That evening, the day Cecil’s friends ca to visit the mansion—
“Cecil, um... hey.”
“Hmm?”
“There’s sothing I’ve been wondering about. Can I ask you?”
As soon as Cecil entered the room, her friends, who had been huddled together, quickly sward her with questions.
“Of course you can. What’s up?”
Cecil, tilting her head in confusion, accepted their questions with a bright smile. But her friends only exchanged uneasy glances before one of them finally stepped forward.
“We were walking down the hallway earlier, and... we saw sothing strange.”
“Strange?”
A female student, gathering her courage, finally spoke up.
“We saw soone co out of the bathroom, look around all suspiciously, and then dash into a room.”
“...Huh?”
Cecil furrowed her brows, clearly puzzled.
“But the really strange part is... that person looked just like His Highness the Prince.”
“...Ah.”
A cold sweat began forming on Cecil’s forehead.
Don’t tell they saw her?
Unlike before, Cecil was now openly aligned with Whitney and privy to his secrets. That included the one about Princess Katarina hiding out inside the mansion.
“But what was really weird was their appearance.”
“...Their appearance?”
“Yeah, like... how do I say this...”
Just as Cecil was trying to quickly fabricate an excuse, she froze at what ca next.
“It definitely looked like the Prince, but... there was clearly a chest.”
“...What?”
“And it wasn’t just that! The clothes—they looked... kind of feminine.”
Other students who had witnessed the sa thing nodded in agreent behind the first speaker.
“And long hair, too.”
“Yeah, it was really weird.”
Unfortunately for everyone involved, Cecil hadn’t been inford that Princess Katarina was actually a woman cross-dressing as the Crown Prince.
Wait... does she also enjoy dressing up as a woman?
With that tragic misunderstanding, Cecil started shaking her head frantically, ntally spiraling over the future of the Empire.
“So... what did you do?”
Trying to pull herself together under her friends’ increasingly suspicious gazes, she managed to ask.
“We wanted to talk to them since it was so strange, but the mont they saw us, they freaked out and slamd the door shut.”
“......”
“And, uh... it just happened to be the room next to ours...”
As the story went on, Cecil’s expression visibly worsened.
“We pressed our ears to the wall a little, and we heard a woman’s voice.”
“......”
“I-I an, it was totally unintentional! Just by chance...”
One of her sharper friends hurried to clarify, but the damage was already done.
“Oh, and I saw so maids going into that room too.”
“...R-Really?”
“Hey, do you know anything about it?”
Of course, a clueless male student had to go and ask the fatal question.
“U-Uh... not really? Haha...”
Cecil bit her lip, then forced a bright smile and tried to laugh it off.
“But honestly, there’s a lot of strange stuff in this mansion.”
“Like what?”
Unfortunately, once the subject was broached, it beca impossible to stop.
“When I walked through the hallways, the servants were smiling the whole ti—but like, in this weird way.”
“Y-Yeah! Like they were forcing it!”
“O-Our mansion’s staff don’t act like that.”
Even though Cecil was quite popular among commoner students, a few of her friends were nobles, and they were used to more composed, confident house staff—unlike the behavior in the Ringaarden household.
“M-Maybe it’s just your imagination?”
“No, listen. I went up to say hi, and one of them literally scread and ran away!”
“I just asked where the bathroom was, and she said she didn’t know anything...”
“Honestly, it feels like everyone here is scared of sothing.”
As the paranoia began to escalate, one of the boys hesitantly pulled sothing out of his pocket.
“A-And... I found this near the window.”
Everyone’s gaze naturally snapped to what he was holding.
“...A note?”
“I don’t really know. I found it where that maid ran off from. The contents are kind of...”
What he held was a half-burned, blackened note.
Lily, Sheryl. You’re on basent cleaning duty today.
ㄴ Will there be blood puddles again?
ㄴ Dunno. I think not lately.
ㄴ Last ti, there were a bunch of intestines...
The note cut off eerily where the burn marks began.
“...This is why I keep saying not to use paper notes for remote communication.”
“Huh?”
“I an, uh...”
The chilling air in the room thickened, and Cecil, who had muttered to herself, quickly tried to salvage the mood with a smile.
“Haha, looks like the maids were just playing a prank!”
“R-Really?”
“Yeah, because—”
And then, with the brightest smile she could muster, she delivered her line clearly to her friends.
“There’s no basent in this mansion.”
That was the mont everyone felt a chill down their spines—and goosebumps erupted across the room.
After all, though she didn’t have that signature squint, Cecil was still Whitney’s sister. And when she smiled coldly, she exuded a remarkably similar aura of silent nace.
