"Where the hell is Pablo?" Tsuyoi looks around, not daring to leave any door in case something funky happens again.
Unlike Pablo, Tsuyoi wasn't able to figure out the mystery but he could tell the doors are leading not where they are supposed to be.
He was in Room 4, where the dinner table is.
"Is this Arzt's doing? Is he trying to separate me and my buddy?" Tsuyoi thinks, but stops before his brain hurts.
"Whatever, I just need to find him." Tsuyoi said as he tried to listen to his surroundings.
Meanwhile, Pablo was still in Room 13. He was basically stomping with each step. Knocking stuff over, trying to be as loud as possible without letting Arzt know what he is trying to do.
"I don't know if Arzt can see every part of this house. He has a way of knowing where we are without showing himself. But I don't know if that applies to all parts of the house." Pablo thought, making a plan.
Pablo leaned on the wall and tried to listen. He was always weird. He could tell whose steps it is just by hearing it if he knows them well enough.
"Next to me is Room 14. I know it's the doors switching, not the rooms. If I hear a movement next to me, I know it's from Room 14." After listening for a while, he hears no movement and deems it empty.
"I'm guessing Tsuyoi is downstairs. If he is trying to separate us, he would send us to different rooms on the same floor. But if he is trying to stop us from communicating, sending us to different floors would be the smartest call as it's hard to hear between the floors." Pablo started overthinking, almost like this wasn't a robbery but a chess match.
Eventually, Pablo stopped listening to the wall and returned to the center of the room. He was tired from all this movement and coughed up blood.
"If he sends us to different floors, he would also attempt to send Tsuyoi to the furthest room to Room 3 while also leaving us at different floors." Pablo took a deep breath and prepared himself.
"Then that would leave only Room 4 and Room 9. It can't be Room 9 as it's under Room 4, it doesn't have a door to enter it." Pablo raised his leg as much as he could.
Pablo exhaled, hoping it wouldn't hurt that much.
"That would leave Room 4, which is right under me."
Pablo stomped the floor with all his might.
Tsuyoi fortunately heard this, so he looked up.
"Someone is up stairs! It might be Pablo! …It could also be a trap."
Tsuyoi thought about his move, then he went under the table to enter the tunnel they came out of before.
"This leads to the second bathroom, right?" Tsuyoi started crawling, eventually he reached the opposite side of the tunnel. Finding himself at Room 14.
"No. This was… i lost count of the fucking rooms-" Before Tsuyoi could shout his frustration, he felt someone pulling him to another room from behind.
"Huh?! What's going on?!" Tsuyoi turned around, to see Pablo. He was telling him to be quiet with his hands.
"That sound was you?" Tsuyoi whispered.
"Hm." Pablo nodded, and started to whisper:
"He is probably in Room 3, but he may have left. I don't know if he knows I just brought you here, maybe if that door changed. Because I pulled you in suddenly, maybe he didn't have the time to react."
Tsuyoi was beyond confused, a rare, unguarded shock tore through his usual nonchalance.
"Huh?"
Pablo exhaled sharply, but collected himself and explained.
"You haven't figured it out? He can change where the doors send you at will."
Tsuyoi nods, realizing how close he was to figuring it out. Embarrassed, he lies.
"Of course I did, I was just shocked you figured it out without me."
Pablo gets annoyed, but doesn't push too far.
"Did you find anything else that would help me?"
Tsuyoi thinks before checking his bag.
"No. I didn't look for it. I just found more valuable shit. But it's fine."
He waves his hand in dismissal and grins.
"We'll cure you eventually. I just need money right now. Besides, you need me don't you? If you just keep helping me-"
Pablo was quite offended by this, and he didn't enjoy his behaviour for one second.
"I don't need you, Tsuyoi."
Pablo sighs and turns around, giving up on him.
Tsuyoi gets angry and pulls him back.
"What's that all about? What happened to you when I was gone?"
Pablo pushes his hand away, beyond angry at Tsuyoi.
"I'm tired of you not taking these sorts of things seriously. I'm already regretting every life decision I made! Ugh, you're so…"
Pablo finally finds the correct words.
"...unreliable."
Tsuyoi freezes upon hearing the words.
"Just don't be a hassle. I'll figure it out and beat him myself." Pablo pulls out the layout to plan his next move.
Tsuyoi is left speechless, 'unreliable?'. That opened a wound Tsuyoi didn't know he had. He feels mixed emotions, and most importantly, he feels insecure.
He tries to think of a comeback. Anything. But no, he can't.
"You don't mean that, do you?" Tsuyoi asks, giving up on 'beating' Pablo.
Pablo didn't respond, Tsuyoi didn't know if that was intentional.
After this Tsuyoi is even more shocked. He searches around desperately, to get Pablo's attention.
"You said we could figure out if he knew about your plan if the door was switched, right? I'll check it out, and prove to you I'm not 'unreliable'!" Tsuyoi shouts and heads for the door.
Pablo quickly turns around as he hears Tsuyoi's plan. His eyes widened, he tried to stop Tsuyoi by putting a hand on his shoulder.
