The Curse of Belle Epoque Mansion

This couldn't be happening.

I had been walking through Belle Epoque Mansion only moments ago. And yet here I was, bound to a wooden chair in some basement I had never seen, unable to so much as twitch.

Was this another hallucination the mansion had conjured?

No. It had to be a hallucination. If it wasn't, the situation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I now found myself in would become a once-in-a-lifetime crisis — one with my life on the line.

Scrape— scrape— scrape—

I wasn't alone in the basement. Someone else was there. His face was unrecognizable, scrambled with a strange visual noise, as if it had been mosaic-censored. Crouched over a whetstone, drawing a long butcher's knife across it, he was unmistakably a man — his build made that much clear.

I tried to say something to him, but the words wouldn't come, as if my throat had been packed full of sand. I screamed with everything I had. No sound emerged, as though someone had pressed a mute button.

I looked around. The basement was packed with instruments horrific enough to call it a torture chamber without a second thought. A wooden, cross-shaped rack. A triangular wooden horse with a razor-sharp ridge. Shackles, chains, and a whip hung from the walls. Dark, dried bloodstains of unknown origin clung to the cold stone floor.

The man with the noise-scrambled face stood, the massive butcher's knife in his grip, and came toward me slowly. He was enormous, and he looked strong. He reached out and slowly stroked my face with a large, rough hand.

A crawling, nauseating sensation swept through my entire body.

I tried to tell myself that all of this was a hallucination the mansion was showing me. But the sensations were so vivid, so inescapably real, that I found myself increasingly forced to accept this as reality.

Was this... really a hallucination? Or was this actually happening to me?

The more that question took root, the thinner my certainty became. Even everything I had done since coming to this other world began to feel like a dream. What if it had all been a dream? What if this, right now, was my real reality?

An unbearable fear, and a sorrow I couldn't name, came flooding in like a tide. I was being swallowed by it.

What had I been doing, just now?

Who... was I?

That was when the Narration spoke inside my head.

I felt my fading sense of self snap back, like a dead bulb flickering to life. If it hadn't been for the Narration, I would have lost my mind entirely.

Right. This was definitely a hallucination. Some prank by the ghost that lived in this mansion. No matter how vivid it was, as long as I didn't let go of the conviction that all of this was an illusion, I could endure it.

The man with the noise-scrambled face slowly lifted my hand. Then, as if counting my fingers, he touched each one in turn with his index finger. And then he pressed the butcher's knife flush against my little finger.

I knew instantly what he intended, and a shudder ran through me.

I screamed. Still, no sound came out.

When was this hallucination going to end?

The next instant, the man sliced through my little finger.

The sensation of the finger that had been there a moment ago vanished. There was pain — but not the kind of pain you'd expect from actually having a finger cut off.

My mind was in chaos. Was I really all right? The suspicion of which one was reality kept sprouting in my chest.

The man grabbed my next finger and set the knife against it. Praying this horrific experience would end soon, I squeezed my eyes shut.

"Hah... hah..."

I had no idea how long I'd been tortured inside that hallucination. Subjectively, it had been hours. The man with the noise-scrambled face had done every unspeakable thing imaginable to me.

The pain I'd felt hadn't been as intense as the real thing — but it had still been a terrifying experience. By the time ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠there wasn't a single unharmed place left on my body, and I was certain I was about to die, I finally managed to claw my way out of the hallucination and back to the scenery of Belle Epoque Mansion.

My body was shaking. My breath came in ragged gasps, all the way up to my throat. Sweat poured from my forehead like rain.

Fortunately, there was nothing wrong with me physically. Inside the hallucination, that man had carved me up until there wasn't a sound piece of me left. The fact that my arms and legs were still attached felt, suddenly, like something to be grateful for.

"I have to get out of here..."

The first thought that came to me was that I needed to leave this place, and fast. My mind was already exhausted beyond its limits. I understood, in an instant, how that man had felt — the one who'd burst into the guild ugly-crying, screaming to cancel the request. If the Narration hadn't held my sanity in place, I might have ended up just like him.

"Silphy!"

Once I'd collected myself enough, I started to worry about Silphy. I called her name at the top of my lungs and went searching through the mansion for her.

"Silphy! Are you okay?"

I found her in the kitchen, deeper inside the house, curled into a ball.

"Silphy?"

I approached and called her name again. She was trembling violently, both hands clamped over her head, as if trying to shield herself from a disaster.

So she'd gone through the mansion's hallucination too.

"Silphy! We need to get out of here, now!"

I grabbed her wrist and half-dragged her to her feet, shouting. When I checked her face, worried, her eyes were wide, pupils blown, and she was a mess of tears.

"Ah... aah..."

"That's enough! We'll talk once we're outside!"

I needed to get her somewhere safe and calm her down. I pulled her with me and we fled Belle Epoque Mansion in a hurry.

"...I see. I think I understand now why adventurers have been abandoning this request."

I led Silphy out of the mansion and put a good deal of distance between us and it. Then I sat her down somewhere suitable — she still hadn't come back to herself — and told Tina, who'd been waiting outside, everything that had happened inside.

"I nearly didn't make it myself. The hallucination felt so much like it was actually happening to me that you couldn't endure it unless you held onto your sanity with everything you had."

"Then... shall we head back and process a cancellation of the request for now?"

Tina asked, taking notes as she spoke.

Every adventurer who had taken this request so far had given up. Of course they had. Who would want to go through something that horrific a second time? And the thing they were supposed to deal with had no physical form — there wasn't even a method for how to resolve it.

But I had no intention of giving up.

I had confirmed with my own body that the horrific visions the mansion showed couldn't harm the real me. And I had the Narration, which had a habit of offering unexpected information. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Even if I couldn't ask it questions directly, if I kept investigating this mansion, I was bound to find a clue.

"No. I'll keep investigating. More importantly, I need to look after Silphy first."

So saying, I pulled a vial of holy water from the bag I'd brought. If it didn't work, I could always just drink it as water. I had Silphy sip it slowly.

It was quite some time before Silphy recovered enough to speak. She was still shuddering at what had happened in the mansion, wiping at her tears.

"Silphy, easy. That wasn't real. It was just an illusion the mansion showed you."

"Hic... hhgh... but it was so scary. I still feel like that man is going to appear right in front of me."

"You saw him too? The man whose face was strangely covered, so you couldn't see it."

I asked her carefully. Hearing what she had experienced was part of the investigation. I felt sorry, as if I were digging up her trauma — but right now I needed to gather as much information as I could.

"You were gone, Senior... and suddenly I was sitting in a chair... and the man... hic... I was so scared..."

"Slowly. Breathe. You're ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠safe now."

I gently stroked Silphy's hair as she sniffled. Taking breaks whenever she needed them, I listened to her story, slowly, all the way through.

And when I had, one thing became certain.

"It's the same..."

What Silphy had experienced was exactly, precisely the same as what I had experienced. Bound to a wooden chair in a strange basement, tortured by a man whose face you couldn't see. The order of the torture. The methods. The timing of waking from the hallucination. All of it matched.

Was it simple coincidence?

If the mansion were merely showing people horrific visions, like some generic nightmare, each person would have a different experience. But if we'd gone through something this identical — didn't that mean there was some significance to it?

The moment the thought formed, a voice spoke inside my head.

I turned my head and looked at the mansion, steeped in its bleak, forbidding atmosphere.

Not a simple illusion. Then what was it?