Ch.207207 – While She Slept

<207 – While She Sleeps>

To summarize Professor Sadaco’s midterm exam in one phrase, it’s a “House of Horror.”

━━━

New Maid’s Journal Page 1

Today is my first day working at the Sadaco House.

My employer is Head Maid Basilite, a very strict and intimidating person who wears glasses.

She said this is the fifth new hire this month, so I must be extremely careful not to get scolded.

I must remember to collect the “work key” from the “security room,” which is the first room on the left of the first floor entrance.

━━━

The security room door sign looks eerie in the dim moonlight.

In the gloomy atmosphere of the empty hallway, Zhang said:

“Let’s play rock-paper-scissors.”

“I’ll just go in! Next time it’s Zhang’s turn.”

As I fling the door open, I hear grumbling from behind: “Ugh, what a scumbag…”

After picking up the key and checking each room that opens, we find a dust-covered dining room, empty guest rooms, zombies hiding in bathrooms, and skeletons rattling by bedsides.

Honestly, it’s kind of fun?

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I said I wanted to live in a fancy house I’m sorry Papa I’ll live well in a small house without complaining…”

“Oknodie… please make Titosoga shut up. She’s making this scarier.”

“Hmm~ Maybe she can’t calm down! Want some candy?”

Titosoga’s muttering stopped abruptly.

“No, that’s okay.”

“Really? That’s too bad…”

“W-what’s too bad?”

“I was curious what kind of candy Titosoga likes!”

“I like ordinary candy…”

Ah, I see.

Leaf must have bought fancy candy to treat her like a ‘young lady’ and it made her uncomfortable.

I should tell him to get ordinary candy when he visits next time.

━━━

New Maid’s Journal Page 7

Blood-stained clothes of the missing new maids were found in the fireplace.

So what I saw of Miss Sadaco that day wasn’t an illusion or hallucination.

The young lady isn’t human.

She’s a vampire who feeds on human blood!

I need to hide quickly.

Inside the chimney.

The attic on the third floor.

The storage room in the basement.

Wherever it is, I’ll be discovered if I don’t hurry!

━━━

Following the professor’s quest line through the maze-like mansion, we’ve nearly reached the end of the journal.

Clank.

From far away comes the sound of locks being released, along with the cries of numerous monsters.

“Should we split up and hide separately?”

“Please, let’s stay together…”

“Pink, my precious pink light, I’ll shine it for you, so don’t leave me behiiind! Waaah!”

After all that begging and clinging, we couldn’t have the survival competition.

The three of us hide together under the basement storage room, holding our breath as monsters stomp by with squelching footsteps. We can even glimpse their feet occasionally—quite thrilling.

She really did make the exam within the covered material.

But could it be because there are too many monsters infused with dark energy?

Ghosts I’ve never seen during lectures seem to have been drawn to the mansion by the eerie energy.

Floating ghosts pass through walls and ceilings as they please.

‘Zhang and Lin would faint if they saw this.’

Among the ghosts, I can see a student ghost wandering after suffering an unjust death at the academy.

Judging by the uniform, it’s not a freshman, so I guess it counts as natural death, but to freshmen, a death is a death regardless of year.

It’s torturous being in this cramped space listening to Titosoga’s confessions or having Zhang stick to me, poking my waist repeatedly asking for help.

Should I use magic to drive them away?

But what if all the monsters in the mansion detect the dark mana and come rushing over?

As my worries deepened one after another…

Slowly…

From the corner of my vision.

A familiar ghost appeared at the top of the wine cellar.

‘Fake Lin?’

She approached very slowly from a blind spot, toward the ghost who’s poking its head out from the ceiling and staring at the wall with hazy eyes.

Her posture resembled a cat eyeing a sparrow chirping on a branch from atop a wall.

‘Ugh. Could it be?’

My ominous premonitions always come true at times like this.

Fake Lin rushed forward in one breath, grabbed the head of the ghost hanging upside down from the ceiling, and dragged it down to the floor.

Thud

Though there was no physical force, the ghost that was dragged down looked at fake Lin as if protesting “what are you doing?”

Of course, the ill-mannered Lin didn’t awkwardly avoid eye contact or apologize.

Aaaang

It just opened its mouth wide and swallowed the ghost whole.

“You shouldn’t eat that! Shoo, shoo!”

“Waaah!? What is it, what is it, what is it!”

“Titosoga. Did you eat candy?”

“I didn’t!”

“Then you must have eaten a rock thinking it was candy?”

“I didn’t eat anything!”

Zhang and Titosoga, who had been startled thinking I was talking about them, were horrified to discover fake Lin who had gained energy from devouring a ghost.

“A new maid’s ghost?”

