Chapter 16: 15

Chapter 15 – Room 102, Cursed Room – ‘Mansion of Fear’ (1)

[User: Han Kain (Wisdom)
Date: Day 5
Current Location: Floor 1, Room 102 (Cursed Room – Mansion of Fear)
Sage’s Advice: 3]

Bump, bump.

“Ah, Jinchul. Can you please be a better driver? My bum’s killing me.”

“I’m telling you, noonim. It’s my first time driving an SUV. This feels a little bit different.”

Tung!

“Aht! Ughh…”

“Ugk! My head… Hyung, can you please slow down?”

“We are all gonna die before even going to the mansion!”

“Like, why are there so many unpaved roads leading to that stupid mansion? Noonim. Didn’t you say you’ve been there a lot?”

“Hmm… Actually, I don’t remember it that well because that was back when I was young. Big uncle has been living there the whole time… Wait, you’re going to a mansion and enjoy a good view without paying a single cent, so what are you so dissatisfied about!”

“I’m not dissatisfied or anything… It’s just too far and daunting to get there.”

“By the way, is your big uncle also at the mansion?”

“Oh, Songee. Well, I called him a few days ago, but it seems that he has been unwell these days, and he can’t come down from the hospital in Seoul. Well, that’s good~”

“Sorry??”

“Oops, I don’t mean it’s good that he is unwell. It’s just that it will be only us except for the employees.”

“There are employees?”

“I heard there’s one maid and one butler.”

“A maid and a butler… that really is a full-fledged mansion then. I don’t think I’ve ever been to an old-fashioned place like that even in my home country.”

“And that is where we are going to.”

BBBIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII————

The sound of a broken radio echoed in my mind, and,

‘I came to my senses.’

Everyone came to themselves at the same time as me, as we all sealed our mouths shut.

What was going on? It felt like I had been absent-mindedly watching a movie for like 30 minutes after entering Room 102. It felt inexplicably odd like I had been indulged in a movie where I was showing up as an actor myself.

Naturally, the car also came to a stop.

“What in the world was that… That’s some even more weird stuff.”

“What was that? I wasn’t doing anything and yet somehow–”

“Someone was controlling our bodies for a role-play for 20 to 30 minutes. It was probably this hotel.” Eunsol-noona replied to Songee’s flustered mutter.

We all belatedly understood what was happening.

For 30 minutes after entering Room 102, we lost control of our bodies, and something was controlling our bodies to head to the mansion while explaining the situation like a theatrical play to force pieces of information into our brains.

It was Elena, who was currently aspiring to become an actor, that comprehended the situation before others.

“Looks like we are all given a role. Me, Eunsol-unni, Jinchul-ssi, Kain-ssi and Songee. Us five are heading to the large mansion of Eunsol-unni’s ‘big uncle’. Excluding Seungyub, we are all in the same college society and Seungyub is unni’s little brother. That’s what suddenly popped up in my head. Is that similar for everyone else?”

“Same for me. Well today, I finally realised I had a big uncle the whole time. It seems the hotel is so amazing that it even created a non-existent family member for me. And, a college student? Maybe that could work for everyone else, but Jinchul and I are–”

Eunsol-noona paused in the middle of her words as we were all stuck speechless.

College student. Eunsol-noona and Jinchul-hyung were all in their early thirties so they were a little bit too old to be considered a college student. Eunsol-noona might be passable depending on her outfit but it honestly would have been impossible for Jinchul-hyung but…

Now, the two of them most definitely looked ‘younger’.

“You do look like college students.”

Eunsol-noona replied with a blank look on her face. “You’re right. I look 10 years younger.”

“How many weird things do we have to go through here… Seriously.”

“If we are college students, that means I became older instead…” Songee grumbled.

“Songee, you don’t look particularly older though?”

“Hmm, you’re right. Looks like Elena-unni, Kain-oppa and I don’t look any different.”

“It seems they made Jinchul-hyung and Eunsol-noona younger to give you the role of a college student. They can bring people back to life so making someone younger is probably nothing difficult for them.” 

“I wish my age would stay the same even after leaving the hotel…”

Songee shouted while ignoring the grumbles of Eunsol-noona.

“Wait, unni! Where is Seungyub?”

“According to the ‘scenario’, he’s already at the mansion.”

“He’s probably like a hostage.”

“A hostage? Kain, what do you mean by that?”

“Oh, right. Let me explain. I looked at the screen as soon as I came to myself and the place we are heading to has a terrible name. ‘Mansion of Fear’. I don’t know exactly, but there’s probably going to be all sorts of terrifying things happening in there. But we all woke up before going to the mansion so… I was wondering what would happen if we just didn’t go to the mansion altogether. Maybe that’s why they sent Seungyub over there beforehand? So that we definitely have to go to the mansion?”

