Chapter 61
Ch.61 An Abnormal Anomaly
"High Priest, these are the materials you requested, delivered from 'over there.'"
In the deep, lightless underground space, illumination came only from a few magic crystals emitting a faint phosphorescent glow — enough to stretch the silhouette of the figure standing on the central platform into a long, ghostly shadow.
On the platform, a small figure turned and accepted the 'materials box' passed up from below, making no move to open it immediately.
"The operation over there……what was the outcome?" The low, resonant voice carried a gentlemanly quality that stood in stark contrast to its owner's diminutive frame and the surrounding environment.
At the small figure's question, the man below did not reply immediately. A few beads of cold sweat slid unbidden down his face.
"What is it……"
"H-High Priest, the operation……has failed."
Seeing the displeasure on the small figure's face, the subordinate hastily prostrated himself on the ground, not daring to look up, and stammered his way through a full account of what had occurred.
And yet, after hearing the report in its entirety, the small figure did not fly into a rage over the failure. Instead, he stepped forward and kindly helped his prone subordinate to his feet.
The effect, however, was rather undermined by his exceedingly small stature.
"Too tall……the center of gravity becomes unstable." He murmured to himself.
"Y-yes, yes, you're absolutely right."
Right as the subordinate was in the midst of his fawning, a jet-black ray of light discharged from the small figure's hand in an instant, striking the subordinate squarely on both shins.
"Aaah—!"
The subordinate let out a wretched cry. His shins dissolved into a mass of black sludge in an instant, and the body that had only just risen collapsed to the ground once more without its support.
"High Priest, please spare me……" he wailed and begged.
"Spare you? I was simply resolving your center-of-gravity problem for you. You don't thank me……and instead you beg for your life?"
The small figure raised his nearly nonexistent eyebrows in genuine surprise, and extended a hand to rest atop the subordinate's head.
"N-no, no — thank you, High Priest, for your assistance……"
"Good. I knew you would understand my good intentions in the end." The diminutive priest gave a satisfied nod. "A failed operation is a failed operation. The client on their end never expected it to succeed on the first try anyway."
"Go — get all the materials for the ritual prepared. I am ready to……begin."
"Yes, High Priest." The subordinate, now entirely without shins, endured the agonizing inconvenience of having lost both feet and scrambled out of the room, directing the others to haul in the ritual materials.
The small priest's gaze drifted to the Smiling Mask sitting beside him, and his thoughts drifted involuntarily back to that evening one week ago when he had been made to eat a loss.
'If that gold-masked stranger hadn't appeared out of nowhere and forcibly seized the divine material that was meant to serve as the offering, the ritual would have been completed long ago, and the final payment from the client would have come through without a hitch.'
Watching his subordinates haul in crate after crate of substitute materials to replace the Divine Observation Residue, the small priest temporarily suppressed the fury in his chest. 'No matter……even if it's a week late, the end result will be the same. My 'Soul-Devouring Curse' — unless the target breaks through to Tier Three and enters the Metamorphosis Realm, there is no existence that can resist it!'
With that thought, the self-assured small priest produced the box of key items his subordinate had just delivered, and with a pair of tweezers extracted the critical object used to identify the target of the curse——
It was a high-grade necktie. Torn apart, then mended back together.
With painstaking care, the small priest arranged the necktie on the altar, then produced the 'Curse Medium' he had spent the past several days rushing to completion — burning through no small number of suitable human subjects in the process — a black skull.
He placed the black skull at the center of the ritual array, the necktie at the launching node below, and began directing the assembled group in installing the various substitute materials meant to replace the Divine Observation Residue.
'It's nearly ready……once it's done, I'll collect my payment, rent myself proper lodgings in the city befitting my station, and never have to rot away in this wretched mine shaft again!'
***
Whoosh, whoosh……
A somewhat humid gust of hot air blew out from within the mine. Luo Nan wiped the condensation off his Human-Skin Mask.
"Shh……ladies, there are signs of human activity not far ahead."
"How can you tell? Aren't you an ordinary person?"
Anya was the first to voice her doubt. She was already a Tier Two supernatural practitioner herself — and even she hadn't detected anything. How could this Luo Nan von Medillion possibly know?
"One hundred thousand Gold Faras, and I'll get you that ability too." Luo Nan replied offhandedly.
He was bluffing Anya. He hadn't brought any item capable of boosting an ordinary person's senses by dozens of times — the reason he could detect it was because he had channeled all the power he'd activated into enhancing his five senses.
It was one of the subsidiary abilities bestowed on him by the Infinite Tree.
"One hundred thousand Gold Faras?! You're robbing me——mmph?!"
At that price, Anya Sivans's pupils contracted instantly, those beautiful golden eyes filling with pure disbelief.
Anya felt sure that Luo Nan was mocking her, and so she — a pauper who counted whether she'd spent even one extra Copper Tess on food each day — instantly transformed into a spitting, fur-raised cat.
"What are you shrieking about? You want to get us caught?"
Startled by the girl's outburst, Luo Nan hastily reached out and clamped a hand over her mouth.
And he had to admit — though the words that came out of that mouth were sharp enough, the lips themselves, even through the layer of cloth wrapping, had a surprisingly soft feel to them.
"Can't you tell what I meant? I said the item that enhances my senses is worth one hundred thousand Faras!" He released his hand and clarified.
"Ptoo, ptoo, ptoo……pfff, pfff……"
The girl, apparently feeling that she had been made unclean, immediately launched into an exaggerated display of wiping her mouth as if in revenge.
But she quickly realized that was about all the retaliation available to her. As for firing something back?
Anya couldn't think of anything suitable to say.
After all, it seemed like she had misunderstood Luo Nan's meaning again……
How very strange — why again?
At that thought, the girl leveled a scorching glare at the man's back, which had already turned away from her. Seeing that he had absolutely no intention of arguing, she couldn't help but give a small pout.
"Tch……rich people think they're so great……"
"Confirmed — there are signs of human activity ahead, but abnormally, there's no one keeping watch."
Luo Nan turned back and reported what he had sensed to the two women.
"Normally this shouldn't be the case." He furrowed his brow slightly, feeling that something about the situation was off. "Those Abyssal Followers concealed inside the Limestone Mine Shaft — surely they'd have sentries posted?"
"Eh, who knows? Whatever the situation is, we'll find out when we look!"
With that, the girl drew the silver-gray longsword at her hip and volunteered herself to take the lead, stepping out front to go and investigate.
"Mm — stay safe." Luo Nan gave Anya a small nod, then turned to the female knight Tanya, who had kept her silence throughout. "Miss Tanya, I'll leave it to you to keep watch on what's behind us."
"Yes, yes, I know — I'm already Tier Two, these bottom-rung small-fry are no threat to me!"
"Fair enough."
With arrangements made, Luo Nan rested his hand at his waist, fingers running slowly over the Silent Hammer concealed beneath his coat.
'Something feels off……an inexplicable sense of dread……'