“Ah, that… it’s Oknodie’s ghost friend!”

Oh right. Titosoga had seen fake Lin before with Hestia, hadn’t she?

“Ah. So that’s the one I’ve only heard about?”

“Yes. It’s probably the soul of that child who turned into a plant in Oknodie’s room.”

“Seeing it like this, ghosts aren’t that scary. It’s even a little cute.”

Zhang, who suffered from undead & ghost phobia based on her principle that things you can’t harm are scary.

Would one of her phobias disappear today?

Zhang carefully approached fake Lin.

She cautiously extended her hand to touch fake Lin’s cheek.

A historic moment of phobia treatment.

“?”

Fake Lin, tilting its head at the hand touching its cheek, opened its mouth.

Between the slightly parted lips, a finger that hadn’t yet been spiritually digested wailed before slipping back into its mouth.

“Wow! It looked just like a jumping spider!”

“Oknodie. I just realized. There are no good ghosts in this world.”

Zhang jumped instantly to the top of the wine cellar 5 meters up and hung there. It feels like watching a cat fleeing at full speed from a scary cat.

I guess we have to say Zhang’s ghost phobia treatment ended in a spectacular failure?

“I told you to shoo. You scare Zhang by picking up and eating any random ghost!”

Fake Lin ignores my scolding completely.

I really want to grab those cheeks and stretch them to teach it a lesson.

* *

[You have obtained the “New Maid’s Red Flag” with your friends and safely escaped the mansion of horror.]

[Situation Awareness Experience +10]

[Hiding Experience +5]

[Thinking Experience +5]

[Psychological Prediction Experience +5]

[You have successfully completed the midterm exam for the lecture <Adventurer’s Night Activities>.]

[You acquire 100 points.]

[You have completed the first semester midterm exams for freshman year.]

[You acquire 200 points.]

Was Zhang’s frightened appearance that amusing?

Lin kept opening its mouth wide with a “baaah” whenever it caught Zhang’s eye.

Judging by the bright red tongue that ghosts shouldn’t need to manifest, it seems to have referenced Titosoga, who screamed like the world was ending, rather than Zhang, who covered her mouth with her hands and silently screamed.

“If you keep not acting like Lin, I’ll tell Sing.”

“!”

Does it know its life depends on Sing?

The previously disobedient fake Lin immediately became cautious and slipped back into the ring.

They say raising daughters is pointless, and look at Sing, being all cautious right away despite being a man.

It’s so annoying.

“Oknodie. Did the exam go well?”

“Yaaawn. Not bad, I think.”

“You look very tired. Go in and sleep.”

“Good night.”

“Sleep well.”

After returning to the dormitory and greeting Isabelle in the hallway, I tossed my clothes into the laundry basket.

If I put them on the automatic laundry magic circle, they’ll be washed, dried, and ironed by morning, hanging on the clothes rack.

Because of the smell of decaying corpses and the dirt on my body, I took a shower before throwing myself onto the bed.

Whirrr

As I was drying my hair, I heard a knocking sound from the wall.

“Oh right. Thanks. I did well on the exam thanks to you!”

“…I helped you because I felt sorry for you.”

The Responding Wall is really kind.

When did it grumble about low likability? It teaches exam questions so well.

Thanks to it, I breezed through Professor Platton’s exam and several others.

“Don’t go around getting cursed at… I’ll curse anyone who curses you.”

“Okay.”

Should this count as a good neighbor too?

If I feel like it later, I’ll let it out of the wall.

I’ll put in a troublesome demon instead when one shows up.

Hop

After drying my hair, I slipped into the blanket.

Maybe because I spent all day taking exams, my eyelids quickly grew heavy.

“Kid. Didn’t you say you’d show me something before going to bed?”

“Mmm… later…”

I barely managed to respond to the Aptitude Assessment Hat that had regained its energy before my eyes closed.

* *

While Oknodie sleeps.

The Aptitude Assessment Hat pulled out the arms stored inside it and crawled onto the bed.

“She did say to look in the morning, but I can’t wait because I’m too curious.”

The Aptitude Assessment Hat had assessed the talents of countless scholarship students at the foundation, but rarely had it assessed someone with talent as outstanding as Oknodie’s.

And that was by the standards before reuniting at the academy—since their reunion, Oknodie possessed unheard-of, impossible talents.

Curious about how amazing such a child’s status window and function window would be, it crawled up to Oknodie’s bedside and covered her head with itself.

[The Aptitude Assessment Hat is viewing Oknodie’s status window.]

[The Aptitude Assessment Hat is viewing Oknodie’s function window.]

The eyes attached to the hat were filled with shock.

“This is the spec of an 11-year-old?”