Chapter 31: Recollection
[Chapter 31: Recollection]
Everyone has woken up at dawn. Sai secretly drove their car to the haunted mansion, and Kinato was the first to notice it.
After going outside, and noticing where the car was, everyone walked inside the haunted mansion in curiosity. "They have one in Utoko too, don't they? There's a legend that the mansion in Utoko has a ghost that sucks all of your blood! I hope this ghost isn't here too…" Rona said.
"Real undead here, there's of course some ghosts here." Raki said, while waving his hand around slowly, then Kazai was suddenly hit in her head with a rock. "Ow, that hurt! What was that for?"
It was hit really hard in her head, yet she isn't even dead. Kazai's body can resist even things that can probably make her dead, since she's been hit by a rock before. But she doesn't have much resistance right now. "This place is really haunted!" Rona said, while shivering in fear. "Rona, don't worry! There's probably some cute ghosts and nice ghosts wandering around!" Raki tried to comfort Rona, but she just kept shivering in fear and almost crying.
As they walk further into the mansion, they discover a strange girl, lurking around in the mansion. "Hey."
It's someone named Emma Liesette, because there's a name tag on her shirt. Kazai thought Emma looked familiar. "I forgot to mention… There's a corpse in the wheat fields. Perhaps someone revived her?"
"I'm Emma Liesette, nice to meet you all! I'm just searching for strawberry crepes!"
"Hi, Emma! I don't think there's a strawberry crepe, but you can buy one at the vendors." Raki said.
"What's a vendor? Also, hello Haku! Thanks for the pocket watch!"
"No problem, heh." Haku gave Emma a strawberry crepe, and Emma instantly finished it. "You're so good at cooking strawberry crepes, Haku!"
"Emma, don't eat so fast, you'll only enjoy it less. Plus, it'll make a mess on the floor." Haku said calmly. "Anyways, who are you guys?"
"They're just people who're around me. I'm just taking care of Sai and Luka, but I have to live with this dumbass who doesn't know how to not annoy someone… I just wanted to make sure they're safe." Haku points at Kazai.
"Is she really that bad?" Emma asked Haku.
"Yeah, I couldn't live a week without her disturbing me while I work."
"...She looks kind of nice, though."
"I mean, she does."
"Alright, I'm gonna go to the vendors now. Seeya!" Emma walks away, while everyone continues exploring the haunted mansion. "Yesterday… A ResearcherBot told me to get inside. It should be in the radioactive fields, isn't it…"
"There's no way someone just straight up put a ResearcherBot in front of the mansion." Satora said, while trying to act serious.
"Oh yeah, ResearcherBots are mostly send to Utoko for repair, but none of them have been in Natoruyo because it's broken." Nami explained to Satora and Sai.
"But…"
Sai couldn't really remember what happened last night. A strange moment caused him to suddenly wake up, and he was half-asleep.
"What happened?" Satora looks concerned.
"...Let's just continue exploring." Everyone continued exploring, until they got in a bedroom found a bookshelf. There's only one book on the shelf. "Looks like someone who lives in the mansion really likes that book. Lemme see…" Satora grabbed the book. The book's cover has a fancy cover with only a clov- No, I mean, it's fancy, but there's nothing other than the ❖ symbol on it. There are so many pages, though it seems to just be someone's diary.
"...A diary? Or maybe a journal? What's the difference between those, nya?" Katasu wonders.
Everyone tries to read the diary, but it's all just random lines, curves and symbols. Maybe a conlang, maybe a secret encoding font, or maybe a bad handwriting?
All they know is that there is a bloody fingerprint on the book. Raki notices a rotting corpse hanging from the ceiling, but can't seem to control it. "It's not a zombie… Hey, everyone, there's a corpse hanging from the ceiling…"
Sai, Luka, Satora, Katasu, and Kinato were terrified. Some days ago, Sai and Luka have grown to be even more mature, and Kinato's appearance has changed, same goes for Sai and Luka.
Nora and Rona blocked the corpse from their eyesight, while Kazai tried to retrieve the corpse.
The corpse looks nothing familiar. Satora tried to identify the face from the facial recognition device, but the corpse's face had so many wounds and scars, the device couldn't recognize the face at all.
"...Disturbing." Satora whispered to herself.
The corpse seems to have cat ears, and blue hair. [Is this Naka's family?] Kinato wrote.
"How do you know it's Naka's family? Say, who is Naka?" Dettonotto said.
[Naka Kitsuri. A person I met in a death game. She survived. I'm just guessing because her ears are white, and the fact that her eyes are slightly red.]
"Oh dear…" Dettonotto casually walks away.
"..."
There was an awkward silence for 1 minute, until Sai said something. "I thought of something… But I forgot about it. It's about what happened before we took a break from adventuring… It wasn't important anyways… But…"
"Huh?" Kazai replied.
"It was… A mix of dark and bright memories. The day where Katasu used to have a crush on Kinato, and Kinato ends up being Luka's girlfriend."
"W-WHAAA??? I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A CRUSH ON HER!!!" Katasu blushed.
"Be quiet." Sai covered Katasu's mouth. "You'll provoke the ghosts here."
"Mmmmhh… Mmm!!!" Katasu tried to speak.
"We had to deal with this cat for some months now… Katasu's still pretty cool, though. Well… I used to be afraid of Kinato that one time, because she felt like a maniac, but now she's a chill person."