Chapter 14

“Aaaah!”

Hamel spun his head at the scream.

At the end of Antonio’s trembling gaze.

There was something uncanny there.

“That is…”

Hamel took a cautious step forward as he heard the senior priest trail off.

As they closed the distance, the view sharpened.

It was a human head.

And its neck had been cut.

Hamel frowned.

The senior priest sighed and walked past Hamel toward it.

Hamel hurriedly grabbed the priest’s shoulder.

“Stop.”

“…?”

The priest, puzzled, halted for the moment.

He looked at Hamel expectantly for an explanation.

“The smell of blood.”

Hamel replied dryly.

The stale blood scent that clung to the corridor made his nostrils smart.

It wasn’t just this corridor.

The mansion reeked of blood as if it were a slaughterhouse.

Hamel scanned the area for any clues he could get.

He soon fixed his eyes on one spot.

“The carpet?”

Someone murmured quietly down the corridor.

One section of the carpet stood out with a different color from the rest.

The dark red carpet gave off a rank, layered smell of blood.

It clearly felt alien and dangerous, though why was unclear.

Even after dabbing holy water in his eyes and applying it, there were no traces of corruption in the mansion.

While Hamel pondered, David stepped forward.

“Ah, wait a moment.”

He examined the corridor as if he had noticed something, stroking his chin as he spoke.

“It’s a mechanical device. The building’s structure is a bit odd. For example, if I do this…”

David, trailing off, pulled a doll from his coat and tossed it onto the carpet.

The doll thudded onto the red carpet.

But nothing happened as time passed.

“….”

When the others shot him questioning looks, David scratched his head in embarrassment.

“Th-this can’t be… give me a moment.”

He muttered repeatedly and began chanting spells.

As the spells continued, the doll sometimes grew to human size and glowed.

And then one more spell was spoken.

─Bang!

With a thunderous noise that made their ears ring, the corridor’s floor and ceiling became one.

A stone pillar had fallen from the ceiling.

Everyone fell silent at the pillar that blocked their view, as if the corridor had never existed.

─Rrrrr

The pillar then returned to the ceiling as if nothing had happened.

“So the trigger was weight.”

David shrugged and finally nodded.

The trap, which hadn’t reacted to body volume or temperature, activated when a certain weight threshold was met.

‘If the senior priest had stepped on the carpet unknowingly…’

It would have been painted with fresh blood.

As Hamel let out a relieved breath.

“risha.”

David, having chanted something, turned to the group and spoke.

“I cast a lightening spell, so you can cross it without any issue.”

“….”

“I said you can cross.”

David’s words echoed hollowly down the corridor.

No one moved; even the senior priest avoided David’s gaze and tried to look distracted.

After a moment of silence, David blinked incredulously.

“…Am I that unreliable?”

“You’re not exactly inspiring trust in us.”

Antonio gave an awkward smile and shrugged.

“Huh…”

David, looking wounded, looked to Hamel as if pleading for salvation, but—

“….”

Hamel quietly shook his head as well.

Hamel couldn’t sense mana, so he couldn’t verify whether a spell had been cast on himself.

No matter how much of a brother he was, he couldn’t blindly trust words and rush to his death.

“Come on, I was the top of the magic tower, you know.”

David put on a sad face and went first to demonstrate.

The demonstration wasn’t anything special.

─Step step

He simply strode briskly across the red carpet.

And, as he had said, the ceiling did not move.

“It seems safe. Cross over.”

Hamel nodded and crossed the carpet; only then did the others follow.

They then slowly approached where the head had been.

The head belonged to a young woman.

The party fell silent for a moment upon seeing it.

Antonio’s face went ashen, and Daniel calmly kept watch over the surroundings.

Hamel, for some reason, tilted his head — the woman’s face looked familiar.

The senior priest was the first to speak.

He muttered with a troubled expression.

“I know that face.”

“Who is she?”

Hamel asked, staring at the oddly familiar woman’s head.

The priest sighed deeply before answering.

“She was one of the Exorcist priests who left before us.”

Hamel’s shoulders twitched at that.

He remembered.

It was a face he’d seen a few times passing through the order.

He thought her name was likely Catherine.

Hamel swallowed a sigh that threatened to escape.

He had suspected as much upon entering the mansion; things were unlikely to be simple.

“First, we should recover the remains…”

“Isn’t it strange?”

Daniel, who had been silent until now, pushed down his helmet and stepped forward.

“I’ve severed dozens of necks, but I’ve never seen such a clean cross-section.”

Hamel, hearing that, also felt something was off.

This person had been alive only half a day ago.

It was hard to understand how not a drop of blood flowed from such a head.

Hamel hurried to the severed head, examined it, and let out a groan.

“This is…”

“A mannequin.”

A figure made of wax and rubber shaped like a person.

In other words, a model.

Those who had been tense at the bodies sighed in relief.

But was this truly something to rejoice over?

Without knowing who set this up or why, the situation couldn’t be considered improved.

Hamel lifted the model carefully with a feeling of unease.

As expected of a model, it was light as if hollow inside.

Yet the face was far too realistic for a mere doll.

Its closed eyes looked as if they might snap open at any moment.

Above all, the feel of the hair under his hands was indistinguishable from real hair.

‘…Wait, is this real hair?’

As Hamel examined the hair.

─Click

Something rolled inside the head.

There was something inside.

Hamel carefully opened the model’s closed mouth.

A silver key revealed itself.

---

“What does it open?”

The question was brief.

They all thought of the same priority.

To meet the patriarch, verify whether he lived or died, and ask about the phenomena occurring in the domain.

The mansion’s oddities would be resolved once they met the lord of the estate.

So they moved toward the patriarch’s study on the third floor.

