Laila swallowed her breath and widened her eyes.

Ash-gray. Those feet were ash-gray. Very pale, like dirty and hazy melting old snow at the corner of a spring road, small feet stood motionless behind the curtain as if nailed in place.

No other shadows were visible above the curtain.

“Hey.”

Laila, licking her parched mouth with her tongue, carefully approached the curtain. The feet didn’t move. They almost looked like an intricately carved sculpture.

“Hey, would you like to come out here?”

It was the moment Laila reached out to draw the curtain.

The two feet that had been standing still suddenly turned direction and moved with a sound like a snake slithering. They disappeared quickly on tiptoes with heels raised, as if crawling on all fours.

“Wait!”

Laila quickly drew the curtain, but the feet had already vanished somewhere. She had expected a window to be at the bottom, but the windowsill was much higher than she had anticipated.

Instead, the lower part was a solid wall, and Laila slowly backed away while holding the curtain. Then, as if she had touched a bug, she flung the curtain open with a snap.

The wallpaper clearly showed marks as if someone—or something—had scratched it with nails. Dark debris-like substances were stuck in each crack, and the finishing material leading to the floor had turned pitch black as if burned.

While Laila was fixing her gaze on those traces, she sensed something slipping by behind her back. As she hurriedly turned her head, she saw heels walking away in her line of sight.

They looked like shoes worn by employees. She rushed outside to look, but couldn’t see his figure. When she turned her gaze to the opposite side, she saw a white, slender woman’s foot disappearing into another room.

This isn’t a ghost problem, Laila thought. Looking around, another unfamiliar corridor appeared. It looked nonchalant as if nothing had happened.

Laila glared at the old painting hanging on the opposite wall. A woman in a voluminous dress stood holding a withered flower with an unhappy expression.

“It’s not a ghost problem.”

As Laila slowly spoke aloud, the woman in the painting seemed to move her head slightly. As if in agreement.

“This entire house needs an ‘overlay’.”

As she turned around, the wall where the woman’s portrait had been hanging disappeared, and another winding corridor appeared. In one corner, a mark Laila had drawn remained slightly blurred. It looked as if someone had brushed past it with their hand.

Laila closed her eyes with her palm pressed against that blurred trace. As she inhaled, a familiar scent wafted. The smell of soft cream and fresh leaves, early summer that still clung to the hem of spring wind.

Eustar must have passed through there.

Opening her eyes, Laila slowly removed her hand from the wall and looked down at the blackened floor. The raised and cracked parts of the wood grain had fallen off in pieces and met, looking like a grinning mouth.

“Come out right now if you’re watching. Devil or ghost.”

As she spoke with force in her voice, the air sank heavily and then floated up. Light furnishings around shook and rattled… but that was all.

Laila finally raised her head with an angry expression. A chandelier that looked too luxurious to be hung in the corridor ceiling, making it seem rather awkward, came into view.

“Alright, if you won’t come out, I’ll have to drag you out.”

Laila, who had been glaring at the chandelier, took out something about the size of a finger joint from a small leather pouch.

At a glance, it looked like a stone fragment, but it was actually a type of crystal, a magical tool. It was used by members who could utilize magic smoothly when they had to use magic inevitably, when they had to draw a formation.

Laila drew a small formation on the wooden floor with it.

As she drew a circle and filled it with complex lines, she felt the wood grain squirming. She could sense that this house, or something that dominated this place, was displeased with her actions.

None of my business, Laila thought. The moment she completed the formation, there was a snap sound, and the tip of the crystal broke.

Laila threw it far away and stepped back. She spread her palm over the formation, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

“The butterfly in the water’s shadow, the red-beaked bird in the tree’s shade. You who hang in the cave, come forth.”

The clattering sound began to grow louder. The entire corridor shook and the walls made creaking noises. Sharp decorations from the chandelier fell beside Laila’s closed eyes and stuck into the floor like blades.

Black smoke rose from the center of the vibrating, glowing formation.

“The plump young prey in the monster’s mouth, the tough dry bones in the hands by the grave. You who hang upside down, come forth.”

With a hissing sound, pitch-black smoke enveloped Laila. Beyond the blackened, hazy vision, a human shadow flickered.

At the very moment Laila was drawing the formation, Eustar also sensed that the entire house was strangely shaking.

He had been marking here and there like Laila to find a way down to the lower floor, but he was racking his brains due to the structure that kept continuing like a maze with changing paths.

He had tried to break the window and go outside, but couldn’t even make a crack in the glass with anything.

As a last resort, he could have destroyed part of the house using a powerful magical tool, but he hesitated because of Laila.

