Chapter 460.<h4><b>Chapter 460. An Exciting Night with Two Girls Outside the City: The Alleged Haunted Castle. (3/10)</b></h4>
<span style="font-weight:400">Vrrrrrr. Vrrrrrr. Vrrrrrr.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Rosa, aren’t yuh going to answer that?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? What?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Isn’t that your phone vibrating? Yuh’re getting a call, aren’t yuh?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“A… call? Oh… you’re right… I am… aren’t I?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“What’s wrong? What are yuh just nkly staring at your phone for? Yuh’re not going to answer it?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Well… the thing is… Did you forget where we are right now?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“A castle, what about it?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Not just a castle. Where is this castle located?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Down a dirt road surrounded by a bunch of trees. What about it?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Don’t you remember why we couldn’t call your dad earlier?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Ah. The reception…”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah… do you have any reception right now Dawn?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hmm… no… yuh’re not saying…”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I’ve got… none…”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Then… who’s calling?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Take a look.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Huh? She’s showing her? That wasn’t part of the n she told me about. Had things gone wrong and a real devil was actually calling her right now?
<span style="font-weight:400">“6… 6… 6?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah, that’s definitely what it shows on the caller ID alright.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“The... devil’s calling yuh!” Dawn eximed in shock.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Considering how I have no signal… it definitely seems that way.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“But why? Why doesn’t he show up? Why does he need tomunicate through a phone?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Maybe it’s because he can’t show up in person. Maybe devils don’t have physical bodies or something and perhaps they also don’t speak in the audible range for humans to hear either. Their voices might fall within a higher frequency range or something and they require a phone to modte and filter the signal to extract their voices so they call within the auditory range of humans.”
<span style="font-weight:400">That was actually a usible exnation even I could buy. I don’t know if it would fly with Dawn though.
<span style="font-weight:400">“I don’t get it… but it sounds like yuh’re saying something really smart.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Haha… as expected. Modtion and filtering out undesirable frequencies were conceptsmonly used in electrical engineering.
<span style="font-weight:400">Who was that exnation meant to fool here exactly? Dawn or me?
<span style="font-weight:400">Something smelled a bit fishy here.
<span style="font-weight:400">How did Rosa manage a phone call? Bluetooth using a second phone? That seemed pretty unlikely… since you’d need to download a very niche app in advance… but I guess it was possible if she’d nned this all out in advance. Just when did she start nning though?
<span style="font-weight:400">Hmm… the only time I could see her preparing anything would have been while I was asleep on herp. When she was reading stories and allegedly found out about this castle through that.
<span style="font-weight:400">However, there was one issue in all of this. I was the one who initialized the topic of god when I asked Dawn whether she believed in him. However, right after I did so Rosa sure had been quick to hijack that conversation. She really said a lot. Almost as if she’d nned that dialogue long in advance. Meaning… if I didn’t bring up that subject, she probably would have herself. She just took advantage of the opportunity I inadvertently made for her.
<span style="font-weight:400">This way she could lead the conversation down the path of devils to acquire Dawn’s soul. I thought it’d been a coincidence and Rosa believed it was just a good opportunity to help me with acquiring a soul. However, it felt more and more like Rosa wanted to acquire Dawn’s soul for her own unknown reasons more for herself than for me.
<span style="font-weight:400">Why though? Why did she want Dawn’s soul?
<span style="font-weight:400">I didn’t know.
<span style="font-weight:400">It felt as if she was hiding her motive and various things about this entire scenario from me. I’d been moving exactly as she wanted.
<span style="font-weight:400">This girl... I really can’t let my guard down around her at all even if I love her.
<span style="font-weight:400">It suddenly struck me that there was a hole in the Bluetooth idea using a second phone that I came up with. Dawn had her phone, I had my own phone with me as well. And as far as I was aware, Rosa only had one phone on her.
<span style="font-weight:400">Did that mean I was wrong?
<span style="font-weight:400">It… could be she had a second one I wasn’t aware of… but I’d definitely never seen a second one among our belongings or her ever using one during this trip. Maybe she borrowed or stole one.
<span style="font-weight:400">Whatever, I’ll have to ask her about itter.
