The Hidden Vaults
There is a story like this. Abandoned siblings, caught between an indifferent father and a wicked stepmother, discover a house made of sweets. Most of the children abandoned in the vast laboratory that was the Rose Pavilion’s third floor were exactly like those siblings. Children discarded by parents who showed them either indifference or outright malice. The mages who brought such children here began their experiments. What those experiments entailed, I still don’t know. They might have been relatively mild. Perhaps something akin to the social experiments common in the modern world. Or perhaps not. For one thing, it was impossible to tell whether the people who once resided in this pavilion were true mages or black mages. After what I saw in Case H, the odds leaned heavily toward the latter. Yet nothing could be known for certain.
I had read the logs from B and C, but all they truly revealed was that something had been done with these children. The only concrete fact I possessed was that the experiments had taken place roughly ten years ago.
Children aged 5 to 11. Most of them are aware they were abandoned. They believe they were thrown away because they deserved it. The mage overseeing this experiment, Rayon, is extraordinarily passionate. Almost impossibly so for his age. Then again, if this experiment succeeds, a utopia will open before us. A mansion where a single mana stone can handle cleaning, laundry, and cooking? Where else could such a place exist? I can only pray that his experiment succeeds.
“…Huh?”
What? Was that really all the experiment was about? Why on earth would they need children for something like that? Or maybe… were they testing whether the mansion performed its tasks properly by using children who were sensitive to changes in their environment? Was the doll room part of that test as well?
But if that were the case, the rooms containing logs B and C still bothered me. The room with B had been filled with all kinds of weapons and armor—swords, bows, spears, axes, and full suits of plate. One could claim they were there to protect the mansion, but according to the log, the mansion itself handled all the chores. If the house did the work, there would be no need for armor. And the room with C was even stranger. It had been stocked with medicines. One might say it was only natural to keep emergency supplies in a mansion, but these weren’t ordinary remedies. They ranged from advanced pharmaceuticals far beyond common first-aid kits all the way to poisons and narcotics. Both poisons and drugs were strictly prohibited by law. Yet they had been left out in plain sight during an experiment involving children? It made no sense.
“Next is this room… Oh, you two?”
“Leah.”
“Ah, Leah! Hello—!”
Teryn greeted her energetically. It seemed her mental state, which had taken a beating in H, B, and C, had recovered somewhat. The fact that the newcomer was Leah allowed me to relax a little as well. Honestly, the other girls made me uneasy. Ariel might have been helpful, but for some reason I couldn’t recall seeing her at all since we came up to the third floor. I had at least passed the others in the hallway. Even Maria and I had made eye contact once.
“Is this your first time in this room, Leah?”
“Yeah. Now that I think about it, do you two know about this?”
“Hm?”
When I tilted my head, Leah quietly tapped the bookshelf a few times. After several knocks, she pulled out a specific book. The entire shelf began to move with a low grinding sound.
“This… is a secret mechanism?”
“Yes. It doesn’t seem to be in every room, but there’s one here too.”
Beyond the opened bookshelf lay a small hidden space. It was barely large enough to conceal a single safe. Had they really installed such an elaborate device just to hide something this small?
“There’s a safe here too…”
“You mean there were safes like this in the other rooms?”
“Yeah. We couldn’t open them, though.”
A safe that couldn’t be opened. I stared at it intently. Perhaps it contained sealed important documents. I glanced at the other two, gauging their reactions. There was, in fact, a way to learn the safe’s password. Though it was based on a very human standard, even inanimate objects possessed memories. My memory magic allowed me to read the lingering traces of those memories. However, I had no intention of using magic right now. I didn’t want to openly reveal to others that I could only cast it once per day. The current atmosphere might seem peaceful, but anyone could die at any moment. Knowing that, I kept my guard firmly raised.
“Have you read this room’s log?”
“Yes. It mentioned the purpose of the experiment.”
“Hmm, let me see.”
I handed the log to Leah. She read through it slowly, then furrowed her brow deeply.
