Chapter 5 – Guardian of the Mansion (1)

Over two days, Sun-woo used 100 points to raise the Three Talents Mind Method to 3 stars.

As his qigong became stronger, muscles began to develop on his body that hadn’t exercised separately. <Spirit of the Earth> became stronger and could be maintained for longer periods than before.

Now the end of his vacation was gradually approaching. It wasn’t easy to extend his vacation further, so it seemed he would have to decide whether to quit his job.

***

Two days later. Dimension Beta.

A massive mansion stood alone in a plain shrouded in eerie fog.

A front gate far from the building, a wide garden spread before the building, and even a barn, servants’ quarters, and family cemetery behind the house. At first glance, it looked like the mansion of a considerable noble, but that was in the past.

All the flowers and trees in the garden were dead, leaving only bare branches, and all the windows of the house were boarded up with planks, suggesting no one had lived there for quite some time.

The group summoned in front of the mansion’s main gate was voicing complaints without entering inside the gate.

“Didn’t they say three days? I was in the middle of training. I was very surprised.”

“It was three days. Strange. The previous two times they summoned us properly according to schedule.”

Not only Nan-seol and Daniel, but Sun-woo and Hayden’s faces also showed dissatisfaction.

But Michael was different.

“It’s actually better. I was suffocating to death. Let’s hurry up and make a big score and go drinking. Hehehe, wait for me, pretties.”

Ignoring Michael, who was giggling with anticipation, Sun-woo examined the mansion. With both the building and surroundings all turned gloomy, this mansion was definitely the target.

“Tch, is it my side this time?”

Looking at the mansion, Hayden frowned. It was probably one of the declining territories. The empty mansion resembled the declining empire and made Hayden’s heart feel suffocated.

[This is an additional mission due to an emergency situation. The contamination source has risen to Level 2 due to the failure of the previous team. The current location of contaminated creatures is not accurately identified.]

The group’s expressions hardened.

“Mission failure? Then are all the previous people dead?”

“That’s obvious. Dying from failed operations is common during war… Let’s go in. It’s just Level 2 anyway. I have enough bullets, so let’s finish this quickly.”

Michael strode inside the gate. The door seemed to have been opened by the team that entered first. Broken locks were rolling around on the ground.

There was no alternative but to go in anyway. Daniel and Hayden followed into the main gate.

Sun-woo stood in place and continued circulating qigong to calm his nervous mind. As qi circulated through his body once, he felt his pounding heart settle down calmly.

Michael was right. These missions weren’t games. He thought he had prepared himself sufficiently, but it seemed he was still lacking. Without the Three Talents Mind Method, he might have made a fool of himself.

Just as Sun-woo, having composed himself, was about to follow the other group members into the gate.

“Huh? Miss Nan-seol, you’re still here?”

Nan-seol was still standing in that spot. She was looking at the gloomy mansion with a pale face.

“Phew, no. Let’s go in.”

At Sun-woo’s question, Nan-seol hesitantly stepped toward the garden. Sun-woo tilted his head and followed her inside.

Even while passing through the garden, the surroundings were quiet. The low-lying fog only added to the eerie atmosphere.

“It feels like ghosts might appear rather than contaminated monsters.”

Startled!

At Sun-woo’s thoughtless remark, Nan-seol was greatly surprised. Sun-woo was bewildered by Nan-seol’s unexpected reaction, and she pretended not to know while stroking the pouch at her waist.

When Sun-woo and Nan-seol arrived at the mansion’s entrance, Michael got angry.

“Fucking! There’s nothing here, so why are you so late? I should just go around alone. Since when have we been traveling together? Ptui!”

After spitting on the ground, Michael slipped into the entrance first.

“Why is he so angry?”

At Sun-woo’s question, Daniel shook his head.

“I don’t know either. He seems worse today.”

“Well, his true nature is coming out more and more.”