<span style="font-weight:400">While I’d been preupied trying to solve this mystery, the girls'' conversation had reached a point where Rosa said, “I’m… going to answer it… now.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Mmm.” It sounded like Dawn nodded back at her seriously.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Kkkkkkkkkkkkhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
<span style="font-weight:400">That was the signal I’d been waiting for from her. The sound of static. So a real devil hadn’t called her after all. That meant this really was all ording to her n and she’d just opted to mess with me a bit by not telling me everything.
<span style="font-weight:400">I turned on the two-way radio I’d been holding in my hand this entire time. Yes, what Rosa’d given me earlier was the same two-way radio with the voice changer feature I’d previously borrowed from her tomunicate with Officer Johnson through a payphone.
<span style="font-weight:400">We didn’t have reception on our phones out here, so we couldn’t just make a normal call. There was Bluetooth as an option, but I’d been under the impression that wasn’t an option since we had no reception to download a new app to begin with. Thankfully, we did have these radios with us.
<span style="font-weight:400">I pressed the button down then spoke in a low tone into the radio, “Hello...”
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b><i>Hello...</i></b><span style="font-weight:400">” The voice that came out the other end was staticky, scrambled, and deep. It sounded very sinister and nothing like me at all.
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b><i>You… called... for me?</i></b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkhhhhhhhhhhh.” When I released the button the static continued.
<span style="font-weight:400">“...”
<span style="font-weight:400">“...”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Y-Yes… we did… Great Devil.” It took a second, but Dawn eventually answered back nervously.
<span style="font-weight:400">Her voice didn’t y through the radio though. I only heard it through the hole the same way I’d listened to their conversation this entire time.
<span style="font-weight:400">The n was for Rosa to trick Dawn with her phone by holding it up in front of her chest while acting like it was on speakerphone. In reality, Rosa had her radio inside the front pocket of my hoodie that she currently had on.
<span style="font-weight:400">It gave the illusion that the audio wasing from her phone when in fact it wasing from inside her pocket. All she had to do was stuff her hand in her pocket to turn the radio off when we were done. I’d turn mine off before she did.
<span style="font-weight:400">I had the volume on my radio turned all the way down so Dawn wouldn’t hear the staticing from above whenever I released the button for speaking. I didn’t need to hear anything from it either way since I’d be doing all the talking.
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b><i>Why… summon me… foolish… little mortal?</i></b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yuh... don’t know?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b><i>Heh… heh… heh… of course... I know... Tis it not... for thy mother… and father?</i></b><b>”</b>
<span style="font-weight:400">I could actually hear her nervously gulp down a mouthful of saliva even from up here.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Then… since yuh’vee… will yuh… help me?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b><i>Heh… heh… heh… of course… little mortal… certainly… so long as… you agree… to the terms…</i></b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">I pped my hands together as loudly as possible for it to echo all throughout the castle before I continued, “<b><i>The contract… is on… the podium… read it... carefully… or not… it’s up... to you… whether you... agree… or not… These terms… are… final.</i></b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">“What? Where’d thise from? This… definitely wasn’t on the podium earlier… when I was looking around.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b><i>I am… a devil… such a thing… is but... child’s... y.</i></b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">In reality, Rosa had sneakily put it down there in advance when I was walking out of the room and Dawn was distracted by me leaving. It really looked like I’d used some sort of magic from Dawn’s perspective.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Is it… fine if my friend read the contract too?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b><i>Feel… free…</i></b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Rosa… help...” she sounded like a frightened puppy.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Rx. He’s not going to pull a fast one on you with me around.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“But… he said these terms are final.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“If they suck and he refuses to negotiate, then we just have to say no and summon another devil who’ll offer some better terms.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b><i>Insolent... little mortal.</i></b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">“h h h,” Rosa retorted in a nonchnt, unphased fashion.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Rosa! Don’t upset him! What if he does something bad?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Let him try it and see how I kick his stupid devil ass.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Rosa! Stop!”
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b><i>You dare… challenge me?</i></b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Of course. How do we even know you’re legit and can really fulfill these terms? Do you even really know where Dawn’s mother is?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b>Of course… I do…</b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">“And we’re supposed to just trust you on that?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b><i>If you don’t… trust me… then forget… about… ever finding… Aurelia… this pitiful… little mortal’s... mother…</i></b><span style="font-weight:400">”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Now hold on there a second. Aurelia? Dawn, is that your mother’s name?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Uh… yeah… it is… for this devil to know that… he must know where she is as well.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Do you really know?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“<b><i>Of course… I naturally… know...</i></b><span style="font-weight:400">”