Mitsuki, who has connections with knights, was asked to investigate the situation with the knights surrounding the mansion. It turned out that two days ago, the night we went on our trial, the Knights’ Order concluded that I was the culprit who had placed a skull in the plaza. They identified the mansion and a troop of knights arrived.
And it seems that from there their long, long night began, and what I’m about to tell you is the full story of it.
This is a true, terrifying tale of what the knights experienced while we were away from the mansion.
Even though one of the knights announced their arrival in a loud voice, there was no reply. However, lights were on in several rooms of the mansion, and sounds could be heard from inside.
The knights who visited the mansion judged that a man named Soma, fearful of being questioned about the skull incident, had barricaded himself inside and was deliberately ignoring their calls.
They had been strongly urged by their beloved princess to bring the culprit to her at all costs.
Moreover, to openly ignore their summons by lights and noise like this was the height of disrespect for knights.
They decided that for the sake of the princess and the honor of the Knights’ Order, they could not retreat here.
Little did they know that this was the beginning of the terror that would befall them.
As soon as they entered, they knew.
It was truly a demon’s mansion.
The moment they broke through a window and entered the building, a deafening alarm blared.
Upon hearing the sound, monsters, presumably golems made of a strange silver metal, immediately swarmed them.
They attacked the knights with guns that fired light magic and strange electrified rods.
Faced with their high combat power, the knights, who should have undergone rigorous training, were defeated one after another.
Even if they managed to escape the golems with all their might, numerous traps were triggered.
Arrows and spears shot out when they stepped on certain spots.
And then, the real trap, placed precisely in the area they avoided to dodge the initial traps.
To the knight who was convinced they had avoided all the traps, it was unavoidable.
A ear-splitting death rattle.
The accompanying knights involuntarily covered their eyes and ears.
When they opened their eyes, their comrade was gone without a trace.
Still, the silver golems were stationed on the path they had come from.
Knowing there were traps, they had no choice but to press on.
The mansion had many traps akin to dungeon puzzles.
At the same time as the alarm, the floor was divided into a grid and color-coded. There were traps where falling into a pitfall would occur if they didn’t step on them in the correct sequence.
However, although the knights were fewer in number due to the complexity of the required sequences, it was proof of their individual strength.
Many possessed excellent abilities, and some had experience in dungeon攻略(conquering).
The knights racked their brains and deciphered the rules.
Based on the conclusion they reached, the knights walked across the floor. The moment they stepped on the final correct tile with a sense of accomplishment, the ground beneath them gave way.
The knight, with an expression of disbelief, fell.
Then, a message card flew from somewhere.
“You shouldn’t be making correct answers to traps, should you?
Pfft, are you an idiot?”
What a cowardly and despicable trick!
At this point, anger overtook their fear.
The remaining knights, thinking of the fallen comrade’s regret, swore to capture the mansion’s owner at all costs.
However, the more their blood boiled, the more they were manipulated.
Terrifying traps that ignored human consciousness, and sometimes even the laws of physics, attacked the knights.
The knights, who had visited in small numbers to begin with, lost one member after another, and the exploration team was wiped out in less than an hour.
The next time they woke up, they were in front of the mansion’s gate.
Fortunately, if intruders in the mansion were caught in traps or fatally wounded inside, they would be teleported to the mansion’s gate with 1 HP, having lost their equipment and items.
Though they felt disgraced at being robbed of their equipment and outmaneuvered by the wicked mansion owner, they rejoiced in their comrades’ safety.
However, their joy was short-lived.
…Two of them. The two knights who went to the second floor never returned.
“They must have been taken hostage by the mansion’s owner!”
Thinking this, the knights requested reinforcements from the castle.
Of course, the number of people who could move at such an hour was limited, but they formed an assault team by selecting the most elite among them.
And a few hours later, in full readiness, the Knights’ Order stormed the mansion again.
The mansion’s traps were as relentless as ever. However, thanks to the information gathered beforehand and the larger number of knights this time, they managed to obtain the mansion’s key, which had been left in a large room on the first floor, and successfully rescued the two knights who were confined in a luxurious room on the second floor.
With this key, they could open any locked door in the mansion.
And inside, they believed, was the source of this disturbance, the owner of this terrifying mansion.
The knights were instantly invigorated.
“We’ll make him pay for making a fool of us,” they declared, kicking open the closed room.
However, the true door to their nightmare had actually opened at that moment.
The moment the key was used and the room door swung open, a strange black magic item began to blare loudly.
