The maid brought a steaming cup of black tea, instructed him to get to bed early and not to wander around at night, then left.
The guest room was meticulously appointed.
The same crimson carpet as the main hall. A massive floor-to-ceiling window let the moonlight in. There were electric lights—the mansion had power, it seemed—lending the bedroom a modern atmosphere at odds with the building's weathered exterior.
The room itself was modest, perhaps thirty square meters. The satin-sheeted bed was comfortable. Beside it stood a small bookshelf. A desk and chair completed the furnishings, all clearly antique, done in some very old style, coated in dust.
How to put it? The whole room gave Nanami Kira a deep sense of dissonance.
The bed was spotless. The windowsill, immaculate—the maid had obviously wiped it down with care. Yet the desk and bookshelf had been overlooked entirely. The room had electric lights but also candles. Some furniture was ancient, as though dragged out of the previous century, while other pieces gleamed like they'd been unwrapped yesterday.
Contradictions. A feeling of contradiction.
Modern elements and relics of the past, the pristine and the decrepit, jumbled together. Contradiction.
A contradiction of time itself.
Why does she want me in bed? It's barely dark.
Something's off. Nanami Kira searched the room, hunting for clues of any kind.
He pulled open a drawer—nothing but a thin film of dust. Checked under the bed—empty.
Finally, wedged between books on the shelf, he found a slip of paper with a string of characters written on it:
[厌世小说中转站一937929266]
(Misanthropic Novels Relay Station — 937929266)
[厌世小说中转站一九三七九二九二六六]
(Misanthropic Novels Relay Station — Nine-Three-Seven-Nine-Two-Nine-Two-Six-Six)
A string of numbers. Cryptic, seemingly random numbers.
Was there something hidden in this? Some meaning, some encoded message? The mansion oozed strangeness from every corner. The bindings on him had only half-released, which meant returning to the mansion wasn't the final condition—and that made sense, really; you could walk in and walk right back out again.
If this was a game, then winning it was the real requirement. So what were these numbers hinting at?
Nanami Kira gnawed at a fingernail, brow furrowed.
He examined the paper itself—its texture, its composition. No trace of Cursed Energy. Just an ordinary sticky note. He rearranged the digits, added them, subtracted them. Nothing emerged.
"Sir."
A cool female voice, right behind him.
"That's the Wi-Fi password for the bedroom."
The Wi-Fi password.
Nanami Kira leaned back in the chair, one hand pressed to his forehead.
Even his customary calm had cracked, just a little.
A Western mansion. A maid. The dead of night. A game. A Wi-Fi password.
These things don't go together at all!
So now he had the full picture of Amber Mansion's particular brand of strangeness: parts of it were so archaic they relied on candlelight, so neglected that the furniture was caked in dust—yet other parts had electricity, lamps, and apparently a broadband connection.
Old and new, woven together.
"Is there something you need?"
"Please, just call me Jasmine."
The maid dipped into a small curtsy, pale fingers pinching the hem of her skirt.
"I noticed your light was still on, so I came to brief you on tomorrow's itinerary."
"The Master won't be home tomorrow. It's quite the coincidence, really—he left just as you arrived."
"Any dietary restrictions for breakfast? I could prepare some caviar, or a steak is always a fine option. Everything comes from the livestock I raise here in the mansion myself. It's all very delicious..."
"As for tomorrow's schedule, I'll start by showing you around the estate. The other guests should arrive in about two days. The Collection Exchange is set for three days from now. If the Master still hasn't returned by then, I will be presiding over the auction myself..."
"Jasmine."
Nanami Kira cut her off, his tone level.
"I'm told the auction features artifacts from the Nara period?"
"To be precise, from after Master Jianzhen's eastward voyage to the Central Kingdom."
Jasmine explained patiently, black hair draping over her shoulders.
"The Master is quite fond of collecting such pieces. Humble as our estate may look, the collection inside rivals any museum."
"Would there happen to be any texts by Shenrun... cough, Master Manyo? His travel records, perhaps?"
"Manyo... You mean the sorcerer who journeyed to many countries?"
Nanami Kira's focus sharpened. Monks who went by the name Manyo were hardly rare in history, and the particular one he was after was so obscure that even Yaga Masamichi would have needed to look him up first.
Yet this maid had placed the name instantly.
"Naturally, we have them."
She smiled at him.
"Everything you're looking for—you'll find your answers here."
Jasmine left. The night passed without incident.
The next day was just as overcast. The sun showed itself only at dawn—a brief, scalding flash—before vanishing into the cloud bank.
Nanami Kira rose early. He confirmed that the Curtain he'd set at his doorway hadn't been disturbed, then deactivated the bomb on the door handle.
Over the course of the night, he had established two facts.
First: Amber Mansion had a Master. Whether that Master was responsible for triggering his time rewind in the previous timeline remained unconfirmed.
Second: some system of rules governed the mansion. Some pattern, some logic—and the people within it were compelled to act according to that system.
Could the entire mansion be a Cursed Spirit's innate domain?
With that question in mind, Nanami Kira opened his door and stepped out.
One more thing worth noting. Jasmine had stressed it repeatedly:
Sleep well at night. Don't wander around recklessly.
Was that one of the rules?
And there was the matter of Master Manyo's travel records. They were here, confirmed. The day he unraveled the mystery of the Arrow was drawing closer.
The sky was still half-dark, the great hall dim. Candlelight guttered. The fireplace flames swayed gently, rocking the shadows of tables up and down.
The sun's already risen. Technically, it's no longer nighttime.
Nanami Kira scanned the hall. The vast space was empty, utterly silent. A breakfast setting waited on the table.
Jasmine's steak. It looked genuinely appetizing—the cut in particular was superb, elastic, the blood blended seamlessly into the meat.
Nanami Kira did not eat it. For the duration of his stay, he would consume only the rations he'd brought with him.
According to Jasmine, the auction would officially commence in three days. That gave him three days to map his surroundings.
Familiar terrain always put him at ease. And ease was the ultimate happiness people pursued. Nanami Kira despised being bound, despised being cursed, despised the weight of every contract strapped to his back. That gnawing unease corroded his peace of mind.
I hate business trips. He looked down at his fingernails.
He circled the mansion, inspecting it floor by floor, and what puzzled him was this: in the entire building, he could not find a single place where animals were kept.
So where had the steak come from?
"Any dietary restrictions for breakfast? I could prepare some caviar, or a steak is always a fine option. Everything comes from the livestock I raise here in the mansion myself. It's all very delicious—"
Those were her exact words.
Livestock.
She hadn't said cattle.
"The Master won't be home tomorrow. It's quite the coincidence, really—he left just as you arrived."
Think about it. The Master of Amber Mansion. Every day, he enjoyed the meals Jasmine prepared. Every day, she tended to him.
Wasn't the Master himself the "livestock raised in the mansion"?
Nanami Kira's expression darkened.
Then what does that make me?
What am I right now?