After regaining consciousness and cleaning up the mansion, Izzy decided to revisit and investigate the entire scenario of Benjamin’s demise. It was her nature as an investigator to mistrust everything and question even the smallest details.

  ‘It was me cleaning, not you, Izzy.’

  ‘Tch’

  She ignored Isa’s petty protest.

  As she reviewed the scene in her mind, replaying the events over and over, she began to notice something peculiar, something she’d overlooked during their encounter with Benjamin.

  Among Benjamin’s usual attire and the familiar setting of the attic, there was one item that stood out.

  ‘The cane!’

  Isa, catching her intent, immediately lifted the cane from where it rested and floated it toward their painted portrait with meticulous care.

  The cane appeared simple at first glance, but it wasn’t quite the walking stick it seemed. The handle was made of polished wood, smoothed from years of use. Its head, however, was crafted from silver, shaped into an eagle with eyes pointed forward in an intimidating gaze.

  To be honest, Izzy was surprised she hadn’t noticed or questioned the cane earlier. It seemed like something a normal person might overlook, but its durability and the expensive-looking silver head should have raised suspicions.

  Perhaps she had been too focused on Benjamin himself to pay attention to anything else. That might have been the case.

  That, she realized, might have been her mistake.

  If she’d known, she would never have left the cane so conveniently within his reach during her plan.

  Now, with the cane hovering in front of her painted portrait, she scrutinized it carefully. Yet, it didn’t seem to emanate any sense of the extraordinary. It appeared to be just a normal, albeit luxurious, cane.

  Both Izzy and Isa took turns trying to activate it, but to no avail. It seemed to only work in the right hands, or perhaps it was just a simple cane, and she was overthinking, misunderstanding, or misdeducting its purpose.

  Even when Benjamin’s corpse held it, nothing happened.

  Still… Izzy didn’t buy that. It felt like a false alarm, but Izzy’s instincts told her there was something more to this cane.

  If not, why would Benjamin have gripped it so tightly at that particular moment? And why did their emotions skyrocket at the same time? Coincidence? She thought not.

  Since they couldn’t control the cane or discern its secrets, Izzy decided to store it in the attic’s collar ties and hide it for now. Perhaps it would prove useful later on.

  As for Benjamin’s abilities, they also had tested thoroughly. They couldn’t replicate any of his abilities after possessing him, which was a disappointment. It seemed his powers were uniquely his, tied to something beyond their understanding.

  Next, Izzy searched Benjamin’s body briefly before disposing of it. To her surprise, his robe concealed many interesting items within its inner pockets.

  First, she found coins, 20 silver coins and 2 golden coins. Each coin bore the engraving of a man she had never seen before. He wore a cassock and cape draped over his shoulders, with a cross necklace prominently displayed. On his head sat an exquisite mitre hat.

  Behind him, in the background, were three rings, each inscribed with a symbol. The innermost ring held a crown symbol at the bottom left corner. The middle ring bore a cross symbol at the bottom right corner. The outermost ring displayed an orb symbol above his head.

  Whoever this man was, Izzy assumed he must be someone highly revered in this land. Not that she cared. The currency of this world remained elusive to her, so she didn’t think much about this "loot."

  Next, she found three familiar bottles. Two had orange caps, while one had a blue cap. These were the same bottles Benjamin had used to discover the mouse’s blood on the glass piece and to poison himself. She didn’t know much about them, but they might prove useful when the time came.

  She also found some trivial, decorative items: a porcelain X-shaped statuette resembling two swords crossed together, a necklace with a deep-red flame sword pendant, a small cross etched with a rose at its heart, and… candy.

  ‘Candy?’

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  Izzy blinked at the small sweet among the odds and ends. Annoyed, she quickly tossed it away before Isa noticed and tried to make a fuss over it.

  ‘Mm? Oh, this,’

  The most curious item was a small leather notebook, the very one Benjamin had used when speaking with the Herald.

  Feeling curious, Izzy opened it to check the contents.

  ‘?’

  Contrary to her expectations, the pages were blank. All of them were blank.

  ‘What does this mean?’

  She had no way to find out. The only thing she was certain of was that Benjamin had used this to communicate with the Herald.

  ‘Did he lie?’

  Had Benjamin deceived even the Herald? Why?

  Suddenly, something on the page shifted slightly, making her heart jump.

  ‘W…what?!’

  On the first page of the diary, a strange symbol slowly emerged. Then, just as slowly, another symbol appeared, and then another, until a full line of strange symbols formed.

  ‘?’

  She jolted slightly, and understanding flashed across her mind. Characters! These were likely characters from otherworldly languages, which she didn’t know or understand yet. Was the book trying to communicate with her?