They could see movement crawling on the walls and traces of blood, but no matter how hard they strained their eyes, they couldn’t see the creature.
And then, from the mirror-like surface of a strange box, a monster in the form of a long-haired woman emerged.
The knights fought valiantly against this unprecedented threat, one they had never encountered before.
They hurled magic at the magic item, attacked the invisible enemy with a mask-like object that was impossible to dodge, and sliced the female-shaped monster in two with a single sword stroke.
But it didn’t end.
The magic item still blared, the bloody handprints pressed in on the knights with even greater fervor and force, and the monster they thought they had defeated crawled out of the mirror surface as if nothing had happened.
They were bewildered and terrified.
They were not weak-hearted enough to falter against formidable enemies.
However, their attacks were ineffective.
It felt like they were hitting, but they weren’t.
They thought they had defeated it, but it kept coming back.
How could they possibly confront such an unreasonable situation?
Fear slowed their movements and their thoughts.
And it was there they made their biggest mistake.
The key in their hands was snatched by the female-shaped monster.
The monster, like a beast, clutched the key in its mouth and fled out of the room, darting down the corridor that should have been full of traps on all fours.
But no one could follow.
The traps that hadn’t activated for the monster were dangerous obstacles for the knights. They also had to be wary of the unknown enemies still in the room, and above all, no one wanted to confront that eerie, immortal monster.
Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate.
Even without the key, most of the rooms on the first floor were left open.
And, without exception, every single one of those rooms was aberrant.
At first, they had only been wary of traps and had mostly passed by the rooms. But now, they realized that each room was utterly insane.
The first room they entered had a wall covered in what could only be described as abnormal paintings.
How could they possibly describe the state of that room, the paintings that covered its walls?
…Just madness.
A pure, and therefore unadulterated, madness. A form of artistic genius that transcended human sensibility.
It was a world of madness that unfolded in that room, making even the knights, who claimed no knowledge of art, feel so.
On an already bizarre, blood-red wall, buildings that induced emotional instability simply by looking at them, and monstrous creatures that defied the laws of this world were depicted.
Particularly terrifying was a grotesque monster with a blood-red body that seemed to have painted over the red wall, making it even redder.
It was strangely circular, with twisted, slender horns, and an impossibly large mouth, as if it were about to swallow someone whole.
It was by no means a skillfully executed painting.
But the author’s obsession, the ferocity of the depicted monster, transcended dimensions and reached those who saw it.
And they heard a phantom voice: “Do you like it?”
There was no way they could like something like this.
But…
Anyone staying in a room like this would lose their sanity.
While pretending not to notice the fear they couldn’t suppress, they thought.
“These are paintings depicting cults and their rituals. This is not something a person who loves the true God, or rather, anyone who believes in anything other than a cult, would see.”
They forced this conclusion upon themselves and left the room.
The next room was, in a sense, similar to the previous one.
The walls, floor, and ceiling were all covered with small, yet incredibly lifelike, and more detailed than any of the finest painters could have rendered, pictures.
The motif of all the paintings appeared to be the same woman.
What kind of passion, what obsession, would lead to a room like this?
The knights, enduring the rising discomfort and inexplicable fear, gazed around the room and at the paintings that covered its walls.
And the moment they realized the identity of the woman depicted in the paintings, one knight screamed.
The countless paintings covering the room, the woman depicted in them all.
It was the exact image of the monster that had stolen the key and fled.
They were now surrounded by the likenesses of that grotesque monster.
The moment they realized this, they were overcome by the illusion that the monster would leap out at them from the side walls, from above, or even from beneath their feet.
Even if they tried to look away, she was everywhere, in every direction, with no escape.
No matter how valiant the knights were, they couldn’t withstand a room like this.
First, the knight near the exit bolted outside, and soon everyone in the room followed.
The hallway still had traps, and even traps that had been triggered would reset after a certain amount of time.
Normally, they should have acted with extreme caution, but not a single person who tried to be careful, or rather, who even thought of it, had done so.
Hesitantly, they peeked into other rooms.
One man who peeked into a room shouted that it was upside down.
However, when a large group of people looked at it, the room appeared to have a perfectly normal structure.
Perhaps the extreme situation had caused him to hallucinate.
The man insisted, “It was really, truly upside down!” and was sent back outside, and the matter seemed to be settled.
However, even after that, periodically, a succession of people claimed to have seen the same hallucination.
From then on, looking into that room was forbidden.
There was a room with paintings on the walls that deceived spatial perception and distance. The moment they entered, they lost their sense of location.
