Chapter 193 - Trauma

“Wait.”

Ferda spoke as he looked at the two walking ahead.

“While you two check the path, may I take a look over there?”

Ferda pointed to the room as he asked them.

The two glanced at the room Ferda wanted to inspect.

There were a few desks and shelves filled with books.

With only a rough look at its form, they could guess what kind of room it was.

“It seems to have been a reading room used with guests... For now, there don’t appear to be any traps.”

The adventurers looked it over as a whole, exchanged glances, and nodded.

“Please do.”

“In any case, there’s nothing good to be gained from having you with us right now...”

The adventurers did not bother stopping Ferda’s independent action.

For them, it was actually convenient.

In adventurer terms, Ferda was a novice, so it was obvious he would become a variable.

While they were at it, they decided to set down another burden and asked the armor knight standing beside him.

“Sir Knight, please move together with Regent Ferda as well.”

Nod, nod.

The armor knight obediently stuck to Ferda’s side.

“Wait.”

?

Ferda spoke to her with a serious face.

“Don’t stick too close. I would like you to keep some distance.”

... Nod.

She seemed disappointed.

That disappointment gave him chills.

What kind of grown man acted like that?

“I will return in ten minutes.”

“Do that.”

Suppressing that feeling, Ferda pulled out one of the shelved books whether she was beside him or not.

But he had no choice but to frown immediately.

‘The script is different.’

It was not runes, nor was it the commonly used imperial language.

As befitted an obscure land, its writing system was also used independently.

Fortunately, Erica knew this, so it could be interpreted.

For now, Ferda spread out across the study, picked out several samples, and packed them away.

If there were books among them related to cultivation methods or emotions, that would be a worthwhile gain for Ferda in its own way.

As he searched for information like that, Ferda realized one thing.

“Ten minutes should have long since passed...”

It was time for them to call Ferda and the armor knight so they could leave, but they had not returned.

‘A trap to lure me out?’

Ferda reflexively suspected them.

‘... That can’t be it.’

Looking at their attitude, it had been clear they found him troublesome.

And even that was only from the burden of having to bring novices along.

If this had been a trap, they would have acted far more kindly than that.

“Then conversely, they may have fallen into a trap.”

!!

The armor knight was greatly shaken.

She turned her head toward the door they had come in through.

“Let’s go find them first.”

Nod!

Her steps seemed motivated.

But Ferda did not like that motivation.

“Wait.”

?

“Follow behind me. If it is magic, I will check it first.”

Nod.

Still, since she obediently listened, it was not entirely bad.

Ferda carefully moved along their tracks.

The path continued in a straight line, then a route branched off to the right.

Ferda did not need to think about where to go.

A groaning sound came from the path leading straight ahead.

Following the sound, he found the adventurer there.

“Uuuuugh...”

He was looking somewhere and suffering terribly.

Ferda held his breath and signaled the armor knight to stop.

Ferda walked forward first and checked the place.

“I’m sorry... I didn’t do it for this. Please...”

The adventurer was looking somewhere, confessing his sins, and begging for salvation.

‘An illusion?’

Was a Demon lying in ambush?

Ferda’s eyes began to glow faintly.

He tried to break the source of the illusion with mana detection.

But what appeared in his eyes was surprising.

‘I can feel magic faintly... but this isn’t enough to say he’s under an illusion.’

If it were caused by magic, there would have to be a trace of mana wrapping around his head or eyes.

If that were dispelled, he could wake up.

But the mana was rising from his heart and lower abdomen, and the amount was faint as well.

‘If that’s the case...’

Ferda suddenly recalled the things that had happened with Luri.

The past and regrets she had confessed.

The pain that came from them.

After grasping the situation, Ferda checked the direction his gaze was following.

However, he did not look there.

Instead, he took out his staff.

“Lightning Spear.”

CRACKLE!

Red lightning flew toward the end of his line of sight.

CRACK!

He heard the sound of it striking flesh, digging in, and exploding.

Green blood and purple chunks of flesh scattered.

At the same time, the light returned to the eyes of the adventurer who had been caught by something.

“H-Huh? What in the world...”

“Are you all right?”

“Pardon? Ah, yes...”

“Where is the other one?”

“W-Well... More importantly, how did you get here...?”

His mind had returned, but he was rambling from the aftereffects.

“There’s no time. There is a high chance he was caught by the same thing as you. Do you want to watch him die?”

“Ah! I’m sorry! He probably... went into the fork before coming here!”

Ferda looked toward the armor knight.

‘If this one is bewitched by that thing, it will become an even bigger problem.’

“Armor knight.”

Nod?

“I’ll leave this adventurer to you. No matter where he points or tells you to look, absolutely do not look there.”

Nod.

At least her answers were refreshingly clear.

