A new squire is coming.

As if this sentence had activated some kind of mechanism, a low, muffled voice came to the ears, and countless shadowy silhouettes suddenly appeared in the darkness in front of the Annihilation Cultists—a faint light from nowhere swayed and appeared in the air, illuminating an unusually open and simple and elegant hall!

His eyes widened at the sight of the hall, which was as beautiful as a court but as old as if it had been abandoned for decades, the curved staircase that spiraled and rose at the end, connecting the high cloisters with the platforms, the great pillars looming in the dimness, and the fine curtains hanging from the tops of the pillars, swaying gently in the breeze from nowhere, and the dark and hollow windows lining the walls around the hall—the openings were like the maws of the beasts, without the slightest light outside, and the windows themselves were sealed by a crisscrossing of steelHuge oil paintings, which cannot be seen, hang between the windows, without any specific people or landscapes, only filled with eerie patches of color.

The Annihilation Cultist stared at the scene in amazement, then suddenly realized that the restraint on his hands and feet had disappeared at some point, he took two steps forward, felt his body return to his control, and then subconsciously called out to the demon who lived with his soul.

However, there was only a hollow roar in his soul, and the dark demon that had been with him for many years was as if it had never existed, and nothing responded to his call.

"Squire, forward, to the end of the carpet."

The low, muffled voice sounded again, this time even directly in the head.

"Who is it?!" The Annihilationists' eyes widened in horror as they looked around the ornate but empty hall of the bungalow, but there was no one in sight.

He looked up again, looking at the end of the hall—a dark red carpet stretched beneath his feet, ending in a staircase that curved like wings to the second floor.

For some reason, as his eyes looked there, his legs moved uncontrollably—as if in obedience to the sound he had just heard, he strode to the end of the carpet and stopped a few meters from the staircase.

A figure appeared there out of nowhere.

It was a body in a black gown—a body without a head.

The figure stood straight at the staircase, his gown meticulous, the corner of a folded handkerchief visible in his breast pocket, and the thin gold chain of his pocket watch peeking out of the other pocket, and he held a brass bell in one hand and stretched forward the other—a gesture like a butler welcoming the newlyweds, a trusted steward in charge of a bungalow.

But he had no head, and on his body, which was dressed in black, had only a bare neck, as if ...... The doll has a normal connection port.

"This ...... What kind of place is this!? ”

The "new squire" said in a trembling voice, he couldn't remember why he came to this closed bungalow, and he couldn't remember his name and origin, he only felt an instinctive fear, a strange strange feeling was eroding his heart little by little, he looked at the headless butler in front of him, plucked up the courage to ask, and at the same time as he made the sound, the sound of whispering and the feeling of being watched also came from all directions.

He looked back in astonishment and looked at the scene in the hall—

Figures dressed as attendants and maids busied the hall, apparently the servants who tended to the huge bungalow, who would stop as they passed the staircase, as if curiously looking at the newcomers.

A muffled discussion came from their chests—for the servants were headless.

On the top of their necks, there are only smooth spherical protrusions, as if they are the connecting parts of the puppet, showing a texture between wood and ceramic.

The "new attendant" looked at the servants who were busy in the hall in astonishment, and for a moment he was in a trance.

Were there so many people here before? When I first came to this hall, was it so lively?

"This is Alice's Mansion, and you're the new attendant here," the "butler's" dull voice suddenly sounded, interrupting the new attendant's distraction, "Follow me, your next post is upstairs." ”

The new attendant nodded subconsciously and stepped behind the headless butler, who unconsciously glanced down and found that he had somehow put on the clothes of a squire—the same as the valets in the hall.

His mind was getting more and more cloudy, and more and more memories were being pulled away from the body, as if it were something that was "no longer needed", an impurity that prevented him from fulfilling his duties as a servant in the bungalow.

