Chapter 242 – Rune Scrolls

What we encountered was a completely different creature wearing the mask of a beastman. My intuition as a wizard warned me, but what I had to do didn’t change.

What does it matter whether what’s in that skin hide is a human or a monster?
All you have to do is defeat it and retrieve the rune scroll.

“Wait a minute! Doesn’t that dreamer look like someone over there?”
“Get rid of the noise and get rid of it. Fix the habit of talking unnecessarily, Franz.”

The man called Franz looked at me with a furrowed brow. Franz was lost in thought in a situation where a battle seemed to break out at any moment. Although he is surrounded by many adventurers, he does not feel any sense of danger at all.

Are you a wizard?
Or unmanned?

I don’t know which one, but you seem to be pretty confident in your own strength.

“Yes! I remembered. He looks oddly like our master. The shape of the horns on his head and his eyes are similar. It’s because of his appearance that I’ve been bothered by him since before.”

While answering questions, Franz clapped his hands as if he was happy that his curiosity had been resolved. The woman in the trench coat next to her did not respond to Franz’s words. Unlike Franz, the woman’s side was distracted by being wary of us.

‘They look like their owners?’

He didn’t have time to ponder what he resembled. One of the attackers is making eye contact with me. The activation condition of Charm Eye is to radiate eye light the moment you make eye contact with the target. When the target’s optic nerve absorbs the red eye light, ‘mind control’ takes place.

‘You won’t be able to control your mind for long. The situation is different from Grendel’s time.’

There is a fact that I learned after experimenting with brainwashing ability for several days. The ability to control the mind of Enchanted Eye is noticeably less effective when used against a human type than when used against a monster type. The higher the intelligence quotient and the more rational, the easier it is to be freed from brainwashing.

When I just got the charm eye, I thought I could bewitched anything. But bewitching people’s minds is not an easy task. According to my calculations, bewitching that beast over there for about 3 seconds will be the end.

3 seconds.
Enough time to kill one person.

“What are those eyes? It feels strangely familiar.”

It was the moment when Franz looked carefully into my eyes, curious about his mysterious aura.

“Suck!”

I opened my eyes wide and focused the energy of fascination into the eyeballs. The moment the pupils dilated, a red light burst out of the pupils as if the shutter of a camera was pressed. The face of Franz, who was facing him, turned bright red.

“Determine yourself, Franz!”

In my head, I imagined the scene where the man in front of me broke his neck by himself. Franz staggered at the sudden burst of light in his eyes. Franz’s thick grip moved slowly toward his own neck.

“A fascinating eye!”
“Are you going to kill one person and start!”

Rebecca and Kate watched Franz with anticipation. As soon as he kills himself, you have to deal with the woman who will be left alone. But just as everything was going according to plan, something unexpected happened.

Franz’s hand, which was approaching the nape of his neck, stopped in the air.

“Big…”

The mental control was released without any warning. I should have given the order before the three seconds had passed, but Franz did not follow me. He just nods his head as he looks at me as he returns to his normal state.

“Isn’t it the fascination of the dream demon clan? Judging from the fact that it doesn’t have a tail, it must be a half-breed dream demon, but it seems to be learning excellent abilities. But mind control doesn’t work on me. Just that level of brainwashing ability isn’t enough.”
“Why…?”

Why doesn’t the charm eye work?
After carefully examining the two men and women again, I realized the reason.

“Huh.”

Franz and the girl’s pupils were out of focus like drug dealers. His expression was distorted, as if he were dreaming. At first, I thought it was because they were drug addicts, but I was mistaken.

The two men and women were already mentally controlled by other dreamers except for me. The hazy expression was proof that he was possessed by the dreamer.

“What, what is it? Why can’t I get charmed by them?”
“I’m already possessed by a dreamer who is superior to me. I need a stronger ability to shake their minds. I have no choice but to fight here.”

The plan to get rid of one guy and start went off the rails. Franz and the woman pulled out sharp long swords from the coats they were wearing. The moment I blinked, the two men and women kicked out of their seats and ran at explosive speed.

“Kill them all! I’ll take care of that dreamer!”
“…OK.”

Every time the two men and women took a step, the distance between us was shortened in an instant. Just before the collision, Wendy’s voice recited an incantation.

“Summon Earthworm!”

Kurururureung-!!

The ground in the cave shook as if an earthquake had occurred. The feet of the two men and women who were running split apart, and a slithering monstrous creature rose up. It was a huge earthworm with dense teeth at the end of its snout. An earth spirit summoned by Wendy through an amulet.

👌🏼 Kyaooooo!!

It looks hideous, but that earthworm is also a spirit. My eardrums are sore from bursting out with loud cries. The Earth Worm broke through the ground and tried to devour the two men and women. The moment the giant snout flew in, two longswords cut Earthworm’s forehead.

ㅡㅡ Keeeee!!!

