“Of course the Grand Elder’s words still hold weight, but this is a personal matter between the both of us. This has nothing to do with the Grand Elder.” At that, his eyes narrowed. “While I still don’t know what kind of trickery you used to make the Grand Elder give up on the giants, don’t think for a second that it will work on me. Today, none of you are leaving unless you hand over the blood of the giants.”
“Trickery? You think his fear of me is because of some kind of trick? Tell me then, exactly what kind of trick is able to scare your Grand Elder into such a wimp?” On the surface, I made sure to put on an uncompromising stance. In my mind however, I was scrambling to work something out with Ferti’nier. The whole reason why I was even bothering to spew all those threats was because I was trying to buy some time.
‘Gorgeous, are you there? I seem to be in a little trouble right now.’
“Oh, this one knows you’re in trouble, this one is having a lot of fun watching you right now.”
‘Then…aren’t you going to help me?’
“This one wants to help you, but this one doesn’t have a body so she can’t help you.’
‘Then at least come up with something…if I kick the bucket now, won’t you die as well?’
“That’s right, if you die, this one will accompany you as well…this one still doesn’t want to die, so do you best to not die.”
‘Sister, I’m begging you for help right now, don’t just sit on your bum and do nothing…’
“Alright, since Little Brother is so insistent, this one will make an exception and help you this once.” Having said that, she flatly stated as such: “Hand over your body.”
‘Huh? What do you mean hand over my body?’
“What this one means is to hand over the control rights of your body…sigh…how about you pull your mind out of the gutters?!”
‘Ohh…so you don’t want my body…got me excited for a moment there…I mean, worried. Well then, how do I do that?’
“At the end of the day, this one is just a soul living in Little Brother’s body, as long as Little Brother gives up on resisting, this one can temporarily take control of your body.”
‘Alright then, I give up…hold on, are you sure you won’t take advantage of this situation to steal my body…’
“This one isn’t that shallow, besides Little Brother’s body isn’t all that either. With a mug like that, this one would rather not.”
‘I’m ugly? I can’t even my tear eyes away from my own reflection and you call that ugly? How blind can one person get?’
“Little Brother, now isn’t the time to talk about your appearance.”
‘Hey you’re the one that started this fire…forget it, just get on with it, that horse is annoying me.’
“Little Brother, your body is still rejecting this one, how do you expect this one to assume control of your body?”
‘I…I was probably subconsciously rejecting her attempts at taking over my body…well, that won’t do at all, that Warwraith is clearly losing his patience already.’
“Devil, exactly how long more do you need?” The Warhorse elder in question snorted and then stomped on the ground with his hooves as if to express his dissatisfaction. “Are you trying to buy time for yourself by standing there in a daze?”
“If you really want the blood of those giants, it’s not impossible, but…”
“But what?”
At that, I faked a confident look as I said thusly, smile curving deviously: “You might just have to find more for yourself.”
“And where would that be?” Asked the elder, clearly not getting what I was trying to say. By now, there was nothing left of those giants except for rocks. If he really wanted more blood…he would have better luck just digging for it since I absorbed all the blood already…
The whole reason why I was doing all this was naturally to buy some time. But no matter how much time or how hard I tried, the problem still remained: my body kept rejecting Ferti’nier’s attempt subconsciously. In front of me, the Warhorse elder was already looking rather peeved. In fact, for all I knew, he was about to blow his top… ‘this isn’t good, I need to think of something…
“Since that’s the case, how about we use another method then?”
‘What method? We don’t have a lot of time right now so I’m open to anything at this point, no matter how much of a scam it is.’
The moment I said that, I immediately noticed that something was up with my body. It was…not listening to my commands at all, going so far as to go against my wishes entirely…
Even without my commands, it was performing a set of strange movements of its own accord.
‘I’ stared at the Warhorse elder right in the eye and, a mere moment later, my mana was sucked dry instantly. On top of that, my mana was being diverted into my eyes along with another strange set of mana. Soon after, I felt a palpable sense of fear cross his eyes.
By now, I had basically come to the conclusion that Ferti’nier was up to no good. I desperately tried to pry some answers from her but to no avail. Perhaps she was simply too engrossed in trying to control my body to answer me at this point. Or perhaps the lost of control also meant that my thoughts weren’t being transmitted outwards any longer.
At the very least however, the Warhorse elder’s strange behavior was definitely due to Ferti’nier’s ability. His eyes were already widening in fear and his body began to shake in response. It was as if he was staring at the most horrific thing in the entire realm as it approached him while he stood there helplessly. In a sense, this situation was similar to that dream ability Shade used on me, though not entirely the same either. After all, his eyes shouldn’t be open at all if Ferti’nier was using some kind of dream ability. Also, he shouldn’t even be able to jerk his head like that; that was clearly an attempt at diverting his eyes. Without a doubt, this elder was conscious and yet he seemed to be in the middle of a nightmare.
