Fran walked into the guest room located in the side wing. The incandescent lights in the four corners of the room immediately lit up.
Hanover Count's manor used old-fashioned candle lamps in the banquet hall and drawing room, while the bedrooms were equipped with quite modern incandescent light fixtures. Probably a consideration for fire hazards guests might cause.
Click—
By the dim, soft night light, the entire room's appearance and furnishings became visible to her.
It was a very... cute bedroom.
A life-sized bear plushie lay on the fluffy, soft velvet bed, the bedding adorned with delicate little lace trims. A small crystal-carved night lamp sat on the bedside table, and a dreamcatcher made of feathers and bird bones hung from the ceiling.
Besides that, the entire room was filled with pretty pale pink decorations. The tapestry on the wall was a mild khaki color.
Oh, there was even a dedicated area in the corner for dolls and plush toys. A meticulously crafted miniature manor model could be seen, based on Hanover Manor, seemingly specifically for placing tiny figurines.
It was excessively girly.
Fran narrowed her amber eyes, her expression momentarily odd.
Did Count Ferdinand have some special preference... or was there something wrong with this room?
She raised her wrist, taking out the brass pocket watch from her sleeve to check the time. The hour hand now pointed precisely to twelve, meaning... the entire manor had entered "midnight."
"Although this type of bed would probably be very comfortable, actually sleeping in it would be a bit too embarrassing..."
Fran lightly pursed her lips, her gaze sweeping over the giant bear plushie on the bed, then uttering a murmur.
Clearly, this was a young girl's room. Its owner was estimated not to be over eight years old.
Given Count Ferdinand's near-collapse mental state, he likely wouldn't have the leisure to play such a joke with a guest room. Meaning, the current situation was part of Hanover Manor's "anomaly."
Fran extended her slender fingers, resting them on the skin of her chin, gently rubbing, then began further observing the bedroom.
She went to the bedside. A small bookshelf filled with fairy tales and bedtime stories stood beside the nightstand.
"The Nightingale and the Rose, The Shadow... all classic fairy tales."
Fran's fingertips methodically brushed over the exquisitely bound fairy tale books, then accurately pulled out one. Its cover had no title or illustration, yet it was the most thumbed-through in the entire shelf, the page corners showing signs of curling.
Hmm...
A little girl's thoughts aren't hard to guess. Clearly, this small booklet sneakily placed in the bookshelf... was her diary.
Without any psychological burden, Fran opened the diary and began reading.
The next moment, she raised an eyebrow slightly, seeming somewhat surprised by the diary's content.
The first few pages of the diary, where the room owner's thoughts and observations should have been, were all torn out. Only a page with a strangely rhythmic little poem remained.
[Deep within the manor's splendid rooms, my angel once resided here, palace magnificent—radiant for her—scattered across the heavens.]
[Within the dream's spirit realm, the childlike visage unchanged;]
[Slender white dress as in days past, smile and voice remain.]
[The filthy decay unseen, forever lurking timidly, pursuing relentlessly.]
"Not the room owner's information, but deliberately left 'clues.'"
After confirming the entire diary indeed had only this passage as effective information, Fran placed it back into the bookshelf exactly as before.
This poem... bore some similarity in format to the short poem The Haunted Palace from Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. But the main subject described had changed.
The Haunted Palace mostly described a palace, while this poem seemed to reminisce about a woman. Judging by the most direct connection, the young girl mentioned in the short poem... should be the owner of this bedroom.
"Oh, situations requiring literary skill during a house call are indeed rare... And here, there seems to be other surprises."
Fran's lips curved into a slight smile, seeming somewhat intrigued by this manor.
She caught a faint whiff of blood in the air and a strand of eerie spirituality silently enveloping her.
The spiritual influence was silent and formless, likely starting the moment Fran entered this bedroom. But it was a subtle influence, acting on common sense and cognition, needing time to take full effect.
And now, it was time for the influence to begin altering reality...
Fran raised her hand, seeing her palm covered with several sutures had unknowingly shrunk considerably.
