Hermit Wizard

Condition of Trust (2)

Garam nodded.

“But it is within the limits of the power of the user. In short, just because you dream of reviving the dead, you cannot bring it to reality.”

Through the closed telepathy with Parvache, we discussed how far the limit of this magic was, and Mrs. Pearl, who was lying down, groaned and woke up. She seemed to have come to her senses.

Mrs. Pearl had a frown as if she had a splitting headache.

“Did Daejong-maek already return to White Deer?”

Garam explained the situation to her; Mrs. Pearl nodded and stood up.

“Brother, then, we also will head to Yoon’s house and pack. Now it’s time to go home.”

“Yes.

Oh, it was time to send away those two. Their business with Channel was over, they had signed a contract, and I had obtained enough information and samples, so there was no need to worry about it anymore. To fly long distances like Yusu consumed many Mana, and they didn’t want to do such a flight again, so we decided to take a taxi. Mrs. Pearl and I walked toward the main street, followed by Garam.

“Oh, right.”

“Yeah?”

While walking, I suddenly thought about it. Come to think of it. There was an answer I still hadn’t heard. When I asked the question again, Mrs. Pearl laughed as if embarrassed.

“I didn’t answer back then. That’s an embarrassing question.”

Was it not appropriate to ask her age, even in their culture? However, that wasn’t what she meant.

“When beings beyond the wall transform into humans, it is common for them to adapt to the human age corresponding to their initial life cycle. It’s the easiest way to do that. My actual age is twenty-seven in terms of humans? Twenty-eight? I am that old.”

“What? But in my opinion…”

A person in her late twenties with that face would be impossible unless she looked incredibly baby-faced.

Mrs. Pearl responded with a pleasant smile, “I’m good at transforming myself…it’s been a while since I’ve come to the land, and I’m so moved that I transform into my appearance back then.”

“Back then?”

“I lived in the land for a while in this form…it was the happiest time in my life, so I chose this look without realizing it.”

Meanwhile, she put her gaze slightly on the ground as if she was embarrassed. The river breeze blew past, and her dark hair fluttered and danced in the air. She said that she had lived on the land for a while as if she had stayed for two or three years. But I think she had lived in the human world for at least a few decades. Come to think of it, how did the main body of Mrs. Pearl look like?

“I know that you have been living for quite a while compared to humans, but how about that kid?”

“Brother Garam doesn’t have a lot of skill in transforming. He’s just that old for a human being.”

“Hmm?”

“But the pace of growth is different from mine. Brother Garam is the same age as a human child.”

“Then, about ten years old?”

“Around that age. But the actual age counted is far older than me.”

“Really?”

When I look at his chattering words and actions, he didn’t appear to be that old mentally.

“Hmm?”

While Mrs. Pearl and I were having a conversation, Garam, who was staring at one side without paying attention, suddenly frowned.

“What are those humans? There are no traces of dreams. And why are the eyes like that? It’s like rotten frozen eyes.”

“There is no trace of a dream?”

Looking at the place Garam was pointing, four men under the embankment were busy walking at a pace close to a quick march. I didn’t know what the traces of the dream were, but there are certainly strange parts. And also, their eyes were creepily empty.

“Yoon, those guys… I feel they are similar to those strange people I saw near your house.”

“What? They must have been tracking us down.”

“They look different, so they’re not the same people. But that expression and oddly fast walking speed…there are too many similarities to be mere coincidence.”

Garam, who didn’t understand what Mrs. Pearl said, asked.

“What? What does that mean?”

We told Garam what Mrs. Pearl told me about on the veranda. And he scratched his head as if he didn’t know what it was all about.

“Anyway, aren’t they suspicious? I wonder what they are doing near the village’s planned site.”

[Of all places we found them is near your apartment and Mapo Bridge Channel, right? We can’t let them go even if they were just picking up two spots and turning around. Even if it’s a coincidence…it is also suspicious. How many of these guys are wandering outside so they can easily stand out like this?]

“I don’t know which way they are aiming, but I can’t just leave it because of the location. I have to catch and interrogate them. It’s not normal if they are getting a hint about the White Deer’s relocation.”

I knew Garam’s concern, but I don’t think it’s very likely. It was said that Garam and the others called beings beyond the wall had been avoiding exposure to human civilization as much as possible even after the Dragon agreement expired. They were wary of side effects such as confusion and hostility when they suddenly appeared in front of the humans who had forgotten them. In the contract I signed with White Deer, there was also a provision for my duty to keep these people and the village a secret from other humans.

Wouldn’t it be more likely that they were aiming at me?

“Let’s put them under control for now.”

The guy who said that summoned smoke around his body and transformed himself into a Maek!

“Hey, what are you doing?!”

Garam replied, waving his long nose from side to side as if he were cracking his fingers at my sharp shout.

“Aren’t there any stealth techniques that you can use anyway? There is no need to worry about this appearance.”

Garam, who had returned to its original body, was the size of a baby wild boar that came about to my knees. Except for the white stripes on the back, it was small in size, and it looked almost similar to Yusu’s main body. It is also the same that body. Comparing the sizes, it seemed correct to say that he was a young individual of his species.

Looking down at Garam, who had transformed, Mrs. Pearl asked.

“Are you going to write a dream?”

“Mrs. Pearl, once you use your strength, they’ll be either dead or on the brink of death, so I’ll do it. I’m going to tie them up first. Then we’d better take them to a quiet place. This place is so open…”

Garam stomped and removed a lump of light. Then, before we could capture the scene inside, it grabbed it with its nose and threw it at the approaching people.

