317 – Hypnotic Detective’s Attack -3

The fight against a hypnotist is a fight against yourself.

Distinguishing whether or not you’re hypnotized is the key point and everything in the battle. If I think I want to eliminate the enemy, and I somehow become included in that enemy, it ends in self-destruction.

Also, starting with something as simple as a left-right reversal, if a perception change like, “when using magic, it’s common sense to overload it by slamming in 300% of magic power,” gets planted, things go south.

You need to meticulously grasp which points the opponent locked, and which points they unlocked. You must pay close attention to your actions.

It’s the same context as Scarface Senior’s puppetry. A life or death either-or choice. I have to constantly question myself.

‘Am I hypnotized?’

But if I hesitate and ponder like this, I’m just giving the hypnotist more time to cast their spell. The net becomes denser and more solid as time passes.

So, what should I do… In truth, there are many methods.

If it were Selvier, he’d just blow up the entire area. If it were Yuri, she’d finish it in a flash, and if it were Yuna, it wouldn’t work on her in the first place, so there wouldn’t even be a fight. So, what about me?

My choice for today is──a head-on fight.

“Mental barrier open, granting module autonomy.”

I lower my mental guard, creating a state of vulnerability.

──Again, the fight against a hypnotist is a fight against yourself.

And the simplest way to defeat yourself is to ask for help from someone else.

Even if you can’t study alone, wouldn’t you be forced to study if someone stood next to you with a club? All the tricky parts of hypnotism I mentioned earlier can be shattered by adding just one proposition.

The 『External Observer』.

Hypnosis falls apart if there’s just one sane observer who can say, “That guy’s acting weird.” That’s why the 『Hypnosis Detective』 drew me out with childish schemes.

But he didn’t know that a personality capable of independent action lived inside my head.

I absorbed him because he was a fragment that broke off from me, but for some reason, the personality remained, and I call him out. An unpleasant laughing sound echoes through my head.

-Kakkakak! It’s been a while, Body! I know the situation. I’ve been watching from the inside with the 『Promise』. I also know my duty. Let’s enjoy it together!

A crazy raven.

-But, no guard, you’re really wild. It’s good you’re using the 『External Observer』, but is there any reason you have to let them hit you with hypnosis? Huh?

“Don’t ask if you already know.”

-Right, to lure them out, I guess. Caw caw! If you crush them too overwhelmingly, they’ll run, so you’re creating a crisis to make the main body show itself, right? I know that, but that’s *why* I have to ask!

Bubbling.

Information gathered around my shoulder, and a raven with pitch-black feathers appeared, tilting its head this way and that. This guy and I are a two-man team.

Battle start.

–

The circling eyes of the animals surrounding me, their cries, the sounds of rustling brush—it’s all a hypnotic attack. It’s dissonant, yet there’s a regularity to it; its measured rhythm plants malicious data in my mind.

And yet, I feel no unease at all. A suspicious black hand crawling from the edge of my vision, the world flipping upside down, spiders tumbling down from the trees—

It’s all perfectly natural. Not strange in the slightest.

In this sane world, I was making normal, accurate judgments.

“Isn’t it common sense that when a fight starts, you strip naked and hit yourself in the temple with your secret weapon?”

-Caw caw caw! How do you feel? I’m so curious since I’ve never been hypnotized before!

Seeing the raven ramble on, it seems like it’s not common sense at all. Even though I opened my mental barriers, the skill it took to put me under this level of hypnosis in almost an instant is considerable.

I completely relinquished control of my body and only moved my mouth.

“I see what heroines under hypnosis are like. You know, how you want to give advice when you watch someone terrible at a game? That’s how it is. You look like a Bronze, raven.”

-A magic that makes you want to give bad advice… In a way, that’s quite cruel. Then, an eye for an eye… Shall we match with the same type of card?

Squish squish, wriggle wriggle wriggle.

A grayish-white mucus formed on the surface of my skin, creating peculiar spirals and generating special patterns. The hypnosis pattern of 『Great Kaiju』.

The effect is reduced ranged projectile accuracy and mental domination.

Of course, it doesn’t perform as frighteningly as it does within a session. But it can easily disrupt hypnotized beasts.

Squeak, bark, gurgle.

Along with the sounds of beasts, some break free from hypnosis and detach. At the same time, the animals still under hypnosis charged at me in unison.

Heeheeheeheehing—!

-Well, I’m not into non-anthropomorphic horses, so… sorry, but I must decline, Lady. 『Sight Steal』.

“『Sight Steal』.”

