/
“I deliberately praised Viscount Boton, of course.”
When someone that was part of one’s faction was attacked, a man tends to cover and defend their fellow faction member; but, it was an aristocrat’s tyrannical tendency to bite that same ally without mercy when the ally is judged to be better off than he was in the eyes of high-ranking noble.
Luisen understood that and exercised his wit, “Then, as expected, he began to gossip. According to him, no one lives in this mansion except for Viscount Boton.”
“No one else?”
“Yeah. No servants, no soldiers…even his family is absent. Look at the banquet hall–all the servants are the Eastern Great Lord’s people. Apparently, the cooks are the same.”
The Eastern Great Lord, who wanted to show off his prestige, lent his people to work for Viscount Boton and helped prepare for the banquet.
“That’s… truly strange,” Carlton said.
No matter what catastrophe had happened–even if he had run away and then returned–it didn’t make sense to have a single aristocrat in a noble’s mansion. At the very least, he should have brought back some commoners to take care of him.
“Anyway, since the situation was suspicious, I decided to poke around,” Luisen hesitated before grabbing Carlton’s sleeve, “You’re not going to let me go alone, are you?”
“Of course, we’ll go together.”
If the mercenary let Luisen go alone, Luisen might be found dangling from the walls of the mansion this time. Carlton nodded emphatically.
***
Luisen and Carlton succeeded in escaping the banquet hall unseen. Viscount Boton’s residence was deserted–which was consistent with the other noble’s gossip.
The mansion, which had a long history, was surrounded by a bleak atmosphere due to the emptiness of its halls. Cold air, penetrating through the thick tapestries, chilled the skin. All in all, the area felt strange, although they couldn’t pinpoint what exactly was strange about it.
Their destination was the hallway where Luisen and Viscount Boton conversed earlier in the day. At that time, Viscount Boton had asked Luisen if he had found something strange about the mansion. Without context, that was such a random question. Wasn’t that something someone would say because they already knew that the place was unnatural?
When they arrived in the hallway and stood still and silent, they heard distant thuds. Normally, they would have gone unnoticed, assuming the sound was made by some critter like a mouse, but Carlton’s keen senses couldn’t be evaded.
“I hear something over there–the sounds of repeated hits.”
Carlton pointed to the origin of the noises: Viscount Boton’s office. Carlton first took out his knife and warily approached the office. Luisen followed at his heels.
Viscount Boton’s office was a mess; it looked as if creditors had come and gone. Books and papers lay scattered on the floor; pots and various ornamental items were strewn on top.
Thud– Thud– Thud–
There was another door inside the office; the repetitive sound came from the other side. Carlton told Luisen to wait and approached the door.
Luisen stood quietly as he was ordered and looked around the office, ‘Is there anything else that’s strange?’
The portraits on the wall caught the young lord’s eye; the subjects of the paintings were the previous Viscount Botons, arranged from the most distant ancestors to the most recent. It was a common custom to decorate the office with the portraits of its past owners. The Anies duchy, as well, contained many portraits spanning the generations from his ancestors to Luisen himself.
‘They all look similar.’
Perhaps because they were descended from a common ancestor, all of the previous Botons’ faces looked similar. There, Luisen felt a sense of disharmony; he quickly scanned the portraits and looked towards the last one–where the present-day Viscount should be.
The young lord’s eyes widened, “Who is this person?”
The current Viscount’s portrait, hung at the end of the room, was a completely different person than the man Luisen had met. Portraits often differed from their model’s faces, as many of the paintings were beautified, but it was never to this degree. Although the Viscount Boton’s thick, caked makeup confused the young lord, if one looked closely, the features–the color of the eyes and the shape of the chin for example–was different. Everything was different.
Did I discover something? Luisen was so bewildered, he called his companion over, “Carlton… Come here and take a look at this.”
Bam–!
At that moment, a large thud–as if something heavy had crashed down–came from the room inside the office.
“My duke, you should see this. There’s a ghoul here.”
“What?”
‘Why was there a ghoul here?’ Luisen ran hurriedly to the mercenary’s side. Inside the door, from where the sounds could be heard, there was one ghoul lying on the ground. It had fallen backwards, struggling and moaning.
“Judging by his clothes, he appears to have been a nobleman,” Luisen said.
“I think we should look at his face in closer detail.”
“Please be careful.”
Carlton placed a candle closer to the ghoul’s face with a stiff expression. The decomposition had progressed to a large degree, which was somewhat disgusting, but the mercenary endured. Fortunately, the corpse wasn’t decomposed to the point that he couldn’t recognize the face.
“It’s the same as that portrait.” Luisen commented. The ghoul’s face matched the face in the current Viscount Boton’s painting.
“The portrait?”
“Over there.” Closing the door so that the ghoul couldn’t escape outside, Luisen showed Carlton the portrait in the office. As someone with a keen eye, Carlton was quick to recognize that the ghoul was actually the subject of the portrait.
“If that ghoul really is Viscount Boton, then… Who the hell is the viscount in the banquet hall?”
“More importantly, we must note that the fake Viscount invited us to this mansion…”
Why would a man pretending to be an aristocrat do such a bold thing? There must be some scheme.
