by Cloe D Frost
Although Dusk outwardly looked relaxed, he was closely monitoring the reaction of Elaru Wayvin. Would she figure out that something wasn’t quite right? Would she shake his hand?
Most people would have no chance of noticing the poison. People might be cautious of consuming drinks or inhaling strange smoke, but there was nothing suspicious in a handshake. In all his years of work, not one of his targets ever discovered One-Touch Knock-Out.
The only ones that had a chance of discovering it were those like him, who were well versed in poison.
This handshake was both a preemptive strike and a test. If she refused to shake his hand, that would mean that she was indeed a Shadow that he should be wary of. However, if she took it, the matter would be settled.
At that point, it wouldn’t matter whether she was a Shadow or not, she would succumb to the poison like everyone else.
Time seemed to slow down, Dusk could see her hand moving towards his in slow motion.
He could hear his heartbeat reverberating inside his head.
This moment would decide everything.
She shook it.
She shook it without hesitation.
Only then did Dusk’s time start running normally again.
“Elaru Wayvin.” She introduced herself. “So, what happened?”
Dusk Rose found it especially hard to conceal his glee. Considering the thick layer of poison he coated his hand in a few minutes prior, Dusk concluded that a good amount of it should have still remained on his hand. More than enough to deal with the redheaded beauty.
His mission had an optional objective. If he managed to capture Elaru Wayvin as well, that would bring him extra rewards. Since the time was tight, Dusk Rose intended to complete the main part of the mission first and then look for the redhead later. But since she so conveniently delivered herself right to him, Dusk was ecstatic.
Opposed to what he was actually feeling, Dusk’s face turned worried as he explained. “I don’t know. One second he was alright, and the next he suddenly lost his balance. He is burning up, so I think he caught a cold or something. I am bringing him to the infirmary. The healers should know what to do.”
Elaru Wayvin nodded. “Good thinking.” Then she smirked and pointed towards the direction Dusk just came from. “Unfortunately, you are going the wrong way. The infirmary is that way.”
Dusk’s heart skipped a beat.
Of course she would notice that he wasn’t going towards the infirmary!
Dusk froze only for an instant before his quick mind came up with an appropriate response.
He facepalmed himself and laughed awkwardly. “I’m so stupid! I totally forgot to ask where the infirmary was!”
Even as the words left his mouth, he lamented. No way would anyone believe such a flimsy excuse.
And things were going so well! Now she would become suspicious. Not to mention how troublesome it would be if she made a scene.
However, unlike what Dusk expected, Elaru’s aura showed no hostility or suspicion. In fact, she looked at him half understandingly and half comfortingly. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. I understand. If it were me, I’d hurry to help him too and totally forget that I don’t know my way around Muni.”
Seriously?!? Dusk stared at Elaru Wayvin wide-eyed for several seconds before he snapped back to his senses and put on a goofy smile. “Good thing I ran into you. Mind leading the way?”
“Of course not. Let’s take him to the infirmary together.” Elaru smiled brilliantly, making Dusk dazzled for a second even though he didn’t like girls. That split second of stun was enough for Elaru to step closer to Dusk and grab Kiel’s left arm. “Here. Let me help you out.”
Before Dusk could protest, she cast a sustained Acceleration spell on Kiel Rroda which nullified the effects of gravity, and made Kiel’s body float. Since his Mage Armor dissipated as soon as he turned unconscious, she didn’t have any trouble targeting him with her spells.
Dusk swallowed down the complaints and instead inspected Elaru Wayvin. It wasn’t necessarily a bad idea to let her ‘carry’ him. Holding Kiel up impaired his movement. This way, Dusk would be faster to react to any changes in circumstances.
As he inspected Elaru, he noticed fine beads of sweat gathering on her forehead. And although it was hard to see because of her tanned skin, her cheeks were slightly red.
The signs of poisoning are appearing just in time.
