Chapter 458.

Chapter 458.Chapter 458. An Exciting Night with Two Girls Outside the City: The Alleged Haunted Castle. (1/10)

After that encounter with the spider just now, I really wasn’t in the mood to play games.

I decided to be patient and wait them out until they got bored and came in. I wasn’t going to play their little game.

A minute passed by before the footsteps started up again. However... rather than sounding like they were drawing closer, they sounded like they were moving away now.

This little game they’re playing isn’t funny.

I exited the room and shone my flashlight down the hall only for the footsteps to abruptly stop again. Had I caught Rosa and Dawn red-handed? No.

Then what did I see?

Was it a wandering soul?

No.

If neither of those, whatever could it be?

Well... the answer to that question was... nothing.Vissit novelbin(.)c.om for updates

I turned to look the other way but there was nothing there either.

There was no one in sight.

Anywhere.

Did they think they were clever by ducking into one of the rooms? As if I’d fall for a cheap trick like that.

I started walking down the passage and checking inside each room one by one in silence. I’m not going to give them the satisfaction of thinking they were getting to me with their little prank.

When I got to the last room I was certain they had to be in it.

They must have thought I’d give up and not check every single one thoroughly. Too bad for them, I wasn’t going to be tricked.

I burst into the final room quickly and spun around with the flashlight only for my eyes to open wide.

... nothing.

There was... no one here.

But... how?

Had they disappeared into thin air?

Or... did the footsteps I hear really not belong to them?

A ghost?

An evil spirit?

Some sort of... demon?

I gulped nervously when I considered that last option.

This wasn’t funny.

Demons?

Devils, sure I’d come to accept that, but demons?

If the story about this place was true... what if that psycho killer was actually a demon or... they became a demon? Similar to how... I became a devil...

If devils exist... could demons too?

Demons are said to be obedient to devils though, right?

In that case... was there anything for me to be afraid of?

“What is it?”

Rosa pulled something out from the hoodie pocket and handed it over to me. She whispered a quick summary of the plan she’d concocted. When I heard her explanation, I understood why I couldn’t give Dawn the pen myself.

I didn’t see any problems with her plan so I figured I’d trust her and go along with it. I didn’t have to do very much. Rosa would take care of most of it for me. It was a good deal.

“By the way Rosa, it seems this room, or maybe even the entire castle, is filled with toxic mold that can induce psychosis and hallucinations. Try to finish this up quickly.”

“Oh? Did you start hallucinating while we were gone?”

“Unless it was your footsteps moving around in the hall up here about twenty minutes ago, then yeah, I did start to hallucinate.”

“Was that what your weird reaction was about when you saw us just now?”

I nodded.

“What’d we look like to you exactly?”

“Rotting bones without flesh.”

“Haha, that’s quite the scary sight.”

“It definitely startled me. Also... you may want to be on the lookout for a big ass Huntsman Spider.”

“How big is it exactly?”

“The size of a dinner plate.”

“Wow, that’s quite a big one. But it’s pretty harmless though.”

“Even if it’s harmless, if you start hallucinating when you encounter it, it could turn out badly.”

“What are the two of yuh sneakily whispering about in secret?”

“Haha. Nothing much. I’m just consoling him because he said he nearly had a heart attack when a big ass Huntsman Spider jumped out at him when he was alone.”

“A Huntsman Spider? Where is it?”

Dawn looked around intrigued as if she wanted to see it herself.

“It ran away as soon as I shone a light on it. It was on those two chairs covered in webs when I first saw it.”

“Webs? That’s weird.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s another spider’s web. I think the Huntsman Spider likely ate it and I came across it while it was in the middle of feasting upon the captured prey of the original spider who spun those webs.”

Rosa hummed, “hmmm, the perfect representation of the mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind.”

“Yeah.”

“Is this the world trying to warn us? What if it’s foreshadowing what’s to come right now?” Rosa mused to herself.

Us effectively preying on Dawn’s soul, faking a devil summoning, only to summon a real one and for that devil to come after our own souls. That certainly would be some awful irony and foreshadowing.

A chill ran down my back. I was suddenly feeling a bit overly conscious now. It felt like someone was watching me from behind. I glanced over my shoulder at the open door but nobody was there.

The mold was probably getting to my head. Rather than a devil getting us, it might be the mold that gets us in the end. I suppose the mold could be considered the invisible devil hunting us from behind here.

So long as you recognize those hallucinations for what they really are, remain calm, and do not succumb to fear, you should be fine. At the end of the day, they were nothing more than falsehoods concocted by the mind. They didn’t truly exist as they appeared to us.

“Yuh mean how we hunted a rabbit only to possibly end up being hunted by a devil?” As she was unaware of what we were doing, Dawn misinterpreted the meaning behind Rosa’s words.

“Yeah, something like that. Anyway, we should get to work already and begin our little ritual to summon a devil.”

“Should we... really go through with this?”

“Jeez, relax Dawn, it’ll be fine. I’ll totally protect you. That devil won’t even be able to touch you with me here.”