[ Undercity - Golden Catfish Restaurant ]
Burrrb~
Inside the lavishly decorated VIP area on the fourth and topmost floor of the Golden Catfish, a blonde-haired young man with a reddened face sat on a sofa, and stared at the gigantic monitor on the other side of the wall, far past the open indoor balcony.
Down below, a magnificent slice of this bustling place. Every floor of the building, all the way to the grand stage.
But right now, in the dimly lit lounge, there was no one else aside from him to enjoy it.
The blonde young man leaned back and reached for one of the bottles of alcohol he had previously wiped off of the VIP’s personal bar and placed on a table.
—Since everything was paid for prior, all of it was his for the taking anyway.
Casual clothes that barely hid his well-developed body, along with several expensive pieces of jewelry, rings, earrings, and bracelets—at a glance ‘Casandro Casanova’, or the person who’d been using that name here for the last week, certainly gave people the impression of a rich young master who escaped their family to come on vacation… or someone who was really trying to look like one.
With a slight sigh ‘Casandro’ brought a large bottle of wine to his lips.
Woosh~!
Something flew to his face, causing him to use his other hand to block.
It was a metal tray, bouncing off of his forearm and lodging itself sideways into the wooden floor with a loud ‘shhk~’.
When he turned to look in the direction where it came from, he found a white-haired man in a butler uniform leaning against the wall of the restaurant, holding another tray by his side
“At first I thought that you might actually be Casandro Casanova.”
Without waiting for a reply, Altarin threw the other metal tray into the air with a flick of his wrist.
The tray spun at an upright angle, remaining suspended in the air briefly, and when it eventually fell down close to the ground 0.7 seconds later.
He kicked it.
Boom—!
Half a second after the contact between it and his foot ceased, the trey miraculously accelerated again, instantly disappearing, leaving behind a shockwave and thunderous sonic boom.
Instantly, ‘Casandro’ slapped the sofa with his free hand and bounced into the air.
The metal tray smashed into the table full of food and drinks, sending everything flying.
In the air, Casandro' started to spin. He tugged his arms in, making himself spin faster.
Surrounded by the flying plates of food from the previous rounds of the beauty pageant, various bottles of drinks, and tables and chairs that were sent in different directions by the shockwave.
Altarin immediately closed the distance.
“But now I know for certain that you’re not him.
“Master Casandro wouldn’t be this desperate.”
At the same time, behind him…
—A burst of cold mist eventually reached the top floor.
Knowing that Altarin had already engaged the target, Vena wasted no time after landing her feet on the VIP area’s railing—she kicked it, launching herself straight toward the airborne ‘Casandro’ with her sword ready to strike.
So, without thinking, ‘Casandro’ immediately switched the wine bottle to his left hand and then, utilizing all the momentum that was built up by spinning rapidly for 2 seconds, sent it down with a single throw!
The round glass bottle shattered into pieces the instant it hit the floor!
The force at which the bottle of wine was sent down by his arm was so great, it created a knockback that sent him higher, allowing him to just barely avoid Vena’s slash!
However, taking advantage of the moment that ‘Casandro’ was still suspended in the air, Altarin threw yet another tray of drinks at him.
And sent him flying.
Boom—!
Plank~!
With an impact sound that was heard by almost everyone in the Golden Catfish Restaurant—and definitely by the people looking up from below—the body of ‘Casandro’ shot into the gigantic monitor at an incredible velocity.
The glass screen sunk into the shape of his figure. Cracks like rivers flown out; dead pixels surrounding the point of impact flickered in black and green colors like a spreading corruption.
For a second, there was no sound.
But then.
“Ahahahahhaha…”
Somehow.
Despite the damage ‘Casandro’ had seemingly just suffered.
—What came out of his mouth was a strangely happy chuckle.
Shk~!
Slamming his fist on the screen, creating even more cracks, ‘Casandro’ sprung out from the body-shaped indent, arcing to land on the other side.
Immediately, Vena and Altarin leaped off the indoor balcony and chased after him, briefly manifesting their wings to reset their momenta in mid-air.
