Chapter 3
Little Nightmares, before the castle.
Mo Xi watched the four people climb down from the carriage, silently sizing them up. Once they were down, none of them spoke. Instead, they eyed one another warily.
Seeing how awkward things had become, a man dressed like a middle-aged office drone spoke first. “Come on, everyone. We’re all here to complete the mission, so there’s no need to act like we’re about to come to blows.”
With someone finally breaking the silence, a bespectacled young woman standing nearby, looking rather flustered, hurriedly chimed in. “I... I think the Paradise must want us to work together, since it sent us all here at the start.”
After the two of them spoke, the tension among the group eased a little. Still, they were complete strangers to one another, so things remained awkward.
Just then, the castle’s front gates swung slowly open. A tall man in a tailcoat floated out, his body held in an extremely strange posture.
He wore an exaggerated smile. A closer look revealed that his hands were locked behind his back.
“Welcome to the castle, experts. My great master is waiting for you in the banquet hall.”
At those words, the muscular man who’d been silent until then hurried toward the castle. As he passed the others, he snorted, as if mocking them for being cowards.
Seeing the muscular man set off, the others didn’t dare dawdle and followed. Watching them all move ahead together, Mo Xi couldn’t help sighing to herself.
“The office drone, the musclehead, the bespectacled girl, and the blonde... This lineup is way too much like a horror movie. I hope a ghost doesn’t suddenly show up once we’re inside the castle.” Mo Xi grumbled inwardly.
A little while later, in the banquet hall.
Looking at the lavish decorations and statues in all sorts of styles, Mo Xi felt an increasing sense of familiarity. That feeling of déjà vu—like she’d seen all this somewhere before—peaked when they took their seats and saw the hostess.
“I’m sure you all know why I invited you to the castle. To resolve my aging, I hope each of you will demonstrate your particular expertise.”
After saying this, the woman seated at the head of the table raised her wineglass and smiled at everyone.
When no one responded, the butler, who had been standing with his head bowed beside the woman, suddenly looked up. The next moment, every wineglass before them rose into the air.
At the sight, Mo Xi’s eyelid twitched. This wasn’t a toast at all. It was clearly meant to show them that once they entered the castle, they had to obey the hostess’s orders.
Once everyone had drunk, the woman nodded in satisfaction and had them begin their meal. After what had just happened, none of them could fail to understand their situation. They all began eating with uneasy expressions.
It was worth noting that the bespectacled girl, who had seemed so timid and nervous, appeared to be thoroughly enjoying her meal. She showed no wariness at all toward the unfamiliar food.
After the meal, the hostess arranged for the butler to escort everyone to their rooms. But before they left, she added meaningfully,
“I hope you’ll all get a good rest in your rooms. Some of the castle’s security measures activate at night, so be careful not to get hurt.”
Thud!
As the banquet hall doors closed by themselves, the warmth and grandeur of the room vanished. In their place came an eerie chill, as if someone were blowing cold air down the back of their necks.
As they followed the butler down the corridor, everyone began noticing the unsettling eye patterns on the walls.
After a moment of silence, the office drone closest to the butler frowned and asked, “What are these eye patterns on the walls?”
The butler leading them turned to face the group, his smile unchanged. “They’re my master’s favorite pattern.”
Before the office drone could ask anything else, a gentle female voice, tinged with amusement, suddenly spoke up.
“They’re beautiful.”
At her words, everyone turned to look at Mo Xi. The butler seemed especially surprised, as if he’d never heard anyone describe them that way before.
“I’ve seen this pattern on a ship and in a city. Both were beautiful,” Mo Xi said with a smile.
The bespectacled girl and the others looked baffled by Mo Xi’s cryptic-sounding words. The butler, however, seemed to understand something, and his smile grew even wider.
“Respected madam, may I ask your name?” the butler asked sincerely.
Noticing the change in the butler’s tone, the office drone gave Mo Xi a long, searching look.
“Angela. Just call me Angela,” Mo Xi said with a smile.
To be cautious, Mo Xi couldn’t possibly reveal her real name. So she came up with “Angela,” a fake name that suited the world’s setting without sounding too out of place.
After learning her name, the butler leading them would occasionally ask her strange questions that the others couldn’t make sense of. Stranger still, Mo Xi always answered them—and judging by the butler’s reactions, she got them right.
Once they realized Mo Xi had some kind of information, the others’ reactions were quite interesting.
The office drone seemed wary of her, the musclehead didn’t care, the bespectacled girl looked a little frightened, and the blonde woman seemed oddly excited. Mo Xi keenly noticed every one of these reactions.
After a while, the butler had escorted everyone else to their assigned rooms. He stopped in front of one door, turned to Mo Xi, and spoke sincerely.
“Miss Angela, I’m amazed by your breadth of knowledge. If my master hadn’t given me other orders, I would gladly talk with you longer. Please rest well tonight. I have many more questions for you tomorrow morning.”
After a brief exchange, Mo Xi closed the door. She looked around the ordinary room, found a chair, and sat down.
“So it really is the world I remember.”
Mo Xi sat in the chair, the corners of her mouth lifting slightly as excitement gleamed in her eyes.
At first, Mo Xi hadn’t been sure this was the world she knew. But now that the castle, the butler, the hostess, and that familiar eye pattern had all appeared, she could be certain.
“I never expected the Paradise’s worlds to include ones I knew well from my previous life. But why do the other contractors look like they have no idea what I’m talking about?”
Mo Xi didn’t dwell on that question. Instead, she began quickly recalling what she knew about this world.
“The Maw, the Pale City, Six and Mono’s cycle, and now the Nest, which is more or less an earlier prequel... How fascinating.” Mo Xi murmured to herself.
If she hadn’t spent so much of her previous life learning about countless worlds simply out of love, Mo Xi might never have known about the obscure prequel known as the Nest.
After all, who could have imagined that Six, the girl in the yellow raincoat who devoured everything aboard the Maw, had once been trapped in this tiny Nest?
“That said, the little bit of information I have isn’t enough to carry me through this mission. I’ll still have to be careful,” Mo Xi reminded herself.
Once she’d calmed down, Mo Xi began analyzing the situation.
What she knew so far was that there were only three beings in the entire castle she needed to watch out for: the hostess, the butler, and the craftsman, who hadn’t appeared yet.
The hostess’s abilities were unclear. The butler had some kind of telekinetic power, while the craftsman attacked using only his body and the castle’s mechanisms.
“I have a general idea of how they attack. What’s left is the truth the main mission wants me to investigate. But what is that truth?” Mo Xi fell into thought.
In Mo Xi’s memory, the Nest—the setting for this castle’s story—was barely explained. In other words, she had no clues at all about the truth.
“Is it connected to the Eye Curse that runs through most of the storylines? Or...”
As Mo Xi pondered, she keenly caught the faint sound of something rustling and scraping. Almost instantly, energy gathered in her hand.
“Who’s there?”
Perhaps Mo Xi’s reaction had startled them. With a thump, a small figure tumbled out of the pipes.
“Ugh!”