Chapter 58: Is the Butler a Good Person?
"Brother Bai Liu, we need to hurry," Yotsuya Miko whispered, her voice tight with anxiety. "It won't be good if the butler comes back to the third floor."
She darted nervous glances down the long, dim corridor, then back toward the staircase they had just ascended, her body coiled like a spring, ready to bolt at the slightest sound. She was terrified the butler would discover their clandestine exploration.
"Relax. Ten to twenty servings of curry fish balls and fried tofu? No normal person is finishing that order anytime soon," Haruto replied, his tone utterly unconcerned.
He and Kaguya strolled along at a leisurely pace, examining their surroundings as if they were visiting a quaint, dusty museum rather than infiltrating a potentially lethal castle. Their eyes, alight with genuine curiosity, offered a stark contrast to Miko's evident dread.
Miko felt a whimper rising in her throat. But that butler is clearly not a normal person!
The third floor split into two long corridors, one to the left and one to the right. Haruto casually chose the one on the left, methodically checking each room they passed. Most were studies, libraries, or collection rooms, all coated in a thick layer of disuse. He found almost nothing of interest.
If there was anything truly strange, it was the series of portraits hanging on the walls. A new one appeared every few meters, each depicting the same subject: a woman of stunning beauty. And yet, they were all presented as double portraits.
The reason was simple, and unsettling.
In every single painting, the woman was positioned slightly off-center. The space beside her was a chaotic, smudged void, a patch of canvas that looked as though it had been violently scrubbed and painted over, deliberately and maliciously erasing another figure from the scene.
Miko, despite her fear, wasn't standing idle. Watching Haruto and Kaguya act like a pair of carefree tourists ignited a powerful sense of responsibility within her. With practiced efficiency, she raised her phone and began taking pictures of every single mural. The device couldn't connect to any network here, but its basic camera function worked perfectly.
As they walked, Haruto would occasionally tap the walls with his knuckles, the light, hollow sounds echoing in the silence. He was listening for any inconsistencies, any sign of a hidden passage or secret room. A third floor this large, with a massive, solid wall running down its core… something about the layout felt fundamentally wrong.
They soon reached the end of the corridor and rounded the corner, turning right. This side of the hall was also lined with the same disturbing portraits. Halfway down, they found a narrow staircase tucked against the inner wall, presumably leading to the fourth floor. Directly opposite it, on the outer wall, was another door.
Haruto pushed it open. A thick, musty odor, heavy with the scent of stale dust, assaulted them. The pungent smell made him wrinkle his nose, the unfamiliar scent grating on his senses.
They had found a bedroom.
The furnishings were sparse: a simple desk, a bookshelf, a double bed, and a nightstand.
Haruto's gaze was drawn to the head of the bed. On the nightstand sat a framed photograph. It was similar to the portraits in the hallway, featuring the same beautiful woman, but this time the space beside her hadn't been smudged out—it had been physically torn away, leaving a jagged, empty space in the frame.
His eyes then shifted to the desk, where a half-drunk cup of coffee sat. He paused, then reached out, his fingertips brushing against the ceramic.
"It's hot," he stated simply.
Hot?
Kaguya and Miko frowned in unison. Only after his comment did they scan the room more carefully, noticing the subtle but obvious signs of recent use. The air wasn't quite as stale here, and the dust on the desk had been disturbed.
The three of them searched for a while longer and eventually found a wooden box tucked away under the bed. It was stuffed to the brim with old, leather-bound books.
Miko glanced at the time on her phone. "We don't have enough time to read these one by one," she reminded them, "and we still need to check the other rooms. Brother Bai Liu, how about you just toss these into a Gap? We can take them back and go through them slowly."
"No." Haruto shook his head. "Your deduction is flawed. If your theory were correct, we could just take these books with us directly. There'd be no way for the butler to find out."
Miko blinked, momentarily stunned. My deduction is flawed? But I haven't even said what my deduction is yet.
Though puzzled, she didn't press the issue. She knew Haruto would explain everything once they were back with the others.
Leaving the room, the trio continued down the right-hand corridor, checking the remaining rooms as they went. After rounding one last corner, they found themselves back at the main staircase where they had first come up.
Haruto looked back down the long hallway they had just traversed, a slight frown creasing his brow. It seemed the entire third floor was just a simple, square-shaped corridor. But could there truly be no hidden compartment in that massive central space? Every wall he had knocked on had felt completely solid.
Descending to the second floor, they found the rest of the players huddled in a corner, standing just far enough away from the stairwell that the butler in the first-floor kitchen couldn't possibly overhear their hushed conversation.
Liu Haoran was the first to spot them coming down from the third floor, his voice cracking with shock.
"You went to the third… third floor?"
He caught himself mid-sentence, his eyes widening in alarm. He quickly clapped a hand over his mouth, lowering his voice to a frantic whisper and casting a nervous glance toward the kitchen. Only after confirming the butler hadn't reacted did he let out a shaky sigh of relief.
Xie Lin shot Liu Haoran an annoyed glare before turning his attention to Haruto.
"I thought you'd all returned to your rooms. I was just about to come get you," he said, his expression a mixture of surprise and grudging respect. "I can't believe you actually went up to the third floor."
The others murmured in agreement, their faces reflecting a similar sense of disbelief. Haruto and Kaguya had given them such a strong impression of being lazy, carefree slackers that they had genuinely believed the three had gone back to their rooms to wait for their curry fish balls and fried tofu.
At that moment, they all came to the same conclusion Xie Lin had reached earlier. Haruto's team was definitely playing the part of a pig to eat a tiger—they were hidden experts.
That absurd order of ten or twenty servings of snacks was just a smokescreen, a brilliant tactic to buy themselves time to explore the forbidden third floor. They possessed a boldness that was both admirable and terrifying.
Everyone present silently questioned themselves. Even if the butler had truly agreed to make that much food, none of them would have dared to take such a risk. There were far too many uncertainties. At most, they would have waited until the dead of night to attempt a stealthy investigation.
"Did you find any clues?" Haruto asked, stepping forward and cutting through their thoughts.
Xie Lin nodded. "We did a rough sweep of the second floor earlier. Aside from everyone's bedrooms, which we haven't searched thoroughly yet, we haven't found anything unusual."
He paused for a moment, a flicker of hesitation in his eyes, but he seemed to swallow whatever he was about to say and continued. "As for the first floor, we found a locked room right next to the kitchen. We didn't dare force it open; we were worried the noise would alert the butler."
"We speculate that it must be his room," Xie Lin added, his voice dropping slightly. "We'll need to find the key and go in to check when he's not around. Besides that, we found one other crucial clue."
He lowered his voice even further. "On the back of the front door, on the first floor, we found a warning written in blood."
Right behind the main door? Haruto was genuinely surprised. How had they missed something in such an obvious location when they first entered?
But on second thought, it wasn't so strange. At the time, they had just survived a harrowing ordeal and were on edge, their only desire being to get inside the castle. All of their attention had been fixated on the butler and their immediate surroundings. Who would have thought to turn around and inspect a door that was already closed?
What's more, the words were written specifically on the inner side of the door.
"What did it say?" Haruto pressed.
Instead of answering directly, Xie Lin took out his phone and showed them a photo.
On the screen, two lines of glaring, blood-red text were scrawled across the dark wood of the door.
[Survive for seven days. Kill it.]
[The Butler is always on the Players' side. The Butler is a good person.]
Seeing the second message, Yotsuya Miko couldn't help but gasp. It directly contradicted her own deductions. She turned her head to look at her teammates, only to find Haruto and Kaguya looking perfectly calm, as if they had anticipated this exact answer all along.
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