It was splattered with mushy flesh and bodily fluids. The woman in her coat slithered atop the earth worm’s body. She descended on her long, worm-like body and, spreading her rapport, swung her longsword at Wendy.

Wendy, we can’t just watch her run away.
I gathered my mana and fired an ice pick.

[Ice Missile]

Kwajik! A thick ice pick hit the longsword of the woman who was drawing a trajectory. The longsword, whose angle had been twisted by the collision, narrowly grazed Wendy’s side. Rebecca jumped out at once and slashed the woman whose posture faltered.

“Don’t touch Wendy!”

The woman drew her longsword and blocked her mighty curved sword. The curved sword collided with the straight longsword, and a contest of strength began. A woman standing still is no different from already being a target. At the same time as I cast [Frozen Orb], Kate cast [Demon Punishment].

“The Lord has given me the authority to judge!”

A large amount of divine power was condensed to create a high-temperature beam of light. A heat wave radiated from Kate’s palm and swept over the woman’s body. Rebecca didn’t get swept away by the heat wave, as if she had correctly calculated her casting range. Only the body of the woman who was clashing with her knife burned.

“Kuk.”

In the spot where the heat wave passed, a woman with her whole body tanned was seen. However, even when her attacks hit, we were rather surprised. Her skin was burnt, but her clothes were ashes, but her woman’s body was intact.

“Hey, hey hey hey hey hey hey!!”

Kate, who fired the mania wave, let out her screams in surprise. The body of a woman whose whole body had been burned was wriggling and making changes.

Should I say it’s similar to a snake shedding its old skin? Fragments of her tanned skin tumbled to the floor. New flesh grew and covered the exposed blood vessels and muscles.

You can change your clothes, but change your skin?

It is a rare landscape that cannot be seen anywhere else on the continent.
Even if you apply Madecassol, which makes new skin appear, you can’t commit such an eccentricity.

“You burned your favorite clothes.”

The naked woman straightened her longsword as if nothing had happened. It was when she was loosing her eyes at the woman who had finished molting. I suddenly realized that her Franz, who was with her, had disappeared without a sound from her.

The nape of her neck felt chilly.
I quickly turned my head and looked behind me. Franz, who had disappeared, hid his presence and grabbed the hilt of her sword from behind. It approached at a speed beyond human perception.

“Bye!”

Franz’s longsword aimed at my neck. I could feel the downy hair standing on end, but my body had passed the risk of dying countless times. In the brief moment that was over in the blink of an eye, I canceled the [Frozen Orb] I was casting. The cold element compressed into a sphere was scattered into the air.

“Hagalaz…”

Controlling the elements is the power of mana.
By releasing mana, the scattered cold elements were gathered again. With a high degree of control, the cold element hardened into a solid form. My body was covered in thick ice just before the knife was stabbed in the nape of my neck.

“Ice shield!”

Quadduk!

The knife could not touch my body, which was covered in ice. The longsword penetrated quite deeply, but stopped right in front of the nape of the neck. I feel like a dinosaur in the Ice Age.

“This is why mages are annoying!”

Franz clicked his tongue and tried to plunge the longsword further into the ice. The moment he tightened his arm, I uttered a spell.

[Liquid Ring]

Waves rising from the ground swallowed Franz’s body. Swallowed by the waves, Franz was forced to be pushed a great distance. I melted the ice shield that wrapped around my body and released the frozen human state.

“Kheuuuuu.”

Franz, who stood up after the waves had passed, was in a miserable state. It is as if the whole body has been crushed by the water pressure. However, it was only for a moment that the body was crushed. Franz’s body quickly returned to its original state, like a balloon being inflated.

Regeneration beyond common sense.
It’s no different from the woman he’s using as a partner.

Gradually, I began to guess the identities of the two men and women. The blood flowing from your body wasn’t real blood. The paint was mixed to give it a red color, but the substance was a potion.

A healing potion created by alchemists by mixing various reagents.

It means that instead of blood, potions flow through your body.
It goes without saying that super regenerative abilities are exhibited. Although they have human shapes, they are artificial life forms created through alchemy.

“Is it a homunculus? I’ve never seen a perfectly moving homunculus like you guys.”
“…”

Silence soon became affirmation.

Franz, whose true identity was exposed, glared at me with bleak eyes. From the first time I saw him, I thought he was somehow foreign, but my intuition was right. Should I call it the Valley of the Unpleasant?

Homunculus.
An artificial life form created by an alchemist in a flask. It is a creature with complex magic theories that can be called the crystallization of alchemy.
The Mage’s Tower is also researching homunculus, but I heard that most of the failed works are unable to move.

It was the first time I knew there was a homunculus that moved so naturally.
If I reveal my true identity right away, the world will be in an uproar.

I asked Franz.

“Who is your master?”
“…”
“Are you Albert?”

Albert.
The moment he put the name, Franz flinched.

It seemed like a winner.