Previously: Liz, left alone in the clinic, decided to take advantage of the golden opportunity to search the house.
“…?”
Liz turned around, feeling a chill run down her neck.
But there was no one there. Was it just her imagination?
“Well, whatever. Now’s my chance—”
The elven girl had left the ruler’s mansion, and Liz being left alone was a golden opportunity.
Liz was convinced that this was the ruler’s mansion disguised as an abandoned house, but she had stumbled at the entrance more than she had initially anticipated. At this rate, she had no idea when she would be taken to the ruler.
She needed to find the entrance to the underground space during this opportunity.
If she was lucky, she could even hide in the ruler’s room.
She would take him by surprise and make him her pawn.
“But, it’s awfully quiet…”
She slowly lowered her feet from the bed and looked around.
Somehow, she couldn’t feel any sign of human presence at all.
Beyond the broken window, the sunlight was taking on a reddish hue. The sky, painted in the colors of twilight, felt somewhat eerie.
“It’s kind of…chilly.”
It wasn’t winter, but she felt strangely cold. Liz hugged herself as she walked around the room.
In the room she was currently in, there was a very old desk and bookshelves in addition to the bed. At first glance, there was no entrance to the basement, but it might be cleverly hidden.
First, she tapped on various parts of the floor, but there didn’t seem to be any hollow spaces.
Next, the bookshelves. There were suspicious books lined up, such as anatomical diagrams of the human body, bone encyclopedias, and explanations of internal organs. But there was no hidden door behind the bookshelves.
Next, when she pulled open the cupboard doors to the left and right, the pungent smell of chemicals pricked her nose. When she looked closely, she saw suspicious herbs and bottles filled with liquids.
“Anatomical diagrams and mysterious chemicals…what the heck, isn’t this person seriously messed up?”
She wondered if the owner of this place was conducting human experiments. In fact, she felt a shiver run down her spine, realizing belatedly that she herself might have been the subject of those experiments, given the oddly intense screening she had received.
However, there was no hidden staircase in the cupboard either.
“I have to hurry, or this will be bad.”
Otherwise, she would be the next experimental subject.
She went around the back of the wall at the back of the room and found what looked like a kitchen. In the corner was a refrigerator that used magic stones for cooling.
She hesitated for a moment before looking inside. She thought it might contain frozen, dismembered bodies, but fortunately, there was nothing that immediately looked like eyeballs or limbs. There was just neatly cut meat, carefully arranged.
What kind of meat was this—Liz stopped thinking about it.
She went through a door and found a room with a table in the center.
Normally, it would be a dining room, but this was, after all, the mansion of a deranged person; it couldn’t be that simple.
“Hehehe…” “Who’s there?!”
She suddenly thought she heard laughter and turned around. But there was no one there.
“Wh-what is it…?”
Sweat trickled down her back.
Liz pulled herself together and checked everywhere. But she couldn’t find a secret underground passage.
“Kukuku…”
“A-again!”
She frantically turned her head, but there was no sign of anyone. Still, she could somehow hear the voice right next to her.
It was as if someone was in this room—
Liz swallowed hard.
“D…Don’t tell me, these are the voices of the victims of human experiments…?”
“It hurts—it hurts—”
“Uwah, ah!”
She heard a voice like a scream again.
Liz shuddered.
“I-I get it now…the purpose of this room…!”
The ruler conducts human experiments, dismembers the bodies in the kitchen, and stores them in the refrigerator. What happens to the stored meat? He probably eats it—here…
“It hurts—, don’t eat me—”
“N-no, stop it…!”
Curses that sounded like they were coming from hell shook her eardrums, and Liz instinctively started to run.
“Wait—”
“Uwa, wawawa!”
The voice followed her. She dashed into the end of the hallway, and there was a bathroom. There’s no way. It must be a place to wash corpses.
“N-no, more. What the heck is this place…?”
“Remember—”
“Gyaaa!”
Liz started running again. At the end of the opposite side of the hallway, there was a room with two beds. Normally, it would be a bedroom, but she didn’t know anymore. What was what, and what was going on here?
It was terrifying.
She had underestimated the ruler of the slums a little.
“Ugh…”
Liz crouched down on the spot, as if to suppress the trembling of her body.
The enemy was much stronger than she had thought. Should she retreat to regroup?
No, that’s not an option. Since her face had been seen, she couldn’t use the same trick again.
Liz remained seated for a while, taking deep breaths.
Then, she slowly raised her head.
“…Fine. Don’t…underestimate me.”
She clenched her back teeth and slowly stood up.
I am the femme fatale of the underground guild. I’ve manipulated many men.
How can I give up over something like this? It’s not for nothing that I’ve survived for years in the underground guild, a place inhabited by demons and monsters.
When she stood up, the trembling of her body had disappeared.
She quickly searched the room that looked like a bedroom, the hallway she had just passed, and the place where corpses were washed, but there was no entrance to the basement.
“What the heck is going on…?”
She couldn’t find the entrance. And she couldn’t spend too much time on it.
When she returned to the room with the beds, she suddenly noticed something. There was a staircase next to the entrance.
“The second floor…?”
Come to think of it, when she was monitoring the mansion from the outside, her subordinate Gaion said he saw a woman beckoning from the second floor.
Perhaps there was a ladder directly to the basement from the second floor.
Or, if the woman Gaion saw was there, she might know something.
That is, if she was still alive.
“Alright…”
Liz slowly set foot on the stairs leading to the second floor.
“Ah, Zenos.”
“Lily, what’s wrong?”
On the roadside at dusk, Lily saw Zenos returning from his rounds and ran up to him.
“I came to get you. Ms. Ringa brought in someone who collapsed on the road, but I can’t do anything about it.”
“Are they seriously injured?”
“I don’t know, but they’re not regaining consciousness.”
Zenos stopped and looked at the darkening sun.
“…I have a bad feeling about this. Let’s hurry.”
A/N: The forbidden door is now…
I got carried away and it ended up being longer than I expected, but Zenos will be back next time…!