CH 18

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)

Date: Day 6

Current Location: Floor 1, Room 102 (Cursed Room – Mansion of Fear)

Sage’s Advice: 3]

The cathedral was a lot cleaner than expected. Even though the butler called it half-wasted, that was only in comparison to the mansion which was absurdly neat and tidy.

The cathedral wasn’t even that big and a few hours of cleaning might be all that was needed for a proper worship service. Following the butler, we crossed the chapel and went out through the back door and found the lake and the boat. 

Because of the sudden rise in water level from the storm, the lake was splashing right below the door, and the boat was also constantly knocking on the building.

As expected, the boat was in a terrible state. It had been openly exposed to the storm and appeared to have been ramming into all sorts of places due to the sudden rise in water level and was thus full of dirt.

“It definitely isn’t that clean but… if it’s just this, I believe it would be drivable.”

“Just asking, but you do know how to drive a boat, right, Mr. Butler?”

“Of course, Miss. But it looks like it would be difficult to immediately use this boat.”

The butler reached his arm out and pointed at the outer frame of the boat.

Did it crash into something during the sudden storm? I could see water seeping into the boat. For now, the hole was quite small but it definitely looked like it needed a repair.

“There are tools to repair the boat in the mansion. If we bring that and seal that hole, it should be possible to cross the lake. I’m sure the motor is still okay.”

After a brief eye contact with Eunsol-noona where we silently shared our thoughts, she nodded.

“Cough, cough. At-choo!”

“Are you alright? We must have been in the storm for too long.”

“I’m alright. You don’t have to worry about me. We can go back straight away.”

“No, I believe we should warm our bodies up a little. The path back to the mansion is not short. Let me bring a heater.”

The butler then headed off to bring a heater to warm our bodies up, as we sat on the long chairs of the chapel in slight relief.

Rattle, rattle.

Creeeakk.

A spooky noise reached my ears. I lifted my head to the source of that unpleasant sound and found a door swaying with a creak.

“I wonder… what that room is.”

“It’s probably the one used by the priest.”

It was very suspicious.

The butler who left us behind insisting that we needed to take some rest despite us telling him we were okay, and the door that creaked open as soon as he disappeared–

“Isn’t this like, pretty much telling us to search through that room?”

“I’ll go there.”

“Let’s go together. One person holding the torch will make it easier to search.”

“No,” I replied. “Hyung, I think you should stay near noona. The butler… is probably going to come back soon.”

The butler.

Hyung had been cautious of the butler from the very first day, saying that he was a relatively strong person. I told him we needed to be prepared for his return and Jinchul-hyung sat back down after showing his agreement.

Of course, it was true that I was cautious of the butler but…

One person at a time to dangerous places, and one death at a time. Like how you shouldn’t put all the eggs in one basket for stocks and investment, we had to avoid entering a dangerous location together.

Carrying the flashlight in one hand, I walked into the room. 

Inside was a half-rotten desk and several scattered documents. I scanned through them but most of them were phrases that were copied from the bible. They were probably written down to be used for a worship, or because the priest was moved by them.

I rummaged through the documents, and although apologetic, I sped through and tore out some pages of the squashed bible and tapped on the rotten desk while worriedly throwing a glance outside to see if the butler was back or not,

And that was when I came across an unusual document for the first time.

They were documents related to the lawsuit between the cathedral and the mansion.

The lawsuit itself was the same as what I heard from the butler yesterday. They were each claiming with various reasons that the cathedral and the land surrounding it belonged to them. 

I zealously began searching for more clues and found letters they had sent to each other.

At the start, they began respectfully by saying something like, ‘Dear Reverend, the Priest,’ and ‘Dear Devotee Lee Sehyun (I finally found out what ‘Sir’s’ name was)’ but they later started calling each other names. 

The letters in the middle were their respective claims and legal evidence so it was hard to understand them but there was one thing that stood out the most.

The way they called each other became ‘Rotten priest that’s crazy for money’ and ‘A wicked heretic and a damn devil’.

‘Crazy for money’.

That much was within the ‘normal’ scope of profanities when filing a lawsuit regarding land rights. 

But ‘A wicked heretic’ did not appear like a normal swear word. And it was a word that should definitely not be dismissed in a situation like this which was full of supernatural events.

There was a need to be suspicious of ‘Sir’.

After coming to that conclusion for the time being, there was nothing else that seemed significant so I left the room.

The butler was still nowhere to be seen and I could see hyung and noona shivering from the cold.

“Is he still not back? I thought he said he’ll be bringing back a heater…”

“I know right. Where in the world did he disappear to for that heater…? It’s been well over 30 minutes, and it has been close to an hour already.”

