Summer vacation was approaching. Rumi received a letter from Uncle Pelman, asking her to visit his house during the break.

  However, she wasn’t particurly keen on going. This summer, she had a lot on her pte.

  "Raoul, are you all packed? You're coming to Medina's pce with us, right?"

  Rumi asked casually while standing in front of Raoul's dormitory room.

  "No... I think I'll be busy this time. I'm going to see my family after a long time."

  "What? Weren't we supposed to go together? I mean, if you can't go, why didn't you tell me earlier?"

  “Sorry, I guess I got too caught up to mention it. I wanted to go, but it looks like I can’t this time.”

  “Can’t you just visit your family and then join us ter?”

  "Sorry, I need to go see my family in person this time, so it might take a while."

  Rumi defted. She had been so sure Raoul would come to Medina's pce with them, but now it would just be Niel, Eve, and Rumi going to Medina's...

  Malcolm obviously wouldn't come along since she wouldn't let him join anyway.

  "Okay... then see you after vacation."

  "Sorry, Rumi."

  Rumi started walking down the corridor, feeling somewhat gloomy.

  She didn't like how firmly Raoul had refused, and it was strange how he suddenly said he was going to see his family when he had never once talked about them before.

  Come to think of it, Rumi realized she didn't know much about Raoul.

  He rarely shared anything personal.

  Rumi finally returned to her dormitory room with nothing to do and looked at Niel and Eve, who would be going to Medina's pce with her.

  "Sigh..."

  For some reason, it was a combination that made her sigh.

  "What's wrong with her now?"

  Eve gnced at Rumi and commented.

  Rumi put the doll in her bag and finished preparing to leave.

  The first day of summer vacation was bzing hot with bugs and dust flying around.

  Rumi, Eve, and Niel were taking the school bus to the most remote part of the vilge.

  The three were quiet in the rattling bus.

  After driving along country roads for a while, they reached the st stop.

  After getting off the bus, Rumi and the kids faced a peaceful and quiet country road with very tall trees standing here and there.

  There were no buildings visible nearby, and it certainly looked like the most remote countryside within Saint Angelicus' Vilge.

  But what was strange was that despite being such a remote pce, there were almost no ghosts visible around.

  It was hard to imagine such a clean area existing within the vilge.

  "What is this pce? I've never seen somewhere with so few ghosts."

  Niel said, looking at the clear sky.

  "I know, right."

  Eve was also quietly looking at the clean sky.

  "But is this the right pce? I don't see any buildings around."

  "It should be right, since we came according to the directions, as long as Medina didn't make a mistake."

  Eve answered, holding a note and map.

  "When you get off at the stop, follow the purple flowers, pass the signpost, and look for the red mailbox."

  Eve recited from the note where she had copied down Medina's instructions.

  “Where’s this signpost...?”

  Rumi grumbled.

  "Let's just follow this road for now."

  Eve moved first then.

  Rumi and Niel followed Eve, walking along the road for quite a while.

  After some time, they started seeing unfamiliar tall, giant purple flowers, but there was no sign of the signpost.

  "Ugh, it's so hot! How much further do we have to go? I see more flowers but... why does that damn Medina have to make everything so exhausting?"

  Rumi’s temper fred as she walked under the scorching sun.

  "But... did I really need to come here too? Malcolm invited me over for this vacation..."

  Niel said with a tired face while carrying a full load of luggage.

  "Niel, good timing bringing that up. Why do you keep hanging out with someone like Malcolm?"

  "Why...? Am I not supposed to hang out with Malcolm? He's really gentle."

  “What are you talking about? I’ve never met anyone as rude as Malcolm.”

  "Malcolm is like that at first, but he's different once you get close. If you're nice to him first, he'll be nice to you too."

  “How can you be nice to someone like that? Ugh, do you like Malcolm or something?”

  "Well, you're always sticking together with Raoul too. Are you two dating?"

  That's when Niel suddenly made an unexpected counterattack.

