Adopting the Male Protagonist Changed the Genre - Chapter 51
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 51
Seeing Leo’s face turn pale, I quickly added.
“I didn’t know you were someone who could joke around.”
“….”
Then Penandel looked back at me with an endlessly serious attitude. As if he didn’t know what a joke meant.
Huh? It’s not… a joke?
“…The trees are thick in the back, so a lost beast must have entered the manor.”
“….”
Whatever the truth is, quickly say yes before Leo gets scared!
When I glared at him with wide eyes, Penandel finally hurriedly added.
“Yes, it wasn’t a human presence, so you can rest assured.”
It was a complete miss, but Penandel, who didn’t know that, stubbornly went his own way.
“If, if it wasn’t a human presence… was it a beast like Lady Belinda said?”
“The presence was so faint that I can’t tell you exactly what it was.”
Hey, just say you saw a ghost instead!
Poor Leo was completely frightened and just fidgeted with his glass of honey milk.
I gave up completely and spoke with cold sarcasm, wanting to let Leo sleep peacefully at least tonight.
“Ha, you’re not going to say you still feel such a presence now, are you.”
When Penandel answers that he doesn’t, I’ll tell Leo “see?” to reassure him.
Still, just in case, I should set up a secret fort made of stacked cushions tonight for the first time in a while.
I was making various plans and patting Leo’s completely hunched back when.
Suddenly Penandel’s finger pointed at me.
“One.”
Pointing at Terry who was lamenting ‘This can’t be, I didn’t sense anything! What a disgrace for an assassin!’
“Two.”
Pointing at Vivian who was stubbornly crossing her arms insisting there are no ghosts.
“Three.”
Pointing at Leo who unconsciously gripped my skirt tightly.
“Four.”
And finally, quietly pointing at the floor.
“Five.”
And continued in a plain tone devoid of any emotion.
“Right now in this manor, I can sense six presences including myself.”
It was late evening when all the employees had gone home.
Currently, there were only five people gathered around the tea table in this manor.
But six people.
While no one dared to speak rashly, an unexpected person opened their mouth with determination.
“We need to check it out.”
Everyone’s heads turned to Vivian, who had been quiet all along.
Her eyes were blazing so intensely that the gleaming light could be felt even through her thick glasses.
“I’ll prove that there’s nothing as unmagical as ghosts in this world. As a magic student, this is unacceptable!”
I held my forehead and shook my head.
Finally, the typical line that the first character to die in a horror movie would say had come out.
In the end, I couldn’t break Vivian’s stubbornness.
I even tried threatening her with meat dishes, but I couldn’t stop her from pursuing the path of a magic student.
The problem is that Vivian is usually timid, but when it comes to magic and meat, she becomes a different person as if a switch is flipped.
Unable to leave her alone when she said she’d investigate the manor by herself, we eventually decided that the three adults except Leo would move together.
Since we decided to move after putting Leo to sleep, it was late at night when we began investigating the manor in earnest.
“The presence is felt from this direction.”
It wasn’t that I doubted Penandel’s abilities, but honestly, I didn’t believe in this thing called presence that he spoke of. Everyone makes mistakes.
Since the trees are quite thick behind the graveyard, maybe it’s something like a squirrel that came in looking for food.
…That’s what I thought.
‘Why is the destination so clear?’
The place Penandel led us to was the Velvet Room, called the Lord’s Chamber, which stores the belongings of past lords and documents recording the history of the Blanche Family.
As we entered the room that’s usually locked since it’s not used, a thick dusty smell greeted us.
On the walls finished with red velvet, portraits of past lords hung in a row, looking blurry with dust, and on the opposite wall, bookshelves lined with old books were filled to the brim.
In the center was a glass display case containing the belongings of the lords, and Penandel’s gaze was directed exactly at that glass display case.
“It’s below here.”
At this point, I began to feel uneasy, wondering if there really was a ghost in this manor.
And when Vivian rolled up her sleeves and struggled to move the glass display case and rolled up the thick carpet.
I wanted to grab myself from ten minutes ago who failed to stop Vivian and shake myself vigorously.
