Chapter 193
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
“Wait.”
Ferda said as he watched the two adventurers walk ahead.
“While you inspect the route, may I take a look at that place?”
Ferda pointed to the room as he asked them.
The two adventurers glanced at the room Ferda wanted to inspect.
There were only a few desks and bookshelves filled with books.
They could tell what kind of room it was from its general layout alone.
“It seems to have been a reading room used with guests……. There don’t seem to be any traps, at least.”
After looking around, the adventurers exchanged glances and nodded.
“Please do so.”
“There’s no point in having you stay with us right now anyway…….”
The adventurers did not bother stopping Ferda from acting on his own.
It was actually a good thing for them.
By adventurer standards, Ferda was a novice, so it was obvious he would become a variable.
Thinking he might as well set down another burden while he was at it, Ferda asked the armored knight standing beside him.
“Knight, please accompany Regent Ferda.”
Nod, nod.
The armored knight obediently moved to Ferda’s side.
“Wait.”
?
Ferda said sternly.
“Don’t cling too closely. I’d prefer you to keep your distance.”
……Nod.
There was a hint of disappointment.
That disappointment sent a chill down his spine.
What was a grown man doing something like that for?
“We’ll return in ten minutes.”
“All right.”
Suppressing that feeling, Ferda took out one of the books on the shelf, whether the armored knight was beside him or not.
But he soon had no choice but to frown.
‘The writing is different.’
It was neither runes nor commonly used Imperial.
True to this being a little-known land, its script was independently used as well.
Fortunately, Erika knew it, so the script could be deciphered.
Ferda spread out through the library and selected several samples to take with him.
If any of them were books on cultivation methods or emotions, they would be a worthwhile gain for Ferda.
While searching for information, Ferda realized something.
“Ten minutes must have passed a while ago…….”
It was time for Ferda and the armored knight to return, but the adventurers had not come back.
‘A trap meant to lure me out?’
Ferda instinctively suspected them.
‘……That can’t be it.’
From their attitude, it was clear that they found the situation bothersome.
That was merely the burden of having to look after a couple of novices.
If it had been a trap, they would have acted much more kindly.
“Then perhaps they’ve fallen into a trap instead.”
!!
The armored knight grew greatly agitated.
He turned his head toward the door they had entered through.
“Let’s go look for them, then.”
Nod!
His steps seemed full of enthusiasm.
But Ferda did not like that enthusiasm.
“Wait.”
?
“Follow behind me. If it’s magic, I’ll check it first.”
Nod.
Still, it was not entirely bad that he obeyed him so readily.
Ferda carefully followed their footprints.
The path continued straight before branching off to the right.
Ferda had no need to wonder which way to go.
A groan came from the straight path.
Following the sound, he found one of the adventurers there.
“Uuuuuugh…….”
The man was suffering terribly as he stared at something.
Ferda held his breath and signaled the armored knight to stop.
Ferda walked forward first to inspect the area.
“I’m sorry…… I didn’t mean for this to happen. Please…….”
The adventurer was confessing his sins to something and begging for salvation.
‘An illusion?’
Could a demon be lying in wait?
A faint light began to glow in Ferda’s eyes.
He tried to destroy the source of the illusion through mana detection.
But what appeared in his eyes was astonishing.
‘The magic feels faint…… I can’t call this being caught in an illusion.’
If it were caused by magic, there should have been mana surrounding his head or eyes.
If that mana were dispelled, he could wake up.
But the mana was rising from his heart and dantian, and its amount was negligible.
‘Then that means…….’
Ferda suddenly recalled what had happened with Luri.
The past and regrets she had confessed to him.
The pain that came from them.
After understanding the situation, Ferda checked where the man’s gaze was directed.
He did not look at that place, however.
Instead, he took out his staff.
“Lightning Spear.”
Crackle!
A red bolt of lightning flew toward the edge of the man’s line of sight.
Crack!
He heard the sound of it striking flesh, burrowing into it, and exploding.
Green blood and purple chunks of flesh scattered.
At the same time, the adventurer’s eyes, which had been captured by something, returned to normal.
“Huh, wha? What the…….”
“Are you all right?”
“Pardon? Ah, yes…….”
“Where is the other one?”
“Th-that…… More importantly, how did we get here……?”
His mind had returned, but the aftereffects left him babbling.
“There’s no time. It was probably attacked by the same thing you were. Do you want to watch it die?”
“Ah! I’m sorry! It probably went down the fork we passed before coming here!”
Ferda looked toward the armored knight.
‘If this guy gets captivated by that thing, it’ll only cause more problems.’
“Armored Knight.”
Nod?
“I’ll leave this adventurer to you. No matter where he points—or even if he tells you to look there—never look at it.”