  "What? That's... um... um... actually, I think he likes me quite a lot. He's always sticking by my side and won't leave... hehe."

  Rumi smiled to herself.

  "But he didn't follow you this time."

  When Niel struck back again, Rumi's expression immediately hardened.

  "... ..."

  Rumi had nothing to say, so she looked at Eve, who was struggling more than anyone else while dragging an unusually rge luggage bag.

  "Of all people to come with, it had to be Niel and you..."

  "There's the signpost."

  Just then Eve suddenly stopped and pointed to the end of the road.

  And indeed, a strange bck signpost was visible in the distance.

  It had a skull drawn on it with an X mark.

  It was an ominous sign that would be hard to miss while passing by.

  “There it is. So, the red mailbox should be...”

  The kids moved forward past the signpost and looked for a red mailbox.

  And indeed, there was a red mailbox in front of an iron gate surrounded by vines.

  "Aha, this must be it."

  Rumi commented upon finally discovering Medina's gate.

  Eve stood still, looking exhausted, as if waiting for someone else to open the door.

  So Rumi immediately rushed to the iron gate and pushed it.

  The rge, heavy iron gate opened and the kids walked into what looked like a mansion's courtyard.

  And deep inside, among the trees, appeared an enormous bck house.

  At first gnce, it was a huge mansion that looked like a castle.

  Though rather than just a castle, it had a gloomy feel like a witch's castle, but even that felt like a faded bck and white photograph.

  "This is definitely witch Medina's house, for sure."

  This time Rumi took the lead and approached the bck door.

  Knock knock knock

  Rumi knocked on the door hard.

  They waited for a while, but there was only silence.

  Knock knock knock knock knock

  "Hmm... what? Is no one home?"

  "I don't think anyone said there would be someone here."

  Niel said.

  "Then should we just try opening the door?"

  Rumi grabbed the doorknob and tried turning it. It turned easily with a swish.

  "It's really unlocked..."

  Rumi opened the door with a slightly uneasy feeling now that it opened so easily.

  Inside, the house was incredibly filthy. Mysterious bck boxes were piled everywhere, covered in thick yers of dust, and the smell of an old house wafted through the air.

  There were also all sorts of strange items, like taxidermied bats, scattered around, making the pce feel more cluttered than dirty.

  In short, it was a house that suited Medina perfectly.

  "Ugh... why is there so much stuff."

  Looking at Eve now, she indeed seemed to be holding her breath, her face twisted in disgust.

  "Are you scared again?"

  "What are you talking about? It's just because it's so dirty."

  Rumi and the kids entered the house and looked around.

  There was a central lobby with what looked like a reception room on the right and a rge living room on the left.

  At least the living room had retively little stuff.

  "Hello? Is anyone here?"

  Rumi asked after already being well inside the house.

  “We’re Medina’s friends... She turned into a ghost.”

  "D-don't say things like that right now!"

  Eve coached while struggling with the luggage.

  "No... I deliberately said something provocative to check if anyone was really here..."

  Rumi climbed the stairs while looking at the creepy portraits hanging on them.

  The portraits all depicted incredibly beautiful women, but they strangely all looked lifeless, as if painted from corpses.

  Rumi reached the top of the stairs and turned right.

  And stopped in front of a door.

  "She said her room was on the second floor... is this it?"

  When she tried to open the door, it wouldn't budge because of something behind it.

  "Hey, this door won't open - someone come help me open it."

  That's when Eve came and helped push the door together.

  Creeeeak

  When the door opened like that, a dust-filled room appeared.

  This room, like other pces in the house, was full of strange objects.

  "This must be Medina's room."

  "Yeah, definitely."

  Rumi and Eve climbed over the obstacles behind the door and entered the room.

  The room was very long and wide for a single person's room. There was a huge bed deep inside and a very long desk occupied the entire window wall.

  The room had lots of stuff and dust, but above all, the room temperature was too high.

  "Sigh..."

  Eve was dripping with sweat and opened the windows first thing after entering the room.

