Chapter 53

CRACKLE!

To break through Alice’s defense, he needed to unleash his maximum attack power, which meant he had to use the plasma axe.

Although he delayed powering it up as much as possible, the distinctive sound of the plasma weapon couldn’t help but draw Alice’s attention.

“Where!”

No matter how startled she was, a witch was still a witch.

As sharp thorns and tentacles began shooting from all directions the moment she detected the sneak attack, Yuseong gritted his teeth.

‘Can’t give her time to regroup. Have to end it here.’

As Yuseong’s eyes turned golden, several thorny vines sprouted nearby, beginning to block the approaching tentacles and vines.

The thorny vines Yuseong created were far fewer in number and weaker compared to those Alice made.

However, Yuseong had something that Alice didn’t.

‘Snake Shadow Whip Technique.’

The basics of martial arts is to achieve maximum effect with minimum force.

Unlike Alice’s randomly moving vines with no apparent pattern, Yuseong’s thorny vines skillfully deflected and checked the tentacles and thorns according to the principles of the Snake Shadow Whip Technique, blocking the path. As a result, Yuseong was able to reach Alice in an instant.

“How dare you!”

Deflecting attacks that could be deflected, evading attacks that could be evaded, and taking unavoidable attacks head-on while ignoring the pain through Pain Nullification, he charged forward.

Alice’s expression twisted at the sight of Yuseong who had approached to just a few steps away.

No matter what bizarre items this homunculus used, she could kill it as easily as crushing a bug if she wanted to.

Yet she was struggling because while her opponent could charge in ready to kill her, she had to hold back to avoid damaging her new body.

‘This is dangerous at this rate.’

Alice finally decided to take a gamble.

Snap!

The moment she snapped her fingers, everything froze – Yuseong, Alice, the vines, tentacles, and even the collapsing mansion.

Of course, time hadn’t actually stopped – it had just slowed down to appear frozen.

‘Transfer the soul right now.’

This was an extremely dangerous act.

Without switching brains, she would have to accept significant memory loss, and forcefully inserting another soul when an existing soul was already in place would cause serious damage to both.

Even with luck, both sides would suffer side effects like memory confusion or mental contamination, and with bad luck, one or both could become mentally disabled from severe soul damage.

However, Alice had an ace up her sleeve.

‘My eyes can do it.’

The Eye of Truth that could see and control all energy.

Naturally, that included souls.

Trusting in her eyes, Alice overlapped her soul with Yuseong’s body.

* * *

To eliminate the side effects of soul transfer, the only option was to completely remove the existing soul from the body to eliminate any resistance.

Then what should be done when that’s impossible?

The most efficient method is to deal a serious blow to the existing soul.

Just as a body’s immunity drops when it doesn’t receive proper nutrients and becomes tired, if you break and weaken the soul’s will by stimulating trauma or delivering consecutive mental shocks, taking over the body isn’t difficult.

‘That much is easy. My eyes can see everything. Just need to find negative memories, terrible memories and remind them a few times.’

However, when Alice faced Yuseong’s mind, she almost lost her sanity.

“Ugh!”

Strange things scattered throughout Yuseong’s mental world… no, rather than information, they were more like contaminants.

Something unidentified, filled with endless hatred and malice toward living beings, triggering instinctive fear and revulsion just by looking at it.

Even Alice, the great witch who had experienced all sorts of horrible things, couldn’t help but be extremely shocked when faced with this.

“What is this? How can she move around normally with something like this in her head?”

Though imperfect with gaps here and there and twisted about, it was still more than enough to corrupt and destroy a human mind.

No matter how disciplined a knight might be, having something like this in their head would drive them mad within days.

Seriously considering whether she really should take this body, Alice sighed as she realized she had no choice and began floating through the mental world.

And before long, she found something even stranger.

“Why is it so desolate?”

Usually, a human’s mental world is painted in various colors.

An ordinary person’s mind has diverse colors, happy people have bright colors, and unhappy people’s minds are dark.

However, Yuseong’s mental world was mostly composed of achromatic colors.

Even the few colors she finally found after searching for a while were too faint to have any effect if stimulated.

‘Not much time left…’

Flying around here and there, Alice narrowed her eyes as she discovered something.

In the deepest part of the mental world, cleverly hidden among various defense mechanisms, was an unidentified memory.

Although she couldn’t tell what the memory was, it was certainly the most vividly shining and darkly colored among all the colors she’d seen so far.

“This is it.”

There wasn’t another choice to begin with.

Alice began using the Eye of Truth to flow that murky memory toward Yuseong’s soul.

“Where is this place?”

