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Dreadful Things Occur on the Staircase’s Thirteenth Step – Part 04

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Translator: Kell

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Once Inspector Blois was gone, the lush conservatory on the top floor of St. Marguerite’s Grand Library seemed to have regained its serenity.

Victorique yawned, placed the book back on her lap, and resumed reading fervently. She skimmed through the thick book, written in difficult Latin, with great speed.

Kazuya kept stealing glances at her, until eventually he mustered the courage to interrupt her.

“Hey, Victorique.”

“Hmm?! You’re still here?”

“Yup. I’ve been right next to you the whole time,” Kazuya said. “Anyway, I get what happened with Maxim’s murder eight years ago. But there’s one more thing.”

“Do you ever stop bothering people?! What is it?!”

“Wh-Why are you mad?” Kazuya asked, taken aback by her outburst. “I came here to talk to you about it. Did you forget?”

“Of course not. But I’m too tired to deal with it.”

“Then give me back my kaminari-okoshi!”

They glared at each other. Dazzling sunlight pouring in through the skylight shone on their faces.

“You sure are one loud fellow,” Victorique said.

“And you’re mean, fickle, and cruel.”

“This is a quiet, book-filled paradise where one can indulge in their intellect and tedium undisturbed. Yet here I am, caught up in a stupid ruckus every time you come screaming up the labyrinthine staircase. You’ve been really annoying these past few days.”

“I-It’s just… you’re very smart.” Kazuya’s voice trembled.

Victorique snorted and looked away.

“And I thought you’d be happy if I brought you some snacks.”

Kazuya’s spirit slowly sank.

Victorique glanced at him. “It’s never boring, at least.”

Kazuya’s face lit up.

“While my greatest enemy is indeed boredom, my second greatest enemy is noise.”

“What?”

“You’re the second greatest enemy that drives away the greatest enemy. Off you go. I’ve had enough noise for today.”

“Now, look here!” Kazuya snarled.

Victorique gave in and closed her book. “What is it?!”

“I wanted to talk to you about the purple cover that Avril picked up from the crypt.”

Kazuya recalled the sinister expression on Avril’s face and the eerie purple book cover that he spotted for a brief moment.

A creepy purple book.

Found in a crypt with the corpse.

“Is that what Avril was looking for? Why was it on the floor of the crypt where the murder took place eight years ago? Is she really not involved in the crime? What on earth is that book?”

“…Are you done?” Victorique asked.

“Yup. It all boils down to that book. Right from the start. The book! And then Avril!”

“If I solve that mystery,” Victorique grunted wearily, “would you, my second greatest enemy, leave this place?” She seemed irritated.

Does she really hate me that much? Kazuya wondered. He nodded reluctantly, dejected.

“Speaking of Avril, I saw her leaving the library,” he said. “Was she looking for me?”

“What makes you say that?”

“She might have realized that I saw her pick up the book. So…”

“If you really suspected the girl of wrongdoing, wouldn’t you have told Grevil about it? But you didn’t.”

Kazuya nodded grudgingly. “Yeah… She seems suspicious and not at the same time. I can’t just hand her over to the inspector without being certain.”

“Hmm?” Victorique sniffed audibly and gave Kazuya a condescending look.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“So you kept quiet out of the goodness of your heart.”

“Y-Yeah… I guess so.”

“My pet theory is that virtuosity is the death of intellect. And you are a mass of virtuosity.”

“What does that even mean?! No one’s ever insulted me like that.” His face turned a little red.

Victorique opened her mouth to say something, but cut herself off. She lifted her body and stood up.

Kazuya rose to his feet as well.

Victorique’s small, enigmatic face—she looked younger than her actual age, with melancholic eyes like those of an old lady for decades—was situated rather low, much to Kazuya’s surprise. Her head only reached around his chest area, and he was rather small for a boy.

Suddenly Kazuya realized that this was the first time he had seen Victorique on her feet.

Her body was much smaller than he had imagined when she sat there, looking like an elaborately-crafted, expensive porcelain doll. The rage that had been smoldering in his chest vanished, as though consumed by the astonishment. Kazuya gaped at Victorique’s tiny figure.

Then he glanced at the pile of difficult books she had left scattered on the floor.

She read them at incredible speed, talked about her Wellspring of Wisdom in the husky voice of an elderly woman, and solved bizarre cases instantly. He couldn’t believe that this small, delicate, doll-like body contained such a brain.

Kazuya found it incredibly curious.

Who in the world was this girl?

He suddenly remembered the attitude of Inspector Grevil de Blois, who relied on the girl’s intellect, but was extremely fearful of her presence, refusing to make eye contact with her.

And the enigmatic words he uttered…

Gray Wolf!

What did those words mean? And why was his voice quivering when he said them?

Who exactly was Victorique?

Kazuya recalled the strange incidents that had occurred over the past few days in the village and on the campus. Both were indeed wrapped in mystery.

But Kazuya realized that there was no bigger mystery than Victorique herself.

He stared at the tiny figure wrapped in laces and ribbons.