At both ends of the mansion’s corridors were staircases leading up.

Or rather, there had been.

“…What is this?”

At the end of the corridor.

There was only a solid stone wall where the stairs should have been.

The staircase had vanished.

And there was only one person who could explain this phenomenon.

“This is a workshop.”

David scratched his head and felt along the wall where the stairs had been.

Hamel immediately understood what David meant.

He, too, had been part of a magical lineage until the age of twelve.

Hamel, for those who needed more explanation, searched his memory and spoke.

“A mage’s workshop is another world with rules different from the outside. The workshop aids a mage’s research, protects them, and is governed by the laws the mage desires.”

A mage’s workshop.

It is like a living organism.

The workshop is a vast space imbued with the mage’s will and intent.

But no matter how he thought about it, this was not something one would build into a mansion.

“Countless devices and magic circuits layer upon one another; a single breath can stir a storm.”

David tapped the wall playfully.

“This workshop is peculiar. A peculiar power flows instead of mana. It’s not mechanical… but it’s definitely designed around traps. It’s as if it was meant to guard something.”

“What do you mean by that?”

David smiled wryly at Hamel’s question.

“Who knows? Maybe it’s my imagination, but it feels like it was waiting for intruders.”

“….”

There was only one person capable of creating a workshop of this scale and craftsmanship in the mansion.

Denis Gilmore.

He was the head of the Gilmore family and the father of Hamel and David.

‘What on earth is happening…’

The closer he came to Haidern’s secrets, the more Hamel felt a headache coming on.

But what could he do?

There was no choice to turn back now.

They could only move forward and uncover the secret.

“Is there any way up?”

David hesitated at Hamel’s question, then nodded.

“There are two orthodox ways to breach a workshop. One is to undermine the workshop’s purpose and intent as you go. In a trap-laden workshop like this, that’s practically suicide.”

“And the other?”

“The other is… to eliminate the owner of the workshop.”

Everyone flinched at David’s words.

Only Hamel calmly nodded at David’s statement.

“Understood.”

The senior priest, surprised by that reaction, asked cautiously.

“Is that all right? He’s your father, isn’t he?”

“It’s fine.”

Hamel nodded.

To clear every trap in the workshop by the book would be madness.

Their goal was the patriarch on the third floor.

He would either have to explain the situation or be dead; one of the two would occur.

“Let’s take the shortest route.”

To Hamel, his father had never been a particularly affectionate figure.

David was silent for a moment, then nodded in agreement.

There are things you can’t avoid even if you wish to.

David seemed to have judged that it was unlikely the patriarch was unharmed.

“First, let’s try to disable some of the traps.”

Even outside a workshop, traps usually have mechanisms that can be disabled.

As with all magic, there are ways to counteract it.

If the conditions are met, they should be able to go up.

“Let’s start by checking the left side.”

They began searching the rooms on the mansion’s left side.

There were three rooms on the first floor.

From the far left: the kitchen, the dining room, and the parlor.

─Click click

Hamel tried the doorknob and shook his head.

The kitchen was locked.

He tried the silver key he’d found earlier on a brass keyhole, but it didn’t fit.

“Let’s move on.”

“Can’t we break the door down?”

David answered for Hamel to Daniel’s question.

“That’d be dangerous. You might get trapped in the workshop forever, or the spells could tangle and explode. If a workshop of this scale goes berserk, no one in the mansion would return alive. The best way to neutralize a workshop’s magic is to disarm its mechanisms according to the prescribed method.”

In other words, the mansion was like a prison built of bombs.

Assaulting it with force would be nothing but suicide.

Hamel and the others moved without hesitation toward the dining room.

As expected.

─Click click

The dining room door was also locked.

Hamel again took out the key and tried it in the silver keyhole.

The silver key slid in smoothly as if it had found its match.

─Clack

Turning the key, he heard the lock release.

The door creaked open cautiously.

Sword drawn, Hamel stepped cautiously into the dining room.

It was quiet.

Light came through the window, making the interior unexpectedly bright.

He checked the window to see if they could go outside, but it wouldn’t open.

The view outside the window was motionless, like a painting.

No leaves, no butterflies, no clouds moved.

“….”

Overwhelmed by the stillness, Hamel slowly examined the surroundings.

After a moment, he noticed something slightly off.

“The chairs at the table are pulled out.”

Five of them.

The same number of chairs as members of Hamel’s party.

“Are we supposed to… sit in there?”

Hamel nodded at Antonio’s question.

After all, it was wiser to follow the mansion’s rules for now.

They all sat down at once.

─Swoosh

As if by magic, the candelabras lit and a feast began to appear on the otherwise empty table.

A glossy roast turkey.

A suckling pig with crisp skin.

Creamy pasta and white bread.

Fried-style fish dishes and sweet pastries as well.

The dazzling spread captured everyone’s attention.

─Gulp

Antonio’s swallowing echoed through the dining room.

He shook his head hard, chastising himself for being swayed by food at such a tense moment, but it wasn’t just him.

Even Hamel, an Exorcist priest who prized abstinence, flinched at the sight and smell of the tempting food.

But unlike Antonio, Hamel had knowledge and experience.

He had seen this before.

This wasn’t ordinary food but a trap designed to incite greed.

If they tasted even a scrap of meat or bread, they’d be unable to stop devouring it.

“Do not touch it.”

Of course, those who heard Hamel obeyed slowly.

Fortunately, everyone here had mental fortitude ranked among the empire’s best.

A knight, a mage, and priests.

They examined the food slowly without touching it.

There was likely some mechanism that would let them proceed.

Hamel’s eyes darted busily in search of clues.

And at the end of his search.

“Found it.”

He was able to find something odd
.