Chapter 461
Chapter 461
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 461
Chapter Title: Kim Katt and the Ghost House
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Creak.
I pushed open the door to the basement and stepped inside.
The basement, shrouded in a blue light like death itself, was surprisingly spacious, but the entrance was the only way in. The walls were pitch black, covered in scorch marks everywhere, with handprints scattered across them.
"Those hell hands from before."
Those must have been their hands.
The grudge of the banshees who had been trapped in the basement and burned to death.
They had pounded on the basement walls and door right up until the moment they died. Those hell hands I'd seen earlier were exactly that.
As I scanned the surroundings with that thought in mind, I soon spotted human shapes.
"This is...?"
They were completely charred bone fragments.
An enormous number of them.
Probably the exact same number as the banshees infesting the mansion. They had asked me to collect their remains. In exchange, they had opened the path to this basement, which had become a maze within the barrier, making it impossible to find the way.
Honestly, there was no real gain in it for me.
It was just a chance to clean up after an accident.
But right now, that would have to do.
Anyway, these remains... Oh!
"Shit!"
A foreboding thought hit me, and I dashed through the space. If there were corpses burned to death here... maybe my friends too!
"Kobson! Merria! Lina!!!"
No way these bastards were already dead!
The banshee had told me to hurry down before it was too late!
Thud.
Suddenly, I spotted Kobson sprawled out ahead. Startled, I launched myself toward him.
"Fuck! Hey! Get up!"
No way, this guy!
I immediately checked if Kobson was alive or dead.
"You fucker! Snap out of it!"
Slap!
I smacked his cheek hard.
No reaction.
"Fuck...! No way you're dead!"
If Kobson croaked here, I wouldn't know what to do. Shocked again, I yanked off my gauntlet and pressed my fingers to his neck to check his pulse.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Fortunately, his heart was beating, and his breathing was normal too. The guy had just passed out and was lying there. He was still alive, at least.
"Haa, fuck."
I finally relaxed.
Merria and Lina were lying next to him too.
I checked them as well. Breath and pulse. All alive. They were just lying there with their eyes closed, as if asleep.
Seemed like the ghosts hadn't stolen their souls.
The evil spirits must have dragged the kids down to the basement... but why? I recalled the banshee saying, 'The lady of the mansion will soon count the numbers.'
I didn't know what happened when she counted, but excluding the banshee who had asked me for help, the other evil spirits' goal was clearly to take human lives.
They were targeting the living, just like they had been killed.
"These bastards..."
But why wouldn't they wake up?
I grabbed and shook them, slapped their cheeks, but nothing.
I even poured water from my canteen on Kobson's philtrum and between his brows, but he just breathed—no reaction. They were like Sleeping Beauties.
The mansion's magic?
I didn't know, but for now, being alive was enough. What the fuck was this shit? And I couldn't even call for help from these guys, which made things trickier.
Time to carry them outside.
"Huh."
As I went to pick up Kobson, I noticed even more.
"..."
It wasn't just Kobson, Merria, and Lina.
Adventurers.
People in all sorts of gear were sprawled throughout the basement. Like Kobson, they looked dead but were collapsed. I roughly checked the ones up front—some were severely emaciated, but they seemed alive for now.
Were these all the missing people?
The adventurers headed to the mansion and the villagers who vanished nearby?
I remembered it had been a while. If they'd been lying here since then, they might have severe malnutrition.
Well, my friends mattered more than these randos.
First, move my friends out. The evil spirits seemed to plan on burning everyone in the basement at once.
Get them to safety, then figure something out... This was a pain. Even for me, guarding three unconscious people while fighting was impossible.
Fuck this.
I thought if we grouped up and fought, we could handle it somehow, but this shit. I had to find a way.
Sob...! Sniff...! Where are you... Knight... Sniff!
Right then, the crying voice came again.
The nun ghost, the mansion's owner.
The Lace Queen.
The mournful sobs echoing from outside the basement were drawing closer.
Heading to the basement, was she?
Time to decide.
Sniff...! Sob...! Sniff! Why... why won't you save me... Knight! Please, please, please... Sniff!
I had only two bottles of holy water.
I didn't know if that would take down such a powerful ghost. Unlike my own power, I didn't know the exact potency of the holy water. That's why I'd saved it as a last resort.
And now was that last moment.
I approached the door.
Knight...! Knight! You've come! I was waiting...! Sniff! You've come down to the basement to save me!
The structure at the basement entrance had already changed.
Different from when I'd entered.
Before me stretched a straight corridor of cold stone. At the far end, the Lace Queen, glowing blue and floating in the air, was slowly drifting toward us.
Sob! Finally, finally, finally. Finally...!
She wept, tears streaming down her face.
The tears hit the floor and froze. From the frozen ground, ice spikes like thorns erupted.
A manifestation of deep, chilling resentment.
