Chapter 67

“Something like this……”

Until now, all the techniques he’d seen only involved summoning souls and having them dwell in bodies or objects, but for Yuseong, that was enough.

Just grasping the basic concept of handling souls made him think of countless ways to apply it.

Yuseong simply attributed it to his increased Wisdom stat and moved on, but the reality was a bit different.

The Forbidden Knowledge way.

Knowledge gained from blasphemous Outer Gods – knowledge that humans cannot and should not understand.

Though it became an incomplete skill that couldn’t be properly utilized since it wasn’t obtained through normal means, conversely, this meant that while incomplete, it could still be used to some extent.

Like pulling a thread to untangle a knot, the moment he learned knowledge that acted as a trigger, related knowledge appeared in Yuseong’s mind in the form of inspiration.

[You have acquired Soul Control (C).]

The energy escaping from the soul stone begins to take the form of a person.

A familiar-looking girl with gray hair and golden eyes.

“Alice?”

-……

Alice, whose name was called, looked his way with surprised eyes before starting to look around.

Seeing Alice’s bewildered appearance, Yuseong finally wondered if he had been too hasty.

From Alice’s perspective, she had been captured by a crazy witch, lost consciousness, and when she opened her eyes, she was in an unfamiliar city being called by name by a strange man.

Losing her body and only having her soul remain was just a bonus.

Even the most composed person wouldn’t be able to maintain their composure.

However, Alice’s reaction was very different from what Yuseong had expected.

-Wh-what is this? Why am I so small?

A height no bigger than a palm and short limbs.

Alice let out a scream at her appearance that was closer to a fairy than a human.

“…Shouldn’t you be asking questions like ‘where is this’ and ‘who are you’ first?”

-I already know everything that happened! I just couldn’t get out from in there, but I could see and hear everything happening outside. You defeating my original, this being another world, you saving me – everything!

“Even so, you’re accepting the situation too quickly! What about identity crisis, anxiety about being in another world? Don’t you worry about those things?”

-I already sorted those out! You have no idea how much thinking I did while I was in there!

An adaptability that surpassed even his own.

Alice made an angry face at Yuseong, who was letting out a dispirited laugh.

-Never mind that, explain why my body became like this!

“It’s energy-saving mode. I could change you back to your original form, but then you wouldn’t last long. It’s better to stay in that state until we find a vessel for you.”

-Vessel? Don’t tell me, can I come back to life?

“It won’t be that easy? Resurrection isn’t just about putting a soul into an empty body. Brief possession to make it move might be possible, but to fully settle in a body……”

Yuseong, who had been naturally continuing his explanation, suddenly stopped speaking as something occurred to him.

‘How do I know this?’

Knowledge he shouldn’t have was naturally appearing in his mind.

As he tried to trace back his memories to find the source of this knowledge, Yuseong shook his head and stopped thinking due to a sudden intense headache.

“Let’s talk about this later. There’s something urgent right now.”

-Urgent? W-wait a moment. Why are you suddenly running? Isn’t that a cliff over there?

Yuseong tucked the soul stone into his chest and threw himself toward the building on the opposite side.

-Kyaaaah!

Alice screamed, but Yuseong could easily jump to the opposite building.

Even when his stats were 99 points, he could move beyond human limits, so now with his abilities more than doubled, it goes without saying.

There was no need to use martial arts techniques or qi – he could leap between buildings with pure physical strength alone.

Swoosh!

If it seemed a bit far, he could just use Thorny Vine.

It felt like becoming the spider-man from American comics.

‘I vaguely felt it, but this really isn’t an ordinary city.’

It would be a mistake to think of it as a fantasy world city just because it was a city of lizardmen.

Towers tall enough to leap over skyscrapers and magnificent statues.

Looking down at the numerous streetlights glowing in various colors and buildings of diverse forms, it felt like watching a near-future city from a sci-fi movie.

‘By the way…..’

Seeing Alice silently staring at him, Yuseong said with a gruff expression.

“Is there something on my face?”

-Hmm, so this is what you look like, Mr. Yuseong.

“Why? Disappointed?”

-No. Rather, I’m surprised because you’re much more handsome than I imagined.

“Ahem.”

Caught off guard by the unexpected attack, Yuseong cleared his throat and turned his gaze away.

He was used to hostility, but this was his first time receiving such genuine goodwill without any ulterior motives, so it felt very unfamiliar.

Wondering if he should return the compliment, Yuseong decided to just say nothing.

While receiving Alice’s gaze and silently leaping between skyscrapers, Yuseong gradually slowed down.

‘There it is.’

A massive structure reminiscent of a pyramid.

Enormous energy supporting the barrier was emanating from there.

‘The question is how to get inside…..’

There was an empty field spanning several dozen meters around the structure with no buildings, and lizardmen holding weapons were standing guard – ones he hadn’t seen once until now.

After thinking briefly, Yuseong put on his goggles and entered the community.

-RoomDweller: Can you contact GreatMage?

-SuperAnt: Yes, why?

-RoomDweller: We need to divert the lizardmen’s attention elsewhere. Tell them to cast one flashy spell that will captivate everyone’s eyes.

Even while making the request, he was skeptical if such a spell existed, but before long, Yuseong would realize how needless his worry had been.

