When Mir was standing in front of the black-colored mansion, the sense of nostalgia crept into her heart. After all, she knew this mansion by heart. Even though right now she saw vegetation covered the wall of the mansion, or even though some parts of the mansion had become rubbles, Mir still knew it like the back of her hand.
After all, she had been living in this mansion for fifteen years. Well, to be more accurate, she had seen the memories of someone who lived in this mansion for fifteen years. Naturally, she would know everything about this mansion.
However, besides the feeling of nostalgia, Mir also felt something crept into her heart. It was dread. She couldn’t believe the amount of black miasma that covered the whole mansion. If the black miasma that covered the entire amusement park was like mist in the morning, the black miasma surrounding the mansion was more like… a white-out where she couldn’t see anything at all. If she didn’t use the camera in her hand to see the mansion, she wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.
In addition to that, when she entered the amusement park, she felt a little bit uncomfortable. Just a little bit. However, now, when she stood in front of the black miasma-covered mansion, she felt like there was a lump of metal on her chest, causing some difficulty in breathing. However, it was not only her imagination, as she also could feel that Raleigh had difficulty in breathing as well.
“…suffocating.” Mir muttered softly. She glanced at Raleigh. His eyes were closed, but his face showed that he endured some kind of pain as it twisted. Mir couldn’t help but frown.
It would be dangerous to bring him into the mansion. After all, the closer they were to the mansion, the more pressure Mir felt coming to suppress her. Right now, in front of the mansion, Raleigh already had the difficulty of breathing. In his condition, it would be even more dangerous to bring him into the mansion.
However, if she put him outside of the mansion, she was sure the other ghosts would attack him. And he wouldn’t be able to endure such attacks from countless numbers of ghosts. Not when he was already unconscious.
“…put… me dow...n.” Raleigh whispered with a lot of difficulties. Mir was surprised as she turned around. His eyes were still closed, but she could see his eyelashes trembling.
“…nn.” Mir nodded and slowly, gently, she put Raleigh down. Raleigh opened his mouth, whispering again. Mir had to lean closer as she couldn’t hear him.
“…leave… me here…” Raleigh said. Although he looked like he was unconscious, it seemed that at the same time, he was also determined. Mir opened her mouth, want to argue with him, but in the next moment, she closed her mouth again. After a few seconds, there was only one word coming out of her mouth.
“…sorry.”
That was all she could say. Raleigh gave a weak smile. Mir closed her eyes for a few seconds before she walked into the mansion, leaving Raleigh behind. Sensing that Mir had entered the mansion, Raleigh, with all of his strength, took out a talisman and put it in front of him. It was a talisman to create a barrier that could protect him from the spiritual attacks.
I should be able to rest for a while now. Sorry to leave you with such a heavy task but... I will catch up to you as soon as possible, Mir...
When Mir entered the mansion, the suffocating atmosphere felt even stronger. If she brought Raleigh here, he wouldn’t be able to breathe. Even she could barely breathe by using both her nose and mouth.
“GET OUUTT!!!”
Mir heard a loud voice from deep inside the mansion. The guttural voice carried a strong supernatural attack. It was not a normal sound as it shattered the walls and the floors as if a shockwave was coming to her. If Mir was a normal person, she would be blown away just by that voice for sure.
“…ngh!”
Even though she wasn’t blown away, she felt a pain coming from deep inside of her soul. It was different than her usual pain. It was more like what she experienced when she shot a ghost. Or rather, it was what the ghosts experienced when she shot them.
…this pain… is this because it was a spiritual attack? And it attacks my soul directly?
Mir wondered, but she couldn’t find an answer to her question. So, for now, she ignored it. More importantly, she didn’t want to feel that kind of pain anymore, so she built a barrier around her. That way, she could mitigate the damage she might receive.
Once again, Mir heard the same voice. The voice carried destruction as it traveled through the whole mansion. And when the shockwave reached Mir, she felt almost the exact same pain she received before, only it was less than before. It seemed the barrier she set up could mitigate some of the damage.
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“…” Mir let out her breath as she started walking slowly. She was in the receiving room. There was an old… no, an antique grand piano in the corner of the room. Mir remembered the beautiful grand piano from the memories of the young man. She remembered him playing the piano as if she was playing it herself. Well, after all, she was seeing from a first-person perspective.
Struck by another nostalgic feeling, Mir couldn’t help but walk to the piano. She carefully touched the dusty grand piano. She tried pressing one of the notes, but no sound coming out. Well, it was quite ancient, she guessed it was the reason why it couldn’t play any sound.
…speaking of which… the plague… is it alright for us to be here? I have to remember to check my health condition at the hospital later. I should warn Raleigh too.
Mir shook her head and walked based on the memories she had in her head. She remembered that the room of the young man was on the second floor. Similarly, his genius brother’s room was on the second floor as well.
For some reason, Mir wanted to explore this mansion a little bit. She wanted to see that young man’s room. She also wanted to explore his brother’s room. And also, the room of their parents, the library, the study room, she wanted to explore everything in this mansion.
