"Uh... so what's our next move?" Her voice fluttered like a moth trapped against frosted glass.

Holding Alicia’s hand felt like stealing a warm peach in winter, and Ling didn’t mind that bit of shamelessness, but standing here doing nothing? The stillness sat on her shoulders like damp moss.

Would Alicia think it wasn’t weird? The answer, carved in ice, was no. Embarrassment rose like a blush-colored tide, but what could she do except stand and breathe with the walls?

Who could’ve guessed the room was a sealed box, a stone shell with no in and no out? Talk of adventure hung in the air like kite string, but how were they supposed to move?

"Uh... Sis, let’s crack the puzzle." Ling’s tone clicked like a key against a lock, thin but firm.

Thank the stars Ling hadn’t forgotten her head full of game tricks. Years of escape rooms and puzzle games rustled through her mind like pages in a wind.

Alicia understood at once and started to search, her fingers sweeping dust like low rain on a field.

But any way you looked, this was a junk room. Stacks leaned like crooked hills. Only one thing looked decent: a painting on the wall, quiet as a window into water.

"What are you doing...?" Alicia’s words fell like pebbles into a pond.

Ling had barely decided the painting looked nice when she bolted over and started pawing at it. Not just pawing—she rubbed the frame and bounced on her toes, like a silly sparrow pecking at its reflection.

"I'm seeing if I can rub my way in. Guess I overthought it..." Her laugh was a paper-thin breeze.

"Are you out of your mind? Who can rub their way into a painting?" Alicia’s stare was a frost line.

Ling didn’t explain; only she knew why she’d tried slipping through like a cat through a curtain. The notion fell away like ash.

Since rubbing wouldn’t work, she stopped wasting breath and turned to a chessboard sitting nearby. The squares gleamed like a calm river before a storm.

"Sis! I think this set is the key!" Her eyes lit like lanterns in fog.

Clues, instincts, and that big, wide universe of gut feelings all told Ling the same thing: set the pieces right, and the room would yield like thawing ice.

"Ling... I found a lever here." Alicia’s voice brushed the wall like a reed.

"Leave it! That thing’s a decoy. Come on, what real secret room opens with one tiny lever?" Ling waved it off, confidence bright as a paper kite.

Alicia still eyed the humble lever, a twig in a thicket, while Ling focused on the chessboard. Every piece stood in its starting place, like soldiers before dawn. Beside it lay a white sheet, crowded with letters that joined into nonsense, like reeds whispering in a dialect no one spoke.

Maybe the writer had a kind heart. Pencil sketches on the side showed several mating patterns, diagrams like footprints in snow. With pictures and notes, Ling’s confusion thinned like mist.

"Let’s see... if I set it to this Greco’s Mate..." Her fingers danced, black and white slipping like fish in a stream. Nothing moved, no stone breathed.

"Failed. Then how about Anastasia’s Mate?" She adjusted again, hope flickering like a firefly.

Still no reaction. Strange. In theory, something should’ve stirred, even a breath behind the wall.

"Last try! I choose you—Boden’s Mate!" Her voice cracked the hush like a small thunderclap.

Clack.

A crisp mechanism answered, and stones in the wall shifted like teeth of an old dragon. A man-tall wooden door slid into view, its grain dark as wet bark.

Got it.

Ling’s eyes widened, joy bursting like spring fireworks. Chess puzzles were brain-killers, and cracking one felt like drinking hot tea in snow.

"Sis, sis—!" Her pride skipped like a pebble over water.

"Me—" she started.

"Ling, I opened the door." Alicia held the very lever from before, her fingers steady as iron. Her face wore the look of someone who’d seen the punchline coming from miles away.

Realization hit Ling like cold rain. Her cheeks stiffened with awkward heat.

"Ling, what’s wrong?"

"N-nothing. Let’s move." She toppled the set she’d arranged with a sweep, quiet as falling leaves, and kept her face smooth as a lake at dusk.

Alicia still found her odd, but she let it go. Getting out mattered more than pride in this stone throat of a room.

"All right, all right. Sis, let’s go in." Ling grabbed Alicia’s hand and tugged her toward the door, urgency snapping like a flag in wind. This place had eaten enough of her dignity.

Creak.

The door complained like an old pine in winter, and the sound crawled over their scalps like ants.

"Ugh! It reeks!" they blurted in unison, voices buckling like saplings in a gale.

As the door yawned wide, a fishy stench rushed out, a sour tide that stung their eyes more than their noses. The air curdled like spoiled milk.

"What smells that bad? A wild beast?" The joke stumbled out like a stone.

"Idiot, you still have jokes? Move!" Alicia shoved from behind, a firm wind at Ling’s back.

—Bastard! One day I’ll pay you back in bed. The vow burned like a coal in ash.

Ling pinched her nose and flicked a few harmless orbs of mana forward. They floated like fireflies and lit the dark. The light showed, and her stomach turned to water.

"What—!" The word snagged like a torn flag.

Alicia followed in and stopped dead. Color drained from her face like ink washed by rain; nausea rose like a tide up her throat.

To be honest, the room held nothing new under war’s sun. Beastfolk lay ruined, flesh and fur matted like wet straw. Some had blood dried black, hair welded to skin in ugly patches. Some bodies were pinned by long iron spears, skewered like fish on spits. Blood clung everywhere, a dark lacquer. The smell was a swamp.

Simple to say, savage to see. Even Alicia—no stranger to battlefields—felt her gut twist like rope. She’d heard of Beastfolk slaves abused, but never like this, never with cruelty baked into the walls.

"Who did this?" Her question fell like a blade that found no neck.

No one would answer. Usually, when Alicia saw someone torment Beastfolk, she stepped in with a steady hand. Now, with her dream of a cross-race haven—the Mystic Realm—burning like a lantern in her chest, this sight was salt in the flame.

"Come on, Ling. We’ve got work to do." Her voice settled like a mantle.

She didn’t need to explain. Ling knew. They moved deeper, their shadows pulled into the dark like threads into a loom.

Behind them, as the black swallowed their silhouettes, something unseen lifted the scattered chessmen outside. Pieces stood straight, one by one, like reeds rising in a breeze—then dropped.

"Check~" whispered a voice, light as a cat’s paw on a shoji.