Arriving on the third floor, they saw that the fancy dining area full of people was now in a little bit of a shamble. As ‘Casandro’ continued to sprint forward, knocking over and throwing aside whatever was in his way, causing every Chaos Angel previously enjoying their meals to have to move aside in confusion.
Summoning their weapons, the twins began moving toward their target.
A serving cart was sent flying back at them.
—Altarin kicked it aside.
Boom—!
An entire table flew toward them.
—Vena sliced it in half.
Boom—!
Eventually, ‘Casandro’ reached the end of the dining area.
Thick wooden railings, separated into multiple sections by a row of massive red pillars, facing the silhouette of the Undercity’s skyline. With nothing but the lights from the restaurant and the surrounding ships reflecting on the surface of the canal, it was a rather admirable view.
When Vena and Altarin finally caught up, ‘Casandro’ jumped onto the railing, placed his left hand on the massive red pillar…
And then, under the gazes of everyone…
—Simply began to pull it out.
Krrrr~!
The Golden Catfish Restaurant quaked, the entire place swayed side to side above the canal’s water, sending countless waves to the hundreds of ships that surrounded this floating building. The Presenter, the audience, the bartenders, the chefs, they all felt it.
After separating the whole pillar from the ceiling and the floor, ‘Carsandro’ plopped it onto his shoulders and spun around.
“Aaahhh, *burrrrb*.”
Holding the massive wooden pillar several times his size like a staff, he beckoned the twins with his hand.
“I’m only a little bit drunk.”
—A pair of hazy green eyes glowed amusedly.
—————……….
[ The House of Mistresses - Unseen Corridor ]
At the voice of Second Sister Rinne, Eden and I move apart and duck down.
Chink~!
From the gap between the doors, the kitchen knife belonging to the [Headless Figure] flies in, stabbing into the wall right behind us.
“...!”
—My head could’ve become a knife’s sheath right then and there, huh…
“Miw… are you alright?”
I turn to see Eden looking up at me with her golden round eyes, still holding Bery the Cerberus in her arms.
"..."
I feel a tugging in the corner of my mind. A reminder of something I promised to myself.
Right… didn’t I say that keeping her safe is the least I can do? Why is she the one who’s asking me if I’m alright?
—At the very least, I should try harder.
I take a deep breath, place one hand on my chest, collect myself… and start to think.
“Haaa~... Okay, first, we need to calm down and go through what we know.”
“Do we even have time for this, Miwari?” Ninth Sister Miho asks, pointing at the door with a shaking hand.
“No! So be quick!”
Bang—!
As we speak, the slamming on the door continues, louder than before.
I raise my voice in order to quell my quickening heartbeat.
“First, the [Headless Body] is somehow moving and is hellbent on chasing us!”
““Why?”” both of my sisters ask while tilting their heads at the same time.
“I have absolutely no clue.”
—Bloodlust? Jealousy? Revenge? Head-replacement operation? All those theories can come later. But not right now!
”Second, we can’t reach any of the others, and especially with how the doors work, we can’t just find them either.”
Then, without waiting for a reply, I continue.
“Third, somehow, the Headless Body has the ability to overwrite the blessing of this domain and hurt us, meaning that it has to have a higher authority—”
Instantly, both of my sisters’ eyes light up.
““Lady Lucianna!””
“No, i-it can’t be her! There’s no way she would become something like this!”
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At my firm response, Second Sister Rinne touches her chin with her index finger and says, “But doesn’t she usually change her appearance for fun though?”
“Then why is she attacking us? That doesn't make any sense…”
Bang—!
“Fourth! We need to find a way to get rid of it quickly!”
Since we still haven’t found an exit, even if we can continue to outrun it for a bit, eventually, the [Headless Figure]’s seemingly inexhaustible stamina will get the better of us. And after that, maybe we will be forced to join its headless family or something.
“Well…” Second Sister Rinne grimaces.
“There’s no way we can fight it,” Ninth Sister Miho says.
I bite my lips and frown, realizing that they’re in no way wrong.