Each time he stepped on the stairs, he hesitated and hesitated, at first, he vaguely remembered that he didn't belong here, and then, he only remembered that he seemed to be trapped in a strange bungalow, and when he was only a few steps away from the second floor, he only remembered the butler's explanation to him-

Stepping up the last staircase, he looked up at the platform in front of him and the corridor inside it.

Several servants were passing through the hallway, and even though they didn't have a look, the "new attendant" felt the peeping sensation.

"Why is everyone looking at me?"

"Because you are the first servant to bear a head," said the butler, pausing and turning, with a smile in his voice, "and besides, there have been no newcomers here for many years. ”

"What am I going to do?" The new squire asked cautiously.

"Serve our hostess and be a member of the house, you will naturally know what to do, but before that, you should go and say hello to the hostess first......"

The butler slowly raised his arm and pointed to a black door at the end of the hallway.

"Go ahead, just push open that door and say hello to the hostess."

The new squire nodded, and turned to walk towards the door.

His steps were steady, his expression calmed down, his limbs swaying until they were as stiff as the servants in the hall, and he came to the door, stretched out his hands, and calmly swept his gaze over his wrist, which had become a spherical joint—it pushed the door open with a slight force.

The puppet took a step forward.

In an elegant bedroom that can almost be described as huge, a large bed is placed in the center of the room, and the large bed is surrounded by intricate curtains and tassel curtains, and the silver-haired doll lies quietly on the bed, falling asleep.

Beyond the bed, at the end of the bedroom, where it should have been a wall, there was only an open and boundless darkness—it seemed to lead to some far-away and deep space, where the floor, walls, and roofs took on a fragmented posture, and the chaotic dark shadows and countless flickering points of light in the distance slowly rose and fell, turning into strange illusions of light and shadow, silently agitating at the end of this bedroom, whispering and wandering in the darkness.

The surging darkness and points of light are like the strange dreams of the dolls, and they seem to be invisible things trying to invade the bungalow, blocked from reality by the sleeping of the puppets.

The new attendant, who had been transformed into a puppet, stood in the doorway of the bedroom, staring blankly at the beautiful puppet sleeping soundly on the bed, and the darkness that undulated behind the puppet—and then it bent down and saluted the hostess respectfully.

Bright threads stretched out of his limbs, fluttering into the air, and then vanished in an instant.

The new squire stooped over and slowly retreated until he exited the room, and the door of the sleeping Alice slammed shut before his eyes with a low, majestic roar.

But the squire's face never changed again.

The puppet bent over, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and gently wiped the ornaments near the gate.

……

"Poof—"

"Whoa—"

The sound of a heavy object falling to the ground rang out at the mouth of the alley, and the Annihilation Cultist, who had just tried to escape, suddenly fell from mid-air, and when he landed, he made a loud noise, and his body instantly shattered into pieces like porcelain, even his clothes.

There was not a trace of blood in the shattered porcelain shards, as if he had been a firing doll from the beginning—flesh and blood, just a hallucination of half his life.

Alice was taken aback for a moment: "Wow! ”

A gust of wind whistled behind her, and Vanna had already rushed to the entrance of the alley, she looked at the scene in front of her in amazement, and was stunned for a long time before turning her head to look at the puppet next to her: "This is ...... What did you do? ”

“…… I don't know," Alice blinked, looking back a little sluggishly, "yes...... Probably? ”

"What do you mean?!"

"I grabbed his thread, and I strove it—he did it first, and I was a little scared......," Alice said upside down, gesturing as she spoke, and her explanation was so effective that she didn't understand Vana even more in a few sentences, "Understand?" ”

“…… I don't understand," Vana shook her head, then glanced back at the depths of the alley, where there was a charred wreckage emitting faint black smoke, "Damn, the priest I dealt with didn't say anything until the end, and your side was simply shattered, and nothing was left in the end." ”

"Does that mean the captain will be dissatisfied?"

"It's too late to think about this, we need to get out of here," Vanna said quickly, "It's too much, even if it's not in the central city, the night patrol team should react." ”

As she spoke, she looked up at the mansion not far away.

(End of chapter)