“You knew there was a place like this, but you didn’t say anything until now?”
Looking at the door leading underground hidden beneath the carpet, I asked Penandel as if I was dumbfounded.
“You didn’t ask, so I didn’t feel the need to mention it.”
If Penandel were really a robot, I would have immediately banged that head with a monkey wrench.
“From now on, speak up if something’s suspicious even if I don’t ask.”
While I was carefully inputting command values to Penandel, Terry began knocking on the iron door leading underground and examining it here and there.
“It looks like it was made about 100 years ago? It has a lock that was popular 100 years ago.”
Then he said the lock was solid and the iron door was thick, so it would take quite some time to open…
Wait. Why… why are you trying to open that? Can’t you see it was deliberately locked with a lock?
“It’s not just the lock. There’s a sealing magic circle carved here. It seems like something special… something close to a spiritual entity has been sealed.”
I felt like we were approaching something we shouldn’t know about.
Wasn’t this exactly like the opening of horror movies where someone does exactly what they’re told not to do, a cursed being awakens, people die, the surroundings become a sea of blood, and somehow after defeating the evil entity when everything seems over, the movie ends with an unsettling twist that the curse actually continues?
And finally.
“I’ll try to dispel the magic circle.”
The person who does exactly what they shouldn’t do appeared.
I firmly stopped Vivian.
“Don’t do it.”
“Huh? But since we’ve already discovered it…”
“Lock this room up like before.”
“But I need to prove it’s not a ghost…”
Since Vivian seemed reluctant to give up, I stomped on the iron door with one foot to show a more resolute attitude.
“When I say don’t do it, don’t do it.”
“Ah.”
But Vivian’s reaction was a bit strange. She couldn’t take her eyes off my foot.
Not just Vivian, but Terry and Penandel’s gazes were also fixed on my foot.
The moment I felt that unsettling feeling as if some huge, disgusting, unidentifiable bug had landed somewhere on my body, but only I didn’t know about it.
Penandel quickly pulled my waist to get me away from the iron door.
Half-embraced by Penandel, I blankly watched the magic circle that appeared on the iron door begin to glow frantically.
“Why is that thing doing that?”
“I, I, I didn’t do anything! I only imagined coming secretly tomorrow night to try dispelling it!”
Despite Vivian’s excuse, the light of the magic circle grew increasingly intense and finally.
Crack.
With the sound of ice breaking, the magic circle shattered into pieces.
Thanks to Penandel creating shade with his hand, I could immediately check the door’s condition without being blinded.
The iron door that had looked so solid was now wide open, crumpled like a piece of paper. And through it, stairs submerged in pitch-black darkness were visible.
The seal had been broken.
‘How does this make any sense.’
What kind of magic circle breaks just from being kicked once?
“Master, what should we do now?”
I answered Terry’s question with a sigh.
I was afraid to go in and investigate since I didn’t know what might emerge, but it also felt unsettling to just leave the broken seal as it was.
I looked back at Vivian, who was raising one hand and waving it enthusiastically to volunteer herself, then spoke as if giving up.
“Vivian, Terry. If it seems even slightly dangerous, come back immediately.”
“Yes!”
“Yes…”
With Terry taking the lead, the two slowly stepped down the underground stairs and soon disappeared into the darkness.
As soon as they left, the cough I’d been holding back burst out. It was due to the dust stirred up by the wind that had swept through the Velvet Room.
Penandel immediately headed to the window for ventilation.
He seems oblivious to most things, but when it comes to my well-being, he’s strangely quick to act.
I was waving my hand to dispel the dust and coughing a few more times.
Cool night air blew in through the open window, and something like a moth fluttered past my eyes.
Since I hate bugs, I recoiled in alarm, but for a moment I made eye contact with the moth.
“…?”
Literally, the moth that was staring intently at me had not only eyes but also a nose and mouth.
Wait, looking closer, it’s even wearing clothes?
I was too shocked to say anything, when the moth grinned at me and spoke.
【You finally found me!】
The moth flailed its arms and legs as it shouted.
‘This isn’t a moth, it’s…’
“A fairy…?”
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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