“Well, that might be true but I think we should all go there no matter what,” replied Jinchul-hyung. “If we insist on not going, they would probably do all sorts of random stuff to make us go there. ‘Suddenly there were zombies following us so we ran and arrived at the mansion’. Wouldn’t that be our new scenario or something?”

“It’s only been a few days, but you’re already like a veteran at the hotel, Jinchul.”

“Anyway, let’s all head to the mansion again then. If they are going to force us to go there, I think we should go on our own feet to make things less rough for us.”

“By the way, Jinchul-hyung, do you know the road? You weren’t the actual one driving till now right?”

He replied, “Hmm… well, the map is stuck next to the road so that’s okay, but there’s a bigger problem here.”

“What is it?”

“This is manual. Not automatic.”

Everyone turned silent.

“Hyung. Don’t tell me your licence…”

“I did get a manual licence but haven’t touched a manual car for like 10 years. Does anyone know how to drive a manual?”

“I don’t have a licence…” murmured Songee.

“It would be strange if you did as a high school student. But mine is also automatic. Kain, what about you?” 

Eunsol-noona asked so I replied.

“I don’t have one either…”

“Miss Elena, what about… No, never mind. This is a problem though. Should I just give it a shot?”

“I’ll drive,” said Elena as everyone turned silent once again.

“Miss Elena? Do you…?”

“I found this out while getting a Korean licence, but Korea is the unique one to be mostly automatic. More than 80% of the cars are still manual in Russia. So let me drive.”

Just like that, the steering wheel of the manual car that no-one could drive was given not to the former martial artist in his 30s, or the career woman who was also in her 30s but to the young female foreigner in her 20s.

We all kept our lips shut until we arrived at the mansion. Jinchul-hyung had the stiffest look I had ever seen on his face. 

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It turned increasingly more solemn inside the car as we went closer to the mansion.

What kind of place was the ‘Mansion of Fear’? I wondered.

The forest nearby felt more and more different as we approached the mansion. The trees were soaring higher and higher like tall rods, and the birds were all staring at the car rather ominously.

Was I imagining things?

Before long – the mansion appeared like a little dot off in the distance.

Behind was a large mountain and in front was an enormous lake that would make everyone wonder, ‘Was there such a large lake in Korea?’

In the middle of that lake was a bridge wide enough for a car to cross, and we crossed that bridge to head to the mansion.

It really was a ‘mansion’ that looked completely different from the Korean houses that looked like a standing rectangular matchbox. 

Going over the lake, we immediately saw a well-decorated garden and several antique statues. And in the middle of the mansion were large gates, seemingly too large for humans to even open.

The main entrance opened by itself as the car closed in and soon, we all left the car. Next to the front entrance was a seriously bizarre-looking statue that I saw for the first time in my life.

It had the figure of a human, but had six arms and the heart was uncannily enormous. The sculpture of the heart was way too big and literally appeared like a piece of a monster that seemed like it could bounce out of the body and move anytime soon.

While we were all observing that heart, Songee couldn’t hold back her curiosity and tapped the sculpture with her feet,

And finding that cute, Eunsol-noona was caressing her head when people came out of the mansion.

It was one old man, a boy and a girl.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our mansion.”

The confident-looking old man wearing a suit gave a faint bow as we awkwardly greeted him back.

“Hello. So I am, uhh… called Lee Eunsol…”

“Haha. We have heard many stories from our master. He told us Young Miss would be staying at the mansion for a few days with her college friends over the phone, and asserted that we must show our very best. Unfortunately, Sir is unwell and is currently not in the mansion but… I am the butler of the mansion, Kim Mooksung, and this girl here is my lacking granddaughter, Kim Ahri. We will do our very best to serve you.”

“Ahri?”

I asked in a slight fluster upon hearing a name that didn’t sound Korean, as the girl standing next to him walked up and gave a deep bow.

“Hello. I am the maid working at this mansion.”

…

What was this about? Usually when we say a maid, aren’t they over 20? The girl in front of my eyes was at most in her early teens, and looked 13~14 at best.

Ahh… I decided to drop that meaningless line of thought. There was no point in thinking about such a thing because after coming to the hotel, ‘strange’ had already become a synonym of ‘common’.

Let alone 13, even if a 5-year-old kid was to call himself a butler, all we could do was accept it. 

But on another note, this girl was the owner of an extremely surreal appearance. Her skin that was as white as snow and her doll-like facial features were one thing, but her eyes that were coloured in dark red was the most eye-catching of them all.