“…This is strange.”
“Right?”
“They gathered this many children, prepared all these facilities, and the experiment was just about managing a mansion with a mana stone?”
“Huh? Why is that weird?”
“Why? It’s obviously weird. If that was truly the goal, there would have been no reason to bring children here in the first place.”
At Leah’s answer, Teryn tilted her head in confusion. She still didn’t seem to understand. Why couldn’t she see it? Watching Leah’s reaction made me feel like the normal one here. Teryn wasn’t stupid… probably. It was as if something was blocking her train of thought.
“Anyway, this room is done. Ah, want to go together? Just in case.”
What did that “just in case” mean? Was it to protect herself from a potential murderer, or was it to keep an eye on me? I couldn’t tell, but I nodded anyway.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
“Good. Wandering around alone with Aina is kind of scary.”
“I guess I’m not very reliable.”
“What? N-no! That’s not what I meant!”
Watching Teryn shake her head frantically with a flustered face, I let out a small laugh. Her reactions to jokes were so entertaining. She was fun to tease.
“Wait, were you joking just now?”
“Yes.”
“…So Aina tells jokes too.”
“What exactly did you think I was…?”
“The kind of kid who’s as hard to talk to as Maria?”
Was that the image I gave off? Even so, I didn’t think I was on the same level as Maria. How could I be compared to that girl who seemed to live in her own world?
“Speaking of which, there was someone even worse than Maria.”
“Clarice?”
“Yeah. I have no idea what that girl is thinking.”
“Now that you mention it… I saw Clarice on the third floor too.”
“Ah, yeah. I passed by her.”
It seemed I wasn’t the only one who had seen Clarice wandering around with that expressionless face that revealed nothing of her thoughts.
“If Maria is like a fierce cat… Clarice is more like a sloth.”
“Is… is she?”
“At least that was my first impression.”
I hadn’t gotten a sloth-like impression at all. Rather, I had sensed something like a predator waiting for the right moment. Like a cheetah right before it sprints. A cheetah smiles. Clarice… wasn’t smiling, but she definitely seemed to be waiting for something.
“Well, there’s no point talking about someone who isn’t here. Next is this room, right?”
“Yes. Probably the room with E’s log.”
Leah opened the door directly across from the room that had held D and immediately frowned. Following behind her, I couldn’t help but do the same.
“Ugh, ptooey! What’s with all this dust…”
“How long has it been since anyone cleaned in here?”
Except for the parts where the other girls had walked through, the room was covered in a thick layer of pale dust. Unlike the other rooms, this one showed no signs of maintenance at all. The furniture looked corroded, and the bookshelves seemed ready to collapse at any moment. I covered my mouth with my hand, pulled out the log, and a cloud of dust burst from its pages. I coughed dryly and immediately carried the log outside. So that was why the children had been standing in front of this room. I opened the log and began reading it together with Leah and Teryn.
Children aged 9 to 13. The children’s condition is abnormal. Several of them frequently vomit, and some are even coughing up blood. Suspecting some kind of illness, I secretly called a doctor, but he could only repeat that he didn’t know what the disease was. The doctor I summoned is now dead. The experiment cannot be allowed to become known to the outside world. It was around that time that I realized something was wrong with this experiment. If it was merely about managing a mansion with a mana stone, there would be no need to kill people to keep it secret. So I decided to investigate. The secrets hidden within this mansion—
“…As expected.”
“So it wasn’t just about mansion management after all.”
“But why were the children getting sick?”
“Whatever the reason, it must have been because of the experiment.”
Leah’s decisive conclusion came with a deep frown. She was openly displaying her fundamental disgust toward the experiments without any restraint. Meanwhile, another detail had caught my attention. Ages nine to thirteen. The children’s age range had suddenly jumped significantly. Had they brought in a separate group of older children, or had the children from the earlier logs simply grown up? Setting that question aside for now, I returned the log to the bookshelf and followed the others toward the next room.