Mysteries

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

[Phone Calls/Spirits/Spectres]

『Chat Group/System』

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At the current time, Toshiro appeared to be rather calm as he was slowly eating the dinner that his family chefs had prepared. He was seated at the end of the large dinner table, Koga standing beside him while a number of maids and butlers were lined up along the sides of the table standing professionally.

This was honestly a kind of atmosphere that he didn't really ever feel comfortable in, he kind of wanted to just eat without anyone just standing around him watching him like this. He understood that this was just how they were trained even before his parents perished.

While most of them were experienced and had been serving for more than thirty years now, a few of them appeared to be relatively young, being around his age and older. These younger butlers and maids were being trained by the experienced maids and butlers, though there numbers weren't too many.

Anyway, despite how calm he looked right now, Toshiro was quite restless inside as he couldn't really focus or enjoy the food. Don't get him wrong, the food was top quality, he just had a lot on his mind right now. Mainly about how he'd start his investigation.

Obviously, if someone were to be trying to find clues to tracking down a murderer, they'd look for evidence from the crime scene and such. But, this wasn't you're typical murderer, he was dealing with a legitimate spectre here. An unpredictable entity no doubt.

Should he just try to call an exorcist or something to come and get rid of this ghost? That would be the normal solution to stuff like this, but he decided against it. Solely because he remembered hearing about how all the previous families who bought this house over the past few years also called for exorcists, all whom failed to solve anything.

Considering what he could do now thanks to the system, perhaps it'd be best if he just dealt with the issue himself. He did remember how the quest had a difficulty rating attached to it, and it displayed itself as a single star out of five. It couldn't be too difficult then, right?

Well, if he ends up not being able to do the job, he'll just try calling an exorcist or whatever.

"Thanks for the food." Toshiro stated simply as he wiped his mouth with a napkin before standing up from his seat. The maids and butlers all bowed before moving to clean up his cutlery as he stepped out from his position. "I'm going to get to work now, Koga. If you need anything, just call me or come find me."

"R-Right, Young Master. Be careful..."

"Mm." Toshiro gave a simple response as he stared at Koga for a second before turning and began calmly walking out of the dining room, his first destination being the top floor. If there was any good place to start the investigation than it'd be his parent's bedroom, the very place they died.

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Toshiro stared with a blank look on his face as he now stood in front of the room that had brought him so many nightmares over the years. As much as he hated to admit it, he was honestly scared to enter. It's been years now since he entered this room, and the last visit was anything but pleasant.

Even to this day he has been having a few nightmares about this room, and while he had pretty much gotten used to those nightmares, it still affected him deep inside. Every single nightmare he saw the same thing, the corpses of his parents. Their lifeless forms, and their dead eyes always staring at him.

Shaking his head, Toshiro's gaze hardened before he reached for the handle before pushing the door open gently. The door made a small creaking sound as it opened, which he ignored as he quickly turned on the lights to the room before walking in slowly.

Here he was, in the very same room his parents perished.

"Fuck me..." Toshiro had to turn his eyes away from the bed located to the left of his vision. The very same bed where he first saw his parents laying lifeless and mutilated, just staring at the bed brought images back to his mind as he tried to ignore them. 'Time to get started...'

Toshiro was a bit shaky, though he forced himself to walk further into the room as he began to look around for anything at all that might give him any hints. He wasn't exactly expecting to find much, it was a ghost after all, what kind of clues could it possibly leave behind?

He continued searching around the room for anything that might relate to the supernatural, and to no surprise, he came up with nothing. This continued for the next ten minutes as he looked through draws, under the bed, in the personal bathroom and more. He honestly felt like he was searching for nothing at this point...

"What's this...?" Toshiro blinked when he felt himself grasping something as he reached his arm further into one of the larger dressers. Raising an eyebrow before narrowing his eyes, he carefully pulled it out as it seemed a bit too big to be smoothly pulled out from the dresser. "A doll?"

True to his words, when Toshiro managed to pull out whatever was in the dresser, it was revealed to be a brown rag doll around the size of your typical teddy bear. It had no special features at all, it just had the general shape of a human being and made of knitted brown wool.

