Chapter 923: Of Course There’s Hidden Rooms
Chapter 923: Of Course There’s Hidden Rooms
We followed him down the corridor where he showed us where the supposed thieves had ransacked the house.
At first, he wanted to bring us to another part of the manor until I noticed one particular room had a smoky smell coming from there.
"What’s that?" I asked, pointing to the room I had identified where the smell came from.
He paused and seemed to grimace slightly like he really didn’t want me to notice that room.
"It’s... It’s just the kitchen."
"Don’t you smell something from there?"
"It’s the kitchen... That’s normal right?"
"Hmmm... Let’s start from there then."
"What? There’s nothing in the kitchen though!"
You really can’t act more suspicious than you already have, my guy...
"Since there’s nothing there, let’s just take a quick look before moving on."
"But... There’s... Alright..."
He probably figured that trying to stop us anymore than this would be too suspicious so he relented.
We ended up in the kitchen where the place was in absolute shambles. It looked like a tornado had blown through the area before an earthquake destroyed what was left and then something came along to burn half of it down.
Wait... I think I can piece together what happened here...
I know monsters attacked this place and killed the owners so that might explain the tornado part. The event also probably happened a long time ago so eventually the stuff started to break down and they collapsed which explained the earthquake part...
Then this guy who has absolute no cooking skill tried to cook something and ended up burning half the kitchen down.
Yeah... That’s probably what happened.
Man... Did you take a cursed start bane or something? Because I think your decisions so far all just suck.
I turned to him, "Did the kitchen look like this or did the thieves burn it down too?"
"Ah... Yeah... The thieves did that..."
This guy...
"Why did they even do that to the kitchen of all places?" I questioned.
He shrugged, "I dunno man. Maybe they were hungry or something. Look, can we go now?"
Before I could answer, Katsuki called out from the side, "Mistress."
I turned to her and she was standing over what looked like a hatch that was half hidden behind a few broken barrels.
He didn’t even get to finish his words before Katsuki stepped forward and sliced up the hatch into pieces without saying a single word.
I was prepared to shield her in case the rune was some kind of trap that would explode or something if it was cut, but thankfully that didn’t happen.
I peeled into the hatch to see a set of stairs going down to a tunnel where a faint glow of light could be seen at the end.
This time, he didn’t say anything but joined me in staring down the hatch.
"Been down here before?" I prodded, trying to gauge his reaction.
Instead of answering, he took the lead and started descending the stairs instead.
I turned to Katsuki who only gave me a curt nod in response to show that she was ready before I also started descending down the steps and into the tunnel below.
I’m not sure what other excuses he was going to give since the presence of light down here meant that someone was maintaining it and that this tunnel was being frequented by at least one person.
When we reached the bottom floor, we found ourselves in a relatively small room which was obviously a cellar judging by the wine racks and dusty old bottles still left on them.
I guess the monsters that attacked the previous owners never managed to get down here... And the owners themselves might have perished in the kitchen right in front of this hatch before they could open it.
Hmm... Everything looks normal though? So I don’t know why he tried to attack me for noticing that hatch? Or maybe there’s a secret entrance or something?
But even if there is, how do we--
There was a soft click before the floor started to rumble.
I thought that we had fallen into a trap only to see the Off-Worlder had pulled on one of the bottles on the wine racks which caused the part of the wall beside it to swing open inwards.
The Off-Worlder wasn’t even looking at us and was just staring at the wall winging open without a word.
Is he possessed now? Was he going to just say something like the ghost of the previous owners possessed him and guided him down here?
I got to give him credit I suppose, because that would be a pretty wacky plan if he really did try to use that as an excuse. At least that’s creative.
Now the next question was where the secret door led to. Was it another cellar? Their secret stash? Or maybe even the seeds for planting?
Turns out, it was none of them and the moment we stepped past the secret entrance... I found myself standing in a dungeon...
No, not one of those Dungeons that had Monsters in them, but the dungeon with all the whips, chains, locks and they even had a few holding cells down here as well.
It wasn’t even a small one either because I saw another door at the end of the room that seemed to lead to another room that was also another Dungeon judging by the small window at the top of the door.
He then turned to me, "It seems like I should have just led you here from the start instead of wasting all that time..."
I tilted my head at him, pretending that I had no idea what he was talking about, "What do you mean? Are there more Monsters down here that you had to lock away behind that door and hatch because you couldn’t defeat it?
He shook his head and opened up his arms as though he was in prayer, "You must have been wondering where the slaves that you were looking for had gone as well as the person behind their disappearance, right? Well look no further in that case because the person responsible is now standing right in front of you."
Eh? He’s actually admitting to it? That’s a surprise.
So now what?
nownovels