Hayden muttered quietly. But no one failed to hear those words.

“Sigh, let’s enter too.”

Daniel sighed and said, and the group except Michael entered the mansion through the broken door.

The group decided to check from the first floor in order. The person who guided the group was unexpectedly Hayden. He seemed to know this type of mansion well and moved forward without hesitation.

The group passed through a large and splendid hall and entered a large room on the left.

“Is this a museum?”

The group’s eyes widened. The large room was full of stuffed animals and various armor and weapons on display.

“It’s a private exhibition room. There’s nothing special here. Let’s go elsewhere.”

At Hayden’s words, Nan-seol quickly followed him out of the room. Sun-woo saw this and chuckled.

“Is she unexpectedly fearful?”

Soon Daniel also left, and Sun-woo, left alone in the exhibition room, looked around with a troubled face. The dim exhibition room was quite eerie, filled with stuffed animals, weapons, and armor.

But Sun-woo was looking at something else.

“Why are the taxidermy and armor all covered in wounds? There are no signs of fighting in the room?”

No matter how much time had passed without maintenance, the traces visible now weren’t from deterioration due to age.

But no matter how much he examined the taxidermy and armor, he couldn’t see any special points other than the wounds. Sun-woo kept this matter in his heart and followed the group.

The other lodgings on the first floor and the dining room on the opposite side also showed no special traces, just filled with dust, and Michael was nowhere to be found.

The group, having found nothing special on the first floor, immediately went up to the second floor.

The second floor was a mess from the corridor itself. The walls and floors were all cracked and broken. All were traces of battle.

The group all proceeded carefully down the corridor with utmost tension.

They soon saw corpses scattered in rooms and corridors.

“They must be the people summoned first, right?”

Nan-seol looked at the corpses and seemed to become rather calm.

The corpses were scattered in corridors and rooms. In the corridor lay a man who appeared to be a warrior and a man in uniform, and in the adjacent study lay a spear-wielding man in leather armor and an archer.

“This person seems to be from a mountain sect?”

Nan-seol examined the warrior and frowned. The fallen warrior seemed to be a mountain bandit.

“The two people in leather armor appear to be mercenaries.”

“This person belongs to an ability user unit.”

Daniel and Hayden’s words followed in succession.

“One from the martial world, one psychic, two from the fantasy world?”

They all seemed to have lost their lives in battles here. But there was a puzzling point. The opponents they fought weren’t visible. Even looking at the traces, it didn’t seem like they were one-sidedly defeated, but there were no corpses or remains of the opponents. “I see wounds made by swords.”

“There are also wounds torn by claws.”

Nan-seol and Daniel identified the opponents’ weapons by looking at the wounds. Sun-woo and Hayden watched what the two were checking from a distance with frowns.

That’s when it happened.

Clank, clank

The sound of metal clashing began to be heard from the hall direction. Something was climbing the stairs.

The group all turned and raised their weapons toward the hall. Sun-woo also hurriedly looked for something that could serve as a weapon.

A single-edged sword from the fallen mountain bandit looked decent. Sun-woo quickly picked up the sword.

Unfortunately, this place was far from the ground. Since sorcery would be difficult, he had to face them with qigong first.

Shortly after, what appeared in the corridor were heavily rusted suits of armor.

“Could those be the armor we saw on the first floor?”

She was right. What was approaching the group were the suits of armor from the exhibition room.

“They’re not ghosts, right?”

Nan-seol tightly gripped the talisman pouch she had bought with points a few days ago. It was a talisman to ward off evil spirits that Nan-seol had spent all her points on, having no intention of buying martial arts or internal energy medicine.

It was impossible to know whether the moving empty armor were ghosts or not. But it was certain they were enemies.

Soon the battle between the group and the armor began.

Nan-seol, frightened, swung her sword more vigorously than before, and Daniel’s greatsword smashed the armor to pieces.

