Chapter 45: Squad 5

Almost half an hour passed before there was a knock at the manor’s front door.

By then, most of the servants had been sent back to their rooms, although I doubted anyone was actually sleeping. The atmosphere throughout the house had changed. Every creak of the floorboards seemed louder than usual, and whenever the wind brushed against the windows, I caught myself glancing toward them.

Father remained in the drawing room with Mother and Sera while Mr. Rowan waited near the entrance, occasionally checking the clock on the wall. When the knock finally came, it was neither hurried nor hesitant.

Mr. Rowan opened the door, and three figures stood beneath the pale light of the streetlamps.

They wore the uniforms of the Twilight Order.

The first was a man who looked to be in his late twenties, with short brown hair and a rather stern expression.

Beside him stood a woman with long black hair, her eyes carrying a sharpness that made me instinctively more cautious around her, while the third member was a slightly shorter man whose relaxed posture seemed strangely out of place given the circumstances.

Mr. Rowan exchanged a few words with them before allowing them inside.

They introduced themselves as Derrick, Melissa, and Otis, members of Squad 5. Although the Twilight Order’s primary responsibility was handling Awakened incidents within Kingsmere, that responsibility did not end at the borders of the district. Nobles living elsewhere were still under their protection, and when something supernatural occurred within a noble household, the Order was obligated to investigate.

Derrick was the first to approach me.

"You’re Edmund Rhys?"

"Yes."

"Tell me what happened."

I briefly glanced toward Father before answering.

"I came downstairs after hearing something. When I reached the corridor, I felt an evil aura coming from the cook’s room..."

I explained eveything that had happened, from opening to door to seeing the tentacles to knowing that the monster was actually our cook.

Derrick listened without interrupting.

"What did you see after destorying the monster?"

"A ritual."

I paused for a moment, choosing my next words carefully.

"There were candles around the room. They had already been extinguished by my sister during the fight."

Derrick nodded and wrote something down.

"Did you see the cook before the transformation?"

"Yes."

"Anything unusual?"

I shook my head. "Nothing that I noticed."

His questions continued for several minutes, occasionally circling back to things I had already mentioned. I answered them as consistently as I could. There was no need to lie about what had happened. The truth itself contained enough gaps to protect what I needed hidden.

Eventually, Derrick stepped away.

Melissa approached the room next.

"Everyone," she said, "stand beside me."

We did as she instructed. ℴ

"Five steps back."

Father frowned slightly, but nobody questioned her.

Melissa closed her eyes.

For a moment, absolutely nothing happened.

Then her hair began to rise.

Each strand slowly lifted from her shoulders, floating around her head as though gravity had temporarily forgotten its purpose. Her eyelids opened revealing crimson.

I felt an inexplicable chill run through me.

She stared at the room for several seconds, and although her expression remained almost completely emotionless, I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was looking at something none of us could see.

Then the strange phenomenon ended.

Her hair fell naturally around her shoulders, and the crimson disappeared from her eyes.

"She was attempting Black Magic.

"And unfortunately for her, it failed. The backlash that resulted corrupted her soul. and that corruption caused her body and spirit to transform into the creature you encountered. It wasn’t summoned."

Melissa looked toward the place where the monster had been destroyed.

"It was created."

I didn’t say anything.

Neither did Father.

There was something particularly unpleasant about those words...

It made the monster feel less like an intruder and more like the final result of something that had begun inside our own walls.

Otis suddenly stepped forward.

"I’ll clean this up."

He raised one hand and a thing that looked like an oversized fog appeared beside him.

The creature was enormous compared to an ordinary frog, with a strangely smooth body and a mouth far too large for its head. Before I could wonder what exactly Otis intended to do with it, the creature inhaled.

A powerful suction force erupted from its mouth.

Loose papers flew across the room. Dust rose from the floor. Bloodstains, fragments of broken furniture, ash and the remnants of the ritual were dragged toward it in a violent stream. The creature swallowed everything without chewing, its enormous mouth expanding impossibly wide as it consumed the traces left behind by the incident.

Within seconds, the room looked completely different.

The frog-like creature closed its mouth.

Otis casually dismissed it.

"Done."

I stared at the empty room.

’Convenient.’

Derrick gave the room one final inspection before the three members prepared to leave. Melissa said nothing else, while Otis looked considerably more relaxed now that his job was finished. At the entrance, they exchanged a few words with Father before Melissa and Otis stepped outside.

Derrick remained.

I couldn’t hear everything from where I stood, but fragments of their conversation reached me.

"We sincerely apologize, Baron Rhys.

"The Order will provide compensation for the damages."

Derrick lowered his voice.

"There have been several incidents recently. The entire Order is currently dealing with something extremely difficult, and our resources are stretched thinner than we would like. We understand that this doesn’t excuse what happened here."

Father was silent for a moment before he nodded.

"I understand."

Derrick bowed slightly before leaving.

The door closed and the manor became quiet again.

I poured myself a glass of water and drank it slowly.

Too many things had happened tonight.

Yet somehow, the thing occupying my mind most wasn’t any of them.

It was the fog.

The endless stars.

Ever since I had first discovered that strange place, I had treated it like something I should avoid. There was something fundamentally wrong with it, something that my instincts refused to explain. A place filled with endless fog and stars that seemed to stretch beyond the limits of the world wasn’t something an ordinary person was supposed to visit.

But tonight had changed something.

Perhaps it was the encounter with the monster.

Perhaps it was the questions I couldn’t answer.

Or perhaps I was simply tired of sitting around while mysteries accumulated around me.

I entered my room and closed the door.

’If I keep waiting until I understand everything, I’ll never take a single step forward.’

I leaned back against the headboard and took one final breath.

"Let’s explore the area of the fog and endless stars."