At night, the house turned out very different from how they saw it for the first time. It was more… gloomy, as if built to serve a purpose in the scary setting of a horror movie.
In the garden, bushes and vines seemed to come to life, creeping alongside the house walls just like the two were doing.
They cautiously climbed up the twisted, green, plant spines before going through the window.
The inside was shrouded in darkness, leaving the corners and the end of the corridor barely visible to the human eye. It hid secrets that shifted constantly just beyond their vision, slipping away from their sight.
"Phew~ This house sure looks scary at night."
Inase cooed, feeling the chills running acrthough,oss his forearms. He had witnessed far worse, yet it didn't change the fact that each encounter still ignited a thrill within him.
Once the men hopped in, they swore they saw the hung portraits stare into their souls. The landscapes, once beautiful in the light, turned into an ambient unknown. And, even the shape of straight walls and curves of sculptures was uncertain, threatening them with their lingering presence.
They advanced with silent steps, moving cautiously until they arrived at their intended destination—the central hall.
"This is it."
Hosen paused in the very middle, observing the surroundings with a keen eye.
The moonlight that crept in from the broad upper windows faintly illuminated each art piece, even though vein-like plants wrapping the outside window frame obscured its path ever so slightly.
"It looks like the vines could come to life at any moment."
Inase remarked, but Hosen paid no mind to his companion's words. His attention locked onto the task at hand—he stood facing the grand staircase leading to the upper floor, yet he remained rooted to the spot.
"Do you even know how to pinpoint where the north is?"
"By intuition."
Hosen quoted Miss Roberta.
Though, even when he said it as a joke, it was true. His intuition played a big role in each of his experiments, and Inase surely could understand since he relied on his own gut feelings during confrontations against many mysterious entities as well.
"20 degrees Northwest…" The researcher turned to the exact angle, "24 meters…"
And swung his leg into a big step, calculating a meter in length. Then, other steps followed.
"23… 22… 21… 20…" One by one, he paced forward until he was stopped by a wall. "11…"
"Tsk… There's nothing here, after all." Inase clicked his tongue on the side. "What a disappointment."
Here he thought the treasure hunt was legit. It turned out to be a scam.
Though, Hosen wasn't so certain about it. It was a fact that the wall obstructed him from going further, however, the eleven meters waiting ahead were also a fact.
There must have been something that could explain it—a puzzle to solve.
Rather than losing hope, he ran his hand along the wall, tapping at various points until a distinct difference in sound caught his attention.
One spot, he realized, was hollow.
Feeling against the wall and his surroundings further, he found something hidden behind a statue.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that." With a ghost of a smirk, he pressed down on the lever. "We still have 11 meters ahead of us."
He trusted the coordinates to be correct.
And certainly, the wall in front of him opened, revealing a hidden room with a single, narrow window—the sole source of light—illuminated the interior.
Looking inside, the two understood why it had to be carefully sealed…
It was filled with paintings of deities and creatures from different dimensions whose very image played with a human mind, sending it straight into the depths of insanity.
"Don't look."
"Hey-"
The scientist forced Inase's head low until all the guy could see was the floor, and Hosen, himself, cast his eye away from the otherworldly images, carefully avoiding any direct contact.
In reality, they had to be very careful when confronting mere depictions of these entities, otherwise known as Outer Gods.
No eldritch horror could ever be taken lightly, especially when facing it directly. A human couldn't gaze at them for longer than a few heartbeats without succumbing to complete madness; their influence was that grave.
They were lucky there were only paintings, not the actual monsters. However, they still could warp one's mind just by their presence alone, thus, they were probably the source of Roberta's weird dreams, too.
The question was, did she paint these, or did she not know about this room at all?
Either way, it didn't change the fact that they needed to examine the chamber by looking only at glimpses and frames of the whole piece.
Each one had a certain air to it. Full of indescribable imagery, filled with ominous tentacles with multiple mouths and eyeballs, they seemed ready to suck a soul out of a mortal being.
However, in the midst of this insanity, there was one exception—it rested on the lone easel in the middle of the room—a very peculiar painting.
