Chapter 199: The Haunted House (5)
‘Because they were ignorant.’
That was the reason the 5th Knights were annihilated in Harad’s previous life.
Kesera was a cautious knight who pretended to be ignorant.
She would have read the manual and followed it.
However, she would not have been able to stop the knights who ignored the manual.
Because stopping them would an not being a knight.
As the commander of the 5th Knights, she would have been even more careful.
Kesera mistook her own caution for fear, and feared that she herself might be a weak knight.
‘It still does not work.’
Kesera of his previous life had said her essence was caution.
That was why Harad had deliberately emphasized caution.
Yet there was no noticeable change in Kesera.
‘Kalinos was easy.’
Kalinos had realized his essence in a rather absurd way, and beca a Sword Master.
Thinking about it, Kalinos had already been unconsciously pursuing valor before that mont.
It only looked absurd to Harad.
For Kalinos himself, it must have been a very long journey.
‘Caution differs from person to person.’
Kalinos’s valor was not universal valor, but his own personal valor.
The sa applied to Kesera.
Soone else’s caution and Kesera’s caution were different things.
Harad could not know how they differed.
Only the person themselves could know, or co to know.
‘Do you only realize it by experiencing it yourself?’
A knight is soone who pursues oneself.
When one reaches the end, Aura becos a mirror, and when one can reflect one’s essence in that mirror, one becos a Sword Master.
Interfering in that ordeal is aningless.
In the end, one must realize it alone.
‘If it were effective, soone would have done it long ago.’
Harad recalled Mores Palaz.
That retired superhuman had taught Elaine the sword, but had never spoken about essence.
It ant he knew such actions were aningless.
What Mores Palaz emphasized was only real combat and experience.
‘It is just as vague.’
Aura and magic were equally obscure.
“Tsk.”
Harad clicked his tongue softly.
Ellen, with her sharp hearing, tilted her head.
“Why?”
“at is stuck in my teeth.”
“You did not eat anything.”
“Was that so?”
Harad brushed it off.
Ellen looked at him suspiciously, then accepted it.
She knew that questioning further would only result in an answer of “it is a secret.”
Kesera was examining the third-floor dining room.
Harad had turned it into a sea of fire, but the effect was minimal.
‘Only scorched. It has high resistance by default.’
It retaliated against physical attacks, and was sturdy against formless magic.
If one truly wanted to burn it, one would likely need to manifest at least a projection.
‘But there is no counterattack.’
For mages, there was no risk.
For knights, retaliation ca at every turn.
‘A house that is troubleso only for knights.’
It was as if this house had been born to devour knights.
“Harad, are you a mage now?”
Kesera spoke when their eyes t.
“That is right.”
“Then I want to discuss what cos next.”
Her voice was low.
But the fact that she asked mattered.
‘So it was not aningless.’
He had instilled the idea that caution was not a bad thing.
And she had felt its necessity.
That was enough.
Even if not now, Kesera would co to realize her essence.
And that realization would not co through the deaths of the 5th Knights.
“What do you plan to do?”
“For now, I intend to go all the way up.”
The haunted house was a five-story mansion.
“Likely, the answer to this house is on the fifth floor. That should be the owner’s space.”
“The owner? Ah. You saw the manual.”
Harad nodded.
“The fourth floor is the guest rooms. I plan to check there as well. The earlier guest should be there.”
Fire!
Soone had shouted that.
The owner of the boots in the first-floor shoe cabinet.
Harad intended to et that guest.
With high probability, they were a mage.
“You already knew soone else was here?”
“There were shoes.”
“But that does not an they are alive.”
“There were six servings. Including Fireball, we are five.”
“…That thing was ant to be eaten?”
Ellen pointed at the mold-like sothing that had burned black.
“It would have been safe to eat. Probably delicious. Except for and Jis.”
“…?”
“It is a rule that it only acts as poison to the one who attacks.”
If one had simply read the manual, there would have been no risk of starving.
“What do you think about leaving? Ah. I am not saying I want to, I am asking for your thoughts.”
Kesera asked.
It was a welco question.
Dialogue broadened perspective, and perspective increased choices.
That was the path to caution.
“Unfortunately, that is impossible. I already attacked.”
“What?”
“Ah. You and Ellen can leave. Jis and I cannot.”
“…?”
“Will you abandon us?”
“Anyone who attacks or is attacked must go up to the fifth floor and receive forgiveness from the owner for causing a disturbance.”
“…?”
Kesera wore a strange expression.
Harad looked away.
Ellen was peering toward the stairs leading to the fourth floor.
“If you step with your right foot first, the trap does not activate.”
At that, Ellen stepped forward with her right foot.
“Oh. It is true.”
Unlike when Harad had climbed, the stairs did not rise.
Earlier, Harad had deliberately stepped with his left foot first.
“But how do you know this?”
Ellen tilted her head.
“It was written in the manual.”
“You tore it up.”
“I morized it before tearing it up.”
Ellen’s head tilted to the side.
At a disturbing angle.
“Then why did you not say anything?”
“I was a knight then. Now I am a mage.”
Preparation was essential for a mage.
The manual was preparation for a house created by so mage.
“…Are you insane?”
***
The fourth floor was the guest rooms.
There were six rooms in total, and among them was the true guest room.
The earlier guest would be in the true guest room.
“How do we find the real one?”
“It was not written.”
The manual did not explain how to distinguish the true guest room.
“Did you forget? Or maybe you did not see it.”
Ellen was suspicious.
