Chapter 3 - The Devil of Envy Part 2

On top of the staircase made up of worn-out planks, Yua took out the pen and notepad.

“It’s weird. Snakey wouldn’t be able to go up these stairs.”

Mizuki pondered over the words written on the note.

Then he observed their surroundings.

“Over there… There’s a path… Even Snakey can take.”

Mizuki pointed at a path that looked like a slope for a wheelchair.

It was placed a bit away from the staircase.

“Then why bother making a staircase? Hmm… maybe there’s a monster aside from Snakey living here.”

Yua set aside the creepy suspicion and went to explore the second floor.

There were three rooms on this floor.

Every room was large enough to be half a gymnasium.

The first room they found was a bedroom.

Inside was a huge bed with bookshelves surrounding it, and something like a TV.

Dust covered the bed, and it appeared to have been unused for several days.

Moreover, the books stacked on the shelves were handmade.

“Let’s go… To the next one.”

The second room was a craft room.

A large desk stood in the center with human posters laying on it, and a crafted male doll sat near it.

Everything else scattered in the room appeared to have been crafted or was trash.

It was evidently a room to create something.

“This doll… Did they make it after the man on the poster?”

They used the trash to climb up on the desk.

on the poster were a man and woman happily holding hands with the text “Love and Youth”.

It was apparently a movie poster.

“There seems to be an exit, too. Let’s go to it next.”

The third room was vacant.

The walls and floor were worn out and there were some holes in the wall, but nothing besides that.

“Sorry, it seems like we need to go back downstairs.”

“Wait.”

Mizuki was about to apologetically turn around, but Yua pulled him back.

She handed a note with “The holes in the floor, right below look like the planks of the staircase, so let’s jump down here” written on it.

“You’re right… I’ll go first.”

Since only one of them fit through the holes, Mizuki dropped to the floor below.

His feet barely caught hold of the plank, but there weren’t any problems.

It seemed like he had fallen onto huge drawers.

“Come… It’s fine.”

After confirming it was safe, Yua took Mizuki’s hand and got down on the plank.

The problem was how they would get down from here.

First, they looked down.

Below, they saw an enormous couch, a TV, a chandelier, and a ball.

Nothing was anything similar to human-sized, but there were other things lying around on the floor like cardboard and books and other things humans used.

“I’ll go first.”

Mizuki braced himself and jumped and swung from the chandelier.

“Be careful! It looks like it’ll break!”

Yua approached Mizuki, who couldn’t hear her, and instinctively shouted at him.

Mizuki was in that much danger.

“Will I make it… To the couch below?”

Mizuki looked down and gulped.

At that moment, the place he held onto snapped.

“Ah!”

“Mizuki!”

Mizuki shut his eyes.

The strange thing was that he still hadn’t felt like he was falling.

“...”

He nervously opened his eyes and saw that he was hanging from the chain connecting his handcuff to Yua.

Looking sideways, he saw Yua dangling in a similar manner.

Apparently, because Yua fell before Mizuki, their balanced weight made them hang from the chandelier instead of dropping.

“That was scary… I did it in the spur of the moment.”

“Sorry… For being a bother.”

There was a crashing sound of the chandelier breaking.

The chandelier couldn’t handle their weight and seemed to break off from the ceiling.

“Drop down on the couch!”

Yua said and pointed to the couch below them.

Looking at the direction she was pointing, Mizuki understood her meaning and swung his body at the same time as Yua.

BANG!

The chandelier gave up at last and plummeted down.

A loud crash reverberated on the first floor.

Luckily, Mizuki got no major injuries and landed safely on the couch.

However, Yua ended up sandwiched under the chandelier.

“Yua! I’ll rescue you!”

Flustered, Mizuki lifted the chandelier.

However, Yua made a frightened expression and gestured frantically to him.

“It came! The monster came! It sounds like it’s coming here!”

Mizuki didn’t understand what Yua was saying, but he prioritized saving her first.

Yua broke free from the chandelier and held down on her injured shoulder while clutching Mizuki’s hand.

“Huh?”

“Hurry! Quietly!”

Although being startled now, Mizuki would get even more of a shock soon.

The door to the room opened and a light shone into the room.

Yua held a hand in front of Mizuki’s mouth and communicated with her eyes while bating her breath.

Unable to hear anything, Mizuki noticed as well… that Snakey had entered the room.

Snakey looked up at where the chandelier had broken off from the ceiling and then surveyed the room.

Mizuki and Yua held their breaths as it crawled toward the couch.

Jingle, jingle.

Yua heard Snakey touch the chandelier.

Because of that, her fear was higher than Mizuki’s.

Her heart beat loudly in her chest, and she couldn’t stop sweating and trembling to the point of feeling nauseous.

“Aaargh!”

Snakey’s voice made her speechless.

In the end, Snakey left the room and shut the door behind it.