Whether he could trust her was another matter, but at this moment, Ferda had no other choice.

Since the Flint Expedition would become the starting point, he had to show how meaningful the results of this adventure could be.

Among them, making sure there were no casualties was essential.

As Hestia was a city built for the eastern conquest, survivors were extremely important to Ferda.

Ferda ran toward the place the adventurer had described.

When he retraced his steps and turned back to the fork, a similar groaning sound came from there as well.

The situation was worse than with the first adventurer.

The sight of an adventurer embracing some kind of lump entered his eyes.

Ferda reflexively covered his eyes.

It was already too late, but thanks to that, he was able to learn one piece of information.

‘It seems seeing its outline alone does nothing.’

That meant the key part of the illusion lay elsewhere.

For now, Ferda decided to rescue the adventurer.

Unlike the adventurer who had suffered in pain, this one wore an extremely happy face.

“Sandra... I am coming... Please, this time, I will be with you. I will never let you go...”

He could feel it.

Right now, in this moment, the man was being saved.

But now was the time to part.

“Lightning Bolt.”

A red bullet of lightning flew in a straight line and struck the lump.

CRACK!

Several things like black hands emerged from Ferda’s sleeve and grabbed the adventurer’s body.

In a place without a single light, the power of shadow was strong, and he was able to pull him away from the lump.

“Ah, aah!!”

There were wounds all over the adventurer man’s body.

Blood streamed from him, but he paid it no mind.

“Sandra...! My love, where have you gone!?”

“Come to your senses.”

“Sandra...! Sandra! Let go of me!”

Ferda forcibly pulled back the man who tried to rush toward the lump again.

“I said let go!”

The man drew a dagger and stabbed Ferda’s shadow.

“Ugh!”

Even if it was a shadow, the pain it felt was transmitted vividly.

Ferda recognized the pain he felt through those nerves as an illusion and quickly escaped it.

Everything was an unfavorable environment.

The thick demonic energy made him feel unpleasant, and the brief pain created a momentary lapse.

Because of that, he ended up seeing what the struggling man had been looking at.

It was only for an instant, but Ferda saw it clearly.

The huge eye the lump possessed.

‘Damn it!’

In the time it took to blink once, its form changed completely.

“Val...drova?”

Two pairs of horns and a beautiful appearance.

A figure whose healthy feminine beauty stood out so much that the word tyrant dragon did not suit her.

“Why are you here...?”

It could not be.

There was no way she could be here.

And yet she was here.

“Mr. Ferda...”

Her lovely voice called to him plaintively.

‘I can’t concentrate.’

Every time he looked at that thing now, he came to believe she was here.

She should be beneath Valdrova Castle right now.

He forcibly cast aside emotion and put logic first.

The mana bullet barely formed in Ferda’s hand struck Valdrova’s shape.

PUFF!

Her head snapped sharply backward.

He thought that if the form shattered, it would naturally scatter back into its true appearance, and Ferda would also be freed from what had caught him.

But it did not.

“Why... are you attacking me?”

Valdrova raised her head again and looked at Ferda.

Her head was half blown away.

Tears streamed from her remaining eye.

Ferda knew that sight.

Though she was human now, that was what she had looked like when she was a dragon.

Ferda kept hypnotizing himself.

That is not Valdrova.

“Ah, I see... I... am not needed...”

That is not Valdrova.

“Hehe... I’m sorry. I had another strange misunderstanding and caused you trouble again, Mr. Ferda...”

That is.

“This is what you needed, wasn’t it, Mr. Ferda?”

PUFF!

Valdrova.

“I’ll give it to you.”

She pulled out her own heart and offered it to him.

His reason collapsed, and the air of despair stabbed into Ferda’s lungs.

She staggered toward Ferda.

“So...”

Despair became regret.

Regret rolled through Ferda’s deep darkness.

“So...rry.”

It was then.

Valdrova’s figure suddenly shot upward.

The place where she had pulled out her heart was pierced through once more.

What stood tall there was a steel gauntlet.

What it held was a huge heart.

It tore out the heart the thing had and burst it just like that.

“Ah...!”

Along with the peak of regret, Ferda felt something that had been seizing his mind release.

He closed his eyes and opened them again.

In the place where Valdrova should have been, some kind of lumps were sagging limply.

Green blood and purple chunks of flesh.

They were unmistakably demonic creatures.

And they were in two places.

One was the place Ferda had fed a mana bullet into.

And the other was the one the armor knight had just pierced.

Ferda slowly recalled what he had seen and grasped the situation.

Another demonic creature had replaced Valdrova in the spot where she had been pierced between the brows and continued the illusion.

It made the opponent think they had killed it, but in the end, it did not die and tormented the opponent further.