Nod.
At least his answer was decisive.
Whether Ferda could trust him was another matter, but he had no other option at the moment.
The Flint Expedition was the starting point of this endeavor, so he had to show how meaningful its results were.
The most important thing was ensuring that there were no casualties.
Since this city had been built for the conquest of the East, survivors were extremely important to Ferda.
Ferda ran toward the place the adventurer had described.
When he retraced their path and returned to the fork, he heard a similar groaning sound there.
The situation was worse than that of the first adventurer.
He caught sight of an adventurer embracing some kind of mass.
Ferda reflexively covered his eyes.
It was already too late, but thanks to that, he learned one thing.
‘Apparently, merely seeing its outline is harmless.’
That meant the crucial part of the illusion lay elsewhere.
For the moment, Ferda decided to rescue the adventurer.
Unlike the adventurer who had been suffering in pain, this man wore an exceedingly happy expression.
“Sandra…… I’m coming……. This time, I’ll stay with you. I’ll never let you go…….”
It was palpable.
At this moment, he was receiving salvation.
But now was the time for them to part.
“Lightning Bolt.”
A red bolt of lightning flew in a straight line and struck the mass.
Crack!
Several black hands emerged from Ferda’s sleeve and seized the adventurer’s body.
In a place without a single light, the power of the shadows was strong enough to tear him away from the mass.
“Ah, aah!!”
The adventurer’s body was covered in wounds.
Blood streamed from him, but he paid it no heed.
“Sandra……! My love, where did you go!?”
“Come to your senses.”
“Sandra……! Sandra! Let me go!”
As the man tried to charge back toward the mass, Ferda forcibly pulled him backward.
“Let go of me!”
The man drew a dagger and stabbed Ferda’s shadow.
“Ugh!”
Even though it was only a shadow, the pain it felt was conveyed vividly.
Recognizing the pain running through his nerves as an illusion, Ferda quickly escaped.
Everything about this environment was unfavorable.
The dense demonic energy made him uneasy, while the brief pain created a momentary lapse in his concentration.
Because of that, he ended up seeing what the struggling man had been looking at.
For only an instant, Ferda saw it clearly.
The enormous eye possessed by the mass.
‘Damn it!’
In the time it took him to blink, its form had completely changed.
“Vald……rova?”
Two pairs of horns and a beautiful appearance.
Her healthy, feminine beauty stood out so strongly that she did not seem to suit the name Dragon of Destruction.
“Why are you here……?”
It was impossible.
There was no way she could be here.
And yet she was here.
“Mr. Ferda…….”
Her lovely voice called to him plaintively.
‘I can’t concentrate.’
Every time he looked at that thing, he began to believe that she was truly here.
She should be beneath Valdrova Castle right now.
Ferda forcibly cast aside his emotions and put logic first.
A mana bullet barely formed in Ferda’s hand before striking Valdrova’s image.
Splurt!
Her head jerked sharply backward.
Ferda thought that once the image broke, it would scatter into its true form, and he would be freed from the thing that had ensnared him.
But he was wrong.
“Why…… are you attacking me?”
Valdrova raised her head again and looked at Ferda.
Half of her head had been blown away.
Tears streamed from her one remaining eye.
Ferda knew that sight.
Although she was human now, she had looked like that when she was a dragon.
Ferda continuously hypnotized himself.
That was not Valdrova.
“Oh, I see……. I…… am not needed…….”
That was not Valdrova.
“Hehe…… I’m sorry. I made another strange mistake and caused trouble for you, Mr. Ferda…….”
That thing.
“What you need from me is this, right?”
Splurt!
Valdrova.
“I’ll give it to you.”
She pulled out her own heart and held it out to him.
As his reason collapsed, an atmosphere of despair pierced Ferda’s lungs.
She staggered toward Ferda.
“I’m…….”
Despair became regret.
Regret churned Ferda’s deep darkness.
“I’m…… sorry.”
It was then.
Valdrova’s form suddenly shot upward.
The place where she had pulled out her heart was pierced once more.
A steel gauntlet jutted upright from that spot.
It was clutching an enormous heart.
It tore out the heart it was holding and burst it on the spot.
“Ah……!”
At the height of his regret, Ferda felt something that had seized his mind come loose.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again.
Where Valdrova should have been, several masses of flesh hung limply.
Green blood and purple flesh. They were unmistakably monsters.
There were two of them.
One was in the place where Ferda’s mana bullet had struck.
The other was the one the armored knight had pierced.
Ferda slowly recalled what he had seen and assessed the situation.
Another monster had taken the place where Valdrova had stood with her brow pierced, continuing the illusion.
It made its target think the opponent had been killed, then tormented them further without actually dying.
It was an excellent trick, even Ferda had to admit.
