Chapter 280 - I Know More Than You Think
Sorry guys, I was unable to post last night. But I'm posting four chapters today, so please forgive me :p
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We arrived at the center of the forest after half a day of walking.
When we arrived there, the scene we saw surprised us.
Hundred of beasts were gathered surrounded a hill.
Strangely, the beasts were very tame. You could see wolves standing beside deers, rabbits with eagles, and boars beside crocodiles.
To be honest, the scene was a bit creepy. Even more when each and every monster was looking in direction of the hill, as though entranced by something.
"T-The beasts, w-what is happening?" Iris was a bit nervous.
To be honest, I found this scene a bit underwhelming. After all, I recently saw an endless sea of monsters where the weakest was at the sixth or the seventh layer, and the strongest ones were a bit weaker than a god. Therefore, when I saw a group of monsters with the strongest being just an eight-layer lizard, to be honest, I could not even get excited.
But for Iris and Daisy, who had never seen something like this, this scene was already terrifying enough.
"Y-Your Highness, what now?"
"Lower your voices," I said and fell deep into thought. A few seconds later, I came to a decision. "We will continue?"
"C-Continue?" Iris looked at me as though I was crazy.
"Calm down, it's not as dangerous as you think," I said with a smile. "Look there."
The girls looked at the place where I was pointing and saw a man standing in the middle of the monsters.
"T-That is…"
"One of Alan's men," I replied. "If I'm not wrong, the beasts are in a kind of dazed state right now. They probably will not react unless we attack them directly. Of course, we need to be careful either way. We don't want to be discovered by Alan's men. If they had an unknown method to control the beasts, we are screwed."
Iris and Daisy looked at each other and nodded.
Although my method sounded risky, both Iris and Daisy knew it was necessary to understand more about Alan's plan.
Whatever he was planning with these beasts, it was obvious the answer was in that hill. Thus, we needed to go there.
"Keep close to me," I said as we entered the forest of beasts.
Just like I expected, none of the beasts paid attention to us. Daisy even touched one accidentally, but the beast just glanced at Daisy briefly before turning towards the center of the hill again.
Such a situation relieved the girls, but at the same time, it made them more nervous about whatever the thing in the hill was.
The fact that it managed to put so many beasts under its control spoke of how dangerous it was.
The infiltration went smoothly. We used the beasts to hide from Alan's men and continue forward.
Normally, something like this would have not been so easy. But I stealthily used a spell called [Sight Vector Interference]. It was a mind interference spell that worked emitting a signal that subconsciously influenced its targets and made them look anywhere but the place where the caster was.
A very useful spell for infiltration. And the best part is that you don't need to hide yourself purposefully. Just by casting it, everybody would subconsciously avoid looking at you.
With the help of that spell (although the girls did not know of its existence), we reached the hill in less than half an hour.
But once there, we faced another problem.
The hill was strictly guarded. There were powerful people on each side of the hill, and they were very vigilant to stop anything from coming closer to the hill.
Even the monsters seemed to know that they could not continue forward, and every monster had stopped at least two hundred meters away from the hill, creating a clearing that would allow the guards to see anyone that wanted to enter the hill.
Actually, such a setting was not a problem for my spell, but even an idiot would realize that something is wrong if we run for two hundred meters under the gazes of several guards and all the guards look in another direction.
"What are we going to do now?��� Iris asked.
I thought for a moment before heaving a sigh. Anyway, at this point, it doesn't matter if I show a bit of my true power to Iris.
"Grab my hands," I said.
Daisy did not hesitate to grab my hand. Iris, on the other hand, only grabbed it after she blushed shyly.
Although I wanted to tease her for that, I decided to leave it for later.
For now, it was time to show my power.
Taking a step forward, Daisy, Iris, and I disappeared.
When we appeared again, we were already inside the hill.
"T-This I–Mmhp!"
"Don't be so loud or we will be discovered," I said with a hand covering Iris's mouth to stop them from shouting in surprise. "Now let's go and see what is it all about."
But when they saw what was in the center of the hill, Iris and Daisy were unable to hide their surprise and fear.
–A sleeping dragon.
One at the twelfth-layer.
It emitted such a pressure that Daisy and Iris were paralyzed in fear.
Although I already knew about it beforehand, I let out a whistle of admiration when I saw its majestic appearance. As expected, dragons are pretty cool.
"Alan sure invested a lot to kill me," I said.
Daisy was flustered. "Y-Your Highness, it is a dragon!"
"I know," I said with a shrug. "And look at its neck."
When the girls heard my words, they looked at the neck of the dragon.
There, a slavery collar filled with powerful magic runes was pulsing with a dim light.
"That is…" Iris was confused.
"A suppressive collar," I explained. "It emitted a powerful magic shock each time the master wills it, causing great pain to the monster. It's a very used method to control monsters."
"… Control?" Daisy asked curiously.
"Yes. They teach the monster since small to obey their orders, otherwise, they will activate the collar. With time, the monster learns to obey its owner's orders to avoid the pain. However, this method has a huge flaw."
"What is it?" Iris was the one who asked this time.
I smiled derisively. "Tell me, what do you think a powerful monster which has been mistreated by humans its entire life will do if one day it's released?"
"Don't tell me…"
I ignored the ghastly expressions on Iris and Daisy's face and smiled.
"It will kill, a lot."
Finally, we are here.
This is time to start today's performance.
Bending down, I grabbed a small stone from the ground and inserted a bit of mana into it. Mm, this will be enough.
The remaining actors arrived at that moment.
"… It looks like you know a lot about the topic, little brother."
I smiled savagely.. I know more than you think, eldest brother.