Chapter 223
Chapter 223
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 223
Chapter Title: The Mayoral Election and Round House (1)
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A dense forest, shrouded in a heavy, deep darkness.
The absence of any proper path clearly showed that no human had ever set foot here.
It was the kind of place where, if you pushed forward recklessly, you felt you might be devoured without even realizing it.
A man was making his way through this place, a place most would not dare enter unless they had considerable courage.
Skin the color of deep indigo, as if painted on, and yellow eyes that glinted even in the dark.
It was an unmistakably inhuman face, something that could never be mistaken for a human.
“Kugh… To think even my magic won't work properly...”
He moved forward cautiously, one step at a time, careful not to lose his footing.
Moreover, the barren environment, which felt as if it were shackling his mana, naturally induced fatigue.
If a dangerous beast were to appear now...
The man swallowed hard at the thought and did his best to suppress his anxiety.
If he had his way, he would have turned back and left this place without a second thought.
But he was afraid of the consequences, of the punishment he would receive for fleeing simply out of fear.
“Ugh… I-I made it out…!”
How long had he been trudging carefully deeper into the forest?
Just as enough time had passed for him to worry that he might not be able to find his way back.
He finally emerged from the tree-filled expanse into a wide, open clearing.
*Finally, I don't have to wander through this monotonous scenery anymore.*
The man joyfully wiped the sweat from his brow and continued deeper into the clearing.
How long had he walked, staring only ahead?
After about ten minutes of walking straight, when he looked back and could no longer see any trees.
He suddenly realized that a large, castle-like building had appeared before him.
“Ugh… Th-this is…!”
Startled, the man looked around and then slowly nodded, as if he had realized something.
He then circled the castle in search of an entrance and stepped inside through a wide-open gate.
The interior was eerily vast and dark, with only a faint light illuminating him.
It felt as if he had stepped into a villa once inhabited by old nobility or royalty.
‘It's spacious… and clean. As if it were just cleaned a moment ago…’
As he thought this, quickly taking in his surroundings.
Suddenly, the sharp click-clack of heels echoed from above.
The presence of another person, something he hadn't felt once while wandering the dark forest.
Startled, the man looked up at the grand central staircase from where the sound came.
…Or rather, he tried to look.
“What do you think? I decorated it quite nicely, didn't I? I thought a guest might come someday, so I put in some effort.”
“Kugh…!”
*Rumble!*
An absurd pressure, accompanying the voice, crushed the space around him.
An overwhelming presence that made him realize his own insignificance just by being near.
He understood with bone-chilling clarity that the one looking down at him from the top of the stairs was the Progenitor he had only heard of in rumors, Vespera.
But feeling such a difference in class meant he was mentally cornered.
The man couldn't even lift his head, struggling just to remain standing.
However, when the man still hadn't raised his head after some time, did she grow disappointed?
Vespera, who had been standing at the top of the stairs, descended with a click-clack of her heels, speaking as if bored.
“How boring… So, what brings you all the way here? If you've come to declare war, I'd be happy to accept.”
“Guuh… Huff, huff…! The… Commander-in-Chief… p-proposes… a-an alliance…!”
“Hmm. Surprising. Even after I killed one of your so-called Seven Extremes?”
“Y-yes, but… eliminating humanity… from this land… c-comes first, he said…”
*Drip. Drip.*
Sweat poured from the man's downturned face, falling to the floor like rain.
It was a physiological reaction caused by the immense mental effort it took just to utter a single word.
At a glance, it was a sight one might find messy and dirty.
However, perhaps it didn't bother Vespera, the master of this castle.
Having approached him, she looked down at him intently and spoke as if she had just realized something.
“Now that I see you up close, I get it. The indigo skin, the cloying scent of blood that naturally emanates from you… You're one of the Abyssals, who grow by devouring each other in the dark, aren't you?”
“Guh…”
“I see. So the Liberation Army has been replenishing its ranks. Well, it has been about half a year. I suppose another one has already filled the spot of the Seven Extremes I killed…”
Vespera lightly placed her hand on the head of the Abyssal man, who was still staring at the floor.
At that, the pressure intensified, and he began to grow delirious, as if he were about to lose his mind.
She smirked at the intense tension and fear she could feel from his very heartbeat.
Then, she slid her hand down to caress his neck and said.
“I hate running in packs. All I want is to keep someone I like by my side forever and live a reasonably enjoyable life. So whether it's the Metahuman Liberation Army or the Fixers… I couldn't care less. So I'm planning to refuse…”
“Ugh…”
“There's no need to go through the trouble of sending you back. If the messenger never returns… the message of my refusal will get through just fine, won't it?”
“Wh-what…?! G-guaaaaaah!”
*Crunch.*
Vespera's nails, harder and sharper than steel, gently dug into the man's neck.
But even then, he was still alive. The Abyssals boasted a tenacious life force, enough to survive even if their necks were half-severed.
However, as she naturally pushed a portion of the blood flowing from her nails into the man's body, the frenzied blood began to voraciously devour him from the inside.
And so, in just a few seconds, the Abyssal man's very existence was erased.
Retrieving her blood and feeling a slight sense of satiation, Vespera licked the sticky blood from her hand and muttered to herself in a bewitching voice.
