Chapter 88, Association President, Dorothy (3)
A heavy silence settled over everything.
No one even thought to break it.
The Demon Worshipers who had summoned Astaroth, my companions who had been tense at the thought of fighting an obviously dangerous demon, and even Dorothy, who had just revived.
Every one of them stood still, speechless.
“What... was that?”
The Demon Worshipers, who had been blinking blankly because they couldn't immediately understand what had happened, finally rose to their feet.
Without even thinking to wipe away the blood streaming from their split foreheads, they stared hollowly at the place where Astaroth had melted away.
“...Were we caught in some illusion-type Mystery?”
Unable to accept reality, they desperately scanned the surroundings with trembling eyes.
They examined everything around them one by one as though trying to find proof that this world itself was an illusion.
But eventually, they had no choice but to face reality.
Their demon had died.
The demon summoning had succeeded, yet the result had been even more disastrous than simply failing.
“...Ah. Ah...”
The Mysteries wrapped around their bodies were currently turning into ash and oxidizing away.
Summoning a demon required not only ritual offerings, but also an offering for the actual manifestation.
Originally, they had intended to perform the ritual using the Eye of Ra.
But now that it was in my hands, they could no longer do that.
Because of that, they had sacrificed seven Mysteries they possessed to manifest the demon.
In exchange, those seven Mysteries had shattered completely.
And the demon summoned through that sacrifice had suddenly died.
“...”
“...What exactly just happened?”
Dorothy, who had flown back from the distance, also stared at the place where the demon had melted away with obvious confusion.
On the spot stained pitch-black as though someone had spilled black paint, the only thing left was evidence that a demon had been there moments ago.
For the first time, Dorothy's eyes showed genuine bewilderment.
She stood still for a moment, then abruptly turned her head toward me.
She probably assumed that at least I knew what had just happened, and intended to read my thoughts.
I met her gaze and deliberately emptied my mind.
Random thoughts flooded the surface of my consciousness.
In the end, Dorothy failed to obtain anything useful and frowned sharply.
Though since I still couldn't properly see her face, maybe she didn't.
“...It's fine. It's fine. We still have plenty of Mysteries, so we can prepare the next ritual...”
Roooooar!
A tsunami of fire slammed into them, cutting off her words.
Dorothy, who possessed a fire-resistance-type Mystery, didn't suffer much damage.
The worshipers, however, were different.
Most of the Mysteries they had possessed were already destroyed.
In an instant, they were reduced to piles of ash.
Dorothy stared blankly at them.
The flow of the battle abruptly collapsed.
Dorothy's plan had probably been to stall us until the worshipers successfully manifested a demon.
She must have assumed that once they summoned one, victory would be guaranteed.
And realistically, there was a high chance that would have been true.
Maybe things would have gone that way if the secret I carried had been something more ordinary.
But in the end, the demon died, and Dorothy's plan fell apart.
The Regression, Possession, Reincarnation Gallery had played a major part.
I approached Dorothy, who seemed too stunned to even think about swinging her staff.
“You... what are you? Just what... was that?”
Only then did Dorothy notice me.
She took a step back and swung her staff.
I read the trajectory and lightly tilted my head.
A blue line barely grazed past my ear.
The distance between us was less than the thickness of a sheet of paper.
Close enough that she could reasonably believe her next attack would hit.
But Dorothy realized that I had done it intentionally.
She understood that I had perfectly read the attack's path and evaded it with the absolute minimum movement.
The atmosphere around her immediately became gloomy.
It seemed her will to fight had broken.
At that point, the outcome of the battle was decided.
I got lucky.
The fact that the Demon Worshipers happened to summon a demon with authority over secrets, and that the demon happened to read my secret, could only be called extraordinary luck.
I released the object I had been touching with my left hand inside my pocket.
I had one final measure prepared in case things went badly.
Fortunately, it looked like I wouldn't have to use it.
Dorothy stepped back once.
I stepped forward once.
My stride was longer, so she was soon within my grasp.
She tried to shake off my hand, but she couldn't overcome the strength I had gained from Eriel's blessing and the Runestone.
Dorothy gritted her teeth.
“Do you really think this is over? Me? I've lived for three hundred and fifty years, collected more than a hundred Mysteries, and observed more than two hundred. Me?”
I ignored her and grabbed her face.
Where I should have felt smooth skin, there was something hard and cold instead.
I grabbed it and tore it away.
A pure white mask came off with it.
[Scq221, Mask of the Shy]
[When worn, your face cannot be seen by anyone.]
That was the perception-distorting Mystery she had been wearing.
I carefully placed the mask into my bag and examined her face.
Without the Mystery, Dorothy was quite beautiful.
Not enough to compare with my companions, but probably around celebrity level.
Dorothy glared at me with a vicious expression.
Her right hand twitched from my blind spot.
It was outside my field of vision, but my enhanced senses still caught the small movement.
I immediately summoned fire and burned away her right arm.
Dorothy didn't scream.
She only glanced at the arm, now blackened and shriveled like rotten deadwood.
