Ch.114114 – When the Cicadas Cry 4

# 114 – When the Cicadas Cry # 4

3 PM.

We first set up our base camp in Yu Dahui’s room.

“We absolutely have to find the culprit.”

I wanted to focus on finding the culprit so we could survive.

This wasn’t the Nightmare Corridor, so if we died, it would really be the end.

We would truly lose our friends and colleagues.

“First, I made a list of everyone in this mansion today.”

Jeongseok showed me a small chart.

It was a list of suspects.

“Ha Yeongwon Pirates – Ha Yeongwon, Yang Juhui, Jeongseok, Yu Dahui, Kwon Sua, Hong Miri (out)”

“Mansion Staff – Mrs. Danvers, Kim Somi, Kim Asom, Kim Byeol”

“Excluding our pirate crew members, the mansion staff are the likely suspects. Actually, they’re the most likely candidates. It’s easiest to put poison in food during the cooking process.”

As Jeongseok reasoned, I recalled the older woman and young women I’d met at the mansion.

Soon, Kwon Sua trembled and said:

“So it really is Mrs. Danvers…?”

The gloomy housekeeper Mrs. Danvers.

Anyone would think she looked like a culprit.

“We all know she’s always looked at us with disapproval. Even today, I got scolded for wandering around freely. Dahui, what do you think?”

I asked Yu Dahui for her opinion, as she’d probably interacted with the housekeeper the most in the mansion.

Yu Dahui seemed to think hard for a while before shrugging.

“I don’t know! But it’s true the housekeeper doesn’t like me. Because I’m a Yu… She also hates that I keep Baekseol because of her cat allergy…”

She carries antidote around, so she must know a thing or two about ‘poison.’

And there seemed to be enough of what you could call a motive.

“But Mrs. Danvers doesn’t cook. She doesn’t even go into the kitchen because she hates hot places. She’s afraid of fire.”

Afraid of fire…

So she’s someone who can’t enter the kitchen.

“Then who does the cooking?”

“Today it’s Somi unni. She made the bibimbap for lunch too, remember?”

Kim Somi.

The young woman who said she’d give me a kiss if I caught a cockroach for her.

If she had poisoned us to death, I couldn’t help but wonder ‘why.’

“Why would she do that to us?”

Just as I was wondering, Yang Juhui spoke as if she knew everything:

“Didn’t Yu Dahui always brag about being a rich girl? Maybe she harbored resentment and decided to kill everyone when her friends came over.”

“…I never bragged!”

Yu Dahui frowned.

She was mumbling with her lips, looking like someone who wanted to lash out at Yang Juhui but didn’t know how.

“Well, let’s meet her directly.”

# # #

I entered the kitchen.

It was so spacious that “cooking area” would be a better description than “kitchen.”

Steam was rising in that vast space.

“Hey kids, why are you in the kitchen? Tonight we’re having galbitang!”

I could see Kim Somi stirring a large pot with a ladle.

“Yeongwon, want to taste it for seasoning?”

She even asked me to taste it!

Was she planning to feed me soup with poison in it?

Just as I was getting a bit tense:

“Kyaaa, another cockroach! Another one!”

“Ahhh!”

I was startled by Kim Somi’s scream.

A cockroach!

There really was a bug as big as a thumb scurrying across the kitchen floor!

“Ahhhhh!”

I screamed like someone who had just discovered a murder scene, foaming at the mouth.

Kim Somi screamed along with me.

“Catch it! Hurry! Baekseol! Baekseol! Where’s Baekseol! Catch the cockroach!”

—Meow.

The white cat Baekseol appeared from somewhere.

It swiftly caught the cockroach with nimble movements.

Then it walked away with the bug in its mouth, which seemed to be a common occurrence.

Seeing this, Yang Juhui frowned.

“Ugh, that thing kissed my nose! Damn! That dog of a cat! Kissing my nose with a mouth that carries cockroaches…”

Even I thought it was a bit gross to get a kiss from a mouth that hunted cockroaches.

But don’t cats also lick their bottoms after using the bathroom? That would be dirtier than cockroaches. It meant you should never kiss cats.

Thunk-.

