***

The clock struck seven as usual.

The daylight was short, and with the garden lights extinguished, the Marquis of Saratheve’s house, which had been noisy in the daytime, quickly fell silent.

Gaston’s butler, a member of the Saratheve family’s entourage, paced nervously near the back door before welcoming the guests. They were all men with hoods pulled down to hide their faces.

“Are you sure about the goods today?”

“Yes. Of course.”

The butler really didn’t want to get involved in this. But he had been cleaning up Gaston’s dirty laundry for a very long time.

He knew so many of Gaston’s secrets that he couldn’t escape them.

But it was a blow to his pride. He was a butler for a prestigious family. He wasn’t supposed to be in a position to deal with shady men like this casually.

“Even so, aren’t you charging too much money? I’ll have to have a word with my family’s accountants.”

“It’s getting harder and harder to get things. We’re risking our lives for believers like you.”

“Believers? How dare you. Ahem. Anyway, move your stuff.”

At those words, the hooded men moved.

The barrels of unidentified goods were too heavy for two or three men to carry. The hooded men pressed the wagon against the back door.

The wagons had been specially adapted, with large doors that made it easy to load and unload the hidden barrels.

The men grunted as they loaded the barrels onto a large plank-wheeled cart that the Marquis of Saratheve had prepared.

“F, fire!”

A servant shouted, rushing outside. A gust of wind had knocked over a gas lamp in the hallway and set the carpet on fire.

The day before, a maid had spilled some perfumed oil on the carpet while moving it, and it had unfortunately caught fire.

As the smoke billowed into the room, the employees, who were in their bedrooms or common rooms, came running out.

“What happened!”

“Move the wagon back!”

The men scrambled to get the crates back on the wagon.

Nicole hid behind the mansion and watched.

“Quick, quick!”

The hooded leader shouted.

The crate shook violently, and a gurgling sound echoed from inside.

‘Is there life inside? Is it human?’

Nicole could clearly see the crate shaking. A hand reached out from under the open lid.

‘A human hand?’

Sure enough, Nicole saw a skinny hand. But the men reloaded the barrel and hurried off in their wagon.

***

Nicole wanted to run after them, but she couldn’t afford to. They weren’t her target in the first place.

‘People and animals are the same, they run out of their burrows when there’s a fire.’

Surely Gaston would come out of the room he was in. She had to catch him.

Nicole entered the mansion amidst the chaos.

“What’s going on? Fire!”

Gaston appeared out of nowhere in a robe. Nicole ducked behind the door.

The butler came rushing in.

“There’s a fire on the second floor. We’ve evacuated everyone and are putting out the fire.”

“Ugh, but isn’t there……. that?”

“They took it back, now is not the time for that! I’ll take care of it, I’ll clean up the mess.”

Gaston looked around. There was a pungent smell of smoke from somewhere.

Servants were running around with buckets of water. The fire brigade would be here soon. He gritted his teeth.

“I haven’t closed the door yet, so when the fire is out, you’ll clean up the basement. Do you understand? Damn it. I paid good money for that thing, and I want it back!”

Gaston fled. The butler turned as if to go to the portrait room.

“Everyone take cover, the beasts have escaped!”

Gaston kept a variety of animals in his menagerie, which was only a few minutes’ walk from the main house.

Gaston’s ability was taming, the ability to tame and control animals.

Gaston was obsessed with this ability, so he collected bears, lions, tigers, and other beasts of prey.

He wanted to practice his Taming ability to control and subdue them.

Now they had escaped.

Krrrr! Grrrr!

The beast’s barn was adjacent to the manor’s main building. She could hear the tiger howling outside.

“Eek!”

The butler turned white and ran outside.

‘Fools.’

Nicole covered the corner of her mouth with a cloth and went into the room where Gaston had come from.

It was called the portrait room. The faces of every member of House Saratheve stared back at her.

‘The door is open!’

Nicole spotted an open door between the portraits. It led to the cellar, which looked like a gaping maw of a beast.

‘So Dagger was right, there’s a ritual to closing this door, huh?’

Apparently, it was true that no one but Gaston could open the door. But the process of closing it must take a lot of time.

