Chapter 34 (Patreon)

“Hah... what a shit rule.”

At the end of the hallway, the young man smoked alone, looking completely unconcerned with the hotel’s regulations.

“I’ll do whatever the hell I want.”

What he didn’t notice was the set of black footprints slowly appearing on the carpet behind him.

Thick black liquid seeped from them, sticky and grotesque.

Then—

The smoking traveler suddenly caught a whiff of something foul.

“Urgh—fuck! What is that smell!?” His face twisted. “It’s like the boots of the old grandma next door haven’t been washed in ten years, then someone scraped sewer sludge off the bottom and stuffed it inside them before letting it all ferment together!”

The stench was so disgusting it nearly made him throw up on the spot.

“Oh, shit... what the hell is this...?”

He looked down and saw a black handprint on his shoulder.

Not only that, a dark, ink-like fluid was slowly dripping downward from it.

At that moment, there was no scream.

No spray of blood.

Only the young man’s terrified eyes and his mouth hanging open—

A mouth that would never make another sound again.

Because his head...

Was already gone.

Plop.

With nothing left to control it, the headless body crumpled helplessly to the floor.

Click.

Ragnar Kagenou opened the door to his room, just as he was about to step out.

“Hm?”

He paused slightly.

“This smell... that’s way too familiar.”

Following the scent, Ragnar made his way to the end of the hallway.

There, he spotted the black footprints left on the carpet.

He crouched down immediately, touched a bit of the substance with his finger, then brought it closer for a better look.

“The smell of a corpse... could this be corpse oil?”

He rubbed it lightly between his fingers.

It felt just as he expected.

There was a very good chance this was corpse oil.

And not just any corpse oil—

It was extremely similar to the kind that seeped out after a body had been burned.

“But why would something like this show up in a hotel...?”

Ragnar narrowed his eyes and searched the area carefully.

Before long, he found a strange residue gathered on the windowsill.

He wiped a bit of it with his fingertip.

This didn’t feel like ordinary dust.

“Ash?”

It was soft, clung to the skin, and smeared with a greasy drag.

Then—

Footsteps sounded behind him.

Ragnar turned around sharply.

A black figure was slowly walking toward him.

Step.

Step.

Step.

It drew closer and closer, then gradually raised one hand toward him.

Click.

At that exact moment, a door on the side of the hallway opened, and a young woman stepped out. She gave Ragnar a puzzled look.

“What are you doing in front of my door?”

“Just getting some air.”

“Is that so...”

Her eyes swept over his face, and her expression shifted almost instantly.

“You wanna hook up?”

After taking a proper look at how handsome Ragnar was, she no longer thought he seemed suspicious at all.

“No thanks. I’ve got things to do.”

The girl looked a little disappointed after getting rejected, but she still picked up her backpack and headed out.

Then, a voice came from beside Ragnar.

“Sir, is something wrong?”

It was the same employee who had delivered his food earlier.

“I’m fine. Just taking a walk. The atmosphere here’s pretty nice.”

Ragnar frowned faintly.

Did this guy walk without making a sound?

Even he hadn’t noticed him approaching.

“I see. Thank you for the compliment.”

That said, Ragnar didn’t stay any longer. He turned and walked straight out of the hotel.

He made it out without any resistance.

There was definitely a Cursed Spirit inside this hotel.

And a clever one, too.

The type that killed, then immediately left the scene without the slightest hesitation.

Only the black footprints left on the carpet carried traces of lingering cursed energy.

“Seriously... no peace anywhere.”

Ragnar clicked his tongue.

“Wasn’t I told Cursed Spirits were rare overseas?”

And yet somehow, he kept running into these so-called “rare” Cursed Spirits one after another.

“This thing’s way of killing doesn’t feel like an ordinary Cursed Spirit... Could it be one that specifically targets a certain kind of person?”

There were too few clues.

At the moment, Ragnar couldn’t determine exactly what kind of Cursed Spirit it was.

Since it wasn’t rampaging indiscriminately, he didn’t make exorcising it his top priority.

After all, Ragnar hadn’t come to Bila Tserkva by accident.

Using the traces picked up by the Noble Phantasm Spectator: Omnipotent Observer, he had caught a faint trail of Kenjaku’s cursed energy lingering in the area.

Even he didn’t know why Kenjaku had come this way.

“Hm? Krasni Okny? Kenjaku, you bastard... you’re running pretty damn fast.”

So Kenjaku was heading toward Moldova?

At the moment, Kenjaku was already very close to the border. It looked like he was riding a Cursed Spirit—otherwise his cursed energy wouldn’t be leaving such an obvious trail, and his movement speed wouldn’t be this absurd.

“Whatever. I’ll chase him tomorrow.”

Ragnar glanced back toward the hotel entrance.

“For now, I’ll deal with what’s in front of me.”

When he returned to the front of the hotel, he immediately noticed something strange.

It was still early morning.

Why had the lights already been turned off?

He had no choice but to head back inside.

The pitch-black hallway instinctively stirred up a quiet sense of unease.

Still, Ragnar made it back to his room without trouble. Even with the corridor swallowed in darkness, there was no sign of the Cursed Spirit.

“Strange...”

He narrowed his eyes slightly.

“Did that thing run off?”

That was possible too.

Cursed Spirits weren’t bound like ghosts in old stories. They didn’t need to stay in one place forever.

There was no way Ragnar was going to search the entire city for it. For all he knew, that Cursed Spirit might already have crossed into another country.

Fine by him.

That just meant he could finally get some proper sleep.

After Ragnar fell asleep, another guest quietly came out late at night to get some air.

Click.

“Hoo... it’s cold as hell.”

The man stepped into the hallway and looked around.

“At this hour, nobody should be around to bother me.”

He reached the end of the corridor and lit a cigarette.

Smoke curled upward at once.

Leaning against the window, he gazed at the night view outside the hotel.

He never noticed the sensor light behind him begin to flicker.

Nor did he notice the cold, creeping presence gradually drawing closer to him.

“Huh...?”

He shivered.

“Why’d it suddenly get colder? Weird. Doesn’t this hallway have heating?”

The man turned around.

And in that instant—

His whole body froze.

The hallway lights began flickering violently.

Each time darkness fell for a split second, it felt as though a figure was standing there.

Someone was there.

Waiting.

“W-Who’s there...?”

Faced with that abnormal sight, the man’s legs seemed to fill with lead. They grew impossibly heavy, rooted to the floor.

“Ghost... it’s a ghost...”

The figure hidden within the strobing darkness drew closer.

Every flicker brought it nearer.

Closer.

Closer.

The lights went out.

The man’s breathing became more ragged.

By the time the black shadow was less than half a meter away, his heartbeat was pounding wildly, and the world in front of his eyes felt like it was slowing down.

Then—

The light came back on.

“It’s... it’s gone?”

His face trembled as he forced out a shaky laugh.

“Did I... hallucinate? H-Haha...”

His shaking body clung desperately to that explanation.

How could ghosts possibly exist?

He had to be imagining it.

He was just scaring himself.

“If I’d known it’d be like this, I wouldn’t have come out to smoke...” he muttered, wiping the cold sweat from his face. “All that for nothing.”

But right behind him—

A black figure was standing there.

The moment he turned his head, his body dropped limply to the floor.

That was right.

The black figure had already removed his head.

And strangely enough, a look of relief was still frozen on his face.

Once the head was taken, the black figure vanished.

The hallway lights stopped flickering.

The body gradually crumbled into black ash and scattered away.

In the end, only two black, oily footprints remained on the floor.