A beam of focused moonlight streamed through the narrow, solitary window, casting a line down its center as though the moon itself were painting on the surface.
The two men didn't feel any malice seeping out, nor did their minds run amock when they observed it.
No alarms went off, no wave of nausea hit them like with the other pieces, nor did any sense of dread surge within them—only a distorted painting of this room's interior, or rather, a fragment of it that felt out of place, like a puzzle piece that didn't quite fit where it should.
When realization clicked, both took a few steps back in order to look at it from the correct angle.
"..."
Once it fit into perspective, it looked like a 1:1 replica of what hid behind, except it had some shadowy masses painted onto the walls it portrayed.
"Shit."
Hosen swore—a rare occurrence.
Now it all made sense. They should have realized sooner that the paintings were like portals to different worlds or different dimensions.
When the image was realigned with the background, it opened a door for anything to come through.
The shadows changed shape and began moving.
At first, inside the painting, but as the two watched it from a perfect angle, the shadows were able to find their way outside the artwork's borders and seamlessly spread onto the walls in reality.
This piece of canvas performed the role of their hive—a door allowing them to leave freely beyond its boundaries.
Their ever-shifting silhouette moved in a two-dimensional plane from one location to another, like bugs walking on a flat surface, and then…
"Dodge!"
Taking a three-dimensional form, their appendages shot in their direction—the shadowy agglomerations attacked with fierce precision.
"Ugh-!"
Inase yelped. A painful pang spread in his forearm after he shoved Hosen out of the way, allowing one to be hooked into his arm instead.
Feeling his blood being sucked out, he didn't waste time to pull roughly on the tentacle that latched into his veins. After which, without hesitation, he ripped a strip of fabric from his shirt and wrapped it tightly around the wound.
"It doesn't look good."
They were surrounded by the dancing shadows, ready for their second strike.
"They had connected their dimension to this house," Hosen muttered under his breath, speaking more to himself than to his partner. "It's their house already."
"Rather than hypothesizing about it right now, we gotta get out of here!"
But Inase had none of that—he shouted, stumbling forward to dodge another of their lightning-fast strikes.
"Move!"
The room was overflowing with dark entities. If they had stayed in such a secluded place for longer, they would have been at a huge disadvantage.
So they jumped to their feet right when another wave of spikes from the shadow blobs rooted from the ground.
Each time their attacks lashed out like striking snakes, their shadows split apart and reformed in another spot, their form shifting between dimensions, allowing for more than a human eye could comprehend.
The two were able to escape it just in the nick of time before the dark shapes poked a few holes in their clothes.
Running out of the room, their reckless rush tilted a sculpture that soon after shattered into pieces—its heavy crashing sound could wake even a sloth.
Ruthlessly pursued through the central hall, they sprinted at a pace that, while exceptional by human standards, couldn't compare to the chilling speed of those entities gliding effortlessly along the walls and floors. They shadowed the duo's every move, clawing at their heels and anticipating their next steps, just as hunters relentlessly stalk their prey.
"Hurry up!"
Hosen let out as he dodged another one.
"Shut up! I know!"
Inase recoiled, jumping around another of the statues and seeing it crumble once more.
The mansion was cloaked in darkness, a haven where shadows flourished, spreading through every corner and sealing off the men's escape routes.
If only Inase had his gun… But then again, punching them was ineffective.
Stepping onto the shadows meant sinking beneath them with no chance of escape. With each step, dodging their creeping spread across the floors and walls became more difficult.
"How are we gonna get out of this in one piece, doc?" This whole entanglement definitely held them on their toes.
The blonde chuckled with a tinge of sarcasm, knowing they surely weren't prepared for this scale of an attack. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists tightly due to the predicament they had gotten themselves into until—
"AAAaaaahhh!!!"
A piercing scream echoed in the central hall, which brought all the attention to the silhouette standing on top of the stairs.
"...!"
Roberta, upon hearing loud noises from within the house, hurriedly woke up and stepped out of her room to investigate. The sounds led her to the main hall, and she tiptoed cautiously toward it.
What she saw there defied all her expectations, and now...