In any case, the landlord wasn’t around to enforce it now.

Nicole descended slowly. The stairs were narrow and long. And…….

‘Oh, my God…….’

Nicole covered her mouth. The basement was clean, with lights on every wall. Large beds were arranged in a circle on one side of the room.

And there were sleeping people lying on them, tied up tightly.

‘Five in total.’

Their whitened faces were mute, their mouths closed.

Some were short, some were tall. Some were men, some were women, but all of them were unconscious.

Outside there was a fire and a great commotion, but they didn’t stir. It was as if they had fallen into a deep sleep.

‘Did they take sleeping pills?’

But even if they had taken sleeping pills, it didn’t make sense that they wouldn’t stir.

They were all dressed in what looked like flimsy pajamas. Nicole walked over to them.

At that moment, she stepped on something.

‘What is this?’

Nicole picked it up.

It was a necklace of richly textured leather. It had a thin, wide copper plate pendant on it.

Then there was a sound outside.

Scratch— It sounded like scratching. Nicole’s eyes widened. She rushed out of the basement.

‘Thank goodness, I don’t think anyone looked in here with all the commotion outside.’

Nicole hurried out of the room.

***

The fire on the second floor was small compared to the commotion. The servants rushed over with buckets so it was quickly extinguished.

Gaston, irritated, went to change his clothes.

The butler stood up and hurried to the portrait room to check on the situation in the cellar, where Gaston had left the door open.

Then he spotted someone near the room.

It was a woman with her face covered.

The butler recognized her as the bartender and maid in charge of the game room.

“What the hell, what are you doing here?”

“That’s…….”

Her face went white.

The butler’s eyes grew fierce.

“If there’s a fire, why are you wandering around the mansion? Tell me quickly!”

“Actually, I came back inside the mansion as soon as I heard the cries that the fire was out, to protect the Marquis’s precious tea.”

Nicole unfolded her cloak; she had a small velvet pouch hanging from her arm, filled with precious teas wrapped in paper.

At that, the butler remembered that there was a tea warehouse right near the portrait room. And that she worked in and out of it.

“Were you trying to steal?”

“No! I was afraid that the shed might get smoky and these tea would lose its freshness……. I was just trying to get it out of there to a safe place, and when I went to get it, I saw a bunch of stuff, and that’s why I was late!”

The butler frowned. But then he remembered that Nicole had once nagged him about the tea.

He wanted to grab Nicole and give her a good scolding, but Gaston had opened the cellar door.

The butler, who hadn’t checked the basement earlier, was uneasy. He couldn’t wait to get rid of Nicole and check the cellar.

Nicole sensed his mood and stammered.

“I feel so wronged! Here’s all the tea. Don’t you think if it were to go missing, I’d be the first to be suspected? Do you think I am stupid? I don’t want to lose this job, and the Marquis of Saratheve pays me generous tips!”

“You’re making a noise, put it down and go away! You’re a stupid girl.”

The butler said. He roughly snatched the pouch of tea from Nicole’s hand. After checking the contents, the butler told Nicole to leave.

Nicole seized the opportunity, thanked the butler, and hurried out of the mansion.

***

“Eek, help me!”

“No!”

As soon as Nicole exited the mansion, the scene was chaos.

Some of the beasts had escaped, and a tiger the size of a house was roaming the garden.

There were panicked people cowering in the garden, sobbing, and knights running around trying to catch it. It was a sight that made her head hurt.

‘The butler must have run away and returned to the manor once the fire had died down and the knights had returned.’

It wasn’t hard for Nicole to figure it out. At the same time, she wanted to mock Gaston.

‘If you’re going to collect beasts, you should at least take better care of them.’

Then the tiger looked at her.

Crouch, crouch….…

The beast lowered its head and began to walk slowly toward her.

“Don’t come!”

“Stop it!”

The knights drew their swords and stopped the tiger.

“Psst, come to the back door.”

A familiar voice rang out behind her. Nicole turned to see Dagger, dressed as a servant, staring at her.

Dagger said a word or two to Nicole and disappeared.

Nicole started running across the garden.