Chapter 14

Chapter 14 : Let’s Change the Look (4)

At the very top floor of the castle, I was thrown out over the railing and went tumbling down along the outer wall.

My first thought was that the rope was impressively long.

Apparently, once a person went through enough things, they could reach a half-enlightened state even in survival situations like this.

“Ghk!”

Never mind the scream. The rope snapped taut and crushed the breath out of me. It felt as though my insides were being squeezed out, and my eyes nearly popped from my head.

Once the heart-stopping moment passed—if the rope had been even a little longer, my face would have smashed into one of the protruding ornaments—I ground my teeth.

With my legs caught and my body hanging upside down, I somehow dragged myself upright and seized the rope.

“The rope was a little long, I suppooose. Ahahahahaha.”

Ru’s bright voice echoed down from above.

“What kind of overcoming exercise is this?!”

“If you look around carefully, there should be a doll stuck nearbyyy.”

A doll?

Gripping the rope tightly and bracing my feet against the outer wall, I looked around. I could see something jutting out in the distance.

It would have been nice if she had properly calculated the angle before dropping me in the first place.

I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out what it was, when Ru’s voice rang out again from above like a herald from the afterlife.

“It is a fingertip-sized model doll that looks like my lord. Did you find ittt?”

I found it.

I could see one tiny arm sticking out from a crack in the outer wall.

It was fortunate that it was so small. If it had been any bigger, it would have looked like something out of a horror story.

By the time I hauled myself back up with the doll in hand, Ru had already snatched it away with her usual bright expression.

After that, the pattern was obvious.

After retrieving the doll came repairing the aerial bridge, tying back the ropes of a swinging line, picking up letters caught on branches, cleaning the windows on the outer wall of the office, and so on.

This was not some support group for overcoming fears. I was simply a manual-labor slave.

Watching the red evening sun droop lower in the sky, I clenched my palms, rubbed raw and reddened from handling ropes all day.

“Ow, ow, ow…….”

“Thanks to you, the workload has gone down! Have you considered continuing this foreverrr?”

Ru stood beside me, smiling sweetly as she scraped at my temper.

The difficulty of the tasks she kept ordering me to do was clearly not something she had improvised on the spot.

“Be honest. Pan told you to do this, did he not?”

“Aah! How did you know?”

As of today, the fear-of-heights support group was abolished.

---

「(Excerpt omitted)……Ariti’s Frame was made of two pairs of transparent, delicate wings. Brimming with light and shimmering in rainbow colors, her Frame was so enchanting that one felt one might lose consciousness simply by looking at it.

When Karon first faced those immense, overwhelming wings on the battlefield, perhaps his heart had already begun to tilt.

Even while hiding his own gloomy Frame, even while blinding himself with light until it scorched his own flesh.

“I wanted to tear your Frame away.”

“Were you always so lacking in both common sense and manners?”

“If I shattered it finely and sealed it in a bottle, would it not be more beautiful than any star or jewel?”

“How rude. Do not speak as though my Frame were some ornament. I am not your accessory.”

“Ah…… that would not be so bad either.”

In contrast to the light smile on Karon’s face, the contents of the conversation were nothing but cruel……(To be continued)」

Just when it seemed that the text was finally about to reveal something useful about Frames, the letters vanished cleanly before my eyes.

I widened my eyes as much as I could, trying somehow to stop it, but it was almost as though it were once again emphasizing that my will had no influence over it.

That was because of my Contribution to the Original Work.

I glanced at the faint lamp, then waved a hand through the motes of light that still had not fully disappeared.

Ariti’s Frame had been transparent wings. It was different from Hwipone’s fluffy white-winged form. Pan had said his was not even wings at all, and if the man who tortured me counted as markings—

Then Frames, in other words, reflected each individual’s unique characteristics.

“They really can serve as a substitute for proof of identity.”

It seemed that the broader categories of Frames were loosely grouped by territory, more or less.

Come to think of it, I had not yet seen the Frames of the forest’s people. It was not as though they had never used their abilities, so perhaps theirs simply manifested in a less visible manner.

