Chapter 113
Diana, seeming even more annoyed by Sion’s attitude, spoke again.
“Are you listening, Sion? Living among dangerous adults whose moods could change at any moment—better to stay with the honest Grevis…”
“Where’s the bathroom here?”
“What?”
“Where’s the bathroom?”
“…You’re really going to follow me? I told you earlier. Then Chloe Leander will end up disliking you.”
“It’s fine.”
Sion spoke without once turning her gaze toward Diana.
“Then I can just try to make her like me again.”
“….”
At those words, the faint smile that had lingered on Diana’s face vanished, replaced by a cold, expressionless look.
“The bathroom Chloe went to should be at the end of the third-floor hallway. It’s the VIP bathroom.”
Hearing that, Sion immediately stood and opened the door to leave.
Left alone in the playroom, Diana shivered slightly as she looked at her own arm.
“…Ouch.”
There was a small cut, like one made by the edge of paper. It was the price to pay for being a direct descendant of the lying Grevis.
This was Diana’s first time paying the cost for a lie—the location of the bathroom—and her eyes brimmed with tears.
“…It hurts.”
Diana, wiping her eyes with her otherwise flawless hands, glared coldly once again.
It was all mine. All of it was mine.
“That… irritating little rabbit.”
Thinking of the culprit behind her wound, Diana’s clenched fist trembled faintly.
With a grunt, Chloe slipped through the secret side window Diana had shown her and stood in front of a portrait.
‘Hmm. No matter how I look at it, there must be something about this portrait…’
As Chloe studied the painting with a frown, a passage from the original story flashed in her mind.
[Sanlider, looking tense at the portrait, seemed to want to borrow the wisdom of the predecessor, gently patting the man’s head in the painting.]
Head… head.
Following that description, Chloe examined the painting closely. She saw that the man’s hair in the portrait was discolored as if it had been touched repeatedly.
Well, let me try…
Standing on tiptoe, Chloe reached out and, struggling slightly, patted the man’s head in the portrait.
Then: rattle. The eyes of the couple in the portrait, facing forward, suddenly turned toward Chloe.
“Ah! What the—!”
Startled, Chloe, pressed close to the painting while touching the head, accidentally poked the eyes of the man and woman with her finger.
Plunk. As she felt her finger sink into the painting, Chloe let out a small scream.
With a clunk, the man in the portrait opened his mouth.
At the same time, what she had thought was just a simple frame squeaked and swung open like a door.
‘…It’s open? And like this?’
Chloe froze, stunned, before slapping her own cheeks lightly to regain her composure.
‘I don’t have time to be shocked. I need to check if the mastermind is here.’
Thinking of today’s goal, Chloe swallowed and cautiously stepped inside.
Thunk. As soon as she entered, the door framed by the portrait closed heavily behind her.
‘It’s dark…’
The interior, with stairs descending endlessly, was dark like a cave.
‘Since this is a secret passage, there must be traps inside.’
After a moment’s thought, Chloe closed her eyes and transformed back into her beast form.
It would be safer to move as a small rabbit than as a human.
There could be devices that fire arrows by measuring weight on the floor, or blades springing from above.
After calculating, Chloe decided to proceed as a baby rabbit, carefully hopping down the stairs.
Perhaps because of her heightened senses as an herbivore, she could observe the surroundings much better than before.
‘Good, if I keep going like this…’
As Chloe hopped down the high stairs, she suddenly felt something brush her upturned ear tips.
‘W-What was that?!’
Looking up in surprise, she saw thin threads tangled in the air that she hadn’t noticed before.
‘…Spiderweb? No, that’s…’
Squinting, Chloe realized:
‘A blade. Threads made into thin blades.’
Instantly, her white fur, just grazed by the thread-blades, floated down like dancing snow.
The thread-blades, sharp enough to cut with a light touch, were densely placed along the passage, leaving only the ceiling and the very low floor untouched.
They seemed to be designed to kill intruders, sparing only winged creatures.
‘If I had come down as a human…’
Trembling, Chloe pressed her front paws against her mouth, pressed her ears to her head, and continued down the stairs carefully.
‘I wish I could climb to the ceiling, but I can’t. I’ll just stay low like a rabbit.’
After the stairs ended, she slinked along the downhill path, belly nearly touching the floor.
Traps continued intermittently.
<Eek!>
Some fired arrows, just as Chloe had anticipated.
<Aaah, scary!>
Others dropped what seemed like long-dead skeletons.
<Rabbit form… saved me…>
Fortunately, Chloe, small as an adult fist, managed to dodge the traps by finding openings.
‘But when will the mastermind’s base appear? Why is this corridor so long?’
Having passed all the traps, Chloe, feeling confident, stood on her hind legs to look further ahead.
“Move quickly!”
A wall she had thought solid suddenly swung open, and two beastmen, carrying something heavy, leapt out.
“W-Wait, lock the door first…”
“Lock it later! No one’s coming in anyway, who cares? We need to bring the offering to our master now! Do you want to die?!”
“Ah, okay. Go.”
Grumbling, the two ran down the dark hallway.
Behind them:
<Phew, that was close…>
The baby rabbit, pressed against the wall like wallpaper, fell helplessly.
‘That could have gone really badly.’
Exhaling, Chloe peeked over the threshold of the open door.
What was this place? From what the beastmen said earlier, something about offerings…
After confirming the end of the hallway was empty, Chloe cautiously stepped over the threshold.
‘This…’
She found herself in a much larger secret room, standing on two legs and looking around.
‘A wine storage room or warehouse, maybe?’
Rows of glass bottles lined the shelves neatly, and Chloe tilted her head in curiosity.
She had thought the men had been acting so urgently because some beastmen were captured, but…
‘Seems like a relatively mild hobby after all.’
Well, the underground’s temperature would indeed be perfect for storing wine.
As Chloe idly looked at the bottles, something strange caught her eye.
‘Huh…?’
Inside one of the large glass bottles she assumed contained food, something moved.
Not fruit, not herbs.
‘…A snake?’
A black-scaled snake.
‘What the…’
Chloe stared, trembling, at the snake trapped inside the bottle.
‘It’s… not alive, is it…?’
The moment she shifted slightly to confirm, the snake’s eyes followed her movement.
<…!>
Chloe held her mouth shut to keep from screaming, staring at the snake in the bottle.
‘I-Is it really alive? It’s actually alive?’
When she moved again to check, the snake’s eyes tracked her once more.
Frozen, Chloe slowly rose and looked around the room, as if in a trance.
Shelves reached all the way to the ceiling, each filled with glass bottles containing… something black.
