The unknown entity's laughter did not end with its final remark.
It continued to echo throughout Elena's room, spilling from the walls, the floor, and the copper pipe beside which her corpse had fallen, until it seemed as though the mansion itself were joining in the mockery.
Talia, meanwhile, remained seated on the floor, crawling backward whenever anyone tried to approach her, her eyes darting toward every corner of the room as though someone were hiding there to kill her and she were desperately searching for them.
She looked as though she were on the verge of losing her mind...
Yet Ravian's gaze lingered on her for a moment longer than necessary, his brow furrowing... then he quickly looked away.
The remaining purple mist in the room suddenly stirred and gathered above Elena's corpse before rising and assuming the form of the tall entity once again.
Its face refused to settle into a single shape. A smiling mouth appeared, followed by two widely spaced eyes, then Elena's terrified features flashed across it for a fleeting moment before they all melted away.
"Kyaaa!" the entity mockingly imitated Elena's scream while wearing her terror-stricken features, before Elena's face dissolved back into its featureless head.
It then turned to face Talia, who was sprawled on the floor.
"You're the one with the lovely scream," the entity said, addressing Talia. "You said the Head Servant wanted to kill you this time, didn't you?"
Talia stopped crawling.
The entity's head turned toward Mirai, then back to her.
"Would you like to turn your words into a formal accusation? I certainly wouldn't mind," the entity said as a smile no human mouth could form spread across its face, taking up nearly half of it.
Someone else in the room smiled upon hearing the question directed at Talia.
That person was Ravian.
Talia's lips parted, but Aldric's voice beat her to it.
"Don't answer."
He said it so sharply that she immediately looked at him.
Meanwhile, Ravian's expression grew even colder at Aldric's interruption, his gaze shifting icily toward him from behind the others.
If looks could kill, Aldric would have died a thousand times beneath Ravian's stare.
Aldric continued without taking his eyes off the entity. "All you have to trap us with right now is her panic. Even if there are two witnesses who saw Mirai communicate with Elena, that only gives us grounds to risk an accusation; it doesn't prove that Mirai was the last person to communicate with her. In fact, everything that just happened was nothing more than a fit of panic from Talia. There is no need for you to interfere in our affairs."
The entity tilted its head until it rested against its shoulder in a way no human could manage, then turned toward Talia.
"Kikiki... Do you understand, Talia? The old man doesn't want you to save yourself."
"On the contrary, he doesn't want her to die merely because you enjoy watching her suffer before she does," Sylvan said, his face grim.
A smiling white mask appeared over the entity's face.
"And why shouldn't I? I explained the rules clearly, yet listening as your own tongues carry you closer to death remains amusing."
It raised one hand, and a black cloud appeared above them bearing a single sentence.
{The accusation phase has opened following the death of a participant.}
Then another sentence appeared beneath it.
{The accusation phase will remain open until the first toll of the Black Bell.}
"Anyone with two living witnesses to a genuine communication that took place between the person they accuse and the victim may call for me—by whatever name they choose—and state their accusation," the entity said. "If they are right, they leave alone. If they are wrong... I will make sure their death is a little faster than Elena's."
The gazes of those present shifted from one person to another, but no one spoke.
The entity regarded them calmly, the strange smile never leaving its face... then it laughed again.
"No one is willing to take the risk? What a shame. I thought your brilliant plan would have given you enough courage to name at least one person."
Its form suddenly contracted and transformed into a strand of mist that entered the copper pipe and vanished inside it.
Only its voice remained for one final second.
"Try to do better tonight... or don't. Just don't make your deaths boring, for my sake."
'Oh... don't worry. It will be entertaining,' Ravian thought as he watched the mist dissolve. 'It will be deadly entertaining for everyone, without exception.'
The remaining purple mist vanished from the room, and morning's white light returned in full.
Yet it did nothing to dispel the coldness the entity had left behind.
Talia stared at the place where it had vanished, then spoke in a low, broken voice, her fear of the entity the only thing that had restored a measure of sanity to her.
"It wanted me to die."
"And it will keep wanting that," Ravian said from behind the others, a sudden frown on his face. "But if you remain on the floor and refuse to do your work, the entity won't need the killer to make that happen. The mansion itself will cast you out for failing to carry out your duties."
"And you know exactly what that means," Ravian said, looking into her green eyes, which complemented her delicate features.
Talia raised her head toward him, anger appearing amid her fear for the first time.
"Is that all you can say?"
Ravian raised an eyebrow at her response.
"That's the only thing that will keep you alive right now. Weren't you screaming in fear of death just moments ago as you pushed everyone away? If you keep this up, your screams will become nothing more than a summons for it."
His tone was neither harsh nor gentle. His words came out as a simple statement of fact, indifferent to whether she found them acceptable.
Mirai looked at him for a second, then returned her gaze to Talia.
"He's right about that, Talia," she said calmly. "I'm not asking you to trust me or let me come near you. Just get up before the mansion considers your remaining here a deliberate refusal to work."
Talia's hands trembled, but she placed one against the floor and slowly pushed herself to her feet. The moment she regained her footing, she moved away from Mirai, keeping her back pressed against the wall.
Aldric waited until her breathing had calmed slightly before speaking.
"No one leaves the room yet. We need to understand what happened before the mansion erases any evidence."
Garrick objected. "What happened is obvious. One of us secretly communicated with her, then chose her."
"It's not that simple, Garrick," Ravian interjected.
The elderly Aldric looked at him, then nodded in approval.
"That's the outcome, not the method," Aldric said. "If we don't figure out the method, it will simply happen again tonight."
He approached the corpse but did not touch it. Bending over it, he examined the positions of her arms and legs, along with the faint scratches her fingers had left across the wooden floor.
Ravian then stepped forward, drawing closer to Aldric and the corpse the entity had left behind before vanishing with the mist.
"Up there."
Ravian pointed toward the copper pipe in the wall.
At his words, everyone raised their gaze toward the pipe, and the expressions on Sylvan's and Aldric's faces changed completely.
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