“What’s the structure of the room like?”
Presia rushed out of the room from a distance, and Selian approached and asked.
“Huh? Now that you mention it, didn’t you hear our voices?”
“Voices? You did suddenly close the door, but…”
“What, what? What’s with this room?”
Selian and Anne’s calm tones were surprisingly composed.
Anne entered the room past Selian who was standing by the door, but fortunately, after the condition was met once, we weren’t trapped inside again.
Looking around, the room appeared dull and no different from other basement chambers, unlike how it had been when Presia and I were trapped earlier.
“Didn’t I keep calling while the door was closed and we were trapped?”
“Trapped…? It was just the door being closed for a moment—it’s a bit of a stretch to call that being trapped…”
“No, no. We were in here for 10 minutes!”
“10 minutes? El and Presia were only in here for a moment before the door closed, right? Isn’t that correct, Anne?”
“Huh? Yeah, that’s right. 10 minutes? El is exaggerating!”
“No way…”
Could this also be the doing of evil spirits? Whether they’ve actually twisted time or just disoriented our sense of it, I’m not sure, but it shouldn’t be too big of a problem.
“Why are you asking that?”
“Hmm? Oh, never mind. This room seems to have nothing special in it, so let’s check somewhere else.”
There’s no point wasting time overthinking this when we could be searching more rooms to find Yuli sooner.
While we’re having this conversation calmly, Yuli could very well be trembling alone somewhere.
Presia appears to have judged the evil spirit’s power to be stronger than expected after seeing what happened in the room just now and has begun searching the rooms more diligently than before.
“El, El! Come over here!”
In the middle of all that, Anne, who had been busily rushing around, noticed something and called for me, who was closest.
Hearing her urgent voice, I immediately ran in the direction she called.
“El! This room is weird, right? It’s unusually clean here?”
I glanced at the door just in case.
We had clearly entered with the door open, but the exit was now firmly closed.
“El?”
Click.
I tried turning the door handle, as called by Anne, but unsurprisingly, it was locked and wouldn’t open.
“Selian? Boss?”
I knocked on the door a few times, half-heartedly calling out for the two outside, but unsurprisingly, there was no response.
“Why are you doing that, El? Why are you grabbing the door suddenly…”
Click.
“Huh?”
Seeing me fidgeting around at the door, Anne approached and tried turning the handle herself—but again, no luck opening it.
“What’s going on with this! Ugh! Ugh!”
Click Click Bang Bang
I tried turning the handle different ways and even kicked it a few times, but it wasn’t going to budge.
“Calm down. Likely, nothing serious has happened.”
I could tell that if I didn’t do something, Anne might even draw her sword and start swinging it at the door, so I picked her up to calm her down.
While being held, Anne wildly kicked her dangling legs, still trying to kick the door.
“Alright, settle down and take a closer look at the door. There should be writing, right?”
Though I haven’t checked yet, I assume the door will have writing on it just like the previous room.
Even if it takes ten minutes of hugging Anne, this might not be such a bad thing—I mean, she acts way more like a child than even Presia.
“Huh? A room where we need to kiss 10 times to leave?”
Eh?
But the sentence Anne read out wasn’t what I was expecting at all.
After placing the now calm Anne back down, I also read the text that had appeared on the door.
『A room where we need to kiss 10 times to leave』
Just like Anne said, it was a different message from the one that trapped us with Presia earlier.
Should I find it amusing that the number ’10’ keeps reappearing?
“Mmm…”
“Well… this was unexpected…”
I glanced down at Anne and noticed her neck had turned a deep red.
Though I’m technically male, the fact that it would be embarrassing for two women to have to perform what could be interpreted as ‘kissing’ 10 times, even if it’s more like pecks, is undeniable.
Anne, her face flushed red, trembled for a moment and then tightened her grip on her sword…
“Anne! Stop!”
“Let me go! This cursed door…”
I picked her up again, moving her further away from the door this time, as she was now attempting to swing her sword instead of kicking. I took a couple of bigger steps back this time.
“Just wait! If we anger the evil spirits, it might be dangerous!”
At last, Anne seemed to grasp the situation and loosened her grip on the sword.
