Chapter 97
Chapter 97
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 97
Chapter Title: Self-Portrait (2)
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“……Am I seeing things?”
“Hm?”
“It looked like their eyes just moved toward us.”
Greg gripped his axe tightly and glared at the portraits.
A woman in noble attire, a ruler in uniform, a man who looked like an artist, and more.
He stared holes through the wall lined with countless portraits.
“……Regin. You saw it too, right? It’s not just me.”
I wanted to crack a light joke, but seeing Greg’s state made me hesitate.
“Are you scared?”
“I-It’s not fear exactly. We just need to be prepared for variables.”
“Haha. You’re right.”
Sweat was beading on his forehead.
They’d said they’d cleared from the 8th floor to the 9th pretty quickly, and now I knew why.
‘……He’s the nervous type.’
That explained why he’d watched me take down the ghost earlier with genuine awe.
And his sensitivity to the portraits’ movements suggested he was spooked by ghosts.
‘Makes sense. To me, they’re just monsters, but to these people, they’re actual spirits.’
There’s a difference between encountering them in a game and living in this world.
Even I thought back to when I was in Korea—what it’d feel like if a painting on the wall stared at me.
……Yeah, it’d be pretty creepy.
“Are these monsters too?”
Seria gripped her daggers and dropped into a combat stance.
She didn’t seem too fazed by ghosts.
“I hope they’re not spectral types. Can’t make you handle them all alone, Regin.”
“……Haha. They are ghosts, but fighting them might actually be easier.”
“You know what kind of monsters they are?”
“Putting together rumors and book descriptions……”
Swish—
I shifted my position slightly, and Greg watched tensely.
Soon, as I stood before one portrait and stared it down.
Ssslruk—
The man in uniform inside began slipping out of the frame.
Like a soul emerging.
“This is how the ghosts from these portraits come out, from what I’ve heard.”
“……Don’t tell me we have to fight every ghost in here?”
“No, not all of them.”
My gaze turned toward the door.
Small text was written above it.
“We just need to deal with a total of ten portraits.”
“Ten?”
“Yeah. The number adjusts based on the party size coming in. Looks like it’s set to ten for us.”
Not a small number, but manageable.
— How dare you gaze upon me.
The uniformed man had appeared before we knew it.
He drew his sword and glared at me.
I tore a scroll without hesitation, and Seria charged at him like she’d been waiting.
“We just need to take down ten in a row starting from this one.”
* * *
— Kugh!!
“……Weaker than expected.”
The uniformed man screamed and vanished.
Once we’d subdued him easily, Greg finally relaxed and let out a hollow laugh.
“I’ve heard the portraits vary wildly in difficulty.”
Luckily, the first one was on the easy side.
With Greg and Seria infusing mana, they could smash most ghosts anyway.
‘Even if damage doesn’t land properly, they can handle anything short of top-tier specters.’
But from here on, I needed to be more cautious.
‘The first portrait is usually easy. Like it’s teaching the room’s rules.’
Back then, I’d chalked it up to game mechanics.
Like a tutorial portrait explaining how the room worked.
But now that I was inside DAT, there had to be something beyond the system.
‘……The first one being weak suggests it’s similar, though.’
The ones near the entrance might just be weaker overall.
The problem was, after the first, difficulties jumped all over the place.
“No mana signatures from the ones further in, so I’ll think carefully before picking.”
Ghosts didn’t give off mana, making them hard to gauge until pulled.
“How long can we take to decide?”
“……Not sure.”
Their eyes seemed to glare more sharply the more we dawdled.
As Greg asked, shrinking back a bit, I shook my head.
“We don’t have much time.”
I knew from testing it.
If we stalled too long, one would pop out randomly and ambush us.
‘Meaning anyone in range risks one jumping out.’
There were two main ways portrait ghosts emerged.
Standing still in front of one for ten seconds, like just now.
Or just letting time pass.
The catch: time spent in combat counted too.
‘Pick wrong and get stuck on a high-level one, dragging things out…… and suddenly you’re fighting multiples.’
Having concluded that, I moved to another portrait.
Ssslruk—
Thankfully, this one didn’t look strong either.
A woman with a sparkling necklace emerged from it.
Slash!
Fwoosh!
We quickly subdued the female ghost, then kept pulling more portraits.
Ssslruk—
“……This one’s different.”
My guess was right.
‘Everything but a few is random.’
Just like in the game.
Aside from a handful, the ghosts’ power levels were random.
No way to tell strong from weak—you just had to keep opening them.
— For the Emperor!
“Urk!”
Especially when we picked poorly, Greg struggled.
He had to infuse mana to block their attacks properly.
Requiring even more precision than usual.
Clang!
The fourth portrait was like that. A knight burst out, charging with a thick lance.
Greg blocked it with effort, but restraining its movement was tough.
“……Do spirits ride horses too?”
“……Looks like it comes with its horse’s spirit.”
There was a shadowy horse moving swiftly beneath it.
— Whinny!
