Chapter 202
Chapter 202
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 11
Chapter Title: The Mage of Mages (22)
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-Kuwoong.
-Kuwooong.
The closer Ottoman got to the sound shaking the earth, the more an inexplicable unease enveloped him.
He was a water mage. A man who had spent his life aspiring to be like water, becoming akin to its essence.
Water easily takes on the color of whatever it touches, and ripples are inevitably swept away by raging waves.
He could feel his own mind being swept up by the raw emotions surging violently from that epicenter.
‘Anger and pity, confusion and resignation. So wild and savage. With no target, it must be flowing toward itself. What on earth could have shaken that steadfast child so profoundly?’
Even after drawing in the water he’d used in the previous battle and all the groundwater and well water nearby on the way here, Ottoman sensed it might not be enough.
The air was thick with the metallic tang of blood, so dense it coated his tongue.
Sasak!
Idrasil, leaping nimbly between rooftops, halted before an invisible boundary.
“I’ll watch from here and provide support.”
“You felt... something too?”
“...Not really. It’s just that getting any closer feels like I’d be stained by ‘that.’ Mother told me to learn from him, but I don’t have the confidence to handle it.”
The elf’s eyes held not simple fear, but something like... awe? Admiration?
Ottoman wanted to ask what exactly Idrasil was seeing, but the alarm bells ringing in his chest left no room for hesitation.
Kuwooong!
Now the sound wasn’t just an echo—it rang directly in his ears, close enough to make his feet stumble from the impact.
Tok, tudok.
Drops of water fell from the eaves of a shattered building.
Tok, tudok. Tok.
Whoosh!
Turning the corner into the open square, a hot, sticky blast of heat wind hit them. The dripping water sounds still grated from all directions, but
it couldn’t be raindrops—there hadn’t been any rain.
The square was filled with a blood mist. So thick it soaked their clothes just by being near, the mist clung to scattered building debris, gathering and dripping down in beads.
Amid that dense blood mist stood a monster and a knight facing off.
A monster clad in a blood-soaked priest’s robes and necklace.
And a knight moving on a body reduced to bones.
「Marvel at it—how resilient it is—」
As if oblivious to the newcomers in the alley, the spectral knight’s gloomy voice echoed across the square.
「Humans—beasts—even a body that’s no longer alive—and yet it clings so desperately—」
The spectral knight’s state was dire at a glance. Its jet-black helmet was cracked and dented in places, leaking blue soulfire, and its armor was so severely crumpled that any human flesh inside would have been crushed to death.
Above all, its sword was gone. The essence of a knight. Even as an undead specter—no, especially so—the sword that served as the nucleus sustaining its profane existence was missing from its hand. With each word it uttered, the soulfire leaking from its undead form grew weaker.
Kwaduk!
A hand covered in black scales seized its head and hoisted it up.
“I’d love to keep going, but guests have arrived, so this’ll have to do.”
「Aaaah—that frail thing—you mean—」
In that instant, the Professor turned his head toward the group, allowing Ottoman a closer look.
A sword plunged into the center of its body, where curses roiled, surrounded by writhing flesh pushing against each other.
“Is that truly... the body of a living being?”
“I don’t know, Ottoman. Even I, who’s studied the bond between spirit and flesh my whole life... don’t know.”
It was less a body than a child’s haphazard pile of severed limbs.
Some parts were inside out, others attached where they didn’t belong, and many seemed dubious in function. A mockery of life itself.
“Like a toy made by a demon.”
“It’s because of the aura. Look closely.”
If there was a common trait in that grotesque form, it was that all the cut surfaces faced outward. In Borca’s eyes, those surfaces bore a faint purple afterglow. Watching leg bones that had snapped outward in real time retract inward suggested a link to the terrifying regeneration he’d witnessed earlier, so it wasn’t merely repairing severed flesh.
“Cut by aura... unable to regenerate due to its influence, so it’s reattached the flesh to other surfaces instead of the cuts. Armor made from its own severed parts, I suppose.”
