Chapter 52

The moment he pulled the trigger, Yuseong was certain of victory.

The power of a bullet exceeding the speed of sound is absolute, and no matter how powerful a witch may be, it’s impossible to withstand a gunshot fired right in front of you.

However, less than a second after pulling the trigger, Yuseong realized his thinking was wrong.

Pop!

Just before hitting its target, the bullet vaporized into smoke with a flash of light.

In that split second, acting on instinct, he aimed for vital points other than the brain and pulled the trigger repeatedly, but the result was the same.

“It looks similar to the hand cannons dwarves use, so I wondered, but it really was a weapon. Is that all you’ve got?”

Whether she had been using magic from the start or used it the moment the bullet was fired was unclear, but one thing was certain.

‘Guns don’t work on this monster.’

Even though she had lost her body, even though she survived disgracefully by parasitizing a homunculus body with only her brain remaining, a witch who single-handedly destroyed a country couldn’t be dealt with so easily.

Seeing the smile on Alice’s lips, Yuseong instinctively activated Asura Perception Way to accelerate his consciousness.

‘Here it comes!’

Tentacles, vines, and palms sprouting from the blood and flesh scattered everywhere.

There was only one space where he could dodge the attacks coming from all directions.

“Oh my?”

Using Flash Step to reach Alice’s front, Yuseong threw a straight punch toward her head as she wore a surprised expression.

Shadow Moon Style 16 Rock Piercing.

If it landed, he was confident it could easily pierce through soft brain tissue.

If it landed, that is.

“Ugh?”

“Oh my, did you really think I would let you get close without any countermeasures?”

His fist bounced back with strong repulsion.

As Yuseong tried to continue his attack, he heard a sound from right behind and threw himself sideways.

Crack!

A massive tentacle barely grazed past him.

The relief of dodging the attack was momentary, as Yuseong gritted his teeth and began evading the barrage of attacks coming from all directions.

He slipped past vines that came right up to his face, used a grasping hand as a foothold to jump into the air when it tried to grab his ankle, flipped in midair and kicked off the ceiling to fall to the ground.

Even Alice couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration at Yuseong’s movements as he darted around the room using Flash Step repeatedly to dodge attacks.

“Wow! Amazing! That’s not something possible with a homunculus’s abilities, how can you move like that?”

“……”

Alice’s ability wasn’t suited for combat.

After just this brief exchange, his magic power had been reduced to less than half, and his body was screaming in protest from the continuous acrobatic movements.

The answer was ultimately obvious.

Using an item.

While it might take time to make decisions, once Yuseong made one, acting without hesitation was his strength.

After deflecting an approaching tentacle forward to momentarily block Alice’s view, Yuseong took out the most suitable item for the situation, finished setting it up, and threw it in Alice’s direction.

It happened in an instant that barely deserved the word ‘moment’, but Alice didn’t miss that instant and succeeded in restraining Yuseong.

“Enough of your jumping around.”

Numerous vines and tentacles completely wrapped around his entire body, reminiscent of a cocoon.

Alice approached with a seductive smile and placed her finger on Yuseong’s head as she spoke.

“When you open your eyes again, everything will be over.”

If the goal was simply to transfer memories, changing the brain would be enough, but it wasn’t sufficient to remain her true self.

To fully inherit enlightenment, spiritual talent, and emotions, the soul needed to be transferred as well, and to avoid friction in that process, the soul needed to be extracted from this body to make it a simple vessel.

Woooong!

“Kuk!”

As it was her own body, and moreover her creation, extracting the soul was easier than turning over her palm.

After extracting the soul from the convulsing body and using Eye of Truth to materialize it, Alice tilted her head while looking at the small golden jewel in her palm.

“Nothing seems strange…”

While not as much as the brain, the soul also contains some information.

However, no matter how she looked at it, this soul was just that of an ordinary homunculus like any other.

The strange way of speaking that made no sense, unpredictable bizarre behavior, abnormal level of combat ability – she couldn’t find any information to properly explain any of it.

‘I’ll know the details once I finish the ritual and examine the brain.’

It wasn’t good to stay in this state for long.

Just as Alice was about to proceed with the ritual to return to a safe body as quickly as possible, she couldn’t help but doubt her own eyes.

“Cough, cough! Hack!”

“…How?”

The brain and soul have a complementary relationship.

No matter if the soul remains, if the brain doesn’t function properly, the body is no different from dead, and the same applies vice versa.

Yet this homunculus was still moving even with its soul extracted.

Coughing repeatedly and glaring at her with bloodshot eyes filled with an unknowable emotion.

It was something impossible to understand by Alice’s common sense.

It was as shocking as the sun rising in the west or a thrown ball floating in the air instead of falling to the ground.

Yuseong glared at the shocked Alice and spoke with anger.

“…Give that back.”

In the current situation, all he could do was move his fingertips.

And that was more than enough to press the transmitter button.

Baaang!

