Master of the Mansion (1)
Master of the Mansion (1)
Shortly before Alex entered the lobby with Balea on his back, Balkan, leader of the former mercenary band 'Blue Flag', was walking down the mansion corridor with a deep frown on his face.
The other mercenary bastards walking beside him looked just as displeased.
This territory—and this mansion—had far less loot than they had expected.
When another mercenary first introduced them to a knight who held a grudge against the territory, they thought gold was about to rain from the sky.
The mercenaries who had introduced them to this treacherous knight were a man and a woman who reportedly used to frequent the territory and the mansion while the previous lord, the Baron, was still alive.
They had been suspicious and even tried to test the two, but after being knocked down with a single blow, they had no choice but to meet the knight as the pair had suggested.
Once they actually met the knight, their doubts vanished in an instant.
The knight's resentment was immense, and several other knights and soldiers were willing to join his plot.
Even when the now-deceased Baron was in power, the lord's authority didn't seem to have been very strong.
In such a situation, there was no way anyone would follow the son who had been appointed as the deputy.
After confirming the territory's disastrous state through other sources and gathering similar scoundrels from the surrounding areas, this became an enterprise that simply couldn't fail.
Since everyone had heard rumors that the deceased Baron had amassed an almost extortionate fortune, far more formidable bastards than expected ended up joining in.
Before long, they even began to worry about how they would divide the spoils.
Fortunately, the two mercenaries, who seemed likely to demand a hefty share once the job was done, suddenly vanished halfway through.
With those two, who held a significant stake, gone, Balkan almost wondered if an angel had descended from above.
Before they left, they had urged the others to kill the entire family for safety's sake and to launch the attack only after confirming that the daughter had returned from the Academy.
But now that the ones who had made the suggestion had disappeared, there was no reason to follow their instructions.
So they had eagerly raided the territory, but so far, it had been far more underwhelming than they had expected.
They hadn't even laid eyes on the young brat acting as the lord's deputy or the women yet, but Balkan was already frustrated, fearing that if luck wasn't on their side, they might actually end up in the red.
"The former lord must have had a separate place where he stashed his treasures. On the deceased Baron's orders, I personally transported treasures there several times. His son or his wives must know where it is."
Sensing the atmosphere souring, the knight guiding the mercenary bands eagerly rambled on.
They had been hearing this over and over as they walked down the corridor. It was because they believed him that everyone was holding back their temper.
As they continued their march, the mercenaries suddenly stumbled.
"What? Is the ground shaking?"
"The walls seem to be warping, too..."
At the bizarre phenomenon, everyone raised their swords, but the guiding knight pointed deeper into the corridor, looking delighted.
"It's the acting lord's ability. As expected, he couldn't escape. He's definitely hiding in the inner bedroom with the women."
"Ho, so he's still a noble after all. It would be quite disorienting if he used that on a battlefield."
At Balkan's intrigued remark, the knight shook his head.
"Haha, even the Baron didn't have an ability like that. Anyone at a knight's level can easily withstand it. Honestly, it's a useless ability. It would have to be someone like the Witch..."
"The Witch?"
"Ah, I'm talking about the daughter who's away at the Academy. Both her personality and her skills are terrifying."
The knight shuddered as he spoke.
The mercenaries-turned-bandits couldn't make sense of the knight's words.
"If she's at the Academy, she's just a young girl. Oh, right. Didn't they ask us to dispose of her, too?"
The words of the two mercenaries, which he had forgotten, briefly crossed Balkan's mind.
"Well, Witch or whatever, there's no need to talk about a kid who isn't even here. Three nobles are more than enough to sell off to another country. Dragging a young girl around would just be a hassle anyway."
Balkan preferred adult women, so a brat attending the Academy held no interest for him.
Some of the men did gulp at the knight's words, but the mercenary leaders knew what mattered right now.
Make a killing and run.
They had no time to wait for some brat attending the Academy.
After they walked a little farther, the warped corridor and floor returned to normal.
The mercenaries let out hollow chuckles at how briefly the ability had lasted, and the guiding knight muttered with a bitter smile.
"If his ability weren't so pathetic, there would have been no reason to betray him."
It was nothing more than self-deception, but the knight believed it, and he intended to keep telling people it was the reason. He would, of course, have to hide the fact that he had betrayed them.
They stopped in front of a large door at the end of the corridor, and Balkan stepped forward, smashing it open with his axe.
Bang!
"Aaah!"
The screams of women echoed from inside the room.
A young boy's shout rang out, too.
"H-how dare you set foot in this place!"
But his voice was trembling so violently that it carried none of the dignity of a noble.
At any rate, they seemed to have found the right place.
Balkan smirked and stepped inside. The other mercenaries swarmed in after him.
As expected, the room was someone's bedroom.
In one corner stood two women dressed in luxurious clothes, surrounded by other women who appeared to be maids.
In the center of the room, a boy stood trembling uncontrollably.
Balkan was finally starting to feel satisfied.
The sword the boy held looked like an artifact, and the accessories worn by the two women seemed to contain artifacts as well.
If they squeezed them for everything they had now, they would at least avoid going into the red.
No, forget avoiding a deficit—if they were lucky, they might hit the jackpot.
"Shall we start by cutting off a leg?"
It was just as Balkan raised his axe and spoke.
[This house is my kingdom, prepared long ago. O enemies who have invaded my domain. Now is the time to face the master's punishment!]
A young girl's voice echoed through the room—no, throughout the entire mansion.
"What is this?"
