novelraw Chapter 137
Chapter 137
Ch.137 I Only Trust Lord Eltakantara
I was utterly dumbfounded by Aria’s shameless gambling.
“You can’t use magic! This is supposed to be a test of luck!”
At my scolding, Aria tilted her head with an innocent expression.
“Haa… But none of the older sisters ever said I couldn’t use magic?”
Well, of course not—no one would suspect this little girl was actually a dragon capable of casting terrifyingly powerful magic.
But that wasn’t the point!
“You little cheater!”
At my accusation, Aria looked genuinely shocked.
“Hueh?! N-no! Aria’s not a cheater!”
“Not a cheater? Using magic to rig the game makes you a cheater!”
“But… what even is a cheater, Brother?”
Ah… right. She hasn’t been in the human world very long, has she?
“A cheater,” I explained patiently, “is someone who deceives others to steal their money.”
“But… I didn’t steal any money!”
Aria’s expression was pure confusion—she honestly didn’t understand what she’d done wrong.
Ignorance didn’t excuse the crime, though.
“Fine. Then go ask Lady Icira exactly what you did wrong.”
I’d have Icira set her straight—permanently.
“Hueek?! N-no! Mom doesn’t need to get involved!”
Just the thought of Icira’s cold, disciplined parenting made Aria’s shoulders hunch in dread.
“But I don’t even know what I did wrong! What else can I do?”
At my words, Aria’s eyes darted around in flustered panic.
“Alright… I was wrong.”
Was this why people enjoyed teasing kids?
Watching the adorably flustered white-haired girl, I put on my sternest face.
“And what exactly was wrong?”
“U-um… using magic?”
“That’s part of it. You can’t use magic in a fair bet like this against others. Understand?”
With that, I popped a chip-stacked cookie into my mouth.
Crunch.
Bella’s baking was truly exceptional.
The cookie melted softly on my tongue, and the chocolate chips embedded throughout warmed and melted from my body heat, wrapping my taste buds in rich sweetness.
“Okay.”
Aria reached for a cookie.
I caught her wrist.
“Hey now—why are you reaching for someone else’s?”
“Hueh? But I won it!”
“Won it? You cheated. So it’s all mine.”
When I snatched the cookie from her hand, tears welled up in her eyes.
“Huu… That’s so mean!”
“Mean? Cheating others with magic is what’s mean.”
She bit her lip and glared at me—though even her glare was unbearably cute.
“Hmph… Brother is the worst!”
Honestly, how could anyone be this adorable?
Feeling a bit guilty, I placed the cookie onto her plate.
“No more cheating, understood?”
The white-haired girl nodded earnestly.
“Yeah!”
“Then go ahead and eat.”
Crunch.
Seeing Aria beam with pure delight, I felt like I’d rediscovered a bit of my own childhood innocence.
***
For days, I’d been racking my brain for a way to deal with Roy—but no good solution came to mind.
Roy, possessing Selena, who held the power of infinite regression.
“I need to look into this ‘possession’ thing…”
The concept of ‘possession’…
was never mentioned anywhere in the game except when Roy appeared.
Even if you obtained Levi’s Dagger—the artifact that grants access to all dark magic and undead-related skills—there was no actual ‘possession’ skill listed.
Yet Roy had clearly appeared in a ‘possessed’ state.
“Hmm… possession…”
It was such an alien concept, even within the Destiny game.
“I always assumed it was just a special event status… but could there be more to it?”
I pondered it, but no matter how deeply I knew the game’s mechanics, I couldn’t possibly know a skill that didn’t even exist in the game.
“Maybe I need to find an expert on dark magic… Ah!”
Suddenly, I remembered the lich I’d recently taken as my retainer.
“Edward…”
He must be deeply versed in dark magic—that’s how he became a lich in the first place.
Roy, who could use every dark magic skill and command all undead…
if he was the one possessing someone, this had to be a form of dark magic.
I pushed back my chair and strode out of my study to find Edward.
“Seen Edward?”
I ran into Nekhuf and Nephert in the hallway.
“Edward is always in the basement, isn’t he?” Nephert replied.
I headed downstairs.
But… what exactly was that guy doing in someone else’s basement?
He was probably doing medical research—but did it have to be in such a gloomy, shadowy place?
Descending into the cellar, I saw several wooden crates stored neatly on shelves.
It was surprisingly chilly down here.
I knew this area was mainly used as a storage space.
I’d only visited once when the mansion was first built—but the eerie atmosphere and cool draft made it feel refreshingly crisp, if unsettling.
The basement spanned an entire floor of the mansion,
lit only by flickering torches.
It felt like something straight out of a dungeon.
“Edward? Where are you?”
As I called out while walking through the cellar…
a skeleton with fully exposed bones came into view.
“H-holy— a mad skeleton?!”
How did a skeleton get into my basement?!
I instinctively drew Equality—
“Wait! It’s me!”
