“Well, we did cover the whole castle without turning up so much as a single trace of her. It seems rather unlikely it was any sort of curse or suggestion. No mage, no matter how skilled, could have pulled such a stunt off so cleanly.” The good news was, that meant it was less likely that Hina was in any immediate danger. Even if they hadn’t learned anything else, that alone was reward enough for their trials. Kaito breathed a sigh of relief. If that was the case, though, then where had Hina gone? Why did she vanish? Kaito and Elisabeth furrowed their brows. “Hey, Elisabeth. Are there any other possibilities that come to mind?” “At the moment, the most likely one seems to be that Hina left the castle of her own volition.” “What, without telling either of us?” “Hmm. No, perhaps not.” The mystery only grew deeper. Another silence descended on them, and they each closed their eyes and thought. Their bodies were hot from running all over, and the hallway floor was cold against their skin. Right when the two of them had just started cooling down, though, Elisabeth’s eyes shot open. She sat up with a start. “Wait just one minute!” “Forget waiting—I wasn’t even moving.” “Precisely! No, not precisely.” Elisabeth lay back down, then used her arms to lift her body off the floor and rose to her feet with movements reminiscent of a clockwork doll. She pointed her finger at Kaito, who was still lying on the floor. “I found it! Something strange!” And with that, they returned to the starting point. Namely, Hina’s room. Elisabeth strode over to the desk and retrieved Hina’s diary from between the desk’s bookends. Then she flipped it open to the final entry and pointed at the passage in question. “Here!” “Uh… You mean this bit? ‘However, I discovered that one of the rooms that had been listed as empty was actually being used to store grain. And just as I feared, the place was home to a large rat infestation. Perhaps due to the preservation magic that had been cast on the grain, each of the rats had grown to the size of a human baby. Oh my! As a result, we ended up having a rather heated battle.’” “I often cast magic on grain to preserve it for long periods, then forget that I did so or that it was even there in the first place!” “I feel like that’s the sorta thing you should try to remember.” “But see, even eating it would never cause rats to grow as large as babies!” “Say what?” Kaito stared at Elisabeth blankly. Being from another world, that was all news to him. He couldn’t help but glance back and forth between her face and the passage. “Wait, that clearly means something weird is going on! How could you not notice that?!” “No, well, they do grow fairly large, so I just overlooked it. But still, I’ve never once heard of them growing to the size of babies. Now that I think on it, these rats could well be someone’s familiars.” Kaito’s face went pale. If Hina ran into someone’s familiars and got into a fight with them, there was a very real chance she was in danger. He and Elisabeth had inspected the stairwell leading underground and the main corridor at its bottom when they were searching the castle, of course, but there were still a lot of rooms in its branching, labyrinthine hallways that they hadn’t checked yet. Elisabeth snapped the diary shut with a stern expression on her face. They exchange a pair of grave murmurs. “So the place we should head to…” “Aye, ’tis the basement.” After returning the diary to its desk, the two of them set off, throwing the door to Hina’s room wide-open as they strode through it. Then they broke into a run. Their destination: the basement corridors. The basement corridors were dark, stank of rust, and were constantly filled with a noise that resembled a low moan. On top of that, they had been constructed in an obtuse, winding manner. Setting foot in them without proper preparation was just asking to die lost and alone. However, Kaito’s life experiences had left him with a particular ability—he could remember anything perfectly as long as his memory of it was accompanied by pain. Thanks to the time he got Elisabeth to carve a map of the key areas in his flesh, he knew those spots like the back of his hand. However, there was a limit to that map’s scope. And unfortunately, he wasn’t familiar with the place that Hina had written about. “So, you have any idea where this ‘room that was listed as empty but was actually being used to store grain’ is?” “…About that. I haven’t the faintest.” “Don’t you own this place?” Kaito frowned. If Elisabeth didn’t know where it was, then they were at an impasse. Elisabeth impatiently glanced from left to right and back