Five suits of armor were scattered by the two’s attacks, but the number of armor didn’t decrease. The scattered armor quickly gathered again and charged at the group.

Eventually, the group was pushed back to the study where the mercenaries’ corpses were.

“The talisman must be fake. It has no effect at all.”

Nan-seol became talkative. She was definitely frightened. The fortunate thing was that because she was frightened, her sword moved even faster.

“Ugh. Is it some kind of necromancy? But I’ve never heard of being able to move empty armor.”

Daniel also seemed not to understand. Hayden’s expression was even worse.

“Damn!”

Telekinesis didn’t work at all. No matter how much Hayden launched telekinesis at the armor, his ability couldn’t advance as if blocked by a wall.

Sun-woo also had to swing his sword to smash one suit of armor and hurriedly retreat. The armor he had just smashed quickly returned to its original form.

The group was at a loss. There was no way to deal with enemies that returned to their original form no matter how much they destroyed them.

They had to find a method quickly. If time passed like this, they would only follow the previous team that had become corpses.

“Isn’t there some way?”

Daniel shouted toward Sun-woo. Since there was no method, the question had to go to Sun-woo.

Sun-woo’s mind spun rapidly.

“Armor that restores itself no matter how much it’s destroyed, ghost armor? No. Miss Nan-seol’s talisman had no effect.”

Sun-woo carefully observed the armor. The armor was dented here and there and even had holes punched through, but they were attacking the group as if there were people inside them.

“Certainly, it’s not that there’s no damage. But how do they move normally?”

Moreover, Hayden’s telekinesis didn’t work either.

Psychic world, mansion, telekinesis… Ah! A light went on in Sun-woo’s head.

Sun-woo hurriedly looked around the room. A huge wooden bookshelf filled with books occupied one entire wall.

“Push all the armor toward the wall with the bookshelf simultaneously! Hayden, when the armor is pushed back, topple the bookshelf!”

“Eh?”

“Even if telekinesis doesn’t work on the armor, it should work on other places!”

“Ah!”

There were five suits of armor total; Sun-woo couldn’t be left out of the attack.

“Right now! Push them!”

Sun-woo gritted his teeth and charged into the armor. The Three Talents Qigong that had reached 3 stars infused strength into his body, and the three people were able to push the armor to where the bookshelf was.

“Get back!”

When the armor hit the bookshelf, Hayden stretched out both hands and shouted. Blood vessels bulged on his forehead.

Crash!

This time telekinesis worked. The bookshelf toppled over and dust filled the room.

Cough, cough. Coughing sounds came from all directions.

“Is everyone okay?”

At Daniel’s question, the group all let him know they were fine.

Shortly after, the group was looking at the rustling bookshelf with pale faces. All the armor had been crushed under the bookshelf, but the bookshelf was still rustling as if they were still moving.

“What the hell is this?”

At Daniel’s question, the group’s gazes turned to Sun-woo.

“It’s a kind of poltergeist. It seems to move by telekinesis.”

If the talisman bought with points had no effect and Hayden’s telekinesis was blocked, then in this psychic world, the only conclusion was that it was caused by telekinesis.

“To control five suits of armor like humans without even looking at them. Such delicate control would be difficult even for the strongest psychic.”

Hayden shook his head saying it was nonsense.

“Well. We’ll have to see whether five suits are the end, and whether the opponent is a psychic.”

Sun-woo answered while looking at the fallen old bookshelf.

Anyway, at the news that they weren’t ghosts, Nan-seol breathed a sigh of relief.

“But I don’t know where Michael is wandering around.”

As soon as Daniel finished speaking, gunshots were heard from far away.

“Tsk, they say when you call the devil, he appears right away. I guess we’ll have to join up with him?”

“He’ll appear alive and well even if we leave him alone, won’t he?”

At Hayden’s grumbling, everyone gave bitter smiles.

Anyway, other floors also needed searching. The group began climbing to the upper floor.