There Is No Hidden Villain in This Novel Chapter 81

I opened my mouth as I took out my staff from the subspace.

“Excuse me, but if you’re going to interfere like an idiot, would you please step back? I have something to do.”

“Shut up! Do you want to die!”

However, Ryuseong seemed more pissed off than I had thought. Was it because of his past, having lived with the black mist since he was a baby? Seeing his veins standing out and his muscles bulging on his forearm, I naturally calmed down. If I got hit by Ryuseong in that state, I would be in trouble. I could be sent to the afterlife with a single punch.

Still, I tried not to show that I was intimidated and said,

“Won’t you calm down? Even if it is the black mist, drinking a little won’t immediately turn you into an enemy of humanity. I’m sure you know that as well.”

“It’s not good enough for your body to be worth drinking. You should know that as well! Stop talking nonsense and put up the barrier. Don’t throw a fit like a madman!”

My impression upon hearing such harsh words from the original protagonist was, ‘You’ve judged me correctly.’ However, it was a pity that the shock therapy had been a complete failure, meaning Ryuseong’s effort to bring me to my senses by spewing insults had been in vain.

But it wasn’t as if I had dispelled the barrier because I wanted to inhale the black mist, so I shook my head and drew the end of my staff across my forearm. Regardless of what Ryuseong said, I had coated it with mana and split my skin.

To manifest blood magic.

‘Anyway, using blood magic always feels like I’m faking a self-injury for insurance fraud…’

Still, if I could change the original story’s development just by shedding a few drops of blood, wouldn’t I be a fool not to choose it?

By now, so much of the story had changed that looking into the original felt like a foolish act. The very fact that I was standing here was part of that. However, I could still predict the future to a certain extent using parts of the original plot, and I had come all the way to Siberia to exploit that very advantage.

In the original story that I knew, they tried to solve the Black Fox incident with arson. Since the forest was imbued with the black mist, they burned the whole thing down with flames imbued with toxic energy. However, that was the wrong choice. As everyone knew, an ancient and time-honored forest spirit had been living and breathing in that forest since antiquity, and until then, she had been burning her own life force to prevent the spread of the black mist. But because the forest burned down due to the arson, the forest spirit’s power to suppress it vanished before the black mist had even dissipated. In the end, the black mist that had been suppressed for a hundred years erupted all at once, causing an even greater disaster.

Ryuseong solves that. That was the original story’s development.

‘So, if I do this right, the spirit will join the battle!’

It was a time-honored forest that had aged for hundreds, thousands of years. What would the spirit of such a forest have witnessed, and what could she accomplish? My vile and despicable brain was already cooking up extraordinary schemes involving the forest spirit.

For reference, to summon a spirit, one had to reveal a free soul, unmasked by any magical means whatsoever. In physical terms, it meant being naked, and in a spiritual sense, it meant deleting all magical defenses.

‘It’s not like I drank the damn black mist for nothing.’

Meaning, I didn’t turn off the barrier because I was thoughtless.

Ah, and how was I going to cover up the fact that Cassis de Millang was aware of the forest spirit’s existence at this point in time from the regressor? That, too, is easy. The original Cassis de Millang did not participate in the Black Fox subjugation, so Ryuseong has no way of knowing whether he had guessed at the forest spirit’s existence or not.

In other words, the environment was set for me to bluff and swindle to my heart’s content.

Blood trickles down to the ground. Murmuring a few phrases in my mouth, I recited the activation chant in a clear voice and guided the magic, inducing the blood that had seeped into the ground to seek out the pure roots. I was planning to find out the spirit’s location.

However, I was contemplating how much blood would be appropriate to shed. As I was watching the blood drip down, Ryuseong, who had drawn closer, grabbed my upper arm and began to apply pressure to stop the bleeding.

Somehow, his expression was not one of anger. In fact, it was scary. Perhaps because I knew all too well that no one could stop Ryuseong when he became so enraged that he actually grew calm, a chill ran down my spine for a moment.

“Would I feel better if I beat you to a pulp?”

“What a thuggish thing to say…”

“That would be safer. No doubt.”

“And you would be eternally despised by me. Well, I suppose that statement holds no meaning…”

“…”

“More importantly, can you do it? To defeat me, a mere you?”

The more nervous a person is, the more they must straighten their back and stiffen their chin. If the body cowers, the spirit shrivels as well. One had to straighten their body to give the spirit a place to stand.

It was at that moment, as we were glaring coldly at each other. A strangely vast and desolate current flowed in on the wind. I turned my head in the direction the wind was blowing. The breeze, blowing from within the forest thick with black mist, stretched a strange, cry-like song through the leaves, then gusted like an arrow, shaking the branches. It was a suspicious and unnatural phenomenon. It was something to be wary of, but Ryuseong didn’t react because he knew full well what I was doing, and neither did I.

‘She’s quick-witted, isn’t she? She must have smelled the blood.’

The wind wailed like a somber song. Whoosh, whoosh… Then at some point, a whirlwind strong enough to scatter the black mist that had gathered in the dim, shaded areas blew fiercely, sending fallen leaves flying. Rustle… The old leaves crumbled, releasing a smell of rotten grass. Following the intense change that stimulated the five senses, there was a single, alien sound of a string instrument being plucked.

