Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The other people could not hear their conversation, but they still saw Flora’s expression changed dramatically. Shock and fear, mostly.
And they all wondered what could possibly scare a powerful wizard so.
Those who intended to “enjoy the show” as bystanders suddenly felt their hearts becoming heavier.
After talking with Flora, Sunders returned to the edge of the mist and continued tossing his glass shards while gathering mana.
Flora was currently the only one who knew what Sunders was up to—to sever the Nightmare Domain from reality. It was Angor who brought the Nightmare Domain here.
But could the boy make it through at his current condition? If he could, what should he do about his Nightmare Domain afterward?
When facing uncertainties, wizards tended to assume the worst. Now, the worst scenario possible was letting the ultimate monster broke through the barrier and allowed it to bring calamity to the wizarding world.
Naturally, these wizards were not going to rely on Angor to prevent it from happening. And if it did happen, they would all escape into plane passageways so the disaster went to someone else.
Throughout history, there were already cases during which the grand demons from the Abyss Plane descended upon the wizarding world. However, the world’s consciousness would always show up to deal with the situation. People simply had to hide for some years and wait it out.
That was always the best decision for wizards—to guarantee their own survival instead of entrusting their lives to other people.
And this was exactly what Flora would usually do.
Now, however, Sunders believed otherwise. The gentleman put faith in Angor that the boy could handle the situation. Sunders was now helping Angor by severing the Nightmare Domain so the boy could claim it in the end. No one knew whether Angor was strong enough to claim the domain. If he succeeded... his future would be unpredictable.
A level-1 apprentice who owned his own Nightmare Domain would make him invincible among his peers.
Flora was getting a little jealous. Lydia was right. Compared to what she went through, Sunders was using a way gentler approach on Angor.
“Angor... you...”
Flora closed her eyes to get rid of unnecessary thoughts. The situation was dire, and she should understand what was important.
She reopened her eyes while resuming her composed self and prepared for all possible circumstances.
...
In Angor’s view, the area which belonged to the Nightmare Realm appeared as a strange amusement park.
A place that could not be found in the wizarding world.
Colorful merry-go-rounds, exciting roller coasters, swinging pirate ship rides, circus and beast tamers... Apart from the circuses, Angor believed that he only saw the other facilities in the films from Earth. They did not exist in the wizarding world.
There was something else that did not belong to this world. Angor could see a team of card soldiers which looked very similar to the ones he saw the first time he wondered into Nightmare Realm. However, these card soldiers had different weapons and had different pictures drawn on them.
They were pokers, another foreign invention in the wizarding world. People used to play poker in Padt Manor, which was brought to them by Jon first.
Angor could not understand why all these foreign beings gathered in the Nightmare Realm. Could Nightmare Realm “project” something from Earth too? But as he assumed, the Earth and the world he was currently in existed in two different universes. Did this mean the Nightmare Realm projected something across another universe?
No. Angor could not believe it.
Then why was he seeing this scene? More importantly, he knew about all of the foreign objects which would otherwise make no sense to anyone else in this world.
Why?
Angor kind of lost himself in his thoughts again. When the poker soldiers approached him, he suddenly remembered Sunders’ warning.
Their stick-like limbs had all kinds of weapons on them. Lances, shields, swords, axes... wait, was that firearm?
The gun had a bizarre color, but since he now had the same thing in his pocket, Angor could recognize it as a revolver.
He shook his head quickly. He was getting distracted again.
Sunders never told Angor how to shut the passage between realms, so Angor had to think of something himself. He scratched his head desperately.
When the poker soldiers almost reached the mist, he just yelled to them. “No! Don’t go this way! Back! Back!”
The pokers halted for just a moment before advancing again.
Angor watched helplessly as the team of five card soldiers crossed the barrier in the middle of his vision and entered the Nightmare Domain.
More mist surged from the wound on his shoulder blade when the cards stepped out of the air and stood still in front of Angor.