Behind her, the corridor stretched straight, and six doors were lined up at regular intervals along the right wall.
“That cannot be.”
Harad shrugged.
It was only a single sheet of instructions.
Even double-sided, it was easy to morize at a glance.
“Then what are the fake guest rooms?”
“Probably traps.”
It was a multiple-choice question with one correct answer out of six.
But there was no solution thod.
“Then we will have to open them one by one.”
Ellen chose to brute-force it.
Kesera looked reluctant.
She had felt the need for caution.
This house was that kind of place.
“I will do it.”
Harad did not stop her.
Caution was needed for Kesera and the ignorant, weak knights tied to her.
Ellen was an exception.
Considering her essence, this was correct.
She should not hesitate or deliberate.
She had the strength to do so.
The first door opened.
At the sa ti, a heavy roar echoed.
It was a deafening roar.
Harad realized a mont too late that it was the sound of sothing striking Ellen from beyond the door.
The trap was that fast and powerful.
“Oh.”
Ellen exclaid lightly.
Her voice sounded as if she had understood how it worked.
A rock as large as a human torso was blocked by her hand.
It was not an ordinary rock.
‘Magic.’
It was alien.
Harad had not felt magic from this house.
That ant the rock was not part of the house.
‘A trap set by a mage?’
At that mont, Kesera murmured in admiration.
“As expected of Serzila.”
Kesera was looking down at her own hand.
If it had been her, that would have been the assumption.
Her hand would have been broken.
That was the power of the magic.
Yet Ellen was fine.
Click.
The second door opened.
A tongue shot out, teeth sprouted from the doorfra, and the opened door struck Ellen’s back.
It seed to try to shove her into a space that had turned into a mouth, but Ellen did not budge.
She grabbed the door, tore it off, and threw it beyond.
The tongue and teeth vanished.
That too was magic.
Harad could feel it.
It was not sothing to ignore.
Yet to Ellen, it looked easy.
‘She has grown stronger.’
Because Elaine of his previous life had manifested.
It was similar to when he had faced Avery Aquins and dread while awake.
The more dreams she had, the more the effects of regression deepened, the stronger Ellen beca.
And Elaine’s regression progressed as well.
“This one must be the real one.”
Ellen had opened five doors and endured five spells.
She now stood at the end of the corridor.
The last door was before her.
Without hesitation, Ellen opened it.
From the pitch-black space beyond, sothing flew out and struck her face.
Thud.
Harad looked at what had fallen to the floor.
‘A leg bone?’
It was longer than Harad’s height.
It must have belonged to an enormous and terrifying Magical Beast in life.
“…You said there was a real one.”
Still, it looked less frightening than Ellen, clutching her reddened nose.
***
A thin line of blood ran from her nose.
She had failed to raise her Aura.
She had not anticipated it being a trap.
Harad had said that one of the six doors was correct, and Ellen had already confird five wrong answers.
“Do you have anything to say?”
Even if he did not, he had to.
Harad desperately turned his thoughts.
‘All traps on the fourth floor were magic.’
There was a high chance they had been set by soone.
Likely an Otherworld mage.
‘Not the earlier guest. The mage who wrote the manual?’
That did not matter.
What mattered was that the manual did not explain how to distinguish the true guest room.
‘The rules were detailed.’
Yet the fourth floor was brief.
In other words, there was nothing particularly dangerous here.
Because it was magic.
“Ah.”
Harad let out a short sound.
“Why?”
“I understand. I am the one who should open it.”
More precisely, a mage.
Harad examined the doors.
The smashed and torn doors had been restored as if nothing had happened.
That too was magic.
“It is like when you drink water wrong and it goes down the windpipe instead of the esophagus. The dividing line is mana.”
Ellen had gone down the windpipe.
“Think of it as a Magical Item. To you, it is just an object, but to Jis and , it is a special one.”
The door itself was a kind of Magical Item.
If infused with mana, it led to the true guest room.
If opened normally, it beca a trap.
“The rules in the manual were detailed. All fake, yet all real.”
It said there was a true guest room, not that there was only one.
It ant a mage could open any door.
Harad grabbed the nearest door and opened it casually.
Beside him, Ellen reflexively reached out, but nothing ca flying from beyond.
“Oh!”
Instead, soone was kneeling.
A foot stuck out slightly.
Barefoot.
Harad imdiately recognized the man as the owner of the boots and the earlier guest who had shouted about fire.
“The Red Tower?”
The guest was wearing a red robe.
“Yes. O Great Fire.”
The kneeling man bowed deeply.
“I am Forbest, 4th Rank of the Red Tower, bearer of Embers.”
The space behind them beca restless.
Kesera had her hand on her sword, mouth open.
She looked ready to shout “Otherworld” and swing her blade.
Fortunately, she was stopped.
Quick-witted Ellen covered Kesera’s mouth and grabbed her hand.
Then she jerked her chin toward Harad.
Do whatever you want.
Ellen t Kesera’s eyes and tried to communicate.
Harad turned his gaze back.
Forbest of Embers was still bowing.
“Raise your head.”
The man lifted his head.
He was a middle-aged man with a striking monocle fitted over his right eye socket.
“It is a pleasure to et you. I am Harad, Star of the Red Tower.”
Harad smiled brightly as he t his gaze.
He extended his hand.
“Stand up first. The floor is cold.”
“…….”
There was no response.
Forbest’s pupils shook.
His eyes widened, and the monocle fell to the floor.
‘Was I exposed? Did the Moon tell him?’
No.
“Star!”
It was awe.
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