Though he had tried it once before to test its power, the explosive received as a reward from the [Unidentified Organism. Highly Hostile to Humans.] quest was still impressive enough to draw admiration.

The impact of the rock-crushing explosive, made in a world far more advanced than Earth, not only instantly swept through the entire room but also collapsed the floor, causing the room to sink to the second floor.

“Kyaaaaaaah!”

Although she had defensive magic up, it wasn’t prepared for this level of attack, and Alice could only scream and thrash about from the terrible pain and heat coursing through her entire body.

However, unfortunately for Alice, the attack didn’t end there.

Thud!

An unidentified rectangular object visible through her blurry vision.

And immediately after came Yuseong’s voice, as if he couldn’t contain his excitement.

“One more time?”

Bang!

Two explosions and two collapses.

Alice’s appearance as she fell to the hall on the first floor was too terrible to look at.

Black dead blood flowed from her throat, both legs had vanished without a trace, and her entire body was hideously distorted from severe burns.

Grrrr.

After their momentary surprise at the sudden change, the monsters gathered in the hall spotted the witch and wore cruel expressions.

They didn’t care about anything else as long as they could take revenge once more, though they didn’t know exactly what was happening.

However, they didn’t know.

That what stood before them now wasn’t the homunculus they had been happily killing until now, but the real witch.

Crack!

A large thorn that shot out from Alice’s palm instantly pierced through the head of a nearby chimera.

That was just the beginning.

Hundreds, thousands of thorny vines, tentacles, and bizarre arms grew out from Alice’s center and began destroying everything they touched as they spread in all directions.

Kyaaaaaaaa!

The monsters who had rushed in confidently finally realized the situation had gone wrong and tried to flee, but escape wasn’t permitted by the enraged Alice.

Anything that moved even slightly was caught and torn to pieces, and wherever there was even a slight sound, thorny vines and tentacles would immediately shoot out to turn everything into a honeycomb.

And Yuseong, watching all of this from the second floor, bit his lip to endure the surging pain.

Though he barely survived thanks to the tentacles and vines acting as shields, survival was all he could claim – his body’s condition was no better than Alice’s.

He quickly injected a regeneration ampule to heal his wounds, but that wasn’t the real problem.

‘This is dangerous if it continues.’

The moment his soul was extracted, Yuseong had given up on everything.

However, for some reason, even though his soul was pulled out, his consciousness remained intact and his body could move without problems.

Only one thing had changed – Alice’s voice could no longer be heard.

‘Was Alice’s soul extracted instead of mine?’

Whether it wasn’t considered a failure because the client wasn’t definitively dead, or if there was some other reason, he couldn’t know, but what was certain was that if that witch destroyed the soul stone, the quest could fail at any moment.

“How dare! How dare! How dare you! A tool bearing its fangs at its master? Come out! I said come out!”

Rumble!

Alice’s rampage grew more violent with time, and ominous sounds began coming from the building.

Sensing that he could be crushed to death by the collapsing building at this rate, Yuseong felt the need to buy time until his body recovered somewhat.

“You’re wrong, witch. I’m not a tool.”

Crack!

Glancing at the huge thorn that had just pierced where he had been moments ago, Yuseong wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and carefully moved his feet.

“Ha! If you’re not a tool, then what are you?”

“I am…”

After pausing briefly, Yuseong popped a recovery pill into his mouth and continued speaking.

“…I am Deus ex machina.”

“Deus what?”

Crack!

Thorns shooting up from the ground.

But Yuseong had already moved elsewhere.

“Deus ex machina. The god from the machine. A convenient existence that ignores all fate and probability, suddenly appears in the story to solve all problems and disappears. The epitome of unreasonableness. That’s what I am.”

“I thought something was strange, but did you perhaps hit your head? Deus ex machina? God from the machine? I don’t understand what you’re saying at all.”

While maintaining a casual conversation on the surface, Alice was concentrating all her attention on tracking Yuseong’s position.

Though precise tracking was impossible with her senses dulled from the explosion, she was gradually narrowing down the range using the tentacles spread everywhere as sensory organs instead.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand. I wasn’t saying it expecting you to understand anyway.”

‘Ah, there you are.’

A cruel smile appeared on Alice’s lips.

She began wrapping tentacles embedded in the walls around the entire space where Yuseong was presumed to be.

She intended to swallow him whole at once, like a snake devouring its prey.

“Oh, how curious. I was thinking exactly the same thing.”

“Really?”

“What master would seek understanding from a tool? The master simply uses, and the tool is simply used.”

Bam!

Massive tentacles and thick vines that emerged while destroying part of the building instantly surrounded the space where the voice came from.

“Got you!”

The moment she was certain of her successful hunt, Alice let her guard down.

In that fleeting moment when a predator reveals its only opening, Yuseong didn’t miss his chance.

‘Got you.’

Yuseong’s form shot toward Alice, who was distracted by the voice recorder.