I pushed Isaac away and reached for the Ouija board.
-What’s wrong? You don’t seem to be in a good mood.
Was it because he didn’t enjoy the garden party today? As I looked at him curiously, Isaac smiled weakly.
“Kind Mia. I had a bit of a tough day today.”
-What happened?
“Hmm… it’s a secret.” Saying that, Isaac patted my head.
What could have happened to make him act like this?
I quietly accepted his touch. He was petting me a little longer than usual today. But since he said he had a tough day, I had to let him.
“By the way, Mia, there’s something I’m curious about.”
-What is it?
“You… are you a human by any chance?”
His words made me flinch, and I stared at Isaac. Did he notice because I speak so well?
What’s the best way to answer this? If I said I was human, he would ask who I was and try to find me. I had thought about this before, but I always came to the same conclusion. I didn’t want to meet him in human form. I was scared.
Despite having affection for him, I also wanted to stay away. My goal was to repay my debt as quickly as possible, leave the mansion, and escape from the night world. I wanted to live a life completely unrelated to Isaac.
-No. I’m a cat.
So I had no choice but to answer that way.
Isaac smiled faintly and said, “Right? I must have had a strange thought.” With that, Isaac hugged me and lay down on the bed.
I lay on his stomach, staring at him. Isaac gently stroked me. The cold expression I saw during the day was nowhere to be found.
“Mia, I wish you were human…” His voice was wistful, like someone speaking of a long-cherished dream. As he tickled my chin, he said, “There’s so much I want to do for you. If you were human, I feel like I could do even more.”
“Meow.”
“I’d feed you delicious food every day, buy you nice clothes, let you live in a wonderful house… I’d let you do anything you want.”
Oh, that’s a tempting offer. Who wouldn’t be interested in living in luxury?
“And I’d keep you by my side forever…”
Hmm. I took back what I just thought. No matter how luxurious it is, it would mean nothing if I were trapped in the mansion.
“Where are you during the day, Mia? I want to find you.”
“Meow.” I shook my head.
Isaac tickled my chin again. “Don’t want to?”
“Meow.”
“Why…?” Isaac looked at me with eyes that seemed ready to spill tears at any moment.
Sigh, he’s making me feel soft-hearted.
I stood up on his stomach and touched the Ouija board.
-It’s a secret.
“Mia, you have a lot of secrets.” He looked disappointed, but he didn’t press further.
Isaac gently stroked me as he spoke. “I need to find you… Meeting you only at night isn’t enough. Every time I wait for you, and on the days you don’t come, I’m constantly worried something might have happened…” His eyes were filled with nothing but kindness.
Isaac kissed the top of my head and said, “Since you died, I’ve wished every day that I had died instead of you. I’ve often thought how wonderful it would be if I could share my lifespan with you.”
“…”
“So, you really need to be careful here. The thought of sending you off and the remaining time tearing my heart apart…”
All I could do was rub my cheek against his.
The more we talked, the more worried I became about what was to come. The ending of this story is Isaac’s death. To end this night, Isaac must die. But isn’t there another way? A way to end this story without Isaac dying… But no matter how hard I thought, I couldn’t find an answer.
Isaac held me for what felt like hours before he finally put me down. He lightly stroked my head and said, “Be really, really careful. Got it?”
“Meow.” I gave Isaac a small kiss on the back of his hand and left the room.
I should try to find Lian… But no matter how much I looked, Lian was nowhere to be seen. Now that I thought about it, I realized that this place summoned people randomly. Maybe Lian didn’t come today?
As I was looking around, I ran into some other people. They were glaring at me as usual.
What? Have you never seen a black cat before? I let out a low hiss and moved on.
In this form, it’s hard to activate the mechanisms, so today, I focused on finding items. After searching the rooms, nothing really stood out today.
Hmm… have I already looted everything I can? But there were still a few locked doors.
I decided to find a mechanism I could solve. As I entered one of the rooms, I found a piano. It was a mechanism that opened the door if you played it correctly. I didn’t remember the music, but I knew where the sheet music was. I headed to another room, grabbed the sheet music from under a wardrobe, and returned to the piano room.
Okay, so it’s Do, Mi…
I tapped the piano keys with my paw. After pressing the keys five times, the piano started playing automatically. Then, the door next to it opened wide.
Great, great. I hope there’s something valuable in the next room.
–Tick, tick…
As soon as I stepped into the next room, the sound of a clock ticking filled the air, and the scenery before me changed. Another vision started to appear. Where the windows should have been dark, light now seeped in. I heard something outside.
When I climbed up to the windowsill and looked out, I saw the Dias mansion’s pond. The servant who had pushed me into the water and the gardener were near the pond, and the butler was standing next to them.
“The stones around the pond have collapsed. Fix them.”
“At this hour?”
“We have guests coming tomorrow, so we have no choice.”
Although the servant and gardener looked displeased, they couldn’t refuse the butler’s orders. They began inspecting the heavy stones around the pond. As they busily worked at the pond’s edge, the butler suddenly pushed the gardener. The gardener, holding a heavy stone, fell straight into the pond. The servant, seeing this, turned to the butler in shock.
“Butler! What on earth…!”
Without hesitation, the butler pushed the servant into the pond as well. Both men desperately tried to swim to safety. But somehow, the maids had appeared behind the butler. They were all holding poles. The gardener and the servant’s eyes widened in terror.
“W-What are you doing…?! Keugh!”
The maids began pushing them back into the water with the poles to prevent them from getting out. The gardener struggled but eventually sank. The servant, desperately trying to climb out, was overwhelmed by the sheer number of people. They grabbed the servant and shoved his face into the water. The servant’s body thrashed violently in resistance, but soon it began to weaken. Eventually, it went still. They threw the servant’s body into the pond.
The butler then turned and spoke.
“It’s done, Master.”
Behind the butler stood the Marquis Dias. With a cold expression, he said,
“Well done. This should satisfy him for this month.”
He smiled with satisfaction.
I was dumbfounded. So the deaths of those two… weren’t due to a curse or Isaac’s doing but the Marquis Dias’s. And it didn’t seem like this was the first time.
Come to think of it, there have been an unusually high number of deaths and injuries at the Dias mansion. It must have been Marquis Dias’s doing, not a curse. In the original game, Isaac was said to have made a pact with a demon to lure people in… Perhaps Marquis Dias killed people for a similar reason.
Knowing the game’s content, it wasn’t something that should have surprised me. But seeing people die right before my eyes left me frozen in place.
As I stood there in a daze, the ticking clock suddenly brought me back to reality.
“Meow…”
I felt uneasy. While I wanted to leave this place immediately, Isaac came to mind. What kind of life had Isaac lived after I left…?
As I walked slowly down the hall, I noticed a group of people gathered.
“Ha… Where is the exit?”
“All the windows are blocked, so we can’t even try to get out.”
“I’m so sick of this. I just want to escape this nightmare…”
At that moment, footsteps began echoing from the other end of the corridor. It was too dark to see the face, so I could only see the feet.
Soon, a woman with brown hair appeared. The moment I saw her calm demeanor, I felt a strong sense of unease. It was because there was another woman among the group who had the same face.
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