In any case, it was obvious that one needed a Frame for one’s abilities and identity to be fully recognized.

There was nothing good about having it proven that I was Underfolk, but if that was possible, I wondered whether I might gain some sort of ability too.

I opened 〈Easy Even for Children! Bringing Out Your Frame (2)〉, the book Ru had given me.

Using Original Work Loading had failed to achieve what I wanted, since it stopped just before the crucial part about bringing out a Frame, but this seemed worth trying.

“A Frame is essence. It is part of what flows in your blood, something you already possess before you are even conscious of it. Therefore, even without being taught, you will naturally awaken to it…… Is this philosophy?”

The first volume had not been this difficult, but in the second one, the difficulty seemed to have shot up all at once.

After blinking a few times and rereading the vague description with unfocused eyes, I gave up.

It was veering into the sort of talk where the universe is you and you are the universe.

I flipped ahead several pages and searched for the practical section.

“Here it is. Focus on your fingertips and open the path of consciousness…….”

I spread both hands wide and did as the book instructed, focusing on my fingertips.

Whether it was only my imagination or whether I was truly doing it right, the moment I felt a faint tingling in my fingertips and curiosity stirred—

The light I had left on suddenly flickered, then went out, and a cold wind came through the open window.

I instinctively drew my outstretched hands back together and let my eyes adjust to the dark while darting them around.

Heeheehee—

“Aaaagh!”

In a room where no one but me should have been, I heard the sound of a child laughing.

That babbling little laugh was so unnervingly clear and precise, as though it were being hammered straight into my ears, that it only made my skin crawl harder.

I leapt to my feet, opened the door, and looked out.

The empty corridor was so silent that it proved there was no one there, without so much as a shifting shadow.

Swallowing hard in that eerie atmosphere, I closed the door again and walked toward the open window.

I thought perhaps the sound had come from outside, but the moment I leaned out and saw the glittering nightscape below, I realized again that this room was on one of the highest floors.

Slowly, I shut the open window.

Then I rubbed my gooseflesh-ridden arms.

“A g-ghost?”

The laughter still seemed to linger in my head even though it had long since stopped, and I found myself humming some nonsense tune whose lyrics I could not even remember.

Knock—knock—knock.

At that moment, someone knocked at the door.

It was almost always Ochel who knocked three times, so I immediately rose and reached for the doorknob.

‘But what if it is not?’

I had heard that if you opened the door to a ghost, that was the same as inviting it in.

While I hesitated, there came another short knock.

“Riwin?”

A voice accompanied it.

The tension I had pulled taut all the way to its limit abruptly released.

When I opened the door, Ochel was standing there holding a lamp, the wavering light illuminating her.

“I heard a scream, so I came. I thought you might have been startled by the lights going out.”

“Ah, it was nothing. I am fine.”

“It seems that the central supply apparatus has developed a slight problem. It is expected to be repaired by tomorrow night, so I would recommend going to bed early tonight.”

So it had not been because of a ghost.

“Ah, there still seem to be children wandering around nearby, so please check.”

“Children……?”

Tilting her head, Ochel sank into thought for a moment, then answered in a puzzled voice.

“There are no children living in the ruler’s castle.”

“Ah…… ha ha. I see.”

“Yes. You must have misheard. Still, just in case, I will look around.”

I should not have asked.

That made it worse.

Because if what I heard did not exist, then that laugh—

“Riwin? You are sweating cold.”

“It must have been warmer than I thought. I really should sleep early.”

I shut the door and collapsed onto the bed.

Sleep early, my foot.

Once my body had broken out in goosebumps like that, I could not relax completely, and I had no choice but to spend the rest of the night wide awake.

If there was one fortunate thing, it was that nothing else truly happened after that.

---

I was walking down the arched corridor, absently watching a bird beyond the window, when Pan quietly approached.

“Looks like you are heading to the Record Archive?”

I turned my head after the bird as it flapped away.

“Today’s the last day.”

I rotated my aching wrist and rubbed the dark circles that had sunk all the way to my chin.

Part of it was because I had not slept well last night, but the larger reason was that I had been forced to copy texts for an entire week.