The knight pulled back briefly, then prepared another charge.
True to a lancer, it aimed to topple Greg with horse speed and lance thrust.
‘Come at me full force this time.’
I eyed the horse pawing the ground.
Tore a scroll at the perfect moment.
“Ice.”
Mages shine against ghosts because they’re affected by mana flows too.
Horse spirit or not, what’s the difference.
Crack—
Ice magic targeted the horse’s legs, freezing its hooves in place.
— ……Hngh!
‘Shouldn’t rely on a horse if you’re a ghost.’
The knight lurched forward from the momentum.
It floated midair trying to regain balance like a proper ghost, but too late.
Slash—!!
Seria’s twin daggers had already sliced its throat.
— The Em, Emperor……
It vanished mid-sentence.
The horse turned to dust alongside the knight.
“Damn.”
Greg wiped cold sweat and muttered.
“We gotta do this six more times?”
I shook my head as I replied.
“Make that seven.”
“Huh?”
“We came to the portrait room for a reason.”
Sorry, but there’s an event that starts after meeting the clear condition.
Greg shot me a miserable look.
“……Next time, try to avoid ghost spots if you can.”
It was the first time Greg, who’d nodded along to everything I said, voiced his own opinion.
* * *
“Not a single word.”
In the kingdom’s basement.
Dark, but not damp. Spacious, yet holding only three people.
Alice wiped sweat from her brow and peered into the iron cage.
“……Like it’s warded against interrogation spells.”
The criminal hung limp, arms bound.
Ferma Vinicis, moved here for questioning right before execution.
When Alice first began interrogating him, her eyes held no emotion.
Just a sense of duty to handle the job well.
“Already a week?”
“Yeah. A full week…… with his brain exposed to magic, and we’ve got nothing. Unbelievable.”
But after a week of using basement artifacts and spells, her view of Ferma had shifted.
From mere kingdom-threatening criminal to something sinister and resilient.
“We’ve got time. Stay calm.”
A colleague sat beside Alice.
Interrogations were standard two-person teams, and this was her assigned partner.
They’d known each other for years, but spending a week cooped up had made them closer.
“Stay calm……”
Alice nodded, sipping cold water.
She’d interrogated plenty, but black mages and Class 3+ criminals were new.
She’d expected resistance, but the lack of progress made her antsy. She admitted it.
“Let’s start again.”
Alice opened the cage, stood before Ferma, and calmly raised the artifact.
Shaped like a stethoscope.
Made of orichalcum and various materials, she pressed it to his forehead.
Woooong—
Her mana flowed through the artifact into Ferma’s head.
“……Urk!”
Designed for interrogation, it pierced his defensive spells and linked to his subconscious.
‘Normally, I’d read his thoughts here.’
No spell reads every thought, but some trace thought flows.
This artifact amplified that; she should’ve gotten something from Ferma.
‘……Nothing.’
As if memories were deliberately erased or sealed.
Black mages used bizarre tricks, so Alice shelved her doubts and focused.
“What did you do meeting the backdoor users?”
“……”
“Exactly where on the 8th floor? No—how do you avoid adventurers’ eyes there?”
“……”
She fired prepared questions.
The goal: provoke his subconscious reactions. That was interrogation’s core.
‘……Black magic’s keeping his subconscious locked tight. But something’s gotta give.’
Pondering, Alice blurted.
“Carlos.”
“……”
“Carlos Kikeron.”
Among suspected backdoor users, the most influential: Carlos.
“……!!”
Feeling his subconscious shake, Alice pressed on.
“Every backdoor group under Serpa follows Carlos. Why?”
“……”
“Ever crossed paths with Serpa members?”
“……”
She rattled off questions nonstop.
Had to exploit the gap before his black magic defenses hardened.
“Linked to the witch? The witch Igna Olebian who vanished eight years ago……”
That’s when it happened, as questions poured out.
“……Strange.”
Ferma’s subconscious churned.
A raspy voice escaped his lips.
“Why does everyone think Carlos and Olebian teamed up?”
“……”
“There’s more than just Serpa in the backdoors.”
“……!”
As Alice reeled.
Ferma stared into space, mumbling unwittingly.
“Plenty might even oppose Serpa.”
Alice signaled her colleague immediately.
The partner, listening via magic from behind the cage, nodded and moved.
Scribble scribble—
Content recorded on the table’s parchment.
— Backdoor groups exist beyond Serpa. Relations with Serpa possibly hostile.
* * *
Regin’s party battled ghosts for a while.
“We’ve already taken down the tenth ghost, Regin.”
Regin had said finishing ten portraits would open the next path.
They’d fought steadily, and as the tenth fell.
“This what you meant……?”
A massive portrait appeared before them.
Unlike the others covering only a third of the wall, this spanned from top to bottom.
Like heralding the next event, a mage looked down on the party.
“……Plexis.”
Regin gazed up and continued slowly.
“Hm?”
“This is Plexis, one of the ancient archmages.”