world, that was all news to him. He couldn't help but glance back and forth between her face and the passage. "Wait, that clearly means something weird is going on! How could you not notice that?!" "No, well, they do grow fairly large, so I just overlooked it. But still, I've never once heard of them growing to the size of babies. Now that I think on it, these rats could well be someone's familiars." Kaito's face went pale. If Hina ran into someone's familiars and got into a fight with them, there was a very real chance she was in danger. He and Elisabeth had inspected the stairwell leading underground and the main corridor at its bottom when they were searching the castle, of course, but there were still a lot of rooms in its branching, labyrinthine hallways that they hadn't checked yet. Elisabeth snapped the diary shut with a stern expression on her face. They exchange a pair of grave murmurs. "So the place we should head to..." "Aye, 'tis the basement." After returning the diary to its desk, the two of them set off, throwing the door to Hina's room wide-open as they strode through it. Then they broke into a run. Their destination: the basement corridors. The basement corridors were dark, stank of rust, and were constantly filled with a noise that resembled a low moan. On top of that, they had been constructed in an obtuse, winding manner. Setting foot in them without proper preparation was just asking to die lost and alone. However, Kaito's life experiences had left him with a particular abilityâ€”he could remember anything perfectly as long as his memory of it was accompanied by pain. Thanks to the time he got Elisabeth to carve a map of the key areas in his flesh, he knew those spots like the back of his hand. However, there was a limit to that map's scope. And unfortunately, he wasn't familiar with the place that Hina had written about. "So, you have any idea where this 'room that was listed as empty but was actually being used to store grain' is?" "...About that. I haven't the faintest." "Don't you own this place?" Kaito frowned. If Elisabeth didn't know where it was, then they were at an impasse. Elisabeth impatiently glanced from left to right and back again. After painstakingly racking her brain, she let out a shout. "Well, you can hardly blame me! This is me we're talking about, rememberâ€”the person who shoved the grain into some random room, forgot about it, and listed the room on the map as unused in the first place! Why, it would be contradictory if I did remember where it was!" "You don't have to get so defensive, geez! It's not like I'd get anywhere by pointing fingers... So, uhhh, I guess our only option is to figure out which rooms you listed as empty, exclude the ones I remember, and go check all the others." "Aye. If we've other options, I certainly can't think of them." Elisabeth readily nodded. It was a boring plan, and labor-intensive at that. However, this was no time to be losing heart. Hina does so much for us; this is the least we can do for her. And with that, the two of them began their search of the basement. As they walked through the cold and the dim that permeated the basement hallways, their footsteps echoed in a manner that was downright unsettling. Although there were magic lights dotting the walls, the night down there was far deeper and darker than it was aboveground, and the shadows lurking in the nooks and corners seemed to defy any attempt at illumination. Elisabeth trembled just like she had the last time they found themselves wandering about down there. "Urgh, how do I describe it...? As always, this place is disagreeably disquieting. It plays on a person's childhood scars in a way demons can only dream of... Not that I'm afraid in the slightest, mind you!" "...I still can't get over how much being down here bothers you." "Don't you take that tone with me! Why, I've half a mind to subject you to the same ghost stories that Marianne and that wretched uncle of mine so gleefully tormented me with in my youth!" "Yeah, yeah, whatever you say," Kaito listlessly replied as he took the lead and strode on. The two of them turned away from the main hallway, which led to the teleportation circle, and headed even deeper into the basement. Eventually, they reached an area that was predominantly filled with storerooms. It was dead quiet there. Just like Hina had reported, none of the traps were turning on when they weren't supposed to. However, that only served to accentuate the basement's gloom. Elisabeth trembled even harder, a fact that Kaito found downright astounding. "Seriously, what gives? How is it you can fight such horrifying enemies without even flinching, then get freaked out by your own basement? Actual real-life monsters have to be scarier than stuff from made-up stories, don't they?" "...Our grim tale begins just after a young bride meets a most untimely death." "Wait, hey, no, I don't wanna hear this." Apparently, Elisabeth intended to make good on her threat. The darkness of their surroundings did a perfect job of setting the mood, and Kaito couldn't help but break out into a cold sweat. Elisabeth ignored his pleas and went on. "The nightmare first took root in the manor's exquisite flower garden. Before anyone noticed, the rosebushes underwent a horrible change." "Elisabeth, man, you gotta cut it outâ€”I'm not kidding around... Huh?" Suddenly, Kaito arched his brow. The bend in the hallway in front of him was almost completely cloaked in darkness, but he felt as though he could make out something writhing within. When he realized what it was, his eyes went wide. "Wait, what?" Just around the corner, there was a thick tangle of bizarre, undulating ivy. In fact, it almost resembled the plant from the ghost story