Chapter 161 Realm of The Hunter
Grabbing onto the handle of the flimsy, blue door, he turned it and opened, anxiously watching what laid behind it.
Of course, the other side was unable to be seen before entering, but this time it was hidden behind a velvet veil of luxurious fabric.
Huh? He thought.
Melisande stood next to him, “This time, you better let me help you.”
“That goes both ways,” he told her.
Gathering a breath into his lungs as he felt a stream of exhaustion and soreness through his body, he pushed it down and stepped forward, pushing through the fabric veil alongside Melisande.
A bright light caused him to squint immediately upon entering, adjusting to it over the course of a few seconds to realize it was a chandelier.
Though it definitely was not a normal chandelier in the slightest: it was enormous.
“…What is this place? It’s throwing me off…” Melisande muttered.
As he looked around, it was disorientating; they were now in a lavish mansion with dark-wooden walls and floors, oftentimes covered with rich rugs and stands that carried pottery and antiques.
However, there was just one thing wrong with this scenery: it was all completely massive.
In the scope of the mansion, compared to the structure of it, Melisand and himself were no larger than mice.
As he turned around, making sure the doorway was gone, he found himself to be even shorter than the baseboard of the wall.
“We’re tiny?…” Melisande realized.
“No, this place is massive!” He responded.
There were chairs present at tables that were the size of buildings, looming over him and Melisande. The scale of every object was astonishing; nothing seemed reachable, leaving them slowly wandering around the floor which was like a street for the two.
“Weird. Really weird,” Melisande remarked.
“Let’s just find a doorway…Wait,” he said.
“Huh? What is it?” She looked at him.
The pause from Emilio came from him reaching the end of the enormous hall, seeing into the next room which was filled with colossal closets filled with encased skeletons that looked miniature on the shelves, but were definitely the size of humans.
But, that wasn’t what caught his attention.
There was a door, but like everything else in the mysterious mansion, it was massive.
“It’s a door, but…how do we open one that big?” Melisande questioned.
“Good question…” He replied.
What was just as pressing to him were the human skeletons encased in the shelf like souvenirs of sort; there were at least a couple dozen of them. Melisande seemed to notice them as well as she tugged on his sleeve.
“What do you think that’s about? It’s making my skin crawl…” Melisande asked.
“I’d rather not find out–”
As if jinxing himself, he was interrupted by the entire floor rumbling from what sounded like massive footsteps coming from somewhere close by in the mansion.
“Something’s coming! Hide!” The silver-haired girl urged.
It was the girl that tugged on his sleeve before grabbing his wrist, guiding him to follow her as they moved throughout the enormous room like a couple of mice, trying to find somewhere to hide from whatever enormous was approaching.
By some fortune, there was an olive-fabric couch set against one of the walls, looming over them and stretching far-and-wide, though it had a gap between the bottom and the floor, allowing them to hide underneath.
“This should work!” Melisande said.
He almost wanted to tell her to keep her voice down, but he wasn’t sure their voices carried very far in the much larger space, “…Hopefully.”
STOMP. STOMP. STOMP.
The thunderous stomps came closer, vibrating the floorboards beneath them before finally, a figure entered into the room slowly. It was difficult to see, but his curiosity led him to take a peek from beneath the couch.
It was massive; dressed in the attire of an aristocrat with an oak-brown suit and walking with a cane the size of a skyscraper, the entity was nothing close to human, however.
The colossal being had smooth, snow-white skin and length fingers that had an unnatural pointiness to them; its head was thin, yet long, possessing one, scarlet eyes with a pupil that darted around the room.
It’s huge…I don’t know if any of my magic can handle something that big, he thought.
A sniffing sound filled the room as the most subtle noise emitting from something that large was ear-filling; it sniffed with a nose made only of nostrils on its snow-white head.
“…I smell humans. Tiny, feeble humans…Always scattering about in my home…” The creature spoke with a raspy voice.
It was jarring to see a living being of such stature move with normal fluidity, almost as existing separate to the natural laws that all adhered to, but he remembered that was the very nature of the incomplete worlds.
Still, something felt different about this realm.
It’s a mansion, belonging to…a skyscraper-tall, wealthy monster? Are there more? Either way…I need to find a way to open that door, he thought.
Just looking at the being made him queasy; the minuscule feeling it set upon him washed over his body as he froze while watching the single-eyed giant.
Scooting further under the enormous couch, he stood by Melisande’s side, who was just as awestruck and horrified at the scale of the mansion owner.
“…Little prey…You may hide for now, but my nose will find you…” The snow-skinned giant bellowed through his low, raspy tone.
Its all-encompassing footsteps thundered throughout the grand mansion, rumbling the floorboards beneath them. The inhuman being scoured the room, sniffing as if sucking the pores in the air through its nostrils intently before stopping.
“…Ah, I’ve found you…”
Those words were haunting, immediately bringing Melisande to gasp as the colossal entity faced the couch they were hiding beneath, slowly beginning to march over.
Its foot alone was a dozen times larger than them, at least, approaching with a looming dread.
Shit…Am I really going to have to fight something like this?! He questioned.