Chapter 93: A Common Occurrence (5)

As Professor Baldwin and Harris conversed, I quietly replayed Harris’s words over and over in my head.

With just a snap of his fingers, he can turn every villager into a demonic monster, huh? That must mean the poison inside the villagers needs a specific signal to take effect.

In other words, unless that specific signal was triggered, the poison they consumed wouldn’t activate. So, it was less like poison and more like a bomb. If the effect didn’t naturally activate over time, then there was a way to stop it.

Without that signal, the poison the villagers drank would not have any effect. So, if we killed Harris before he had the chance to send the signal, or better yet, block the signal altogether, we could stop the transformation.

However, killing him right away was too risky. Although Professor Baldwin was a powerful hero ranked ninth on the Tri-Nation Hero Rankings, even she couldn’t subdue a Bishop-class demon in the time it took to snap his fingers. That left only one option: a magic-nullifying barrier.

We had to cut off the signal from the source. To use a metaphor, instead of stealing the detonator from someone holding a bomb, we would be blocking the signal the detonator sent to the bomb.

A magic-nullifying barrier was an advanced spell that even most professors of the Mage Division couldn’t cast. But I was the self-proclaimed protege of Senior Sophia and the genius of theoretical magic who had solved two of the Three Conundrums of the Great Sage. Granted, it had taken me thousands of years of effort in my past life.

So, creating a magic-nullifying barrier was not a huge problem. However, this spell needed a massive amount of mana. While my mana had recently grown considerably, the barrier I could create with my current amount of mana wouldn’t be wide enough to cover the entire square and all the scattered villagers. At most, it would have a twenty-meter radius.

Moreover, I also couldn’t cast it over Harris. The magic-nullifying barrier was designed for defense. It only blocked mana coming from outside to inside. It didn’t stop mana from going in the opposite direction.

If it were Senior Sophia in my place, she could’ve altered the spell on the spot to block mana flowing outward as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t have her magical instincts. So I needed someone who could gather all hundred villagers into one spot while I drew Harris’s attention.

Instantly gathering the villagers scattered across the square into a tight formation sounded like an impossible task. But I knew someone who could accomplish that, and that someone was standing right next to me. That was how I telepathically messaged her.

Elisha Baldwin, the Cursed-Eye Spider, frowned as she received my telepathic message. She then replied to me in the same way.

—So, while you distract Harris, you want me to gather the villagers in one place? That’s an absurd plan.

Calling it a “plan” was generous. It was more of a half-baked gamble. If anything went wrong, everything would fall apart. Logically, it would make more sense to subdue Jackal’s pawn right now rather than banking everything on a flimsy hope.

She sent me another message.

—You’re really something, Dale… completely incorrigible.

It felt as though the suffocating anxiety that had been tightening around her chest just moments ago had vanished now.

—Fine. I’ll go along with your plan.

When I heard her voice in my mind, a smirk spread across my lips.

—Stay sharp. You’ll only get one shot at this.

Leaving Professor Baldwin behind, I charged toward Bishop Harris. I let out a scream, high-pitched and filled with panic. “A-AAAHHH!”

“Hm?”

I cried out with a desperate, pitiful expression. “S-spare me! I’m just a cadet, I’ve got nothing to do with Professor Baldwin! I only came along because they said we’d get extra credit! But suddenly, I’m supposed to fight a demon? I don’t even have my Official Hero License yet!”

Harris chuckled. “Haha! This is quite the amusing situation.”

Despite how close I was getting, he didn’t show any signs of activating the “detonator” to the bombs embedded within the villagers. To him, I was not a threat. I was just a tiny fish caught in the net he had cast to capture the big prize, Elisha Baldwin. And who would ever bother hauling up the whole net just because a small fry was flopping around?

Still, that alone wouldn’t make him drop his guard. Harris wasn’t a fool. Even if I was just a cadet, I had come here under Professor Baldwin’s protection. He wouldn’t fully lower his guard unless he was completely sure I was harmless. The moment I made a wrong move, he would activate the poison without hesitation.

Therefore, I needed to make him let down his guard. Drawing out the enemy’s complacency and exploiting the opening was a tactic I had mastered in my previous life.

Harris smirked and snapped his fingers in my direction. “Watching your student transform into a demon… quite the dramatic picture, don’t you think?”

I felt a faint magical signal flowing from his hand toward me. However, I remained unchanged.

Harris tilted his head in confusion. “Hm?”

He then said, “Oh, right. You didn’t drink the wine earlier, did you?”