“That old man must be trying to kill all of us here. That’s why I should have killed that–”

“Can you please just be quiet. Please.”

I recalled what noona said before – ‘Jinchul is out of it’.

Now, I was starting to see where she was coming from. This hyung had certainly been unable to control his emotions after Elena’s death…

Only after another 10 minutes did the butler come back.

There was a portable heater in his hands, but none of us wanted to spend even a single more second in this ominous cathedral just to use that heater and we therefore departed for the mansion as soon as the butler came back regardless of the heater.

The butler didn’t have any objection against going back to the mansion and immediately took off. 

It was as if warming our bodies up had never been his intention from the first place.

After coming back to the mansion, we finally got to take a rest and heated ourselves up.

They were also concerned about our late return, and Seungyub, Songee as well as Ahri who had been staying back at the mansion all came out and created a fuss by boiling the water and heating up the bathtub. 

We had a small dinner just like our lunch, and followed suit with the plan we came up with before heading to the cathedral.

“Butler. Give me the key to the study.”

“Sorry Miss?”

“Key to the study. I’m going to look for something.”

“Haha, Miss. I’ve said this already to Seungyub-gun, but Sir made it very clear that no-one must enter the study. As you might be able to tell… there are a lot of legal and financial documents inside so–”

“Butler. Then go give him a call or something.”

“Young Miss…”

“I have to take a look at the study. There have been a bunch of strange things happening in this mansion. Do you know something about what’s happening? Or did uncle hide something in the study? I need to make sure so just bring me the key. Hurry up.”

“Noona. The owner of the house is stopping us from going inside… Aren’t you too heated up all of a sudden?” I asked.

“You keep your mouth shut. We can’t even contact that damn owner when there are people dying over here. We are going to have 2 more corpses if we follow what he says the whole time.”

I pretended like I was having a quarrel with her by continuing the argument for a little while before turning around with a sigh, and found others looking at me with widened eyes.

Here I was worried that I might be a bad actor but apparently, it seemed that I had been way too good at it. Or perhaps they were just frightened by seeing people fight in such a scary and perilous atmosphere.

Even Jinchul-hyung was looking at me with wide eyes, and it was weird to suddenly explain everything to him so I quietly sat back down instead.

Funnily enough, everyone had shown such a wonderful reaction and it was thus highly likely that no-one would be suspicious of it.

*

– Lee Eunsol

The study was exceptionally clean and normal. That was what ‘I’ found the most suspicious.

Ever since Elena’s death – the mansion began to wreak havoc. Another version of ‘me’ was smirking inside the mirror, the cuckoo clock was busy exploding every hour, and the dolls became more curious about humans.

Besides, wasn’t there also the recent event during our small dinner that consisted of a sandwich and a cup of coffee, where the cup suddenly ‘grew legs’ and moved on its own to pour hot water?

And yet this study… was completely different from everything else happening in the mansion.

It was way too peaceful.

Standing still, I recalled the information gathered by Kain. 

‘Sir’ was a heretic. That was definitely a significant piece of information. 

The butler had been eager to bring us to the cathedral ever since the first day, and in the end, he took us there and made us stay inside the cathedral for an hour.

He was probably trying to make us discover something. Considering how the cathedral contained information about Sir being a heretic… something similar should also be inside the study.

I rummaged through the surroundings. I opened every book as well as the drawers.

Why ‘me’?

That was the question that was always stuck in my mind ever since the first incidents of the mansion. Elena said back in the car that everything was like a movie.

Everyone was given a role.

And the most important role in this ‘Mansion of Fear’ was me no matter how I saw it.

The other people were technically only at the mansion because they were college friends of ‘Lee Eunsol’. 

I was the niece of the owner of the mansion, and at the same time was the only one that could control the suspicious employees of the mansion. The role given to me was definitely the most crucial.

But why was it ‘me’? Why was I given the most important role? What did I have that others didn’t?

Child of a rich family? It’s not like I could use the money sitting in my bank account, and that didn’t seem all that meaningful.

A little clever? That was similar for Kain from what I saw. He was quick-witted enough that I wanted to personally employ him after leaving the hotel. 

And apart from that, I… was a speaker of multiple languages.

Reaching out, I poked my hand into the vague empty space between the second and third drawer and touched a thick envelope. Inside the envelope were documents of all sorts of languages, from Spanish to French, German and English.

Not only were the languages different, but the format, writing style and the types of paper were all different. It was as if all the fragmented pieces of information had been scraped up from the entire globe, and every bit of that information was describing ‘one thing’.

I realised as soon as I finished reading the last sentence of the 4th document. Although I had steeled myself for it, I still couldn’t help but tremble.

Now, it was my turn to be sacrificed.