Hermit Wizard
Chapter 49

Condition of Trust (4)

The three were burnt to a char – their death seemed imminent, and the remaining one was treated quickly with magic because the amount of bleeding was serious. Only after I thought that they wouldn’t die right away, I moved on to the next step. On behalf of Parvache, who couldn’t use magic, I reached out in front of them. I operated Mana according to Parvache’s guidance.

The brainwashing method wasn’t to completely subdue and dominate the soul, as the higher beings commonly did, but rather to inject powerful magical suggestions into the brain. If it was a magical principle, It couldn’t escape Parvache’s knowledge. I repeatedly infused Mana as Parvache ordered several times, and he explained the reaction.

[…Based on the power of natural force, it is a magic trick that combines spiritual magic. But this Mana pattern isn’t unfamiliar, where did I see it…]

Although they had been treated, they were still close to dying, and their brain function was also extremely weak. As Mana’s constant flow stimulated the brain, the Mana pattern embedded in it easily emerged to the surface.

[Ah…I get it. I know what it is!]

“What is it? Can you see anything?”

Garam, who heard the telepathy, approached and asked. Then Parvache replied.

[These humans… are puppets of Fake God!]

***

After using Mana as Parvache guided me, I successfully transformed the Mana piece in the man’s brain into a form that Parvache could recognize. Parvache interpreted it to us.

[I don’t think that the Fake God is around here right now. Because of the distance, it is unable to directly control their behavior or share their senses. It put some strong hints and released them around here. But…how come it accurately grasped the range of the Mok-dong barrier and planted it in their head?]

I was going to go crazy. In the end, it meant it noticed the barrier without touching it. How could I hide this more elaborately? I felt my head starting to ache.

[They have to patrol within the boundaries. If they find something suspicious on the way, they are supposed to open the Mana circuit of the Mystic Eyes…so the eye’s Mana circuit was opened temporarily, and the results reported over the phone.]

“Mystic Eyes?”

[It’s a rough name. Actually, it is a trick that destroys the survival instinct and draws out life force to use it as a substitute for Mana. It just thinks of these humans as consumables that it uses once and throws away. Even if we left them like this, they would have died in a few days anyway. It is to force ordinary humans who do not have Mana to use their life force to open the Magic Eyes. It’s a rough trick.]

Mrs. Pearl, who was listening, posed a question.

“No, but why did they run against us like that?”

[They are supposed to report on the phone as soon as they find the target. If it becomes impossible to contact or is found out by the target, they’ve been faithfully driven by suggestions that they should attack and lure the target out of the barrier.]

Garam raised his eyebrows.

“Who on earth is the target?”

Parvache, who had been looking into the Mana patterns that I had visualized and floated in the air, replied with telepathy carrying anger.

[The wizard who created this barrier.]

It seems like it was now clear who the target was.

“The wizard.”

Parvache poured out unrefined, rough telepathy.

[Back then, these poor little bastards flocked at a whiff and didn’t even dare to unfold themselves to us. At best, they brainwash primitive short-lived species with the skill of reading brain waves, and they dare to eat and live as Gods…]

Parvache has already explained what kind of race the “Fake God” was. Parvache, who rarely let out such a violent reaction, asked me.

[Are you tracking it now?]

“Yeah. If they’ve been in touch with it regularly, they might notice the situation right away. I have to take the lead.”

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t leave it as long as I knew what it was looking for. Considering the ill will contained in the method is used, the possibility of reasoning was slim. Above all, I should check how my information leaked out.

“Tell me the Mana pattern of the species.”

I memorized the pattern that Parvache showed before my eyes. I just needed to use the tracking magic.

“Oh, and…”

I looked at Garam and Mrs. Pearl. Did I really need to take them?

“This is a fight with the guy who came to me anyway. I don’t think both of you need to be involved anymore. In this case, it’s not a violation of the contract if you don’t help.”

They couldn’t go home without me, but why didn’t they just wait here? After hearing me, Mrs. Pearl looked up at me. They said that she once was riding on Garam’s back, and her original body size… was about the same as a fox…but it was a kind I had never seen in my life.

If the fur were white, it could be called a white fox, and if it were red, it could be called a red fox. However, I didn’t know what to call a fox whose fur was transparent like glass and reflected the strands of cohesive hair close to the skin were closer to white, so it was more like a white fox.

She opened her mouth.

“But we also need to check the existence of the alien world and the power and scale of the brainwashed humans. The fact that they are wandering near the Mapo Bridge is an uneasy factor in the future. Moreover, Yoon, you are now giving our village a ways. If anything happens to you, it is an affliction of the village. I know you already have great power, but our help won’t be meaningless.”

Garam nodded his head as if he meant the same thing.

“If Brother Yu were here, he would be very helpful, but he has already returned to Jeju. He won’t even be sleeping, so I have no way to contact him.”

I knew they would help, but I wasn’t happy with it. If these two were attached to me, I couldn’t open the Channel on my chest and perform the summoning, so the number of cards I could use decreased. According to Parvache’s explanation, it seemed to be a level that didn’t require summoning, but the more options, the better.

Oh, I got an idea.

