Ludger stared ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) at the frame and asked,

“Are you certain the person in this painting is destined to die?”

“I told you, didn’t I? Do I look like someone who’d make up nonsense like this?”

“It’s not impossible.”

“Suspicious bastard. I already said, didn’t I? Why do you think this rumor started? Because everyone whose portrait appeared in these Transparent Frames ended up dead.”

Rimle narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing Ludger.

“Unless... what? Someone you know is in it?”

“No.”

Ludger lied naturally.

But Loina clearly wasn’t reassured.

“H-hiik! D-don’t tell me it’s me in there?! It’s me, isn’t it?!”

“I already said no.”

“You might just be saying that to calm me down! You don’t have to lie for my sake!”

...This was getting annoying. Being treated like a close friend just made her more shameless.

Since she clearly wouldn’t listen to reason, Ludger simply nodded.

“Now that you mention it, yes, it does look a little like you.”

“Waaah! I’m doomed!”

“...It’s a joke. Stand up. You’re a grown mage; stop throwing tantrums.”

Neither Rimle nor Sempas bothered trying to calm her, so Ludger forcibly pulled Loina back to her feet.

Honestly, there isn’t a single sane mage above the 6th Circle, Ludger thought, once again recalling the old saying from the magical world.

He’d always suspected it, but now that he personally knew several 6th-Circle mages, he was starting to believe it as an absolute truth.

“Let’s not waste time. We need to keep moving.”

The group continued down the corridor.

Strange occurrences kept happening as they walked:

A distant, inexplicable laugh echoed from nowhere; palm prints appeared on windows where no one stood; doors and windows shifted places as if the entire hallway had rotated ninety degrees.

At one point, the corridor had windows on the floor, prompting Ludger to murmur with mild admiration,

“Still, it’s quieter than I expected.”

“Quieter? What’s quiet about this?” Rimle demanded.

“I thought this mansion would be more dangerous. But so far, there’s been no life-threatening danger. Not yet.”

Ludger was right. The bizarre phenomena were unnerving, yes, but not immediately lethal.

Rimle scowled as if chastising him.

“I told you, didn’t I? As long as you follow the rules, you’re fine.”

“And what exactly are these rules?”

“What else? Proper conduct as a guest.”

“Like not standing still for more than five minutes?”

“We’re guests here, whether invited or not. I don’t know if this mansion has a will of its own, but its mysteries won’t tolerate troublemakers.”

“Strange, considering there’s been a murder.”

“The mansion doesn’t care if uninvited guests kill each other.”

That was a chilling thought—an ancient house that allowed trespassers to slaughter each other unchecked.

“So what other rules are there? If we can’t stay still for five minutes anywhere, that could be troublesome.”

“Don’t worry. That rule only applies to corridors. Rooms have their own rules. Like, once you enter, you have to stay the required time before leaving. Or if you break the rules, you just... disappear.”

“How did anyone even figure all this out?”

Rimle snorted.

“How else? You think mages just understand every phenomenon at a glance? People figured it out after others got themselves killed.”

“...”

Ludger wondered just how many had been swept away by the mansion’s mysteries before these rules were discovered.

“But most of it’s been learned by now. As long as you’re careful, there’s not much to worry about.”

Then Rimle suddenly seemed to remember something, the ring of his staff rattling faintly.

“Ah, there’s one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Something to keep in mind. You have to leave before midnight, no matter what. Know why?”

“You die if you don’t?”

“Exactly. So don’t even think about spending the night here—unless you want to die.”

Arfa, who had been quietly listening, tilted his head.

“Why? Does something appear?”

Rimle’s stern expression melted into a grandfatherly smile.

“Well, well. Our curious little Arfa. Want Grandpa to tell you a story?”

“Yes!”

“If you stay past midnight, a terrible monster comes out.”

“A terrible monster?”

“That’s right. A monster so fearsome it could swallow someone like you whole in one bite.”

Though his tone sounded like he was telling a bedtime story, his words carried no humor.

“Has anyone ever seen this monster?”

“Yes. One survivor. Out of the dozens who dared stay, only one lived.”

“What happened to him?”

“He’s dead.”

“...”

“Killed himself. Extreme stress, fear, and insanity drove him mad. He hung himself three days after being discharged from the hospital.”

The survivor’s fate was enough to hammer home the warning:

After midnight, a monster roamed the mansion.

No magic could kill it.

“A mansion full of mysteries, with rules to follow, and a monster at night. It’s practically a nightmare made real,” Ludger murmured.

“They say it’s a cryptid born from the mansion’s phenomena. Whether that’s true or not, it’s dangerous.”

“People still tried to fight it, didn’t they?”

“Of course. There are always idiots. Thought they could hunt it. Wanted to stay longer to study the mansion and reap its secrets.”

But by morning, their bodies had vanished without a trace.

After that, no one dared challenge the rule again.

Ludger shook his head.

I only planned to search the library for some information, but there are far too many complications.

And too many incidents:

Attacks in the forest from the start, murders in the mansion... and now a death prediction hanging over Rimle.

I don’t know how or why he’s supposed to die, but if it’s true, there’s no guarantee we won’t be dragged into it too.

The Mystic Night always had incidents, but murder inside the mansion was unusual—especially the death of a war mage from the Delica Kingdom.