Kim Somi closed the large pot lid and said:

“This won’t do. I need to get some medicine. Could you guys watch the pot for a moment? Just open it occasionally and stir with this ladle. The meat needs to simmer a bit longer.”

Whoosh-!

Kim Somi left to get cockroach repellent.

About 10 minutes later?

Kim Somi returned with a strange object.

It looked like a coin pouch.

“What’s that?”

“This? It’s an odorless insecticide made from lily of the valley. Just placing it nearby keeps bugs away. By the way, it’s harmless to humans. As long as you don’t eat it. If I place it in an inconspicuous corner like this…”

We all froze at Kim Somi’s words.

The steamy, hot kitchen air somehow felt chilly as Jeongseok nudged my side and said:

“Hey, don’t you think that’s it? The cockroach appearing and her going to get repellent might have happened before too. Maybe she put the insecticide from that pouch into the galbitang…”

It was a very plausible theory.

The time was around 4:30 PM.

Dinner time was 6 PM.

“Cooking done!”

Kim Somi stretched with a long “nnngh-.”

The basic cooking of the galbitang was complete, and she just needed to keep it simmering on low heat.

Ring ring-.

Just then, Kim Somi’s phone rang.

“Oh, Song-yeon! I heard you got married! Wow, it’s been so long since we talked—”

Kim Somi answered her phone and whooshed off somewhere.

The call ended around 6 PM.

During that time, we kept watching the kitchen.

“Did you guys watch the fire? Then let’s go eat dinner, everyone!”

The dinner menu was galbitang, just like last time.

But no one could easily take a bite.

“What’s wrong?”

Kim Somi asked us.

I glanced at everyone before saying:

“…I don’t have much appetite.”

“Really? It’s really delicious.”

Slurp, slurp-.

The women ate the galbitang without any issues.

Mrs. Danvers also finished her bowl, clicking her tongue.

“Honestly, you don’t know how precious food is.”

The time was now 8 PM.

Normally, everyone would have been vomiting blood and dying by now, but… whether because we didn’t eat dinner or didn’t take baths, we were all fine.

We all gathered in Yu Dahui’s room.

“It feels so gross not being able to take a bath.”

Yu Dahui was very uncomfortable.

She even sniffed her shoulder, but in reality, she hadn’t sweated a drop all day.

Jeongseok said:

“There could be poison mixed in the bathwater too. So it’s better not to bathe today.”

“So… is the culprit really Kim Somi unni?”

Yu Dahui trembled.

While we were all lost in thought:

—Kyaaaaaaah!

We heard a sharp scream.

We all rushed downstairs in surprise.

There, we saw someone collapsed on the first floor, covered in blood.

“Somi! Somi, wake up! Somi!”

“She’s not moving! She’s… she’s… she’s dead!”

The housemaids were horrified, looking at Kim Somi lying in a pool of blood.

We were too shocked to move.

Only Jeongseok managed to approach the body with trembling hands and legs to examine the wound on her back.

“A diagonal strike from upper right to lower left… It cut through the spine and pierced the heart. The weapon is this… kitchen knife? For this to be possible with ordinary strength…”

While Jeongseok was analyzing like an expert, Mrs. Danvers shouted “You!” and grabbed Jeongseok’s and my shoulders, pulling us.

“Get into your room! All of you stay in your room! No matter what sounds you hear outside, don’t come out! Go in now!”

The housekeeper was terrifyingly angry, like someone possessed.

And her grip was stronger than I expected.

We were so startled by her fierce anger that we had no choice but to hide in Yu Dahui’s room.

“Someone died! The cook unni died!”

Even Yang Juhui, who rarely panics, screamed as if greatly shocked by this incident.

A person had died in reality.

And she was the housekeeper Kim Somi, whom we had suspected of poisoning us.

“The culprit is strong. Stabbing someone in the back with a kitchen knife and killing them instantly is not something easily done. Only a select few men could do it.”

Jeongseok, who had calmly examined Kim Somi’s body, concluded his reasoning.

The culprit was someone strong. A man…?

That created a problem.

“Hey, the only men in this mansion today are you and me. But you and I were in Dahui’s room the whole time after dinner.”