As he looked in horror, Two of Clubs, Two of Spades, Two of Diamonds and Two of Hearts bent their thin legs and knelt in front of the fifth card with strange patterns drawn on its back.
The fifth card turned back, and Angor noticed that it was one of the two Jokers.
While the other cards only had static pictures on them, this Joker had a clown on it which could move freely on its flat surface as if the card was a screen showing cartoons.
With a vivid gesture, the clown bowed to Angor with great respect.
Before Angor could feel proud of the unexpected attention, he felt green ripples coming from his head again, which contained an emotion. “Go, and conquer more land for Her Highness!”
... So the card was bowing to the green toy owl on his head.
Sunders mentioned something about how the toy owl was as strong as a real wizard. What about these card soldiers then? Angor tried to observe but he could not sense anything on them. The cards were not displaying any mana ripples, nor the powerful aura possessed by mighty beings.
The Joker acknowledged the order and shot toward the air using its revolver.
Hearing the signal, all the soldiers rushed out of the mist, and Angor could do nothing to stop them.
“I’m sorry, professor. They don’t seem so strong, I hope you can do something about them.”
Angor simply closed his eyes and forgot about what just happened so he could focus on finding a solution.
...
The suture woman had to be someone really important to the monsters. Angor knew that the woman had been staring at him, and he never dared to return his gaze again. Looking at her would bring endless negative emotions into his mind.
Violence, cruelty, madness, and a thirst for blood... It seemed that all possible negative traits were gathered on that woman. She was a vessel who contained enough dark energy to destroy all.
In contrast to the suture woman, the other monsters in the amusement park did not seem so horrible. Rather, they all had adorable looks. Angor did not sense any dangerous emotions from them.
After the poker soldiers, Angor soon noticed something else approaching him.
It was a team of toy soldiers with red uniforms and white caps. Each was only as big as Angor’s hand, and they had a silly but cute expression.
Angor had no idea how dangerous they were despite their harmless look. He only worked his brain quickly to think of something to stop them.
He tried to think about the root of the situation. How did everything start?
Because of death. He did not want to die and miss everything he still wanted to achieve in his life, so as a last resort, he decided to construct an illusion.
Here, he remembered that Lady Mirror once mentioned something special about his illusions, that they simulated an element of Nightmare Realm — “frozen time”.
He was going to make an illusion to distract wizards and use the chance to bring Toby to safety.
As for how to distract the powerful wizards... he planned to create something so powerful that it might scare the wizards. He thought about mimicking Sunders first but gave up on that idea for many reasons. And he did not really know anyone else who could do the trick.
Then the image of the suture woman came to his mind.
Sunders mentioned to him before that the woman might be something stronger than legendary, so Angor believed if he could create just a tiny bit of the woman’s prowess, he might have a chance to trick Twilight.
With this in mind, he started making the illusion. However, as he continued his work, he noticed that the image of the woman as well as his memory about the Nightmare Realm became clearer and clearer.
The memory became so impressive that he actually felt something on his body—the wound on his back or on the back of his soul began to itch.
It seemed like a warning too. For a brief moment, he hesitated and wondered whether he should continue. But on second thought, giving up the only thing he could do meant absolute death. Thus, he kept on and let the strange itchy numbness grew stronger and wormed into his heart, giving bloom to a flower of death which greatly horrified everyone including Sunders.
Now that he remembered the cause of all, he wondered if he could do something to break the illusion nodes, destroy the illusion, and shut the passage.
He did not know whether this would work out, but he had to try.
He put the nodes inside his organs. It did not mean that he had to destroy his organs for real. An illusion node was only a way to express magic, and it could be “taken off”.
Nevertheless, forcefully removing the nodes would still hurt his organs a little.
To make sure whatever he was doing would work, Angor went for the core node which lay on his heart.
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Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The broken node brought great pain which slowly spread onto his entire body.
