The Author Is Speechless
Chapter 268: The Mourning Ceremony. Part 7

Chapter 268: The Mourning Ceremony. Part 7

’I am sure I just heard a scream,’ Adonis mumbled as he kept opening every door and repeating a single sentence, "If anyone is inside the room, please come out because I won’t be coming back here to check again. We are running out of time. Someone might disappear."

He closed the sliding door and approached the nearest room. As he kept repeating the same sentence, Rika spoke, "Why are you saying that someone might get lost?" She was the 1st one to lose the game because Adonis smelt her evil aura quickly. She was hiding under a table so it was easy to find her. Also, Adonis wanted to annoy her.

She also complained, "Why are we even holding hands?"

Ryoko then replied, "You don’t get it, do you?" He smiled and looked at Rika.

"Don’t get what?"

"It’s been raining for over an hour. The house has more than 30 rooms and the worst thing is it’s increasing as we are walking deep inside the house. Don’t you think it’s odd? The house looked small when we walked in. And now, it’s the size of a football field. This type of house should belong to aristocrats back in the Meiji era and if that’s really true, this house should be under national security. Then why is it inside a forest where nobody lives?"

"B..because it’s deep inside the forest?"

"You still don’t get it huh? This house isn’t an ordinary house. It’s a haunted one. Right, Futaba?"

At that moment, a door suddenly opened on its own freaked Rika, causing her to let go of Ryoko’s hand. A white long hand came out of the room quickly to grab her leg to pull her inside the dark room but Adonis didn’t hesitate to show off his skill.

He quickly grabbed the white hand and sucked all of the evil aura from the evil spirit’s body, causing it to lose its energy and turn into dust.

But the grab was so strong that it fractured her leg. She screamed in pain. "Oi, why did you let your hand go? I told you to hold his hand tightly."

"My..my leg!! It hurts!! Aaahh!!!"

"Futaba! What did you just do, man?" Ryoko asked as he firmly grabbed Futaba’s hand. He was also scared after seeing a white hand come out of nowhere and grabbed her. Adonis then looked at the wound and said, "You stole something from this house, right."

"How did you know? More importantly, do something to my leg. It hurts like hell."

"I already warned you guys not to touch anything. And you had the audacity to steal. Throw away the thing you stole in the room or you will keep getting attacked by them."

"Them? Futaba, you knew it, right? You knew about the house and yet, you didn’t warn us."

"Didn’t warn? I warned you from the very start, from the moment I opened the door. It was you guys who decided to enter the house and it was also your idea that we should play hide and seek in a house that barely falls into the category of a normal, ordinary house. And yet, you have the guts to blame me? Aren’t you even thankful for the fact that I just saved you? Maybe I should’ve let that thing drag you inside."

Ryoko then said, "Okay guys, calm down! It’s not the time to argue about it now. We can’t change the past. But tell me Futaba, what did you just do with the thing that grabbed Rika’s leg?"

"Oh, that? I have a charm given by my grandma before she died. It keeps all the evil spirits away from me. I didn’t think this might work but I am surprised. Gosh, I thought I was going to die. But seeing this work really makes me feel happy now. I guess my grandma is my guardian spirit."

Futaba showed him a tattoo under his eyelids by pulling it up and said, "See? This tattoo was drawn by her when I was 10. It was hella painful but I guess it works perfectly."

Seeing a star-like tattoo under his eyelids made both of them feel uneasy. They could also imagine how painful it was for him to get a tattoo under there.

’That’s a damn lie of course. This mark under my eye is the mark that I am a player. More like a QR code. This thing will also vanish when the quest will be over. Also, the body will die because the moment Futaba’s body accepted my soul’s link, his soul got kicked out, leading him to his next reincarnation.

The body will simply drop the moment I will leave.

"I understand that you are a hand sanitiser to evil spirits but help me now. I don’t think I can walk." Rika complained as she tried to bandage her leg with a piece of fabric from her skirt.

"You don’t have to tie it up. My touch can also heal wounds given by evil spirits, from what I heard from my grandma."

Or course, it was a lie too. He just didn’t want any burden so he used the energy he accumulated from the evil spirit to heal her leg.

After healing her leg good as new, Rika stood up and said, "Let’s find the others and leave quickly. I don’t want to stay in this house any longer."

"Yes."

The clock hit 8:30. Adonis and the two found them quickly and told everyone that the house was haunted. They didn’t believe it at first but seeing Futaba making all the white hands vanish made them come back to reality.

But it was too late for Kanna who was dragged by the evil spirits inside the house. After they found Mahiko in a terrible state, all of them wanted to find Kanna but after searching the whole house for more than 2 hours, they had to give up, except for Mahiko.

As the rain stopped, all of them began to pack their things and leave but Mahiko was still running around the house, screaming out loud to find Kanna. All of the friends were sad because they couldn’t find Kanna but they all loved their lives. None of them wanted to go back inside so they forcefully pulled Mahiko out of the house to go back.

But he resisted.

"Let go of me, you devils!! Can’t you see Kanna is still inside?"

Ryoko and Hajime grabbed him by both of his hands and said, "Let’s go back, man. We will file a missing complaint right after we get out of the forest!"

"No!!! Let go of me! She’s inside can’t you see?"

"Where?" Hajime asked and looked in the direction where the house was.

Everyone looked at the house but saw nobody near any window. It was empty just like it was so Futaba said, "Mahiko! Why are you acting like that? Why can’t you understand that we can’t simply send anyone back inside the house? We already have lost Kanna so we can’t let another person get lost in front of our eyes again."

Everyone agreed except for Mahiko who was trying to run inside the house and look for Kanna. But Rika then said, "Let him go."

Everyone was shocked to hear her statement.

"What are you talking about, Rika? Have you gone mad? Didn’t you see those hands coming out of nowhere? If this punk goes in again, there is no guarantee he might come back," Hajime complained as he pinned Mahiko to the ground. But he was still resisting as if he was under some kind of spell.

And then, something terrible happened again. The house disappeared and all of them found themselves at the very entrance of the forest. They were in front of the mountain god’s shrine gate.

Futaba then said, "See? I warned you guys not to go inside the house. Now Kanna has disappeared and Mahiko is almost acting like a madman. Who’s going to take care of him now?"

At that moment, Mahiko who was acting wild somehow got away from his friends’ grasp and tried to enter through the gate. But he slipped on the 1st stair, leading him to fall right on his hand pretty badly.

’Ah, here we go again...’ Adonis mumbled and then helped him to get up. "Let’s move, everyone. It’s getting late.’

After the pain he felt on his hand, he came back to his senses and kept quiet till all of them reached home. Futaba left Umiro and Mahiko at the police station before calling a cap. He was also exhausted after using his energy for healing almost everyone so the moment he reached home, he just fell on his bed and went into a deep slumber.

[Congratulations for clearing the 1st stage of the game!]

[You must continue the 2nd quest in a month before the game reloads again which may cause you to lose some of your divine Qi]

But Adonis paid no heed to the floating screen which was in front of him. All he was focusing on was the soft bed under his weak body.

’Just let me sleep, damn it. It’s been a while since I felt like this. Ah, sleeping feels really good. I wish I could...sleep..forev..."