#079
It was ridiculous. Taro had followed us all the way to the hidden dungeon, but why was this guy… Of course, there wouldn’t be any more combat, but for things like quizzes or puzzles, wouldn’t it be better to have three heads working together rather than two? Honestly, since I couldn’t trust my own brain, I was counting myself out and relying only on Carlisle and Freya.
“Raon!”
I heard Carlisle’s urging voice – he had already reached the entrance. When I turned around, he was wearing a black long coat with his head half-shrouded in darkness, looking ominous like a 19th-century vampire.
‘Looking at it this way, it’s like entering a ghost house with a vampire.’
I got goosebumps. Ghost houses and haunted houses were places I would absolutely never visit on purpose. I mean, why pay money to seek out fear?
When it was a game, the graphics were cute so I didn’t feel particularly scared during events, but now…
I barely managed to move my reluctant legs with the power of the Tranquility Potion and stood next to Carlisle. In front of us was the tightly closed front door of the mansion. Creepily, the ghost mansion’s door knocker wasn’t even ordinary – it was shaped like a human hand. I’d have to grab it and knock to start something, but feeling disgusted, my hand wouldn’t move at all, so I just stared at it.
“What are you doing?”
Sure enough, I heard urging from beside me. I swallowed a sigh inwardly and reluctantly reached out my hand.
“No, don’t.”
Carlisle grabbed my hand to stop me. When I looked at him puzzled, he was frowning. What now? What’s bothering him?
I also slightly frowned and glared back at him, when Carlisle clicked his tongue and suddenly reached out to rub my cheek. Even though he was wearing leather gloves in the cold weather, I could feel the warmth of his hand. As I flinched and hunched my shoulders in surprise, Carlisle showed me his finger that had touched my cheek with a twisted expression. There was blood on it.
“You’re going to enter in that state? Where’s your potion?”
Now that he mentioned it, I’d been too distracted to reorganize myself. Only then did I hurriedly gulp down healing potions and stamina potions and check the condition of my heating band. As my stamina filled up, my mood improved considerably. Carlisle, who had been quietly watching what I was doing, reached out himself and knocked on the massive front door once my preparations seemed complete.
The door began to open with an ominous creaking sound. Through the opening gap, the interior of the mansion was gradually revealed. Just like when the main gate had opened earlier, there were no signs of people inside the entrance either.
The blizzard-whipped outside should have been much colder, but an even greater chill flowed out from inside. Everything visible – the ceiling, walls, floor, chandelier, furniture, large and small decorations – was frozen solid. It wasn’t just the simple coldness of ice, but a space filled with an eerie, ominous aura that made your skin crawl.
Thud.
The sound of footsteps echoed loudly through the space. With a bang, the door closed behind us.
I unconsciously swallowed. This door wouldn’t open again until tomorrow morning. I was now trapped in this mansion alone with Carlisle. Now that the game had started, traps would be activated too.
What would start first?
Whirrrr.
As if answering my question, the extinguished chandelier lit up and lights came on in the frozen floor as well. A hexagonal grid pattern like a honeycomb appeared on the floor. Each hexagonal figure was randomly carved with numbers from 0 to 9.
A classic. The game where you fall through the floor if you step on the wrong answer.
Out of various traps, one I knew had appeared. I was relieved. I remembered playing this in a game event. Actually, since it was a healing game, the trick was simple compared to the atmosphere. The combined information was just a patchwork of unimportant things.
In front of the mansion were carved the name of the ancestor who built it, the architect’s name, and the completion date, and the eight-digit number of that date was the lock number to enter this mansion. So it was asking for the password to enter the mansion. The trick was just switching the year and date around, but for Koreans, that was actually more familiar.
“18740529?”
I said that while glancing at Carlisle. I was prepared to answer that I saw the number on the stone monument in front of the house if he asked why that number, but unexpectedly, Carlisle immediately nodded.
‘He knows this answer too.’
