Chapter 986 - Living in a locked box

As Pareth and Sofia cautiously entered the silent house, it spontaneously came to life. The electrical lightbulbs turned on by themselves, bathing the old furniture in cold white light. Appliances whirred to life, the blocky television visible from the entrance started broadcasting some incomprehensible broadcast of blurry-faced people speaking garbled words, from the kitchen, the sound of boiling water in a kettle could be heard, and a muted song came from the floor above like a distant orchestra.

The door slowly closed itself behind them, locking itself with a soft click.

A lot of things are very wrong here.

Just a preliminary scan with her mana senses told Sofia a lot, not only had the interior layout of the house fully changed in the short time they had taken to walk through the door, but the electrical appliances did not react to her mana at all.

At the same time, Sofia was pretty confident when it came to noticing illusion magic, and the place felt very real despite the incoherences.

We better not be inside of a fucking mimic.

Pareth walked further in first, having to shrink himself to a normal human size to fit through the doors.

Together they did a full sweep of the house. There were only a few rooms, the first floor had the entrance and living room, the kitchen, toilets and a small storage room under the stairs, the second floor had two bedrooms and a bathroom. The music came from a rectangular black box in the parents’ room, while the other bedroom seemed to be for a young child, with a doll house and toys lying about on the floor.

After having looked through the entire place, Sofia sat down on the sofa in front of the tv, still broadcasting blurry footage.

“I do not get it. I was certain something would have attacked us by now, but the worst that happened is the door locking itself behind us, and it’s not like that would be enough to trap us in.”

Pareth gave his opinion with a few hand signs.

“Not killing… You mean this one might not be hostile? It is a possibility, Gabriela does have that pen, and the statue was also technically neutral… Plus they have that wishing well one. But then why would it try to bring us in like that, with the infinite expanding houses? And what happened to the original street?”

Sofia expanded her senses outside. The houses had returned to their normal sizes compared to before, but everything was still the same, the street was still silent and empty, repeating in the exact same pattern no matter the distance.

“The exact same house with the same interior exists one street over in both directions, just without us inside. What a strange place to be in… Honestly though, if this one isn’t much of a danger, we are just wasting our time here. No reason to stay any longer.”

The blurry people on the tv stopped speaking for an instant, as though the image froze, before resuming their incomprehensible dialogue like nothing happened.

Standing up, Sofia walked toward the front door. “Let’s just quickly check the sides of the street since we did not try that. Then we’re out.”

The lights suddenly started to flicker on and off, another gust of cold air sweeping through the room.

Oh?

When her hand landed on the door’s handle, the lights all turned off and the air turned glacial.

Then the door disappeared. Her hand closed on nothing, Sofia now facing a blank wall where the door used to be.

“I changed my mind, let’s stay here a little bit longer,” Sofia said toward Pareth.

The lights all turned back on, warmth regaining the room.

Whatever is keeping us here clearly does not want us leaving. Its methods are a bit weak but it might be worth looking into after all. It’s likely regular people in our place wouldn’t be able to escape

Back on the living room

couch, Sofia used the graveyard nymphs to check the spiritual plane.

Oh shit. Sofia cursed, jumping out of the couch. I should have started there.

The author's publication page is the proper place to support the writer, while this copy was taken without consent.

The house was packed to the brim with ghosts. Likely all humans, of different shapes and sizes, they moved around the house, all passing through each other as though fully unaware of the other ghosts’ existence.

Most of them were clumped together into blurry superimposed masses in ‘habitual’ places. On the couch, on chairs, crouching in front of the chimney, standing at the stovetop in the kitchen… They were as oblivious of her as they were of each other.

Through the walls Sofia could see the street outside, it was the same, hundreds if not thousands of ghosts, coming and going. Children playing, running after each other, people carrying ghostly bags as though going to work.

Are you seeing this shit, Pareth?

I take it all back about this place not being so dangerous. Clearly it killed all of these people and is keeping their ghosts trapped here for some reason.

What surprises me is that I cannot feel the bodies anywhere…

There would at least be some bones left…

Leaving the spiritual plane, Sofia could no longer feel the presence of the ghosts at all despite how numerous they were.

Pareth?

Pareth?!

Despite still feeling Pareth around, Sofia could no longer see him at all. She switched to his eyes, only to see her own feet.

“What the fuck is…”

Switching between the two points of view, Sofia watched herself pick Pareth up. What she grabbed was a tiny metal lockbox sitting under the coffee table, which wasn’t there before, and Pareth’s vision came from the keyhole.

Are you inside?

Sofia’s mana senses revealed the locked box to be empty.

From what Sofia could tell of Pareth’s emotions, he was probably just as confused as she was. To begin with, he had been watching the spiritual plane through her eyes when whatever happened to him happened, so he hardly knew more than she did about the situation. Still, he felt quite calm beyond the confusion, and just settled on using Sofia’s vision while she handled the situation.

A quick check into the spiritual plane confirmed that Pareth’s soul at least still looked ‘normal’, although its core was now centered on the lockbox Sofia held in her hand.

Can you move at all? Use any spell?

Pareth’s soul did not react.

I suppose that’s a no… Well at least your spirit body is still here and not joining the other ghosts. Now I’ve no choice other than getting rid of the entity causing all this, huh. I wonder why I wasn’t also turned into an object, did the Philosopher’s stone protect me?

Thinking this, Sofia felt a bit strange all of a sudden, looking around her.

Are all the objects here also people?

No wonder there are so many ghosts…

Her scepter in one hand and lockbox Pareth in the other, Sofia ejected half of her mana into the air, giving a support for her mana sense to be much sharper in this otherwise low-mana environment.

No, still nothing that stands out…

Well since it doesn’t want me outside, let’s start there.

Sofia returned to the kitchen, opened the window and jumped through, only to land in the second floor’s bathtub.

Turning around to look through the bathroom window, it now lead to the kitchen below. Sending her mana senses into the window really threw Sofia for a loop as it was not even like a spatial magic portal, and more like space itself was distorted, to make the house warp into itself. She could not even feel the outside anymore.

I hardly even felt the transition, how does any of this work?

There Sofia felt like she had just discovered a new weakness in her toolkit. Against enemies that weren’t really attacking her, just locating them could prove difficult.

Do I blast everything to bits?

No, I’m still in the middle of the city, I’m not supposed to hasten humanity’s fall…

Plus Gabriela isn’t that far, it would be a pain dealing with the ECA if she really dies.

Killing just the ghosts would be easy but they’re probably just the victims here already…

How can I force the entity to show itself…

“Hey. I know you can hear me,” she tried, “Want to talk?”

There was no answer.

I’m sure the television froze when I talked about leaving earlier. They have to have understood what I said.

“Come on, you can show yourself, I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Again, no answer.

“If you really don’t want to talk then I’m leaving. My powers are stronger than yours, you can’t stop me.”

To prove her point, Sofia grabbed the air next to her, and started tearing up space with [Roaming Free] carving out a small hole that gave a direct view of the real physical plane outside.

The house started to shake as she enlarged the hole.

Sofia stopped, smirking.

“Feel like talking, now?”