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Translator: Nonon
Proofreader: Silavin
POV: Violet
After I asked Amber to style my hair in a crown braid, put on a hat, and put on fake black-rimmed glasses made by Kriemhild, the people around seemed to have a harder time knowing who I was than I expected. They did not recognise me and even when I advertised to the classmates who I’d only talked to a few times and told them to ‘please come!’ to their faces.
At first I was worried if it would be okay when I looked in the mirror after disguising myself, but no one seems to know that it’s me even when I speak, so it does seem to work.
Although I was a little apprehensive, since my friend was involved in it and I also had some ulterior motive of wanting to naturally be clingy in the haunted house, I thought I would check it out so I asked Kriemhild to show us the way. That’s how I ended up here.
“Please sign the pledge before entering the haunted house.”
I was handed something incomprehensible before entering. By the way, the female student at the reception desk who handed it to me was also my former classmate, but she didn’t realize that it was me. I feel a little complicated about this.
I’ve only ever heard about haunted houses from rumors, but does it really need a pledge like this? To summarize the content, it was: ‘We take no responsibility for whatever happens. The usage of magic is strictly prohibited.’
“Wow… there was something like this in the past too. Also, a haunted house, huh… as expected.”
Lord Clo, who was wearing glasses like me, seemed a little worried after reading the pledge, possibly having seen something like this in the past. Also, what does he mean by ‘as expected’?
I’m worried too, but if we come this far and don’t enter, there would be no point in coming. Right now, not only are that girl and His Highness absent to prepare for the upcoming play, our disguises haven’t been discovered either, so this is our only chance to enter.
Apparently people are meant to enter as pairs, so it’s our chance to be alone together and I can even shorten the distance between us with physical contact… okay, I can do this!
“Let’s enter, Lord Loc.”
“Umm… I understand, Lady Io.”
We called each other by fake names and signed the pledge.
Burnt and Amber seemed anxious, but I can’t be intimidated. We are finally doing something that’s like our first trip as a married couple. I want to make some good memories–
“Hieee, u-uuuoo…t-there was a girl at my feet and a penguin above…!”
“U-uguu,,, what was that, why was it floating?? Why did a little boy grow up rapidly…?! And the flowers, the hands…!”
— Or so I thought, but looking at the pair that just left the passage for those who dropped out halfway, I felt a little uneasy.
I couldn’t understand their words, and although it was definitely scary and the girl was clinging to the boy’s arm, it didn’t look very fun.
“… Are you okay, Milady?”
“… I’m fine. In the end it’s still only something made by students.”
“I checked earlier and the current completion rate is less than 1%.”
“… It should be fine.”
◆
It wasn’t fine.
I have developed a certain tolerance for scary things. I can exorcise small vengeful spirits, and I find living things to be far scarier.
I want to reflect on myself from a while ago for making light of this haunted house and thinking that while it might have been scary, it was still made by school students and if they managed to get the permission from the student council, it wouldn’t be that bad.
“Um, Lady Io, it might be my imagination, but isn’t the ceiling a bit too high? Did they do any renovations after I graduated?”
“I don’t think so. Also, I’m sure we entered a classroom… right?”
“Yes, but isn’t this place somehow bigger than the training hall?”
First, we entered the classroom, but the space inside was as large as a 50-metre square training hall. And not only was the whole place dark, there were fireballs and things like the costume Kriemhild was wearing floating in the air.
Isn’t there something strange about this house at this point? Thinking so, we decided to start anyway and suddenly met a girl.
“Give me your blood. Your bright red blood.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t do it.”
“Give me your internal organs. Your bright red internal organs.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t do it.”
“Give me. Give me. Give me, give me, give me, give me give me give me give me give me give me give me give me give me give me give me give me give me give me-“
“Let’s go, she might really take-“
“YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY!”
“Let’s go, for real.”
A little girl in white clothes started repeating the same words like a broken puppet, then she started floating in the air, took out a knife, turned her head once and chased us while laughing.
The terror of being chased was scarier than I expected, but this much was still fine.
I thought it was a little cute that Lord Clo was more scared than I expected, but as he took my hand and pulled me along, my heart was full from happiness of having achieved my goal to some extent and embarrassment from him holding my hand.
… By that point.
“Lady Io! The pufferfish grew into an octopus, and it’s attacking us!”
“What are you talking about?!”
“A penguin descended from the ceiling and started tap dancing!”
“What the hell?! It has some good skills!”
“A boy grew up rapidly into a chimera and made a marriage proposal!”
“But looks like it’s for you, Lord Loc, not for me.”
“What?!”
“Hey, Lady Io, a man just cut off his head in front of us, and is coming towards us with his head in his hands. But it’s a trick, right? I couldn’t see through it, but please tell me that it’s a trick!”
“…”
“Why are you silent?!”
“Lord Loc, since when do you have 4 arms?”
“Huh?… Woah, what the hell, this is disgusting?!”
“Lady Io, since when are you taller than me?”
“Huh?…eh, what is this body?!”
As the tricks kept attacking us one after another, my fear started to outweigh my happiness.
I learned the unknown in scarier than I thought. Rather, I feel like there are many things here that just can’t be explained with gimmicks only.
However, as we overcame many other tricks without giving up, like a male student who shone with radiance in the air, a female student whose body melted down, and a mummy who suddenly crawled out of the ground and tried to take our skin, we began to think that we were close to the finish. Even though the space itself became wider, we still walked a good distance.
“Oh, this might finally be the exit! Look, there’s a door with flowers!”
There were blooming white flowers at the end of Lord Clo’s gaze, as if congratulating us on reaching the goal, petals dancing in the air. There was even a door that looked like an exit.
Oh, thank God. We finally reached the goal—
<Ah, ahahahahahahahahahaha>
Eh…”
–As soon as I thought that, the door dissolved with laughter, the flowers melted and changed shape.
The white petals changed shape into another white thing – similar to the arms of a child. The nearby arms approached each other and started clapping.
<Clap clap clap! (Ahahahahaha)!>
<Clap clap clap clap clap (Ahahahahahahahahaha)!!>
<Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap (Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha)!!!>
“Prela….ty….!!”
“Lord Clo, come on, let’s go quickly!”
Applause. Cheers. Ovation.
Children’s laughter. Laughter. Laughter.
This is bad, at this rate, this will traumatise me in many ways. But it would also be shameful to give up now.
I clung to Lord Clo’s arm, as he made incomprehensible noise, desperately stopped my knees from giving out and tried to move on. I achieved my goal of making physical contact with Lord Clo, but I had no time to be happy about it.
Lord Clo also seemed to want to leave quickly, walking fast towards the exit.
“—-yy.”
Then, the next thing that appeared in front of us was wearing tattered iron armour all over its body and its eyes glowed red from the position of the eyes of its helmet that was covering its face, as if complementing us.
Damn, what is it going to do this time?
“Couple… couple…? Couple! Dammit, just break up!”
“It suddenly started cursing like a modern person!”
◆
“Oh, you reached the goal? Congratulations!”
“… Kriemhild, let me ask you one thing.”
“Hm, what’s wrong?”
“Who… thought of the content of this haunted house?”
“Hmm, the entire Luna class came up with most of it, but it was mainly Mary and I who made it happen with alchemy magic.”
… Damn it, now I’m envious of alchemy magic.
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