“Thanks. I was getting tired.” Dusk let go of Kiel’s body and stretched his ‘sore’ shoulder. She’d be out cold in less than a minute and then he would bring both of them out of Muni.
Elaru Wayvin didn’t seem to be on her guard at all. She pulled Kiel by his arm and walked several steps in front of Dusk, turning her back on him as if she wasn’t at all worried about any potential attack.
It was a strange behavior for a Shadow. Shadows were usually very vigilant people. Turning their backs towards their enemies was asking to be killed.
Could it be that she isn’t a Shadow after all? Or is it that I did too good of a job in acting like an idiot, so she doesn’t see me as a potential threat?
Elaru’s steps were getting more unsteady by the second.
She wobbled left and right, bringing Kiel along with her.
Soon it started looking as if she wasn’t leading him by the arm but leaning on him.
Dusk hurried his steps and caught up to her to stand side by side. That way, he could inspect her facial expression.
Elaru’s eyes were slowly getting misty, and her breathing was becoming more and more labored.
“Is the cold contagious?” She murmured.
Dusk Rose shrugged. “I think it is. I hope I don’t catch it.”
Elaru sighed softly and rubbed her temples with a pained expression. As she was rubbing her temples, she seemed to notice something strange and sniffed her right hand.
Did she figure it out? Dusk’s heart skipped a beat. The only drawback of One-Touch Knock-Out was that it had a specific flowery scent.
No. Not likely.
To mask the scent, Dusk Rose mixed it with several nonpoisonous flowers, creating his own hand cream that had a different scent. Even people who were familiar with One-Touch Knock-Out wouldn’t be able to recognize it by scent. They would just think that his hands smelled of soap.
No matter. It is already too late.
Elaru Wayvin looked at Dusk with glazed eyes and murmured. “Such a pleasant scent. What hand cream are you using?”
Dusk almost stumbled in his step. If he wasn’t closely monitoring both her actions and her aura, which didn’t show any discrepancy, Dusk would have thought her to be teasing him.
She is either extremely gullible or a better actor than me!
And that said something, considering that Dusk Rose was a great actor. The only downside to his acting was that he was a rather emotional person. Since mana was in direct contact with his mind, his emotions passed onto it and showed in his aura. He had been trained in aura control, but he wasn’t very good at it. The basis of aura control lied in controlling one’s emotions. For one couldn’t directly control the emotions carried by mana.
Most people wouldn’t notice the subtle changes in his aura before he got his emotions under control, but there were plenty very perceptive people who were quite sensitive to auras. That’s why he was an assassin and not a spy. Assassins didn’t need to engage in social interactions. They went in, killed their target and went out.
There was little need for flawless aura control.
Dusk Rose chuckled awkwardly and replied. “Uh… it is a family recipe.”
Elaru Wayvin smiled slightly and started saying “What family…” but before she could finish she stumbled in her step and fell forwards.
Right on time. Dusk Rose reacted instantly and reached out to catch her. He pulled her into his chest and held her body in place by her waist.
Her head dropped down lifelessly onto his shoulder.
If an outsider were looking at
this scene, he would think that the two of them were intimately embracing.
If it had been any other male in Dusk Rose’s place, he would have greatly enjoyed the sensation of soft flesh pressing against his chest. Especially because the redhead in his embrace was a peerless beauty.
Yet Dusk Rose didn’t enjoy it at all.
If he had to embrace someone, he’d rather embrace Kiel Rroda.
Alas, he couldn’t do that. If someone saw them, the tomorrow’s gossip column would peg Kiel Rroda as gay. And the low-key part of his mission would be an utter failure.
Although the redhead had fainted, her grip on Kiel’s arm didn’t lessen at all. Dusk Rose looked towards Kiel Rroda’s body which was unstably floating.
Spells wouldn’t break when the mage fainted, and thus Elaru’s sustained Acceleration was still active. However, since she was unconscious, she was no longer exercising control over it.
