<207 - While She Sleeps>
If I had to summarize Professor Sadako’s midterm exam in one word, it would be [Mansion of Fear].
━━━
Entry 1 of the New Maid’s Diary
Today is my first day working at Sadako House.
My employer is Maid Jang Basilite, a very strict and scary-looking lady with glasses.
They’ve hired the fifth new maid this month, so I need to be super careful not to get scolded.
I mustn’t forget to pick up the [Work Key] from the first room on the left at the entrance on the first floor, which is the [Guard Room].
━━━
The guard room’s visiting plaque, illuminated by the dim moonlight, is eerily gloomy.
Amid the eerie atmosphere of the empty hallway, Jiang said,
“Let’s play rock-paper-scissors.”
“I’ll just go in! Next time, you go in Jiang.”
I flung the door open, and behind me, I heard, “Kugh, what a creepy…”
Picking up the keys and trying each room as it opened, I found dust-covered dining halls or empty guest rooms, and zombies hiding in the bathrooms, or skeletons rattling by the beds.
Honestly, this is kind of fun, isn’t it?
“I’m sorry I said I wanted to live in a fancy house, Papa! I’ll be good even in a small house…”
“Oknodie… please just keep Titosso quiet. It’s scarier because of him.”
“Hmm~ I guess that’s why my heart isn’t at ease! Want some candy?”
Titosso’s muttering abruptly stopped.
“No, that’s okay.”
“Really? That’s a shame…”
“What, what’s a shame?”
“I was curious about what kind of candy Titosso likes!”
“Just regular candy…”
Ah, I see.
I guess Reap bought too fancy candy just because she treats me like ‘Miss’.
Next time she visits, I’ll ask her for regular candy.
━━━
Entry 7 of the New Maid’s Diary
The bloody clothes of the missing new maids were found in the fireplace.
Indeed, what I saw that day of Miss Sadako was no hallucination or delusion.
She is not a person.
She is a vampire who lives off human blood!
I must hide quickly.
In the chimney.
In the attic on the third floor.
In the storage room in the basement.
If I don’t hurry, I’ll get caught!
━━━
Following the professor’s quest line, I’ve been wandering through the maze mansion, and before I knew it, the diary was reaching its end.
Clank.
With the sound of a locking mechanism clicking open in the distance, monstrous howls filled the air.
“Should we hide separately?”
“Please, let’s stay together…”
“I’ll shoot my beloved pink light, so don’t throw it away! Hiiiing!”
Their desperate pleas made it impossible to have a competition over who could survive longer.
The three of us squeezed into the basement storage room, holding our breath as we heard the monsters’ footsteps squelching across the ground, glancing at their legs. The thrill was just intense!
It really did go according to the syllabus.
But are there so many monsters tainted with dark energy?
It seems ghosts that I’ve never seen in lecture time are drawn to the mansion’s eerie aura.
Ghosts floating lazily in the air are phasing through walls and ceilings at their leisure.
‘Jiang and Lin would faint at this.’
Amid the ghosts, I also spotted a student ghost wandering endlessly after suffering an unjust death at the academy.
Judging by the school uniform, they aren’t a first-year, so it could be counted as a natural death, but to first-years, it all looks the same no matter which grade died.
In a cramped space like this, listening to Titosso’s confession or Jiang poking my waist to do something about it is just bothersome!
Should I use magic to drive them away?
But what if the monsters inside the mansion all come flooding in, sensing the dark mana?
Just as my worries deepened…
Slowly…
From the corner of my vision, above the wine storage, a familiar ghost was visible.
‘Fake Lin?’
Slowly approaching from the blind spot, I watched the ghost peering blankly at the wall.
That stance resembled a cat stalking a sparrow perched on a branch.
Ugh. No way?
That ominous feeling always turns out to be right.
In an instant, Fake Lin lunged and grabbed the ghost’s head, pulling it down to the floor.
Thud.
Although there was no physical force, the ghost looked at Fake Lin in protest.
Of course, the misbehaved Lin didn’t look apologetic, avoiding eye contact.
Ahhh!
With a wide-open mouth, she gulped it down.
“You shouldn’t eat that! Jiji jiji!”
“Whaat?! What’s going on?”
“Titosso. Did you eat candy?”
“I didn’t eat any!”
“Then did you mistake a rock for candy?”
“I didn’t eat anything, I said!”
Jiang and Titosso, who had been startled, realizing they weren’t just kids, are stunned to see Fake Lin feeling revitalized after devouring a ghost.
“New Maid’s Ghost?”