Neat and massive buildings, numerous self-moving steel carriages, people wearing unfamiliar clothing walking around holding something that shone.

Everything was unfamiliar and confusing, but that wasn’t what mattered.

Shaking her head to clear away stray thoughts, Alice looked around and finally found the owner of this memory.

A boy walking at the front holding a picture with a person’s face, followed by people with gloomy faces behind a huge coffin.

That boy holding the picture was the owner of the soul currently controlling the homunculus’s body.

“A parent’s funeral?”

Though she knew nothing about this world, she could tell from the atmosphere that it was some kind of funeral.

However, that’s precisely why Alice couldn’t help but feel something was off.

“…Why isn’t he grieving?”

Despite attending his parent’s funeral, no negative emotions could be felt from the boy.

Even examining thoroughly with the Eye of Truth showed the same.

Joy, sorrow, peace, pain, not a single emotion could be felt – perfect emptiness.

That emptiness was enough to make her skin crawl.

‘How can this be? Is he unable to feel emotions? Given there was color, he must have felt some intense emotion…’

At that moment, she felt a small emotion.

However, it was completely different from what Alice had expected.

‘Anger?’

The boy’s anger was directed at himself.

Anger at himself for being unable to feel any particular emotion even in a situation where his parents had died and their funeral was being held.

The problem was the degree of that anger.

Far too weak to inflict mental damage, just a very slight level of anger.

There’s no way this could damage the soul.

Panicked, Alice quickly withdrew and searched the mental world thoroughly, but couldn’t find the memory she wanted anywhere.

‘Can this even be called human?’

Only then did Alice realize why Yuseong could remain normal despite having that unidentified, horrible something in his head.

He empathizes with nothing.

He understands nothing.

Though he might pretend to be happy, angry, sad, or surprised on the outside, it’s nothing more than acting.

A defective product missing something that humans should naturally have, merely living because he’s alive.

As far as Alice knew, there was only one term to describe a being that was human yet not human.

“Monster.”

* * *

CRACK!

The plasma axe turned the brain that had been attached to Alice’s head into mush.

A perfect victory.

However, Yuseong couldn’t help but wear an uneasy expression.

‘What was that?’

Yuseong scratched his head vigorously, recalling Alice’s fearful expression and lips that seemed to try to say something at the last moment – a stark contrast to her previous expressions of either malice or anger.

He couldn’t help but worry about what she had seen to make such an expression, what she had tried to say.

“Was she trying to leave a curse?”

Lost in thought, Yuseong only came to his senses when he saw the message window appearing before him.

[You have cleared the quest ‘Girl Seeking Salvation’.]

[Analyzing clear process, please wait a moment.]

[Fate Change Rate 259.9%, Otherworld Skill Usage 80.4%, Otherworld Artifact Usage 94%.]

[Final Evaluation: S Rank.]

[Amazing! Although the girl’s salvation wasn’t confirmed, User Han Yuseong overcame an overwhelming power difference to achieve the incredible feat of defeating a great witch who could have endangered the world! In recognition of this achievement, you will receive rewards.]

[Clear Reward: 10,000,000 Karma, Eye of Truth(A+), Thorny Vine(C).]

[S Rank Clear Additional Reward: 5,000,000 Karma.]

[Return to original world will begin shortly.]

Contrary to his expectation of receiving a terrible rank for using lots of skills and items, he achieved an S rank clear with a fate change rate even higher than his skill and artifact usage rates.

The rewards were also spectacular.

Though he didn’t receive any items, he got 15 million karma, a perfect Eye of Truth, and a stronger Thorny Vine skill.

A satisfying result.

However, Yuseong couldn’t help but be confused.

“Wait, so what happens to Alice? Her soul was pulled out of her body! If I leave, doesn’t Alice have to stay in that state? The goal was to save the girl, but we didn’t save her! Don’t tell me this counts as salvation just because she survived somehow?”

Finding the golden jewel while searching Alice’s corpse, Yuseong could only pace back and forth, unable to decide what to do.

Though he knew this was Alice’s soul, he had no idea how to return it to the body.

‘She seemed to do something with the Eye of Truth by understanding energy flow and trying… No, I don’t know if this is being considered alive right now, but if I try something I don’t really understand and fail, it could get troublesome. I don’t know what happens if the client dies after the quest ends.’

“Aaargh! This is driving me crazy!”

Just as his thoughts reached the extreme of wondering if he should just eat the jewel like candy, a new message appeared before Yuseong.

[Deus Ex Machina Program Activated.]

[Ariadne’s Thread tracking complete.]

[Initiating spirit particle transfer.]

“Wait! Just wait a moment!”

Pop!

As always, the message simply carried out its task silently.