Raga of the Dry Branch - Chapter 27

And the two left the mansion before me. No, I was supposed to head out first… since I wanted out, I decided to follow them with a smile, well, at least I tried to.

If it hadn’t been the words of Dame Mino.

“Sir Alkeris, there is something I’d like you to help me with… I believe you won’t refuse. Since people’s lives are at stake here, we need to find a suspect. And don’t worry too much; we just need to look around, there won’t be any problem interesting what we have in here since you managed to interpret the text which was impossible for the Marquis who is the Dark Magician of Wyndham, right Sir Alkeris?”

I dug my… own grave.

After the departure of Marquis and Sir Bordeaux, I decided to help the team, and only then did I realize the situation they were in.

As far as I knew until this morning Dame Mino was investigating the murder.

But that thing changed once I got here. It included not just finding the killer, but also finding two missing young girls.

“I don’t understand why they had to come all the way from Cheiva to see this place, but the whereabouts of the two young girls has been unknown ever since they entered this place 6 days ago. They might be in here. But the problem is that that is the only clue we have.”

“If it is 6 days, isn’t it too late?”

“One of them was going to get married in a while, so it seemed like one of them found out about this mansion and entered it. In the end, the family couldn’t find them so they contacted Wyndham and our embassy. But now Wyndham is busy with other things.”

Dame Mino seemed annoyed, saying that it was pitiful for the two to be missing and no one could even realize it until 6 days have passed.

“Let’s think they are still alive, let’s go down and check this place. It might be a joke by someone who passed here, or maybe some weird design, but I think this is the most insane place. Why is it so messy?”

At Dame Mino’s words, we headed downstairs.

As I walked, I remembered the blueprint which I looked at before coming. Other than that, the structure of this mansion was quite unique. What kind of place could make a human feel motion sick without moving?

If we want to be on the first floor, we end up on the 2nd floor and if we want to be on the 2nd we end up in the basement. No idea what this place was, but I could feel that this place was unkind and if lost, one could be trapped in here forever.

In the midst of that, Dame Mino who already knew about this was guiding us, unlike Lord Shuzlin who was trembling. As we descended the creaky wooden stairs, the unique damn air of the basement welcomed us.

A grey wall corridor lead to a narrow straight line. Clinging to the cold were two knobs that came into view. We went inside by opening them, being careful with black water dripping from the ceiling.

“… Huh?”

How far had we walked? At the end of the walk, we stopped and I bent down.

“This..,”

The uneven ground was so uneven that puddles of water were there, and it was weird that broken parts of the ceiling had fallen. In the meantime, a shiny white power stood out. It was something I saw often, so there was no way I couldn’t know it.

I reached out and then touched it with my finger and looked again.

It was sleeping powder, also called fairy powder which reflected light in weird colors like a polished diamond.

Judging from the fact that this was sleeping powder, it seemed like this was the leftover material. Why was there a reason for the powder which induces sleep by eating, burning, or incense in here? It was a strange thing to find here.

“Sir Alkeris?”

As I moved my gaze from the powder, I saw a stained old silk pouch. It was as if there was not much powder in it and had flowed out.

“Does either of the two girls have insomnia?”

“No. There was nothing of that sort in the report, why?”

“If not, then this has to be something lost by a guest…”

“People aren’t allowed to bring their personal belongings with them inside this place.”

Why? Why was I not able to let it go? It felt like someone put their lips next to my ears and mouthing to me to not let this matter go.

My vision blurred for a second and was back to normal. Traces of powder that was burned caught my eyes. Feeling bad about something, I patted my left wrist. We never know…

“Alkeris?”

“A blessing, hopefully those who were induced with this wake up.”

Flash!

Light flashed and then disappeared in an instant, the bracelet had a total of 8 types of magics. If someone had inhaled this, then with what I did they would be back to their senses. Even if they don’t, I’ll at least feel better knowing I did something.

“Sleeping powder.”

The faces of the two who were looking at me were shocked and pale. Dame Mino looked at the floor and then took a picture of it.

“So it was sleeping powder? I thought that pouch was placed here as a prop.”

I laughed awkwardly at that. I couldn’t tell her that I used to wish for death and used that on me.

Anyway, quite a lot of time had passed. I wish we could find the needed things sooner and leave.

“Huh?”

While looking around, Sir Shuzlin suddenly heard something which could be heard from his ears which were standing up.

“What is it?”

“Can’t you people hear that?”

At that, both Dame Mino and I held our breaths waiting to listen.

Clack! Clack! Clack!

Ah, I heard it, I tried to raise my concentration more to find out what the sound was, when suddenly Dame Mino jumped up and ran.

Despite not knowing why we too ran after her.

“What is it…?!”

“She must have sensed something!”

“Ah!”

She is a searcher, which meant she could sense something… maybe she found the location of the two girls. It couldn’t be it, but we were desperately hoping for that to happen.

Fortunately, we saw Dame Mino holding the two girls close to her.

Thank god. I was really happy.

Unlike the start when I was indifferent to everything, I strangely felt relieved.

“Sorry. Sorry, this unnie is so sorry…”

A woman who seemed older than the other hugged a little girl and cried as she apologized again and again.

Maybe she was the one with the wedding and the younger one was someone who held importance to her.

Clothes were cleaner than expected and so was her hair, but the face was a mess. And from the wrist to face, there were marks of skin and flesh inside being scratched out, they were identical to wild animal bites.

“We heard a weird sound and being scared at that I think we passed out. And we were asleep. Right, I think we continued to sleep. Something touched my face… euk! I felt it biting, but I was too drowsy to move… it was hurting so much but I couldn’t since I was sleepy…!

“It is okay. You are fine now.”

The little girl called as Lil opened her mouth and carefully explained the entire situation to Dame Mino. Mino seemed sad looking at the two girls who were crying and trembling, and calmly made sure they gave her the full details.

In the end, the woman who seemed older spoke.

“I suddenly woke up. Lil and I woke up at the same time. Still we were feeling sleepy… and everything was black around us, it was too scary… and after a while you were here.”

Honestly, it was gibberish to me that the two were inside the mansion. That too on the first floor, where our team had been searching the entire time. And nor did the families members have been able to know anything about this, where exactly were we?

“But it is weird… I am sure I searched all throughout and I couldn’t detect a single thing, I mean I felt nothing at all. So why now…”

Dame Mino tilted her head, I also thought it was strange, and looked at the two girls. Although I felt like the building was the one messing with us, the bad feeling kept creeping onto me.

Approaching the two who looked severely exhausted, I used the recovery magic which was stored inside the bracelet. It wasn’t just recovering them, but even the torn-out flesh was regenerated in an instant, which surprised those around me. The recovery was done.

“Thank you… but… I am not sure if I remember it properly but there was another person here besides us…”

“Another!?!?”

“That shocked me! Why are you screaming?”

I was really shocked, but I really wanted to go back home now! Screaming Shuzlin who felt me looking at him cried.

“I thought we found the people and we could head back, but there is another one!”

“Ehhh-!”

In the end, Dame Mino slapped him on the back.

“You idiot were mistaken on your own. Now we need to find out the culprit.”

“I don’t care anymore! This is scary! Noona you are bad!”

He didn’t even care about the fact that two women were looking at him and giggled.