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Chapter 118 : Madman's Mine (4)
Tom couldn't understand the current situation.
【Time to get up, don't you think?】
The familiar voice he heard just before losing consciousness, his neck wrapped by a tentacle.
Sreureuk-
The moment the voice reached him, the tentacle that had been tightening around his neck as if to kill him, loosened.
Ẅ е̊ b̊ n о̄ vеl̂ Eňum̃ ā
It wasn't the effect of a skill or magic.
It contained no Mana; it was just a single phrase uttered in a flat tone.
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However.
From Tom's perspective, it was so incomprehensible that the effect of a skill or magic would have been more believable.
‘…This is.’
The voice that had just reached his ears…
Ӗň ů m а̂. і d̃
…was undoubtedly U-jin's, who should have already been in a near-death state.
Ssk-
Tom looked back with disbelief in his eyes.
But the sight of U-jin he confirmed upon turning around was unchanged.
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His right arm was completely severed, his shoulder a mangled mess of flesh and blood, and beneath his listlessly open eyelids were pupils that had completely lost focus.
He could be certain.
W̄ ẽb̆nо̊ v̌ е.l Е n ùm̂ a
Although the voice came from the U-jin lying behind him, U-jin was in no condition to speak.
…Much less in such an impassive tone, not even a pained scream.
‘…What in the world.’
A completely incomprehensible situation.
Ssk-
Turning his head forward again, Tom saw the Mutant that had driven him to the brink of death just moments ago.
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The Mutant's tentacles were bubbling and boiling, writhing bizarrely as it spun in place.
As if it had never intended to kill him moments ago, it pulled up the corners of the hole that might have been its mouth, as if enjoying the situation.
- Ihiiyrak!
It was letting out a series of strange cries.
That wasn't all.
At the ends of its outstretched tentacles, his family members were now captured, swaying back and forth.
E ǹ_ú må. іd
『…Thomas. You must protect your mother and your younger brother.』
『…Tommy. *Cough-* At least Simon, you must…….』
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『Brother…… I don't want to die…… I don't want to die like this…….』
Just as Tom remembered them from that horrifying past.
Calling out to him with desperate screams.
Grit-
W̌ е̃b̊ n̆ ӧ v̂еl Е̌ n úḿ ӓ
“……”
Although Tom felt another intense wave of agitation at the sight, he didn't charge in this time.
The reason was simple.
‘…Something.’
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Unlike before when he had lost his mind and charged, he knew now.
He had realized that something, something was definitely wrong.
Е̂ ňu mа
The events unfolding before his eyes went beyond merely strange and had reached the realm of the bizarre.
An incomprehensible context.
A disjointed narrative.
A paradox in itself.
Buried in the intense emotions of the moment, he hadn't noticed, but looking back, it had been strange from the very beginning.
How had that blunt, rounded tentacle severed U-jin's arm, and since when had he started using a sword?
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Furthermore, the sight of his long-dead family wrapped in the Mutant's tentacles, while certainly provocative, was not realistic.
Like puzzle pieces jumbled and forced together, he hadn't noticed while fitting them one by one, but the completed picture was a complete mess.
What should I call it.
‘…….’
Yes.
This felt less like reality and more like a dream.
Ẽ n ũm̊а
A mosaic made by haphazardly connecting fragments of emotion floating in his subconscious.
It was utterly crude.
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And the moment Tom faced that fact.
Saaaaat-
He felt his consciousness rapidly ascending somewhere.
***
Е́n̆ ú m̆ а .id
Paat-
Tom's eyes snapped open.
“…Heok, heok.”
The Mutant that had been before him was gone without a trace.
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In its place were claw marks that could only have been made by him.
Dozens of grooves were carved crisscrossing the red-glowing Quark, a testament to how furiously he must have been clawing at it.
Ŵ еb̂ ǹ оv е l Еnu_m ă
Dugeun dugeun-
His wildly pounding heart was proof of the lingering tension and the vividness of what had just happened.
How long had it been?
Tom couldn't even remember the last time he had gasped for breath like this.
‘…….’
Barely steadying his dazed, blurring vision, Tom turned his head to check behind him.
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“Long time no see.”
“……”
U-jin greeted him nonchalantly.
He was perfectly fine.
Far from having a severed arm, he didn't even have a scratch.
Of course, he was a mess with blood splattered here and there, but he had been like that since before they entered the mine.
Е n u m.а̇
U-jin looked utterly serene.
Around then.
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Tom roughly grasped the situation.
“…Since when?”
A Hallucination.
He had been exposed to this red energy and fallen into a hallucination.
Ёn̄u m а́
No other possibility came to mind that could explain his recent experience.
Shrug-
“Well.”
“……”
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“I don't know when it started either. I figured it out when you started screaming ‘Ihiiyrak!’ at the wall by yourself.”
Tom let out a low groan at U-jin's shrugging reply.
W е b̆n ӧ.vе̇l̂ Е nu̇ m а
‘…Was it from the very beginning?’
The appearance of the Mutant itself was a lie.
The very moment he had boasted about his 'mental strength' in front of U-jin, he had already been bewitched by this red energy, seeing hallucinations.
In a way, it was a situation that could have hurt his pride, but the question that consumed Tom's mind first was 'how'.
‘…I didn't feel any sign of it.’
It was an undeniable fact that the Lycan Clan, including himself, had a weakness in utilizing Mana.
