Chapter 104
The Audience Hall — Part 2
Editors: Sebas Tian, Speedphoenix, Joker
"Seize those rebels immediately!" I heard the prince shouting a bunch of nonsense as he stood atop the elevated platform . It didn't make sense . He was literally a dead man talking, and that shouldn't have been possible . Altering one's status page was definitely doable, but only to a certain extent . Dramatic lies like having literally no HP weren't possible . And that was exactly what the prince's stat screen displayed . His health was sitting at a flat zero .
I had even used magic eye in order to double check that I wasn't crazy . Lo and behold, he wasn't all that different from the zombies that I had encountered back in that one old guy's city . He was bound with magical energy from head to toe .
The more I looked at him, the more I realized that I wasn't staring down a person . I was looking at a thing, a mere puppet that could no longer think for itself . I didn't know whether he was being controlled through a skill or a spell, but either way, I knew that his manipulator was at least more skilled than the only other I'd ever known . I wonder if he's been infected by a plaga or something . Nah, no way . Plaga are just parasites . People with plaga in them aren’t actually dead or anything . [1]
Alright, that's enough joking around for now . Let's get back on track . After looking at him more carefully, I realized that the prince's central nervous system was especially well bound with magic and that his bindings had mana actively flowing through them . His brain, spine, and nerves were all under his manipulator's control . It was a feature not shared by any of the zombies I'd seen before, and likely the reason his corpse seemed so animated and alive despite having lost its life force .
That said, the whole scenario brought a question to mind: why hasn't anyone noticed? If there was such a thing as a technique to manipulate one's enemies, then there was no reason for there not to be countermeasures and methods by which one could detect that another was being controlled . They simply had to exist . And of all people, one would expect the family ruling a country to have access to something that performed the aforementioned roles . If they didn't, then I wouldn't have much to say besides that they were horribly ill-prepared .
Thinking back on my conversation with the king had made the whole scenario make even less sense . He himself had stated that he thought something was wrong with his son and that his actions were growing more suspicious . It would only make sense for the king to have the prince checked . And it wasn't like he was the only one to ever interact with his son either . While I had no idea as to exactly when the prince had become a zombie, I knew that people seeing the signs meant that someone should have realized that something was up .
Wait a second… My eyes stopped on one of the rings the douchebag of a prince had on his finger, one containing an excess of magical energy . Appraising informed me that it was the Ring of Truth and Falsehood . It was an item capable of deceiving those that tried to view the user's status page . Its quality was ridiculously high and came in at a jaw-dropping S- . I guess that must be why no one's ever found out . S- is almost as high-quality as high-quality gets .
The reason that I was able to see the prince's stats regardless was likely because my Analyze skill was leveled to a near abnormal extent . It didn't feel that way given that I was still unable to get even a glimpse of Lefi's stats, but I had actually raised it so far beyond the norm that not even an item with a quality rating of S- could trick it . Geez Lefi, just how OP are you!?
I smiled awkwardly, but then once again redirected my attention away from my distractions and back towards the situation at hand . My gaze once again fell upon the room . The prince was just a puppet, and someone else was pulling his strings . The corpse was acting far too realistically for the manipulator to be at a distance .
Whoever was responsible was literally making the poor retarded thing talk, after all . And the only way for the puppet's words not to sound odd was for the one pulling its strings to be aware of the situation . He had to know what everyone else in the room was saying . Making up words wouldn't go well without a detailed account of exactly what was going on .
There was, of course, always the possibility that he was using something similar to my Evil Eyes or Evil Ears, but I struck it out almost as quickly as I had suggested it . My Magic Eye wasn't picking up on anything .
The easiest way to describe my unique skill was to call it something along the lines of a thermal scope that worked with magic instead of heat . Any mana it picked up would simply stand out . It was just that obvious . I could even see people that were using skills akin to Stealth, as the skill made use of magical energy in order to produce its cloaking effect .
Of course, I had never tested it on anyone with a level 10 stealth skill, but level 10 skills weren't all that realistic in the first place . Even Lefi had claimed that they were rare . The Supreme Dragon had told me that, although she had a literal arsenal’s worth of skills, only a handful had reached their final level .
And so, upon coming to the aforementioned conclusion, I began to regard the enemies before me in turn whilst using both my Magic Eye and Analyze in tandem .
It didn't take me long to find the perp . He seemed to resemble some sort of minister . He was situated in the corner of the room and wearing a hood that covered his face and hid it from view . Unfortunately, the pendant he was wearing around his neck was giving off something along the lines of a jamming signal . I literally could not use Analyze on him . But as far as I was concerned, all that meant was that he had something to hide .
That said, the most decisive factor wasn't how suspicious he seemed . It was his mana . Everyone's magical energy had its own unique wavelength, and as Magic Eye could pick up on those differences, I was able to discern that his mana matched the mana contained in the fetters binding the prince .
He was the guy behind the curtain, the guy pulling the strings and manipulating the puppet . Heh . What a nasty little asshole . He's using other people and tricking them into fighting as he enjoys the whole thing from backstage .
But the manipulator behind the prince's behaviour wasn't all he was . The man was my enemy . He was the asshole that had marched an army into the Wicked Forest . Listen here douchebag, you've got a tab to pay . A big one .
I put a figurative mark on my target before looking around for an entry point . And after a few moments, I found one that satisfied my needs . I backed up in order to give myself enough room to ramp up speed, twisted my body so that I was facing forwards, and then gave my wings a single powerful flap .
The wind rushed past me . I could feel the pressure pushing against me as I soared through it . Right as I was about to crash through the window, I retracted my wings and braced for impact .
There was a loud crash . Shattered glass flew everywhere as the people inside the audience chamber began shouting in surprise and scrambling to determine the identity of the sudden intruder . But I didn't stop . I didn't let them process what had happened before I carried out my next move .
I used the force of my entry to dart straight towards the manipulator, who was still stunned by my sudden appearance . And before he could question my allegiance, I swung my blade .
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[1] Resident Evil