Tuxedo Man was dead. Only six people remained inside Amber Mansion—three men, three women.
A locked room. Three men, three women. A rainy night. Captivity. The scenario practically labeled itself.
The game had begun.
"We can't stay in this place any longer."
Minamoto Sorako's elegant brows knit together. She bit her lip, pacing back and forth.
"We have to get out! Once we're outside, my family will raze this place to the ground!"
She flung the words over her shoulder, threw open the door, and plunged into the lingering autumn rain.
So the young lady is the only one who hasn't grasped the situation...
Then again, she might be pretending. Which was it?
Nanami Kira set down the damp Hoshino Ei and watched Sorako's retreating figure with mild interest.
Everyone present understood by now: Amber Mansion had survived for centuries. The forces behind it were enough to crush anything. And yet she still clung to the fantasy of rescue from her family.
"There's no getting out. Sorako-san."
Nanami Kira said it quietly, and every eye in the room turned to the corner—to the unremarkable man sitting there.
"Young man, how can you be so sure?"
The old man narrowed his eyes, his voice hoarse and rasping.
He was playing dumb.
"The enemy isn't stupid. A Curtain will have been erected around the perimeter. And the moment we ate the meat, we were cursed by Amber Mansion."
Nanami Kira concealed the fact that he had not eaten.
These people still had utility.
In truth, Nanami Kira was cursed—but his curse originated from the previous timeline. Compared to theirs, his burden was far lighter: merely a compulsion to return to Amber Mansion.
"Hehe... damn it, damn it!"
Sorako's furious voice came from beyond the door. The sounds of Cursed Energy colliding could be heard—but they faded into nothing every time.
The door burst open. Minamoto Sorako swept in on a gust of wind and rain—drenched from head to toe, her thin dress clinging to her body, the curves of her figure half-revealed beneath the fabric. The white blouse beneath showed through. Wet hair clung to delicate collarbones.
She was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling, and managed to say:
"Hah... hah—there's a massive Curtain covering everything outside. I can't break through it alone."
"What we need to do right now is combine our strength and take it down together."
"You can't get out."
Nanami Kira didn't even look up.
"Even if everyone attacks together, the Curtain won't break."
Because in the previous timeline, they had certainly tried. If they'd succeeded, there would have been no need to rewind time.
"And what grade are you, exactly?"
Another woman in the room spoke up—a lady wearing a wide-brimmed hat.
"Grade 3."
A scoff was audible.
Hoshino Ei's Concealment was doing excellent work, successfully dampening Nanami Kira's Cursed Energy output to a negligible level.
"Gojo-san, Grade 3 Sorcerer—what you can't do, the rest of us may well be able to."
Nanami Kira was already tired of this pointless bickering.
Conflict was always the most tedious thing imaginable, and one should never bother trying to reason with people.
Tedious. Thoroughly tedious. Irritating. And the irritation made his nails grow.
Just kill one of them. That's all it would take. Kill one person and this feeling would go away. That girl had such pretty hands.
Really pretty.
A pretty girl like that—the hands would be even more beautiful once he took them.
"Not even as good as a woman..."
Sorako muttered under her breath, her tone already edged with impatience.
She was turning to leave when her body seized. A prickling numbness spread across her skin—like needles. Instinctively, she looked back and found Nanami Kira watching her, his dark pupils perfectly still.
He tilted his head and smiled at her.
She couldn't say whether it was her imagination, but that smile made her skin crawl.
In all her years, this was the first time Minamoto Sorako had been talked back to by a low-grade Sorcerer.
A very strange feeling.
"Fine, you win!"
Half an hour later, Sorako dropped back into her chair with a huff, arms folded across her chest, glaring at Nanami Kira.
She agonized over it for a while, pinching the hem of her skirt. A long moment passed.
Then she pressed her lips together, lowered her lashes, and mumbled:
"S-sorry! I take back what I said before."
A willful heiress she might be, but she wasn't wholly unreasonable.
The willingness to admit a mistake—Nanami Kira could appreciate that.
Still. He was going to take that hand.
A pinch of pain at his waist—Hoshino Ei was digging into his skin. And at his ear, the unmistakable sound of teeth grinding.
"So what do we do? Hey—you know, don't you?"
"First: my name isn't 'hey.' Second: I'm just a Grade 3 Sorcerer..."
"I'm sorry, I was wrong!"
At last, the conversation found its proper track.
Within any team, what was the ideal position?
One that drew no suspicion, yet remained the group's true core. Like always scoring third on every exam.
So he had hidden his strength deliberately. A mere Grade 3 Sorcerer—no matter how clever he seemed, no one would be on guard against him.
There had never been any real cooperation here. Only mutual exploitation. Only mutual betrayal.
Because this was a selection game.
Nanami Kira had understood the nature of this place from the very start.
And he was certain he was not the only one who had.
Others lurked among the group—wolves waiting to bare their fangs.
One more thing nagged at him: he had concealed his true strength. What guarantee did he have that the others hadn't done the same?
Were the heirs chosen by Amber Mansion really a collection of fools?
"Every Curtain has an anchor point."
Nanami Kira sat warming himself by the fireplace. The flames flickered across his calm face.
"What we need to do is find the Curtain's anchor and destroy it."
By the principle of Equivalent Exchange, a Curtain this powerful could only have its anchor inside the barrier.
The anchor was hidden somewhere within the mansion.
There was one more thing Nanami Kira did not say aloud.
If the anchor was inside the mansion, then it was part of Amber Mansion's property.
Trying to take it would trigger the auction.
Someone would have to pay the price.
To bid. With their life. With everything.
Betrayal, bribery, murder, schemes—that was this game. Amber Mansion's succession.
And the most irritating thought of all: since this was an auction, might one of the guests be a plant for the organizers?
Driving up the price with malicious bids, making sure no one ever got out—that was a perfectly standard tactic.
No one could answer that question.
Nanami Kira suspected every single person here.
He was deep in thought when a soft, syrupy voice rose from his arms:
"Kira-kun, stop pressing so hard... I'm going to feel strange..."