漫画大王

Chapter 233

I wondered if the three of us could uncover something the Temple’s own investigators couldn’t.

I considered bringing along other students who might be interested, but Harriet did not seem to like that idea much, so the three of us set out for the castle.

We trudged through the snow-covered forest, just Ellen, Harriet and I.

We would likely not be in any danger. If there had been any safety concerns around this suspicious, spooky location, the Temple wouldn’t have allowed us to embark on a mission here.

Harriet seemed overly excited, thrilled by the prospect of uncovering the secrets of the mysterious, unidentified castle, or perhaps just enjoying being with us.

“Oh...”

Of course, her excitement waned as soon as we arrived.

Whoooooosh...

The eerie silhouette of the ancient Epiacs Castle loomed once more through the snow.

At first, we had only known it as a spooky place to go on a mission, but now, we knew it was an unknown, deserted castle built in a wasteland.

This knowledge made Harriet’s excitement turn into trepidation.

It was one thing to know that there were no ghosts, but to feel like there would definitely be ghosts was something else entirely.

As usual, our reliable, always-composed Ellen stood there calmly, merely observing the ominous castle.

Harriet, perhaps out of nervousness, pulled something out from her belongings.

“I... I need to use this.”

It was a pair of earrings imbued with Tranquility magic.

‘She carries this around with her all the time, it seems. Well, what can I say? It’s meant for situations like this.’

After putting on the earrings, Harriet took a few deep breaths.

“... It’s still scary, though.” Her mood did not completely change, even with the tranquility aid. “But... now I understand.”

Harriet nodded slowly, having gained a bit of composure with the help of the magical item. It seemed she was determined to do what needed to be done.

“It’s not a castle,” Harriet said as she pointed to Epiacs. “It’s a palace.”

It was not a castle, but a palace.

That made sense.

There were no defensive moats, no towers with arrow slits, no drawbridges.

This wasn’t a fortress built for defense. It was a place built for living in and performing ceremonies. A palace.

When we had first entered, we hadn’t noticed these details. Now that we were looking at Epiacs from a fresh perspective, we saw that it was meant for living in, and not just for defense.

Harriet recognized it because she was accustomed to living in such places. She was most definitely a princess.

***

Based on Harriet’s observation and the knowledge that this was not a defensive structure but a residential one, we ventured further into Epiacs with a newfound understanding—this mysterious and seemingly abandoned palace held secrets waiting to be uncovered.

There were no outer walls, and although the buildings were almost interconnected, the main area that was used was the central structure shaped like an inverted “U”.

I wasn’t sure if there had been gardens or other such elements around it, but the grounds were quite expansive.

The more we looked at it, the more Epiacs seemed like a truly strange place.

The servants who had been stationed there temporarily for the mission had already left, and the already-vast Epiacs compound felt completely empty.

There were no locks on the doors or gates, so we walked directly into the dark and sinister castle. If anyone were to squat here, no one would notice.

However, if trespassers actually managed to live here, they deserved an award for that alone, as there were no resources required for basic living nearby.

“Given the scale of this palace, people akin to royalty must have lived here...” Harriet said, and both Ellen and I couldn’t help but agree.

According to Mr. Effenhauser, though, this place was in uncharted territory, and only the small nation of Glamos lay far to the south.

“I don’t know much about Glamos, but could their royal palace be this big?” I asked.

Harriet shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t be. I don’t know much about Glamos, but the fact that I know so little about it is proof that it isn’t some grand nation.”

‘Wow. That’s some serious disdain in her voice. If anyone from Glamos heard that, it would definitely hurt their feelings. That statement wasn’t meant to disparage for the sake of disparaging.’

“A palace of this size could certainly serve as the royal palace of a fairly wealthy nation, even if it wasn’t one as grand as my own duchy. The problem is the location.”

It seemed many nations would gladly accept it if the entire Epiacs castle was picked up and placed in their own land.

Click, Clack.

The silence was so profound that the sound of our footsteps echoed loudly throughout the corridor.

Ellen didn’t seem afraid at all, and Harriet was managing, thanks to her Tranquility earrings.

As for me...

Forget Achievement Points or anything; I wanted to go back because I was scared.

Of course, there was no way I would admit it out loud.

“I don’t know much about architecture, but this palace seems very well-built,” I said.

“It really is,” Harriet agreed.

In contrast to my slightly timid demeanor, Harriet happily engaged in conversation as we walked down the corridor. To me, it looked like the ceiling, windows, and columns had not been hastily built, but were aesthetically pleasing and well-crafted.

There were also statues in every alcove.

“What could these statues represent? They don’t seem to be deities.”

While there were statues, they did not offer much clue as to the original inhabitants of this place.

“When was this built, who lived here, and where have they all disappeared to now?”

We were here to investigate the castle itself, not for a mission. The interior was filled with various rooms, and Harriet took the lead because of her noble background and familiarity with palace layouts.

“Hmm, considering the structure, this should be the audience chamber,” Harriet said, guiding us around based on some unseen logic.

It seemed that palace layouts were somewhat universal, at least from her understanding. The room that was supposed to be the audience chamber was spacious, with a very high ceiling.

“Isn’t this where we held our meetings during the group mission?”

“Yeah.”

There was a round table in the middle.

It was here, on the first day, that I’d been promptly executed. In its heyday, this place would have served as the audience chamber of the palace, but during the game of Mafia, it had served as the meeting room where the students tried to suss out the assassins.

“It doesn’t seem like there was ever a throne here,” Harriet observed as she looked around the empty space.

“So, the residents couldn’t have been royalty or other similar high-ranking nobles.”

“Probably.”

