Fear Is Eternal
Fear is eternal.
Filling
[Class Exclusive]
Loads fear into the Injector.
- Charging.
A murmur rose in my mind, and at the same time, a hot yet cold energy slipped from my fingertips. Two black bullets materialized inside the cylinder.
Charging
- ‘Aichmophobia’: The fear of sharp or pointed objects.
Charging
- ‘Pyrophobia’: The fear of fire.
Click.
After confirming the creation of the fear bullets, I flicked my wrist to load the cylinder, then quietly stared at the base access token—no, at Noir.
“...Raven, what is that?”
Her two eyes, fixed on the Injector hanging from my finger, trembled faintly. Between her usual expressionless face, a slight tension and a subtle trace of fear peeked through. Half-elves were said to be extremely emotionless, but seeing how she had gotten angry with me that morning and reacted like this now, it seemed she wasn’t completely devoid of feelings.
She has emotions, but it feels like she doesn’t quite understand them.
It was a bit unfortunate, but I wasn’t the type to feel pity for things I couldn’t help with. My policy was to reduce unnecessary emotional expenditure and wasted time. I simply did what I could and helped where I was able.
“It’s a tool to plant fear in you.”
With those words, I raised the muzzle and aimed it at Noir’s head.
“...!”
Noir flinched, quickly stood up from her seat, and then hugged Croma senior from behind—using her as a shield. She had clearly never seen a gun before. Had she sensed something? It was quite an interesting reaction.
“...Boss? What exactly are you doing right now?”
Croma senior looked at Noir, who had hidden behind her like a shy child in front of strangers, with an incredulous expression. Noir rubbed her chin against the top of Croma senior’s red head and began to whine in a way that wasn’t quite a whine, like a child who didn’t want a shot.
“Hmm. Maybe it’s fine if I don’t know what fear is? There’s the glove Croma gave me, so there’s no risk of getting hurt. Do I really need to know what fear is?”
Noir suddenly began pleading while stroking Croma senior’s cheek with her white-gloved hands. But Croma senior seemed to have a different opinion.
“Hmm?”
She grabbed both of Noir’s wrists, which were kneading her cheek as if it were dough, and stopped her. Then she turned to Ito Sakana, who was absentmindedly admiring Noir’s appearance while stroking his short chin beard, and spoke calmly.
“Sakana.”
“Yes?”
“Hold the boss down and make her sit.”
“Croma?”
Noir’s voice trembled faintly. Her cold, expressionless face remained the same, yet a hint of shock mixed with a sense of betrayal lingered in it.
“....”
Soon, Noir’s cool gaze rotated halfway from the top of Croma senior’s head to face Sakana.
“H-how could a disciple dare lay hands on his master’s body....”
The look in her eyes clearly carried the unspoken question: Are you planning to betray me too? Receiving that gaze head-on, Sakana quietly lowered his head.
But.
“Sakana. This is all for the boss. So grab her and sit her down right now. Don’t you remember what happened in the Red Zone before? Are you going to regret it again only after the boss turns into a charred lump?”
At Croma senior’s unusually calm voice,
“...Master, please forgive this unworthy disciple.”
“....”
Sakana stood up as if entranced and gently grabbed Noir, forcing her to sit. Noir, perhaps moved by something in Croma senior’s words, offered no major resistance. I had no idea what had happened between them, but all I needed to do was my job and receive my reward.
“Are you ready?”
I asked Noir, who was staring blankly at the desk with a resigned look.
She nodded quietly.
“Confirmed. Then I will proceed with injecting the fear.”
Click.
I aimed the muzzle at her head. Then, anxious voices came from both sides.
“...Raven oppa. But. Is that weird wand really safe? It’s not that I don’t trust you, but something about it feels off?”
“...I heard a rumor that the weapon that half-destroyed the White Zone’s head looks like a black wand. It can’t be that one, right? Haha. I’m sorry. There’s no way. I’m worrying over nothing again....”
“It is that weapon, but there’s no need to worry.”
“Huh?”
“What?”
“Nyang?”