“Come to think of it, I wonder if my cute little baby… is doing well?”
*Creak. Crack.*
Having taken in new blood, her body creaked and stirred from within.
It was an ominous sound, as if signaling that the day she would venture out into the world was not far off.
***
The Fixer Association, Nighthaven Branch.
Perhaps because Nighthaven, the city of metahumans, was home to hundreds of Fixers and aspiring Fixers.
This place, which handled all Fixer-related business, was as chaotic as a battlefield every single day.
However, the further down one went from the surface, the more the noise decreased exponentially.
This was because the underground levels housed a high-security facility, inaccessible without authorization.
And among them, in the Black Area with the highest security level, a place whose very existence was known to few.
Two figures stood side by side in this room, which was lined with shielding walls that blocked external magic and radio waves.
“Alright, Lady Yuria. Please begin.”
“…Okay.”
The two were Yuria and Jellin.
Yuria was in her signature maid outfit, which she now felt strange without, while Jellin wore a formal suit.
However, the atmosphere surrounding them was utterly serious, as if they were in no mood for jokes.
In the quiet, Yuria used her psychokinesis to lift the Crescent she was holding tightly into the air.
The moment the object floated forward about three steps away, an opaque, fog-like current suddenly swirled around the Crescent like a vortex.
It was a phenomenon that would make anyone realize something unusual was happening.
But unlike the somewhat tense Jellin, Yuria remained calm, as if she were used to it.
“This is…!”
When the swirling fog that had enveloped the Crescent vanished without a trace.
There, astonishingly, stood another Yuria in a modest posture.
From her shimmering white hair to her smooth, slender thighs and down to her thin ankles.
Even the one-of-a-kind high-quality maid outfit and the somewhat dazed expression were identical on the second Yuria.
It was a stunning sight, as if an invisible mirror had been placed in mid-air.
Startled, Jellin looked at the real Yuria and muttered in disbelief.
“This is the ability to mimic people… The reproduction rate is beyond imagination.”
“Mhm.”
Yuria nodded triumphantly at her wide-eyed muttering.
She seemed to be saying, *This is the Crescent's ability to mimic people!*
Did that feeling transfer to the Crescent mimicking Yuria?
The second Yuria touched her neck sheepishly, looking embarrassed, which was quite a cute sight.
That's right. Anyone could have figured it out by this point…
What they were conducting in the Association's secret area was none other than a performance test for the Crescent.
Yuria had revealed to Jellin that the Crescent had awakened at Tempest Stadium.
Startled by the news of the sudden activity from the object that hadn't awakened no matter what they did, she had suggested scheduling a performance test.
“Lady Yuria. What is the Crescent's condition? Is there any possibility of it going berserk like before…?”
“Uh-uh.”
“No such symptoms? That's a relief.”
Of course, the main thing they were checking now was the Crescent's controllability.
Having already gone berserk and caused trouble once, the Crescent was an object of caution.
Since Yuria herself was cooperating peacefully with the research on psychic powers.
Nothing had yet been decided on how to utilize the Crescent.
“Then, let's start by checking the basics. Can the Crescent in Lady Yuria's form speak?”
“…”
“It can't…? Then, can it use psychic powers?”
*Hmm, I tried making it, but it couldn't.*
Yuria shook her head as if to say just that.
It seemed it could mimic magic, but not the same psychic powers.
Jellin thought so and posed questions that could be answered with a 'yes' or 'no'.
*Nod, nod. Shake, shake. Nod, nod…* How long did they repeat this process?
Soon, the following was revealed about the Crescent.
For the Crescent to mimic someone, it must be near them for at least a few hours.
And while mimicking, the Crescent can read the target's memories to imitate their actions.
However, the Crescent can only perform words and actions that the target would likely do.
If it intentionally tries to deviate from that, it immediately loses its ability to speak.
After hearing this from Yuria, Jellin frowned slightly and hummed in thought.
It was because the Crescent's ability was proving more difficult to utilize in various ways than she had thought.
“Hmm, this is rather difficult to use. The fact that the duration shortens the more you guide it toward specific actions… and it's a shame that it mimics the target's weaknesses as well as their strengths.”
“Mhm…”
Yuria nodded in agreement with her conclusion.
Jellin's assessment wasn't wrong, even in her own opinion.
The ability to perfectly mimic a target… sounds amazing at first glance.
The problem was that the transformed Crescent couldn't act on its own will.
It imitates the target exactly as they are, creating a fake that's difficult to distinguish from the real one.
While that had its own uses, compared to the versatile Tesseract or Echo, its applications were rather limited.
It would have been great if it could have mimicked Yuria's psychic powers to form a double psychokinesis duo.
But since it could mimic magic but not psychic powers, it was inevitably a bit disappointing.
‘Huh, then maybe Silver Cat's actions back then, when she tried to 'devour' her partner in a different sense…’
*Ah, so that's why…*
At the sudden thought, Yuria made an expression like a cat that had seen the universe.
She felt herself blushing, having unintentionally peeked into someone's inner thoughts.
*This was something I didn't need to know.* She felt needlessly sorry for Silver Cat.