Chapter 49
“Uncle, have you still not cured your business obsession?”
“Business obsession? Sienna, you wouldn’t understand as a woman, but business is like a basic virtue for a man.”
Wow, where’s that dog barking from? What an utterly pathetic thing to say.
Woof, woof, woof. At the nonsense ringing in my ears, I gazed off into the distance.
“So anyway… Sienna, how about investing this time? You know that newly discovered mine? They say if you dig there, diamonds will just come pouring out. What do you think? Tempted?”
Oh, so tempting.
If something like that really existed, I’d be the first to hear about it. As if he would know before me.
“Forget that, why don’t you just return the money you stole from me first?”
When I held out my hand in front of Frank, he rolled his eyes and tried to play dumb.
“Sienna, listen. If you invest there, the money you lent me—”
“Stole.”
Where does he keep getting this ‘lent’ idea from? I never lent him anything.
“Well, uh, anyway, you could triple that money. If you’re too scared, I’ll do it for you. I’ll make it three times bigger.”
In other words, he was asking me for more money again.
‘I really have mellowed out.’
The fact that I was quietly listening to this garbage.
“Heren.”
I quietly called for Herace.
“Sienna, think this over caref—Hey, w-what the—!”
Suddenly, Frank’s body spun around and began walking away from me in the opposite direction.
“W-wait! Sienna, my legs—they’re moving on their own! Help me!”
“Yeees, take care.”
Herace wiggled his fingers a few times and neatly whisked Frank away. I silently raised a fist at the sight.
“Anyone who approaches—drive them all off.”
“As you command.”
Herace lightly bumped his fist against mine and winked, as if to say, leave it to me.
Apparently finding this fun, Ban tugged on my arm.
“Sienna, what about me? What about me?”
“Ban, you…”
Normally, I would have waited until night, but seeing Frank meddling on his own made me lose patience.
“Go now.”
“Alright! Rina, let’s go!”
Ban jumped into Rina’s arms and ran off in the direction Frank had disappeared.
“Ugh, my legs… What was that just now? Magic?”
Only after running for a long while did Frank finally stop, his body trembling.
His leg muscles throbbed painfully from the shock.
“Oww, my body…”
As he sat down and slapped at his thighs, a black shadow fell over his head.
“Huh?”
Thwack!
Thud.
Frank collapsed into the bushes, struck by the club Ban had swung.
Ban, standing over Frank’s unconscious head, curled his lips into a grin.
“This is the price for tormenting Sienna.”
He placed a hand on Frank’s head and began chanting a spell of nightmares.
“Where… is this?”
Frank, who normally never dreamed, looked around uneasily.
Everything was white.
A completely empty room without a single piece of furniture, with only one door at each end.
Without much thought, Frank opened the door on the right.
Endless stairs stretched downward, down and down without end.
“What the…? Creepy.”
Just as he was about to try the other door—
Clatter!
The opposite door creaked open.
Out waddled a small doll.
A pure-white body with black stripes, round little ears.
A doll he’d seen somewhere before toddled out, smiling sweetly.
“A doll…?”
At Frank’s mutter, the doll slowly opened its mouth.
Eeeek—
Its mouth stretched endlessly, all the way up to its ears, revealing rows of sharp, shark-like teeth.
“Kehehehehe! Time for a fun game of hide and seek!”
“Hiiik!”
“You smell delicious. Kekeke.”
“Aaahhh!”
What the hell was that?!
Terrified by the doll that looked like a demon, Frank bolted through the door and down the stairs.
Behind him, Ban shouted gleefully:
“Run! Keep running, tasty human!”
“W-what is that thing!”
Glancing back, Frank saw the doll giggling, holding something in both hands.
‘Stones…?’
He tilted his head for only a moment—
“Taste the moonstone knife!”
The doll swung its rock blade with stubby arms.
“Gahhh!”
Frank ran faster and faster. But no matter how long he ran, the stairs never ended.
Whenever he thought he had escaped, he would find himself back in the same white room.
“Leave! Leave the mansion! Run far, far away! If you don’t, I’ll eat you! Kekekeke!”
“What the hell are you?!”
“From head to toe, munch-munch-munch!”
Ban hummed a strange tune and then flew up, sinking his teeth into Frank’s arm.
“Arghhh!”
The pain was so real that Frank’s eyes snapped open.