She then looked toward a full-length mirror nearby. The figure in the mirror was unmistakably Fran in her childhood state.
Her doctor's coat had transformed into a silk gauze dress, white velvet stockings wrapped her legs, and on her feet were a pair of delicate round-toe shoes.
The shoe laces had jasmine flowers sewn from silk, swaying with Fran's steps.
"This is the room owner's image... not much different from what I imagined."
"Thankfully it's me who came to this bedroom. If it were the navigator Krul, or that priest... the situation would be rather unimaginable."
Fran wasn't too concerned. Instead, she admiringly turned her body toward the mirror, examining her back. The clothing on her back was as clean and new as the front, the skin of her neck delicate and fair, without scars or bloodstains.
So, where did the blood scent come from?
"If Sister Haida were here, she could probably find the source easily. She's quite professional in that regard..."
Aside from her extraordinary pain tolerance, Fran's senses weren't much different from a normal person's. So it took her some time to locate the source of the blood scent... the "dollhouse" in the room for placing toys.
And this dollhouse was a proportionally scaled-down "Hanover Manor."
"Frequent contact with corpses has somewhat dulled my sensitivity to the scent of blood."
Fran approached this beautifully crafted miniature house, extended her index finger, and pried open the tightly closed small wooden door and window to peer inside.
In the five rooms of the side wing, several ceramic figurines could be seen. And their faces were familiar... the five who came to the manor, the male servant, the steward, and Count Ferdinand.
Besides that, there was a mass of black, humanoid sludge. Its dark, slimy, oily limbs were embedded with numerous human faces, bones, and severed limbs slowly floating within its body.
Although miniature, it was revolting enough.
"I think I understand..."
Looking at this slowly writhing humanoid sludge, Fran had a clearer idea of what would happen next.
If not mistaken, the interaction logic between this dollhouse and reality should be: "whose door the sludge approaches, that person in reality will be attacked."
Shuffle—shuffle—
Inside the dollhouse, the humanoid form of black sludge slowly moved across the corridor, reaching Fran's door. Simultaneously, she distinctly heard sticky shuffling sounds outside her door, along with the rotten scent of decomposing biomatter.
Indeed, this dollhouse reflected the manor's real-time state.
In a way, it was somewhat similar to surveillance.
Fran remained quiet, holding her breath silently. The sludge humanoid slowly rubbed against the door frame; she could even hear the rough, sandpapery sound of a tongue licking the door.
In truth, she didn't mind using violence directly to deal with the threat outside. But she still didn't understand the manor's monsters well enough; acting rashly might cause unexpected complications...
Detecting no movement from inside, after a while the sludge humanoid seemed to lose interest in this room. It moved slowly forward along the corridor wall, sensing faint sounds from other rooms.
Hmm... It left, as expected.
During cross-border house calls, Fran would consider whether the current situation had a "solution for ordinary people" before resorting to violence each time. The depth of consideration also affected her treatment completion rating.
If I were just an ordinary visitor, turned into an eight- or nine-year-old girl after entering this bedroom... what actions could eliminate the threat outside? Or could I only try to hide and convey the information about the monster's presence to others as best as possible?
She looked at the manor model before her, her amber eyes flickering thoughtfully.
In an instant, Fran took a handkerchief from her medicine case and stuffed it into the corridor of the side wing in the manor model.
After completing this action, she closed the model's door.
When she opened the door again, the silk handkerchief that had occupied a small section of the corridor had now been assimilated to the model's scale, landing before that sludge-formed monster.
A muffled, low roar suddenly sounded from outside the door.
In the manor model, it manifested as the monster tearing the handkerchief apart, almost ecstatically putting it in its mouth to chew...
Hmm... I can interfere with the outside world to some extent through interaction with the manor model. Just as I thought.
For ordinary people, the key to breaking the situation should lie here. They could alert participants in other rooms by passing items, urging them to stay quiet. They could also create sounds to guide the sludge humanoid's movement in a certain direction.