A mocking smile appeared on her face.
“Did you really think I wouldn't prepare some insurance? Go ahead and kill me. The next time we meet, I'll come much better prepared.”
“By insurance, do you mean the Doll That Dies in Your Place?”
“That's not the only insurance I have. I'm a thorough person. No matter what you do, you won't be able to kill me. At least, not here.”
She raised both hands as though telling me to look around.
We were inside False Utopia.
A dreamlike space where no physical damage could affect the body in reality.
“So how about we end things here? I'll admit defeat. I lost. If you stop now, I won't retaliate either.”
“You won't retaliate?”
“Yes. We end our relationship here. We go back to how things were before we met here, as if nothing ever happened.”
“Then what about the damage I suffered?”
“...Damage?”
She pointed at herself with a look that seemed to say, What nonsense are you talking about?
Her body was in a miserable state after being attacked by all of us.
Then she pointed toward the place where the ash had piled up.
There lay the remains of seven destroyed Mysteries and the Demon Worshipers.
Finally, she pointed toward the exhibition hall.
The grand and magnificent atmosphere it once possessed was nowhere to be seen.
It now looked like an abandoned ruin.
I understood what she was trying to say.
She meant that she had suffered far greater losses than I had.
“But you were the one who touched us first. Those are losses you brought upon yourself.”
“...Fine. All right. Then tell me what Mystery you want. I'll give it to you, and we'll end our relationship there.”
“If I want a Mystery, can't I just kill you and take one afterward?”
“Every useful Mystery I own is bound to me. I would have to personally use an unbinding-type Mystery to release the bond before handing it over, otherwise you wouldn't be able to use it. So just choose one.”
Dorothy spoke with a disgusted expression.
I thought for a moment, then asked.
“Do you have a mental-protection-type Mystery?”
“...Yes.”
“Then give me that.”
I considered choosing between the thought-reading Mystery and a mental-protection-type Mystery, then chose the latter.
For someone like me who could use death regression, the only reliable ways to inflict lasting harm were sealing or mental attacks.
I intended to prepare a countermeasure for one of those while I had the chance.
The thought-reading Mystery was useful, but since I usually stayed at home and rarely met people, I didn't think I needed it very much.
There was also another reason I chose mental protection.
Dorothy removed the necklace she was wearing, then pulled a small dagger from inside her clothes and made a cutting motion through empty air.
With my sixth sense, I noticed a line connecting Dorothy and the necklace being severed.
Dorothy glared at me for a moment before holding out the turquoise necklace.
A pure white gemstone hung from the end.
When I checked its properties with Lucy, I learned that the white jewel would turn black whenever it received a mental attack.
While it was doing so, the attack couldn't affect the wearer.
However, once it reached its limit, the jewel would shatter.
The description also said it had a large capacity, so it probably wouldn't break easily.
“Do you have any other mental-type Mysteries?”
“...No.”
“That's good.”
I fiddled with the necklace for a moment.
Then, without hesitation, I pulled out Fragment of Faith and stabbed it into Dorothy's head.
I dragged the blade downward while it was still embedded.
Dorothy blinked several times without understanding what was happening.
Then her eyes slowly closed.
Just as I had once done to Delta, I cut apart her mind.
I had no intention of stupidly leaving behind future trouble.
She could say we would forget everything and part ways, but considering her obsession with Mysteries, there was no way she would truly forget about someone like me who possessed dozens of them alone.
She would eventually target me again.
And next time, she would come with preparations and plans far more thorough than today.
“That was the right choice.”
My companions approached with exhausted expressions and supported my decision.
I looked at Dorothy's body, which appeared to be deeply asleep, then placed her inside my bag.
Killing her didn't seem like a good option.
Her body was currently alive.
Only her mind had been destroyed.
If I killed her in this state, and if she possessed a death-regression-type Mystery like mine, she might simply regress.
Even if her mind was destroyed, as long as her body remained alive, she was technically still alive.
Dorothy was the President of the Mystery Protection Association and possessed numerous Mysteries.
There were too many variables to consider before deciding what to do with her.
I closed the bag and looked over my companions one by one.
Lee Yeonhee, who had been flying in the sky, had already descended and rejoined us.
I praised everyone for their hard work and prepared to return home.
Just like before, I planned to leave through suicide.
I gathered everyone together and was about to unleash the Flame when the exhibition hall suddenly began trembling.
At first, the vibration was so faint that it was difficult to notice.
Then it grew into something like a magnitude 7.0 earthquake.
We went outside the exhibition hall to see what was happening.
And then we understood.
It wasn't the exhibition hall shaking.
The entire world beneath our feet, False Utopia itself, was trembling.
It wasn't like an ordinary earthquake where only the ground shook.
Everything that existed within the world was vibrating.
Clouds shattered apart as though exploding.
The trembling of light and air distorted our vision in every direction.
“False Utopia is a Mystery bound to Association President Dorothy. Since she suffered such severe damage, the effects are probably spreading to this place as well.”