It can hurt us, and it’s super fast and super strong. Plus the use of [True Edge] to cut things that are further away than the range of its kitchen knife, means that the [Headless Figure] is at least the level of [Saint].
…Wait, if the theory that it’s one of us still stands, how many of my sisters are [Sword Saints] though?
Actually, I don’t know. Aside from these two, could be all of them.
Bang—!
Another loud bang startles all three of us from our pondering, and we’re now back under the pressure of time once again.
“C-can’t we just keep ourselves inside one of the rooms and hide?” Ninth Sister Miho asks, stutteringly.
“Are we not doing that very unsuccessfully right now?!”
—No matter how scared you are, please at least try to say things that make sense!
Exhaling very sharply through my nose, I turn to Eden who’s still crouching down beside .
“Little Eden, can you think of something?”
The golden-haired little girl holding Bery the Cerberus stares at me for a moment, before answering:
“There is something… that might work.”
The three of us turn to look at Eden in surprise.
Tilting her head ever so slightly, she continues on to say: “The problem right now… is that there’s nothing preventing it from… continuing to chase us through the rooms.”
“Right. We just barely managed to outrun it, but…”
Bang—!
—It doesn’t seem like it’ll be long before the doors eventually give in.
“Shouldn’t it be impossible?” I ask everyone with a frown. “According to our experiment earlier, there should be no way that the [Headless Body]’s going to be able to open the door.”
Even earlier when I tried to open the door to find First Sister Roxxi and Frul, I ended up opening to a different room—so that has to be how it works.
“Eden already figured out why… back in the theater room,”
“Ah! What you said about the [Headless Body] not having eyes!”
At Second Sister Rinne’s exclamation, Eden nods.
“Because it can’t interact with the lights… in certain ways… it must not have been considered an [observer]... by this place.
“So the moment we… stepped inside the theater room… and closed the door… all the lights in the corridor… stopped existing.”
—And the [Headless Body] got transported in.
So the corridor timer only puts out the lights, and the teleportation happens only when the lights are put out. That means that if we were to manually put out all the lamps in the corridor, then we would probably end up back in the theater room as well.
“But then… there's a problem.”
Suddenly, Eden speaks up again.
“Earlier…
“Why was the [Headless Body]… able to switch rooms?”
“““Eh?”””
At her words, the three sisters of the House of Mistresses, yes, me included, look at each other in confusion.
“Think about it….
“If the [Headless Body]... is not an [observer]… then it also shouldn’t be… able to change the state of the rooms… from ‘flux’... to ‘fixed’.”
“What should happen is that… when we closed the door… with the [Headless Body] still inside… that room should be considered hidden… and therefore can not… be accessed.
“Then… how could it still… reappear in the corridor—”
Bang—!
Once again, the banging on the door interrupts our conversation. Inside the guest room, all the little decorations hanging on the walls and sitting on the tables even move slightly.
—Suffice it to say, it’s getting quite scary.
“Sorry, Little Eden, but can’t you speak a little faster? We’re kind of in a hurry!” stepping away from the door, Second Sister Rinne says.
“Yes, please skip the build-up and reasoning and just tell us what we’re supposed to do before it’s too late!” staring intensely at the widening gap, Ninth Sister Miho also speaks up.
Unconsciously, I also move closer to where Little Eden’s sitting.
But probably because of that, I’m able to catch it.
Tch~!
—An almost inaudible click of her tongue.
“The… doors…!”
With slightly more force than usual, Eden’s monotone voice resounds once again. Visibly, she also begins to hug Bery the Cerberus a little tighter.
“The rooms disappeared… but the doors still exist... because the doors are still visible… within the corridor…!
“So one way we could… get rid of it… is to lock it inside a room… put out all the lights… and get rid of every other door…!
“The [Headless Body] would then be sent somewhere else... somewhere inaccessible… by any of the… remaining doors…!”
At the words of Little Eden, all of us fall into silence.
After a few seconds.
“That… sounds like it could actually work?” I say, hesitantly.