Startled, Balkan looked back at the knight, whose face had turned deathly pale.
"No way. The Witch..."
"The Witch?"
"Isn't that the girl you said was the daughter earlier?"
The former mercenaries and bandits clamored, but before they could say more, the two women huddled in the corner cried out.
"Balea? We're here! Come help us quickly!"
"No! You mustn't come here! My child, run away quickly. You must never return to this place!"
The two women said completely opposite things.
It was instantly clear which one was her mother.
Rumble.
Before they could finish speaking, the walls and floor shook once again.
"What, do all the nobles in this territory have this kind of ability?"
"Haha, but at least the girl can shout loudly, eh?"
As the walls and floor moved just as they had moments ago, the bandits, who had been extremely tense, regained their composure.
They prepared to move again, ready to seize the women and the acting lord.
Rumble.
But the shaking only grew more violent.
The floor did more than shake—it began to surge like waves, while the walls twisted and contorted, shoving the nearby mercenaries aside.
The mercenaries could barely stand.
"What the hell is this? Why is it so intense?"
At Balkan's words, the knight shouted in terror, his face pale.
"I told you she's the Witch! She's declared her domain. We have to get out of here quickly!"
But the conversation went no further.
The surging walls and floors now began moving completely of their own accord.
The floor vanished, sending one mercenary plunging below, while a wall jutted out and sent another flying.
The wind turned razor-sharp, slicing through skin, and a bedsheet flew up and strangled a mercenary.
The floor, the walls, the ceiling—every object began assaulting the mercenaries.
Screams erupted from all directions.
It wasn't just this room.
Screams echoed from every corner of the mansion: the corridors, the other rooms, and even the distant lobby.
"The Witch... The Witch has become even more terrifying..."
The knight, losing his mind, swung his sword frantically in all directions.
The mercenaries swung their weapons like madmen, too.
But what they were fighting were the walls, the floors, and ordinary objects.
No matter how much they hacked and slashed, they couldn't kill inanimate objects. Even when sliced apart, the pieces kept lunging at them.
One by one, the mercenaries lost their lives to these ordinary objects.
Yet the servants and family members inside the mansion didn't receive so much as a single scratch.
The objects—the mansion itself—didn't attack them.
The acting lord watched the objects move in a daze, while the other women stared in sheer terror at the flying items.
Only the second Baroness, Balea's mother, watched the scene with a blank expression.
Her blank face held a multitude of emotions.
Whether it was terror, regret, atonement, or perhaps all of them combined, it was still impossible to tell.
A moment later, the floor in front of the family watching the struggle surged upward. The ceiling and walls moved as well.
In the end, the Baron's family was completely cut off from the sight of the frantically fighting mercenaries.
When even their last hope vanished, Balkan roared.
"Damn it! As if I'd die in a crazy place like this! What are you all doing? Break the windows!"
Although 'Blue Flag' had been drenched in blood and had now degenerated into a bloodthirsty band of bandits, their combat experience hadn't vanished.
Their experience fighting in territorial wars and taking part in hellish monster hunts snapped Balkan and the other mercenaries back to their senses.
Though they had failed to achieve their goal, they couldn't die here. Their remaining will to survive drove the mercenaries into action.
The surviving mercenaries rushed toward the windows.
The bandits and mercenaries here were all elites. The ones gathered in this room were bandit chiefs and former mercenary captains.
They weren't the sort to lose their minds in a strange environment and die helplessly like common mercenaries elsewhere.
When a mercenary beside them died, they threw his corpse at the encroaching walls. If a mercenary was wounded, they tossed him onto the floor that hungered for prey.
Then they threw the half-crazed knight through the window.
Crunch.
The knight crashed into the window, his entire body mangled, but Balkan burst into loud laughter.
"Hahahaha! It breaks in the end, doesn't it! Throw whatever severed limbs are lying around! We're escaping through the window!"
When the window shattered, it became dozens of sharp, lethal shards, but the mercenaries used corpses and the wounded to shield themselves from them.
In this manner, they escaped through the window.
Boom! Bang! Crash!
Covered in blood, the mercenaries tumbled to the ground outside the building.
Without even thinking about their injuries, they scrambled to their feet and scanned their surroundings.
Fortunately, nothing was attacking them out here.
"Damn it, is the entire inside of the house really that bitch's domain or what?"
One of the surviving mercenaries grumbled, but the others didn't even have the mental capacity to reply.
"Let's quickly gather the guys outside and set fire to the mansion."
"But what about the treasures inside the mansion...?"
"Forget the treasures. That place is a total haunted house."
"Yeah, let's do that."
Balkan agreed with them. It was a bit of a waste, but he had no intention of reliving the horrific experience he'd just endured.
As they gathered and checked their wounds, they began to notice something strange.
Unlike the noisy interior of the mansion, the outside was far too quiet.
They had definitely stationed their subordinates outside before entering the mansion.
Smoke was still rising from the village, so nothing seemed to have changed there.
Only the mansion—only this immediate vicinity—was dead silent.
Hum.
Startled, they looked around once more, only to find someone standing before them whom they hadn't noticed until just a moment ago.
The person was wearing clothes that looked like some kind of uniform.
He was a male child who seemed young for his height. No—was he a boy?
As Balkan tilted his head in thought, the boy raised his greatsword toward him.
"I wonder if this time it'll actually feel like a real battle."
The boy grinned at Balkan.
Though it was an absurd remark from a boy who still looked young, Balkan couldn't bring himself to get angry.
The mana radiating from the boy completely saturated the surroundings.