Dusk reached out to grab Kiel, intending to bring the two out of Muni asap. Being forced to embrace a girl left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Before Dusk’s hand reached Kiel, he felt a hot breath tickling his ear and his hand suddenly froze midair.
Dusk felt cold chills traveling down his spine. Not the good kind.
What caused the chills wasn’t the hot breath.
No.
It was the husky whisper that followed.
“Etezza family recipe, right?”
Dusk’s head snapped back to look at his shoulder, where the head of Elaru Wayvin was supposed to be lying.
Simultaneously, his hand attempted to push her away from him.
The redheaded vixen wasn’t using his shoulder as a pillow like she was supposed to be doing.
She stared at him with a coy smirk, without any trace of a blush, sweat or any form of sickness.
* * *
Coming up in the next episode:
Dusk Rose’s reputation as a Shadow wasn’t for nothing. Instantly, he reacted by using a Morph spell to launch earth spikes at the girl standing next to him.
The soft and musical tone lacking any hostility made his heart go cold. His expression transformed from a sincere and goofy expression into a cold, fierce glare. “When did you figure it out?”
Elaru patted his cheeks, still grinning. “Nothing screams ‘suspicious’ more than a person with a false face.”
Episode 74 – Façade
Episode 74 – Façade
Previously:
After kidnaping Kiel, just as Dusk Rose was about to reach the Muni exit, he ran into Elaru Wayvin. Dusk Rose pretends to be an examinee from the same group as Kiel, and makes Elaru shake his poisoned hand. Elaru offers to show him the way to the infirmary and goes with them. However, after a while, she faints. Dusk Rose catches her body, however, a second later something unexpected happens.
* * *
Dusk’s head snapped back to look at his shoulder, where the head of Elaru Wayvin was supposed to be lying.
Simultaneously, his hand attempted to push her away from him.
The redheaded vixen wasn’t using his shoulder as a pillow like she was supposed to be doing.
She stared at him with a coy smirk, without any trace of a blush, sweat or any form of sickness.
Not good! Panic flashed in Dusk’s eyes as he realized that the arm that was supposed to be pushing Elaru away wasn’t responding to his commands.
He attempted to jump away from the girl, but his legs weren’t following his intentions either.
They stood rooted to the spot.
This was the moment in which Dusk realized he was in deep trouble. As an elibu, he couldn’t use magic to make his body move. All he could do was attempt to attack the redhead with magic so she would voluntarily move away from him.
Dusk Rose’s reputation as a Shadow wasn’t for nothing. Instantly, he reacted by using a Morph spell on the rock tiles they were standing on. His intention was to morph the tiles into spikes which would erupt from the ground and impale the redhead next to him.
However, in the next moment, the only change that happened was the paling of Dusk’s face.
His Morph spell melted before it could fully form, like an ice cream under the hot sun.
Their entire surroundings were covered by a cloud of dense mana.
Her mana.
Dusk Rose already knew that aura of Elaru Wayvin was extremely dense. But only now, when he was forced to use magic inside the area covered by her aura, did Dusk Rose realize just how dense it really was.
What covered their surroundings couldn’t be called an “aura”.
What surrounded them was Mage Armor.
Since mana naturally seeped out of one’s body into the surroundings, mages would contain their mana near their own body to form a dense layer – Mage Armor. The mana which wasn’t controlled would drift away aimlessly into the surroundings, becoming an aura. If aura was the water vapor, then the Mage Armor was the whirlpool of water.
Elaru Wayvin possessed such a large density of mana that the scope of her Mage Armor covered not only her own body but her entire surroundings.
Since she was now pressed right against the body of Dusk Rose, she created an area all around them in which Dusk Rose couldn’t use magic.
And worse still, if Dusk Rose wanted to use magic outside of the area covered by her Mage Armor, he would need to direct his mana to exit the area under her Mage Armor. However, no matter how he tried to direct his mana to exit the sphere of mana around them, her mana constantly pushed it back towards the center.
