Chapter 74
Rumble-
The mansion shakes with the vibration.
"What is this vibration…?"
"Everyone, be careful. The dungeon's trap may have been activated."
The knights who had been resting in the corridor hurriedly got to their feet.
While everyone was looking around in confusion.
"Just a moment."
Sensing the situation, Comfort immediately cast a detection spell and quickly found the cause.
"A staircase leading up to the second floor has appeared."
"I-it's true…."
"It looks like Hector and Olivia figured out how to do it."
This was good news.
After all, they couldn't remain on the first floor forever.
Everyone gathered in front of the stairs leading to the next floor.
Hector and Olivia were waiting for the group there.
"Welcome."
"We've been waiting."
However, their expressions did not look good.
「5」
A brand had been stamped on Hector's forehead.
When they had shared information earlier in the corridor.
The number Leo had seen on his forehead was 1.
This was a whopping four higher than that.
"That number is…."
"What else? An anomaly."
Hector approached Leo.
"Excuse me for a moment."
"Understood."
He brushed back his hair and examined his forehead.
"Leo's brand is gone."
Leo's forehead was clean.
It should definitely still have been there just a moment ago.
Hector stroked his chin.
"Hmm."
He couldn't help but feel uneasy.
There was no way a brand had appeared for no reason.
Seeing the number steadily pile up, it felt strangely like a ticking time bomb.
Because Dreamland, the dungeon, was a place where anything could happen, he felt uneasy.
"First, let's organize the information we can confirm. This brand stamped on the forehead moves from one person to another. And the count goes up."
"Does it automatically transfer to someone else as time passes?"
"Why does the count go up?"
There were far too few clues.
The basic 'why' and 'how' were missing.
However, Krok, who had until now remained silent, cautiously spoke up.
"I didn't keep checking Leo's forehead all the time, but… before the brand moved to Hector, there was already a 5 written on Leo's forehead."
"Are you sure?"
"I didn't really have the right timing to mention it, so it was a bit awkward to bring up… but yes, I'm sure."
"Now that you mention it… I think I did see the number change slightly."
"The count probably doesn't increase every time the brand transfers. There must be some separate condition for the count going up."
The reason the brand moves doesn't matter right now.
In the first place, even if you had the brand, you wouldn't die or anything.
Hector and Leo had proven that firsthand.
Therefore, the main thing the group needed to focus on now was.
As Krok argued, the real question was: 'Why does the count go up?'
"The count increasing seems like a bad omen. This place is in no way friendly to us."
Krok mulled it over.
The first time the count went up.
It was right when we had just begun exploring the mansion.
At that time, Leo got the brand, and the count was 1.
And now it's 5.
Could the count simply have increased because time passed?
Absolutely not.
Only twenty minutes had passed since they finished sharing information and started investigating.
Something in one of the actions we took must have been the trigger.
In principle, every phenomenon has some kind of interaction behind it.
"I have something I'd like to ask Olivia and Hector."
"Hm?"
"Could you write down in detail exactly what you did during the investigation?"
"Why the sudden request?"
Olivia tilted her head.
Then Krok said,
"I think the answer will be in there."
The group was in the middle of talking.
The count was not going up.
The group was resting in the corridor.
For the past twenty minutes, the only ones who had moved were Olivia and Hector.
Therefore, the probability that Olivia and Hector had triggered this count-up was over 90 percent.
Hector snorted.
Seeming to approve, he patted Krok on the shoulder.
"Hahaha, I never thought I'd be having a newbie write up an incident report."
"S-sorry."
"Well, I'll gladly write one. You brat. I'm surprised you're sharper than I expected."
"…Thank you."
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.
.
.
.
"Done."
"I've finished writing everything on this end too."
As time passed, the document was completed.
Krok slowly read through it.
According to the contents, Hector and Olivia had sequentially investigated the locked rooms.
One was the room they discovered in the north, and the other was the room in the south that Dragred had found.
The room in the north was the master's room.
It had furniture like beds, just like a guest room would.
But they said it was named that because it was a much larger and more splendid place.
They couldn't find anything particularly significant.
The room in the south was the sitting room.
There was a lever in plain sight, so they pulled it.
And a staircase to the next area was revealed.
"Hmm… there's something I'd like to check, actually."
"Something you want to check?"
"Yes. The count may increase, but… I think it's necessary for the investigation ahead. Would you all follow me?"
"Sure. Let's go."
After Dragred gave permission, Krok took the lead.
The knights hesitated, then followed him.
First, they headed to the sitting room.
Krok stepped into the room.
He checked Hector's forehead, but the count had not increased.
"In that case."
Next was the master's room.
The moment Krok took a step forward.
「6」
The number on Hector's forehead changed.
"Just as I thought…."
"Huh……."
Krok hurriedly backed out of the master's room.
He had figured out the secret behind the count increase.
"Krok's deduction was correct."
"Then isn't it a bit strange that when both of them went in earlier, it went up by 4?"
"There's no rule saying only one count can rise. Or maybe it was because they stayed there a long time."