“Hey, I’m grateful for both of you, but isn’t there anything I need to check in advance? If you come here to help and get brainwashed, you’ll be a great nuisance…”

“But it can’t penetrate our soul; we are Spirit Beasts.”

Parvache, who was listening to us, interrupted.

[This is not a principle that touches the soul.]

“You mean the seeds of domination?”

[Yeah. But whether it is there or not is a difficult problem to determine here. I can’t read brain waves. Actually, there is a more certain way…]

Parvache looked at Garam and Mrs. Pearl in turn and asked.

[Both of you, how old are you? Tell me exactly in numbers.]

***

If he had to make an excuse, he might be able to explain why he didn’t pay close attention to collecting dreams at random. There weren’t many humans sleeping because it was daytime. The speed of collecting dreams was too slow, and the power collected so far wasn’t suitable for using the Dream-Travel.

Yusu, who was in a hurry, was busy making fun of his steps and couldn’t mind releasing the hermit’s technique. If it had been his personality, he would have moved to a dark place as soon as he saw signs. Suddenly, a man attacked him, and when Yusu easily avoided the attack, the man stared at himself and abruptly turned his back and started running at full speed. It was an obvious provocation to anyone. However, Yusu noted that the pace was too fast and that it wasn’t far from the crack in space.

He thought he would go back to the river and bring Yoon Min-joon and Garam’s party together, but in the meantime, it seemed that he would miss out on that man’s actions. His physicality was excellent, but his mind wasn’t: this prompted Yusu to pursue his investigation. A short chase battle continued, and this time Yusu naturally passed through the Mok-dong barrier that blocked Garam. After signing the contract, Yoon Min-joon excluded Yusu, Garam, and Mrs. Pearl from the barrier’s targets. In particular, in the case of Yusu, it was taken because there was a high probability of meeting again.

Yusu, who came to the outside of the barrier without any hindrance, finally encountered “him” in a hilly mountain.

“…What is he doing?”

When the hoodie, which was completely flipped over, rolled down, the face covered in the shadows was revealed. Dozens of eyes that humans couldn’t see. All those eyes flashed as they looked at him.

=Here you are, Wizard.=

The voice rang directly in the head through pure will, without borrowing the form of language. Yusu frowned at the indignity of malice in it. An intense conscious tapping of the aftereffects of direct exposure to a child or human beings.

“He’s definitely not a human, and it’s too unfamiliar to think of him as being beyond the wall… I see. Is he a strange monster from beyond the crack in space? It looks like he came from another country. I heard through Garam that there is no other open crack in this land…”

The alien race hesitated and laughed, then asked Yusu via telepathy.

=I can’t understand what you’re talking about. By the way… I heard that there is a seed on your chest, but why can’t I see it?=

***

Instead of using telepathy, the wizard in front of his eyes insisted on bringing up a dialogue. Eraser learned that he couldn’t interpret his words. He belatedly used the interpretation magic because it was impossible to read the surface consciousness. After all, he wasn’t brainwashed.

=Is the Channel on your chest hidden by magic?=

“What bullshit are you talking about?!”

=Hmm, I can’t interpret it. It looks like your language isn’t recorded in Akashic Records.=

The wizard could understand Eraser’s telepathy, but Eraser couldn’t interpret his voice. Eraser couldn’t see the Channel, but it didn’t bother him much. That wizard must have done something to hide it. Well, unless he was an idiot, it wouldn’t be openly exposed.

There was something else that caught Eraser’s eye. The surface consciousness couldn’t be read, but the elements that make up the mind were visualized. The size of the Wizard’s spirit world, which was seen as a light source to Eraser, was enormous. If he had lived a normal human lifespan, he couldn’t build that size. Were all human wizards in this dimension like that?

Soon, he denied the question himself. Eraser speculated that he would have exceeded his lifespan after extreme practice in magic. And another…various elements made up the wizard’s spirit world; there was an intense golden glow among them.

Eraser noticed that the wizard’s body was surprisingly scented with the smell of divine power. It was a rare case, but it wasn’t impossible. Being both a wizard and a priest. That “seed of domination” would aim at the god he serves as a priest. The way wizards and priests borrow divine power differs from each other. The wizard obtains spells in exchange for offering sacrifices. The priest receives divine power in exchange for faith and obedience to the gods.

Eraser easily recognized that the wizard in front of his eyes was using only magic that didn’t borrow the power of a god and gained divine power as a priest by giving faith to a certain god.

The god receiving the sacrifice didn’t respect the wizard’s faith, but the god receiving the faith required the priest to serve only himself. Since that person had already obtained divine power, he wouldn’t need to receive a separate magic spell from the god he served. And the act of offering a sacrifice to an entity other than the god he served was interpreted as a betrayal of faith, so he wouldn’t be able to receive orders from other gods.

‘Probably impossible, but let’s try.’

Eraser tried to change it at once based on the seeds of domination that the wizard had, but it wasn’t easy. The wizard’s expression hardened as if he felt something during the attempt. Eraser made up his mind that he had to try brainwashing after distracting his concentration.

=Go! My believers!=

The believers who were surrounding Eraser rushed to the wizard at the same speed as howling wind.