"NO! He'll just separate us again!" He shouts in panic.
Tsuyoi was too focused, he opened the door and half of his body entered the other room, Pablo's hand still on his shoulders, in the middle of the door.
"See, that wasn't so bad-"
Before Tsuyoi could finish, that exact door switched.
Pablo's forearm was stuck between it, so the sudden switch slices it off.
"AAGGH!!" Pablo yells in agony and drops to the floor.
Pablo held onto his hand, blood gushing out of it. He tries to calm himself as he starts panicking, losing blood rapidly.
"...i told him to-"
Pablo can't speak in pain, he can't focus on his words. The anger, the pain, the horror and the unknown feeling of despair washes over him.
With no words to express himself, he yells out his emotions. His anger at Tsuyoi's incompetence, his anger at this situation in general, the pain in his hand and so many more.
Pablo just let's everything he was holding back.
"AGRHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" A ragged scream, choked with blood and terror.
The tears start falling. This wasn't even about the hand anymore. Pablo felt this was the perfect moment to just let it out.
How was he dragged into all this?
He just wanted to live.
Even if he didn't know why.
He realised that if the door sliced his left forearm off when switching, then with half of Tsuyoi's body being in it…
He quickly tore a piece of his left sleeve and bandaged his forearm with it. He wanted to ignore the possibility of Tsuyoi dying.
"Damn it! I can't die here…" He shouts and tries to get up, stumbling. With his current physical disadvantage, losing that much blood wasn't good. He could barely see.
"I'm glad I still have my treasure at least. If I lost my right…" He grits his teeth to endure the pain.
He slowly pulls out the layout, scared to enter any door because of what could happen.
"I don't know if Tsuyoi is dead. It's better right now to assume he is unavailable." Pablo opens a door but doesn't enter.
"That's Room 7." Because it's the doors switching, Pablo gets the idea of opening a hole in the walls to see the true position of the rooms. But due to how weak he is right now, he has no way of doing so.
Pablo eventually realises waiting here isn't going to solve anything, and maybe he can find something to treat his wound in the bathroom.
He enters what seems to be Room 12, and searches for anything. He finds a bottle of alcohol and pours it on his wound.
He hisses and yells in pain. After the pain settles, he speaks through almost closed eyes.
Suddenly, he hears coming from the room next to him. He turns around to see that the door switched again, and now it leads to Room 3.
When he looks, he sees a middle-aged man in the center of it. He has silver hair and wears a gold plated suit. In his hand is a staff also made out of gold, it is designed to have a golden lion at the handle, and it looks fancier than anything Pablo has seen.
His eyes widen, he realises that it is probably Arzt. Arzt coldly and calmly watches Pablo's surprise.
"What the hell are you…" Pablo can't bring in the rest, Arzt interrupts.
"It is rude to use the bathroom of someone without asking isn't it?" Arzt points his staff at Pablo, at least 6 meters between them.
Pablo's hand discreetly goes to the golden bar behind him.
"I figured you wouldn't need it, given how you have 2 more." Pablo says, annoyance in his tone.
The staff in Arzt's hand catches Pablo's attention. He guesses that it's probably his Treasure.
"Your friend suffered a gruesome death, I was advised not to give you the same fate." Arzt looks too calm, like Pablo isn't even a threat.
Hearing Tsuyoi's death confirmed by Arzt shocks Pablo, but he sets his emotions aside for now.
"Not now. That can come later." Pablo thinks.
What Arzt said confused Pablo, curiosity gets the better of him.
"Advise by who? Why do you want me alive?" He asks.
Pablo realised something important.
"What did you do to Kori?"
The silence is so loud. Pablo waits for an answer, anything.
Anything.
"Tsk tsk." Arzt tsked in disappointment.
He kept doing so.
"Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk."
Pablo gets annoyed by that, watching every move Arzt does.
"You're not gonna answer, it seems." Pablo now has the golden bar in his hand.
Getting ready to use his treasure by eating the bar and sending them to Arzt.
"Why would I? I'm not getting paid to answer questions." Arzt says, humor in his voice.
Pablo's hand quickly moves towards his mouth, taking a bite out of it cleanly.
Arzt is surprised by the move, the bite strength of Pablo impresses him.
The gold is sent out of Pablo's mouth in the form of marbles in rapid fashion.
"Wowza!" Arzt stomps the floor with his staff. Suddenly, the door in front of Pablo switches.
Pablo's eyes widen as he turns around. The golden marbles are flying towards him from behind.
"The door behind me..!" Pablo ducks, dodging most but one hits his left shoulder, impaling it.
Suddenly, the door behind Pablo switches once again. Revealing Arzt in Room 5. He has a cocky smile on his face.
"Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk-" Arzt slowly shakes his head in disappointment.
"Shut up!" Pablo shouts in rage.
Arzt starts laughing. Pablo is starting to reach his limit. Arzt knows what buttons to press.
He takes one step further.
"You aren't as smart as you may seem. As keeping control of your emotions is also a part of being smart. Out of your anger over your buddy's death, you made a blunder." He laughs even louder.