‘Laila is here.’

Seeing a mark he hadn’t drawn himself, Eustar immediately realized it was Laila’s trace.

He couldn’t recognize how he knew, whether it was intuition or unconscious calculation. But just as Laila had, he too could feel her the moment he caressed the mark.

If Laila was wandering somewhere here like himself, if they were perhaps in the same space but just couldn’t see each other, he couldn’t recklessly do dangerous things like blowing up the house…

Suddenly, there was a clicking sound from the monocle and his vision shook. He took off the monocle with a rather irritated manner. The rim that adjusted the accuracy of soul-seeing was shaking on its own.

“What is this…”

At that moment, with a crack sound, a thin crack appeared in the monocle’s lens. Startled, Eustar unconsciously raised his head and almost bit his tongue.

A face he had never seen before was right in front of his nose.

The moment he saw the black hair and fiery red eyes, Eustar leaped backwards while drawing his sword. Even with the distance created, he could feel his heart beating too fast.

‘Stay calm.’

He thought. Cold sweat ran down the back of his neck, bringing a chill.

The man was Bardin.

Bardin, who had thrust his face in front of Eustar, merely tilted his head indifferently at the sharp sword near his brow, showing no particular tension.

“State your name.”

Eustar, who had been maintaining a silent standoff, spoke in a more composed voice. A pair of bright red eyes moved slightly to look at the sword in front of him.

“Is it human manners to point this at someone and demand their name?”

“No. I’m not showing manners because you’re not human. State your name. Otherwise, I’ll cut you.”

“Go ahead.”

Bardin’s voice was cheerful, sounding almost like he was humming. It was a voice that clearly knew Eustar wouldn’t be able to do so.

Eustar momentarily thought of Laila. What if ‘this thing’ had harmed her?

Then Bardin said,

“Even in this situation, you look for her first.”

Eustar furrowed his brow and pressed the sword closer to Bardin. It must have almost touched his skin, but he didn’t budge. Also, no cut mark was left on the sword.

This is something that humans can’t kill, Eustar thought.

“What did you do to Laila?”

“What would I do to her?”

Then Bardin flicked Eustar’s sword with his finger.

Although he hadn’t put any strength into it, Eustar almost stumbled for a moment. The weight on the sword was beyond imagination. It felt like a hundred strong men had rushed in and pushed at once.

When he didn’t budge, this time Bardin showed an interested expression.

“I was going to laugh if you fell over, but you have some guts for a human male.”

Eustar’s mouth twisted fiercely.

“You crawled out of a fire pit, yet you run your mouth well. Shall I burn your tongue more thoroughly?”

“What?”

Bardin, who had retorted sharply, suddenly opened his mouth wide and started laughing.

As he burst into laughter, Eustar felt a strong urge to cover his ears. The air vibrated entirely, shaking his body. He felt nauseous as if an earthquake had occurred.

Suddenly stopping his laughter, Bardin took a step towards Eustar, making a clean shoe sound.

“It seems she didn’t say anything about me.”

“Stop talking nonsense and crawl back to your den. I don’t have time to chat with an idle devil like you.”

“No time. Of course. Why wouldn’t it be so? Aren’t you a creature with a short life? Those who can count their lifespans are usually anxious.”

Eustar swung his sword precisely towards his neck, knowing it would be useless. A blue light flashed once, but the movement wasn’t big. It was a moment when a person wouldn’t have even known if their head had fallen off.

Bardin said,

“You’re an insolent human. Aren’t you afraid that your breath would be cut off with just a blink of my eye?”

“Why don’t you try blinking all you want.”

Eustar’s sword blade stood straight towards Bardin.

“What did you do to Laila?”

Then Bardin moved his lips, red as if roses had been crushed, and smiled faintly.

Like a Deceptor, he too had an appearance so enchanting it took one’s breath away. He exuded a thick, mysterious sensuality that only non-humans could possess.

“Well, I ate her. Just a little bit.”

Eustar swung his sword again. This time it was faster than before and again it was futile.

However, Bardin stepped back a couple of steps as if trying to avoid it, and because of that brief gap, Eustar was able to take out a bottle of blessed water from his leather pouch.

Bardin’s eyebrows finally twitched.

“Put that unpleasant thing away.”

“If you don’t disappear right now, I’ll do something you won’t forget even if you die a hundred times.”

“I don’t think our conversation has developed that far yet. I usually don’t show this much mercy to humans, but I’ll let it slide once. For the sake of my daughter’s face.”

Eustar’s eyes widened. At the same time, the small bottle slipped from his hand.