Swish, the trajectory of the mare charging from the front bends 45 degrees. The rush accompanied by hoofbeats and dust swerved past me.

-I hope you will share your overflowing affection with your neighbors. 『Berserker’s Chaos』.

“『Berserker’s Chaos』… is this really the right spell? Shouldn’t I be stripping down and shooting a Pasim Hyeonjeon at my head? That would end the battle.”

-Caw caw, that’s a truly great idea, but I must point out the fact that no one desires a male undressing, Host.

Whoosh.

A red mist rises around me. It maximizes the violence of the beasts that enter the mist’s radius, making them express anger over hypnosis.

Squeak, squeak! Kyaaak!

Their swirling eyes are overlaid with bloody light, and the beasts begin indiscriminately attacking the closest target. An eagle scratches a dog, a pig rams a rabbit – it’s utter chaos.

The mad raven muttered from the middle of the carnage.

-Good. Their attacks aren’t working on us at all. Hypnosis is also under stable control. But… it’s a bit strange, Host.

“What is?”

-I don’t feel any impatience.

Indeed.

Combat involves reading the opponent’s mind. If the enemy seems to be deflecting my attacks well, I have to change tactics. I have to see through their feints, and when I have the advantage, I have to prepare for counterattacks.

That’s why I was practically invincible in one-on-one magic battles. My brain power made me good at magic itself, but it also let me see through my opponent’s mind, letting me stay one step ahead.

So… if a fight stretches on like this. I should be sensing flickers of unease, impatience, or even rage and competitiveness. But there’s nothing.

The crazy raven clicked its beak like it was tutting.

-Too mechanical, isn’t it? Let’s try a test. Try using half of『Stepping through the Door to the Next Realm』, then cancel it, Master.

“A thousand doors, a thousand steps, nowhere to rest your eyes, nowhere to rest your heart… actually, there is.”

*Whooom*—

As I prepared Stepping through the Door to the Next Realm, the hypnotized animals all opened their mouths to scream… but they snapped shut right as I canceled it.

-Hmm?

“This…”

I repeated the click of Stepping through the Door to the Next Realm a few times. The animal horde began to repeat an action and then cancel it. It was so stupidly straightforward, it was like they were buffering. This was, like.

An algorithm.

If I was preparing a big spell, they would try to do something. Otherwise, they’d just keep doing what they were doing. 100% mechanical.

They weren’t being remotely controlled from afar. They just had a well-crafted hypnosis installed in them and were turned loose. Like a chess-playing AI. They just followed procedure, with no intention of their own.

No wonder before the fight, we couldn’t get any sort of conversation going!

It was all pre-recorded audio. I’d been trying to explain things to a recording, fighting a bot the whole time.

“That b*stard, hiding his real body so thoroughly all this time. So he’s even making combat a simple click-click?”

-A pointless fight, a shadow-boxing match, wasn’t it, Master. This ambitious plan of yours to draw out the body of『Hypnosis Detective』is a failure.

“I even went out of my way to get hypnotized you ass… Re-activate mental defenses!”

-Caw caw! It was still quite fun, Master! I shall now, we shall now submerge into the shadows for our next encounter──.

* * *

*Crack.* I shattered the hypnosis that had burrowed into my mind in an instant. And without so much as a glance at the swarming beasts, I ran to escape the forest. There was no point in prolonging a fight that offered no advantage.

『Hypno-Detective』… That b*stard is incredibly thorough. I’ve never seen anyone try so hard to hide their identity. I’ll need to come up with another approach to track him down.

I think as I rush past the undergrowth.

Judging by what he said, 『Hypno-Detective』 is a mage who used to belong to the Purple Magic Tower. He holds a grudge against a guy called 『The Goat』 who was in the tower in the past, and he’s mistaken me for him.

I don’t know what this 『Goat』 guy does, but he’s no pushover, that’s for sure.

Thinking about it that way, the hypnotized animal horde… isn’t it a little weak?

*Click.*

“Huh.”

Something snagged my foot. It felt like a switch being flipped. A trap. Immediately, I drew on my magic and prepared to counter.

A powerful mental attack? Or an explosion? Whatever it is, I can deal with it as long as it’s made of magic──

*Thud-*!

“Ghk-!”

Something long and heavy slammed into my side.

The impact sent me flying through the air, rolling across the ground. My breath was completely knocked out of me. Clutching my stinging side, I lift my head.

I was aghast that such a subtle trap existed, one that I couldn’t even sense, but upon seeing what actually hit me, I was shocked in a different way.

It was a log.

“……..”

A log tied to a rope. A pure trap made entirely of 100% physical force, not a speck of magic infused into it.