This is definitely the Black Dawn’s doing.

Lesley was planning to wipe out most of the attending mages during this Mystic Night.

Killing people in the mansion as a preliminary move made sense—either to thin the numbers or silence someone who had learned too much.

But how exactly are they doing it?

The Kasarr Basin was too strange to guess their methods.

The only reliable approach would be to meet Lesley’s subordinates and drag the answers out of them—but inside the mansion, that wasn’t an option.

Despite walking for what felt like hours, they hadn’t encountered anyone else.

Something was at play.

Ludger decided to focus on priorities first.

I’ll check the library first, then return to the forward base by evening and wait for them to make contact. Hunting down Lesley’s Black Dawn right now would be too risky.

That meant he needed to locate the mansion’s library before sunset.

“Does anyone know where the library is?” Ludger asked.

No one answered.

They had been walking for quite a while, opening room after room—more than ten by now—and every attempt had been a failure.

“At this rate, it’s questionable whether we’ll find it today at all.”

“Why do you think the other mages rush here early in the morning?” Rimle scoffed. “It’s not like you can just waltz in and stumble upon the library immediately.”

“Then how did the ones who managed to find it before do so?”

“Pure chance. In this maze of a mansion, everything depends on luck.”

“Luck, huh.”

Judging by the others’ expressions, they agreed with Rimle.

It was understandable.

Here, people vanished as if swallowed by mirages. The layout shifted constantly—turn around and the hallway behind you would be an entirely different one.

Even while walking, it felt like drifting through a dream, as if one’s mind were elevated into some hallucinatory state.

But Ludger had no intention of relying solely on luck.

“Arfa. Have you collected enough data?”

“Yes.”

“Is the path confirmed?”

“Yes, all confirmed.”

“Good. Then lead the way.”

Ludger, who had been at the front until now, suddenly gave the lead to Arfa. The others shot him confused looks.

“Just watch,” Ludger said simply, following behind Arfa as he strode ahead.

Arfa walked with absolute confidence, as if he could see the mansion’s ever-changing layout spread out like a map in his mind.

“Uh, are you sure this is the right way? This looks unfamiliar,” Loina asked nervously. Sempas didn’t look convinced either, and Rimle was chewing his lip, clearly wanting to yell but restraining himself—likely only because it was Arfa.

Ludger was the one who answered.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

Five minutes later, Arfa stopped in front of a massive wooden door.

“Here it is.”

The way he said it—so firm, so certain—made the others exchange puzzled glances.

Ludger simply nodded and, without hesitation, grabbed the doorknob and pushed the door open.

“Wait!”

Opening doors carelessly was dangerous. Some rooms triggered traps the moment they were opened. Normally, you were supposed to run multiple checks before turning the handle.

But as the door swung wide, Loina—who had been about to protest—fell silent.

So did everyone else.

Inside was a vast room lined with shelves overflowing with books.

The secret library—the very place so many mages had desperately searched for.

“It’s... really the library?”

Rimle stared at Arfa in disbelief.

“How the hell...?”

“I analyzed the patterns,” Arfa replied brightly.

“Analyzed the... patterns?”

“Yes!”

The answer was absurd, yet Arfa said it with complete sincerity.

Rimle still couldn’t fully believe it.

The mansion’s rooms shift constantly—everyone knows that. You can open the same door twice and find two completely different places. The mansion changes organically, like it’s alive.

Many had tried to find patterns before and failed. Too many variables, too many possibilities.

And yet... this child calculated it?

The memory of Arfa’s confident stride, leading them without hesitation, lingered in Rimle’s mind. There had been no trace of doubt—because he had known exactly where to go.

And Ludger... Ludger clearly knew Arfa could do this all along.

Rimle’s gaze shifted to Ludger. He had been the one to bring Arfa here and the one to assign him the task. Rimle had assumed Arfa was just some assistant tagging along, but clearly, that wasn’t the case.

Sensing Rimle’s stare, Ludger said,

“Arfa. Since everyone’s curious, explain what you saw.”

“Yes. As I said, I found the library by analyzing patterns. The mansion constantly shifts, but I realized something—”

“Realized what?” Loina asked, her voice trembling.

“Not all the room changes are completely random,” Arfa explained innocently. “And opening a door doesn’t connect you to some strange void—it still has to link to an existing room in the mansion.”

“This mansion has over three hundred rooms,” Rimle interjected. “Unless you opened them all at once, there’s no way to know what’s behind which door.”

The doors had no nameplates or distinctive markings; they all looked exactly the same.

Arfa continued,

“So I focused on the phenomena around them.”

“The... phenomena?”

“Yes! When a special room is nearby, strange things happen. Like weird sounds, or the hallway looks odd. Since all of this is caused by mana, I thought there had to be a reason.”

Special rooms create special phenomena, Ludger thought. Of course. If every room triggered random phenomena, the mansion would be pure chaos.

Rimle mulled it over, then nodded slowly, looking impressed.

“So you narrowed it down by excluding the obvious wrong ones. Still, there would’ve been countless possibilities...”

“Yes. Even just by probability, there were tens of thousands of combinations,” Arfa admitted.

“Then how did you... know which one it was?” Rimle pressed.

Arfa scratched his cheek, looking embarrassed.

“Well... I calculated all of them?”