Hermit Wizard

[Active: The mad druid’s attempt to incentivize Community Unlock is straight 200 IQ lmfao… releasing an extra chapter for the valiant effort.]

Dragon’s Name (2)

[Let’s stop. It’s a waste, Min-joon.]

“Damn it. There are some suggestions at stake, huh?”

I frowned. There was a man with his limbs restrained and floating in the air in front of my eyes.

His body was covered with dark stains, but no trauma was visible. Under his skin, those black stains moved like living creatures, and each time they did, the body convulsed, and an indescribable odor rose around him. It wasn’t just the sweat dripping down his pores.

His lips opened slowly, and a voice of laughter filled with poison came out.

“Kufufu… Khufufufufufuf!”

His face, whose dark make-up was removed, was surprisingly normal just by looking at it. It was kind of like Tom or Johnson, who was passing by.

At first glance, he might be mistaken for an average person. Yeah, if he hadn’t been smiling like that in that situation.

“Khufu… humph!”

He took a sudden deep breath, and his eyes sparkled. He then made a grunt, crushing the soft tissue in his mouth using his teeth. He bit his tongue again.

“That doesn’t work.”

How many times already?

He acted like he couldn’t control his tongue since he was only allowed to move his neck. It wasn’t an expression of suicide but an expression of willingness to never give me the information I wanted. After all, he couldn’t speak with his ragged tongue.

I flicked my fingers. The elixir was injected along the IV drip connected to Hessler’s neck. There were several barrels of that kind of magic solution around him, and what was injected at that moment was for repairing damaged living tissues.

As time passed, he began to chatter again to see if his tongue had regenerated.

“Whatever you do, you won’t hear the answer you want… Khufufufu!”

I frowned. Was that a strong mentality or madness to overcome the pain?

Hessler’s body, hanging naked, was stained with a strange color. That was due to the ability of metal Quécarditon which penetrated the body and stirred up the living tissue into a mess.

Liquid metal corroded the blood vessels of the limbs, extremities, burned muscles, and burst organs. In particular, it was targeting the nerve-racking points.

After the pain elapsed, the elixir was injected through the IV drip inserted in his neck, and the damaged body was restored. However, the remaining Quécarditon started moving again, and that process repeated for hours.

That extravagant torture continued because I couldn’t constantly use recovery magic. How many liters of elixir had been injected into that body so far? If I converted the value of the material into money, hmm…

More than that was meaningless. It didn’t mean he couldn’t feel the pain, but it seemed his mind was restricted. He never answered any questions about the organization.

It was wasting time and materials. I groaned inside and moved my Mana.

-Crack!

“Kugh… Kuhuhuuugh!”

The Quécarditon spreading in Hessler’s body flocked to one place according to my signal. Organs that caused instant death were avoided, but the process seemed to be painful as well. His eye veins burst, and his teeth sharpened. His face turned blue and then swelled purple again.

The liquid metal that had spread all over his body was concentrated in the left foot. As I watched his feet turn black, I made a light gesture.

-Crack!

“Hueeeerrrkk!”

His left foot burst, and liquid metal slipped out.

“Khehehe hehehehehe!”

He laughed again as if he didn’t scream before. I wrapped the recovered magic metal around my wrist. While the enchanted Mana remained, I could use it more, but it seemed to be meaningless to that guy.

“Khufu… I will kill… I will kill you! I will kill you without faiiiiiil!”

The air was ringing. Oh, it was noisy.

“I won’t kill you easily. Heh heh…”

I asked back dryly, “Do you think those words are helpful in this situation?”

Hessler didn’t care and laughed in a hoarse voice.

“Khufu! Just wait. I’ll suture two drugged dog heads to both your thighs and then I’ll make your groin constantly grow a huge chunk of meat. Yeah, just like that fox back then! The heads of dogs will go crazy and eat it. Don’t worry. I will continue to heal you so you don’t die as you did to me today!”

Did it give me an idea to do that?

However, knowing that the torture wouldn’t work further, I decided to move on to the next step. I put Hessler back in the Mana freeze. He opened his eyes even though he was immersed in the solution, stared at me, and lost consciousness.

“I need to call it. Let’s get some advice because that guy is a memory specialist.”

[Yes, the interrogation on the woman will follow. It would be useless if there were the same suggestion.]

I focused my Mana on my chest. Time passed, and the response returned from coordinates beyond a distant dimension.

The response was so fast, almost as if it was waiting.

The Channel on my chest drew a blue circle. The summoner slowly appeared out of it.

It was Yodmo.

Since Hessler didn’t open his mouth, I intended to reveal his entire memory. The question was where to transplant it, and on that part, I would consult Yodmo… huh?

I felt a sense of incompatibility.

-Thump!

The summoner’s feet came from the dimension beyond the portal on the chest. When it touched the basement floor, it made a thumping sound, and the ground rang.

Wait, thump?

What was it? In the past, I thought there was a light hoof sound when it walked.

I looked down and saw thick legs covered in black fur. Looking at its diameter, it might be similar to my thigh.

That was originally about the thickness of bamboo, right? When I called it recently, it only got a little bit of weight, and not that much.