again. After painstakingly racking her brain, she let out a shout. “Well, you can hardly blame me! This is me we’re talking about, remember—the person who shoved the grain into some random room, forgot about it, and listed the room on the map as unused in the first place! Why, it would be contradictory if I did remember where it was!” “You don’t have to get so defensive, geez! It’s not like I’d get anywhere by pointing fingers… So, uhhh, I guess our only option is to figure out which rooms you listed as empty, exclude the ones I remember, and go check all the others.” “Aye. If we’ve other options, I certainly can’t think of them.” Elisabeth readily nodded. It was a boring plan, and labor-intensive at that. However, this was no time to be losing heart. Hina does so much for us; this is the least we can do for her. And with that, the two of them began their search of the basement. As they walked through the cold and the dim that permeated the basement hallways, their footsteps echoed in a manner that was downright unsettling. Although there were magic lights dotting the walls, the night down there was far deeper and darker than it was aboveground, and the shadows lurking in the nooks and corners seemed to defy any attempt at illumination. Elisabeth trembled just like she had the last time they found themselves wandering about down there. “Urgh, how do I describe it…? As always, this place is disagreeably disquieting. It plays on a person’s childhood scars in a way demons can only dream of… Not that I’m afraid in the slightest, mind you!” “…I still can’t get over how much being down here bothers you.” “Don’t you take that tone with me! Why, I’ve half a mind to subject you to the same ghost stories that Marianne and that wretched uncle of mine so gleefully tormented me with in my youth!” “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say,” Kaito listlessly replied as he took the lead and strode on. The two of them turned away from the main hallway, which led to the teleportation circle, and headed even deeper into the basement. Eventually, they reached an area that was predominantly filled with storerooms. It was dead quiet there. Just like Hina had reported, none of the traps were turning on when they weren’t supposed to. However, that only served to accentuate the basement’s gloom. Elisabeth trembled even harder, a fact that Kaito found downright astounding. “Seriously, what gives? How is it you can fight such horrifying enemies without even flinching, then get freaked out by your own basement? Actual real-life monsters have to be scarier than stuff from made-up stories, don’t they?” “…Our grim tale begins just after a young bride meets a most untimely death.” “Wait, hey, no, I don’t wanna hear this.” Apparently, Elisabeth intended to make good on her threat. The darkness of their surroundings did a perfect job of setting the mood, and Kaito couldn’t help but break out into a cold sweat. Elisabeth ignored his pleas and went on. “The nightmare first took root in the manor’s exquisite flower garden. Before anyone noticed, the rosebushes underwent a horrible change.” “Elisabeth, man, you gotta cut it out—I’m not kidding around… Huh?” Suddenly, Kaito arched his brow. The bend in the hallway in front of him was almost completely cloaked in darkness, but he felt as though he could make out something writhing within. When he realized what it was, his eyes went wide. “Wait, what?” Just around the corner, there was a thick tangle of bizarre, undulating ivy. In fact, it almost resembled the plant from the ghost story that Elisabeth was telling him. He frantically yanked at her arm. “E-Elisabeth! Elisabeth!” “The first tragic victim was the gardener… What is it now, Kaito? We’re just getting to the good part. At least let me get through the first night before you… Ah!” When Elisabeth caught sight of the aberration, she froze in place. The moment she did, Kaito realized something. This was bad news. Maybe getting Elisabeth’s attention was a mistake. However, hindsight was twenty-twenty. He hurled himself backward, and without a moment’s warning, Elisabeth let out a yell. “Death Rain!” “I knew it!” A surge of jet-black miasma and crimson flower petals whirled through the air, and red-hot lead began raining down from within it. The mysterious plant found itself completely dashed by molten metal, and Kaito had to frantically scurry around to avoid getting splashed. Then they heard a horrible “Screeeee!” Apparently, there had been something under the strange vegetation. Kaito turned back to look at it, then tilted his head. There were large piles of clay lying on the floor. However, he