How many people had died? Even those who first built the mansion probably didn’t know the exact number. They sometimes locked up the exits after throwing people inside and went overseas. Monsters weren’t created in a particular way. A slight lack of empathy could turn people into monsters.

…My loved one was the only person who didn’t die despite being locked up in the mansion.

He was the only one who successfully found the exit and escaped. Well, in the end, he was murdered by the people who came over to visit the mansion. No matter how lucky he was, it didn’t change the fact that he was sold over to the mansion and that he had a miserable fate awaiting him.

Who would feel more wronged and sorrowful—those who died while trying to find the exit or those who escaped the mansion but were murdered? I questioned why I needed to wonder about the intensity and hierarchy of pain, but the brain that I was currently controlled by was very interested in this subject, so I occasionally had similar questions pop up.

A person who was driven to the end of fear and despair? Or a person who was among those but saw a glimmer of hope for survival? He seemed to have recalled all his memories, so this could be solved if I asked him personally, but I didn’t want to make my loved one miserable just to satisfy an impractical curiosity. Besides, this kind of free daydreaming about my loved one was useful to kill time when I wasn’t in the same room as him…

But at times, my daydreaming knew no bounds, so it made me do some foolish things—things that weren’t productive to our relationship. This body studied human psychology and created arbitrary rubrics for experiments, and even now, I couldn’t throw this deep-seated habit and acted accordingly.

Just like now.

“A two-story house that lights up,” he muttered, making a peculiar face. I merely shrugged. I knew that this wasn’t something that I would normally buy. I set the large box in my hands on the floor. As he had read aloud, the box that was labeled with “A two-story house that lights up” contained a toy mansion.

First, I wanted to let it be known that I didn’t intentionally buy this object. I ended up buying it after being pulled to a location I saw in the past. The other man probably recalled a similar memory when he saw this. So maybe it was intentional, in a way.

According to the sales clerk, this was a perfect gift for children due to its series of small animal friends, bijou home, and life-like toys. Well, technically he was a child. I wondered if he realized—in the room with the Christmas tree in the mansion that was now ashes, all the presents were Christmas gifts that I wanted to give to the Child. Although my efforts were all fruitlessly ignored.

I took out the items in the box on the table one by one. The two-story house with a red roof was as tall as the box. The floor of the house, the railings, and the stairs were all inside the house, but it didn’t have any furniture or décor items, making it look quite empty. I did the right thing to buy other additional items according to the suggestion of the sales clerk. I bought bedroom items and kitchen items.

“I think it’s similar to the house that my younger female cousin had,” I said, and he furrowed his brow. I had a feeling that his mind was combing through my body’s brain, so I let out a chuckle. Those were my past and his memories. The fancy and flashy dollhouse owned by my cousin had a pink roof and cream-colored walls.