“But… how can we get rid of the doors?” Second Sister Rinne asks, maintaining a very exaggerated ‘thinking’ face.
“Can’t we just… get rid… of closed ones?”
““Closed ones?””
For the first time in a while, I find myself tilting my head along with Ninth Sister Miho. Fortunately, it clicks a second later that what Eden means by ‘getting rid of closed doors’ is just opening them.
—At a time like this, is there a need to be so playful with words?
“If we open every door… then all the rooms would be occupied… it would mean the same thing,” says Eden.
“But then wouldn’t the [Headless Body] be transported to the theater room?” Ninth Sister Miho raises her hand and asks.
This time, however, before Eden can answer, I raise my hand first.
“Actually, we don’t know that, do we?”
Second Sister Rinne and Ninth Sister Miho turn to look at me.
“The furniture in the rooms stays in the rooms. Perhaps the safety mechanism only works for people who are [observers] or only in the corridor. If so, then this solution might actually be feasible..”
Second Sister Rinne pinches her chin, her previously ‘exaggerated’ thinking face has now turned into a normal—and serious—thinking face.
“But there’s still one problem, isn’t there? There are so many doors in the corridor. For this to work, we need to close every door…”
That’s right. By the time we go around to the other side, the first few doors would’ve snapped shut on their own. So there's no way we can do that.
“That’s why… we need to wait.”
As the three of us are racking our brains, Little Eden slowly stands up, still holding Bery the Cerberus who seems to have fallen asleep at some point while we’re talking.
Then, while lightly patting her clothes, Eden speaks the final words that make everything she’s been trying to say in the last few minutes snap into place.
“If something is consumed by darkness… does it even exist at all?”
“““...”””
All of us fall silent.
There are no more questions left, huh?
Shrrr~!
—Time’s up.
At the sound of the doors sliding open, the four of us immediately look forward. Through the gap, a pair of pale white hands, each nail painted black, reach out from the other side.
Then, after finding a place on the door frames to grab onto, each of the ten fingers strongly tenses, digging their nails into the woods so firmly I’m beginning to think they might just break.
Eventually, with little to no resistance at all, the hands apply some force, and the doors simply slide open.
And now, the [Headless Figure] stands before us again.
However, the four of us have been spending the last several minutes preparing our hearts for this moment, so we’re no longer that surprised or scared.
More importantly, we now have a clear plan of action.
Immediately, Second Sister Rinne, Ninth Sister Miho, and I, all reach for anything nearby—vases, paintings, chairs—and throw it at the [Headless Figure].
Then, we take advantage of the fact that it still doesn’t have its knife to attack us with, slip by it simultaneously from left and right...
—And run out of the room!
“First… we need to keep running… inside the corridor for a bit… then lure it inside one of the rooms… before starting to put out the lights manually.”
While running, Little Eden continues to clarify our plan of action. Her low voice barely audible over the echoing of our footsteps.
“Then… open as many doors as possible… before the lights start flickering.
“So because of that… Miw… can you…”
Looking up at me with her golden pair of eyes, Eden leaves the rest of her sentence unspoken. However, judging from the flow of the conversation, it’s not hard to figure out what she was going to say.
“Let me guess, you want me to act as the bait and lead the [Headless Body] inside a room before putting out the light and getting out at the last second?”
“Um.” Eden nods, shifting Bery the Cerberus in her arms slightly.
“How come you sound so casual about it, Miwari?” Second Sister Rinne asks from my right.
“This… actually happens more often than you think. But let’s not get into it right now.”
—Boss would probably be acting very smug about what she said if she’s here, while those two would probably pretend to be serious on the surface but snickering on the inside.
I really don’t want to admit this but…
I miss them a little.
I shake my head to get rid of unnecessary thoughts and focus on the current situation. Glancing behind me, the [Headless Figure] has already finished retrieving the knife and is now beginning to chase after us in the corridor.
“H-how long do we have to keep running for?” Ninth Sister Miho asks.
“Since it will take a while… to put out the lights… and open the doors.” Eden narrows her eyes. “Three more minutes.”
…..