…but unfortunately, I don’t have time to do that. If I delay any further, it would be dangerous for Raleigh. Nn, let’s go right to the source of all this black… miasma.
Mir could see that the miasma had a current. And by following it, she was sure that she would arrive at the source sooner or later. However, the thicker the miasma was, the more danger she felt coming from them. Her instinct screamed at her not to come closer to that place.
Holding her breath, Mir opened the door where the miasma was the thickest. There, a stair leading to the basement silently invited Mir to come down. She stopped hearing the voice that tried to drive her away. It was as if whatever waiting for her was gathering its strength.
“…”
Rather than thinking pointlessly, Mir decided to take a step down to the basement. She pointed her flashlight, however, as if the black miasma ate the light, she still couldn’t see anything. Even by using the camera in her left hand, she still couldn’t see a single thing.
“…dark.” Mir complained to no one.
After she took another step forward, just like any cliché in a movie, the door behind her shut with a bang. Mir was surprised, but she already decided that she would only move forward. So, even if the door behind her was closed and locked by an unseen force, she wasn’t bothered by it.
…only, it became too dark to see.
Facing the unknown was the most dangerous thing to do. Mir understood that. She would rather face a dangerous ghost than travel into the unknown darkness. That was why, rather than moving forward, Mir stop to think.
…light from the flashlight is useless. The camera is also useless. There is no other light source in this place… I wonder if I can create a light source? Raleigh said that I can manipulate my spiritual power into… something that can give light? Well, it’s worth a try.
Mir closed her eyes. She could imagine something like a spiritual power moving easily. However, to give color to her spiritual power… well, it was not that difficult as well.
Mir opened her eyes and saw that right now, she was emitting dim yellow light. If she concentrated further, the light intensity would grow stronger. However, she estimated that even seeing three meters in front of her was enough, so she didn’t waste more power than she needed.
It was needed to know that Mir was not transforming her spiritual power into light. Transforming energy into another form of energy was possible to do. Only, she still didn’t have the ability to do that. So, the best thing she could do right now was changing the color of her spiritual power from colorless into something with color. This, however, meant that only people who could see spiritual power could see her emitting light from her body. Normal people wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.
After making sure that she could clearly see everything in front of her, Mir started taking another step down the stairs. It was soon she could see the entire basement. There was a lot of furniture covered by heavy dusty clothes. However, those were not important. Mir knew they were probably that young brother’s stuff that was thrown because he was so useless.
More importantly, the position of the furniture created a path to another door deep within the basement. And Mir knew that the source of the miasma was from behind that door.
Taking a deep breath, Mir walked closer to the door. With every step she took, she felt like the pressure increased a lot. Trying to ignore the pressure, Mir finally managed to touch the handle of the door. It was not locked, fortunately. However, it was as cold as ice. And when Mir touched it, her instinct was no longer screaming at her. It was howling at her.
Slowly, she turned the handle and pushed it open. When she pushed it, she felt that everything that had been locked inside the room was running rampant through the door. Mir held her breath and tried to endure the force that passed through her body.
“…gh!” Mir groaned painfully. The force stopped rampaging in less than a minute, but for Mir, it felt like an hour had passed. Fortunately, her body was able to endure it.
“Yo, Mir! Fancy meeting you here!”
Mir widened her eyes in surprise. She saw the familiar figure… well, in her eyes, every ghost that didn’t have a human form had a similar figure. However, with that friendly tone of calling her, Mir instantly noticed that it was the ghost. It was really an unexpected reunion for Mir!
“…ghost!” Mir called out to it.
“Yeah, it’s me. By the way, when will you drop the way you call me? Do you know how difficult is it to refer me in narration!? The ghost, the ghosts, you see, there are many ghosts in this place you don’t even know which ghost you are talking about when you say the ghost! It’s time for you to call me by name, isn’t it? Come on, just give me a nam—oops!” The ghost suddenly moved unnaturally.
“…”
Mir looked at the ghost speechlessly. She felt like the ghost was not talking to her, but to someone else… but it was not important. She felt that it was right though. It was the time for it to have a proper name.
“Watch out!” The ghost suddenly coiled its tentacle around Mir and pulled her closer to it. Right after it pulled Mir, the place where she stood was destroyed by something Mir couldn’t see, even though she could see everything in the room just fine.
“Tsk, how stubborn! Mir, stop daydreaming and try to survive as long as you can!” The ghost reprimanded her.
Mir nodded. “…nn. Zed.”
“…Zed? That’s the name you give to—”
“…watch out.” This time, Mir used her spiritual power to form tentacles to coil Zed the ghost and pulled it closer to her. She couldn’t see the attack coming to it, however, she could somehow feel it. She felt like it was a breeze of wind… more or less.
“That’s dangerous! Thanks, Mir! Hm? Ah, you can manipulate your spiritual power? Oops! I think we shouldn’t talk during battle! Mir, stop talking and start concentrating on the enemy!” Zed rebuked her.
With a sweat dropped from her forehead, Mir nodded in agreement. “…agree.”
“But still, Mir, you have grown so powerful in… uwah!! Dangerous!! You really should stop talking!!!”
“…”