“Uwaah!”
Staring at the familiar ceiling, Frank wiped his cold sweat.
“Haah, haah.”
He hurriedly rubbed his arm.
Thankfully, it was intact.
“Frank!”
“Mother?”
“Did you have a nightmare?”
“T-the doll… It had a knife…”
“A knife?”
“A moonstone knife…”
Watching her grown son tremble and spout nonsense, Jeneca sighed.
“Frank, no matter how tired you are, you shouldn’t fall asleep in the garden in broad daylight. Good thing I saw and brought you inside first—what if someone else had seen?”
Clucking her tongue, Jeneca asked:
“It’s already evening. Even if you’re tired, at least eat dinner.”
Led away by his mother, Frank kept muttering:
“A nightmare… Yes, it was just a dream.”
Thud. The door shut.
Ban, who had been stuck flat against the door, snickered as he watched Frank trembling in fear.
It was just a dream. A dream.
Repeating that to himself like a spell, Frank fell asleep again—only to despair.
It was the white room once more.
As the ominous familiarity weighed on him, he muttered nervously:
“No way… again?”
Before the doll could appear, he hurried to his feet and opened the other door.
To avoid the stair-hell, but…
“Hiii~!”
There Ban was again, holding the moonstone knife and winking.
“Another fun game of hide and seek today!”
“Uwaaaahhh!”
“Why didn’t you greet me, tasty human? You hurt my feelings, so I’ll have to eat you!”
Frank fled toward the very stair-hell he had tried to avoid, with Ban happily chasing him down.
Human fear was his fuel.
The more terrified Frank became, the stronger Ban grew.
“Why are you doing this to me?!”
“Leave the mansion! Or I’ll eat you! Kekeke! Until you leave, I’ll come find you every single night!”
Around and around, the same space repeated.
Bored, Ban poked Frank’s leg with his blade.
“Argh!”
Awakened once more by Ban’s stab, Frank spent the night wide awake, unable to sleep a wink.
Watching Frank’s pale, haggard face, I asked with fake concern:
“Uncle, are you alright? You don’t look well…”
“Sienna, about that…”
He had been about to confide in me, but then froze.
Because of Ban, nestled in my arms.
“T-that doll…”
“Yes?”
“No, never mind…”
Muttering to himself that’s impossible, Frank waved his hand tiredly.
“I need to rest today. I couldn’t sleep at all last night… so exhausted.”
His hollow eyes flickered toward Ban before he staggered away and disappeared from sight.
For the first time ever, he actually retreated. I whispered to Ban in surprise:
“Ban, this is really effective.”
“I told you! This is my specialty.”
Ban puffed up proudly, shrugging his shoulders.
“So you were plotting something. Nightmares, huh? I doubt such a petty method would—well, I suppose it works.”
Herace, who had been smirking, suddenly grew serious as if recalling something. He nodded.
For him to understand meant… he had experienced nightmares himself.
“You have nightmares too?”
“What, you think I’m made of steel? Of course I do.”
Herace answered with an exasperated look.
“And if you’re going to torment someone with nightmares, you have to do it thoroughly. Take it from me—having the same dream for 500 years straight will make anyone go insane. It’s absolute hell. Should we lock your uncle up and try it on him?”
Ban and I were left speechless.
Even I, who had been called a villainess, and Ban, a demon, hadn’t imagined such a cruel idea.
Ban was the first to recover.
“See? Herace is way too brutal and savage. Clearly, I’m better than him, right?”
“Shut it, fluffball. All you can do is show nightmares.”
Stung in his pride, Ban launched himself at Herace.
“Fluffball?! I’ll have you know my nightmares are terrifying!”
“Yeah, sure. Terrifying at your level.”
As always, the two bickered noisily.
Meanwhile, Noah tilted his head, frowning as he glanced around as if sensing something strange.
I quickly cut off their fight, clapped a hand over Ban’s mouth, and waved at Noah.
“Brother.”
“Sienna, are you alright?”
“Huh? Yeah. Nothing happened.”
“But earlier, Uncle was saying strange things…”
“Strange things?”
“He was muttering about whether the mansion was haunted, saying maybe we should have an exorcism.”
As Noah muttered that Frank was acting stranger by the day, the three of us exchanged knowing glances.
Just then, Noah called my name.