The sound of thumping continued, and then the summon completely revealed its appearance in the Channel on my chest. I raised my head while closing the dimension door. Standing in front of me was a noble figure with shiny black hair.

A p-pig?

“… Yodmo?”

I checked just in case. The other party, who had changed to the point where it was difficult to find the original shape when I first saw it, nodded and blew loudly from its nose.

“You’re Yodmo, right?”

Obsidian-like pupils looked at me, and its will reached me.

=Don’t you feel the presence of my soul through the contract? What useless question is that?=

“Ah… that’s right.”

The last time I remembered, Yodmo’s head was a deer-like shape, but the Yodmo in front of me now wasn’t a deer… yes. It was rather close to a hippopotamus with black fur.

While the unexpected sight dumbfounded me, Yodmo suddenly blew up a firm thought.

=You called at the right time.=

“What?”

=I can’t do this anymore. It’s the limit.=

My heart fluttered for a moment. The limit? Could it be that it was breaking the contract with me?

Either way was possible, but why now? I needed Yodmo’s wisdom at that moment.

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

=I never expected that I would make this choice.=

Complex emotions were mixed in both eyes.

=I give up.=

Ugh! What? That contract?

“Hey, I don’t know what’s going on, but let’s talk calmly…”

Suddenly, Yodmo interrupted me and said.

=I will give it back.=

“… What?”

Yodmo didn’t even respond to my question and suddenly took a deep breath. Its bulky size had swollen several times and reached the ceiling of the basement.

It was in a threatening posture, and I wanted to gather Mana to defend that time, but I endured it. Yodmo couldn’t attack me because we’re still in the middle of a formal contract cancellation process.

-Wheeeee!

Yodmo exhaled hard in front of me. A black mist of dry, ice-like texture fell all over the room. It wrapped around my body in an instant.

“What?!”

The smoke filled the room for a moment, and then it started to get sucked into my head in no time. I noticed something in the process. The smoke that filled that room was nothing more than an afterimage of the source. There was a tiny, dust-like grain that became the nucleus.

A black piece that I might not see. The black smoke that filled that room was emanating from it.

The moment that nucleus dug into my body, all the smoke followed and disappeared together in the room.

[Min-joon!]

Parvache shouted in a hurry. I checked my condition. Body? Nothing strange. Mental? There seemed to be no abnormality.

With a slight reluctance, I asked Parvache with the will.

‘Can’t you see any signs of mental pollution?’

[There is no such sign.]

I turned my head toward the summoner and criticized it.

“What are you doing all of a sudden?!”

Yodmo, who transferred the black core to me, looked very comfortable. The decade-old congestion seemed to have gone down.

With a very relieved look, Yodmo replied to me.

=I gave it back.=

“What?”

=Your memory.=

Cold sweat flowed down on my back.

“You mean you’re breaking the contract?”

It returned the memories it took from me?

I soon then realized something strange. I still didn’t have any memories before the age of seven. There was no actual experience left, and only the memory of the contents that I had later organized into a word file remained in my head.

=Breaking the contract? I am not willing to proceed with that cumbersome procedure.=

“Wait a minute. You said you gave it back, but I still don’t have any memories before the age of 7?”

Yodmo responded calmly.

=I had already digested the memories you experienced from when you were born to when you were seven. I can’t give back what I don’t have.=

The core of the memory that it just delivered to me was emitting black smoke. I belatedly recalled what Yodmo said before.

=There was a condensed piece that couldn’t be interpreted in your memories that I ate. The fragments were so small, and I didn’t even notice if there was such a thing at first.=

Ah, it was.

=The little piece began to decompose like black smoke as it was digested in my stomach. When I digest your original memory, I can read it, but…=

Yodmo frowned.

=The memory like the black fog couldn’t be interpreted even if I digested it. It only filled my stomach, and I gained weight, but I thought it would be resolved soon after some time. No matter how many memories are condensed, there is something called common sense, however!=

Yodmo’s will became a little rough.

=It never ends! The digestion!=

It snorted in front of me.

=As the nucleus was digested, black memories were created endlessly. To be honest, I was greedy. If I keep this in my stomach, I won’t have to hunt for life, but…=

It picked its words for a moment and looked at me.

=I don’t know I’m going to say this, but I thought I might die because my stomach might explode.=

“So that’s why you gave it back to me? That condensed memory?”

=Not all. I returned about 90% of the condensed core left in the stomach to you. I left a little bit in my stomach, but now the amount of memory digested will be less than before. =

I asked after checking inside again.

“Is there really no change in my memory?”

=It is a memory that I couldn’t interpret either.

It would be impossible for you, too. It doesn’t belong to you in the first place.=

So, whose memory was it? If it was the memory until the age of seven, then it was even before I opened the Channel. Hmm.

=There will be no harm to you. What’s different from before is that I digested it, so the condensation was slightly relieved. It’s a memory that can’t be interpreted any way so that it won’t cause any confusion.=

I said to make things clear as I nodded.

“Anyway, my normal memories of up to 7 years old are something you’ve already digested, and you still keep the 10% of that strange memory condensed, so this contract is valid.”

Yodmo nodded.

=I agree.=