Chapter 183
Chapter 183
Trespassing (2)
However, that didn’t mean Kairus had to use a door to enter the mansion.
A blade lodged itself into the wall, and a mosaic spread. Rather than Flicker, it felt like Door-Opener would have suited the name of the ability better.
The wall disappeared, and the three of us, including Kairus, entered the mansion.
“Let’s move carefully.”
We broke through a wall in a place where we could be certain there were no pressure plates installed and entered.
‘The servants’ restroom.’
The reason for my certainty was simple. It wasn’t because of privacy or anything like that.
There wasn’t a single window that could be used to enter normally, nor a door that led outside the mansion. At most, there was only a palm-sized vent.
In other words, installing pressure plates here would be a waste. To reach the restroom, one would inevitably have to pass through another part of the mansion’s interior.
‘It would be more efficient to place pressure plates along the path leading to the restroom instead.’
So we broke through the wall connected to the restroom and entered, and judging by the result, it had been the right choice.
“Are you going to break through the ceiling right away too?”
“No. We don’t know what might be up there.”
There were no pressure plates here. But the floor above wasn’t a restroom either. From here on, we had to leave the restroom and move.
“Nora, when I open the door, you take the lead.”
As Kairus contaminated the restroom door with mosaic, he gave Nora instructions.
Every door had to be opened using Flicker. There might be some kind of device installed on the door.
“Okay.”
The door disappeared, and in that instant Nora lightly leapt over where it had been. In the fleeting moment she remained suspended in midair, her gaze confirmed the scenery beyond the doorway.
With a swift motion, Nora hooked her ankle onto the gas lamp attached to the wall and hung upside down like a bat, sweeping her surroundings with a glance.
‘It’s quiet.’
There was no one walking around. Pressure plates didn’t have eyes to distinguish between servants and intruders, so that was only natural. Once their shifts ended, the servants who lived in the mansion didn’t leave their quarters.
Still hanging upside down, Nora carefully examined the floor with cold eyes, then pulled out a cord from inside her sleeve.
It was a metal line with timer suction pads attached at both ends. The timer could be adjusted up to five minutes.
‘If I can’t step on the floor, then I’ll just make somewhere to step.’
Nora perfectly understood the specifications of this line. It would be difficult for two people to move while stepping on it, but for one person, even a grown man, it would be more than enough.
“Oppa, catch.”
With a flick of her wrist, Nora threw the line toward Kairus, who was waiting inside the restroom. Kairus caught it and attached the suction pad to the restroom wall.
Nora also affixed the suction pad on her end to the wall.
‘Even if I were about to die, I still couldn’t give up marble, huh. It’s just a chunk of stone—what’s so great about it?’
If it had been wallpaper or something similar, attaching a suction pad might have torn it off along with the paper. But the mansion’s walls were marble. They would hold firmly enough.
After confirming that the suction pad had adhered to the wall, Nora checked where she would use as her next foothold. Then she swung her body like she was on a swing and shot forward. Her next destination was the head of a statue.
She flew over and perched on top of the statue’s head like a cat, took out a second line, attached its suction pad to a stable spot, and threw the opposite end to Kairus.
When Nora carved out the path, Kairus crossed first, and then Irena, who had set the timer, followed behind. Once the suction pad’s timer ran out, Irena retrieved the line and tossed it back to Kairus, and Kairus threw it to Nora again.
It wasn’t fast, but steadily and surely, our group moved toward the destination without once setting foot on the floor.
From the statue to the chandelier. From the chandelier to the top of the fountain with the water turned off.
From the top of the fountain to the small table with a flowerpot on it. As Nora continued to pioneer the path, Kairus and Irena cooperated and repeated the movement.
And whenever we came face to face with a door, Kairus used Flicker to open the way.
“This part is the hardest.”
Though we had been continuing the same task all along, for all three of us to cross the doorway within Flicker’s fifteen-second time limit required movements that were both fast and precise.
Even after finishing all preparations in advance and moving as quickly as possible, by the time it was Irena’s turn to cross, it was always cutting it close.
“Whoa, that was almost bad.”
The moment Irena retrieved the line she had used, the door that had vanished reappeared. For Irena, it was a sight that made cold sweat pour down her back.
“You’ve been doing great so far. We’re already on the third floor.”
She looked like she was on the verge of tears. As a former knight, Irena had never received training of this sort. And yet, she was doing remarkably well.
“If unni were ten years younger, I might’ve asked if you wanted to try becoming a Lunaseeker.”
It was the highest praise Nora could offer.
“Is it too hard now?”
“If you received the Lunaseeker procedure now, unni would die one hundred percent.”
If someone whose growth had already finished underwent the Lunaseeker procedure, nothing awaited them but a painful death. It seemed that gender also acted as a variable in the procedure, as seventy percent of Lunaseeker agents were female.
“We’re not far from the study now. And….”
There were only about five minutes left before the shift-change procedure would be fully completed. Once the change was done, the workday would begin, and the servants would start moving about.
‘Still, the pressure plates in Jericho’s office will be active.’
Since the owner of the mansion wasn’t here, there was no reason to turn off the pressure plates inside the office. When we first drew up the plan, we had even considered targeting the control room and shutting down all the pressure plates.
Then it would be revealed that there had been an intruder.