“Oh! That’s Oknodie’s ghost friend!”
Oh right. Titosso must have seen Fake Lin with Hestia before, right?
“Ah, so that’s the one I’ve heard of?”
“Yup. That’s probably the spirit of the child turned into a plant that’s in Oknodie’s room.”
“Seeing it like this, ghosts aren’t that scary. They’re even a little cute.”
Jiang, who suffers from undead & ghost phobia based on her belief that beings that can’t harm can’t scare, might be reducing her phobia today.
Cautiously, Jiang approached Fake Lin.
Gently reaching out, she dared to touch Fake Lin’s cheek.
A historic moment for her phobia treatment!
“?”
As Fake Lin’s cheek was touched, she tilted her head in confusion.
One of Jiang’s fingers, still in the process of spiritual digestion, got caught up and disappeared back into her mouth.
“Whoa! I thought it was a jumping spider!”
“Oknodie. I just thought of something. There are no good ghosts in this world.”
In an instant, Jiang jumped up to the top of the wine storage, hanging like a cat fleeing a scary cat.
Too bad for Jiang; her ghost phobia treatment ended in a complete failure, huh?
“I’m saying, if you pick up any spirit carelessly, Jiang will be shocked like that!”
Just ignoring my scolding, Fake Lin continued to play.
I so badly want to stretch her cheeks and scold her.
[Successfully obtained the [New Maid’s Red Flag] with friends and escaped from the Mansion of Fear safely.]
[Situational Understanding Experience +10]
[Hiding Experience +5]
[Analytical Thinking Experience +5]
[Psychological Prediction Experience +5]
[Successfully completed the midterm exam for the lecture [Night-time Activities for Adventurers].]
[You gain 100 points.]
[You have finished your first-year, first-semester midterms.]
[You gain 200 points.]
Was Jiang looking so scared really that funny?
Lin couldn’t resist. Whenever there was an opening, she would stick her tongue out and go “Baaaaaa!” in Jiang’s field of vision.
Seeing Lin’s bright red tongue—something that ghostly figures don’t need—sticking out while Jiang was silenced was quite funny as she was quietly stifling a scream.
“If you keep acting like Lin, I’ll tell Sing.”
“!”
Does she know that her life depends on Sing?
Suddenly realizing this, Fake Lin quickly hopped into the ring.
Guess growing a daughter isn’t useless! Sing’s also prone to noticing things quickly!
So annoying, I could die!
“Oknodie. Did you do well on the test?”
“Yawn. I think I did okay.”
“You must be really tired. Go on in and sleep.”
“Goodnight!”
“Sleep well.”
Returning to the dormitory, I greeted Isabel in the hallway and tossed my clothes into the laundry basket.
By putting them on the automatic laundry magic circle, they’ll be washed, dried, and ironed by morning, ready to hang.
Because of the rotten smell of corpses and dirt on my body, I took a shower before flopping onto the bed.
Whirring.
As I dried my hair, I heard a tap tap from the wall.
“Oh right. Thanks! Because of you, I did well on the exam!”
“…I let you off because I felt sorry for you.”
The Answering Door is quite kind too.
When it was grumbling about low favorability, it still correctly taught me the exam questions.
Thanks to that, not just Professor Plato’s exam but many tests went smoothly.
“Don’t go around getting scolded… if you do, I’ll scold you too.”
“Okay.”
Should I consider this a good neighbor?
Later, I should take it outside once to show it in the wall.
If some troublesome demonic clan comes out, I’ll just shove it back in instead.
Hop!
After drying my hair, I snuggled under the covers.
After a packed day of exams, my eyelids grew heavy quickly.
“You little one. Didn’t you ask to show me something before bed?”
“Umm… later…”
As I struggled to respond to the talent evaluation hat’s words, I gradually closed my eyes.
While Oknodie slept,
the aptitude evaluation hat took out its arms stored inside it and climbed onto the bed.
“Although I asked you to show me in the morning, I can’t help but be curious.”
The aptitude evaluation hat had discerned the talents of countless scholarship students at the foundation, but it had rarely found a talent as remarkable as Oknodie’s.
That too, based on the criteria before they reunited; since their reunion, Oknodie has shown talents that are utterly absurd.
Curious about how amazing Oknodie’s status window and function window would be, the hat crawled up to Oknodie’s bedside and covered their head with the hat.
[The Aptitude Evaluation Hat is examining Oknodie’s status window.]
[The Aptitude Evaluation Hat is examining Oknodie’s function window.]
The eyes on the hat were filled with shock.
“This is the spec of an 11-year-old?”