That meant Carlisle had also come here and experienced this before. Then there was nothing more to worry about. It meant it was a confirmed correct answer both in the game and in this world. The arrangement of numbers was even laid out in a direction from the entrance toward the stairs, albeit zigzag. As if to make it easy to pass through.
The spacing was appropriately wide, so there was no need to move precariously. We began crossing the hall leisurely but carefully, stepping on the numbers one by one.
But it was just when we’d passed halfway and stepped on the central stone carved with 0.
Grrrrrr.
An ominous vibration occurred. The floor began to move and the chandelier on the ceiling started to shake.
Crack crack crack.
The ice on the floor rapidly split and crumbled. There was no mistaking what was happening. The answer was wrong.
‘How come?’
But there was no time to wonder. The vibration and noise began to rapidly intensify.
“Whoa!”
I lost my balance and collapsed onto the floor.
“Tsk.”
The sound of Carlisle clicking his tongue rang right in my ear. His solid arm wrapped around my waist. Carlisle kicked off the crumbling floor precariously and ran toward the stairs while holding me. His coat tails fluttered roughly in the air. It was an almost flying movement.
CRASH!
But the stairs weren’t safe either. As soon as we stepped on them, as if that was a signal, the stairs crumbled and fell.
‘Shibal, shibal, shibal!’
I cursed inwardly while running up frantically with Carlisle. But cursing wouldn’t solve the problem. We landed on the second-floor corridor, but the collapse still hadn’t stopped. From below the crumbling floor, pitch-black darkness opened its mouth and chased our heels. We ran desperately to the end of the corridor and barely threw ourselves through an open door. We rolled on the carpeted floor almost simultaneously.
“Huff, huff, huff.”
I was breathless to the point of death. I felt like I might vomit. I could see the corridor floor suddenly collapse in front of the open door. Ice fragments shattered into pieces and disappeared into the black darkness.
But fortunately, the collapse stopped with that. The floor inside the room didn’t break.
“Haa, haa.”
I barely wiped my sweat and caught my breath.
‘What? What happened?’
I prepared to get scolded and looked at Carlisle. But Carlisle was also in a thoughtful state with a slightly frowning face. A murmur of “Why?” flowed from his lips. The current situation seemed to be a mystery to Carlisle too.
‘The answer really did change. Why?’
Was it because of me? Did it change because I entered? If so, that would be a disaster.
The failed first attempt… was somehow overcome by Carlisle’s physical strength. But we couldn’t keep avoiding things this way. I looked around the room we had entered.
“A study… yes.”
If it was a study, the type of problem was predetermined. I walked to the desk placed by the window. As expected, there was a puzzle board with alphabet letters scattered around. It was a puzzle game where you get hints from objects in the room to complete sentences with the given alphabet.
I roughly remembered the original answer, but there was a high possibility the answer had changed. When I actually tried to make sentences according to the answer in my head, it didn’t work. Either the necessary letters were missing or unnecessary letters were included. The number of letters was also different. It clearly meant a different sentence was required.
I looked around the room carefully again. A portrait first caught my eye. A man with platinum hair and a pale face, and a woman with red hair. They were the mansion’s owner couple. I recalled the background story where a man who was a local influential figure had an arranged marriage with a woman from a desert family.
On the display cabinet were small animal sculptures and models. Siberian Husky and Elkhound, desert fox and desert rose models, etc. When I searched through the desk drawers, there were various documents and stationery, and in the very last drawer was a bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon. Personal records.
“A promising hint.”
Let me think. Story is important in this event.
Come to think of it, among the materials in the game library, there were background stories related to each area, dungeon, and event. Of course, no player properly reads them except when really necessary. Quiz questions about background stories do come up in festival events, but most are problems you can answer without reading those materials since only the really major parts come up.
To be honest, I was too busy with quests to read them properly either. Since they were clickable, I just clicked on some parts once when I was curious about what they were at first. But…
‘What is this? I think I know the story related to this mansion.’
Did I read it when I was bored and forget? That’s unlikely. But if not, there’s no way I would know this story.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