“So… what do we do now?”
“It’s… probably best to just do what the evil spirits are asking for…”
“You mean… El and I… really have to do… that ‘thing’…?”
“Of course, it’s unpleasant, but given the situation, it seems like there’s no other way.”
“No! It’s not that it’s unpleasant, but…”
Her voice, unlike her usual loud tone, was soft and hesitant.
“Just take a deep breath and tell me when you’re ready.”
Although we should be rushing to find Yuli, remembering our previous experience, the time in this room is likely flowing differently from the outside.
That’s why I decided to give Anne enough time to compose herself.
Of course, it was also time for me to calm down.
Hugging Presia wasn’t particularly difficult, but a kiss has a higher difficulty level than just a hug.
Anne might look like a child because of her actions and height, but she is still an 18-year-old girl and a pretty one at that.
Thus, I took deep breaths in and out, trying my best to calm my racing heart.
“Uh…?”
How much time had passed?
Anne called me with a small voice.
She continued hesitantly, her face still red and slightly bowed.
“Uh… We have to if we want to get out…”
“Yeah. Maybe we can think of this as a… mistake. Don’t worry about it.”
“Ugh!…”
Was I being too detached?
But if I didn’t keep this detached attitude, I feared my heart would start racing again after calming down.
“Alright, let’s hurry!”
Thankfully, Anne didn’t comment on my attitude. She just closed her eyes and stood there.
Even though we’re technically both women, I’m the ‘man’ in this setting, so it’s probably right for me to take the initiative.
I gripped Anne’s shoulders, leaned forward slightly, and approached her until I was almost in front of her face.
But when I was about 10 cm away… staring at Anne’s face up close, the heart I thought I had calmed down began racing again.
Our warm breaths were lightly touching each other’s faces, making the embarrassment even worse than before.
“Ah, seriously!”
How long had I stood there frozen, doing nothing, just a few cm away?
Eventually, Anne, tired of waiting for me to do anything, grabbed the front of my shirt in frustration.
Smack!
Then she pulled me sharply toward her and practically rammed her lips against mine.
SmackSmackSmackSmackSmackSmackSmackSmack
Without giving us a moment to feel any awkwardness, Anne started aggressively kissing me repeatedly.
After the ninth kiss, it was finally time for the last one.
Still gripping my shirt, Anne took a deep breath, pulled back for a moment, and then charged forward again.
Smack!
Then came the final tenth kiss.
Perhaps to leave a definitive mark, our lips stayed connected for a while.
It was so embarrassing I couldn’t even breathe, and it seemed like that state lasted for at least a few dozen seconds.
“Huff…”
The grip on my shirt loosened as Anne’s face pulled away from mine.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at her and instead stared hard at the floor.
Quickly glancing at Anne despite my embarrassment, I noticed she was just as red as I was, rolling her eyes around avoiding looking at me.
My face probably looked like hers—like a bright red tomato.
“Um… should we go out now, then?”
It seemed Anne had calmed down, or maybe she was trying to shake off the awkwardness, as she rushed out first.
Still, our goal was to find Yuli, and Anne began searching rooms more enthusiastically than before.
“Did anything happen?”
“No, nothing…”
Only Selian seemed to sense the awkward atmosphere between Anne and me, but there was no way I could explain it to her.
*
Realizing that the evil spirits in the basement were more dangerous than those above ground, Anne and Presia moved more fervently through the rooms.
“El. Could you come here for a moment?”
Was it because I appeared less busy? Even though I was searching diligently too, perhaps I seemed more relaxed compared to Anne and Presia, so Selian called me over.
“What did you find?”
“Well, not exactly…”
Approaching Selian, she pulled me inside the room.
“See here. Isn’t it suspicious how clean the room is?”
…No way?
Creak Click
However, contrary to my hopes, the door closed shut mercilessly.
“Whoa? Did the door just close on its own?”
“Hmm… want to check the door?”
This situation was now so familiar.
Rather than explaining to a puzzled Selian, I decided to check the door first to see what the condition for this room was.
『Each other, s…』
What? Why did the text stop in the middle? Is it broken?