Toshiro held the doll with confusion present on his face, turning it around in different angles to see if there was anything special about it. From first glance, nothing was out there about it. He squished it with his fingers, and it seemed to be pretty soft, and that was it really.

"Why do they have a rag doll here?" Toshiro couldn't help but become confused as he stared at the doll. From what he knew, his parents had no hobbies that involved the use of dolls. Was there something he just didn't know? 'I don't get this...'

*Thud*

Toshiro snapped his head and turned around instantly when a sudden loud thud sounded, his heart having jumped slightly due to him focusing on the doll. He scanned his eyes around the room and saw nothing that could have possibly made a thudding sound. Was it one of the staff downstairs?

He doubted it, the sound sounded really close by and all the rooves, floors and walls are soundproofed as much as possible. While they didn't block out all sound, it should still be enough to block out sound coming from the different floors.

"What was that?" Toshiro muttered as he gently placed the doll down onto the top of the dresser. He walked on over towards the door before looking out, he looked down the different halls and didn't see anyone or anything. This floor was empty aside from himself from what he could tell.

"Hello?"

No answer...

...

...

...

*Thud*

"...!" Toshiro heard the thud once again, but this time it sounded like it came from down the hall to the left. Narrowing his eyes, he quickly sprinted out of the room and to the left. He could still hear the thud, it seemed to be going on and on like a broken record. "In here!"

Toshiro locked down the noise to be originating from what looked to be what he remembered to be a spare room used to store anything that was not in use anymore. Such as old furniture, old toys of his, stuff like that. All of it would eventually be moved or disposed of though.

Toshiro pressed his ear against the door, he could hear the damn thudding coming from inside! Without hesitation, he pulled open the door, and just like that, silence once again took dominance over everything as the thudding stopped immediately after he opened the door.

'This spectre is fucking playing with me...' Toshiro's faced twitched a bit as he looked around the room that was full of old furniture. The spectre made a sound in his parents room, then made constant noise here, and just disappears. He felt like he was already being placed into a damn goose chase. "The hell..."

Toshiro was going to leave the room since there didn't appear to be anything special, but stopped once he noticed an old wooden desk to the side. The reason why he was so surprised by it was because of the scratches that were present on the top of the desk, they weren't faint either, they were pretty deep into the wood.

Toshiro traced a finger along one of the scratches, he definitely wasn't hallucinating, the scratch was most definitely there! These scratches could not have come about by natural or accidental means, they looked as if an animal was clawing at the wood. A big animal at that, not just a cat or something.

This made him think, just what kind of ghost was he dealing with? He wasn't a ghost expert, so he wasn't sure just how much power ghosts had when it comes to interacting with the physical world. Could all ghosts do this? Or was this ghost just particular strong?

'The quest said this was a one star though, unless that was just utter bullshit...' Toshiro thought to himself as he examined the scratches. His eyes narrowing as he looked closer at the marks. 'These don't look like they've been carved out with multiple scratches, more like a pair of claws dug into the wood and clawed it off...'

If these markings were made with multiple scrapes and such, then there would be evidence of that in the form of dust from the scratched wood. These claw marks seemed to have been made by digging into the wood and pulling off chunks in the shape of scratch marks.

"Young Master?" Toshiro turned his attention away from the markings and towards the door as he saw Koga walking in with a confused look on his face. "What in the world are you doing in the storage room, Young Master? You might get hurt by accidentally knocking ove- what is this?!"

"Claw marks." Toshiro stated bluntly as he looked at the markings again. Koga could only stare in disbelief at the dangerously large claw marks that were present on the desk, they honestly looked terrifying to say the least. "I want you to be honest with me, Koga."

"Y-Yes? What is it, Young Master?"

"You've always told me how observant I am to details, and I've been noticing something about how you respond to me when I'm talking about finding clues." Toshiro spoke as he looked up at Koga with a serious look in his eyes. "Koga, you know more than you let on, right? You know what happened to my parents, don't you?"

