Chapter 385: Dj Vu
At Montphera, in the Belldet Estate.
In the walk-in closet of the second-floor left suite stood a row of wide, deep black robes paired with white ghost masks. Each mask had only three hollow openings, resembling a skull. Even without anyone wearing them, the mere sight of the display felt deeply unsettling.
Suddenly, one of the black robes sprouted limbs and stepped out from the rack, looking like an evil spirit returning to life.
However, the figure could not even stay upright. After two steps, he collapsed heavily onto the carpet. Stripping off the white mask, he revealed a pale, haggard face. Sweat beaded at the tip of his nose, and a faint flush from oxygen deprivation spread across his cheeks. He struggled to breathe, inhaling in short, sharp gasps. His entire body ached so intensely that even his fingertips refused to move. His lungs were damaged, and his whole body felt entirely out of sync.
For the first time in years, the fraudster cursed out loud, unable to contain his rage. That damn girl! God damn it! If something's wrong with you, go see a vet! Don't ever let me run into you again!
The more Iger thought about it, the angrier he became. His first encounter with another sorcerer on the Continent of Time had been with his old acquaintance, Harvey. Naturally, they teamed up to explore together. Unexpectedly, they discovered both the Legion of Heroes and the Last Stand Arena at the same time.
With all those opportunities stacked together, it felt as though the Goddess of Fortune had personally shoved luck straight into his mouth. Iger had even begun to suspect he had spent his entire lifetime's supply of good fortune. At this rate, he might slip in the bath tomorrow morning, crack his head against the tub, and die on the spot.
Neither of them had received formal sorcerer training, but no sorcerer was foolish enough to ignore information about the Virtual World. In a place where one ultimately traveled alone, a sorcerer could rely on nothing but themselves. Besides, neither the Last Stand Arena nor the Legion of Heroes were secrets. Both men knew of them.
After some deliberation, the fraudster had devised a meticulous, bold scheme to use the Last Stand Arena to eliminate the Legion of Heroes. After hearing the plan, Harvey offered only a single comment, "When are you going to find Ashe and start over? Rebuild the Four Pillars Cult, kill the empress, and take the throne. I'll just manage the morgue for you."
A necromancer who had long erased "cherish life" from his personal dictionary naturally had no objections to taking risks. And at first, things went even more smoothly than expected.
Iger hid inside a coffin Harvey had hastily constructed, prompting the arena to treat them as a single team and teleport in their opponents, the Hero commander and a Thousand-Feathered Bird Dragon.
Despite being separated from her legion, the female commander showed no panic. She glanced at the duo and immediately assumed a sword stance. Beside her stood the Thousand-Feathered Bird Dragon, clad in pitch-black armor. Clearly, it had been magically enhanced.
Still, this fell perfectly within Iger's expectations. Since he had formed a team with Harvey, the arena naturally matched them with a two-member opposition. Iger had already accounted for unstable variables. In fact, a combination of a Hero commander and a Knowledge Creature represented the best possible outcome for his plan.
Miracle, Mind Domination!
The Miracle embodied the most rigid and classic concept of the Mind Class. It directly seized control of another being's mind, forcing compliance. The higher a sorcerer's mastery over the Mind Class, the greater the success rate.
However, the Miracle worked poorly on intelligent beings. Even without formal study, any sorcerer shaped by social interaction, relationships, and the ebb and flow of human emotions had, to some extent, trained in the Mind Class. They simply hadn't reached Silver Rank proficiency in it yet.
Knowledge creatures, on the other hand, were beings devoid of social experience or civilization. The spell's effect against them proved absolute. Iger had thrived on the Continent of Time precisely because he dominated a large Knowledge Creature every night to use as his mount. Even against tribal creatures, he felt no fear. He could temporarily dominate one or two members, incite internal chaos, and use superior command to defeat the group despite being outnumbered.
And that was exactly what happened in the arena. Once he seized control of the Thousand-Feathered Bird Dragon, the commander, even with her armor, could not resist their combined assault.
Harvey had also brought along a zombie Dread Wolf-Dragon he had created that night. With the two of them and their two creatures making four combat units in total, Iger had never fought such a comfortable battle since entering the Virtual World. He toyed with the commander, grinding down her armor-based Miracle bit by bit.
As time passed, the commander grew weaker, and victory slowly opened its arms to them. Yet Iger did not relax in the slightest. Instead, he became even more cautious.
He understood that this might be the only chance in his life to kill a Hero commander. According to the laws of the Virtual World, with great risk came great reward. The gains from slaying her would undoubtedly grant him a massive boost in strength, which happened to be exactly what he lacked most.
Annan, the Woven Festival, Evelyn Belldet... their safety held for now, but that safety came from compromise, from the charity of others, and from the fact that they still possessed value.
