Ch.148The Mistress of the Mansion

~ ~ ~ Star Seeker & Four Card Alliance ~ ~ ~

Shortly after Will’s group went downstairs, the five adventurers left on the first floor were glaring at the staircase with hostile expressions.

“What should we do, Leader? Should we chase after them and ambush them now?”

“Forget it. The numbers may be 4 against 5, but we’re battered while they don’t have a scratch. It would be foolish to risk becoming criminals for a fight we can’t win.”

“Then what are we supposed to do!? You ‘Star Seekers’ might not care since all three of you were freed, but our leader hasn’t even woken up yet!”

The long-haired man from ‘Four Card’ raised his voice.

The first people Sean had freed from the statues were the leader of his own party, ‘Star Seeker,’ followed by his mage companion from the same party.

After that, the decision to free two members of ‘Four Card,’ excluding their leader, was made by the ‘Star Seeker’ leader.

This was based on the judgment that members using shotguns and large-caliber rifles would be more helpful in combat than the ‘Four Card’ leader who used a pistol, as well as his desire to maintain complete command over the dungeon conquest, and consideration for the possibility of not obtaining all 63 gold coins.

“When we entered the dungeon, everyone except Sean was turned to stone. In that situation, it was only natural to free our own party members first, people we could trust. If someone from ‘Four Card’ had been the survivor instead of Sean, you would have made the same decision.”

“Well, that may be true, but still!”

“They’ll soon free their last companion and go to defeat the boss. We need to make a decision.”

“A decision…”

Will’s party was ready to clear the dungeon, and the Star Seeker & Four Card alliance had lost the competition.

Should they continue their meaningless struggle until Will’s party cleared the dungeon, or should they attempt to “cut in line” and challenge the dungeon boss with just the five of them before the others returned?

That was the decision the ‘Star Seeker’ leader was asking them to make.

“What’s the possibility that people left as statues will be freed when someone demolishes this dungeon?”

“It’s impossible to predict. But if I had to say, it would be better if that ‘someone’ was us rather than anyone else.”

“…Let’s go.”

“W-what!? Are you serious?”

“We have no choice. At this rate, they’ll clear the dungeon and take all the rewards before we can defeat 18 more creatures. Actually, I’m not even sure if there are 18 dolls left in this mansion.”

“B-but…”

As the two members of ‘Four Card’ failed to reach an agreement, the ‘Star Seeker’ leader began walking toward the stairs leading to the second floor with his party members.

“We don’t have time to deliberate. With the path to the large central room on the second floor wide open, this is our only chance… Star Seeker will enter the boss room.”

“…Damn it! Whatever happens, happens! I’m coming too.”

“That’s right! If we can’t leisurely earn 40 gold coins, we should at least be the ones to defeat the boss!”

Though they had lost the gold coin collection competition, they decided to abandon their two companions and be the first to defeat the dungeon boss.

Having made this decision, the Star Seeker & Four Card alliance ran up the second-floor stairs and reached for the large locked door.

~ ~ ~ Protagonist’s Perspective ~ ~ ~

When I came up to the first floor with Phyllis, Sean’s party was nowhere to be found.

If they had planned to continue fighting the servants, they would have waited for Jessica’s healing.

Otherwise, there was only one possibility.

“Those guys… they must have given up on their remaining two members and gone to fight the boss.”

“They abandoned their companions?”

“They probably thought they couldn’t collect all the gold coins before we cleared the dungeon.”

“We might have waited if they’d asked… but I doubt they would have believed us even if we said so.”

“Yeah, and there was no guarantee that there were enough servants left to provide 36 more gold coins.”

“The more I think about it, the crueler this dungeon seems. Especially considering that the people left behind are still conscious.”

Do the two adventurers left in the first room know that their companions abandoned them to clear the dungeon?

Or perhaps they lose consciousness and fully transform into statues when abandoned, or maybe they wait for their companions until they eventually give up.

Even before questioning anyone’s malice or conscience, the fact that someone can be abandoned simply because there are too many people is incredibly cruel.

As we passed through the silent corridor and climbed to the second floor, there was no sign of servants anywhere.

Sean’s party couldn’t have wiped them all out in such a short time, so they must have been programmed to disappear when certain conditions were met.

After climbing the wide staircase and following the central corridor inward, a large door stood imposingly before us.