Realizing it, I felt more bewildered than hurt.

“No fucking way.”

“Hypnosis Detective,” huh.

Said he was a magic tower wizard. Then he should be using magic, right?

No, wait. It’s not that he set this up… Maybe a professor or student left this here for class, and I just happened to step on it.

*Click.*

The instant I thought that, I stepped on another one.

“Aish, goddamn it!”

This time, I ducked to avoid it. A heavy sandbag whizzed right past the top of my head. Then, the sensor installed at the base of the tree flashed, and the trap activated.

This is a magic trap. Quickly, I reached out and connected a mana line, hacking its internal structure to deactivate it. Then—

Immediately, a coconut fell right on top of my head.

*Thwack!*

“Agh!”

Tears pricked my eyes. A wave of indignation started to swell.

Clutching my head, I looked around. Even if it meant wasting a bit of mana, I sent out mana waves in all directions, scanning the area.

Blink. Blinkblinkblink.

Countless traps shimmered in my vision, flaunting their presence. There was a reason why I hadn’t noticed them before, before this detailed search.

They weren’t magic traps set up *with* magic.

“…Drawn and engraved with mana stones, then.”

That b*stard made a kind of makeshift artifact and used it as a trap.

And on top of that, there are bound to be primitive, undetectable traps scattered around too.

I get it now. He’s calling himself a ‘Hypnosis Detective,’ but he’s more like 70% enchanter. Whether it’s an animal or an object, he’s engraving magic into it, setting up the board and making it move.

Mechanically. Full-auto.

A shiver.

I flinched, my body recoiling from the icy dread that snaked down my spine. This feeling, I’d felt it before. Somewhere… I’d had a similar experience. That pain, that helplessness, that overwhelming terror….

Mad creatures moving automatically, according to algorithms; soulless, enchanted traps; and primitive snares that operated by physics, not magic.

My forte, illusion magic, was completely useless in this inorganic mode of combat.

“How…”

I recalled the source of the terror, and I couldn’t help but let out a scream.

“How could a magician from the Ivory Tower wield the power of a cleaning golem—!!”

Rolling this way and that, ten minutes later, I barely managed to claw my way out of the forest, my entire body bruised and battered.

–

*Zzzzzing.*

Fire magic has a healing technique. Though less effective and efficient than divine magic, it still provides a nice, warm compress. Selvier focused the healing warmth on me with both hands and asked,

“…Just what were you fighting to get so beaten up? Was it some kind of Ascended-class dark mage attack, professor?”

I explained the fight in the forest to the assembled Yunayuri, Selvier, and the kid – the person at the center of all this.

“That’s how I lost track of *Hypnotic Detective*, kid. I wanted to catch the guy who hypnotized you, but it looks like that’s not going to happen.”

“Ah, yup. Th-that’s a pretty fascinating story.”

“You’ve got that ‘why are you telling me this?’ look, don’t you?”

“…Yeah. I’m not really sure.”

I raised my index finger, continuing the explanation.

“This whole ordeal made me realize, once again, that I’m incredibly vulnerable to things where human will isn’t involved. *Hypnotic Detective* just moved pawns to attack me, and they left absolutely no clues behind. Except for one.”

Stubbornly hiding his identity, using animals all this time, even faking sick days—but that guy, who wouldn’t lay a finger on the academy students.

“Why pick you of all people… that’s the thing.”

“……..”

It doesn’t add up.

If he needed a messenger, he could’ve just picked a student from inside the academy, or used an animal. There was no reason to drag some kid all the way from the desert kingdom.

I’d been suspicious from the start, but I dropped it since this brat has no magic power. How could someone without magic cast spells?

But… this fight showed that the “Hypnotic Detective” is closer to an enchanter than a hypnotist.

If, all this time, every incident…

“Wasn’t it meticulous planning to hide his identity, a scheme that precisely targeted my weaknesses… but more like, that’s all he could do?”

“……..”

“It’s you, the ‘Hypnotic Detective’.”

I stare intently. Beyond the bowl-cut boy’s eyes, I could clearly catch a tremor. At the same time, he realized that I’d seen through him.

A light of resolve. He moves.

“──’Hypnotic Coin’ activate!”

“Why do you think I gathered everyone? Subdue him!”

“It’s too late to escape. ‘Wishful Binding’!”

“‘Unload’ chambered, move again and I’ll shoot.”

*Charrrrrrr-!*

The sound of chains scraping. Before the “Hypnotic Detective” could even pull out the tied-up coin from his pocket, he was quickly rolled up and subdued.

Got you, you b*stard.