A familiar voice stopped me.
“Phew… You scared me. I thought an actual skeleton had broken in! And why are you naked?”
Normally, Edward wore robes that covered his bony frame—but right now, everything from his ribs to his pelvis was fully visible.
The lich awkwardly scratched his skull.
“Well… I prefer sleeping without clothes…”
What kind of lich sleeps completely nude?
He didn’t even have skin—what could possibly be uncomfortable?
It didn’t make sense, but I wasn’t a lich myself…
If that was his preference, I’d respect it.
“Never mind that. I need to talk to you—put your robe on quickly.”
“Yes, right away.”
Edward vanished into the warehouse shadows.
Rustle…
I heard the sound of fabric.
“So… what did you want to talk about?”
“Is there a dark magic skill called ‘possession’?”
“Do you mean summoning a dead soul and implanting it into a living person, my lord?”
Now robed, he stepped slightly into the torchlight.
“Yeah. But this isn’t the place to discuss it. Come to my study.”
“Understood.”
We moved together to my office.
“Sit.”
He took a seat on the sofa as I invited.
“So… what about possession interests you?”
Hearing the curiosity in his voice, I leaned forward eagerly.
“The King of the Dead was once a dead human, right? And now he’s possessing Selena?”
“Selena is the possessed host?”
I nodded.
“So—can this possession be undone? Is there a way to free her?”
If we could separate Roy’s soul from Selena…
we’d have a clear, easy path to victory.
“To break possession, the host’s will is crucial.”
“The host’s will? Don’t beat around the bush—just tell me everything you know. Quickly.”
Urged by my impatience, Edward scratched his skull with a bony finger.
“Well… possession means borrowing someone else’s body, right? And that requires the host’s consent—however unconscious—to allow the spirit in.”
“Oh… so then?”
“The host must genuinely wish to break free from the possession for it to be undone.”
His words tangled my thoughts.
“Wish to break free…”
The Church of Death was infamous for its fanatical zealots—
people who feared no death and would die at any moment for their religious convictions.
Selena had already been thoroughly brainwashed by such a group.
How could she possibly reject the possession?
And we couldn’t even communicate with her directly…
“But if we can’t even talk to the possessed person, how can we make her want to break free?”
Edward stroked his chinbone.
“That… is a problem. I’ve rarely seen a possessed individual myself. I only know the concept exists—not the actual mechanics.”
“This is tough… Is there really no other way?”
He fell into thought.
“Probably not.”
“‘Probably not’ isn’t good enough. Think harder.”
If there was no way, how was I supposed to defeat a regressor?
It’d be like playing a game where I had only one coin, and my opponent had infinite coins—utterly insane.
“Hmm…”
After a long pause, the lich spoke cautiously.
“I do have an artifact I invented for psychological therapy—it lets you enter someone’s inner mental world.”
“What?”
I was stunned—this was an artifact I’d never even heard of during my time playing Destiny.
“Does that really exist?”
“Yes. While researching mental illness, I realized I needed to understand the unconscious mind, so I built it long ago.”
His words gave me a glimmer of hope—a possible thread to unravel the King of the Dead.
“Show it to me—now!”
***
Giovanni slipped out of the Imperial Capital under cover of night, sailing down the river by boat.
‘There are dragons available… so why do we have to do this?’
The strike force did include a Black Dragon.
But…
due to fears that teleportation would leave a large mana signature—potentially alerting Roy—they’d decided to travel on foot to villages not yet attacked.
He’d heard about the situation, but that didn’t make the frustration disappear.
“Giovanni—you look unwell. Nervous?”
At the black-haired handsome man’s question, Giovanni shook his head.
“I am… a little tense.”
Before departing with the strike force, he’d been told the undead army was exceptionally powerful.
Speaking to the Black Dragon Eltakantara, newly assigned to their unit, Giovanni gazed up at the full moon in the night sky.
‘Will I survive this?’
As a child, he’d dreamed of becoming a knight.
He’d loved the heroic tales of noble knights who gave their lives for glory.
Back then, he’d wanted to carve his own epic into history.
But now, all he truly desired was to live comfortably with his beloved fiancée, earn a modest living, and find simple happiness.
“Don’t worry. I’m here, aren’t I? If things get too dangerous, we can always teleport straight back to the capital.”
Could Eltakantara read his mind?
The dragon spoke reassuringly—but Giovanni had a hunch what Auros and Hans were really worried about.
‘His goal must be to kill dragons and turn them into his own retainers…’
That’s why they avoided using convenient dragon magic and chose this grueling overland route, wasn’t it?
But saying that outright might anger Eltakantara.
“Haha… I place my full trust in Lord Eltakantara.”
And so, the strike force headed toward a village still untouched by attack.
The village, about three days’ travel away, remained safe—for now.
All others had already been raided and needed urgent evacuation to safety.
After securing it, they’d move on to villages even farther away…
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