Ah, maybe I shouldn’t have said that here. But my soft brain, addicted to fear, preferred to spit out words that created even the slightest anxiety, so it couldn’t be helped. Since you created the Demon of Terror, you’ll just have to endure it.
Savoring the sweet-and-salty fear, I calmed the three from the Rainbow Cup who were slowly trying to distance themselves from me.
“So, that weird wand is a weapon that doesn’t harm humans, right?”
“Correct.”
The Injector only applied ‘phobias’ to humans and inflicted no separate damage. Of course, if I poured in a lot of mana, it could cause mental pain, but it couldn’t cause physical injury. This was a fact I had confirmed last night by diligently pulling the trigger on test subjects’ fingers, so it was accurate.
And.
New Class: ‘Plague Doctor’
“Those damn bastards. I’ll eradicate every last one of you.”
The Plague Doctor is a very special physician who favors a specially crafted revolver over a thin, sharp scalpel. Even if he suddenly points the muzzle at you, don’t dodge! His long, black revolver prioritizes removing only ‘plagues.’ All that remains for the patient is the residue of pain.
Do not be afraid. No—be afraid!
After long research, he developed a new treatment method using fear. He succeeded. If you want to escape a terrible plague, fear him! The greater the fear, the more perfect his treatment will become.
The fact that the Injector does not harm humans was subtly noted in the patch notes as well. Thinking about it now, when I triggered the fear of explosions in the dungeon, the reason Sion and the adventurers survived being caught in a massive explosion comparable to a high-pressure thermal round without dying was probably because of this.
Ah, and from all the clinical trials and real combat experience so far, I learned one more thing. The ‘plague’ mentioned in the patch notes probably refers to the anomalies existing within the dungeon. Seeing that the Injector, which barely affects humans or objects, only reacts to them, this is confirmed.
The strange part is that this damn thing doesn’t recognize its owner and reacts to me as well. No matter how much I’m a ‘plague’ doctor, treating me like an actual plague is a bit much, isn’t it? Or maybe I’m something similar to those anomalies.
If so—
Could the anomalies in the dungeon be friends who crossed over from other games, just like me?
What the goddess judges as a plague are beings that came from other games. As I was thinking that, a double-layered voice—sharp yet subtly mixed with worry—reached me.
“Hey, Raven oppa? Why did you suddenly freeze like a brain-dead crow statue? Nyang?”
“Ah. Sorry.”
My thoughts wandered again.
It was a bad habit I’d developed while living alone in Terraforming—thoughts chaining together and expanding, then suddenly taking a sharp curve onto a completely different path. It had gotten a little better now that I had a contractor and Sion around, but it still flared up whenever there was something to think about. I needed to fix it, but it wasn’t easy.
I lightly shook my beak to shake off the stray thoughts, cleared my throat a little, and began explaining to the second patient after Sion and her guardians.
“From now on, I will inject fear into Noir.”
The types of fear to be injected were two in total.
“Fear of fire and bladed weapons. Raven oppa has pretty good sense, nyang?”
“It certainly seems like an essential fear for a chef.”
“But, Raven oppa. Just how strong is the fear? If it’s so bad that she can’t even go near fire like Sakana, that would be troublesome.”
Fear is necessary in life, but too much of it becomes a disease. That was why I had practiced controlling the intensity of fear through numerous clinical trials with test subjects.
The intensity of fear was basically determined by the amount of mana used to create the bullet. According to my research, when the mana was in the double digits, it corresponded to the fear an average person would normally and daily feel. Anything beyond that caused abnormal symptoms such as suddenly wetting oneself, having seizures, displaying strong violence, or repeated fainting. So it seemed like something I’d only use when educating bad friends.
“Everyday fear? That sounds just right. Looks like I was worrying for nothing. I like it.”
Croma senior nodded as if satisfied with my explanation, then asked one last question.
“How long does the fear last?”
“Yeah. There must be a limit to how long an authority can be applied, right? Do we need to get injections once a month or something?”
“There is no need for that.”
Whether I injected 1 mana or 1000, once the fear was injected, it would never disappear. As long as I didn’t retrieve it again, it would remain forever.