Only... anomalies probably aren't limited to just my room.
Given the current situation, I'm in a relatively "safe" position. But others' experiences might not be the same as mine. If they face life-threatening danger, they might not have the ability to remain quiet.
Fran tried to take out her own ceramic figurine from the model, but nothing happened. It seemed just an ordinary little toy. Taking out others' figurines yielded the same result.
Meaning, transferring others to her room by taking out the figurines wasn't feasible. Interference could only be from outside to inside.
Thinking of this, she took out a pair of gel surgical gloves from her medicine case and put them on. They were noticeably too large.
After completing protective measures, Fran reached out and touched the slowly wandering sludge humanoid in the model. Through the glove, a slimy, slippery sensation came from her fingertips, like touching a piece of rotting raw meat constantly oozing grease.
"Strong decay scent. It likely corresponds to the line in the poem: 'The filthy decay unseen, forever lurking timidly, pursuing relentlessly.'"
Fran pulled off the glove stained with sludge and rot fluid and discarded it.
She wasn't worried the scent would attract that thing. If it had that capability, it would have charged into her room earlier.
Currently, the sludge humanoid was slowly heading toward Priest Gorn's room, as if there was some intense commotion there.
Oh, wait... The Hanover Manor male servant also seems to be in his room.
Fran narrowed her eyes, pursing her lips slightly.
Some rather unappealing conjectures began forming in her mind as images...
Just moments ago, the Hanover Manor servant was standing in the distant main hall. His appearance in the priest's room happened almost instantly.
She pondered briefly, then opened the door of a small servant's room in the main hall of the model. The young male servant's ceramic figurine was inside, no different from the one in the priest's room.
... The servant Gorn encountered should originate from the influence within his own room.
Just not sure what this "influence" would do to him.
"No! Don't! Don't come closer... I didn't do anything to you! No, it wasn't me..."
Just as Fran was considering her next move, an almost shrill scream came from the next room. Even with the manor's soundproofing, the content could be faintly made out.
Could it be the priest encountered the servant turning the tables?
Slightly awkwardly, this thought surfaced uncontrollably in Fran's mind. But she quickly dismissed it.
Priest Gorn's room was some distance away; even shouting at the top of his lungs wouldn't be heard this clearly. The person next to her... was the history department folklorist, Davis.
"I didn't kill you, it was you, it was yourself! I just wanted to take back what belongs to me..."
Davis's voice came intermittently, his mental state clearly hysterical, nearly delirious.
"If you hadn't stolen everything from me, how could any of this have happened? Even if you had just shared a little, just a little... I would still have respected you immensely..."
Listening to the folklorist's nearly insane screams, Fran couldn't help but raise her hand to her chin, narrowing her eyes slightly.
The young man's mental state is worrisome... Or is it that folklorists tend to be like this?
Davis's hoarse, frenzied monologue quickly attracted the sludge humanoid's attention. It immediately turned from Priest Gorn's door and eagerly surged toward the source of the sound.
Inside the side wing bedroom, Davis, eyes bloodshot, stared at the gaunt, ashen-faced old man before him. His chest heaved violently, emotions surging within him—half fear, half hatred.
"Professor Dusan... For these seven years, your achievements, your reputation, your papers—haven't they all come from me? Haven't you taken enough from me?"
"Why, even after death, must you haunt me..."
The old professor called Dusan merely looked at Davis, his face stiff as a corpse's. The corner of his mouth twitched for a few seconds, then slowly stretched into a deep, sinister smile.
"...Davis, you're still so easily agitated."
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T/N: Hey readers~! New Translator here! Before I say anything, I'd first like to thank the original author for creating this wonderful story. Without them, I wouldn't have the chance to share this adventure with you. I hope my translation does justice to their work, and that together, we can enjoy this story.
With that said, I'm happy to let you know I'll be uploading daily chapters. And for those who wish to support my work and gain early access, I've set up a Patreon where advanced chapters will be available.
[email protected]/PeakTL