“Huh?”

The darkness recedes and the city starts to brighten.

At first, he thought the sun had risen.

However, even if the sun rises, it should brighten gradually – it’s impossible for the world to suddenly light up like turning on a lamp.

Unconsciously looking up at the sky, Yuseong froze.

“The sun?”

A massive sun floating high in the sky.

And the moment GreatMage swung their staff, the sun fell toward the city.

Boooom!

When the sun collided with the barrier and exploded, brilliant light swept through the city.

The effect of GreatMage’s spell was definitive.

It went beyond dazzling eyes – it was an incredible achievement that could completely blind them.

Confirming that the lizardmen were in complete chaos, Yuseong casually ran toward the structure, and was able to safely enter without any interference.

“……”

The walls and floor were made of smooth silver metal, and pure white lights were attached to the ceiling at regular intervals.

Unlike its exterior which reminded one of a pyramid, the interior was surprisingly modern.

“Now then.”

Activating Eye of Truth, he could see the massive flow of energy circulating inside the structure.

The place where the energy flow began was underground.

-Should I go back inside?

“I wonder? Is there really a need for that?”

Even with palm-sized Alice out, it wouldn’t affect his stealth.

Rather, it would be a much better choice to keep her out and double the watchful eyes.

Woong woong!

Whether to supply energy to the barrier or not, the entire building occasionally trembled faintly.

Yuseong carefully moved toward the source of the faint heavy rumbling felt each time.

Perhaps thinking no intruder would make it this far, the interior was generally very quiet.

Of course, there were systems to stop intruders, but they were inadequate to stop Yuseong.

Even if cleverly concealed, security systems operating on magic power couldn’t escape Eye of Truth, and closed doors could simply be broken through.

Crash!

Breaking through the door blocking the way underground revealed a vast corridor.

Despite having just a single door, the underground had a quite different feeling from above.

‘Did they not maintain this place at all?’

Pushing through thick dust and dense cobwebs as he advanced forward, a massive space spread out before Yuseong’s eyes.

-…A familiar sight.

Large glass tubes and the lizardmen inside them.

Alice seemed to recall the horrific experiment chamber from the witch’s mansion, but Yuseong’s thoughts were a bit different.

Because he could read the text written on the glass tubes with Babel’s power, he knew these tubes weren’t made for experiments.

This was a kind of cryogenic sleep device.

A resting place for those who slept awaiting an uncertain distant future.

‘But why wasn’t it maintained?’

The problem was that the condition of the devices and those inside them wasn’t very good.

The liquid filling the glass tubes had turned a murky dark color as if rotted, and the lizardmen were in such a state that you could barely tell they were lizardmen.

There seemed to be easily 200 glass tubes in this space, but among them, there wasn’t a single functioning device or lizardman that appeared to be alive.

“I don’t understand what’s what.”

The deeper he went, the larger and more elaborate the glass tubes became.

If the ones outside were the standard model, the ones inside felt like the premium version.

Of course, there was no difference in condition whether standard or premium.

All the liquid was rotted and no intact lizardmen remained.

-The lizardmen’s appearance seems to change slightly as we go deeper inside.

There was just one difference.

While the lizardmen in the outer glass tubes had a stronger reptilian feel, going deeper inside showed more lizardmen that looked closer to humans than reptiles.

A form more suited to being called dragonkin than lizardmen.

“……”

Finding a door covered with numerous warnings saying to absolutely not enter, Yuseong took out his axe without hesitation.

Isn’t it human nature to want to do something more when told not to do it?

Bang!

After nearly 5 minutes of breaking through the door, a massive cavern the size of several soccer fields spread out before his eyes.

-Dragons?!

There were 11 dragons in total inside the cavern.

One dragon in the center, and 10 dragons of different colors and sizes positioned at regular intervals surrounding that dragon.

‘Are they using dragons as a power source?’

The source of energy supporting the barrier was none other than the dragons.

Each time the magic circles engraved throughout the cavern dimly glowed, tremendous energy was drawn from the dragons and supplied throughout the structure.

Frozen at the sudden appearance of dragons, it wasn’t long before Yuseong noticed something strange.

Despite an intruder entering, the dragons didn’t move at all.

After hesitating briefly, Yuseong carefully flew into the cavern.

Ignoring Alice who was frantically saying they should run away right now, Yuseong thoroughly examined the dragons and muttered in a dispirited voice.

“These ones are all dead too?”

Poof!

Just lightly kicking it caused the dragon’s scales to crumble into powder that scattered everywhere.

“Should I call this being thorough, or just cruel?”

Like boiling bone soup until the bones turn to mush, the dragons had been thoroughly drained of magic power from their bone marrow to their last drop of blood, and were barely maintaining their form while already dead.

-M-Mr. Yuseong? Just a moment here…..

“I don’t think these would sell for any money? I’m not particularly short on money, but it’s still a shame.”

-Mr. Yuseong! Stop saying weird things and look over here!

Turning his head at Alice’s cry, Yuseong froze.

One dragon in the center of the cavern was looking down at them.

Moving its vertical pupils characteristic of reptiles back and forth while staring at him, a clear voice came from the dragon.

-What are you doing?