TBE Chapter 60

  Ezekiel assigned four of the Tiny Servant knives to Robert, four to Luke, and one to himself. The movement of the walking knives was fast enough and it was amusing to see how vigilant their tiny bodyguards looked.

  Once all of his spells were ready, Ezekiel and his two brothers began walking towards the haunted mansion. Even though it was bright since it was early morning with the light of the sun shining down on them and the house, there was an obvious gloom surrounding the supposedly haunted mansion and Ezekiel was beginning to doubt his theory that there were not really any ghosts but bandits in the mansion.

  The house was indeed “very very huge” as Luke had stated that it deserved to be called a mansion. It looked to be three stories high and was extremely dilapidated. The paint was peeling and in some areas, it was non-existent anymore and some of the parts of the mansion were ridden with holes that he thought that a simple punch would crumble the walls.

  Ezekiel was aware that the environmental hazard would probably be the main reason why the mansion was dangerous. He hoped. The three of them stopped and observed the mansion for a few minutes.

  “It looks so scary,” Robert said fearfully.

  “I’m afraid!” Luke said then he hugged Ezekiel.

  “Do the two of you want to go back to the inn?” He asked his brothers.

  “Are you still going inside?” Robert asked and when Ezekiel nodded Robert said that he and Luke would remain deciding for the youngest brother as well and looking at Luke’s stubborn expression, he fully agreed with his older brother.

  “Luke, hold on to Robert since I need my hands free so I can use my magic in case there are enemies. Be aware that there might not be ghosts inside but regular people hiding and using the house to do bad things.”

  “Like bandits?” Robert asked.

  “Possibly so please expect that I might have to kill people. When that time comes, you can close your eyes. I’ll make sure that the both of you are safe,” Ezekiel said then he called Yuki Onna and the familiar flew down from the trees and landed near them fully intending to defend them from any enemies that might attack them.

  Normally, a familiar and the Tiny Servants were considered minions with low attack power and were not supposed to be relied on to attack enemies but considering that the most powerful enemy that Ezekiel had encountered so far were bears, they would be able to provide tremendous help to them.

  Ezekiel told his brother to walk behind him then he moved forward toward the door of the mansion. When he opened the huge door, it fell forward showing that the hinges had broken off. As expected, a large part of the danger they would encounter in the mansion was the environmental hazards and that meant that he would have to double or even triple-check any doors, stairs, or even floors that they would tread into.

  The best ones who could check everything for him were the Tiny Servants knives. When they entered the mansion, the first room they stumbled into was some sort of hall with nothing in it. No furniture, paintings, statues, or any other decorations were left so Ezekiel doubted that there was really any treasure left in the house.

  They saw three doorways leading to other parts of the ground floor and a huge stairway leading upstairs. Ezekiel immediately commanded four of the tiny servant knives to explore the main hallway first making sure that the floor was sturdy enough to be walked on.

  The four walking knives walked forward and had to jump several times in place whenever they reached a new section of the floor to make sure the floor was strong enough for Ezekiel and his brothers to stand on. The other four walking knives remained to guard them.

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  The antics of the walking knives made Robert and Luke laugh. The exploration of the Tiny Servants comforted Ezekiel since it did show that the flooring was sturdy and nothing attacked them, supernatural or otherwise. After that, Ezekiel and his two brothers slowly entered the mansion. When they were all inside, he breathed a little easier since he was half-expecting that some sort of a scare jump would appear. He blamed Earth’s horror stories.

  The main hall was bright enough since the huge windows were open so a source of light wasn’t a problem. Even if they arrived somewhere in the mansion where there was no light, Ezekiel would just use the flashlight that he purchased before but then he remembered the settings in some horror stories wherein flashlights failed so he immediately spent 50 copper coins to purchase the Light cantrip.

  Ezekiel briefly checked on the internet if he could cast the cantrip Light on a Tiny Servant and it said yes so as an experiment, he cast the cantrip on one of the walking knives and it began to glow bright enough to light up the whole area where it was walking.

  After exploring the main hallway with the help of the Tiny Servants, Ezekiel decided to explore the room to the right first so he immediately commanded the four knives he dubbed explorer knives to enter the door to the right and the four remaining bodyguard knives spread in front of them so they would be protected by their tiny army.

  Yuki Onna was perched in one of the high windows behind them overseeing everything in sight.

  The room to the right was huge as well and based on the structure of the room, it could be the dining room since there was another room farther that could be the kitchen. Of course, Ezekiel was not sure since there was also no remaining furniture or decorations left, and then every part of the room had some sort of damage. The damage was done by time so that comforted Ezekiel a bit since he did not see any signs of battle or anything like that.

  Even if he had not seen any signs of battle like splashes of blood or damage done to walls by something sharp like swords or monsters’ claws as by his imagination brought by countless media from Earth, Ezekiel kept in mind that he was not a detective so his observation was not truly reliable and anything was still possible.

  The tiny servant knives repeated their actions of checking the floor to make sure that it was sturdy by jumping in place several times. One of the knives that was used for the Light cantrip was in the middle of the room making sure that the light reached every corner.

  Ezekiel thought that there might actually be something supernatural in this house since he hadn’t seen any signs of living things like insects or small creatures like rats. After several minutes of the tiny servant knives inspecting the room, he commanded them to move to the next door which was possibly the kitchen.

  The walking knives entered the room first and after a few minutes, Ezekiel and his two brothers were about to enter the room when they heard loud noises. They were startled by the loud noises and he immediately commanded Yuki Onna to go to the next room so he could use his Snowy Owl’s eyes to check what was going on.

  Yuki Onna immediately flew to the next room and when Ezekiel used its eyes he saw that the four walking knives, including the one with the Light cantrip were battling with three monsters. The biggest one looked like a fat man wearing a chef’s uniform but because the man looked like it was rotting, it clearly meant that it was a zombie. The other two monsters also looked like rotting zombies and they were wearing maid’s dresses.

  The three zombies were the first sign of the supernatural that Ezekiel had seen. It excited him since that answered his ongoing question if there was magic in this world but that also made him aware that it was now important for him to increase his power since with the magic existing in this world, that meant that there would probably be instances in the future that he would need to battle it out with more powerful creatures.

  Surprisingly, the four tiny servant knives were holding their own against the zombies but he knew that he would need to help them out soon since he didn’t want him and his brothers to be targeted by the ugly monsters.

  Yuki Onna made a loud noise and Ezekiel felt his Familiar’s inquiry regarding attacking the three zombies but he informed the Yuki Onna to stay its hand.

  Ezekiel immediately told his two brothers to stay and since they were still within eyesight, he thought that it was fine with him to leave them there guarded by four of the tiny servant knives. He ran towards the kitchen intending to cast three Magic Missile spells. One of them was slotted in the level 3 slot and 2 were slotted in the level 2 slots. He was glad that he took the time to make sure that the offensive spells that he was planning to use were ready.

  When he arrived at the entrance, the huge fat zombie chef and two maid zombies were being hounded by the four walking knives. The tiny servant knives were causing damage to the zombies but the monsters disregarded them. When a walking knife was hit, it would be thrown to the wall but the tiny servant would just immediately pick itself up and would begin attacking the zombies again.