didn’t see any collapsed walls or anything, so it seemed odd for there to be so much clay in the closed-off underground basement. But he didn’t have time to ponder the mystery for long. The lead had started loudly cooling and hardening around the ivy, and a writhing swarm of something else entirely had emerged from beneath it. Kaito desperately tried to keep his cool and hold his ground. He squinted at the swarm to try and identify what it was composed of. Then he finally came to a realization. “It’s some sort of weird plant…and a swarm of giant rats!” “Hmm? But why? There were no rats in the ghost stories I was told.” “Those never had anything to do with anything!” As Kaito let out his exasperated bellow, the rats continued crawling over their comrades’ corpses and advancing toward the two of them. Their size was just as Hina had reported it. They were about as large as human babies. The bigger problem, though, was just how damn many of them there were. The rats’ noses twitched as Kaito and Elisabeth became the new targets of their single-minded hunger. The creatures seemed absolutely ravenous. As far as Kaito was concerned, this was far more terrifying than the ghost story had been. To Elisabeth, though, they didn’t even register as things to be feared. She immediately regained her usual composure. Then she clapped her hands together. “I see, I see! I’ve cracked all the mysteries!” “Wait, you figured it out? You know whose familiars they are or whatever?” “No, no, these are no familiars! They’re normal rats, born and raised!” “They’re what?!” “Even if they ate magically preserved grain, rats would never grow to this size! But take a gander over there!” Elisabeth pointed toward the rats’ feet. Kaito was confused, but he squinted in that direction regardless. There, he saw the odd pile of clay from before, the one that seemed so out of place. Now he realized that pile was where the ivy had sprouted from. Elisabeth puffed her chest up with pride. “That, right there, is the remains of a golem—likely one that got too old and broke down of its own accord!” “Oh, huh. You store unused golems down here, too? …No, you don’t. You were just running it ragged until it up and died on you. Isn’t that dangerous? C’mon, you gotta keep a better eye on your stuff.” “Yes, yes, many apologies, so sorry! Anyhow, when the rats were carrying the grain back to their nest, one of them must have dropped some in the golem’s clay remains, and the mana stored in the golem caused the seeds to germinate. The rats weren’t just feasting on the mana from the grain, but from the golem as well—that’s why they grew so large!” “Ohhh… Wait, hold on a minute.” If that was the case, then that put them all the way back at the beginning. Just as they’d originally concluded, there wasn’t, nor had there ever been, an intruder. So where had Hina gone? But right when Kaito was about to ask that, Elisabeth looked up with a start. She strained her ears. “Hmm, hmm… Hmm… Hmm?” “C’mon, Elisabeth, listen to me when I’m talking to you. Hina is—” “There’s something behind the rats…and it’s moving? I have a bad feeling about this. Fall back!” “Huh? Hwah!” Elisabeth grabbed Kaito by the collar, then fled with him in tow. In the blink of an eye, they rounded the previous corner they’d turned. Elisabeth came to an abrupt stop. She crouched down with the wall to her back and dumped Kaito on the floor beside her. The rats chittered as they drew ever closer, and the ivy rustled along with them. Suddenly, both those noises were drowned out by a bizarre, intense FSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. “…Huh? What?” “Good going, me. Call me forgetful if you will, but my intuition is as sharp as ever.” Elisabeth nodded proudly. Some wispy smoke flowed over from around the corner. It would seem that the noise had been from some sort of vapor billowing out. Kaito and Elisabeth were fortunate enough to have avoided a direct hit, but that wasn’t enough to save them from being assailed by its horrid, pungent odor. They frantically covered their mouths. Still holding her breath, Elisabeth snapped her fingers. A whirl of black darkness and crimson flower petals coalesced, then began rapidly spinning to blow the vapor away. Luckily, that was enough to thin out the smoke. The two of them cautiously rose to their feet and slowly made their way across the corridor. They peeked out around the corner where the rats just were. “Huh?” “Hmm?” And what they saw there— —was some sort of bizarre life-form. “…It’s a space alien.” “The hell is a space alien?” Elisabeth reacted to Kaito’s dumbfounded murmur with a frown. She wasn’t familiar