  Before she could stabilize her thoughts, another symbol appeared on the next line, very different from the first.

  Then a third line appeared, also different from the other two. At this point, she began to understand. The diary was somehow trying to guess which language she might understand.

  Then came the fourth line, and the symbols felt deeply familiar.

  ‘Huh, this…’

  She recognized a little about the style of these symbols. They resembled the writing she had glimpsed in the attic’s books.

  ‘This must be the language of this place.’

  Then came the fifth line, and the emergence stopped. No more lines appeared.

  ‘It gave up.’

  Izzy felt a twinge of reluctance and disappointment in herself after seeing this.

  ‘Sorry, this girl is uneducated,’ she thought wryly.

  With no way to read it and unwilling to risk further surprises, she copied the symbols onto a loose sheet, then tossed the diary into a corner.

  As for the rest of Benjamin’s belongings, she hid them in inconspicuous spots around the attic, ensuring they were safely out of sight.

  For now, she returned to Isa’s perspective through Benjamin’s corpse, and immediately noticed something curious.

  As the old man’s body shuffled down the hallway, a small mouse scurried beside him.

  ‘This little one…’

  Benjamin’s bandaged head tilted, the wrappings leaving only a single intact eye exposed.

  His bloody gray robe had long since been discarded. Now he wore a plain white collarless shirt beneath an ulster coat, paired with black trousers and new boots.

  his old boots had been stained with blood, and Izzy had no intention of tracking bloody footprints throughout the mansion.

  ‘Interesting.’

  What intrigued her most was that neither she nor Isa was controlling the mouse. It followed Benjamin of its own volition, without any influence from their minds.

  When they had possessed the mouse, they left its mind unconscious, intending to reserve it as emergency food if needed. After absorbing Benjamin’s energy, the mouse’s little energy wasn’t enough to fully satiate them anymore.

  Izzy had experimented by instilling a simple thought into the mouse’s unconscious mind: to not leave the attic. It was a test to see if they could influence other thoughts.

  Did it work? Hard to say. The mouse had started following Benjamin from the moment it woke up. Perhaps the instillation failed because the mouse left the attic. Or maybe it succeeded, and the mouse simply didn’t understand what the attic was, so it followed Benjamin instead.

  Since they couldn’t resolve the question, they decided to let it be for now.

  The little creature soon scampered up his trouser leg and quickly hopped onto his shoulder, and sat like it belonged there. Isa giggled at the sight, while Izzy frowned in puzzlement.

  Benjamin’s body moved stiffly down the grand main foyer. Isa was still getting used to maneuvering Benjamin, which required precise control over his limbs.

  They approached the arched double doors and opened them with both hands. The doors creaked open, revealing the mansion’s expansive yard.

  ‘Oh man, cleaning and maintaining all this would be a pain,’

  Izzy surveyed the garden with a lack of enthusiasm. She wasn’t particularly fond of nature.

  Their gaze drifted over the garden, eventually settled on the fountain; or more specifically, the stone lions poised around its rim.

  ‘In movies, fountains like this always hide something, right?’

  ‘Let’s try it!’

  For the next 30 minutes, they circled the fountain, searching for clues, puzzles, or hidden mechanisms. Unfortunately, they found nothing.

  Even the mouse crouched on the fountain’s edge, its eyes conveying a bored expression as if asking, ‘What are you doing?’ But that might have been their imagination.

  ‘Guess it was just media nonsense.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’

  Real life wasn’t as convenient as fiction. There was no convenient discovery to make the protagonist suddenly tripping by a vine under the ground and then trigger a hidden mechanism, revealing a hidden secret.

  ‘Let’s get back to business, Isa.’

  ‘Oke.’

  Benjamin stopped fiddling around the fountain and approached the weathered wooden double door lying on the ground.

  This was the door leading to the basement. Last time, they had to sneak past the old man to access it, triggering the alarm lamps to divert his attention while sneaking into the locked door inside.

  But now, with Benjamin’s own body, they no longer needed to hide or be sneaky. Benjamin selected a key from the keychain on his belt and inserted it into the lock, successfully gaining access to the basement.

  Together with their small, uninvited companion, they descended into the basement’s darkness.

  It might really get confusing, so:

  ‘Isidora’ now refers to both Izzy and Isa, since they are one. ‘They,’ ‘them,’ ‘their,’ and ‘themselves’ mean both of them work and look together. When only one of them is looking and thinking, I return to ‘she’ and ‘her.’ (It’s often Izzy doing the thinking.) When Benjamin is doing something, I use ‘he’ instead. It might get confusing in the future, when she uses others' bodies.

  (The next chapter will be quite important for the plot; it's also the first plot point that I mention in the last chapter. Hopefully, there will be none of this happening anymore.)