover, she had an abusive past in her hometown, so she didn’t want to return there either. However, it was true that her body couldn’t adapt to the harsh cold and she fell ill.
The mansion’s owner also loved his bride from the desert. Naturally, he didn’t want to send her away, but as her illness deepened and there seemed to be no hope of recovery in this place, he decided to let her go. To the woman who refused to leave, the mansion’s owner deliberately acted coldly as if his feelings had changed. He unilaterally announced the date and left for a distant hunt because he couldn’t bear to watch her leave.
However, the grief-stricken bride didn’t board the safe carriage the mansion’s owner had prepared and left the mansion alone. The bride, who wandered the harsh snowy mountains crying, eventually froze, and the owner who discovered her too late couldn’t restore his bride who had become an ice sculpture no matter what he did, so he cursed the heavens and himself, froze the entire mansion, and imprisoned himself there.
“Wouldn’t it be more natural for the mansion’s owner to have the power to freeze the mansion rather than a woman from the desert having that power even if she became a ghost?”
As I finished the story, I rearranged the letters.
“And according to that story, this sentence makes sense too.”
SAVE MY BRIDE CELIA
“Certainly, according to that sentence, your story fits better than the one I know.”
Carlisle nodded and continued while tapping the letter.
“Looking at the letters, at least Celia seemed to love her husband. Even if she doesn’t express it openly, you can feel her heart.”
Most of the letters the mansion’s owner had kept were letters received from Celia. From somewhat stiff and formal letters from before marriage, to gentle letters filled with affection worrying about her husband who had left on business trips or hunts. The mansion’s owner too – just seeing that he had carefully preserved all those letters, you couldn’t say he had no affection for his bride.
Carlisle, who seemed lost in thought for a moment, glanced at me.
“By the way, where did you hear that story?”
“Uh… I don’t remember well. Did I hear it from my late maternal grandmother?”
I brushed it off vaguely. Not remembering was true though.
While casually changing the subject, I pretended to be absorbed in organizing the alphabet pieces and fitting them into the original puzzle board in order.
SAVE MY BRIDE CELIA
Fortunately, it was judged correct and I could subtly change the atmosphere and move on.
With the judgment, the huge portrait of the couple hanging on the wall began to move. A gateway to the next stage had appeared. It was actually a secret door for entry and exit, and without fail, it had a lock with a three-digit password input. But the cipher hint presented above it was incomprehensible alphabet letters similar to before.
VDYHPBEULGHFHOLD
“What is this now?”
There wasn’t time to think it through carefully either.
Rumble rumble rumble.
Along with the cipher’s revelation, the floor began shaking again. Looking back, the floor was cracking and melting with squelching sounds starting from the threshold side. The speed was unexpectedly fast. I glanced at Carlisle. His face looking intently seemed like he might know something, or might not.
I also stared intently at the cipher, but nothing came to mind. At first glance, it seemed like a similar letter cipher to before, but it wasn’t about rearranging the order of letters or extracting parts to make words or sentences. It was a cipher with some hidden rule – the type I hated.
“It’s an extension of the cipher we solved earlier.”
Carlisle suddenly said.
“……?”
The cipher we solved earlier? What, SAVE MY BRIDE CELIA? The letters are completely different from that?
“Have you heard of Caesar cipher?”
“No. First time hearing it.”
I don’t know such things. If you know it, there’s no time so stop testing my knowledge and just give me the answer quickly. I glanced behind me. Somehow it felt like the floor was melting faster and faster.
“Well, we might be able to get it wrong once or twice… it’s probably not just one chance.”
Carlisle muttered. In games, three chances is the standard rule. I nodded, but it was actually just wishful thinking. At the mansion entrance, there was only one chance. I quietly grabbed Carlisle’s arm in preparation for things going wrong. He glanced down at the hand grabbing his arm, but fortunately didn’t give me a look to let go.
“It’s about shifting the alphabet at regular intervals to change the original text. It’s the most basic and intuitive cipher.”
Shifting the alphabet at regular intervals? So what, ‘SAVE MY BRIDE CELIA’ is shifted at regular intervals to become this strange arrangement of letters?
“Then…”
Groaning, I worked my non-functioning brain.
How much do I need to move to change S to V? A hundred steps is too much so excluding that and moving forward… Changing A to D, V to Y is the same. After quickly checking a few more letters for confirmation, I was confident of the answer.
“Shifted by three spaces?”
Carlisle nodded and then patted my head as if stroking it.
“……”
It was absurd but… strangely, it felt okay.
Anyway, I had no knowledge in this area so it was fascinating. But fascinating is fascinating.
Even if the original text was decoded by solving it that way, where would the three-digit number be derived from? As if answering my question, Carlisle continued his explanation.
“When making ciphers originally, you attach numbers 0-25 to the alphabet A-Z for calculation. So to get a three-digit number, probably… you add up all the numbers corresponding to the original alphabet.”
Since there were no hints specifying particular alphabets or other formulas, I had no choice but to trust Carlisle’s explanation and solve it. But I’m basically a “hate numbers” person, so I didn’t have the ability to list and calculate the numbers corresponding to each alphabet just in my head. I needed a pen and notebook to write and calculate visibly, but there was no time to find such things from the desk now, so I had to use my ten fingers at least.
‘If A is 0 and we start in alphabetical order, A, B, C, D… …K… Then S would be 18, A would be 0, V would be 21, E would be 4. And M would be…’
“137.”
While I was torturing my brain counting on my fingers, Carlisle spat out a number. When I looked at him puzzled, Carlisle met my eyes and brought his finger to the number pad.
“Should I input it?”
I wondered if it was okay without checking, but there was no time for verification or anything. The floor shaking was getting worse and ink bottles and decorations were falling to the floor right behind us, making thudding sounds as they broke. I clung to Carlisle’s waist and nodded frantically.
The moment he pressed the numbers 137 and hit enter, with a clicking sound of the lock being released, the door opened inward.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