"Wh-Whatever do you mean, Young Master?" Koga stuttered a bit as he heard the question. Toshiro just gave the butler a glare, which made Koga freeze for a second before giving a defeated sigh. "I... Yes, I do know what happened to your parents. The reason they died..."

"Why did you hide it from me?"

"I just wanted you to move on..." Koga responded in a sad tone. Toshiro just listened as he stood straight and looked at his butler, who was now looking down, not daring to look Toshiro in the eyes. When he continued speaking, his voice sounded a bit broken. "I-If I told you anything, it would have escalated your resolve to find out more... I-I couldn't bare the thought of you suffering the same fate as the Master and Mistress...!"

"..." Toshiro frowned as he saw Koga's eyes starting to gather tears. The old man was shaking, and it would be obvious to anyone that the guy was going to start crying for real any second. Toshiro felt quiet hurt seeing this, never had he ever seen Koga so vulnerable like this.

"I apologise, Young Master... I-I must look pathetic, maybe if was just brave enough to tell you, just maybe if I wasn't such a fool. You could have found your sola-."

"Don't apologise, Koga. In fact, I'm grateful that you did what you did." Toshiro stated with close eyes as Koga looked up at Toshiro in surprise and confusion. Toshiro was serious about his words, the only reason he could even say that he could combat this ghost was because of the system.

The system took this many years to fully activate, and if Koga had told him about how his parents died all those years ago then he might not even be standing here now. He probably would have been reckless and done something stupid that'd get him killed by whatever ghost this was.

If anything, Koga saved his life indirectly.

"You've been with me ever since I was born. You took care of me when my parents were absent, and all this time after they died. For that, I'm truly grateful." Toshiro smiled as he looked at Koga who widened his eyes. Toshiro then proceeded to give the old man a hug. "You were the grandfather I never had, Koga."

Koga shook even more as he raised his shaken arms up to return the embrace, to which a smile soon bloomed on the old man's face as well. Tears now falling down his face as he embraced the young male. It seemed that Toshiro's words really had an impact on the old man.

"Th-Thank you, Young Master..." As soon as the embrace was released, Koga wiped his tears away as he looked at the smiling face of the teenager in front of him. Koga then went silent a bit before asking. "Young Master... Don't you think that you should move on now? It's been over ten years..."

"I'm afraid that I can't do that, Koga. This is something I NEED to do." Toshiro's smile was replaced with a frown as he half-closed his eyes. "If I don't take down the one that did this to my parents, than I won't be able to find any solace for myself. Just maybe if I can find who did this, I can finally move on and rid myself of the nightmares I've been haunted by."

"B-But, Young Master! We aren't dealing with any normal killer!"

"I know. We're dealing with a ghost, right?"

"P-Pardon?" Koga seemed to step back a bit as he widened his eyes as wide as he possibly could. Looking at Toshiro's serious gaze, Koga couldn't help but be taken back as he stuttered a response. "Y-Y-Young Master, how do you know that? You couldn't possibly have figured such a thing out..."

"I've been experiencing some paranormal activity up here before you found me in this room, Koga. These scratches are not normal, and I've been hearing unexplainable sounds coming from different rooms. I'm not stupid to just think I'm imagining things."

While all of this was true, the main reason he knew why it was a ghost that took his parent's lives was due to the quest given by the system. It had stated very clearly that it was the work of a ghost that caused the death of his parents, and the system wanted him to find out who the ghost was.

"Please, Koga. I need you to tell me what you know."

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Toshiro looked in confusion as Koga had taken him to the living room area here on the fourth floor, which was a private living room area just for family members since the fourth floor was only permitted to those of Hagasuki blood. The only exception was Koga, who had been the head butler for a long time.

He just watched with curiosity as Koga proceeded to walk up to the old flat-screen tv before reaching up behind it. He blinked when he heard some kind of clicking sound, the sound soon followed by the sound of shifting tiles, though not too loud that it could reach other floors.

"Wh-What is this? A secret passage?"

"Please follow me, Young Master." Koga nodded at Toshiro who just nodded back in response. Toshiro did as told as he began following Koga into the wall where the TV once was, and he could already see some kind of room even before he entered through the tiny passage way into the wall.