"..." Pablo holds in his anger. His left shoulder bleeding is a really big problem. And for some reason, he doesn't seem to be regenerating like before.
"Yeah but you aren't smart either, are you? You dumbass." Pablo growls.
Arzt raises an eyebrow.
"You've been outmaneuvered. I don't even have to confront you. You will bleed out eventually. And you can't leave either, as two of the doors lead to the same room. Give it up, Pablo Drake." Arzt points his staff at Pablo once again.
Pablo doesn't respond at first, he carefully looks at Arzt's face. He is right. Eventually,
"Yeah, but that's not true is it?" Pablo claims.
Arzt's eyes widen just a little, but that reaction is enough to tell Pablo exactly what he needs to know.
"I'm not falling for that bluff. The moment you said 'give it up', I knew you were pulling off something stupid. Why would you want me to give up, if you can just wait for me to die? Because you don't want me to figure out something." Pablo smiles as much as he can through the pain.
"Room 12 and 15 are identical. But when we entered 15, Tsuyoi stole the golden toothbrush. The exact same one was in 12, completely untouched."
Pablo points at where the toothbrush was supposed to be.
"It's missing. So this isn't Room 12, it's 15." Pablo's smile fully returns.
Arzt's eyes widen, he freezes and takes a step back.
"If you lied about it, this means you have a weakness you don't want me to know. But I figured it out."
Arzt mumbles something under his breath for a long time before Pablo takes action. The mumbling is loud, but just quiet enough for Pablo to not understand anything.
"What the hell are you trying to say? Whatever, as i was saying,"
Pablo reaches for the mirror, and opens it to reveal the tunnel behind it.
"2 doors can't lead to the same room. And I thought you had 3 bathrooms because you were a rich bastard. Well, you still are."
Arzt goes furious, he gets closer.
"You little-" Before Arzt can curse him, Pablo intervenes.
"Go for it. Enter the room. I'll just bite your head off. You are just an old man with an annoying treasure." Pablo nonchalantly starts crawling into the tunnel.
Arzt freezes again, completely shocked by the attitude of Pablo. He really underestimated him.
It really hurts to crawl with an injured shoulder and a missing forearm. But Pablo goes forward.
"I'll just leave, and there is nothing you can do about it. Is there?" Pablo chuckles and hisses at the same time.
Arzt can't do anything but watch Pablo leave. Eventually he sighs and just turns around and walks away. Intending to leave the room.
"He knows my weakness. That tunnel leads to Room 4. But this is manageable. He still doesn't know about the other thing."
Arzt really doesn't know if Tsuyoi is dead. He just guesses so because of Pablo's arm.
"What other thing?" A voice behind him speaks out.
Arzt flinches, he turns around and swings his staff out of reflex.
But Pablo ducks, and delivers a hook to his stomach. Due to Pablo being so weak, Arzt was in no serious condition but he still was an old man, so the punch hurts.
"Shit… how did you.." Arzt stumbles, Pablo catches his breath.
"Shut up and fight, Gramps!"
This truly was a desperate gamble. Pablo's biggest question was 'Can Arzt fully see each room?', wanting to test this out, he hid in the tunnel without going to the other side of it and waited for Arzt to walk away.
He then left the tunnel and sneaked up on Arzt. With this, he proved that Arzt can't really see every room, otherwise he would see Pablo leaving the tunnel. But Pablo still knows he has a way of seeing who Tsuyoi and Pablo are, but it seems limited thanks to Pablo's act.
Now Pablo has to finish off Arzt, enter the vault room and get everything he needs.
Arzt quickly improvises, with his incredible intelligence.
"Seems like you got the upper hand on me… then I'll pull out my final move!" He yells. And:
He starts running away.
"Hey!" Pablo is surprised by Artz's move, and he starts chasing him.
But both are very slow, and Pablo is already on the last bit of his stamina. Arzt throws a lamp at Pablo while running, Pablo covers his face to block the lamp.
Artz leaves the room and turns left. Pablo quickly chases behind him as fast as he can.
When he leaves the room, Arzt slams his staff in the face. Revealing that he just hid next to the door and stopped running when he left.
"You, the progeny of the age, have developed tunnel vision! Not everything has to be a Treasure tactic!" Arzt proudly exclaims.
Pablo falls to the ground. Due to the blood loss he already has, he can't get up and his vision gets blurry.
Outsmarted by the sudden turn of events, Pablo can't think anymore. This old bastard knows how to swing something hard it seems.
"...this can't be the way I go. I was so close…"
WHAT A PATHETIC DEATH.
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Treasure Name: Gatekeep
User: Arzt Pendium
Type: Manifestation (Sub-Type: Glitcher)
Grade: E
Description: Manifestation types allow the user to manifest their Treasure alongside a secondary object. For Arzt's case, the primary object is his golden staff while the secondary object is the mansion itself.
By slamming the staff on the floor, Arzt can make it so that the doors can lead to any room he wants.
With the only rule being that he can't make 2 doors lead to the same room.