For a moment, the sound of the wind ceased, and I smiled faintly. A pure white wind, now sharpened like an arrowhead, had honed its edge right in front of my pupils.

‘Shit, holy crap. That scared me. I almost fainted.’

Try having something pointy shoved in your face while your eyes are open. Of course you’re going to blink. But in order to maintain my cool image, I suppressed my body’s natural reaction entirely. I was truly a concept-addict to a tear-jerking degree.

[A fa-mi-li-ar… You have no scent.]

The next moment, I was preemptively struck by the forest spirit, who had entrusted her voice to the wind.

‘What kind of nonsense is this?’

Because I had been camping, I didn’t have time to put on perfume as usual. But what does she mean by familiar… What? Is she saying a human with no scent is familiar?

But I doubt I’m scentless.

‘I had beef jerky this morning, after all.’

Then what is she saying is familiar? Shit, holy crap. I got caught up in her nonsense. Nonsense isn’t meant for the other person to understand, but to throw them into confusion, and for me, a master of nonsense, to be on the receiving end of it…

I had clearly been played. I guess anyone would be flustered if a gust of wind about to gouge out their eyeballs started talking to them, but… I need to ask for her cooperation.

“O, spirit of the forest, we need your help…”

[Ve-ry well. I will help you. That is my joy… Fol-low me.]

…Dammit. She beat me to the punch again. I was about to find fault by telling her to get rid of the wind arrow if we were going to be on friendly terms, but it was withdrawn with a swoosh before I could even speak. Then, the wind began to move as if guiding us deeper into the forest. Feeling empty, I stared blankly into the air for a moment, until Ryuseong tapped me to get my attention and spoke to me with the same icy expression as before.

“Put up the barrier first.”

“Ah.”

I almost forgot. Only then did I give the forest spirit a glance before putting the barrier back up. The spirit did not leave, and an intangible current covered my skin.

Only then did the realization that the air I had been breathing until now was wrong and malevolent dawn on me, and my tainted lungs pleaded with a sense of nausea, but I couldn’t let it show.

I smiled nonchalantly and started running, following the spirit’s guidance.

“There are things you can forget and things you can’t… If you keep treating your body so recklessly, you’re going to die. Humans aren’t machines. Just fixing the parts isn’t the answer.”

His nagging was endless. I don’t know how he could run this fast and still enunciate so clearly without slurring a single syllable. Only after carefully observing that I seemed fine did Ryuseong unleash his nagging like a floodgate had opened. For me, who was faking it despite not being particularly fine, having to run through the already dim and desolate forest while also having my eardrums assaulted was agonizing. It wasn’t that I was extremely unwell, but it was about the level of a deep hangover the day after drinking…

I needed hangover-cure ramen. I made an exaggerated gesture of plugging my ears, revealing my fed-up feelings to the entire world.

“You’re not unaware of the advantages one can gain by securing a spirit’s cooperation in a field as ‘unnatural’ as this, are you? This is all the result of calculating utility and efficiency, so cut the explanations and just say thank you.”

“Utility… efficiency. You’re wrong. You’re just spouting sophistry.”

“It is you who is impractical.”

As we continued our argument that ran on parallel lines, the spirit turned its arrowhead in our direction as if glaring at us. I tapped Ryuseong to make him look ahead, and although he made a face like a rebellious kid caught during the principal’s speech, he ultimately accepted the silence obediently.

This was because spirits of the natural world are fickle and have many likes and dislikes, and among them, they particularly detest conflicts caused by others. There were thousands of records in ancient texts of them running away or hiding upon witnessing a fight between others. They happily participate in conflicts they themselves start, so they are a truly selfish and self-centered race, but! Still, what could I do? A good person like me has to endure it!

‘Oh? But this evaluation sounds very familiar, though?’

The sheer level of hypocrisy…

Isn’t that Cassis de Millang himself?

‘Not me. I’m an exception.’

Jung Ian doesn’t fall for such things.

Right, of course.

When we had run for a good while and reached the center of the forest, we were speechless for a moment.

Leaning against a tree stump, presumed to have been an ancient tree struck by lightning and broken, was a spirit trapped by rotten nettles and thorn bushes. Though she possessed a pure energy, perhaps because she had exhausted her last remaining strength to conceal our presence, an unavoidable death was overtaking her.

It was when we had paused for a moment at her wretched appearance.

[My dear one, I pray that my humble hand may lift the veil that covers your eyes….]

She whispered with dizzy eyes. I couldn’t understand what she meant.

But she reached out her hand, and in that moment—.

“—!”

A strange shock washed over me. My mind grew dizzy. I instinctively drew up my mana and assumed a combat stance, but a strangely comforting sensation seemed to burrow into my skull and touch my brain…

[Go and re-turn. That is your….]

The rest of her words trailed off and were difficult to interpret. What followed was a distant blackout. When my vision returned, I suddenly found myself face to face with Ryuseong.

I quickly tried to speak to him, but his expression was strange.

‘Like someone who has seen something they should never have seen…’

I knew instinctively that I shouldn’t look at it. But I couldn’t help but turn my head. I turned my gaze with difficulty, like a creaking hinge.

There, a young child was smiling innocently.

Only then did I understand what the forest spirit had said to me.

—That is your past.

It was the moment I encountered the past of this body, a past I hadn’t even known about.

…And with Ryuseong, no less.