She stood on the first floor, frozen. Her mouth was covered by her trembling hands, but not before it betrayed her with a terrified shriek, breaking the two men's focus on the entities and drawing their attention to her instead.
"What… is going on…?"
Their priorities had changed. The painter's safety now was more important than dealing with the monsters.
"Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! DAMMIT!"
Inase cursed each time he sprinted and leaped from the sculptures (not hesitating to break a few more) and onto the stair railings. He fully displayed his acrobatic skills and agility until he ascended toward the young woman.
"Watch out!"
Right on cue, he grabbed her just in time, yanking themselves away from the oncoming attack and rolling across the ground to absorb the force of the impact.
"We have to get away from here!"
Inase's head snapped at Hosen, who was still on the ground floor, trying to avoid every strike that came his way. He was pointing at the corridor leading to the main exit—their only way out.
Inase gave a subtle nod, fully understanding the scientist's intent without needing a single word.
He took Roberta's hand and pulled her closer.
"You better hold on tight."
Without another warning, he leaped from the top of the stairs, landing hard on the ground, swiftly bouncing between the walls and the railing.
A scared yelp from a girl and a loud thud later, all three were already rushing through the corridor.
The shadows followed them after, swallowing the hallway in darkness.
Soon, they surpassed the trio's speed, cutting off their escape and surrounding them.
The tentacles, like inky chains, coiled around their limbs, binding them in a cold, unyielding grip.
The realization that brute strength alone wouldn't free them finally sank in as the weight of the shadowy tendrils tightened around them, their movements becoming more restricted with every passing second.
"Close your eyes."
Once he called out in a soft yet desperate tone, Hosen quickly took out a vial, tossed something inside, and sealed it shut.
He reached into the direction of the enclosing shadows.
Trusting Hosen's actions, Inase nimbly shielded himself and Roberta just in time as the vial began to glow with a blinding light. The intensity of its radiance was so powerful that they would have surely lost their sight.
And it worked immediately! As soon as they were met with light, the tentacles that had ensnared their legs writhed in agony as they dissolved in an instant.
Frightened, the shadows slithered into the cracks between the cold bricks, leaving the corridor unnervingly empty.
They were… safe, for now.
"What even was that?"
After taking a breath, Inase questioned his partner's capabilities.
"Magnesium chunk and pure oxygen."
Hosen explained simply while putting his flask away.
"It's highly reactive, so I put some into the tube filled with gas."
"Don't tell me you're walking with explosive pieces on you at all times."
If it was true, he'd be crazy.
"Not always, but I thought it'd come in handy this time."
"Uh-huh…"
Inase eyed him suspiciously before the researcher continued with his explanations of some elementary science.
"Magnesium, belonging to the group of alkaline earth metals, is highly reactive. When it comes into contact with oxygen gas, a reaction takes place that produces an intense, blinding light strong enough to ruin your vision. And the amount of magnesium I used was much greater than usual, so-"
"Do you even have friends?"
The blonde cut himself in, feeling his head spinning from the amount of useless information the other was nerding out about.
"..."
But, based on the silence, he must have hit the mark.
Well, considering his character, no wonder.
"I came from outside the city, mind you. I only arrived here because the Facility reached out to me—"
"Wow, so you really don't have any friends, do you?"
That revelation irked Hosen enough for his eyebrow to twitch.
Inase's lighthearted remark jabbed at his side further, yet his expression remained completely unchanged.
"Oh, and you do?"
He retorted with an eye-roll.
"Of course, I do. I have a lot of friends. I make new connections all the time."
"And yet, not a single one of them would be willing to throw their lives away to save you."
Hosen commented monotonely as he moved past the two.
"..."
Inase couldn't respond to that on the spot since it was something he had to think about deeply. Instead, he turned his attention to Miss Roberta, who was still in shock grave enough that she couldn't grasp what was happening.
He helped her stand up.
First, they needed to get her to a safe spot in town before the shadows came back for more. Their inn seemed like the best place, at least at the moment.
"What do we do about the secret room?"
"Leave it. They won't be able to cross the ocean anyway."
The safety of the lady was currently more important.