Sherlock snapped out of his fantasies of a future life of unbridled indulgence.
At first, he didn't pay much attention to the letter lying on the ground. Instead, he stared wide-eyed at the owl circling overhead, uncertain about what he was seeing.
Training owls to deliver messages?
Was that still common in the UK?
He wasn't exactly an expert on British history and customs. With a faint shake of his head, he bent down and picked up the letter.
The moment the owl saw it had been received, it stopped circling and flew away.
Sherlock frowned as he examined the envelope in his hand.
It was made of thick parchment. The address was written in emerald-green ink, and there wasn't even a stamp.
[To Mr. Sherlock Cavendish, 13 Magnolia Road, Surrey]
Sherlock turned the letter over and saw a wax seal and a shield emblem on the back.
A capital "H" was surrounded by a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake.
The crest looked strangely familiar, but Sherlock couldn't remember where he'd seen it before.
He shook his head. Instead of opening the envelope right away, he held it together with the will and decided to go inside first.
The front door key and the room key were linked together and had been returned to him by the hospital along with his other belongings when he was discharged.
The yard was overgrown with weeds, and Sherlock frowned at the state of the place. He had a mild case of obsessive-compulsive tendencies and couldn't stand untidiness.
But right now, he didn't have the time to worry about that. He walked straight down the weed-choked path toward the front door.
Just as he was about to insert the key, the old wooden door suddenly creaked open with a long, drawn-out groan.
Before Sherlock could even touch the keyhole, the door swung open by itself.
He froze, a chill running down his spine as if a cold wind had brushed past him.
In his previous life, Sherlock had been a university graduate—hardly the type to believe in superstitions.
Even though something as impossible as transmigration had happened to him—something that defied science entirely—his mind still clung to reason.
Was the house… haunted?
Sherlock shook his head and gave a short, amused smile.
Ghosts? In broad daylight?
The door must not have been properly shut, and a gust of wind had pushed it open. That was all.
Having convinced himself with a reasonable explanation, Sherlock casually stepped forward, pushed the door wider, and walked in.
In stark contrast to the chaos outside, the living room was surprisingly neat.
Still, the interior felt dim.
Outside, the sky was clear and blue, yet barely any sunlight seemed to reach inside, making the house feel oddly like a medieval castle—cold, shadowy, and oppressive.
Sherlock set the will and the envelope down on the shoe cabinet beside him.
Then, as he shrugged off his coat and was about to toss it onto the sofa, he suddenly noticed a coat rack standing right next to the door.
He paused and stared at it, suspicious.
Was that always there?
Of course, it wasn't anything major. Earlier, his attention had been on the living room itself, and he hadn't bothered to check whether there was a coat rack by the entrance.
He hung his coat up, picked up the will and the letter again, and walked into the living room.
The moment he turned away, the coat rack—now holding his coat—seemed to move on its own, sliding silently back into an inconspicuous corner as if it had never been in the way at all.
Sherlock, with his back turned, noticed nothing.
Once inside, he began checking the rooms one by one.
Aside from the poor lighting, the house was remarkably clean and orderly.
The owner, however, clearly had a taste for the old-fashioned. The furniture and decorations leaned heavily toward medieval European styles, and paired with the dim atmosphere, it made the place feel even stranger—almost too deliberate.
It didn't feel like a modern home at all.
It felt like a fortress. The kind a lord might have lived in centuries ago.
Still, appearances aside, the house was only worn-down on the outside. Inside, the facilities were complete, the space was generous, and the layout was practical—the living area on the first floor and the bedrooms upstairs neatly separated.
For someone like Sherlock, whose ultimate dream in his previous life had been to own a house of his own, this was something he would never have dared to imagine.
Even without the inheritance from his so-called father, this house alone was enough to make him feel lucky.
But while he was inspecting the second-floor bedrooms, something odd caught his attention.
At the end of the corridor stood a door.
It was made of dark gray wood. In the dim light, it blended into the shadows so well that unless someone was deliberately looking that way, they could easily miss it.
Worse, the door was completely bare—no patterns, no carvings, not even a doorknob.
If Sherlock hadn't noticed the metal hinges where it connected to the wall, he might have unconsciously ignored it altogether.
He didn't immediately sense anything wrong. He simply chalked it up to the original owner's strange taste—like decorating the entire house as though it belonged to an old man from another century.
Curiosity got the better of him.
Sherlock stepped up to the door and gently pushed against it.
It swung open slightly—revealing a soft, warm yellow light.
At the same time, a sharp female voice suddenly shrieked from inside.
"Sherlock!"
Caught completely off guard, Sherlock stumbled back, his shoulders slamming against the wall as his heart lurched. His hair practically stood on end.
Someone's in there!
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