with the term. Unfortunately, though, Kaito couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. After all, the entity before them was clad from head to toe in silver. It was even holding some sort of copper tublike implement in its hands. It was bizarre, even by space-alien standards. Communicating with it probably wouldn’t be possible. Kaito was at a loss for what to do. Then all of a sudden, it popped its head off. Beautiful silver hair flowed out and landed atop the entity’s shoulders. “Wha—?!” “Oh?” Kaito and Elisabeth’s eyes went wide. Then they cried out in unison. ““Hina!”” “Phew, that should finally be all of them… Oh? Why, if it isn’t my beloved Master Kaito and my dearest Lady Elisabeth! Whatever brings you down here?” ““THAT’S WHAT WE WANT TO AAAAAAASK!”” The two of them were relieved, but that wasn’t going to stop them from shouting. Hina blinked her emerald eyes in puzzlement. Still dressed like an extraterrestrial, she cocked her head to the side. At that point, Kaito elaborated: “You went missing, so Elisabeth and I have been looking everywhere for you.” “For me? Oh goodness, I’m ever so sorry. It was all part of my work for the day, and I figured I would be done in no time, so I didn’t think I needed to tell you, but…could it be that it’s much later than I think it is? Eek, oh no! I got so wrapped up in mixing that I lost track of the time! However can I possibly apologize?” Hina gave a hurried bow. However, Elisabeth told her that all was well. “A-as long as you’re safe, then there’s no harm done. Come now, raise your head.” Kaito felt he should say something as well, but his attention kept getting drawn to what Hina was holding. Inside her copper tub, there was some sort of dark-green liquid sloshing about with a number of half-dissolved plants in it. He tried to peer inside. The moment he did, though, Hina quickly hid the tub behind her back and shook her head. “There isn’t much left, but it’s still emitting vapor! It’s dangerous to stick your head in!” “Hina…what exactly is that?” “A secret mixture for exterminating rats, passed down since time immemorial, that I had stored in my Self-Recording Device! Or to be more precise, a special Murder Supreme Version of it that I came up with!” “‘Murder Supreme Version,’ huh…?” That certainly had a scary ring to it. By the sound of it, the rats didn’t stand a chance. And given that that’s what she was holding, it was easy to surmise the rest of the story. Hina must have gone back for a rematch with the rats. More than a little embarrassed, she bashfully told them the details. “You see, I ran into one of their survivors when I was making my evening rounds. After that, I was able to discover that their main diet wasn’t actually the grain, but the plant growing here, and that their nest was tucked away behind it. From there, I went into the basement storage area and retrieved my ingredients and an outfit to safely handle them with…” “Goodness, I had no idea we even had such things stored in the castle.” “Wasn’t I just telling you to keep a better eye on your stuff?” “Then once I was done mixing the treatment chemicals, I evaded the swarm, put the tub in their nest, and finished them off by adding an herb in to release poison smoke! If the unthinkable happened and a rat that large were to bite one of you, why, I wouldn’t have been able to rest until I killed every last rat in the world!” Hina clenched her fist tight, and the other two nodded in understanding. With that, all the mysteries were finally solved—why Hina had vanished, why they hadn’t been able to find her, and why there hadn’t been any traces of her. Everything was clear now. In short, there hadn’t been any reason to worry in the first place. The fact that they were currently embroiled in a series of battles against the demons notwithstanding, it was certainly possible that they had let their imaginations run a little too wild. It would probably have been smarter to at least wait until the next day before sounding the alarm. But right as Kaito and Elisabeth were about to start reflecting on their actions, Hina gave them a big, bright smile like a flower coming into full bloom. “I really am sorry about the inconvenience, but thank you both so much. Knowing that my beloved Master Kaito and my dearest Lady Elisabeth were worried for my sake, why…it makes me feel more blessed than I could possibly dream of!” Overcome with emotion, she blinked happy tears from her emerald eyes. Kaito and Elisabeth couldn’t help but scratch their cheeks. Then they puffed up their chests like what they’d done was the most natural thing in the world.
Chapter 119
17 min read