“Eeeeeeeeeek…!”
At the faint yet unmistakable scream that pierced through the soundproofing and reached his ears, Yohan’s closed eyes snapped open.
Splash!
I quickly climbed out of the bathtub, roughly dried myself off, got dressed, and stepped out of the room with the Grimoire in hand.
Did something happen?
I looked around the corridor, trying to locate where the sound had come from.
Ellie seemed to have heard the scream as well and was heading in the same direction.
“Mr.
Yohan!
Did you hear that scream?”
“Yes, I did.”
“I think it came from the kitchen.”
Ellie and I headed toward the kitchen, and we froze at the sight that greeted us.
“…!”
The refrigerator stood open, its contents exposed.
A pastor and a Shaman stood at a distance, too terrified to approach it, shouting while waving a cross and a bell.
“I-In the name of our Father in Heaven—!
Begone!”
“Evil spirit!
This is no place for you!”
Jingle!
Jingle!
Jingle!
Smith was sitting on the floor, while the new maid’s face had turned deathly pale.
And then there was something only I could see and sense.
Grizzly was huddled in the corner, shrinking into himself while nervously watching my reaction.
“Whiiiiine….”
The open refrigerator.
The horrified people.
Grizzly.
I could roughly piece together what had happened.
I covered my eyes and forehead with one hand and rubbed them.
Griiiiiiiizzly!
“…”
No.
Forget it.
Through the gaps between my fingers, Yohan’s eyes gradually calmed.
What was done was done.
I was the one who had sent Grizzly out to scout, and this was a mansion haunted by evil spirits to begin with.
I looked at the kitchen, now in complete disarray, with everyone falling into a panic.
Whether this was the work of an evil spirit or the Invisible Vampire wreaking havoc didn’t matter to these people.
…That’s right.
This was all the evil spirit’s doing.
Even Smith’s back giving out!
Even the pastor and the Shaman waving their cross and bell around until their arms hurt!
Even the fact that I had no parents!
So that’s how it was.
My eyes narrowed.
Everything had been the work of the wicked evil spirit lurking in this mansion.
That bastard of an evil spirit… Tricking innocent Grizzly with a gigantic refrigerator and causing this whole incident!
I would never let it get away with this!
Of course, I wasn’t seriously going to claim such utter nonsense.
It was simply more convenient to blame everything on an evil spirit.
I’d properly discipline Grizzly separately later.
“Hoo….”
I quietly sighed and stepped forward to resolve the situation.
“Ms.
Ellie, please look after Mr.
Smith and the… what’s-her-name, the maid.”
Yes, understood.”
Leaving the two in Ellie’s care, I stepped forward.
Then I slammed the refrigerator door shut.
BANG!
The tremendous noise filled the room.
For a brief moment, silence descended, and even the bells that had been ringing frantically fell quiet.
Everyone’s attention turned toward me.
“Everyone, please calm down.
This is the work of a cunning evil spirit.”
Seizing the opportunity, I spoke in a composed voice.
“Evil spirits prey on people when their minds grow weak.”
I spouted whatever vaguely relevant things I had picked up here and there, trying to settle the situation.
“They create frightening situations and put people under psychological pressure, making them suspect one another and turn against each other.
We must not walk straight into the traps these evil spirits have laid for us.”
Seeing Yohan take control of the situation, Pastor Go Juwon felt as though his position had been stolen from him.
In an attempt to cover up his own disgraceful behavior from earlier, he deliberately raised his voice.
“Who do you think you are, running your mouth like you know everything?!
Huh?
Did you graduate from a seminary?!”
I let out a small sigh and rolled my eyes halfway around.
The self-proclaimed intellectual’s greatest weakness: they can’t stand it when someone they consider beneath them starts telling them what to do.
Still, this was better than everyone panicking and losing their minds… Wasn’t it?
Actually, maybe not.
Anyway.
It wasn’t as though we had any deep bonds or mutual trust to begin with.
I never expected a few words from me to bring everyone else back to their senses.
That was why I deliberately said something absurd.
“If you really must know who I am, I’m a specialist in eliminating supernatural phenomena.”
With everyone’s eyes fixed on me, I tried to deflate the tense atmosphere, which had been stiff with fear.
“I’m a Ghostbuster.”
Dun-dun!
I delivered the words to everyone with a perfectly serious expression.
What the hell was I even doing…?
“Hah!”
“What the…?”
Pastor Go Juwon and Kim Suhyeon looked at Yohan in disbelief, laughing at him and staring at him as though he were pathetic.
