*Creeeeak*...

This damn place is skimping on the door oil. It fits the whole "haunted castle"-theme, but sheesh...

After the event with the zombies, our happy trio traveled through the castle gardens without any problems. The zombies must have been stragglers after the war groups passed through.

The door we had found led to a massive kitchen. Or should I say the "royal" kitchen? I bet that this place used to carter the whole castle with food during its heydays. Strangely, this place doesn't look so bad compared to the garden. The kitchen counter is free of dust, the utensils seem to be cleaned regularly, and the pantry is filled with food. For safety and health-related reasons, we did not taste-test them.

"Are the people here still fancying a good meal after their passing?" - Garami

"Question: who can resist a good meal?" - Iron

"*Nods vigorously*!" - Revi

I don't know, maybe a monk...? It does explain why Revi wanted to pick the [Cook] class for one of her Sub Classes. And with that in mind, let's snatch some tools to help her with the cooking.

"That's everything that's not bolted to the floor..., REVI! Put down that strange food-looking stuff!" - Garami

"Aww... There is never a time for strange food-looking stuff..." - Revi

What is WRONG with this girl's eating habits?!

"Geez! And Iron, did you find something that will NOT kill us?" - Garami

"Correct. I discovered this." - Iron

Iron showed me a wall right by the entrance to the kitchen (not the emergency exit to the garden we used). On it was a map of the whole castle. Hey! When did that appear?! I'm sure I wouldn't have overlooked something this obvious.

"How did you find this?" - Garami

"I tripped and pushed the wall. One part of the wall sunk in, like a switch." - Iron

Oh, he's right. I had our reliable Iron look at this part of the kitchen, so I didn't notice it with my perception skills. I-it's not because I was being lazy or anything!

The castle is...ridiculously huge. I can see why the servants serving the food would need a map to navigate through this place. Let's take a memo of it using [Auto-Mapping] and record it in the Kigal-Note. Still...damn huge...

"This will be a pain to travel through on foot." - Garami

I muttered my thoughts out loud as I looked at the map. The whole castle makes up the whole district, making it as big as the Village District, which is...well, a village. Not to mention that the castle is constructed as a labyrinth. Even with the map, it will take a lot of time and effort to reach the area marked on the map as the "library".

Why the library, you ask? Because the study we were looking for seems to be located in an inner section of that place. It's not a bad setup. Where else can you obtain information in a world without the internet than in a library?

But back to the present, it's a long way home..., I mean, to the study. And there's bound to be undead soldiers patrolling the hallways. Even someone like Regina can't attract ALL of this haunted castle's security personnel.

"Yeah, this will be a pain. Let's take a shortcut." - Garami

"Shortcut?" - Iron & Revi

The two tried to find the shortcut I was talking about on the wall map but to no avail. Sorry you two, but this is more of a cheat than a legal shortcut.

I moved to the entrance door right beside the map and took out a certain key that I had found in one of the chests hidden deeply in the Silver Key Theater's storage facilities. The key was dark grey when I first found it, covered in dust from many years, but after I polished it, it shined with a silver color that made me imagine the original owner of the Theater perhaps named the building after this item.

Putting the silver key into the door's keyhole, I imagined the entrance door to the library on the map and poured MP into the key. The door shined with a silver light and when I opened it, instead of some gloomy hallways, we had arrived at the library.

"Keep your legs moving," I told the two who continuously shifted their gaze from the door to the map and vice versa. "This thing will disappear at a moment's notice."

After the two swiftly passed through the portal thingy, the silver glow disappeared and caused the magic door to disappear. When I looked at the library's front entrance again, the door was open but led to a hallway that I didn't recognize.

"Sweet!", I wished to say, but all the strength left my body, causing me to ungracefully fall face-first onto the (luckily soft) carpet that decorated the library's floor.

"*Groooaaaaan*..." - Garami

"M-master Garami!?" - Iron

"*Silent scream*!!" - Revi

"Ah, she is fine. No need to worry." - Bloom

Bloom appeared and started to calm down the panicking duo. I'll leave it to you, partner. That stupid item sucked up too much of my MP. And it seems to have been a one-use-only key as well. The silver trinket turned to dust in my hands when the portal expired!

When I found and investigated that thing, I (as in Bloom who did most of the work) discovered that the key was a replica of a particular item connected to the "Outer Ones". In short, it's a real-deal "Silver Key". It can't open any doors to some "dreamworlds" or an "ultimate gate", but it does have the effect of connecting any two doors no matter the distance between them.

