Redo of a Romanceless Author’s Life Devoid of Love; Another Chance at Youth

Chapter 462.

Chapter 462. An Exciting Night with Two Girls Outside the City: The Alleged Haunted Castle. (5/10) 

An hour later, we’d explored every room inside this rundown castle but we never found a torture room let alone any hidden rooms. It seemed the story Rosa read online was, as expected, nothing more than an urban legend. The scariest thing about the castle was just the moss.

We didn’t find a basement either and only explored the three floors. There had been watchtowers at the four corners of the castle accessible from the third floor, but that was the closest we ever got to finding any hidden rooms.

Overall, it was a disappointment.

At least... until we heard something.

The sound of footsteps echoed out from inside the hall. It wasn’t a single set of footsteps, it sounded like two.

The three of us all looked to the exit of the room we were currently in at the same time.

“Do you guys also hear that?” Rosa asked.

The two of us nodded.

“Footsteps, right?” Dawn confirmed.

Rosa nodded.

It seemed all three of us heard the same thing at the same time. Meaning… it was unlikely it was a hallucination.

“You said you heard footsteps earlier, but they weren’t ours though, right?”

I nodded and asked, “Could it be an animal, maybe a deer or something?”

“It doesn’t sound like an animal,” Dawn shook her head.

“Then… there’s someone else with nothing better to do with their time lurking around out here in the middle of nowhere at this hour of the night?”

“Maybe it’s the ghost we’ve been looking for~” Rosa chimed in excitedly. “Come on, let’s go check it out.”

Rosa grabbed our hands and dragged us out the door in search of the phantom footsteps. We followed the sound of the footsteps, but not long after the footsteps began, they abruptly stopped without warning and we were, unfortunately, unable to locate the origin in the end.

“Ugh, why’d they have to stop?” Rosa grimaced.

“Why do yuh want it to be a ghost so badly, Rosa?” Dawn asked curiously.

“Don’t you think it’d be pretty cool to befriend a ghost?”

“No,” I gave my two cents.

“You don’t?”

“Ghosts don’t exist. I’m not interested in friends let alone imaginary friends.”

“Oh come on. Surely you can bend your rules a little bit and make some exceptions. After all, you could get a ghost to do all sorts of useful things for you.”

“Like?”

“They could eavesdrop on just about any conversation for you. You could effortlessly cheat any test. You could win big when gambling at a casino. There’s so much a ghost could do for you. Having a ghost around as a friend would be playing life on easy mode.”

“But if the ghost is a vengeful spirit that haunts yuh, can yuh even befriend it or get it to cooperate?”

“Hmm… no idea, I’ve never met a ghost before. But there’s no way to know unless I meet one, right?”

“Hey, let’s just go now. We’ve already explored everywhere there is to explore in this castle and it doesn’t look like we’re going to find the source of the footsteps we heard. If a ghost wanted to make themselves known they would have done so by now. If they don’t want to appear then there’s no sense in looking for them.”

Rosa shut her eyes and placed her index finger on top of her lower lip as she struggled to decide what to do. “Mmmmm… but… you know, we might never get such a great opportunity to encounter a ghost again.”

“Just give up.”

“If there are any ghosts around, I give you my permission to possess and haunt my boyfriend. You can leave this place that way.”

“Hey, don’t try selling me out. Let them haunt and possess you. I enjoy my privacy.”

“Me? No way. No way.” Rosa bent her wrist left and right in front of her chest refusing, “It’d be way funnier if they haunt you, the one who doesn’t believe they exist. I’m sure you’d be in denial about it too.”

“Haaaaah. Can we just leave now?”

“Hey, Rosa, what if the ghost has a preferred gender like the devil we summoned, and the reason they don’t appear is because of that?”

“Oh! Dawn, you’re a genius! I never considered that possibility at all. In that case, Ran, you can wait for us outside the castle if you’re too scared to explore alone.”

“What? I’m really free to go?”

“Yeah, if you’re too scared that is.”

I rolled my eyes and responded, “I am soooooo scared, I might even pee my pants.” In truth, I did have to take a leak right now.

“Then do your best to not get spirited away.”

“Yeah, sure, sure. I’ll wait for you two outside, I’m dying for some fresh air. Just don’t keep me waiting for too long.”

I returned to the first floor and exited the building while the two of them resumed their ghost hunt. I walked around the outskirts to the side of the castle and took the chance while alone to take a leak.

Somehow… being out here alone in the dark with only the illumination of the flashlight on my phone was more unsettling than when I was inside. I mean… if a bear was wandering around and I was cornered here I’d be a goner, wouldn’t I?

While I answered nature’s call, I gulped down a mouthful of saliva and shoulder checked. Thankfully, as far as I could tell, there were no scary bears observing me in secret.

When finished, I zipped up my fly in a rush and immediately made a run for it. However, with how dark it was, I couldn’t see my footing very well and my foot snagged on something. I tripped and fell to the ground.

I spun around onto my back and shone my flashlight behind me. I’d seen enough horror movies to know what happened when you tripped in the dark outside. Some scary monster would appear out of nowhere for sure.

However… there was no scary monster.

“Haaaaaah…” I whispered to myself in a low voice, “Seriously, what the hell am I getting so antsy for all of a sudden? Nothing’s really going to jump scare me out here.”

Shining the flashlight at what caught my feet I discovered something out of place I didn’t expect to see here. It looked like… a rubber cable? What was this doing here? I reached out, grabbed it, and tried to pick it up only to realize it was quite long. It seemed to be... a power line for electricity.

Electricity? This castle? But... there hadn’t been any sockets for light bulbs in any of the rooms I visited. It seemed candles had been used for lighting inside this castle when it was still occupied. How... peculiar. 

Wouldn’t that mean someone had to set this up? Unless it was a ghost living in this castle. Haha, would ghosts really need electricity though? Well, maybe they wanted some internet access or something. They could have set up a satellite somewhere. Haha. Yeah right, as if.

Well, it’s none of my business. Still though, this unexpected discovery made me want to immediately leave this place. It smelled fishy and I didn’t want anything to do with it.

I rose to my feet, turned around, and took one step forward.

Creeeeeeek.

My heart sank as my head mechanically turned back. My eyes shrank. I could see light coming out from the ground behind me.

“Seriously, Dox definitely just seein and hearin shit. He called us here just cause he thinks he saw a glimpse of black hair roundin a corner from the corner of his eye when lookin over his shoulder one time and says he heard some voices inside the castle. As if anyone would stumble across this place. It’s definitely just all the shitty mold in the castle making him hallucinate crap that’s not really there.”

Huh? A… human? It’s not a spooky ghost?

“Yeah, he’s definitely losin it man. Wants us to patrol the area to find whoever it was. There’s no way anyone’s really here.”

It wasn’t just one person, but two people?

Out here?

At this hour?

Why?

Wait, they mentioned someone named Dox.

Then there are three people in this castle right now?

Shit, there’s no time to think about it. My instincts told me it was best to hide and not allow them to discover me.

There was no telling why they were at this castle. I would have been a lot less scared if it really had been a ghost that appeared just now. Other humans whom you didn’t know what their intentions were, were far scarier than a little ghost.

Quick to react, I shut the flashlight on my phone off, laid down prone on the ground in some tall grass, and crawled my way over to a tree nearby. Afraid they might hear me should I breathe too loudly, I held my breath and did my best to calm my frantically beating heart.

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