Weren’t eyes like that a sign of albinism? However, the girl clearly didn’t have albinism; her hair was jet black in the first place.

She was such a supernatural-looking girl who appeared in a place that had a telling name like ‘Mansion of Fear’. I was naturally feeling cautious and finding her tremendously suspicious but next to her was a boy standing still like a fool.

“Seungyub. Are you not even going to say hello to us?” asked Eunsol-noona.

“Ah, ah. You are here, noona. Hello everyone.”

“Wow, thank you for greeting us. Your eyes are going to pop out at this rate. It’s amazing you can do that at a place like this.”

As Eunsol-noona said, Seungyub couldn’t take his eyes off of the girl next to him. Anyone could tell from how he was shivering while looking at Ahri that he thought of this as some infinitely astonishing and destined encounter.

And whenever Ahri turned around and gave him a faint smile, he would turn his eyes to the ground without even breathing out loud, and honestly, it was quite laughable and there was nothing else I could say.

Sure, that girl really was immensely pretty but–

Like how Eunsol-noona said ‘a place like this’, this place was the Mansion of Fear. In the world’s most suspicious house, she was one who warranted the most suspicion because she might not even be a human in the first place.

That was when the butler opened his mouth.

“Do you have any plans on where to go, by any chance?”

There was nothing we could plan for, because it was one hour ago that we realised we were heading to such a bizarre mansion.

“Haha, we don’t have any concrete plans as of yet.”

“Then, Miss, how about you unpack your belongings with your friends, take some rest and head to the rear mountain? Unfortunately, our mansion is quite far from the city and there is little entertainment, but we have pride that our landscape is no worse than any other place. Over the hill there is a refreshing stream and you can enjoy the lake with our boat. Near the mansion there is also a wonderful and historical cathedral.”

There was no-one who knew anything about the mansion anyway so none of us gave any other opinions.

Thus, we decided to unpack our luggage and take a short rest before taking a little walk at the mountain before dinner.

After each unpacking our belongings in our splendid rooms of the mansion, we gathered for a strategy meeting.

“By the way, Kain. Where did Seungyub go?”

“Uhh… That’s weird. He was next to me when we were washing but…”

“Ah! He said he would go help the maid and ran off.”

“Aigo, he’s seriously making me go crazy. Is he thinking of this place as some happy and dreamy mansion? Songee, did you just watch him run off?”

“He started running all of a sudden so…”

“Now, now. Noonim. It’s not like you were going to heavily rely on a middle school student for the meeting, right? Let’s do it with who’s left. Kain, have you discovered anything new with your window?”

“There’s nothing so far except for the name of the mansion. Fear. That’s what it says, but we don’t know what the risks are, and it doesn’t tell us what to do either.”

“Let’s set our goals one by one. What is our most important objective? We can assume what it is from the last announcement we saw in Room 101. Our 1st objective is to have ‘one survivor’. As long as we can achieve that, everyone else can come back to life even if we die.”

“But…How long do we have to survive for?” Songee asked.

“That’s what we have to guess. The simple method is that it would work out somehow if we survive for as long as possible. And for us to survive as long as possible, we first have to know what it is that is threatening us.” Eunsol-noona replied.

“Well, I think it is quite obvious who we have to be careful of, right.”

Honestly, I agreed with Jinchul-hyung. Who is threatening us? Sure, there might be an invisible monster and stuff but that is something beyond what we can imagine. 

Among what was currently in our hands, the butler and the young maid we met just then was the prime suspect considering how unimaginably suspicious they were. 

“The old butler and the girl. Those two looked suspicious from the get go.” I said.

“100%. And you know how I worked out before right? I realised as soon as I looked at that old man. He had muscles that couldn’t be hidden even with his clothes. If you think he’s weak because he’s an old man, you’ll be in for a hard one. He’ll probably even beat you, Kain, in an arm wrestle.”

“But that maid didn’t seem like she could fight though.”

“She does look like a kid but you never know.”

“Even though the butler and the maid were suspicious, for me, the statue at the main entrance was the weirdest.”

After Songee was Elena.

“For me, it was that bridge. When we were driving here, that bridge felt rather weak. It’s similar to how it feels during rasputitsa in my home country…”

“Rasputitsa?”

“It’s how the road becomes muddy because of the melting snow in Russia, and Elena is probably saying there was a lot of moisture on the bridge which made it feel muddy.”

“That’s right.”

For another 30 minutes, we discussed the suspicious elements of the mansion as well as how suspicious they each were. 

As our heads were starting to perceive the mansion as a hell filled with killing traps and the butler and maid as a mass-murdering pair of family…

Someone knocked on the door.

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