  Rumi immediately ran to Medina's desk and discovered gss bottles, beakers, and strange potion ingredients.

  'Curse Nectar Recipe (Latest Improved Version by Medina Mora)'

  This was obviously the curse essence recipe needed for the doll. It was so typical of Medina to leave something like this out in the open.

  Even more astonishing was the small bottle of deep purple liquid sitting right on top of the recipe. It was undoubtedly a sample of the cursed essence.

  "Haha! Look at this. Here's the curse essence recipe and even a sample. I'm confiscating this, Medina!"

  Rumi immediately grabbed the recipe and sample bottle and crammed them into the bag containing the doll.

  “Eve, since we’ve found Medina’s room, are we going to perform the Spiritualism and Necromancy rituals here?”

  Niel asked as she slowly entered the room.

  "Yeah... but..."

  Eve put her hands on her hips and looked around the messy room while hesitating.

  "What's wrong? Is there a problem?"

  “Isn’t it obvious? In this state, we can’t perform any rituals. It’s so dirty that who knows what kind of spirits might tch onto us. We need to clean up first.”

  "What? You're going to clean this huge room in this heat?"

  Rumi asked with a surprised face.

  "I'd like to clean the whole house... but that's impossible, so at least this room where the ritual will take pce needs to be spotless."

  Eve finished speaking and immediately rolled up her sleeves and started moving things.

  "Ri-right now?"

  Niel stammered in surprise.

  “Of course. Performing a ritual in a pce this filthy is out of the question.”

  Rumi gnced at Niel.

  And Niel also looked like she didn't want to clean.

  A few hours ter.

  Eve was drenched in sweat while cleaning alone.

  Niel and Rumi stood around awkwardly not knowing what to do, helping clumsily by moving things outside the room as Eve directed.

  But if Eve wasn't satisfied with something, she ended up carrying all the stuff herself.

  Not only that, when Rumi couldn't find a rag and tried wiping the desk with a white tablecloth, Eve scolded her saying it would make things dirtier and took the tablecloth away, after which Rumi just stood around with nothing to do.

  Eve really was a clean freak.

  They already knew from how she cleaned her own bed and Rumi and Niel's beds every day in the dormitory, but this time seeing this witch's ir seemed to have driven her crazy.

  "Instead of just standing there, could you go to the bathroom and change this water?"

  "Oh, I'll go change it."

  Rumi picked up the water bucket.

  "I... I'll go too."

  Niel quickly stuck to Rumi.

  "Hey, you stay here and assist Eve."

  "No."

  "Sigh..."

  In the end, Rumi and Niel left the room together carrying the water bucket.

  And as soon as they left the room, Niel's ment could be heard.

  “Sigh... Why is Eve cleaning so obsessively? I don’t get what cleaning has to do with performing a Necromancy ritual.”

  "I don't know either, ugh... look at that, I think she's pnning to wash the mattress too."

  "Ugh..."

  Rumi and Niel escaped to the second-floor corridor and looked for the bathroom.

  They found a narrow bathroom hidden in the center of the second floor, but it was dark and dirty inside.

  Rumi didn't mind the dirt and emptied and refilled the water in the bathroom, but by then Niel had disappeared without a trace.

  "What...?"

  While filling the bucket, Rumi looked out toward the bright bathroom entrance hoping Niel might follow, but Niel didn't come even until the bucket was full.

  "Hey, Niel. Where are you?"

  After getting all the water, Rumi came out of the bathroom empty-handed.

  She thought something might have happened to Niel and pnned to look for her.

  Following the corridor to the right, she finally found the cleanest pce in the house.

  It was the kitchen.

  The kitchen was the only pce in the house that was spotless, almost gleaming.

  It was actually so clean it was borderline creepy.

  As if someone had cleaned this pce just moments ago.

  Rumi regretted not getting water from the kitchen.

  “Ah! Rumi, come here, quick!”

  Suddenly, Niel’s scream echoed from the first floor.