He was doing something to his heart, which meant a tiny mistake was fatal. Breaking this node meant affecting all the other ones, and it would further damage his other organs.
And Angor was not expecting this.
According to his plan, Angor believed he simply needed to break the lumps of mana in the node which would not cause anything serious. However, the resulting magic surge brought a worse consequence than he thought.
Upon committing the move, he felt all the organs inside his body fell into a seizure. The last thing he knew before fainting was vomiting blood, which... was not just blood. There were parts of flesh in his vomit.
...
Several minutes ago.
People more or less comprehended the situation they were in. According to Flora, they were now inside somewhere called the “Nightmare Domain”, not the auction hall.
They felt unsafe when seeing Sunders’ sudden appearance and Flora’s disturbed expression, which was made worse when they noticed Sunders doing his own work and ignoring everyone including Lydia.
And Sunders’ sweat-covered forehead told them there was looming danger about.
“What a hideous place...” The white-haired wizard Kooper was really worried now. “Such a mess. When will this end?”
“Yeah, we’re only here for the auction, and now... Are we safe at all? Lady Twilight, don’t you think the auction house should take the blame for this?”
Twilight had been in a bad mood since she learned the boy was Sunders’ personal student. She tried her best to contain her emotion just to avoid being provoked by someone. The speaker did not directly blame her for this, but she still found it irritating much.
Anyhow, she needed to say something to people.
“When we get out of here, Twilight Auction will provide compensation to you should anything happen to you. If nothing happens, please consider it as a harmless incident.”
In certain nations where laws had enough power over people, this incident which wasted people’s time might incur great compensation. But in the wizarding world where profit and one’s own life was more important, they all knew how not to ask too much.
“You’re right. Then we shall watch this... harmless incident.”
Twilight still needed to give people an explanation to protect the name of Twilight Auction and the best explanation was the boy lying inside the mist. However, she needed to get past Sunders to do something to the boy, which meant... impossible. She had to tell people something else, such as the exit hidden behind the mist.
Twilight beckoned at a guard to her side. “I’ll put a spirit connection on you. Go in there and check out the exit. Do not do anything else without me giving the order.”
The guard nodded and headed to the mist area.
“Don’t. No one shall touch the mist before Angor could... finish his business, or I’ll personally kill that man!” Sunders’ emotionless voice was heard by everyone.
That was the first thing Sunders said to them since he showed up.
It sounded like a threat.
“Why you-” Twilight pointed a finger at the gentleman but did not say anything. She could not.
Sunders glanced at the woman. “Go ahead, if you dare try.”
His terrible aura enveloped everyone, eliminating all wills which might oppose him.
Lydia wiggled her way the center of the castle hall and declared in a timid voice, “Mister Sunders... that’s YOUR student in there, and we know we outsiders should not meddle with your business. But don’t you think we need a solution right now? Or do we just sit here and wait for the ‘harmless incident’ to conclude on its own?”
Sunders looked around the hall which trapped hundreds of the customers of the auction house before he then sighed in his mind.
Angor... you little troublesome kid.
“As Twilight said, you should all watch. The outcome is already determined.”
—It would be either peace or a great apocalypse which meant an end to the southern region.
However, Sunders did not wish to explain to anyone about anything about the Nightmare Realm.
People exchanged looks. Since the most powerful being on the scene just made his decision known, they might as well listen and stay put.
It was not long before they heard someone yelling inside the mist.
“No! Don’t go this way! Back! Back!”
Before they could figure out what that meant, they saw five strange cards running out of the mist. Armed cards.
“Near-wizard monsters again... but there are only five this time, we can manage.”
Twilight ordered people to get rid of the card soldiers, and Sunders did not stop them. He only glanced at the gun held by the Joker card before returning his attention to the mist.
The cards inflicted heavy damage to the Twilight Guards. They might be on the same level as the rainbow dragonflies, but they had weapons!