Oblivious to Kazuya’s distress, Victorique scuttled down the labyrinthine stairs. As she moved, the large pink ribbon at the back of her dress fluttered softly, billowing out like a bird spreading its wings. The white lace adorning the hem shifted enticingly as she moved further and further away. She flew away like a white-and-pink bird made of ribbons and laces.

Kazuya quickly followed her. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to save your troubled soul,” Victorique said. Her husky voice was a mismatch to her appearance. “A book! And a sinister exchange student. I’m going to find that book for you. You’re welcome.”

“Why are you going down, though? And how do you know where the book is? You’ve been sitting at the top of the library all this time, smoking your pipe. You haven’t even seen a thing. Whoa, watch your step. You don’t want to trip.”

Kazuya turned pale as he looked down the flight of stairs. There was still a long way to the abyss down below. The dreadful maze of narrow staircases spiraled downwards, intertwining with each other. One wrong step and he was done.

Victorique, on the other hand, continued descending the labyrinthine staircase with a curious gait that made it seem like she was floating off the ground.

“That sinister foreign student came to this library for a reason,” she said melodiously. “And it wasn’t to look for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look around, and you’ll see. What do libraries have? Why do people come to the library?”

“The library has books…? And you come to the library… read books?”

And to see you too, I guess.

They finally made it to the bottom of the labyrinthine stairs. Standing at the hall, they looked up at the tube-like structure.

Books filled the entire walls, leaving only the marble floor and ceiling frescoes untouched. A riveting hall of books, filled with the smell of dust, wisdom, and the past.

“The girl came here to hide a tree in the forest,” Victorique said.

Kazuya’s breath caught. Victorique nodded in satisfaction, pleased that he understood.

“That’s right. The girl must have noticed you watching her pick up the book off the floor of the crypt. And it was possible that others saw her too. So she quickly decided to hide the purple book she was supposedly looking for. The library is the best place to hide it. After all, the walls are full of books. It would be very difficult to find the one book she hid.”

“I see!”

“Would you like to know the secret of that sinister foreign student? What the book is about?”

“Well yeah, of course. But finding it is impossible. I didn’t see where she hid the book.”

Victorique inclined her head and looked at Kazuya’s face.

Her wise eyes did not perceive him. They simply shone like jewels, sparkling with curiosity and the pleasure of solving a mystery. Having gained a momentary release from a life of ennui, she was filled with so much joy she could start dancing.

Her body, motionless like a doll until moments ago, and her expression, once cold and affected, submerged in a sea of weariness and arrogance, were full of life, as though she was a different person altogether.

Kazuya thought he had caught a glimpse of what made this girl who possessed a sharp and mysterious mind so enigmatic. Years of weariness, profound despair, and something else gleaming behind.

But he also felt that she must not know this. It must be a very important secret to this enigmatic, golden girl.

Kazuya silently regarded the mysterious girl.

“Books, books, books!” she hissed.

Then she whirled around, and Kazuya followed her.

Victorique put her tiny little foot on the first step of the staircase.

“One!” she yelled. Her voice was as raspy as an old woman’s.

She turned. Beckoning Kazuya over, she put her feet on the second step.

“Two!” she yelled again.

“What are you doing?” Kazuya asked, confused.

“Three!”

“Four!”

“Five!”

She continued on.

Kazuya followed curiously.

Victorique slowly walked up the stairs, counting out loud.

“Eleven!”

“Twelve!”

“Thirteen!”

She spun.

Her eyes blazed like green flames.

Kazuya had never seen something so hot. Bright green flames, burning, yet somehow cold.

“If you stopped on the thirteenth step, something bad would happen, right?” Victorique said, a twinkle in her eye. “That you would get dragged to the afterlife?”

“Yeah, there’s a story that goes like that.”

“The students at this academy are very superstitious. They’re all acting as if they’re in on a big prank. It must’ve seemed bizarre to a foreigner like you who just arrived here one day.”

“Yeah, for sure…”

“That means that no student is going to stop at the thirteenth step of a staircase in this academy.”

“That makes sense.”

“I believe the foreign student thought that no matter where she hid the book in this library, there is always a possibility that someone will find it. But the shelf right before your eyes when you stand on the thirteenth step of the staircase must be safe. In other words…”

Wearing a smug look, Victorique shoved her small, child-like hand into the bookshelf. She grabbed a book with an eerie purple cover and slowly pulled it out.

“My Wellspring of Wisdom told me that she must have hidden the purple book on the shelf by the thirteenth step.”

Kazuya glanced back and forth between Victorique and the purple book, mouth agape.

When he was finally able to speak, he said, “I get it.”

Victorique nodded with a smile, a smile so pure and innocent, as if she were a child being praised. Kazuya found this change very surprising, but there were more important matters at hand.

Bringing their faces close, they flipped the purple book to the first page.

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A book lying at the scene of a murder eight years ago. Avril, a strange foreign student who said she came from England to search for something, found the book and hid it in the library. A black and purple book, as dark and eerie as Avril herself.

Kazuya would later reflect how if they had not found the book, the subsequent incidents would not have occurred. Victorique, the silent Gray Wolf, would get involved in a different case with this eerie book, and she would find herself on the run with Kazuya.

But that is a story for another day.

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