They wouldn’t know who it was, but the fact that someone had broken in would become known, so we gave up on that plan.
Kairus’s group kept moving.
“This is seriously incredible.”
Nora’s skill at creating a path where none existed was something I wouldn’t even dare to try to imitate.
“If I didn’t have to consider oppa and unni, I would’ve been faster. There are plenty of footholds only I can use.”
Nora, still just a girl, was lighter than Kairus or Irena. She was taking even that into account as she searched for footholds and strung lines through the air to create a path.
“Good.”
We reached the destination. The moment Kairus opened the door with Flicker and we swiftly entered Jericho’s office, Nora pulled out several more lines and ran about, fastening them here and there.
A short while later, about seven lines were stretched across the room.
“What are you, a spider? That’s insane.”
At Kairus’s words, Nora shrugged.
“If you use the same line, it won’t hold. Make sure you and unni don’t use the same one.”
That wasn’t particularly difficult. Like circus clowns, Kairus and Irena skillfully walked along the lines as we examined Jericho’s office.
Since we might accidentally trigger a pressure plate, we didn’t touch anything.
“The workday must’ve started by now.”
After checking the time on the grandfather clock, Kairus said that. The mansion’s servants would be busily moving around to begin their duties.
“It’s fine. They won’t come here.”
There was no need to clean while the pressure plates were active.
“They might’ve turned them off, you know.”
At Irena’s words, Kairus and Nora shook their heads at the same time. If the pressure plates had been deactivated, it would mean the springs had been fixed in place so they wouldn’t move.
There would have been noise. And neither Kairus nor Nora had senses dull enough to miss such a sound.
The search for the storage inside the office continued.
“Wow, fuck. It’s here.”
In the end, we found it beneath the floor under the office desk. Kairus retrieved one of the lines, attached one end’s suction pad to the ceiling, wrapped the line around his hand, and slowly descended upside down.
“…Who were you calling a spider?”
Relying on a single line, hanging upside down and gradually lowering himself, Kairus looked exactly like a spider. If he had two more pairs of arms, he could have been called a human spider without exaggeration.
“Shut up.”
Kairus brought Flicker to the safe door. The safe door was contaminated by mosaic and disappeared.
The moment he placed the documents we had prepared in advance inside the storage—
Click. A faint sound echoed. The pressure plates had stopped operating. There was no way they would have stopped without reason.
“Fuck.”
Someone was coming. The fortunate part was that the pressure plates had stopped.
After restoring the removed safe door, Kairus crawled straight under the desk.
‘Nora and Irena….’
I had to pray that they had hidden themselves well. And I had to pray that the one opening the door and entering would just be an ordinary servant.
At that moment, with a soft thud, the suction pad of the line Kairus had been hanging from came loose. It was Nora’s doing.
Kairus quickly retrieved the falling line. With this, there would be no chance of getting caught because of it.
‘I want to kill the bastard.’
If it weren’t for this situation, I would have tracked down the idiot who had suddenly stopped the pressure plates and killed him.
With a creak, the door opened.
“Where was it….”
A woman’s voice. It seemed she had come in looking for something. I could only pray it wasn’t the safe beneath the office desk.
‘If I kill her here.’
They would find out that there had been an intruder. Then the documents we had painstakingly placed in the safe would become meaningless.
If everything we had done here turned to nothing, we wouldn’t be able to receive the Featherwing box being secured at the Rose Garden.
When things went wrong, how should I act?
Holding my breath beneath the office desk, I observed the situation and frantically turned my thoughts over and over.
“Ah-ha!”
It seemed the person who entered had rummaged through the wardrobe and found something. From the sound of fabric brushing, it was probably a coat.
‘A coat? A coat? You fucking coat? I’m going through all this hell because of that?’
It was enough to drive me insane. In truth, the problem didn’t end there. Somehow, Nora, Irena, and I had succeeded in hiding.
‘She’ll reactivate the pressure plates when she leaves.’
Nora and Irena weren’t the problem. The problem was me, crouched on the floor.
Maybe not the safe, but the floor where I was crouching had a very high chance of having a pressure plate installed. If I stayed like this, the moment the plates started operating again, they would detect me immediately.
And considering the timing between when the pressure plates stopped and when the woman entered….
There was no possibility that I could get out from under this desk before the pressure plates reactivated. If I moved quickly, it might be possible, but that would create noise.
There was only one method.
‘I’m going insane.’
The moment I heard the door close, I attached the two suction pads of the line wrapped around my hand to the underside of the desk and lifted my body, relying on them.
At the same time, with another click, the pressure plates reactivated.
Relying on a single arm, I curled my body and hung suspended in midair. About three minutes later, Nora’s cautious voice reached me.
“…Oppa, are you okay? How did you not get caught?”
“Shut up. Save me. Hurry. My arm’s about to come off.”
Keeping my entire body suspended in the air, relying on a single arm, was absolutely not an enjoyable experience.
Soon after, a line descended from above. They had reconnected it to the ceiling and lowered it down beneath the desk where I was hiding.
I reached out and grabbed the line, then removed the suction pads attached to the underside of the desk.
With Nora and Irena’s help, I crawled out from beneath the desk and let out a sigh of relief as I looked at my slightly trembling hand.
Judging by the woman’s reaction earlier, she hadn’t the slightest suspicion that we were here.
Now, we just had to get out.