One knight, whose nerves were already frayed, investigated that room for a long time until he could bear it no longer and vomited.
Or there was a room where all objects bore the motif of a heart, or rather, a depiction of a heart.
In the center, there was a large pedestal. They confirmed that if a sacrifice was tied to the pedestal, it would begin to rotate, and as light filled the room, a sound would play.
The knights strongly believed this was a cult ritual site.
While they investigated these rooms, the mansion’s traps continued to take down the knights.
Even though they were returned to the gate with 1 HP due to the mansion’s mechanisms, the pain and fear they experienced were real.
Combined with the bizarre interior of the mansion, the knights’ spirits were beginning to break.
“We can’t go on like this,” the commanders proposed, and some of them decided to eat, take breaks, and take turns bathing in the mansion’s bath.
Of course, they would carry their weapons into the bath but would remove their armor.
To expose themselves in such a defenseless state in enemy territory was unthinkable under normal circumstances.
However, simply resting was not enough to soothe the knights’ frayed nerves.
They needed to quickly impress upon themselves that there was at least one safe place in this mansion.
This was the commanders’ unusual strategy.
However, the attempt backfired.
Despite carrying weapons and having a fully armed knight standing guard in the adjacent changing room, the person inside had disappeared without a trace.
Yes, without even realizing it, they had been dealt a fatal blow by an unseen assailant and were thrown out in front of the gate, naked.
According to the knights’ accounts, there was no suspicious presence in the bath.
As a precaution, they had entered in groups of three, but since nothing happened, they let their guard down. They were lulled by the unexpected comfort of the bath and the beautiful view, and all three likely felt their consciousness fading at roughly the same time.
And the next thing they knew, they were lying naked outside.
The fact that they had been attacked by means they couldn’t even perceive, in a place that should have been safe, weighed heavily on the knights’ hearts.
Doubt began to creep in: “Is there no safe place in this mansion?”
Fear spread: “We might be taken down just like they were, without even realizing it.”
And at the same time, a certain conviction began to grow among the knights wandering the mansion.
They should have considered the possibility from the moment they saw that black skull.
However, even as they said it, deep down they didn’t believe it.
“There’s no way such people exist,” they thought.
But now they could say with certainty.
“This is a cult’s mansion.”
What further surprised the knights and solidified their suspicions was the fact that the mansion showed faint traces of habitation.
The owner, Soma, had been living in this mansion.
They wouldn’t be able to stay in such a place for even a single night if they had even a shred of normal sensibility, even if they were cultists worshipping a hideous god.
It would be understandable if they were using the mansion temporarily as an altar for dark rituals, or as a battlefield to repel knights like themselves, or perhaps as a base to raise monsters.
However, in this space where monsters roamed and strange screams erupted every few seconds, while gazing at mind-destroying scenery and paintings dyed in madness, would any human even consider living here?
If such a person existed, they would already be an inhabitant of a world of madness.
They reasoned that only a “monster” of sorts, having transcended the bounds of humanity, could.
According to prior investigation, it seemed the mansion had been purchased a few days ago by a man named Soma.
The building’s caretaker had apparently never visited the mansion before and hadn’t performed any maintenance.
Whether this mansion had always belonged to a cult, or if Soma had transformed it into a monstrous dwelling in just a few days through some horrifying means, they didn’t know.
But at the very least, the mere fact that they were living, or rather dwelling, here left no room for doubt about their terrifying true nature.
Turning their backs on the light, wielding terrifying monsters, engaging in immoral rituals night after night, and plotting to resurrect the Evil God, the embodiment of all evil—these were the cult followers.
Knights were tasked with protecting the kingdom not only from monsters but also from such people. However, for the past hundred years or so, they had not actually encountered people called cultists.
Perhaps this was why their fear of cults had faded over time, to the point where it had been reduced to mere superstition.
But such complacency and underestimation had already vanished.
The owner of this mansion, this cultist calling himself Soma, would surely become a threat to the kingdom.
They had to find him and strike him down.
The knights suppressed their fear with courage, fueled their tense bodies with the oil of their mission, and advanced further. They stepped onto the second floor, where more monstrous cult activities undoubtedly awaited them.
One man, who was skilled in stealth and an excellent scout among the knights, first peeked onto the second floor from the stairs.
In the darkness of the mansion, a faint outline appeared: the woman, the monster who had taken the key.
He stifled a scream and continued to observe. The woman, with clumsy hands and failing repeatedly, seemed to be doing something towards a door.
No, not just something.
The man quickly realized. She had the key.
