Chapter 491 – Weird Public House

Chapter 491 – Creepy Public House
Duncan stood at the top of that high spiral staircase, overlooking and scanning the ancient and ornate mansion, and once again confirmed his judgment: this mysterious mansion was almost identical in style to the room in which the Frost Queen, Rae Nora, had fallen asleep before!

With a flutter in his heart, he immediately turned back and looked at the other direction at the top of the spiral staircase.

There was a deep corridor on the second floor, the walls on both sides were hung with bizarre oil paintings that could not be seen in detail, and between the paintings there were iron sconces that were as black as thorns, the fire on the sconces was pale, and the light in the corridor was obscure, and in the deepest part of the corridor, between the hazy, dim shadows, it seemed as if there was a doorway vaguely.

Was that the room of the master of the mansion?
Duncan immediately stepped out, toward the deep dark corridor depths walked quickly, the old wooden floor under his feet came from the monotonous creaking sound, the corridor on both sides of the pale candlesticks as if he brought up the breeze disturbed, irregularly shaking up, this originally appears eerie corridor suddenly light and shadow swaying, looks more and more hazy dim.

Duncan stopped at the end of the corridor, his brow furrowed as he looked at the darkness in front of him.

There was no doorway here – the door that had previously appeared in the shadows seemed like a fleeting illusion – and there was only an abrupt section of corridor before him, where the floor, walls and roof of the corridor appeared shattered and broken, and on the opposite side of that break there was nothing but an empty, horrifyingly dark space.

Duncan cautiously made his way to the edge of the splintered floor, poked his head out and looked out, then turned his head again and looked around the fracture zone.

Outside was a vast expanse of empty space, while the corridor beneath him floated abruptly, alone, in unsupported mid-air, with no other part of the mansion visible around him, much less the rooms and doors that should theoretically be located at the end of the corridor.

Duncan stepped back, staring silently into the void.

There had been something here, a room, a door, but now it had disappeared, as if it had been “torn” from the mansion, into the nothingness.

Suddenly, a rustling sound from nearby interrupted Duncan’s musings.

He looked sharply in the direction of the sound.

A headless figure in a black coat was standing not far from the wall, bent over and carefully polishing a decorative table made of marble.

Duncan thought briefly, then moved toward the headless figure.

The headless figure did not flee like the flickering figures that had preceded him, but slowly straightened up, even bending slightly as Duncan approached, displaying the proper posture of a well-trained butler.

Only the bare structure above his shoulders only made the politely decent posture seem a few moments more eerie and ghastly.

“Guest, who are you looking for?” A hollow, muffled voice rang out from the headless body’s chest cavity, sounding courteous and polite.

A weird feeling surfaced in his heart, but after all, Duncan had dealt with a lot of evil things in this world, and soon ignored this bit of weirdness, and talked to the headless body in front of him with a bashful face, “How come the room at the end of the corridor is gone?”

“It left,” the headless body replied, “a long, long time ago.”

Duncan frowned, followed by, “What about the people in the room? There were supposed to be people in the room originally, weren’t there?”

“The mistress of the room left as well, with the room – a long, long time ago.” The headless body replied.

“A long, long time ago?” Duncan couldn’t contain the defiance in his mind, “It didn’t just leave?”

“Yes, guest, just left, that is, a long, long time ago,” the headless figure replied politely, “where anything that has happened happened a long, long time ago – and the next thing, then happens a long, long time from now.”

The words spoken by the headless body were odd and difficult to understand, yet Duncan’s mind could not help but be led to many conjectures by these oddly obscure words – discontinuities in time? Discontinuity of time? The mansion was in some kind of temporal discontinuity?
Duncan was suddenly reminded of the brass key, which he had turned before arriving at the bizarre mansion, and which had come from a delirious final preacher – a time-discontinuity group.

The brass key?

Duncan’s heart fluttered, suddenly sensing something, and immediately looked into his hand – the cold touch seemed to have lagged for a long time, and only now did it suddenly pass into his palm, while a brass key lay there silently.