Only now did Harris realize I hadn’t taken a sip of the poisoned apple cider. He curled his lips into a faint smile and walked toward me. “That’s too bad. If you had drunk it, you could’ve received his blessing.”

“H-hiiiek!” I screamed pitifully as I fell hard on my butt. “P-please. Please spare me!”

“Apologies. I don’t have time to entertain you right now.”

A tendril shot out from Bishop Harris’s body and pierced straight through my heart. There was a dull, meaty thud, followed by a gush of blood pouring out like a broken faucet. Leaving me collapsed with a hand clutching my heart, Harris shifted his attention to Professor Baldwin.

***

Harris smirked as he watched Elisha gaze silently at the fallen cadet. “Well then, what are you going to do now? Are you going to abandon these innocent villagers? Hm? Ah, are you concerned about that cadet over there?”

He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “If I may offer some advice, even if you’re just recruiting assistants, I recommend being a bit more selective with your picks next time. Even a cadet should at least try to maintain a shred of dignity… as a future hero… Hmm?”

Just then, Harris frowned and touched his cheek. His fingers came away covered in a fine layer of dark gray ash. He narrowed his eyes and tried to brush the ashes off his hand. “What is this?”

Suddenly, flames flared up wildly. Harris recoiled in shock, barely dodging the sword slash swinging at him. “W-what is this?!”

The cadet, who should have died instantly when his heart was pierced by the tendril, was now alive and well, swinging a sword at him.

Didn’t I pierce his heart? he wondered.

He had definitely felt the sensation of piercing a heart. He had even confirmed the cadet’s life force extinguished through the tendril embedded in his heart. Then why was a corpse, whose heart had been skewered, now back on its feet, swinging a sword at him?

“Grrrgh!”

The creature known as the Mind Eater, a brain-devouring demonic monster, could absorb all the knowledge and memories of its victims. Having consumed hundreds of minds, Harris had come to believe he possessed wisdom far beyond any ordinary human. Yet, this situation was completely beyond his comprehension.

Because of that, he forgot, if only for a moment. He forgot the order Jackal had given him that if anything went wrong, he was to turn the villagers into demonic monsters immediately.

Dale abruptly shouted, “NOW!”

As his voice rang out across the village square, Elisha stretched out her arms and took a deep breath. She softly murmured, “Bind them.”

Hundreds, no, thousands of silken threads shot out in all directions. Webs wrapped around the villagers, who were frozen in despair, and began pulling them inward. The villagers screamed and struggled as they were dragged across the ground, bound by nearly invisible silver threads.

“Kyahhhh!”

“W-what’s happening?!”

“Moooom!”

None could break free from Elisha’s web. In seconds, the entire village square was covered in webs. Elisha had gathered all one hundred villagers and bound them in place.

Realizing what was happening, Harris flung out a hand toward the villagers. “It’s useless!”

With a flick of his fingers, he sent a pulse of mana surging toward them, a signal meant to trigger their transformation into demonic monsters.

“Dale!” Elisha shouted.

Dale kicked off the ground. He leaped into the mass of web-bound villagers and spread his arms wide. A magic-nullifying barrier erupted around them, wrapping the area in fiery light. Swallowed up by the flames, Harris’s magical signal vanished instantly.

Eyes wide with disbelief, Bishop Harris stared at this sight. “W-what?”

The instant he snapped his fingers, all the villagers should have transformed into demonic monsters. Yet, not a single one had changed.

He muttered, “A-a magic-nullifying barrier? That cadet cast it?”

A magic-nullifying barrier was an advanced spell, something even most professors couldn’t pull off. Yet this cadet, who wasn’t even a licensed hero, had deployed one? And that too in the blink of an eye?

Harris staggered back, overwhelmed by the realization that everything he had learned from consuming hundreds of minds was being proven wrong. “What the hell is going on?”

The original plan was to turn the villagers into demonic monsters and use them to stall Elisha, which would give him time to escape if she refused to cooperate. But that plan had completely fallen apart.

He thought, Damn it! I need to retreat.

Just as he turned to flee, countless silver threads coiled around him, wrapping his surroundings like a giant web. In the space now covered by silk, a predator approached its trapped prey. Then the soft sound of footsteps echoed. Elisha Baldwin drew a cigarette from her coat and placed it in her mouth. The cigarette tip lit with a glowing ember.

“So, what now?” she said.

Amid the drifting smoke, the spider with eyes full of malice glared at its struggling prey.

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