Even Ferda had to admit it was an excellent trick.

‘So this is what Luri saw...’

It certainly drove one out of their mind.

There had been no sign of it using magic, so responding with magic was difficult as well.

What was certain was that they needed countermeasures against that thing.

But what he needed above all was stability.

“Ugh...”

The Shadow Circle was spinning like mad.

It was one step away from making Ferda burst and die.

The armor knight carefully reached her hand toward his face.

Her intention was undoubtedly concern for Ferda.

That was kindness.

That kindness once again formed Valdrova’s shape and appeared before his eyes.

“Get away from me!”

Ferda roughly slapped that hand away.

Valdrova’s form returned to the armor knight.

She was flustered, withdrew her hand, and carefully stepped back.

A beast was sharpest when its weakness was exposed.

Ferda was showing his weakness.

He could not allow that.

In this land of despair, despair was easy prey.

Ferda steadied his breathing and answered politely.

“I’m sorry, but... please stay away.”

... Nod.

As if reluctantly understanding, she carefully slung the adventurer over her shoulder and led the way.

Ferda followed behind her.

For some reason, her back kept looking like Valdrova.

He thought he was going mad.

Not everyone gathered on time.

Surprisingly, everyone who had split up and moved separately had fallen victim to the same demonic creature.

The ones who suffered the greatest damage were Ferda’s right-side group.

“For now, I will name this creature ‘Trauma.’”

Their common trait was that they pulled out memories from the opponent’s mind and showed that illusion.

That illusion was of the person they missed most in their lives.

“It seems impossible to block that gaze with mental armament magic. So, based on my guess, it may be hypnosis rather than magic.”

“Hypnosis...”

“Is that possible even if it isn’t magic?”

“From what I can guess right now, I think it is formed like a trap. A trap that activates the moment you see its eye.”

That was Erica’s guess.

If a demonic creature called Trauma were casting hypnosis magic, there would be a shape of mana, and if they broke that shape of mana, they could escape it.

“What will you do? Should we not split up and move together?”

After seeing a horrible illusion, it would have been enough to make anyone lose heart.

Even so, the adventurers who had been caught did not easily say they should join up.

“It wasn’t as though there were any other traps, and if the biggest trap is only that thing called Trauma...”

“If we are just a little careful, I think it is sufficiently manageable...”

They still thought this was an adventure worth attempting.

“Then we will move in the same groups as before. This time, we should do it in a way that avoids making eye contact with them as much as possible. We will go in pairs of two while facing each other.”

“You mean so we can tell right away if one of us is caught.”

“Understood.”

“Let us continue with deeper exploration. Before that, does anyone have any questions?”

No one raised a hand.

“Good. Then we will do personal maintenance again and depart as we are. Take a ten-minute break.”

They scattered for a moment like that and checked their equipment.

“Captain Eri.”

The one who called her aside was Ferda.

“Go ahead.”

“I found these books in the place I went to.”

Ferda secretly brought her several books.

“They are written in an Eastern script. Are you asking me to interpret them?”

“Yes.”

“I only memorized a few of the important meanings myself, so first, hm...”

Erica lightly looked over the contents of the books, then asked this.

“Did you find them all in one place?”

“That’s right. It was one place, but I brought them from separate spots.”

“But there is one thing they have in common.”

“What is it?”

“This character here, see?”

The character Erica pointed to was, as she said, included in every book.

“This is the character for love.”

“Love...”

“I don’t know what content the books contain, but for now, they are all books related to love.”

Since a powerful intuition had drawn him there, these were things Ferda needed.

It had to be a place where texts on controlling and handling emotions were stored.

Most such places had secret passages, and if one moved into the depths, secret manuals were kept there.

“Then that is where we should go.”

“Yes. There may be a magic tool, and if there is even a clue to obtaining what you want, that alone will be enough. Is that all you needed?”

“There is actually one more thing.”

Ferda answered Erica’s question.

“You said the frontal group was also caught, didn’t you?”

“... That’s right.”

The ones caught in the frontal group were Erica and Virgil.

Unlike the side groups, who had received help from others, Erica had tried to break free on her own like Ferda.

And she had broken free.

“What exactly did you see then?”

“Must I answer?”

“It does not need to be specific. I simply want to confirm something.”

Erica pressed her lips tightly shut, then opened her mouth as if she had no choice.

“What I saw was... the greatest mistake I ever committed.”

What they had seen was different, but its essence was the same.

“How did you overcome it?”

That was what Ferda wanted to know.

How had she escaped that dreadful, terrifying thing?

Erica answered as if it were simple.

“Because I realized that mistake was the one thing I could never repeat twice.”

For Ferda, it was the worst possible answer.

Ferda’s Shadow Circle was still turning.

No, as time passed, it was moving even more violently.