She was using that key to try and unlock the rooms in the mansion. It was a chilling plan.
The release of more monsters like that throughout the mansion was something that absolutely had to be avoided.
It was at that moment, driven by a sense of duty, that the man felt something tap his arm.
He felt it and thought, “Damn, I got too engrossed and forgot to report to my comrades.”
Unable to vocalize it, he turned around with an apologetic feeling…
…and met a pair of inorganic glass eyes that reflected no emotion.
He couldn’t speak.
What stood behind him was not human.
It was a doll, like one a small child would play with for pretend.
For some reason, it moved as if it had a will of its own and approached the man.
His mind couldn’t process the unbelievable sight.
However, while his mind was frozen, his eyes performed their duty.
The doors to the rooms on the opposite side of where the woman with the key was, that is, to the man’s rear, were all open.
It was too late, he finally realized.
At the same time, he understood the identity of the small shadows that filled the corridor.
Dolls. Dolls, dolls, dolls. A horde of dolls.
Their inanimate eyes all turned to look at him.
Their emotionless smiles all focused on him. The man stumbled.
Then, the leading doll, the one that had tapped his arm earlier, raised its head like a sentient creature.
The moment the doll raised its head, its glass-like eyes spun…
And then, inexplicably, two round objects rolled onto the ground…
“Ahhhhhh!!!”
Seeing this, the man let out a desperate scream.
The knight’s reason collapsed at that moment. Forgetting his mission and everything else, he shoved his comrades and tumbled down the stairs, running towards the mansion’s exit.
Of course, he couldn’t possibly escape the mansion by acting so carelessly.
The man triggered a trap, was shot by a silver golem, and was thrown out in front of the gate.
Still, the man didn’t stop.
No longer a knight or a brave warrior, he ran, making only strange noises, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the mansion.
Along the way, his comrades, who were waiting at the gate, tried to stop him, but he broke free and tried to run.
Eventually, when three of his colleagues managed to hold him down, there was no longer any spark of intellect in his eyes; he was just muttering incomprehensible things.
And at almost the exact same time.
The knights remaining in the mansion also decided to cancel their second assault operation.
However, it seemed they had not given up on subduing the mansion, or rather, on defeating the terrifying cultist Soma.
A third assault was supposed to happen.
But when dawn broke, the first message from the castle was an order, no, a plea, from the princess.
“Please do not lay hands on the owner of that mansion.”
Upon hearing this, the knights thought that, however much it was the princess’s order, this was something they couldn’t possibly obey.
She clearly didn’t understand the horror and strangeness of this mansion.
This could escalate into a national emergency.
However, no matter how they tried to convey the danger, they had only lost their equipment and items, and there were still no human casualties.
Other than their HP being reduced to 1, they hadn’t even sustained any injuries.
This was something to be thankful for, but it meant they couldn’t convey the danger of this mansion.
However, the knight who had been telling Mitsuki the story reportedly laughed self-deprecatingly.
“Oh, you know. It was a lie, a lie.
Honestly, I think we were all just scared.
Of confronting that mansion again.
And of meeting Soma, the cult follower who ruled that insane mansion.”
They all acknowledged this, yet no one voiced it.
In any case, the assault operation was canceled, and all but a portion of the Knights’ Order retreated.
Those who remained were apparently surrounding and blockading the mansion, ensuring no one escaped from within and no one entered.
“Huh? That guy who escaped from the mansion, what happened to him afterward?
Surprisingly, he recovered quickly and is working energetically, trying to make up for his blunders back then.
He’s even explaining the situation to the young lady of the Hisame family, like this.”
And so, the long, long tale of his, the knight who had experienced the most terrifying ordeal, came to an end.
This was the full account of how our mansion came to be surrounded.
“Hmm.”
After hearing the entire story, I couldn’t help but groan.
I had a lot to think about.
About how badly I was treated in the story, how I would resolve the misunderstanding from now on, the fact that the woman in the picture had come out of the TV, well, it was good that no one had died, but that they were just ejected outside even if they were defeated. The fact that ‘Nekoneko’ was strangely kind to NPCs sometimes. Ringo muttering discontentedly, “That’s strange, it’s an apple…” when they were talking about the monster in the red room. Yes, there was a lot to think about.
However, the first thing that came to my mind was something far more practical.
That is to say,
“You guys trashed the mansion so much, do you have any idea how much time it’s going to take to clean up?”
This was the righteous anger that welled up within me.
I may have to slow down the update pace as I have a project I want to finish first.