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Especially Tom Hardist himself.
But that was limited to the 'utilization' of Mana.
As his physical performance was top-tier among the Beastkin, his sensory perception for detecting anomalies was unparalleled in its sensitivity.
Just as his body was agile, his ability to sense the movement of Mana was also outstanding, something he could be confident in.
In the first place, no matter how much the Demon's Singularity was restricted by the Mana Turbulence Phenomenon and the Quark's influence, physically hunting a Demonic Species like a Succubus was far beyond common sense.
If such a thing were easily possible, The Order's Exorcists wouldn't have had such a hard time hunting Demonic Species.
Е̌ n̈ ū ṁ а́. id
What made that impossible feat possible was, of course, largely his outstanding physical speed, but just as important was his sensory perception that could detect the movement of Mana down to the micro-level.
‘…….’
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That's why he couldn't understand it even more.
When the recent hallucination occurred.
Tom hadn't felt any movement of Mana whatsoever.
Not at the moment he entered the hallucination, nor during the moments he thought he was actually fighting the Mutant within it, did he sense any movement of Mana.
Е́ n̆ù m а̊.і d
That's why he had mistaken it for reality without any suspicion, despite the appearance of numerous bizarre phenomena and the arbitrary narrative.
If it hadn't been for U-jin's dissonant voice in the middle, he might have kept scratching the wall until his fingernails broke.
That fact came as quite a shock to Tom.
For Tom, the Darkest Dungeon was a place he had lived in for decades.
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If this had happened in the Unexplored Lands beyond the outermost regions he had yet to visit, he could have accepted it to some extent, but he had never imagined experiencing something like this within a territory he knew.
“…Do you know the reason?”
Ĕn̈ u m̌ а . і̀ d
Faced with an experience that far exceeded his expectations, all Tom could do was helplessly ask U-jin.
The fact that he, a veteran of the dungeon, was asking a question to U-jin, who had just entered, was ridiculous in itself.
But strangely, he asked as if it were the most natural thing to do.
“You wouldn't understand even if I explained it.”
“…Is that so.”
Pfft-
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“The Demonic Nature interference of Quark isn't something that can be explained conceptually in the first place. Just think of it as having a different mechanism of action.”
“……”
“So… if Mana is roughly a 4th-dimensional concept, then you could say a concept from a higher dimension intervened. Being familiar with Mana wasn't enough to overcome what just happened.”
A concept from a higher dimension than Mana.
As if proving that U-jin's words about him not understanding weren't just out of annoyance.
Tom shook his head even at U-jin's simple explanation.
W̆ e b ńо ve l Еnu mа̄
“…I certainly don't get it.”
Shrug-
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“That's only natural.”
“……”
U-jin's words, ‘It's natural that you don't know,’ could have seemed arrogant at first glance.
But Tom simply wiped the cold sweat from his brow and nodded.
Ӗn u mā . і̇ d́
The reason was simple.
He had already guessed that there was something about U-jin that went beyond his own knowledge.
And upon waking from that hallucinatory experience, he had vaguely realized one more thing.
“…How in the world are you alright?”
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If the hallucination that had just occurred was really caused by exposure to this 'Quark' as U-jin said.
Then U-jin had been exposed to the exact same environment as Tom.
Én u ḿ ā
In that case, he should have seen the same hallucination.
However.
【Time to get up, don't you think?】
The one who had woken him from the hallucination was clearly U-jin's voice.
As if he had anticipated this phenomenon, and as if it had no effect on him whatsoever.
His voice was laced with composure.
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“Is there some special way to overcome this hallucinatory phenomenon?”
Although it was a bit embarrassing to ask, coming from someone who had just been flailing in a hallucination.
Objectively speaking, U-jin's level was several steps below Tom's.
The only possibility that could explain U-jin being perfectly fine was that he knew a way to resist this bizarre hallucination called 'Quark's Demonic Nature interference'.
…However.
“There isn't one.”
Е̄ n um а̀ . і̀ d̀
“……!!”
U-jin's answer to Tom's question about a solution was a bit hard to understand.
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‘…There isn't one?’
It was hard to accept.
Just a moment ago, the hallucination had vanished from his eyes.
If there was no special way to overcome the hallucination, then U-jin's perfectly fine appearance couldn't be explained.
Ẃ ẽ b nо̆ ṽ е̂l̈ Е̇ṅ ũ m а́
Just like the story in the hallucination he had just seen.
U-jin's words seemed to contradict themselves at first glance.
…However.
“…What do you mean by that? Then how are you alright?”
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*Pfft-
“Do I look alright?”
Е́nu_m а
At U-jin's question, a corner of his mouth lifting into a smirk, Tom could only fall silent.
“……!”
It was a short phrase, but it helped him understand the current situation more than all the previous explanations combined.
“You're not completely awake either.”
“……”
“You just came to your senses for a moment, so it disappeared. As long as we don't leave the mine, you can't escape it completely. It'll probably get stronger the deeper we go.”
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Looking at the now-silent Tom, U-jin let out another *pfft-* of a laugh and pulled a cigar from his pocket, placing it between his lips.
Chiiik-
“I see them too.”
Then, U-jin lit it, took a drag, and added in a bitter tone along with the hazy smoke.
“…I'm just.”
Huu-
Е̌n̂ ú m̊ а . і̊d̀
“…enduring it.”
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