“…Ah, that’s right! That’s it! Maybe from the beginning! It was connected from the beginning! I get it! I get it now! We were fools! We were thinking too narrowly! Think about why we came to this mansion!”

Jeongseok shouted as if he had realized something, jumping to his feet.

Bang bang bang-!

Just then, someone knocked on our door.

—Kids, you need to escape! Kids!

It was Mrs. Danvers’ voice, and she sounded very urgent.

It was no wonder Kwon Sua screamed “Eek!”

Click click-.

Someone was trying to force open the locked door. But there was an even bigger problem.

“…Isn’t it too hot?”

Kwon Sua, with her good intuition, was the first to notice the change.

Crackle, crackle-.

Only then did we realize that the mansion was on fire.

“Let’s get out! Let’s get out!”

I thought we needed to leave this room.

Of course, there was a problem.

“Damn it! The door won’t open!”

The door wouldn’t open, as if something was blocking it from behind.

“Hey! Move!”

Bang-! Bang-!

Yang Juhui ran and kicked it with all her might, but the door remained firmly shut.

Whoosh, whoosh-.

As the flames threatened to reach Yu Dahui’s room, we were nearly in panic and didn’t know what to do.

Crash-.

Yu Dahui broke the window.

“Everyone! We have to go out this way! This way!”

But we’re on the third floor?

“The height of the third floor is about 9 to 10 meters. You probably won’t die from this height. You might become disabled, but it’s better than burning to death!”

Jeongseok exclaimed.

Then he jumped out the window.

Crunch-.

“Aaaaah!”

“Hey! Are you okay?!”

No, how could he be okay!

I just wanted to cry.

But I couldn’t just stand still.

“Next! Everyone! The next person needs to jump!”

I shouted to my friends still in the burning room.

And I noticed that the atmosphere had become strangely tense.

“……”

“……”

“……”

Yang Juhui, Kwon Sua, and Yu Dahui were just standing there in the burning room.

Just standing there with blank eyes.

“…W-what’s wrong with you all?”

This unfamiliar scene gave me chills.

Nevertheless, I had to gather courage to escape the flames, so I put my hand on Yu Dahui’s shoulder.

“Dahui! Snap out of it!”

“…Huh? Where am I? Oppa, where is the teacher?”

“…What are you talking about?”

Yu Dahui said something strange.

While I was quite confused, Yang Juhui, who seemed to have regained her senses, also shouted:

“Unni! Where are you! Mom! Unni!”

Something was very wrong.

The flames were blazing fiercely.

Bang-!

Soon the door opened, and Mrs. Danvers, dressed in black, entered.

“Yeongwon! You need to escape! You need to escape from here quickly!”

Mrs. Danvers’ clothes were singed and burning in places.

She seemed to have severe burns, though some looked like very old scars.

“You must live! You must live!”

The housekeeper hugged me and jumped out the third-floor window.

Whoosh-.

Soaring through the air felt somewhat romantic even in this situation.

But we had no wings and eventually had to fall.

From the distant moonlight to the ground.

“The Broken Clock rewinds its spring.”

“100P consumed.”

“Remaining points: 424”

Bang-!

A dazzling light burst forth, and Kwon Sua shouted:

“Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve had this much fun without worrying about others!”

“Hey, Ha Yeongwon closed his eyes.”

“That’s cute in its own way…”

When I opened my eyes, everyone was standing under an old cherry tree.

And I could understand the meaning of Jeongseok’s final shout of “I get it!”

He had told me to think about why we came to this mansion, right?

It was to investigate the ‘supernatural phenomena’ occurring in this mansion.

And that was the answer.

“The culprit was never human to begin with. Not human. There’s a ghost in this mansion. And it’s the most powerful and massive one we’ve encountered so far—”

To toy with us not once, but twice.

I felt such malice and was so frustrated and upset that I nearly cried.

“Hey, why are you suddenly crying? Is it because I closed my eyes? You know I was joking. Why are you suddenly like this? Making me feel awkward…”

“Yeongwon, what’s wrong?”

“Is he having a mental breakdown? Honestly, I always thought Ha Yeongwon could go crazy at any time. It’s hard for someone with a Status Window to maintain their sanity.”

“Maybe he’s crying from emotion?”

“You bastards! Bastards! Just you wait!”