Meanwhile, Smith and the maid finally began to recover from their shock, looking utterly bewildered as Ellie helped them to their feet.
But there was one person who had already gone too far.
Jingle.
A bell rang.
Jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle.
It was the Shaman, Park Minhee, who had been wandering around the mansion alone.
Her body trembled violently, and her teeth chattered.
Her impressions were too convincing for this to be called a fake, yet too strange to be called real.
Unfortunately, she was easy prey.
Her fear had been accumulating, layer upon layer.
Now, the curse that had taken hold of her the moment she entered the mansion swelled beyond its limits and spilled over.
Amid the jingling of her bell, the Shaman’s terrified voice rang out.
“Ah… Aaaaaah!
Eyes!
Eyes!
Eyes everywhere!
Long arms!
Skeletal arms!”
She let out an incomprehensible shriek as she gradually lost her sanity.
“BOOGIEBOOGIEBOOGIEBOOGIEBOOGIEBOOGIEBOOGIEBOOGIEBOOGIEBOOGIE!”
Jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle.
The Shaman’s body shook frantically, creaking and jerking as though her joints were breaking.
Then she bolted out of the kitchen.
Everyone, frozen by the unexpected turn of events, hurried after Park Minhee.
Ms.
Park Minhee!”
They arrived at the mansion’s central lobby, where a staircase led to the second floor beneath a magnificent chandelier.
Jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle-jingle.
And as the bell swayed, the chandelier began to sway along with it.
BOOM—CRASH!
It came crashing down directly onto Park Minhee’s head.
Shattered shards of glass scattered across the floor, and crimson blood spread over the ground.
7:30 p.m.
— Shaman Park Minhee, deceased.
“…”
Everyone was speechless at the shocking sight.
I, too, had nothing to say.
I raised a hand to my mouth and pondered.
Don’t tell me this whole damn mess happened because Grizzly made her lose it…?
No.
The actual cause of death was the falling chandelier, after all.
No matter how I looked at it…
Even if I were to assign blame, Grizzly’s refrigerator incident was only one part of the equation, while the evil spirit was responsible for nine-tenths of it.
As expected, one should never put chandeliers in a mansion.
In any case, someone had died in a suspicious accident.
Smith called the police, but they couldn’t come.
Whoooooosh!
When I looked out the mansion’s windows, I saw a blizzard raging outside.
While everyone in the mansion had been preoccupied with the ghost incident, snow had accumulated so rapidly that it had become difficult for vehicles to make their way up the mountain.
I furrowed my brows.
“…Snow?”
I stared at the snowstorm pouring through the darkness, as though it were drawing a dividing line between the world and the mansion.
It was winter, so snowfall was only natural…
But the timing was far too convenient.
Or perhaps I should say, far too inconvenient.
It was almost as if someone had deliberately arranged the stage.
Just then, the Grimoire I was holding in one hand began to tremble faintly, sending a vibration through my palm.
This thing can vibrate?!
I discreetly shielded the Grimoire with my body and checked it.
Fla-rip!
The Grimoire opened by itself, revealing a particular page.
[Black Magic That Isolates a Specific Region or Village]
A ritual that calls upon the power of demons to isolate a village by causing a typhoon or heavy snowfall.
A witch possessed by a demon digs a hole on a hill overlooking the house or village she intends to isolate.
She then buries a jar containing a mixture of animal and human blood and performs the ritual.
…Black magic, huh.
The page didn’t contain any magical incantations or anything of the sort.
Instead, it provided information about black magic and methods of dealing with it.
The body remained crushed beneath the fallen chandelier in the central lobby, at the foot of the staircase.
Tap.
Tap.
“Boogie~ Boogie~ Papa~ Boogie-boogie~ Bam-bam~ The Boogeyman is coming.”
At the sound of the pretty voice singing a song that somehow carried a mocking tone, I closed the Grimoire and looked up the stairs.
Everyone else’s attention turned in the same direction as mine.
A blonde girl, Emily, was coming down the second-floor staircase, dressed in a thin, pure-white silk nightgown.
She descended the steps one by one on her tiny bare feet.
Her face was still pale, yet she wore a radiant smile, as though she were in a wonderful mood.
Looking at the corpse beneath the chandelier, she spoke.
“Haha~ It looks like a raspberry pie that’s been squashed.”
I narrowed my eyes slightly and sighed.
…Perfect.
A person killed by a falling chandelier.
A mansion isolated by a blizzard.
A possessed blonde girl.
This was the beginning of a B-grade classic horror movie.