“This is the mansion.”
“It looks... quite ordinary, doesn't it?”
The house Celestine led him to was situated a short distance from the clock tower. It was a two-story residence with a tiny patch of a yard, surrounded by iron railings to keep out trespassers.
It was far too modest to seem like the property of the Queen Dowager, a woman who had once held the absolute reins of the kingdom. It looked more like the home of a moderately successful merchant.
“That is likely why it remained undetected for so long. While the registered owner is ‘Shoko Sanada,’ the public manager was someone else entirely. Though, as I understand it, that person was merely a figurehead who never actually set foot inside.”
“You mentioned a magical trick... Is it impossible to get in?”
“If it were just a matter of hopping the fence, we could manage that easily enough. The difficulty lies in entering the building itself.”
Celestine opened the iron gate and stepped onto the grounds. Rest followed. The yard was maintained just enough to keep the weeds trimmed, but it was a bleak, desolate space devoid of flowers or ornamental trees.
In stark contrast, the mansion's front door was remarkably grand. A heavy, imposing black door stood before them like a silent sentinel.
“This is the trick door,” Celestine said, pointing. “You see the numerical panel above the handle? The lock disengages only if the buttons are pressed in the correct order. However, we have no idea how many digits the code is, let alone the sequence.”
“What happens if you guess?”
“The investigators tried that. Pressing an incorrect panel triggers an electric shock spell. It isn't lethal, but it is powerful enough to knock a person out cold.”
“Electric shocks, huh?”
“The only thing they managed to discover after several people lost consciousness was that the first panel is ‘1’ and the second is ‘2.’ Beyond that, the investigators reached their physical and mental breaking points and were unable to continue.”
“...”
Standard practice for cracking this kind of passcode was brute force—testing every possible combination. The panel featured digits from zero to nine. A two-digit code meant a hundred combinations; a three-digit code meant a thousand. Eventually, one would hit the jackpot.
(But I don't know how long the code is. If it's ten digits, that's ten billion patterns. That's just not realistic.)
Even without the threat of a localized lightning strike as a penalty, he had no desire to attempt it. The previous team must have been incredibly determined to even get as far as ‘12,’ considering they were being knocked unconscious repeatedly.
“Wait... there's something carved above the panel. It's too faded to read, though.”
“Yes, the investigators reported that as well. We've already deciphered the text.”
Celestine handed him a slip of paper. “It was quite worn in places, but we believe this is what was written.”
“Let me see...”
Rest looked over the paper, his eyes scanning the brief sentence.
‘The Sailor's Ship, Clark-na-Berry.’
“...”
“We haven't been able to grasp the meaning of ‘The Sailor’s Ship,’ nor do we know who these people ‘Clark’ and ‘Berry’ might be. We are currently cross-referencing the Queen Dowager’s known associates to see if anyone shared those names, but—”
“No, there's no need for that. I've figured it out.”
“Pardon?”
“Let's see... the first two are 1 and 2, so the next should be...”
Rest began tapping the numbers into the panel. It was a lengthy sequence, but he knew exactly which ones to press.
Fortunately, Rest had been on the science track in his previous life. He still vividly remembered the mnemonics he’d used to memorize the periodic table in school.
As he finished entering the final digit, a heavy click echoed from the mechanism.
“It's open.”
“How... how could you possibly have known that?” Celestine gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in shock.
Rest hesitated, wondering how to explain it before settling on a convenient excuse.