“No human mind could conceive of that. Perhaps... it’s already too late.”
Aldrich glanced at the sky, stroking the locket around his neck. The blood mist made it faintly hazy.
“...Notum. Can you capture that soul?”
“...No. Big little human, mixed. Something I don’t know. Rotten flesh crumbles if squeezed hard.”
“I see. I placed too heavy expectations on you, just starting out in soul magic. Then... can you summon rain?”
Instead of answering, Notum took the soul jar containing Aldrich’s finger bone in hand.
“Ottoman. Buy us just a moment. Just a moment.”
Clang.
With the revived soul departed, the knight’s plate mail crashed to the ground, and sweat beaded on Aldrich’s forehead.
The grotesque monster—violence lumped into a hunchbacked, irregular form—advanced, baring dense fangs.
“O...ttoman... Al...dri...ch... Notum... Borca...”
Kick, kihik! Gruu, kuh!
Tang, tangrang!
The monster’s body convulsed, dropping the spectral sword still spewing violet flames, as its misaligned parts clicked back into place like a puzzle.
“Who... gave you your names?”
Shruk, k kuduk.
Uduk, tudok, k kuduk!
Amid a waterfall of pouring blood, it gradually reverted to its true form. The human shape familiar to Ottoman and the group.
“Did your mother name you? Where was she born? Does anyone remember her homeland? If so, what of her mother? How far does your assigned data go?”
Hahk, hahk, hahk!
Gasping as if crushed by his own words, the monster didn’t stop.
“I named myself. ‘Professor’—a name without personality, just the family name minus the given one from the original. That’s me. No matter how much I grieve, rejoice, save someone, protect, love! Hate!”
Kkaduk!
“That’s... nothing but electronic signals on some hidden server. I just wanted to log out normally, but the Chairman brought my obituary. My obituary! That horrific body strung up like an experiment subject is the real me, and this ‘me’ thinking and acting now is just a program datafied from the real ‘me’s’ actions and thoughts! I, the copy, am merely a program moving to revive the original’s consciousness!”
The monster in human form buried its face in its hands. It sobbed, but it was clearly laughing.
“Ah, Ian. That guy was terrible at lying. What did he say back then? You can go back? You can go baaack? He can go back, sure. My original body, of course. But this ‘me’ right here... who knows?”
Calm at first, the monster’s voice grew increasingly agitated.
“I knew it. He did too! Those words from his mouth were sweet lies to soothe a personality made of 0s and 1s, to wake a sleeping friend! Clear it and everything’s solved. Right! It’ll update! To advance to a new world! To cross to 4th World, the sleeping original’s memories will update into [Player ‘Professor’]’s data! And I’ll be... overwritten onto. Raped by my own memories, literally. My everything ‘overwritten’ by the original’s memories.”
Kikikikik...
Kkaduk, k kaduk.
“Being smart has its perks. You see farther, faster, plan ahead. But looking closer... the downsides are hefty. If only I hadn’t known. If I’d just played the puppet vigorously, brightly! Believing this was the path to ‘survive,’ pushing to the end, the very end!!!!”
Uduk!
“...I could’ve met a peaceful death, blissfully ignorant.”
The monster snapped its own neck. As if delighted to die that way.
“...Completely mad. Is that what the Professor feared so much? Fully eroded by the infection factor?”
Takakak, tak, takakak!
“WOhUmAA! CurITANAeXeee!!!! IBLAMMM!!!!!”
...Shwaaaa
Blood dripped from Notum’s nose, washed away by falling droplets from the sky.
Shwaaaaa—
Despite the sun in the sky, a drizzle poured only onto the square ravaged by fierce battle.
The monster gazed amusedly at the rain falling onto the hot, sticky blood mist.
Uduok!
The Professor’s body, slowly reassembling, froze as if caught in a spiderweb.
“...Ottoman. I don’t recall you teaching me a spell like this.”