“Haaa~”
Finally, after three minutes of running, going through everything again point by point, assigning roles, and clarifying the timing of everything even further.
—We’re ready.
“So…
“Let’s do it.”
I plant my right foot forward, then kill my momentum with a slide before coming to a full stop. Little Eden and the other two also stop too.
Even the [Headless Figure], when I turn around to look, is now recovering from its creepy running posture, coming back up to its feet.
Under the dim red lights, it continues to slowly walk toward us, bringing along with it a certain chill that makes my throat feel dry.
One more time, I glance at my sisters, who both give me a nod.
I raise my hands beside my face…
“Headless idiot! Fool! Don’t even have a head but your face is ugly!”
—And yell out as loudly as I can!
For a second, the [Headless Figure] seems to almost be stumped.
But then….
…..
It rushes at me with the kitchen knife raised, completely ignoring the others!
—Why does that work?!
—I’m sorry! Please calm down!
I turn around and enter the sliding door to my right!
It’s another guest room, a larger one from the higher floors: dimly lit space, beds, chairs, folding screens, and the ever-so-present traditional lamps containing flickering scarlet flames.
My eyes dart around in a hurry, going from corner to corner, marking the locations of the sources of light within this room.
—Six lamps, two hanging from the wall, two installed on posts, and another two placed on the table...
Drawing a route in my mind, I run over to grab the vase containing Red Arachnes from a nearby table and take out the flowers.
I then tear off a little bit of my black robe from the part that was cut, soaking it in the water from the vase, wrapping the entire thing around my right hand.
With this, everything’s ready.
Clack—!
I turn around. The now-familiar figure of the [Headless Body]’s standing before once again, brandishing its knife.
“Haaaaa~”
The lamps on the walls flicker, ever so whimsically, but I know very well that if I lose focus even for a second in the next few minutes, my head would be rolling on the floor.
—So… all those years of training… let’s see if I can still do it.
Taking a deep breath, I concentrate on the tip of the knife, tracking its movement with every single one of my senses.
Until...
—Now!
I dodge the first slash, ducking underneath the kitchen knife’s diagonal trajectory!
The gust of wind causes all the flames within the lamps to sway! The shadows on the walls change shapes, bringing along with it the smell of incense.
I quickly move below the nearest lamp beside the doors, insert my dampened hand up inside it, and directly snuff out the flames. The part of the room that was previously illuminated by the lamp recedes into darkness.
—The first lamp’s out, five more to go.
The [Headless Figure] chases after me again, and I quickly grab a chair to block its attack, before making my way toward the second lamp on the side of the doors and snuffing out its flame too.
—The second lamp’s out, four more to go.
With a quick glance, I see the next target is the lamp hanging above the window sill. I jump onto the nearby chair, then onto the table, avoid a horizontal slash by the [Headless Figure], and snuff it out.
—Three more to go.
The darker the room gets, the harder it is for me to see. Putting out the light above the bed, I barely dodge another slash from the [Headless Figure]. The knife grazes my cheek, cutting a little of my hair.
—Two more.
I fall to the floor in order to avoid another stab, taking the opportunity to knock over a lamppost and snuff it out, then rolling away and springing back up.
The room’s now almost pitch black.
Fortunately…
—The fifth lamp’s out. Only one more.
Just then, I hear the voice of Second Sister Rinne yelling at me from outside the room.
“Miwari!”
“I know!”
I yell back, before running to grab the sixth and final lamp directly from the reading table beside the bookshelves and making a run for the door!
Of course, the [Headless Figure] also notices this and chases after me.
—But that’s as far as I’ll let it.
As I’m about to reach the door, I quickly turn around and throw the lamp back inside, at the knife of the [Headless Figure] that’s slashing toward me.
The lamp flies through the air, illuminating the pitch-black space with a faint color of blood. The knife intersects the lamp, cutting it in half, putting out the final source of light within that room.
Then…
Bang—!
With all the strength I can muster, I slam the door shut!
Poof~!
And at once…
—My surroundings are consumed by darkness.
—————……….