The chamber of a high lord was bnd— or at least it was in comparison to the ones Siv had seen before. A noble’s chamber was a reflection of the said noble’s character and preferences. Plenty could be inferred and observed just from how one adorned and embellished their chamber. But for William Marsh, that wasn’t the case. Every piece of furniture was the epitome of quality, but the same couldn’t be said for its aesthetics. They were all as pin as pin could be. It was almost as if he cared little, or if he cared at all, about how his abode would look to others.

  There were no pnts in the room. No flower either. Not a single vase. Not even the decorative ones. The walls were barren and naked. They were usually covered in paintings or murals, but these walls were clean and bared. Even the ceiling was bearing the same fate. The lights were just lonely little mps that seemed to have been modestly nailed to the ceiling, as opposed to chandeliers with all the crystal knobs dangling about.

  “Help me look for anything out of pce, will you, little one?” Siv asked in her gentlest tone possible. It hadn’t been easy getting here, but it was no worse than sneaking through nests of monsters to recover certain items or articles. People were less observant and perceptive than monsters. A single short stroke of breath would catch a monster’s attention. Moreover, these guards were not the cream of the crop, far from it.

  “Kyu?” Ruri responded with a tilt of her head, seemingly expressing her ck of understanding towards Siv’s request.

  Siv sighed, seeing Ruri’s response. “I suppose it is too much of an ask for a rval creature such as you.”

  “Kyu!” Ruri squealed in denial.

  “Oh? You don’t agree?”

  Ruri shook her head.

  “Well, if you don’t, please do help. This room may be pin, but it is still vast. Try to look for something that—”

  “Kyu! Kyu!” Ruri barked incessantly in a certain direction.

  Siv followed Ruri’s sight and found a lone armchair by a pair of twin shelves that were filled with books. Beside the armchair was a small, thin, and round table, yet rge enough to host a mp. However, there was no mp, and it was too small for anything else. A tray or a book would fit, but barely. It would fall off the table with the slightest bump.

  Siv approached the table. She contempted sitting on the armchair, but she decided to just kneel in front of the table. She peered closer and groped the table all over.

  “Kyu…”

  “I know. I find it curious, too.” Siv searched every inch of the table until her fingers rubbed against a slit on the side of the table. The slit was barely visible, but its presence was deniable to the touch. She slowly traced the shape of the slit. “A secret compartment?”

  “Kyu?”

  Siv pressed onto the side, and a part of it sank inward slightly before popping back out. It was a drawer, a hidden one. She pulled the drawer out. Within it was a notebook that was barely rger than her hand. The book itself was nothing special, but what had drawn Ruri’s interest was the spell cast on the book. Siv couldn’t sense Mana, but the inscription drawn on the cover was evident enough. She took out a monocle from her pouch and observed the notebook through it.

  “Obscure?” Siv muttered the spell’s name, which was dispyed beside the book when looking through the monocle. She flipped through the book. All the pages were bnk, no doubt the effect of the spell. The hidden contents could only be read under certain conditions, which Siv was not privy to.

  Before Siv could study the notebook further, she heard running outside the room, followed by a few shouts. The guards were mobilising. One of them had alerted them.

  “Time to leave. We can read the book ter.”

  “Kyu,” Ruri agreed with a nod.

  Siv pocketed the notebook and closed the drawer. She got up and headed for the windows. There were balconies, and they led to the gardens below. She would be seen, but if she left through the way she came, she would be seen and caught. Needless to say, which one was the wiser option. She got to the gss doors. She turned the knob, but the doors refused to budge. She frowned and pulled harder. The doors remained firmly shut.

  “Another spell?” Siv peered through the monocle, and her guess was confirmed. The doors were enchanted with a spell that forced them shut in certain events, such as the discovery of intruders within the estate. “Ruri, can you dispel it?”

  Ruri nodded and began casting the counter spell, though it simply stared at the lock. After a few seconds, she shook her head and shrank from the doors.

  “This is not good,” Siv muttered.

  “Kyu!” Ruri tapped her shoulder.

  “What is it?”

  Ruri pointed at a strange symbol on the wall just above the bed.

  “I see. That thing is the cause of the ineffectiveness of your dispel?”

  Ruri nodded.

  “You want me to destroy it?”

  Ruri nodded again.

  Siv sighed. “Alright,” she said. It was an easy task, but in doing so, she would be alerting her presence to the entire estate. She would also become a target. She approached the symbol with her knife drawn, and she sshed at the symbol.

  In the next instance, the entire room glowed faintly, but even if it was only faintly, an entire room glowing was sure to catch the attention of anyone, even if they only had a glimpse.

  “Someone’s in the lord’s chamber!” came a shout from the outside.

  Siv spared not a second longer in this room and rushed for the gss doors. She hurried through the gss doors without breaking them and dove off the balcony just as the guards burst through the doors and poured into the room. By then, Siv had already disappeared from their view.

  ****

  “What is this pce?” Erin asked no one in particur. No matter how hard she pondered, she couldn’t figure out why there was a pce, under Marsh’s mansion of all pces, where there was an abundance of Spirits loitering about. Spirits tend to avoid unsavoury spots. The stairs leading below were already an unsavoury sight in themselves. However, the Spirits lingered. Whatever was at the bottom, it was significant enough to attract such a density of Spirits.