The downside is that the two doors have to be in the same building, something that worked in our favor this time around, but I'd be troubled if I was asked if we could use it anywhere else. Oh, and as mentioned before, the key takes too much MP to be used, as proved by my current embarrassing state. Ah, I can stand again. Let's drink a Mana Potion now that I have the chance.

"Question: is it fine to use this rare of an item?" - Iron

"Eh, we could get some Sols if we sold it, but getting here unharmed, was more worth it." - Garami

"It is difficult imagining a different situation where we could use it." - Bloom

"You heard the fairy. So stop dwelling on the past and go and find that study!" - Garami

I whipped the two into gears and we went into the library with Iron as the vanguard. The library is big, three floors high to be exact, and it's propped with books..., not. Most of the bookshelves are empty and the few remaining books aren't exactly intellectual masterpieces.

"The former king...wasn't too bright. Only a big show-off." - Revi

"Big enough for you to remember?" - Garami

"Mhm. But not bigger than his muscles." - Revi

"A muscle-brained king. No wonder why this place is so unused." - Garami

"The princess was not that buff. But not that bright either." - Revi

"Summarization: a mediocre princess." - Iron

Iron's comment produced a small laugh from Revi. I was about to compliment our ghost knight for his comedian talents when I got a ping on my [Detect Monster] radar. Something is flying through the bookcases toward us..., "through" the bookcases!?

"Iron, 11 o'clock!" - Garami

"Roger." - Iron

A pale arm ending in large, vicious nails came out of the bookcase and scratched at Iron who had his shield ready. A nasty sound, worse than when someone claws at a blackboard (which is quite at the point in this case) came from Iron's shield as stripes of metal were carved off from it.

Not the one to only take the hurt, Iron retaliated by slashing with his one-handed sword covered in...what should I call it? "Ghostly wails"? Must be that [Ghost Slash] skill I saw in his skill list. In any case, Iron's scary sword managed to cut into the ghostly hand, causing the specter to step back in pain.

Not to be outdone, Revi tried to trap the ghost using one of her new skills. I think it was called [Swamp Vine]? She must have concluded that chanting spells would take too long so she settled with an almost-instantanious skill instead.

The vine-like rope appeared from a dark-green glowing hole in the ground in front of Revi and flew like a bullet toward the ghost. Alas, our target is a ghost. Just as it could travel through the bookcases, it easily slipped through the vine.

Revi panicked a little when she saw that, completely forgetting about the existence of the [Ghost Chaser] skill that's in her repertoire, the skill whose very existence is to allow you to physically punch a ghost in the face. I get that she picked up those Swamp attribute skills just recently, but that's no excuse to forget about one of your old favorites, Little Lady.

To cover for my subordinate's mistake, I created a web through my various skills, this time also including the [Ghost Chaser] as a literal chaser to the mix. As for the web's components, I used what I had on hand through [Nature's Webbing].

The ghost was still preoccupied with Iron and Revi, the latter just now remembering her handy anti-ghost skill, but a distraction can only last so long. It finally noticed that one of us was missing. And that "someone" is me.

When the ghost attacked Iron the first time, I used the clash as cover to sneak away using my stealth skills and jump up to the ceiling. I'm keeping myself upside-down thanks to the [Sticky Limbs] skill of mine while preparing a rather nasty net for the ghost.

Before it could react, I dropped the special anti-ghost web on top of it. Said web is made out of...DUST! Nasty, year-long dust that's been piled up in the library for half an eternity!

I made sure the web was extremely sticky, dust or not, and dropped it onto the ghost. All the dust caused the ghost to cough up a storm while also getting into its eyes, making it scratch its face in a desperate attempt to get the web off. I think I've invented a more terrifying weapon to drop than even drop bears! Maybe!

With the ghost failing about, a perfect idea popped up in my head. If this thing's phasing-through-walls effect could be analyzed with the Kigal-Note, wouldn't that be the perfect component to use for a Nightmare Item effect along with the difficult-to-use [Spectral Avatar] skill?

Not wasting a moment, I took out my pocketbook from hell and started sucking in the ghost. It was...overwhelmingly easy. Huh, maybe ghosts have some inborn weakness to vacuum cleaner-ish suction powers?

In any case, the fight with the giant ghost ended. Some investigation led us to know that the ghost was a Phantom, a D-rank ghost who is like the ghost of all ghosts. Completely dedicated to ghost-related skills. Somewhat different from the type of ghost that "Deadroll Jim" guy was, but this one would also be a fright to meet in a dark alley. It seems like I hit the jackpot here~.

Still, despite the loud noises we made during this short skirmish, no other undead came to assist the Phantom. Are they understaffed? Please don't let this be a case of the study being completely unrelated to the castle's secrets...