Iger did not dream of gaining overwhelming power overnight just because of their current predicament. He still respected the rules of the game, but the harsh truth remained that they were still mere pieces on the board. Worse, they were pieces Annan used to cheat. The system did not protect their lives, and their deaths would only be viewed as fixing a loophole.
Iger wanted leverage. He wanted bargaining chips and room to maneuver against Annan and Evelyn.
Among their group, Harvey had potential but was still weak. Relying on Ashe made less sense than hoping the Four Pillars Deities would suddenly grow a conscience. As for Lys, she brought nothing but trouble.
With all of that considered, Iger could only rely on himself. He had to rely on himself. Killing the Hero commander was the turning point he needed to grasp.
The fraudster clenched his teeth and slammed his fist against the carpet, forcing himself up by gripping the edge of the table. "Goddamn it!"
Those two damn women! Why did they have to enter the arena as a team at that exact moment?!
Iger had watched helplessly as the commander they were about to kill casually left the arena. In her place, two fully armed female sorcerers materialized. At that instant, Iger had almost wanted to lie down in Harvey's coffin and give up entirely.
He had orchestrated countless social engineering schemes under the Blood Moon, facing numerous betrayals and reversals, but none had been as absurd as this. Never before had a less-than-one-percent impossibility destroyed everything so thoroughly. Worse still, they were completely outmatched.
Neither Mind Class sorcerers nor necromancers excelled in sudden, close-quarters encounters, but they still had the Thousand-Feathered Bird Dragon and the Dread Wolf-Dragon on their side. By all accounts, their chances of victory should have remained high.
However, when Iger tried to salvage the situation, the two women crushed them completely.
The red-haired female swordmaster possessed terrifying explosive power. Combined with a strange, armor-based Miracle, she tore the Dread Wolf-Dragon to pieces. Harvey could barely hold the line by frantically reassembling the shattered remains.
Iger fared even worse. The sorceress he faced, dressed in black and white, wielded Time Class spirits. Whenever he attempted to move, he would overshoot his position, stumbling straight into her attack range. She bound his joints with threads, then beat him mercilessly.
Eventually, they surrendered in time to withdraw, but Iger's joints, chest, and lungs had already suffered severe damage. Injuries to the soul reflected directly onto the physical body. With his mana nearly depleted, he felt like a broken toy discarded in a pile of trash.
"Heart of Stone. Iron Will."
He squeezed out the absolute last of his mana to apply mental buffs. Only then did he feel capable of moving, dragging himself forward like a machine with loose screws.
Iger staggered into the bathroom. "No... It's almost seven... I need to shower and get to work... can't let Evelyn dock my pay..."
He filled the bathtub with warm water, struggled out of his clothes, turned on the shower, and began to wash. He closed his eyes to rinse the soap from his hair, and in the blindness, his heel bumped against the bathroom stool. It was a simple, everyday motion, but it felt as though some vital internal bolt had finally snapped. His knees gave out completely, and he lost his balance. With a loud crash, he slammed onto the tiled floor.
Bang!
Water splashed violently, echoing his agony.
The fraudster lay paralyzed on the cold tiles as the shower poured over him, soap foam still clinging to his hair. Even when the Bloodrage Hunters had captured him back then, he had never been this miserable.
After quite a while, he slowly pushed himself up and sat on the floor, head lowered as he stared at the wildly scattered splashes. Water streamed over his face, tracing his features and dripping from the ends of his hair.
"Why did something unexpected have to happen...
"Why did I lose...
"Why did I miss this chance... how could I miss it..."
Iger bit his lower lip as he watched the ripples spread across the water-streaked floor. His shoulders trembled faintly. "There might have been a spirit in there that could nullify our contract with Annan... Why did it have to be this time..."
Creak.
Iger suddenly heard the front door open and close outside, followed by familiar footsteps tapping closer. He hurriedly rubbed his eyes, forcing himself to look less miserable.
Knock, knock.
No one barged in. Instead, a voice called out from the other side. "Are you alright? Need help?"
Iger looked in surprise toward the frosted glass door. "Why are you here?"
"If someone falls in the bathroom, it notifies the others. Wealthy households always show their 'humanitarian concern' in places like this. Ah... being rich really is nice."
Iger glanced at the green indicator light beside the bathtub. The moment he fell, the system had detected the incident and broadcast a notification to everyone else, as if saying, There's an unlucky fraudster here, come laugh at him.
"I'm fine!"
"Doesn't sound like fine. Why do you sound like you're crying? Seriously, how old are you to cry over a fall?"
The fraudster instinctively rubbed his eyes again and quickly steadied his voice. "I'm not. I just... had a bit of an accident in the Virtual World last night, so my voice sounds off."
It would show anyway once he started work, so there was no point in hiding it.
"What accident?"
"Can you leave already? I still need to take a bath!"
"I'm not coming in. You bathe, I'll talk."