‘So this is what Luri saw…….’
It definitely drove people insane.
Since there was no sign that it was about to use magic, responding with magic would also be difficult.
One thing was certain: they needed a countermeasure against that thing.
But more than anything else, what they needed was composure.
“Ugh…….”
The Shadow Circle was spinning like mad.
It was on the verge of bursting Ferda apart.
The armored knight cautiously reached a hand toward his face.
His intention was undoubtedly to express concern for Ferda.
It was kindness.
That kindness once again molded itself into Valdrova’s form before his eyes.
“Get away from me!”
Ferda roughly knocked his hand away.
Valdrova’s form returned to that of the armored knight.
He withdrew his hand in confusion and cautiously stepped back.
A beast becomes most vicious when its weakness is exposed.
Ferda was exposing his own weakness.
He could not allow that.
In this land of despair, despair was easy prey.
Ferda caught his breath and answered politely.
“I’m sorry, but…… please keep your distance.”
……Nod.
Seeming to understand reluctantly, he carried the adventurer’s body over his shoulder and led the way.
Ferda followed behind him.
For some reason, that back kept looking like Valdrova’s.
He thought he was going insane.
* * *
They did not all gather by the appointed time.
Surprisingly, everyone who had moved separately had fallen victim to the same monster.
The right-hand group, where Ferda was, had suffered the greatest damage.
“For now, let’s name this creature ‘Trauma.’”
Its common trait was that it drew memories from inside its target’s mind and showed them as illusions.
Those illusions always took the form of what the target had missed most throughout their life.
“Mental fortification magic doesn’t seem capable of blocking its gaze. So my guess is that it may be hypnosis rather than magic.”
“Hypnosis…….”
“Is that possible without magic?”
“From what I can guess, perhaps it takes the form of a trap. One that activates the moment you look into its eyes.”
That was Erika’s theory.
If a monster called Trauma were casting hypnotic magic, there would be a form of mana, and destroying that form of mana should allow them to escape.
“What shall we do? Should we stay together instead of splitting up?”
They had seen horrifying illusions, which was more than enough to demoralize them.
Even so, the adventurers who had been attacked did not readily suggest joining together.
“There weren’t any separate traps, and the only major trap was that Trauma thing…….”
“If we’re just a little careful, I think it’s manageable…….”
They still considered it an adventure worth attempting.
“Then we’ll move as before. This time, we’ll avoid making eye contact with them as much as possible. We’ll go in pairs, facing each other.”
“So we can notice immediately if one of us is captured.”
“Understood.”
“Let’s continue with the detailed exploration. Does anyone have any questions before we do?”
No one raised a hand.
“Good. Make your personal preparations and depart again. Take a ten-minute rest.”
They dispersed briefly and checked their equipment.
“Captain Eri.”
The person who called her aside was Ferda.
“Yes?”
“I found these books where I went.”
Ferda secretly brought several books to her.
“They’re written in Eastern characters. Are you asking me to translate them?”
“Yes.”
“I only memorized a few characters with important meanings, so first, um…….”
Erika glanced through the contents of the books, then asked,
“Did you find all of them in one place?”
“Yes. They were in the same location, but I took them from separate spots.”
“But there’s one thing they have in common.”
“What is it?”
“You see this character here?”
The character Erika pointed to appeared in every book, just as she had said.
“This means love.”
“Love…….”
“I don’t know what the books are about, but they’re all related to love.”
Since a strong intuition had led him there, the books were exactly what Ferda needed.
There was no doubt that this was a place where manuals for controlling and wielding emotions had been stored.
Places like that generally had secret passages, with secret manuals kept deeper inside.
“Then that’s where we should go.”
“Yes. There may be magical artifacts, and if there are clues to obtaining what you want, that alone is enough. Is that all you needed?”
“Actually, there’s one more thing.”
Ferda answered Erika’s question.
“You said the front group was attacked too, didn’t you?”
“……That’s right.”
Erika and Virgil had been the ones attacked in the front group.
Unlike the side groups, which had received help from others, Erika had tried to escape on her own, just as Ferda had.
And she had escaped.
“Then what exactly did you see?”
“Do I really have to answer?”
“It doesn’t need to be specific. I only want to confirm something.”
Erika kept her mouth tightly shut, then opened it as though she had no choice.
“What I saw was…… the greatest mistake I ever made.”
They had seen different things, but their essence was the same.
“How did you overcome it?”
That was what Ferda wanted to know.
How had she escaped that horrible, terrifying thing?
Erika answered as though it were simple.
“Because I realized I could never make that mistake a second time.”
It was the worst possible answer for Ferda.
Ferda’s Shadow Circle was still spinning.
No, as time passed, it was moving even more violently.