"Yeah."
I drew my sword and answered.
"I'm the knight who came to save you all."
Fusion Neo-Confucian doctrine. Salvation is enlightenment. Enlightenment is liberation. The dead must not interfere with the living. Helping her pass on was the only true salvation.
"Are you ready."
This long-held grudge had to end here.
Her target for revenge was no longer the people of this world. Only they remained fixed, unable to resolve their hatred, wandering the nine heavens.
"To be saved?"
I gave her the words she most wanted to hear.
"Ah, aah...! Aah! Aaaah!!!"
At that, the Lace Queen wailed in感動, crying out.
"I waited! I waited and waited and waited, I waited!!! Sniff...! I waited...!! I believed you'd come!!!!"
Her face lit up like she'd received a divine revelation. The falling tears didn't freeze. Even the frozen floor melted away.
"It was so hot. They raped us, locked us in the basement, and set it on fire."
The sobbing Lace Queen began ranting incoherently.
It was a lament.
The first ever in this mansion with no one to listen. I stood with sword in hand, quietly hearing her out.
"No one came to save us. No one opened the door. We just... just held each other's hands...!"
She screamed in agony.
She wasn't seeing the present. Her burning eyes faced the past horrors.
"Screaming in pain... one by one losing our minds... Aah!!! It hurts! It was so hot! So hot!!! Why! Why!! Why us! Why!!!"
Inhuman shrieks.
Thanks to the banshees showing me the mansion's truth, I could empathize somewhat. The horrific violence inflicted on innocent women. She was a witness to the atrocity.
The screams continued.
"Sniff, sob...! Hot... so hot... It hurts, it hurts... Sniff! Sob! It hurt so much... Sob! No one came to save us. So, so..."
Tears endlessly overflowed from the Lace Queen's hands covering her face.
"You all."
Then, when the tears stopped.
She suddenly lifted her face, stared at me coldly, and said.
"Must burn to death too."
The screams turned to curses.
Her eyes, fixed on my face with tears ceased, burned with deep hatred. When a woman holds a grudge, frost falls even in the fifth lunar month, they say.
Whoosh!
At the same time, blue flames ignited behind her.
Not frost, but fire.
It had come to this. Her sorrow and grudge had accumulated and fused into hatred. That was the essence of an evil spirit. No compromise possible.
"You bitch... I said I'd save you. Hey, hey. The knight's here. Came to open the door. Brought fresh water to put out the fire too."
I subtly pulled out a holy water vial and shook it.
Would she fear this?
"Too late."
But the Lace Queen didn't even look at the holy water. I didn't know what she saw. Only her hollow voice echoed. Words couldn't solve this anyway.
"It's too late now."
No choice but to fight now that I'd come this far.
"Not too late, bitch. We can fix this now. Problems are like that. Time solves them. Whether it fades or vanishes. That's how problems end. So stop. Don't harm the living anymore."
But words didn't reach the evil spirit. Maybe she wasn't even listening. She was trapped in her resentment, staring at the past.
"Everyone burned to death."
With that hollow mutter, rustle.
The nun ghost's form began to distort.
Crackle!!
The blue flames turned to crimson inferno engulfing the basement, her beautiful skin and body wrapped in black ash, exposing charred bones. Blacker than burnt ribs. Flesh sloughed off, bones rattled.
The Lace Queen, shedding her skin to reveal her true evil spirit form, approached me.
"No one came to save us."
"I see."
"Not even you, knight."
Heat was building.
"Getting toasty now."
Hot enough to blister skin, but nothing compared to what they felt.
"The numbers are complete. You're the last one."
"Numbers?"
"The numbers of us who died."
...Ah.
So that's why they gathered people in the basement.
"You must burn to death just like us."
The number of people passed out in the basement.
It must match the women trapped and killed when it burned back then. And I was the one who filled the last spot.
"Only then... only then can I finally be saved."
A kind of ritual.
Self-consolation, maybe.
The Lace Queen planned to relive the horror on others to soothe her soul. Her mind twisted by hatred and resentment.
That wouldn't bring salvation.
Only plunge her deeper into the abyss.
"No. That's not salvation."
I uncorked the holy water vial.
A brilliant light streamed from the mouth, illuminating the basement. I splashed it on my blade.
Splash.
Would the holy water evaporate in the heat?
How much damage would it do?
No way to know.
"It's the path to greater sin."
I couldn't abandon my friends. And if I couldn't defeat her, I couldn't escape the mansion either. So, fight.
"I know your injustice well. But if you pass your pain to others."
I raised my sword at the Lace Queen.
"Then you're no different from those warriors."
I stepped forward, exiting the basement door. She planned to burn the whole thing down. No retreating.
To leave, I had to take her down anyway, blocking the corridor.
"Come on!"
Thus, I, Heavenly Demon Kim Katt, would never run.