The swords and shields they used were at least tiered weapons. People only recognized the Joker’s gun because they saw Angor using something similar to stop a guard’s spell. Back then, the weapon was pretty weak. However, the one wielded by the Joker was deadlier than they expected. Each bullet possessed unstoppable power.
It was only seconds, and another guard was dead from a shot.
Despite their previous decision, the other wizards all provided their help and quickly eliminated the card soldiers. In the last moment though, the Joker card vanished from their sight like the remaining dragonflies while the other cards were torn to pieces.
They feared that the Joker might backstab them while hiding, but it did not happen. Like when dealing with the dragonflies, monsters who had gone invisible never showed up again.
“Maybe they were not here to attack us in the first place?” Someone muttered.
They heard Angor screaming again after several minutes.
Everyone except Sunders looked that way and saw a group of small toy soldiers emerging from the mist. They stopped in front of the teacup band and marched on the spot without doing anything further as if they were preparing to welcome someone important.
Flora frowned and sent a transmission to Sunders, “Should we leave Angor to face all those monsters by himself?”
Sunders considered a little before replying, “Suppose... a group of merciless bandits is trying to cross a river. Will they kill an innocent man who can help them build and maintain a bridge?”
...
Angor lost consciousness as great pain took over all of his inner organs.
However, he woke up in a short time. Also, when he saw the toy soldiers still crossing the barrier, he knew that he did not faint for long.
“You can’t just suicide like that! No! No! You are the biggest serviceman for expanding the territory for Her Highness! Yes!” An emotion came from somewhere above his head.
It was the green toy owl, who was now hovering in the air and staring at Angor in disapproval with those cute, round eyes. There was a stream of green air coming from its beak.
Angor saw the green air entering his body which gave him a chilly yet refreshing feel. It also mended his injuries including the one on his heart.
He even found his limbs healthy as ever.
The bones shattered by Twilight’s attack were now completely recovered. Angor tried to stand up and succeeded without a problem.
It felt amazing! The green air felt amazing!
However, the hole on his shoulder remained the same. It was still releasing white mist.
Angor was somewhat grateful that the owl saved his life, but he still had to finish Sunders’ order.
Not paying any mind to the toy soldiers, his first reaction was to check whether the illusion was broken. Angor noticed that the illusion nodes had disappeared, but the Nightmare Domain was still here and the passage was still left open.
“It didn’t work?!” Angor frowned. He really had nothing left now.
He felt an extra burden returning to his head again, which meant the toy owl perched on his head once more.
Angor rolled his eyes. He really, really did not appreciate the fact that birds, even a toy one, loved to nest in his hair so much.
“Um, can you go somewhere else, Mister Owl? And aren’t you going to follow your soldiers? They already left,” Angor tried.
The owl did not answer.
Angor considered something and spoke again. This time, it was by sending his emotion.
The owl understood him this time albeit not in the way he expected.
“Oi! You! Yes! You! I’m the honorable Sir Ori! Don’t ‘Mister Owl’ me! No! How disrespectful!”
The owl pecked at Angor’s head madly. Despite the toy’s cute look, its beak was pretty solid for the “attacks” to hurt.
“Sir Ori! I’m sorry, s-stop, please!”
The toy owl stopped and released green ripples again. “Remember my name as THE Sir Ori! Yes! Do not get it wrong again! Her Highness bestowed the name upon me, yes! And it is an honor!”
“Yes, sir!” Angor quickly acknowledged.
Angor stroked his hair a little when he saw something else coming to him from the Nightmare Realm—a red fox that was playing with harp and a green leaping frog singing an aria.
“A harp fox and a singing frog??” Out of instinct, Angor “thought” that out loud using the wavelength of his emotion.
“Oh, Fox and Froggy! Just in time, yes! The Queen would love to have professional musicians accompanying her nightwatch!” The toy owl spoke using emotion.
Angor felt something familiar when hearing those names, but he did not really have the time to think about that because he just got a new idea.