“Impossible…how could you…” He began muttering himself and the shaking grew even more intense by the second. Just standing there, he seemed more like a raving mad horse than a powerful elder.
Exactly what was he looking at? That I didn’t know, but it had to be something utterly terrifying in order to scare him into a little child like that. Thus, without wasting another word on me, he ran…without even saying a word to his other kin, he ran…as if he was a deserter running away from the battlefield…
His sudden departure left the other horses in confused conundrum, eyes swivelling about as they tried to seek an answer from amongst themselves. This elder of theirs was clearly the mastermind of this plot; it was him who brought them here to seek revenge so what was he doing running away like that after a mere glance? What were they to do then? He should have at least said something before leaving…
Now that the elder in question was gone however, there wasn’t much reason for them to stay any longer. Besides, ‘I’ was acting a little strange at the moment and they seemed to have picked up on this change as well. One after another, they turned around and galloped after their distant elder. From the bloodshot and widened eyes on their equestrian faces, it was like looking at a herd of horses fleeing from some kind of ghost on a bright sunny day…
Having miraculously chased away the elder, I soon found myself back in control of my body once more. And yet before I could even get an answer out of Ferti’nier, I was bombarded by Mo Na’s ecstatic cry: “Mama is so awesome, the baddie got scared away with just one look!”
“Master, how did you do that? That was amazing, you’re truly the almighty master!” No.3 and Big 4 both gave a fervent look of worship at the same time.
As for Sinmosa and Sasani, they glanced at each other but astutely chose not to pry any further.
Back when I faced off against the Nightmare Steed, I was somehow able to scare that Grand Elder off, entirely because of Ferti’nier of course, but they didn’t know that. Now that Warwraith came knocking, I was once again able to chase him off…if the first time was just mere luck, what about the second time then? Was there even a chance that it was luck then?
In all likelihood, the two of them had revised their opinion of me from that moment on. After all, I was now an unknown factor to be considered.
‘Hey there, Gorgeous, how about talking for a second, what happened back there?’
In the face of everyone’s praise, all I could do was give them a silly grin while throwing out some superficial excuses. At the same time, I continued asking the Devil King in my body about what had just happened.
“Little Brother, this one is a little tired now, how about we talk about this later?”
‘Alright then, to be honest, I can roughly guess what happened even if you don’t tell me. I bet you forcefully took control of my body, right?’
“Mhm, after all, your body technically belongs in part to this one as well, ever since Yi Yi had this one take up residence in your body. From that moment on, your body was no longer the same. Normally, this one is in a comatose state so you ended up in charge. Because of this one’s long term sleep, this one’s influence on this body grew lesser to the point where this one couldn’t control it anymore…simply put, the cohesion rate between this body and this one had grown too low…”
‘That’s why you needed my unconditional consent?’
“That’s right, because Little Brother wasn’t able to unconditionally trust this one, this one had to forcefully take control of your consciousness…but this body still tried to resist this one…”
‘And that’s why you ended up so tired, am I right?’
“Mhm…Little Brother isn’t so stupid after all…well, this one is going to sleep now. Don’t try and disturb this one before she wakes up…if Little Brother gets into trouble then…he will have to take care of it himself…”
‘Ehh…why does this bodyguard of mine seem so unreliable…each time she helps me out of a pinch, she always ends with a “I’m sleepy” before proceeding to sleep…how is that even the bearing of a Devil King…she’s more like a so— Ahem, that comparison is a little uncouth so I’ll pass on saying it.’
This little nap of hers was most likely the result of her expending too much mental energy to try and forcefully control my body. Based on that fact, her nap shouldn’t last all that long. Still, our journey couldn’t stop just because of that. Now that the Warhorse elder was gone, our journey should be a lot smoother…or not…when was our journey ever smooth…that was merely wishful thinking on my part…
With how hurriedly they left, the Warhorses even forgot to take their prey with them so what stood before us now was a Demon Fire Salamander that was over 10 meters long. Its hide was a crimson red and it had a single chipped horn growing on its head. Its body was thoroughly battered at this point, with blood flowing out of multiple gaping wounds on its body.
Thanks to their abrupt departure, this salamander, who had its left leg thoroughly mangled right now, was basically left to its own devices. And from the trail of blood leading away, I could tell that it was trying to find a lava lake to recover in. Unfortunately for it, the Warhorses lived in a giant plain with hardly any lava lakes to be found nearby.
‘Exactly what was it doing here anyway…plus from its size and aura, it’s probably a Six-stars.”