Staring at the silhouette behind the frosted glass door, Iger suddenly understood something. His expression turned complicated as he carefully lowered himself into the bathtub. The warm water rose little by little until it reached his chest and collarbone.
The heat felt as though it temporarily tightened the loose screws of his body, and his rapid breathing gradually slowed. "I just missed a crucial opportunity. I might never encounter it again."
"That's tragic. My exploration last night went very smoothly, though."
"You came here just to mock me, didn't you?"
"No. But even if you missed an opportunity, it doesn't mean you should cry your heart out, right?"
Iger snapped. "You're getting way too creative with these rumors. What's next? Full-on sobbing with tears and snot? I just... can't see any hope."
"What hope?"
Iger's voice dropped. "The hope to turn things around. Annan, Belldet, Senheiser, the Isa Imperial Family, the Red Hats... and so many others. In the Gospel Kingdom, there are only two kinds of people now. Those who want to kill us, and those who want to use us. Aside from that practically nonexistent wish tied to the Divine Lord, I can't find any way out."
Iger lowered his head, staring at his blurred reflection in the water. "Can we really survive the Woven Festival? Is there anyone left in this kingdom who can actually help us?"
A droplet fell from his hair, sending ripples across the surface. "All Harvey cares about is Alice. You're unreliable. Every single day I keep thinking, What should I do, what should I do... I really..."
Since arriving in the Gospel Kingdom, the pressure on Iger had grown heavier by the day.
The Art and Family Rankings had turned them into the most talked-about stars of doom overnight. Every day, Iger racked his brains trying to salvage their collapsing reputation, while Annan and Pankey watched them from above like hawks. This kind of desperate situation, with almost no way out, had already drained him. Then they fell into Belldet's hands, adding disaster upon disaster.
The defeat in the Last Stand Arena had become the final straw that crushed his mental defenses. It felt as though the Goddess of Fortune had lifted her skirt for him, only to pull a pistol from her garter and shoot him. He knew complaints solved nothing, but the grievance still burned bitterly.
In the past, he would never have shown such weakness. A fraudster had to maintain a persona of flawless calculation. Once that image shattered, no one would buy into his deceptions again.
Perhaps the black-and-white-dressed sorceress had injured his soul. Perhaps the fall had rattled his mind. Or perhaps it was simply because a single layer of frosted glass separated him from Ashe. For some reason, Iger found himself pouring out everything inside him.
"Why not just trust the Gospel?" Ashe suddenly said.
"What?"
"Look, we appeared on the future ranking. That means the Gospel believes we'll survive into the future. So trust in the Omniscient Weaver and don't overthink it. The Gospel will provide a way."
Iger laughed in sheer anger. "Let's not even talk about how we got on that list through deception... the problem is, I'm not even on it!"
"So you should trust the Gospel and trust us," Ashe said. "With our friendship, if we're suffering in the future, how could we ever let you stay behind and enjoy life alone?"
"Your way of comforting people is truly something else."
"I wouldn't dare try to comfort a Mind Class sorcerer. But if you really need us to do something, Harvey and I won't refuse. We might not keep up with your intellect, but we can share your burdens. If everyone feels anxious together, at least you won't feel so anxious alone."
"Hmph. At least you're self-aware as livestock."
"A fraudster who cries his eyes out after slipping in the bathroom shouldn't act so arrogant... Lys?"
The bathroom door suddenly flew open. Lys, dressed in her white silk maid outfit, rushed in anxiously. However, she instantly slipped on the wet floor and crashed loudly onto the tiles, sliding all the way to the bathtub. Her head knocked against the side of the tub with a dull thud.
Seeing this, both Ashe and Iger were struck utterly speechless.
However, Lys quickly scrambled up, patted herself down, and hurried back to the edge of the tub. She asked nervously, "Aunt Perskin, are you alright? Did you hurt yourself? You should seek out a healer right away!"
Iger froze for a moment. When he looked up, he caught Ashe's half-smiling expression, as if to say, Look at that, you're not even as tough as a child.
A faint blush crept onto his cheeks. He reached out and gently tidied Lys's hair. "I'm fine."
Seeing the pure, unfiltered concern on her face, Iger felt something inside him soften, like ice cream melting away. The frustration and agitation that had churned in his heart faded along with the bathwater.
He let out a quiet, resigned sigh. "Ashe, I won't be able to make it to the dining hall later. Bring me some breakfast."
"No problem," Ashe replied. He opened the Book of Gospel and sent a voice message. "Harvey, bring breakfast to Iger's room."
Iger paused. Come to think of it... Can Harvey even move? If I remember correctly, that red-haired swordswoman nearly cut him in half...
At that exact moment, Iger noticed something else. He reached out and cupped Lys's small face, his brows knitting together. "Why do I feel like... Lys, you seem strangely familiar..."
Inwardly, the slightly guilty Little Witch and her anxious sisters panicked in unison. "Σ(っ°Д°;)っ!"