The birth of a ghoul was obviously associated with the demon worshippers. Given that the real Viscount Boton had become a ghoul, it was highly likely that a demon worshiper was involved in his death. The fake Viscount *must* be aware of this situation, so it was almost certain the fake was related to the demon worshippers.
Luisen and Carlton forgot what they were going to say and stared at each other’s faces. Goosebumps ran down their spines at the creepy nature of this situation.
“Awooooo!”
Through the gap in their conversation, they heard a distant wolf cry. The cry was chilling and seemed to scratch their eardrums. Carlton’s bloodthirst instinctively reared up sharply.
The mercenary ran to the window; the surrounding grounds and the lord’s personal manor were dark–not a single light shone. If a person lived there, there should be even a small light, but he couldn’t see anything. There was only vast darkness, as if he were looking into the sea at night.
However, dark red smoke began to pour in, moving toward the mansion; it half-resembled a cloud and half-resembled thick fog. But, its oncoming speed was as fast as the trade winds; it quickly occupied the estate grounds before reaching the house.
As the dim moonlight shone through the dark red fog, they could see people in its midst. For some reason, they were wriggling. At first glance, one could tell that the people’s movements–excruciatingly slow and grotesquely jerky–were not normal.
“They’re all… ghouls, right?” Luisen asked.
“That seems…to be the case.”
The swarm of ghouls approached, narrowing their siege formation as they approached the mansion. Ghouls had no intellectual ability, so they couldn’t move systematically. Therefore, they were under someone’s control.
Just like the viscount’s knights the other day…when they attacked Luisen’s party.
“The demon worshippers… It’s those bastards.” Carlton growled.
This was an undeniable fact that could no longer be ignored. Viscount Boton, this mansion, this banquet…Everything was a trap to try and capture Luisen.
***
The Eastern Great Lord’s knights were all on night patrol. They weren’t motivated to stand guard with soldiers who were of lesser status than them–after all, the nobles simply enjoyed their food and drink in the hall. There was no feeling of crisis or urgency, as this was a country lord’s home.
Soldiers standing guard near the mansion weren’t so different from the knights. Some of them had even fallen asleep, leaning against a window. The knights bashed the heads of such soldiers to wake them up before continuing on their half-hearted patrol.
‘Please make time fly faster…’ They all thought. Their only expectations were to receive the leftovers from the banquet. They strolled around, absentmindedly, when they heard a strange sound.
Grrrrr– Grrrrrr–
“What is that?”
This mansion was already quite eerie in a way that was hard to pinpoint, but when they heard a strange sound, their nerves were on edge. The knight became frustrated from anxiety.
“S-Sir Knight. Sir Knight. There’s trouble.” A soldier rushed towards the knight.
“What’s all this fuss about?”
“Corpses…There are corpses approaching us.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
At that time–with eerie timing–a soldier’s scream could be heard from a nearby distance. The knight returned to his senses. Though he was suffering currently from a lethargy, he had become a knight through a rigorous process, after all.
The knight ran towards the origin of the scream… And he stood there, stunned. At first glance, he saw people dressed in peasant clothes, so he had thought the local residents flocked to the mansion. But, as he approached closer and closer, he noticed something strange. Their eyes were cloudy like fish that had been caught long ago; their bodies were rotten and smelled of decomposition. As the soldier said, these were walking corpses.
“What the hell is this…?”
As they stood dazed, the ghouls rushed towards the knight and soldier. Their movements were quick, even though they were dead bodies–too quick even for an ordinary living commoner.
“Aaargghh!” The soldier was torn apart by the ghoul’s teeth in an instant. The knight, surviving by a hair’s breadth, turned back without hesitation and started running away.
‘This isn’t a matter I can sort out on my own. Hurry…I’ll have to hurry and tell the lord…’
The knight ran like crazy. The banquet was in full swing, so, fortunately, all the nobles were gathered in one place. As he ran down an empty hallway, the knight kept looking out the window.
Looking down from above, he could see the dark, red smoke rapidly approaching the mansion. Somehow, the smoke felt even eerier than the living corpses. He could see dead bodies scrambling throughout the entire area.
The soldiers tried to respond, but they were helpless. Not only was this an ambush, but they were also scared by these living corpses and thus were unable to utilize their full ability and skills. At times like this, the strong power and authority of a leader were needed.
Faster.
The knight threw open the door to the banquet hall with all his might and yelled, “My Lord, It’s a disaster!”
The nobles who were enjoying their party looked back with eyes wide open. One aristocrat even scolded the man with a displeased expression, asking what all this fuss was about.
However, the knight couldn’t say anything–the dark red fog, which had stayed near the mansion as he ran down the hallway, had finally passed through the windows and filled the banquet hall. Starting with those nearest to the windows, people fell, one after another.
“Agh! What’s going on!”
“Hey, call a doctor!”
The banquet hall quickly fell into pandemonium, but even that didn’t last long. In the blink of an eye, dark red smoke filled the banquet hall, and everyone inside collapsed.
Both the knight that came to deliver the news and the Eastern Great Lord, who needed to deliver instructions to everyone else, had fallen unconscious.