“O-Oh. Haha...”
“M-Must’ve been a misunderstanding...”
“Yeah, it’s just a joke. A joke!”
Having just narrowly regained their senses, ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) the group wisely decided—without needing to say it aloud—not to pursue the secrets of House Ringaarden any further.
“...That was just a misunderstanding, right?”
“Shh.”
And not because Cecil had suddenly started smiling with narrowed eyes.
“So, uh... what should we do now?”
“Right! We brought a bunch of stuff to play with, didn’t we?”
Trying to shake off the tension, everyone began rifling through their bags.
“Wait.”
Just then, while they were unpacking the gas, one student suddenly furrowed their brows.
“Don’t you hear footsteps in the hallway?”
Everyone froze and turned their ears toward the door.
— Thump... Thump...
They could clearly hear soone walking slowly down the hallway.
“Wait, but weren’t the servants told not to roam around at night so we could play comfortably?”
Already rattled from the impromptu ghost story session, Cecil’s friends turned pale.
“......”
And then, the footsteps stopped.
Right. In. Front. Of. Cecil’s. Door.
“...What was that?”
“D-Don’t say it...”
Everyone leaned in, barely breathing.
— Creeeeeeak...
The door to Cecil’s room began to slowly open.
“Eeeeeeeek!”
Screams erupted as the students all scrambled backwards.
Thankfully, the person who appeared wasn’t a ghost or monster.
“Cecil, are you enjoying ti with your friends?”
“...You scared !”
“What’s with the reaction? You look like you’ve committed a cri or sothing.”
It was just Whitney, peeking his head through the door with his usual creepy smile.
“You barged in without knocking!”
“Ahaha, my bad.”
But to Cecil’s easily frightened friends, his presence was indistinguishable from that of an actual apparition, so Cecil had to raise her voice for them.
“So? What are you doing here? You promised not to interrupt us!”
“True. Nothing’s more boring than an adult barging into a kids’ gathering.”
“Then get out!”
Pretending to pout at her scolding, Whitney finally got to the point.
“I was just looking for Lady Adel. I have sothing to discuss with her.”
“...Huh?”
“Has anyone seen her?”
The students glanced at each other—then realization struck.
“W-Wait. Where is Lady Adel?”
“Wasn’t she with the girls?”
“W-We weren’t with her from the start. Wasn’t she with the boys?”
“No way, that can’t be...”
The kids all began to panic as they realized Adel had been missing for quite a while.
“When did she disappear?”
“I thought she ca into the mansion with us?”
“I-I don’t rember...”
While the others grew more confused, one calm voice spoke up.
“I’m not sure, but I think I saw soone in the garden.”
It was Ember, quietly raising her hand.
“...Ah. I see.”
Whitney nodded as if everything made sense now. Then, as he turned to leave, he paused.
“Oh, and everyone? I’d recomnd not wandering the mansion at night.”
“...Huh?”
“Ah, it’s nothing serious.”
Seeing everyone freeze at his odd remark, he gave them a gentle smile and added—
“There’s just a monster that roams the mansion after dark.”
With that final statent, the temperature in the room plumted several degrees.
“Aha... Haha...”
And then Whitney vanished, wearing a disturbingly pleased smile.
“...Cecil?”
A girl whispered nervously, casting a wary glance at her friend.
“H-He was joking, right?”
But Cecil, who’d been doing her best to laugh off the haunted mansion stories all evening, said nothing this ti.
“C-Cecil?”
“......”
“W-Why aren’t you saying anything? You’re scaring ...”
The reason for her silence?
Because she had a suspicion that Whitney might be telling the truth.
That thing I saw the other night... wasn’t a dream?
The previous night, she’d groggily passed by Whitney’s room on her way to the bathroom—and saw sothing grotesque crawling in front of his door.
The maids who had already witnessed the creature fused to Whitney’s arm in the basent were well aware, but back then, Cecil had been away at the Academy and hadn’t known anything.
“...Want to play a board ga?”
And so, what followed in Cecil’s room was the quietest, most emotionally repressed board ga session in history.
***
anwhile, in the Ringaarden estate’s garden—
“Ugh, I shouldn’t have co...”
Adel sat alone on the fountain, staring up at the moon and muttering.
“I’ve never hung out with girls my age before...”
She hung her head gloomily.
— Rustle...
“...Huh?”
Suddenly, a rustling ca from the bushes nearby.
“Who’s there?”
It’s worth noting that no one—no one—was ever supposed to be in the garden at night.
— Rustle, rustle, rustle...
“W-Who are you!?”
A recent rumor had been spreading among the staff—sothing unnatural had been appearing in the garden.
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