Hector and Olivia had spent about eight minutes in the master's room.
It seemed time was also something they needed to watch.
"…By the way, does that mean there are still 79 floors left?"
The group had only moved from the first floor to the second.
And in the process, the count had gone up by a full 6.
They didn't know what the count meant.
But it was definitely not good.
According to the record team,
bad things were currently happening in Area 2.
Could they really uncover every secret.
And make it to the next area?
"Try using detection magic once."
"Why all of a sudden?"
"Just use it once. You'll probably notice something strange too."
Hector suddenly spoke up.
As soon as they used detection magic, the group understood what he had meant.
"So even the second floor, third floor, fourth floor… and all the floors after that each have seven rooms?"
"Yeah. And if you look closely, only the corridor layout is different. The size and placement are the same as the first floor, too."
Hector was right.
Only the corridor structure had changed; everything else was the same.
"I think the floors after this probably won't be much different from the first floor either."
"That could be. No, there's a good chance that's the case."
"Yeah. Stop making that face. You're ugly enough already—how much uglier do you plan to get?"
"That's really something for you to say, Hector. Unbelievable."
"A-am I ugly…?"
The heavy mood lightened once again.
Just as everyone was smiling and about to head up the stairs.
「12」
The number on Hector's forehead suddenly increased.
Everyone stopped in their tracks.
Seeing his companions' strange reaction, Hector tilted his head.
Why are they acting weird all of a sudden?
"What……."
At that moment, Hector's body lurched forward.
Was someone pulling on him?
He grabbed his own neck and fell over with a crash.
It looked like a slave with a dog leash around his neck.
"Kuhk, kuhk!"
He was dragged along the floor, gasping in pain.
Krok hurriedly tried to reach out and touch Hector, but
there was nothing he could do by force.
「13」
Instead, the number engraved on Hector's forehead only increased.
Everyone stared at Hector in a dazed silence.
He was being dragged off to prison.
Even so, he didn't forget what needed to be done.
Even though he knew a grim future awaited him.
He pointed toward the stairs with his finger, signaling the group to move on.
Krok shouted.
"Let's go!"
"Huh?"
"Let's head up. Staying on the first floor is way too dangerous!"
Krok took the lead.
In the end, the group chose to move on.
Everyone fell silent.
It was a truly heartbreaking situation, but there was nothing they could do.
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Dreamland, Area 3.
Mansion, 2nd Floor, 20:05.
The group had reached the second floor.
And Krok looked at the mark engraved on Olivia's forehead
「6」
and stared at it.
Only then did he become certain.
"This is a death count."
"A death count…?"
"Right now, Olivia has a 「6」 on her forehead. And just a moment ago, Hector had a 「13」 on his forehead."
Krok asserted.
If an intruder takes a certain action, the count accumulates.
And if the count exceeds a certain number, they die.
That, he said, was the rule of the ghost mansion.
The activation condition for the death count is 7.
Since seven was deducted at the cost of Hector's life, that confirms it.
"So this is Dreamland."
"It was a place that couldn't be solved through brute force."
"We have to explore without accumulating the count…."
Everyone agreed with Krok's opinion.
Their own thoughts were no different.
"Then the reason it suddenly went from 6 to 12 earlier was…."
"Honestly, I'm not sure about that either. But if I had to guess, the most likely answer is time."
Krok asked Dragred for his watch.
He obediently handed it over.
Krok held it out to everyone.
It was 8:00 p.m.
"The academy strategy guide said something like this: 'If you leave the classroom before \"after school\" starts, you die.' So I think the rule here is something like this: if you're in the first-floor corridor at 8:00 p.m., one count is added."
The group let out low groans.
Krok was right.
The count had gone up that much all at once.
Aside from entering and leaving forbidden rooms,
there were probably other things that raised the death count.
"If that's the case, until just now there were seven of us including Hector, so why did it go up by only 6 instead of 7…?"
Krok scratched his head.
Hmm.
Maybe the person with the watch is excluded from the count.
No, that's too far-fetched.
"…Honestly, I'm not sure either."
There was no solid evidence.
What Krok had said was still only a hypothesis and needed verification.
But.
To verify it, you'd need to risk your life.
His stance was that being careful couldn't hurt.
The remaining number of people was now six.
Dragred, Comfort, Olivia, Bitters, Leo, Krok.
At the very least, the second-floor corridor was safe at this hour.
Just as the group was about to let their guard down, screams began echoing from downstairs.
-Aaaaaaaaaa, aaaaaaaaaa, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
It was Hector's voice.
His speech was muffled, as if his mouth had been covered.
There were horrifying torture devices in the prison that were hard even to talk about.
That was something everyone knew.
It was only natural that the scene came to mind.
What Hector was going through right now.
In very vivid detail.
"Uuugh, haah, haah…."
Olivia covered her mouth with both hands and barely managed to hold back her gag reflex.
"It'd be better to rest for a while."
"Yes…."
It wasn't just Olivia.
The death count transfers.
Anyone here could end up meeting the same fate as Hector.
Silence hung in the air for a while.