Raga of the Dry Branch - Chapter 31

“Finally here? But I feel bad since you will have to leave. Will you be fine?”

“C-captain… what do you mean by that?”

Commander gave a friendly wave to a dreamy, handsome man touching his flowing red hair.

“I am supposed to be resting, but is this an order?”

The Marquis looked at the Captain for a moment and then at the young man who sat without being asked.

“Then, I will like to accompany him too…”

Apparently, it was too much that curiosity took over him and he knew that such improvised situations have always been beneficial to him, so he looked forward to this too.

Again, the same words were repeated.

The constant use of the Maze and being chased was being mentioned almost every time in the messages. In addition, the hastily written stuff is in red as if the person was desperately in need of help.

It could be an illusion because of my mood being influenced, but the more I looked, I could feel fear and longing for salvation come upon me.

-I don’t think of it as simple scribblings.

Dame Mino’s serious voice as he looked at the red characters and Sir Hilder asked.

-Who the hell would do this? I don’t understand why someone would use the language used in brothels here.

-How would I know? But it is definitely suspicious…. Sir Akeris, is there a guest list in the documents?

I think I know what she wanted to ask, so I quickly opened the papers and found it.

“Yes. No one in the list is of unknown origin. It is a fact which was already confirmed by the video stones installed at the entrance. Even the identities of those who came along with us.”

-Then there is only one answer.

The video stone was still facing the wall, so I couldn’t see their faces but I was sure that everyone was curious.

In the hurried silence, she opened her mouth.

-Wasn’t there only one guest who went missing at the trial opening? It must have been someone from the Baron. There was an accident, but the exact cause was not recorded, and some information wasn’t disclosed. There was a party along with him, but the report doesn’t mention much about the party, and it felt strange. Maybe it was because there was something more that happened?

-That does sound plausible.

Again, the video stone began to move along the wall. It seemed to be moving unknowingly in the hand of Shuzlin.

-If so, what happened to her?

-No way…. She couldn’t have been eaten to bones… right!

Shuzlin responded with a scared scream at the question of Sir Hilder. As if he was still holding the video stone, the screen started to shake again. Honestly, it felt like I was being induced with motion sickness and made a mental note never to show this man a horror movie. While making those decisions, I heard the group’s conversation.

-I am sure that they were being chased and ran away. But after the trial period, no one came, right? Had I been being pursued like that, I am sure that the manager of this place or someone would have found me.

-I know, right. There is no mention of that person being rescued safely or not, so it is hard for us to tell.

-… or was it because of the status?

-Maybe the person is still alive… let’s just hope for it. Since all lives are precious.

All lives are precious… Hearing Dame Mino’s words, I had a strange feeling creeping onto me. Because it reminded me of myself, who was trying very hard to die.

At that time, I didn’t know because I wasn’t obsessed with the concept of loving and I even gave up on the basic feelings.

But in just a few months, a lot of things around me and myself have changed. So maybe I was able to understand a little now. I felt even more sorry for the person who wrote these things on the wall as they must have been through pain and happiness too for being alive. Perhaps, this was how that person could express.

The characters drawn along the wall were all messages in fear for the person to be saved from what was pursuing her.

However, as I looked at the screen, it felt odd. I concentrated on the conversation and wondered why no one was asking that question; didn’t anyone else feel it? Should I say it out or not? I hoped they noticed, but they were talking about everything except for it.

And I decided.

“Uhh, Dame Mino.”

-Yes?

“Don’t you feel anything weird?”

It seemed like not a single person over there noticed.

“Right now Dame is in the basement.”

-What!?

As if it was absurd, Dame Mino yelled. It seemed like the place changed without them feeling it.

“I know it because we were down there together. That is the basement.”

The same long wall went straight up and then a curve along with a broken end.

-What are you talking about? It couldn’t be like that!

-No, maybe Sir Alkeris is right. Senior, I saw it a while ago. I mentioned that this structure is so confusing to know where the first or second floor is.

-Then is this true?

Sir Shuzlin looked around in fear. As a result, once again the video stones moved with him. The grey wall with mottled wallpaper barely sticking and the black water dripping down. Unlike ordinary mansions, the basement in this place was like an old warehouse.

-I thought that it was like walking on flat ground, but it doesn’t seem to be the case here. Perhaps there is an incline somewhere here which the human senses couldn’t perceive.

-… The wall there, we definitely saw that in the basement. When we came here Shuzlin and I even fought each other.

-Ah, and that strange door painting? It is just a prop, no, but we insisted it was. Do you see it?

“Door painting?”

Sir Shuzlin ran forward bravely and then illuminated the video stone when I asked.

-This one. Didn’t we see a large picture on the wall of the door? Noona said it was just some painting to look at, but Hilder said he felt something from it, so check it out.

And at that moment, an image I saw made me jump up.

“…?!”

-Alkeris?

Grey wall with red once again. The dark red color on the cold wall was a door large enough to mistake for a real one.

The handle was like a sharp thorn in a rectangular shape. A long vertical line was drawn in the center with human-eye like figures on each side of the door.

“If interpreted, it is an entrance… to another world…”

-… I am just wondering. Is this also another pictogram?

-Indeed, it seems like I was right!

Sir Shuzlin seemed to be trembling and Sir Hilder was elated for being right and looked at Dame Mino.

But I couldn’t laugh as my body had gone stiff.

-What do you mean by another world? Are you talking about where the other girls were?

-Perhaps because there is a third space we aren’t aware of. An entrance we can’t enter unless we went through this world. Sir Alkeris, anything else?

The group’s voice brightened as if they finally got the clue to find what was happening. To them, I decided to advise a chill ran down my spine.

“That… it isn’t a good thing. A handle that sharp is a warning. Besides under the door is ‘Bequan’ language.”

The strange character written in a tiny line under the picture of a large door was ‘Divine language’, which was different from the ‘divine language’ that came from a person revered in the wrong and strong enough to kill the Gods.

Was it really a coincidence that I picked up such a text from the huge are which I had already seen twice today? Or is it because it was ‘Divine language’?

“I don’t know it’s there, but it’s new. And then the picture of the door looks similar, but the characters are mostly used in slums and not in entertainment areas.”

-Does this mean that something changed?

“They must have been influenced by each other’s characters, so it might looks similar at a glance. And the handwriting it definitely seemed like the same considering the pressure and the strokes but this it definitely someone else’s… and seems to have been written a long time ago.”

-Come to think of it seems like more than 10 years have passed since this started. Wait, let’s organize some things. So, it was the first floor the girls were found, but then it could be true that it was the basement instead of the first floor, and there is a supposed third basement somewhere?

-Right. But written here was another entrance. So this could be it.

-But noona, isn’t this place blocked?

The party was paying attention to the third supposed space that seemed missing, but I was still concerned about those characters. Why were there still traces of those things even after 10 years?

The atmosphere around was strange, knowing that this place was rebuilt like a couple of years back, I couldn’t stop my pounding heart or the throbbing headache. I rubbed my blurry eyes and used the screen again.

“A circle…!”

I tried to interpret it but at the moment, a terrible headache came over me. Ugh, the shattering ache in my mind. I could still hear their words still…

-Could there be some secret in this door? Since we finally managed to catch up to this, I want to enter. I feel like I am near something, probably an aura.

-Uh… different? Who cares about it being different? Wrong, bad things don’t matter.

I held my breath and then tried to calm myself as I heard their voices. As I barely lifted my head, the wall on the video stone with the door was closer to me.

[Go back.]

The figure of the woman who I had dreamed about was here.

[No one should come in here.]

Those eyes drenched in tears were definitely looking at me.

Only then did I realize…