This was presumably the room where the dungeon boss, the lady of the mansion, was waiting.

“…I don’t hear anything?”

“Did the other team give up and escape, or…”

Swallowing the words “were they wiped out,” I grabbed the horizontal door handle and slowly turned it downward.

The handle, which had been firmly locked when I first explored the mansion, now turned smoothly without any resistance.

‘Click… creeeeak…’

“Huh?”

“What is…?”

Beyond the door was a spacious bedroom.

In one corner stood a magnificent “princess bed” with a canopy and curtains, while expensive-looking furniture such as wardrobes and tea tables occupied the walls on either side.

But our attention was drawn not to the expensive furniture or the lavish bed, but to the empty space directly ahead.

Where there should have been a wall, there was a gaping opening, beyond which stretched a misty, bright space like a foggy morning landscape.

“Is an entire wall missing? What a strange room.”

“I don’t see the party that entered before us. What’s going on?”

“A room with only three walls…”

Within the sense of discomfort lingered a subtle feeling of déjà vu.

Before I could identify what it was, a loud voice echoed throughout the room.

“Hee hee hee… tee hee hee hee?”

“Whoa!”

It sounded like a child’s laughter amplified through a large speaker system.

As everyone covered their ears and grimaced at the voice coming from beyond the missing wall, a gigantic face silhouette appeared in the misty haze.

“Eek!?”

“A-a giant?”

“No, this size is just too strange, isn’t it?”

The silhouette of the giant, whose face alone seemed to be about three meters tall, giggled as it watched our startled reactions, then addressed us in its enormous voice.

“You didn’t break any of the other dolls? What good children you are!”

“What…?”

The moment I heard those words, I felt the hair all over my body stand on end.

We didn’t break any other dolls? That’s true. We didn’t defeat any of the mansion’s servants and earned gold coins by working.

The problem was the word the giant silhouette used.

Not “you didn’t break any dolls,” but “you didn’t break any of the OTHER dolls.”

That expression only makes sense if it considers the five of us to be “dolls” just like the servants.

Both the adventurers who entered the mansion and the servants working there were all “dolls.”

I knew what to call a place with lots of such dolls and a missing wall.

“This dungeon… it’s a dollhouse.”

A dollhouse.

A large mansion with one wall missing, decorated with tiny furniture and dolls throughout—something I’d occasionally seen in the girls’ toy section of department stores.

From the moment we set foot in this dungeon, we had become dolls for that gigantic being, acting out the role of “guests.”

‘Come to think of it… there were definitely strange things about the mansion’s structure.’

The number of servants didn’t match the number of bedrooms.

There were bathrooms in the mansion, but no toilets or garbage disposal areas anywhere.

If the lady of the mansion didn’t live in the mansion, then whose were the luxury clothes in the dressing room?

There were countless aspects that should have felt unnatural for a human dwelling.

“Tee hee hee! You figured it out? You really figured it out?”

“…Are you the lady of the mansion, the boss of this dungeon?”

“That’s right.”

“What happened to the adventurers who came in before us?”

“Ah, those bad children? They—”

[ I threw them away. ]

The moment the giant said that, the misty haze filling the space beyond the missing wall cleared completely.

What appeared was a room that gave the impression we had entered a giant’s country.

Floral wallpaper filled our vision, and the wooden floor was as wide as the Riverside Bridge.

On one side of that floor lay something in human form, its upper and lower body separated.

Though we couldn’t make out the face due to the distance from the second floor to the ground, it was easy to understand whose “remains” they were.

“Ugh!?”

“My God…”

The fourth rule of this dungeon:

The lady of the mansion never forgives those who steal her gold coins.

This wasn’t just about becoming enemies with the servants or being unable to avoid fighting the boss.

The punishment for bad dolls that moved on their own and broke other dolls was cold and merciless “disposal.”

“Don’t worry. You’re not bad children, so you won’t end up like that.”

The lady of the mansion smiled, trying to reassure us.

The gigantic face, which until moments ago had appeared only as a dark silhouette, had transformed into that of a porcelain doll.

Hard, glossy white skin, a jaw split like a nutcracker doll.

That inhuman appearance evoked the demonic dolls from horror movies.

“Good children should keep playing with me! Tee hee hee!”

The most spine-chilling laughter in the world filled our eyes and ears.