If this was where the nation’s ruling family had lived, there would have been a throne in the audience chamber.

It was a palace, but likely not a royal palace.

Sadly, apart from the sculptures, all other things had been cleared out from this structure and its attached buildings. Given the castle’s age, most other items had probably broken down or degraded over time, and had been cleaned out.

“It seems that all beds, utensils, and other such items that we used during the mission had been brought over by the Temple. They weren’t part of the original palace.”

All those items had already been cleared out after our departure, and nothing remained within the castle itself.

“So it’s not the royal seat of a nation, but it was constructed in this polar region by a group of people capable of constructing something grander than the royal palace of a moderately-sized nation...”

Harriet kept shaking her head. It seemed the more she thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense.

“But why build it here?” Ellen questioned.

“That’s what I’m wondering,” I said.

“The conditions here are just too unfavorable,” Ellen noted.

The climate in the polar region was perpetually frigid. Procuring supplies would be difficult, and the living conditions were harsh.

“Constructing a palace of this scale using manual labor would be incredibly challenging. They would have had to transport building materials and work in this extremely cold environment for a prolonged period. Even under normal conditions, constructing a building of this scale would take a long time. In this environment, it would have taken considerably more time and resources,” Ellen remarked.

There were no land constraints because of the remote nature of this area, but building a structure of this size in this very cold region would have required astronomical amounts of resources and effort compared to constructing a palace in a more typical location.

Harriet nodded in response to Ellen’s reasoning.

“Indeed. Building such a structure in this location would have been more costly and time-consuming than normal. So the fact that there’s such a large palace here means—”

“There are two possibilities,” I said, offering my conclusions. “It had to be in this location, or the location didn’t matter at all.”

A massive palace in an uninhabited area...

Even without a concrete clue, just understanding how peculiar this place was brought us a step closer to grasping the truth.

Ellen nodded slowly. “It could be both.”

“Both?”

Ellen seemed to have already reached an initial hypothesis. “It had to be this location, and location didn’t matter for its construction. Perhaps those who lived here were not human.”

At her words, both Harriet and I turned pale.

‘Wait. Why am I scared? I’m not even human myself!’

The idea that those who’d lived in this palace might not have been human also suggested that those who built it might not have been human.

Ellen’s hypothesis seemed quite plausible.

“So you’re saying... That this could have been a palace for demons or some other beings...?”

“I’m not sure, but there could be species capable of living here regardless of the cold.”

Although we had studied demon ecology, we didn’t know everything about all demon species.

“This isn’t the Dark Land,” Harriet pointed out, clearly puzzled.

Indeed, while this was the northern polar region, it wasn’t part of the Dark Land.

“Demons don’t necessarily only live in the Dark Land,” Ellen replied.

“That’s true...”

Demons were not exclusively confined to the Dark Land. There were instances where monsters and creatures appeared in human territories and needed to be exterminated.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t yet certain that demons had built this place.

“It could have been the headquarters of a secret magic organization. The construction could have been done with magic, and a high-level mage could procure materials fairly easily.”

Harriet, who was a mage, seemed inclined to think along magic-related lines.

It made sense for a secret magic society to set up their base in such an uninhabited area, where people rarely ventured. With enough mages, procuring supplies and constructing the buildings through magic would have been feasible.

“That would explain why there’s no throne, and why there is a round table in what should be an audience chamber,” Ellen said as she nodded, finding the idea plausible.

“Yeah.”

If the leader of a magic society wasn’t a king or a person with similar rank, it makes sense that the audience chamber would house a round table and act as a meeting room instead.

Non-human entities, or a magic society...

It was clear that the original inhabitants of Epiacs were anything but ordinary.

***

Who exactly lived in Epiacs remains unclear. But wandering through the gloomy castle, even in the middle of the day, was both spooky and unsettling.

Whoooosh...

A whistling could be heard throughout the corridors, whether due to the wind or something else.

One might say the wind was wailing, and that was exactly what it felt like.

“Ugh, even the sounds here are eerie,” I commented.

“It’s just the wind, you dummy,” Harriet retorted.

After wandering around for so long, Harriet seemed more curious than scared. Or perhaps the tranquility earrings were doing their job, since she didn’t seem frightened.

‘In this scenario, shouldn’t you be crying in fear? Isn’t the artifact I gave you too much of a cheat?’

“Are you scared?” Harriet asked.

“The fact that you guys aren’t scared is what’s weird!” I snapped back.

‘Fear isn’t age-dependent! I’m especially weak against scenarios like this!’

One of us was holding out thanks to an artifact, and the other would probably nonchalantly acknowledge a ghost if it appeared.

Harriet looked rather amused as she peered at me in one of the rare moments when I felt slightly afraid. She never expected this from me.

“Hah. It would be great if a ghost showed up.”

“Can you stop talking nonsense?”

The ghost wasn’t important to her. She just wanted to be entertained by the sight of me getting scared.

‘What’s wrong with her brain?’

Awoooo, Awoooo...

“Why does the wind sound like someone crying?”

The wind sounded like it was sobbing, and I wondered if I was starting to lose it.

“What crying? It’s just the wind blowi—”

Awoooo... Hoooo... Hoooo...

‘No, really, something’s definitely crying!’

“Ahhhh! What is that?!”

“Ahh, shit!”

Snuggle!

Both Harriet and I instinctively clung to Ellen, who was walking between us.

Ellen seemed puzzled when both of us suddenly latched onto her.

Reflexively, she hugged us back as if to protect us.

With Ellen holding tightly to us, Harriet and I made eye contact.

It was clear.

Both of us instinctively knew that sticking close to Ellen was the best course of action in times of danger.