-Paaats!

The fragment of the dream thrown by Garam burst, causing the atmosphere to rumble. And in the center where all the light had disappeared, a doll that didn’t exist just before was now standing there.

Huh?

However, it was a very familiar shape. A young man with long hair wearing a curtain-like dress. His exposed long arms and neck were covered with blue tattoos. Tattoos waved over his skin as if they were alive. That was…!

“Parvache?”

It was Parvache in the form of a young man from my dream.

Parvache nestled in the toy also muttered absurdly.

[I don’t know how long it’s been since I have seen that figure…]

“Garam, you, how did you do that?”

Garam does not respond to me but ordered the young-looking Parvache.

“Redeem!”

Then the young man Parvache raised his hands and spread them toward the people. Then, the men stopped walking!

“It works roughly.”

Garam nodded as if satisfied and said to me.

“In the meantime, I have collected some of your dreams. You often have really strange dreams. I still don’t know what it means because it’s full of strange metaphors and symbols. Still, I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say, especially the tall shadow and the shining light in your heart.”

“What?! What are you talking about?! You mean you’ve seen all my dreams?”

“I saw it, and I kept it well. Didn’t you feel like you’ve never dreamed these days? I took some and piled it up.”

This rotten bastard! What a terrible invasion of privacy it was! Don’t tell me he had seen all the dreams I was dreaming of, without leaving any of them private…?! No, it doesn’t matter now. Did he even read all the memories of my dreams?

“Don’t blush like that. I cannot read the detailed thoughts in your dreams or even the conversations of those who appear. I just embodied the attributes, actions, and phenomena that the scene represents and that the limit of my strength allows. The attributes that the long-haired man has in his dreams are control and restraint of thinking and actions. That concept was realized here. To be able to intervene in their minds to control and restrain their movements.”

Even listening to this explanation, I felt awful. I wouldn’t lie anyway because I would learn this magic, but it was so unpleasant, though! Do the people of White Deer not mind looking at other’s dreams as they pleased? Moreover, it was possible to suppress the human mind in this way. This, too, was beyond the magic concept I knew of. But control and restraint? In my dreams, Parvache nagged me a lot, but…

Anyway, that didn’t matter now. While I thought that I had to dig into this magic principle, the men who had been stiff began to move again. At the same time, the image of the young man Parvache was distracted and disappeared. Was it a magic failure? Looking at that, Mrs. Pearl responded.

“It didn’t work. Did you misinterpret the dream, Brother?”

“No, my interpretation is irrelevant here. Because I will know what the dreamer feels… Why is this? How about this then?!”

It took one more dream from its body. This time, I was able to see the scene inside the light cluster because it was gathering strength: it was a familiar landscape. No matter how much I looked at that, it was me! It was me when I was young!

“This is the dream you often have. Sleeping dreams are an uncommon kind, but you are unusual. Thanks to this, I was able to collect a lot of stock. If you embodied the scene before that strange shadow and light in your chest appeared, it is a great sleep technique.”

As he said so, Garam burst the ball of light and shot the energy towards the four men under the embankment. But they were standing still after a moment of stumbling! Oh, wasn’t this kid a fake? The effect was so different from when Yusu used magic! Those men began to look around when two mysterious forces struck themselves. At that moment, when I thought that they couldn’t see us with the invisibility magic on us, a strange scene appeared.

Obviously, those men had strange facial expressions and behavior. Still, they couldn’t feel the resonance of the Mana circuit, and they couldn’t even sense a handful of Mana. But all of a sudden, all four of them blinked with a strange light. It was a familiar sight but still felt somewhat awkward.

At a glance, it was clear that the four were ordinary humans with all their Mana circuits blocked. However, energy close to primitive life power was concentrated only in their eyes. At the same time, unnaturally, energy similar to Mana gathered in their eyes. It was identical to the way the wizards put Mana around their circuit…

“Ah, I see.”

Garam, who looked at the figure and tilted his head for a moment, nodded as if he understood it.

“They are already being controlled by someone. So even if I try to interfere with their mind, it doesn’t work…!”

“Hey! It’s already not what’s important.”

As I stopped Garam from speaking, I raised my palms and stretched out towards the men. At the same time, Parvache shouted, sensing the same thing as me.

[Now those guys can see us!]

My face was exposed! I was thinking of using camouflage magic to change my appearance, but I changed my goal after realizing that it was too late to hide it now. The memory-erasing magic was too risky, but it couldn’t be helped. I was going to wipe their memory after I figure out who they were. Damn it! Damn it! Can’t I live peacefully?!

As soon as one of the men who faced us took out a cell phone from his arms, the other three started to rush towards us. It was as if they had been planning to do that in advance. I first fired the spell I had prepared in my left hand.

“The Mirror of Brunos!”

In an instant, a barrier was formed that surrounded all of us. A 200-meter radius barrier made without any magical catalyst with both cognitive impairment and physical barriers were simultaneously applied when there was any contact from the outside. Without complicated calculations of space and placement of distortion variables, a barrier was created due to very simple measures like I hoped and wished.

Ah, Brunos was a God who chose offerings so carefully that I tried to avoid using this spell at some point! My head hurt as I thought about what else to offer to refill the consumed spell. However, in this situation, I had no choice but to borrow this god’s power to achieve this level of barrier without any artifacts or prior work. This wasn’t the only loss today.

In this way, rather than a battlefield, I burst the magic of my right hand as soon as space was secured. The target was the cell phone in their hand!