“It’s not a spell, Professor. It’s merely an application of a water mage’s pure dominion—contesting control over water.”
In the downpour, the old mage gripped the air, biting his lip as his overtaxed arm began to tremble.
“Useless. Every drop of moisture in your fat, your muscles—it’s all under my dominion now. My disciple, feel the shame! You, who builds worlds with your imagery, swayed by the whispers of base mutants! My teachings were all in vain!”
“Useless... Is that sincere, Ottoman?”
K kudududuk—
Feeling as if dozens of stakes pierced his body, tendons bulged on the monster’s forearms.
“...Insolent. Circulate eternally in subjugated flow! [Life of the Flowing]!”
Chwachak!
Maintaining dominion with one hand, Ottoman formed seals with the other, casting his most powerful binding spell.
Operating on the same principle as dominion, this magic fixed the target in place by turning all moisture in its body into water chains and stakes burrowing through it. Difficult to cast and affect, but once activated, even a master knight couldn’t easily break it—one of the grand spells.
Chalak.
Confirming the Professor utterly immobile, Aldrich opened his soul locket, the locket he always wore.
Kwaak! Kwoaaak!
“Whoa. He really can’t move a bit.”
“...Wait quietly. Aldrich says he has a way. He’ll surely fix you. You’re not your usual self right now.”
Tok.
In an instant, the Professor’s smirking face went blank.
Instead of his rigid body, his madness-glazed eyes swiveled clock-hand-like toward Ottoman.
“That’s it. Exactly that, Ottoman.”
Tik. Tidik. Pishit!
“The usual me. Acting contrary to recorded data. Doesn’t that prove I’m a different entity from the original? Mages really get it.”
Pishit! Teududuk!
Ottoman couldn’t believe the sight. From a body fully bound by dominion and grand spell, veins were ripping free of the flesh and emerging.
“Indeed. The wall between 3rd and 5th rank is immense. I’m pretty strong, but I can’t budge. But Master, I’ve heard something here and there.”
Teuduk, chwaak! Shuwaaak!
“Blood... is thicker than water.”
“Kuhuhuhu! Aldrich! Hurry!”
Like shedding a specimen, centered on detached arteries, new bones and flesh grew as Ottoman cried out desperately.
Kwaak!
‘Time... we’re short! To break [Life of the Flowing] like this!’
A crimson shell grew on the newborn right arm, roughly tearing at the binding water chains.
“Ottoman. I just thought of something the usual me would never do.”
Now fully free, the right arm rose, folding all fingers but index and thumb toward Ottoman.
“I hope this proves my existence.”
Chalak!
The thumb’s first joint folded, emitting a sound like a mana-charged bullet chambered.
“Aldrich—! No time! Hurry—”
“Once all this bullshit ends, let’s meet in the server room, Master.”
Seeing red mana gathering at the monster’s fingertip, Ottoman squeezed his eyes shut.
Pang—
A clean, soft whoosh.
Feeling the mana dissipate, Ottoman cautiously opened his eyes.
“By the sea!”
Turning, he saw a figure standing rigidly on a distant rooftop, giving a slight wave.
“...I never thought I’d put two arrows in a fellow’s head.”
An elf arrow, still green as fresh wood, had burrowed into the Professor’s head up to the fletching.
Suaak—
“Got it! Step back, Ottoman! You’ll die if you get caught!”
With the spell’s design complete, Aldrich raised his locket, his robe hems flapping wildly as darkness fell.
“Sister who wove your soul into a noose around my neck. At the end of my life, I wet your lips. With blood and death, I reach out and invite you!”
Eujek!
Aldrich smeared blood from his bitten thumb onto the floating locket’s back, the blood piercing through to paint a portrait in the air.
“Come! Binder of Aldrich Petrarca, Nell Petrarca!”
Saaak!
As Aldrich closed the locket with the spell’s final words,
The blood portrait in the air swelled, and a girl identical to it stepped forth.
