Role-playing? Playing house?

"I get it!" Vanessa said excitedly. "This must be some kind of mysterious ritual!

That being was demonstrating it specifically for me! As long as I do the same thing, the clues will appear on their own!"

After this search, the girl discovered that she was no longer being controlled, which also confirmed her idea-that being really was teaching her!

And so, an expression mingling reverence and conviction appeared on the girl's face. She took a deep breath and, imitating the posture she had assumed when that will controlled her, approached the drawer that had already been manhandled over a dozen times and began a new round of "exploration."

Her movements were perfunctory and careless, as though she were taking part in a sacred performance whose meaning everyone tacitly understood.

Elliot was dumbfounded!

[The girl rummaged through places she had already searched, carelessly, as though merely going through the motions.]

[The girl rummaged through places she had already searched, carelessly, as though merely going through the motions.]

[The girl...]

Elliot could stand it no longer and pulled the girl's card out of its slot.

"Seriously, you can slack off even while searching a room?!"

"How come you're pretty smart sometimes, but act like such a bot at others?"

Elliot sighed and inserted the [Clue · Hidden Trapdoor] he had just found into the [Search] slot.

Vanessa's performance was forcibly interrupted. That will controlled her as she walked straight to the corner of the kitchen and pulled up the cold iron ring on the trapdoor.

Below, a narrow wooden ladder extended into thick darkness.

The girl lit a candle and carefully climbed down.

"Under the kitchen... A place like this would usually be a vegetable cellar, right?" she said instinctively, but her tone soon grew uncertain.

Until yesterday, Vanessa had firmly believed there was nothing supernatural in this world, and that everything could be explained through cold logic and science.

But last night's bloody battle had utterly shaken her convictions.

Even the most powerful hypnosis couldn't instantly grant someone too weak to truss a chicken such exquisite, deadly combat skills, could it? If it could really do that, why would the Empire even bother training an army?

Besides, one look at that man's condition made it obvious something was wrong. Although Vanessa had little combat experience, someone who could still move with his skull split open and his throat pierced couldn't possibly be an ordinary human, no matter how she looked at it.

Perhaps the monsters of legend were real? Perhaps the "supernaturals" recorded in those occult texts weren't a fantasy?

Emperor Trist had once divided supernaturals into thirteen ranks. After his empire fell, the supernatural had been proven not to exist, and all of it had become a joke.

But now... did the supernatural really not exist?

Half apprehensive and half excited, Vanessa stepped into the basement.

The basement was extraordinarily tidy, and Vanessa sensed something was wrong as soon as she entered.

"Something feels strange about the floor... If only I could examine it."

She spoke quietly.

A moment later, the sensation of being controlled suddenly vanished, and she regained command of her body.

Vanessa froze for a moment. Could that being actually hear her speaking?

She suppressed her churning thoughts and carefully crouched down, running her fingers meticulously over the cold floor in the dim candlelight.

"It's too flat... This-this is practically as flat as a sheet of glass... Huh?"

The floor felt exceptionally smooth, yet it wasn't slippery underfoot. After feeling around for a while, Vanessa suddenly paused.

Her fingertips had touched a fine, regular groove!

The candlelight was simply too weak to make out the details.

Vanessa lay down outright, her cheek almost touching the cold floor as she strained to distinguish what was there.

Vanessa owned a portable gas lamp, but she hadn't brought it-who would have thought she would need lighting during the day?

"Is this... a picture?"

Vanessa lay on the floor for ages, until she was shivering a little from the cold, before she roughly made it out.

An intricate pattern had been carved into the smooth floor in fine lines. Vanessa had little grounding in art and had never studied the occult, so even after thinking for a long time, she couldn't work out what it was.

Apart from its somewhat unusual floor, the basement was empty, without a single thing inside.

There was neither stored food nor any strange objects. It was completely empty.

The girl could only climb back to the first floor, full of questions.

She still had a key, and upstairs, there was another hidden compartment.

Vanessa returned to the second-floor study.

The ceiling here seemed a little lower than in the other rooms. She looked around, dragged over a chair, and stood on it, reaching up to feel carefully over the dusty ceiling.

Soon, she found a concealed keyhole. She inserted the key and gently turned it.

Click!

A square ceiling hatch sprang open at the sound.

"There really is an attic!" Vanessa perked up.

She reached into the dark opening and felt around, pulling out a simple folding ladder. With considerable effort, she unfolded it and set it in place, then carefully climbed up.

The attic was cramped and windowless, so dark she could barely see her hand in front of her face. Thick dust covered everything, and the air smelled of old paper and rotting wood.

Yet there, in the gloom, several chests of varying sizes were stacked!

Vanessa's eyes instantly lit up!

Chests! Chests hidden deep in the attic! There were definitely good things inside!

Excitedly, she tried moving the topmost one-it was heavy!

It took considerable effort to get one chest down. It had a brass lock, and just as Vanessa was looking at the keyhole and finding it somewhat troublesome, that familiar sensation returned-she lost control of her hands!

"No way. You can pick locks too?"

She "watched" her right hand rise and remove an ordinary hairpin from her bun, her fingers deftly straightening it. Her left hand drew Allen's sharp folding knife and used the spine of the blade to precisely press a tiny hook into the hairpin's tip.

Then she slipped it into the keyhole, moving her wrist slightly up and down while tilting her head to listen to the faint sounds of the mechanism inside...

A moment later, she withdrew the hairpin and gently turned the lock bolt.

The bolt didn't budge.

Vanessa: "..."

Her hands moved again, repeating exactly the same motions, once, twice, three times...

Vanessa felt as though she had understood something.

When this mysterious being controlled her to do something, it always seemed to achieve its goal in the end. As for whether she herself could pick locks or understood the principles involved?

It didn't matter.

She only needed to perform that prescribed sequence of movements, and things would "succeed" in a way she couldn't understand, one that was almost child's play.

Just like... children playing house!

Yes, playing house. As long as that will wanted to play house, the whole world would play along with her.

Just what kind of being was controlling her...? Vanessa felt bewildered, with a faint fear stirring deep inside.