Chapter 41: The First Time Forging a Memory
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Benjamin found that it was too easy to be caught in his own hubris.
Divine intervention? I must have been thinking too much! From the first day since he teleported until now, the heavens has never helped him, in fact, they must hate him so much that it wants him dead. If the heavens really wanted to help him, it would have never given him this unlucky host.
He had forgotten that "I can fight back" is one of the big three illusions in life.
So angry...
He had been anticipating Michelle’s appearance, and she did eventually turn up. But the problem was that before she did, the curse was triggered first, causing Benjamin to lay on the bed, too weak to even hold up a gun to take aim at Michelle, much less fight her.
How insidious!
"I had hoped that our meeting wouldn’t be this unpleasant, but you left me with no choice. After all, you now have the power to kill me," Michelle said quietly, like she was narrating a bedtime story, "I just want to remind you, I’m a mage, you’re a mage, the Church is our true enemy. You’ll regret it eventually if you side with the Church just to deal with me."
Benjamin wanted to say a few words, but, the pain of the curse made him unable to do so.
"Don’t worry, the pain will end faster this time, this is all just to remind you." Michelle obviously knew that Benjamin was unable to speak, and continued, "Once you find the way to open up the treasury, I will remove the curse. If I really had the intent to ruin you, I would have taken away your gun and bullets so you have no power to resist at all."
Saying this, she walked to the side of the bed, and picked up the handgun on the floor.
Benjamin, who was struggling in pain, instinctively reached for that silver handgun in Michelle’s hands, like a traveler who was about to die from thirst in a desert staring at an oasis that was not too far away.
Seeing this, Michelle chuckled, and put the handgun into Benjamin’s hands. Benjamin put all his effort into trying to grasp the handgun, but his trembling hands did not listen to his command, and the handgun fell to the floor once more.
He only heard Michelle continue on: "I won’t take these away from you, other than the things in the treasury, I won’t take away anything that belongs to you. This is my token of sincerity for this trade, I hope you can trust me."
Like hell I would believe you! Benjamin was unable to say it out, but his heart screamed these words.
At this moment, he felt his whole body loosen up, the pain of the curse has stopped. In a moment, he jumped up, took up the gun, and was ready to fire away.
But at the moment when he lifted his head to take aim, he found that Michelle was gone.
The room was empty, the corners were empty; he was the only one there, it was almost as if Michelle never even appeared.
Benjamin continued holding up the handgun, not saying a word.
But the at the end, he put his hand down and sighed.
The same old trick.
He threw himself onto the bed, and stared at the ceiling blankly, feeling a sense of hopelessness. Every time, he thought the trauma Michelle brought upon him would be the last, but Michelle would prove him wrong.
Did she install some sort of surveillance camera in his room? Did she plant a bug on him?
If not, how would she know everything?
She is a powerful person, why won’t she just kidnap Claude directly and make him hand over all the treasures instead?
Why not just destroy Saint Peter’s cathedral instead? Would it only satisfy her if she stripped the bishop and all of his followers naked, hung them by the city gates and used a whip to flay them slowly?
Damn...
After hurling tons of curses at Michelle in his heart, Benjamin finally managed to calm down.
He could not afford to be manipulated by Michelle, he felt hopeless, angry, and this was all part of Michelle’s plan. He had to calm down and think properly. He had to analyse her properly, then only can he defeat her.
To think...
Why did Michelle appear today?
Benjamin was sure she was here to demonstrate her power.
Why would she come here to do that?
Because she was afraid.
After he managed to calm down, Benjamin’s thoughts became clearer.
She was afraid the next time she appeared, he would not say a word and shoot her straight away. Because of this, she had to appear this time to scare him and make him fearful of shooting her. But why did he have to be afraid of her? The mage he almost shot to death was many times more powerful than she’ll ever be!
Benjamin could not be fearful of her, this was a psychological warfare, who ever gave in first to the pressure would lose.
But he still had a question, why did Michelle not rob him of all his belongings?
Because she was bluffing, pretending as if she was not afraid at all, just to scare Benjamin, but in reality...
Wait, that is not right......why would she need to bluff?
If she took away all of his things, he would have no ability to retaliate, and it would be unnecessary to threaten him. Her leaving behind the gun would bring her more trouble in the future. It could be that she would die in one shot if she played her cards wrongly next time.
Why was she doing this? Other than being foolish there was no other purpose, or was she setting up another trap?
"Why? Why did she not take away the gun and the bullets?
Benjamin’s train of thoughts was stuck once again.
"Did she not say? That was a sign of sincerity, you’re really terrible, treating other’s goodwill as something bad. "At this moment, the System appeared, using a tone as if it had seen through everything to say this.
"..." Benjamin was lazy to reply.
If it was really what the System said, then he still had something to look forward to!
This so-called trade was built on the fact that both of them were equal. But if Michelle still had to ability to take his life any moment, then they could not be considered equal, it would be an unfair trade.
He could help Michelle get what she wanted, but after that? If Michelle did not remove the seal and continued to threaten him with it, what would Benjamin do? Continue to be her servant? Might as well just die then.
Maybe he could bank on Michelle’s humanity and trust that she would remove the seal after receiving the treasury. But in reality, it was too foolish and naïve to believe that.
Therefore, Benjamin could only try to prolong this, make this battle longer, wait for Michelle to stumble and then get rid of her. Or he could rely on his own method and continue to find a way to remove the curse.
This still has to go on...
Benjamin felt tired.
After only a few days of relaxation, the problems piled up again, making him unable to breathe. He had to battle Michelle here, and on the other hand, he had to be careful of the Church. He felt like a bomb. One wrong move, and he would explode.
In addition, with the military training that Claude imposed on him, he would have no energy left to practice magic.
Right, the Church...
Oh no, the Church!
Suddenly, Benjamin seemed to have remember something important and sat up immediately.
"Uh.....didn’t you say, when the Church came to rescue me, they took my memory." Benjamin sounded rather serious and asked the System this, "Can you hurry and create a memory that demonstrates that when I returned to the Lithur family, most of what happened would be real except for the parts related to Michelle and magic, a memory that would not let the Church not have any suspicions."
Everything that had anything to deal with magic, the Church would be strict on it. He worried that after what happened tonight and what the paladins would report, the bishop would be unhappy and would send people to come and extract his memory, so he had to make preparations for that.
In his memory, there were things that the Church could not find out.
It was luck that he was able to escape the last time. If they were to come again, he would be done for!
"Oh no, I have no ability to do this, you’re just giving me trouble!" The System sounded shocked at Benjamin’s request and did not hesitate to reply.
"How is this hard? Just create a copy of Benjamin’s previous memory, create a new folder, and throw this fake memory into it. Once the Church people come to collect my memory, just show them this. That is all you need to do!" Benjamin tried his best to explain on how to perform this task
He had no other way to deal with this other than relying on the System. Therefore, even if the System was unreliable, Benjamin had to force it to create a memory.
"Ah.....after hearing your explanation, I think I can actually do it." Luckily, after some thought, the System finally said this.
"Then hurry up, I worry that right after the paladins are done reporting, the Church would come find me tonight." Benjamin tried to rush the System. After realizing this, he had a terrible feeling of what was going to happen.
He had to make preparations when dealing with these, the earlier the better.
He had to jinx it, a moment ago he was still thinking about "He had to battle Michelle here, and on the other hand he had to be careful of the Church," and now it seems that he really was caught between a rock and a hard place.
In a while, he found that his ability to jinx himself was far from this.
Because just within three hours, the people from the Church really came.