Sabak. Sabak. Sabak.
In the pouring rain, the girl scattering frost with each step placed a hand lightly on Aldrich’s arm.
The moment Aldrich grasped his departed sister’s hand, he began counting time.
‘10 seconds. No, 15 at least.’
He recalled the Professor, an intriguing subject for a soul mage. Lost in thought, his soul’s tremors quieting, then chattering boisterously with other voices in that strange inner space.
Thinking the Professor had secrets like his own worth hiding, he’d merely watched in silence.
‘In that night-sky space, you looked most at peace!’
No matter how he resonated the echoes, that small voice inside the Professor was gone now. This corruption surely stemmed from it.
‘It hasn’t dyed him deeply yet. Somewhere, the knot binding his guardian spirit and soul remains!’
Kwaak!
Aldrich rolled up his sleeve, inscribed the spell with blood, and let Nell inhabit it.
“The tyer unties (結者解之)! Let cause and effect meet, correcting what’s gone awry!”
Kwaak!
As Aldrich’s hand covered the Professor’s face, black mana and chill surged from the inscribed arm.
“May he be one you cherish!”
.
.
.
.
Ting.
『Soul-Calling Rite』
Huaaaak!
In an instant, the ghost qi, darkness, and chill rampaging through the shower were sucked into the Professor’s mouth,
Pang—!
With an air-burst sound, the rainclouds, ghost qi, and cloying blood scent vanished without trace.
“Hahk, hahk, hahk!”
Thud!
Soaked in rain, sweat, and blood, Aldrich collapsed.
“Did... it work?”
“Hahk, hahk, we did... all we could.”
Aldrich probed the sensation of that spirit pushing back at his fingertips in the spell’s final moment.
Far larger than imagined.
“The rest... he must overcome himself.”
Chek—chek—chek—chek!
Unsure how much time had passed, the spectral knights handled by the family head and knight order were cleared, and castle guards in heavy armor approached to push back the remaining undead.
“We move. His soul is locked deep within now. No big shocks.”
At Aldrich’s signal, Borca, who’d been fending off noise-drawn undead, rushed over and hoisted the Professor.
“...Outside the castle. I’ve scouted a spot by my little stream. Everyone in the castle saw his state.”
“At least until the Professor wakes and can explain, we can’t catch the lord’s eye.”
Supporting each other’s weary bodies, the group slipped into the forest amid the chaos.
Praying Aldrich’s remedy would right their comrade’s wayward soul.
****
Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok.
The steady drip of water.
An endless black void.
And in one corner, a worn sofa and warm-hued mobiles glowing softly like stars.
‘Hyde’s mental world. So it could be forced open like this?’
More precisely, the boundary of consciousness and unconsciousness shared with Hyde.
Gazing down at his grotesque body in the deep, silent space, the monster turned toward that cluster of tiny lights.
Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok.
“...If Hyde were still here, he’d at least hear my complaints.”
Well, of course he wasn’t. He was busy tending the original’s motionless consciousness inside that monstrous head to revive the original body.
Thinking of the original out there soured his mood. On the verge of smashing this inner world differently from the original.
[.....You fucking world-class idiot.]
Splash.
From behind the sofa, where no one should be, came a familiar grumble.
[Cleaning up every goddamn mess from one to ten. Even doing CPR like a human life support while I’m on vacation. And now you come back from vacation as a fucking terrorist?]
Impossible. He’d said to maintain that near-dead body, he couldn’t cross the consciousness boundary.
No way.
‘Hyde...?’
Kuuuuk—
At my question, the deeply sunken old sofa creaked in protest.
Before logging into GG. The body of my original Ian had shown in photos. Unlike his haphazardly bulked-up frame, sleek with flowing sheen—glossy dark red musculature poised between flexibility and solidity.
[Hey. Long time no see?]
A monster with an oversized left arm and hook-like claws hauled itself onto the sofa.
****