Unlocking the entrance was simple once the inspiration struck.
The code was based on the periodic table of elements—the "Sui-Hei-Li-Be" mnemonic. It was a staple of middle school science, but Rest remembered it vividly because he had pushed himself to the point of physical exhaustion while studying for his high school entrance exams in his previous life.
(The combination of "Suihei" and "Clark" gave it away immediately... I hesitated for a second on "Berry," but that was obviously beryllium.)
Fortunately, the puzzle only required knowledge up to the nineteenth element. In all likelihood, Shoko Sanada had memorized the same mnemonic. Just as she had with the villa, she had designed this code as a cipher that only a Japanese person could crack.
(The way she drops a puzzle whenever she finds an opening... maybe Shoko actually enjoyed brain teasers. Though I do wonder if she could have come up with something a bit more sophisticated than this.)
"I read about how to decode this kind of cipher in a book a long time ago... I think," Rest offered as an excuse.
"...I see," Celestine replied, her voice trailing off with a lack of conviction.
She clearly didn't believe him for a second, but the fact that she chose not to press for the truth proved what an exceptional young lady she was.
(Seriously... women this good are hard to find. Rodel, you really missed out,) Rest thought, offering a silent grumble to his deceased fated rival as he pushed open the mansion doors.
A wave of stale, dusty air greeted them the moment the heavy front door swung inward. It must have been sealed for ages; the outside air rushed into the interior for the first time in years.
The decor was surprisingly ordinary, showing no signs of having been ransacked or even cluttered. The only thing out of the ordinary was the hallway leading from the entrance—it was lined with picture frames hung at perfect intervals.
"Are these... paintings?" Celestine asked.
"It looks like it," Rest nodded.
Inside the frames were oil paintings, watercolors, and even simple line drawings. They lined the corridor in an extensive gallery.
"Was she a collector? The signature says... 'Shoko Sanada'?"
"I suspect Her Majesty the Queen Dowager painted them herself."
Aside from the signature, Rest recognized the subjects instantly. Every one of them depicted a landscape from Japan. Many mirrored the scenes he had glimpsed within her mental world. There were natural scenes of forests and oceans, but interspersed among them were road signs, automobiles, and airplanes—things that had no business existing in this world.
"I didn't know Her Majesty had such a hobby... This mysterious cityscape, where could it be from?"
"Who knows... I've never seen it before. Perhaps she was painting scenes from her imagination?"
As he answered Celestine, Rest moved slowly down the hall, studying each piece. Why had Shoko Sanada left these behind? The reason was likely the same as her diary. She had wanted to preserve the memories of the world she had once inhabited.
Though Shoko was a reincarnated person like him, their backgrounds were vastly different. In his previous life, Rest had been crushed under the weight of "poisonous parents." His father was a drunk and a gambler who didn't hesitate to steal his son's tuition money. His mother, unable to endure the man, had eventually abandoned her child and fled. While he’d had a few people he could call friends, his life had been anything but blessed.
Shoko, by contrast, had lived a quiet, stable life in a rural town. Though she’d longed for the excitement of the city, she had been surrounded by family and friends. She hadn't been an unhappy person.
Her true tragedy had begun only after she was reborn into this world. A tyrant king had taken a liking to her, forced her to become his consort, and murdered her family in the process. For a woman who had dedicated her entire second life to a cold quest for vengeance, those happy days in her previous life must have represented her only vision of an ideal world.
(So that’s why she painted these in secret. She must have come to this mansion from time to time just to gaze at these scenes of Japan, using them to soothe the ache of her homesickness...)
Thinking of his friend who shared the same homeland, Rest felt a wave of melancholy wash over him.