Ru had shown me no mercy. She kept piling on more work than I could write through, and eventually I reached the point where I no longer had the mental space to understand what I was copying and simply wrote.

The root cause of all of that was Pan, standing there with that perfectly untroubled face.

I glanced at the golden notification window occupying the corner of my vision.

It was the 【Epic】 Quest.

Pressing my fingers to my temple, I recalled what had happened the previous night.

Ding!

[Congratulations! You have met the minimum conditions required for main-episode progression.]

[The 【Epic】 Quest will now proceed.]

【Epic】 Find the Surface Folk in League with the Underfolk

You have safely become a member of the forest’s domain!

You seem to be enjoying a peaceful interlude. However, beyond your sight, the flow of the Original Work is already advancing.

There is a traitor within the forest’s domain. Before the Original Work’s episode can unfold, you must find the traitor and purge them.

My, how long do you suppose this peace will last?

▶Traitor (0/1)

▶Original Work Contribution greatly increases

〈Tip〉 There is not much time left before the episode begins. Please make use of Original Work Loading!

It had happened after Ochel left, when I had been rummaging around trying to get some sleep, and then gave up and started struggling to bring out my Frame again.

The moment the eerie sound of a child laughing came again, the system barged in with an alarm and threw me the Epic Quest before disappearing.

If the one I received after clearing the tutorial was the large overarching theme that ran all the way to the ending of the Original Work, then this one was more like a bridging quest that led into the main episode.

“Riwin, did anything unusual happen last night, by any chance?”

Tilting his head as he asked, Pan looked at me. I stared at him in return, then glanced again at the golden 【Epic】 text in the corner of my vision.

Pan, a Surface Folk in league with the Underfolk me.

So that was why he had been an important character.

The thought fit a little too perfectly, and I hastily waved away the wild fantasies rising in my head before swallowing hard.

What exactly would he even hope to accomplish by being in league with a minor character like me who knew nothing?

“What are you thinking so hard about?”

Should I tell him or not?

“Did you not say that you know everything that happens in the forest?”

“All of a sudden?”

If he already knew, then it would probably be better not to say anything and risk making myself suspicious.

I scratched absently at the tip of my chin, then met Pan’s eyes again.

“Hypothetically.”

“……?”

“If someone wanted contact with the Underfolk, would that be possible?”

“……Why ask that? Has your memory returned?”

“No. But if someone were interested in the Underfolk, would they try approaching me?”

“You are acting suspicious today.”

Pan ran his gaze over me with half-lidded eyes, then raised his brows and nodded.

“If a Surface Folk is interested in the Underfolk, it is usually only when they are thinking about how to kill them properly, so I am not sure what sort of answer you want from me, but—”

Pan patted my shoulder a few times as he went on. His gleaming eyes were a bonus.

“—yes, it is entirely possible.”

“That sounds to me like there are people who might approach me in order to kill me.”

“You catch on quickly, do you not?”

He was teasing me.

That was absolutely teasing.

“Forget it. It was my mistake to ask you in the first place.”

“If you are uneasy because you heard the rumors too, there is no need to worry.”

“Rumors?”

“Is that not what this is about? Strange rumors have been spreading all night.”

Had something really happened overnight that would be enough to start rumors?

Seeing the baffled expression on my face, Pan laughed lightly and began listing them.

“Rumors about children, or fairies, or flowers floating in the air, or people seeing parents they buried long ago.”

The warm sunlight suddenly turned cold enough to raise goosebumps.

So the child’s laughter I heard last night had not been heard by me alone.

“Was that when the lights went out?”

“You too?”

“I had…… something similar happen.”

“Hmmm.”

Why. What are you looking at me like that for?

Pan stared at me with a look full of secretive intent, then turned me by the shoulders and gently pushed me toward the Record Archive.

Then he leaned down and whispered near my ear.

“You did not unlock your Frame, did you?”

I flinched for no reason, then quickly shook my head. Thoroughly creeped out by Pan, I hurried away toward Ru under the excuse that she was calling for me.

I decided I would talk to him about the traitor later.