And at the same time he saw that brass key, the headless body standing across the room also seemed to have violently noticed something, this body shook a bit, and a dull voice then came from its chest, “Ah, so you are the honored guest who holds the key – Forgive me for my slowness, may I ask if you’re here to look for the Mistress? ”

“Mistress?” Duncan was instantly puzzled, “Didn’t you just say the mistress had left with the room? And left a long, long time ago ……” “There are two Mistresses,” the headless body said slowly, patiently answering his guest’s questions like a housekeeper, “One is the Mistress of the Room, who never goes out of the room, and now she has left with it, and the other is the Mistress of the Commons- -she never enters the public-house.”

The headless body’s words grew more and more bizarre, and Duncan was confused by them, but he quickly guessed that the “Mistress of the Room who never comes out of her room” referred to the Frost Queen, Rae Nora, and followed that up with a vague guess as to the other “Mistress”. I have a vague suspicion about another “mistress” immediately afterward.

“The other mistress, what’s her name?” He asked, staring at the headless body in front of him.

“This is the Alice Commons,” the headless body quickly replied, “and the name of the mistress, of course, is Alice.”

Duncan didn’t move, dropping his eyelids and controlling the subtle changes in his eyes.

Everything was as it should be – he had entered the mansion after turning the keyhole in Alice’s back, so how could this strange mansion have nothing to do with “Alice”?
The name of this mansion was “Alice’s Mansion”, and Alice was the mistress of this mansion, while Rae Nora was only the mistress of that room – the latter never stepped out of her room, so instead of being the “mistress” of the mansion, she was the “mistress” of the house. “Mistress”, it sounded and felt more like a special prisoner, and that was exactly what Rae Nora had revealed:
She was bound to the Driftlands in order to control the Ancient God’s clone in the deep sea.

Now, thanks to the “help” of a subspace shadow, this special prisoner has escaped with her cage.

And the “warden” of this prison was hovering outside?
Duncan couldn’t help but think of Alice’s simple, happy face in his mind, and couldn’t connect that silly doll with the identity of the “Mistress of Alice’s Mansion” or the “Warden of the Driftlands”.

So he hurriedly controlled the random thoughts in his mind and raised his eyes to look at the headless body in front of him while organizing his expression: “Why does the mistress of the public house never enter the public house?”

“She takes a nap in the garden,” the headless body replied, “She has rested for a long time, but it is not yet time to return to the public house.”

A nap in the garden?

Thoughts spun in Duncan’s mind, and he maintained his outward immobility, “May I go and meet the ‘mistress’?”

“Of course,” the headless body said immediately, and despite the lack of a head, Duncan felt as if the other side had a gaze on the brass key, “You are the guest who holds the key, and you can open any door in the Mansion – any door in the Mansion…” You are the guest with the key that will allow you to unlock any door in the mansion – including, of course, the door to the gardens. Come with me and I will show you to the garden.”

Duncan nodded his head “hmmm” and followed the headless body towards the spiral staircase that had previously connected the first and second floors of the mansion.

And on the way to the garden, he tried to talk to the other with the idea of gathering as much information as possible, “What is your status here?”

“I am the butler here, guest,” said the headless body that called itself the butler, “I have come as the usual attendants and maids do not dare to approach you.”

“There are many more squires and maids here?” Duncan remembered the whispers he had heard earlier in the hall and the phantoms he had stumbled across, “It sounds like this place is quite busy on weekdays?”

“The Driftlands takes in drifters, and any souls that stray here, where all have no home to go to – so it’s at least a good shelter.”

“What is your name?” Duncan asked again.

“I have no name, guest, you may call me butler,” the headless butler said, “most of the squires and maids here have no names, and those that do, gradually lose them – those who lose their homes eventually lose their name, it is our fate, and I was the first to come here, and my name was lost a long time ago.”

“People of the Lost Country ……” Duncan stopped abruptly, repeating the word subconsciously.

“Guest?” The headless butler stopped as well, turning his head to “look” at Duncan curiously.

“It’s all right, just got a little carried away.” Duncan quickly responded, shaking his head.

But just as he was about to take another step, an oil painting on a nearby wall suddenly caught his eye.

(End of chapter)