that Elisabeth was telling him. He frantically yanked at her arm. "E-Elisabeth! Elisabeth!" "The first tragic victim was the gardener... What is it now, Kaito? We're just getting to the good part. At least let me get through the first night before you... Ah!" When Elisabeth caught sight of the aberration, she froze in place. The moment she did, Kaito realized something. This was bad news. Maybe getting Elisabeth's attention was a mistake. However, hindsight was twenty-twenty. He hurled himself backward, and without a moment's warning, Elisabeth let out a yell. "Death Rain!" "I knew it!" A surge of jet-black miasma and crimson flower petals whirled through the air, and red-hot lead began raining down from within it. The mysterious plant found itself completely dashed by molten metal, and Kaito had to frantically scurry around to avoid getting splashed. Then they heard a horrible "Screeeee!" Apparently, there had been something under the strange vegetation. Kaito turned back to look at it, then tilted his head. There were large piles of clay lying on the floor. However, he didn't see any collapsed walls or anything, so it seemed odd for there to be so much clay in the closed-off underground basement. But he didn't have time to ponder the mystery for long. The lead had started loudly cooling and hardening around the ivy, and a writhing swarm of something else entirely had emerged from beneath it. Kaito desperately tried to keep his cool and hold his ground. He squinted at the swarm to try and identify what it was composed of. Then he finally came to a realization. "It's some sort of weird plant...and a swarm of giant rats!" "Hmm? But why? There were no rats in the ghost stories I was told." "Those never had anything to do with anything!" As Kaito let out his exasperated bellow, the rats continued crawling over their comrades' corpses and advancing toward the two of them. Their size was just as Hina had reported it. They were about as large as human babies. The bigger problem, though, was just how damn many of them there were. The rats' noses twitched as Kaito and Elisabeth became the new targets of their single-minded hunger. The creatures seemed absolutely ravenous. As far as Kaito was concerned, this was far more terrifying than the ghost story had been. To Elisabeth, though, they didn't even register as things to be feared. She immediately regained her usual composure. Then she clapped her hands together. "I see, I see! I've cracked all the mysteries!" "Wait, you figured it out? You know whose familiars they are or whatever?" "No, no, these are no familiars! They're normal rats, born and raised!" "They're what?!" "Even if they ate magically preserved grain, rats would never grow to this size! But take a gander over there!" Elisabeth pointed toward the rats' feet. Kaito was confused, but he squinted in that direction regardless. There, he saw the odd pile of clay from before, the one that seemed so out of place. Now he realized that pile was where the ivy had sprouted from. Elisabeth puffed her chest up with pride. "That, right there, is the remains of a golemâ€”likely one that got too old and broke down of its own accord!" "Oh, huh. You store unused golems down here, too? ...No, you don't. You were just running it ragged until it up and died on you. Isn't that dangerous? C'mon, you gotta keep a better eye on your stuff." "Yes, yes, many apologies, so sorry! Anyhow, when the rats were carrying the grain back to their nest, one of them must have dropped some in the golem's clay remains, and the mana stored in the golem caused the seeds to germinate. The rats weren't just feasting on the mana from the grain, but from the golem as wellâ€”that's why they grew so large!" "Ohhh... Wait, hold on a minute." If that was the case, then that put them all the way back at the beginning. Just as they'd originally concluded, there wasn't, nor had there ever been, an intruder. So where had Hina gone? But right when Kaito was about to ask that, Elisabeth looked up with a start. She strained her ears. "Hmm, hmm... Hmm... Hmm?" "C'mon, Elisabeth, listen to me when I'm talking to you. Hina isâ€”" "There's something behind the rats...and it's moving? I have a bad feeling about this. Fall back!" "Huh? Hwah!" Elisabeth grabbed Kaito by the collar, then fled with him in tow. In the blink of an eye, they rounded the previous corner they'd turned. Elisabeth came to an abrupt stop. She crouched down with the wall to her back and dumped Kaito on the floor beside her. The rats chittered as they drew ever closer, and the ivy rustled along with them. Suddenly, both those noises were drowned out by a bizarre, intense FSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. "...Huh? What?" "Good going, me. Call me forgetful if you will, but my intuition is as sharp as ever." Elisabeth nodded proudly. Some wispy smoke flowed over from around the corner. It would seem that the noise had been from some sort of vapor billowing out. Kaito and Elisabeth were fortunate enough to have avoided a direct hit, but that wasn't enough to save them from being assailed by its horrid, pungent odor. They frantically covered their mouths. Still holding her breath, Elisabeth snapped her fingers. A whirl of black darkness and crimson flower petals coalesced, then began rapidly spinning to blow the vapor away. Luckily, that was enough to thin out the smoke. The two of them cautiously rose to their feet and slowly made their way across the corridor. They peeked out around the corner where the rats just were. "Huh?" "Hmm?" And what they saw thereâ€” â€”was some sort of bizarre life-form. "...It's a space alien." "The hell is a space alien?" Elisabeth reacted to Kaito's dumbfounded murmur with a frown. She wasn't