Once the both of them entered into the room, Toshiro could only look around with confusion and disbelief as the room revealed to be mad entirely of stone brick. The room had a table at the centre with unlit candles, and also a few sheets of paper spread out across it.

Along the walls were different shelves that had a number of different items placed neatly along, and also a few spider webs around the place too, though surprisingly not too many at all. Though, what caught his attention the most was the book on the table, it looked pretty thick.

"What is this...?"

"This is the place that both your mother and father spent most of their time." Koga responded as he walked up next to Toshiro, who was still gazing around the room. "You don't know this, Young Master. But, both the Master and Mistress held incredible interest in the supernatural world. More specifically, in the topic of ghosts."

"They were interested in ghosts?" Toshiro blinked at this as he slowly walked on over towards the table before looking down at all the sheets. Narrowing his eyes, he saw that they all seemed to be filled with words, some being crossed out as well.

Picking up one of the sheets, Toshiro scanned his eyes over the contents. His eyes widened a bit when he realised what he was reading. The sheets on the table all seemed to be notes on different paranormal events that have occurred, even some that had dates aging back more than five whole centuries ago.

The sheet he had in his hands were notes concerning a murder case that was supposedly solved around fifteen years ago. From what he did know of the murder case, it was a relationship that went really freaking bad, though his parents don't seem to believe it to be so simple from what these notes suggested.

"What does this have to do with their deaths? They're ghost fanatics, I can see that, but how does this mean anything?" Toshiro asked as he looked back at Koga. Just because his parents were apparently into ghosts didn't mean they warranted to be killed by a ghost, did it?

"The truth is... the Master and Mistress involved themselves in something." Koga spoke with a bit of a hushed tone as Toshiro rose an eyebrow at the butler. "They had decided to investigate a particular incident that had high signs of paranormal activity, This was the day right before they were killed..."

"A case..." Toshiro muttered as he looked down at the multiple sheets of paper. Was it possible that whatever case they came back from had any involvement in their deaths? It was a high possibility. It was possible that a ghost followed them back to kill them. "Koga, what case was it?"

"I-I'm not sure..." Koga responded in an apologetic tone. "The Master and Mistress never informed me of any of the details. All they told me was that they were going to be going to investigating a paranormal case, and they didn't say much more of anything beyond that..."

"Didn't tell you?" Toshiro blinked at this as he showed genuine surprise in his eyes. Koga had been the head butler for a long time, and his parents typically always informed him of their activities in detail. Only not doing so when it involved private family matters. "That's surprising..."

Even if this information wasn't incredibly helpful, it did open up a number of possibilities. It was possible that a spectre of some kind followed his parents back to kill them. That also lead to the possibility that they might have done something to incite a spirit's wrath. But, the question was what did they do? Why kill them?

Was the spectre just naturally hostile? Or was it something else?

"I-If it helps at all, Young Master. The Master and Mistress had these two items stored away for some reason." Koga voiced as Toshiro was snapped out of his thoughts. Turning to face Koga, he saw that the old man was holding a pale blue shard of sorts, it seemed to also give off a faint glow. "I only found two in their storage here..."

"What are these?" Toshiro asked in confused as he took hold of the small shards. When he touched them, they felt like glass and were a bit cold in his hands. He had honestly never seen anything like them before. Looking closer at them, you could see that they had strange lines running along inside.

"I'm not sure what they do... But, I do believe I remember the Master calling them Reveal Shards."

"Reveal Shards...?" Toshiro widened his eyes at this. Koga just nodded his head as Toshiro narrowed his eyes at the two glowing shards. 'Weren't Reveal Shards one of the items in the system shop? Why in the world does dad have them? Was he a system user like me? Not necessarily, he might have gotten them from elsewhere... But, where and how?'

"Kyaa~!"

Toshiro and Koga were both immediately alerted when a high pitched scream, most likely from a young girl, suddenly sounded through the area. Toshiro shared a look with Koga before nodding as the both of them dashed out from the room.