‘It’s over!’
‘It’s really over this time!’
‘What she meant was, I have no choice…’
Mind Magic, powerful enough to control the fate of others, has long been classified as an absolute taboo.
That alone shows how rare such things are, even across all of the Sallydor Continent.
Lin Nuo thought the illusion magic XÄ« was about to cast on him would at most make him think he’d entered a small room, and play some little games in a short-lived dreamscape.
‘But— Hypnosis… XÄ« is definitely going to adjust me into her shape!’
When Yosena stretched that book, imprinted with a blood-red vertical pupil, out from the water sphere and opened it before him, Lin Nuo immediately felt a wave of dizziness and confusion surge into his mind, making him struggle all the more desperately to break free of his restraints.
‘No, I have to save myself, damn it, I have to save myself.’
“Can you let XÄ« come here? I don’t believe a word you say, and I won’t accept it.”
“Anything that can control the mind is extremely dangerous. I remember there are only a couple of related magics left in the Divine Empire’s treasury. If you’re going to hypnotize me, you must be using your self-developed Hypnosis Technique.”
Lin Nuo doubted, “I don’t believe in your skills. You don’t really look that reliable.”
“Although I can tell you that my potions are more effective than those brewed by many alchemists, when it comes to such highly demanding Mind Magic, the facts really are as you say.”
Without lifting her head, Yosena kept inspecting the magic array on the ground and said, “I’ve failed over five hundred times making my own mental potions. All the test subjects went mad, and cleaning them up was such a pain.”
“….”
‘Damn it! You’d be better off not admitting it! That’s even scarier, okay!’
“This kind of magic that nobody knows is hard for me to figure out by myself. But luckily, XÄ« happened to bring back an illusion scroll about Mind Magic a few days ago.”
Yosena shot him a look that said ‘calm down a little.’
“I’ve already tested it on other subjects.”
“And the result?” Lin Nuo asked, a strange sense of urgency in his voice.
“It was extremely, extremely successful!”
When she said this, Yosena seemed quite proud, “From what I observed, even the grand mistress of a family who can handle the parlor, dominate the bedroom, defeat homewreckers, and outwit scoundrels…”
Can, under hypnosis, easily turn into a useless wife.
“….”
“But when I experimented, I only used magic to replicate the incantations from the Mind Control illusion scroll. Naturally, those copies could only hypnotize the target for a very short time.”
“But I didn’t expect that such a precious scroll—which probably can keep someone hypnotized for a long time—she actually wants to use it on you, just like that.”
Yosena eyed Lin Nuo in front of her with great interest and continued, “This is the first time I’ve seen XÄ« so concerned about someone, and for such a long time at that…”
“I really don’t get it. You’re just some unimpressive blond brat. What special trait do you have that made her so obsessed she doesn’t even come home to see us anymore?”
“…So you’re saying I should feel honored, right?” Lin Nuo wanted to cry but had no tears.
It’s not like he wanted this!
Who could’ve known that, for some strange reason, he’d end up ranked first on the ‘must eat’ list set by his own nun?
“Whether you feel honored or not, let’s talk about it later. I’m starting now…”
Yosena’s voice came out from the water sphere.
She was on the same side as XÄ«, and Lin Nuo could tell this mermaid, who seemed to love researching the mysteries of Hypnosis Technique, definitely wouldn’t let him go with a few sweet words.
But the closer it got to this moment, the clearer Lin Nuo’s mind became under pressure.
Just now, his deliberate skepticism about Yosena’s skills had achieved its purpose—he’d at least learned that XÄ« had only recently gotten her hands on this illusion scroll capable of hypnotizing him.
Just that one bit of information made Lin Nuo sense something out of the ordinary.
The past few days…
XÄ« was clearly by his side all that time!
If she meant ‘a few days ago,’ and if he pushed the timeline back a little further…
Had there been any moment when XÄ« left the manor?
‘Yes!’
Lin Nuo suddenly remembered—Xī had mentioned Silver Tears Lake.
With that, more thoughts surfaced in his mind.
XÄ« had vanished abruptly just two days after he’d returned from Silver Tears Lake.
Dazed, Lin Nuo stared at the bloody eye emblem on the so-called illusion magic artifact before him.
He recalled a piece of information he had overlooked, yet was now obviously critical:
—Back at Silver Tears Lake, Princess Amidina’s mission was to use her Purification powers to lay out a magic array, making the Magic Whale docile for a short time.
—And while the Magic Whale was calm, Parkes was supposed to come out and use some magic to control it.
Thinking further, since the plan to tame the Magic Whale had been launched with the Divine Empire King’s permission, Parkes and Ruding, who didn’t know any Mind Magic at all, must have been carrying some kind of magic artifact from the king or high priest—one capable of controlling the Magic Whale’s mind.
But, among all the items he took from Parkes’s Storage Ring, the only important things were those dozens of contracts for Elf Slaves.
Everything else was just random junk.
He’d considered that Parkes wouldn’t necessarily keep such a mind-controlling artifact inside the Storage Ring.
Lin Nuo’s eyes gradually became clearer.
In other words, Parkes had probably kept the real key artifact on his person…
And for some unknown reason, after going to Silver Tears Lake, XÄ« took it away.
The illusion scroll now being used to hypnotize him—was actually the very secret artifact Parkes had originally intended to use on the Magic Whale!
‘This is not good news.’
Lin Nuo knew all too well that, at best, he could only deduce the function of this artifact.
A Mind Magic artifact powerful enough to control even a Magic Whale was now in XÄ«’s hands, and about to be used on him.
There was no way he could escape with just his own strength.
But at this point, recalling everything that happened at Silver Tears Lake, Lin Nuo spotted a faint sliver of hope.
“It’s about to begin. Experimental subject is advised to empty the mind, relax the neck and shoulders, and keep breathing steady.”
At these words, Lin Nuo blurted out, “If the mind isn’t relaxed, hypnosis will fail, right?”
He saw Yosena, across the water sphere, making some magical gesture over the illusion scroll before him—and suddenly freeze.
Lin Nuo knew then, he had guessed correctly.
“You really did see through it,” Yosena said, “That illusion scroll seems to be the very artifact those fools used to deal with our baby whale—the Mind Control standards are extremely high.”
“And you guessed right. Whether it’s used to hypnotize a beast or a person, no matter the target’s size, since it works on the mind and spirit, if the brain doesn’t enter that state deeper than even dreams, the hypnosis has a high chance of failure.”
“But seeing through it won’t help you.”
“At least so far, not a single test subject has been able to resist when I’ve prepared everything…”
“Bzzzzz—”
No room for protest.
The magic array on the ground was activated by Yosena’s magic.
When he saw the blood-red vertical pupil on the book’s cover suddenly light up, a familiar, icy-blue magic power gathered from the ground’s array and surged toward him.
“This is…”
A sense of crisis and biting cold raced from Lin Nuo’s soles, shooting up the back of his head.