  The room itself would be mistaken for a simple closet. Even if there were a flight of stairs leading underground, no one would give it much thought. There was a celr. One would assume that was where the stairs would lead to. That assumption wouldn’t be wrong, as that was where Erin ended up once she arrived at the bottom of the stairs. It was a wine celr, to be precise. Barrels of wine were stored on shelves, which were arranged in rows and columns, forming something akin to a maze.

  The wine was nothing special. They certainly weren’t the reason the Spirits gathered. Erin continued to follow the Spirits, leading her through the maze of wine shelves. Once she reached the end of the maze, someone was there.

  Erin blinked. “Lyra?” She wanted to ask why she was here, but common sense prevailed. Of course, she was here. The celr was the pce Lyra was responsible for searching.

  “Erin, you’re here?” Lyra returned the surprised gesture. “But why are you here?”

  “I found what we’re looking for.”

  “Oh? That’s splendid, but why are you here?”

  “I was running from the guards, and I stumbled upon these stairs. They took me down here.”

  “So, we can leave now?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  Erin pointed at the door in front of them. “I need to know what’s behind that door.”

  “Umm… You just said the guards are looking for you. Don’t you think we should be leaving as quickly as possible?”

  “Not before I know what’s behind that door. There’s a lot of Spirits here, tenfold the usual.”

  Lyra raised an eyebrow. “Is this pce something like a… grove?”

  “Groves are much more than this, but this amount is already out of the norm. I need to know what sort of method he’s using to keep these Spirits here. You can leave if you want to, but I’m staying to find out.”

  Lyra sighed. “You know I can’t leave you. Alright. Let’s find out what our dear friend is hiding,” she said and approached the door. There was no knob on the door, only a handle with no lever or any kind. She simply grabbed the handle and gave it a gentle tug. The door stayed shut without budging the slightest. “It’s locked.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “But there’s no keyhole.”

  “Let me try.” Erin pced her hand on the door. “There’s a spell on it.” She took out a scroll from her satchel pouch and unfolded it in front of the door. The scroll glowed brightly before disappearing into glitter. At the same time, the door glowed faintly and creaked open.

  “...No arms. Thank the stars,” Lyra sighed in relief.

  “Whatever he’s hiding down here, he does not want anyone to know.”

  “Well, here goes nothing,” Lyra said and pushed the door wide open. “What? That’s all”

  It was just a small room. An empty closet.

  “No. This isn’t all.” Erin entered the room without hesitation, and the moment that she did, the room spun, and she found herself in a completely different pce. She was no longer in a small and narrow space. Instead, she was in a vast room that appeared to be a research room or a workshop, or both. The small room had been an entrance in the form of a revolving door.

  There were numerous apparatuses, precision tools, and complex devices in the room. But the one thing that stood out the most was a rge cube-shaped gss tank in the centre of the room. Within the tank was a bed, a luxurious and grand bed. Upon the bed y a girl with skin as dark as copper, sleeping ever so peacefully. She had long white hair and long, pointy ears. Erin took her for an Umbrum at first, but when she saw the girl was the reason Spirits gathered, she knew the girl was no Umbrum, but a Fae, a Dark Elf. An actual Dark Elf.

  “Is that an Umbrum?” Lyra asked.

  Erin nearly jumped. She was so absorbed in the Dark Elf that she didn’t even notice Lyra coming through the revolving door and walking up to her from behind. “No, the girl’s an Elf, or a Fae at the very least.”

  “...Why’s a Fae doing here? Is she a captive?”

  “She has no bearing of a captive,” Erin observed. The Fae was not chained to the bed, nor was she trapped in the tank. When Erin went closer to the tank, she noticed the numerous faint inscriptions engraved on the tank. She didn’t recognise the inscription.

  “What do we do? Do we get her out of there or what?”

  “Let us ask first.” Erin got in front of the tank and knocked gently on the pane.

  The Fae stirred in her sleep, but remained in her slumber.

  Erin knocked again, with little bit more strength.

  The Fae groaned and woke up. She rose from the bed and looked around with half-open eyes. When she saw Erin and Lyra, her eyes peeled. “W-who are you?” she asked.

  “Calm down, Missy. We’re not here to hurt you. We just want to know if you’re a captive.”

  “Me? A captive?” The Fae looked offended by that mere assumption. “Ivan will never hurt me. He may be surly and prickly. He may shout at me, but he will never hurt me, or imprison me.”

  “Ivan? Who’s Ivan?” Lyra mused with confusion.

  As for Erin... “Ivan Soze,” she muttered knowingly with a small gasp.

  “Why does that name sound familiar?” Lyra mused.

  “You know him?” asked the Fae.

  “I do.” Erin nodded with a mencholic expression. “I know you too, Katya.

  The Fae flinched. “Did Ivan tell you about me? No, he couldn’t have. He said he told no one about me since I— No, don’t mind me. I said nothing.”

  “You don’t need to. I know, Katya. You were a human, not a Fae.”

  The Fae was now looking at Erin with a hint of fear in her eyes. “...Who are you?”

  Erin smiled wryly. “Someone who owed you an apology, and someone who may be the one responsible for… your current circumstances.”