He was stuck inside a whirlpool. And the only way for him to use magic was to use it in the area covered by his own Mage Armor.
Unfortunately, his Mage Armor, like the Mage Armor of the majority of mages, only covered his own body.
Dusk Rose’s pupils shrunk. He walked straight into a trap!! He allowed Elaru Wayvin to come close to him! And he didn’t even realize that he had entered her own Mage Armor!
Even now, if he hadn’t tried casting magic, he wouldn’t have realized that he was under her Mage Armor.
Elaru Wayvin knew how to conceal her own mana. She had wrapped her mind around her surroundings, only revealing slight gaps, creating an illusion that the mana density around her was much lesser than it actually was.
In a single moment, their situations had reversed.
Now, Elaru was the one holding up his own body from slumping down.
Dusk Rose desperately tried to come up with a plan. A magic that he could cast on his own body that would help him overcome the current perilous predicament. If only he was an argel! If only he could cast Accelerate! Even if he couldn’t move his own body normally, he could cast Accelerate to make it move. Not only could he Accelerate to escape her area of control but he could even use it to control his body like it was a puppet.
Alas, he was an elibu.
The demon that was Elaru Wayvin chuckled musically and twirled an acupuncture needle in her hand as if it was just a toy. “Now, now. Don’t make any sudden moves.” She warned in an overly cheerful tone that sent chills down Dusk’s spine. “I only disabled your limbs. Don’t force me to knock you out.”
That’s when it dawned on Dusk why his body wasn’t moving.
In his moment of distraction, she had inserted a needle inside his neck that blocked the nerves responsible for moving his limbs.
The situation was going from bad to worse by the second. A cunning gleam of determination flashed inside Dusk’s eyes, and he opened his mouth to scream for help, determined to act like a victim until the end. Hoping that the guardian of Muni would show up and help him out of his predicament.
Ironic. That the guardian that he had been most wary of this entire time would be the one creature he would hope to see the most.
However, Elaru Wayvin was still one step ahead of him. She put a finger over his lips seductively and hushed him. “Shhh. If you start screaming, I’ll be forced to turn you into a pin cushion.”
Her soft and musical tone lacking any
hostility made his heart go cold. His expression transformed from a sincere and goofy expression into a wronged look. Since his other options were sealed, he needed to adopt a new tactic: stall for time.
“What are you doing?!” Dusk Rose cried out with grievance.
He would make her think that she won and distract her while he came up with an escape plan. Perhaps if he stalled for a while, the guardian would show up, and he wouldn’t need to do anything.
Elaru Wayvin smiled a smile so radiant that it seemed as if the sun suddenly came out from behind the clouds. “There is no point in acting innocent. I knew of your intentions from the start.” The redhead patted his cheeks good-naturedly. “Nothing screams ‘suspicious’ more than a person with a false face.”
Dusk’s back broke out in cold sweat. He stared at Elaru Wayvin as if he was seeing a monster.
When most people wanted to change their appearance, they would utilize makeup. It was an easy way that anyone could do. It wasn’t easy to see through and if done right one could become entirely unrecognizable. The downside of this method was that it was an art in itself, which consumed too much time and couldn’t be adjusted and changed on the go. It needed premeditated preparation.
The alternative to using makeup was to utilize magic.
Unfortunately, altering one’s appearance with magic wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
There were only two ways one could alter their appearance by magic.
One could change the structure of their own face and body, such as by using Morph, or one could create an illusion through the usage of Light magic.
Directly changing the structure of one’s body was extremely dangerous. Not only was Morph a solid state spell whose effects persisted after the spell was lifted, but using it on the body without understanding body structure to near perfection could easily cause permanent damage, disability, and even death.
The only ones that could utilize Morph to change appearance were Body Sculptors, a branch of Healers that specialized in beautifying rich people.