Chapter 230: Sense Sharing

The moment it landed on the other side, an enormous burst of flames erupted from beside the gate.

What the heck? That’s terrifying.

Igor stared at the flames before slowly taking his hand off the gate.

"What the hell? Then how are we supposed to get inside...?"

"To enter this mansion safely, we either need to be formally invited or teleport directly inside. Most members of the Holywood family can use Space-Time Magic, so the gate is merely a decorative feature intended for welcoming guests."

A decorative gate?

What an unusual way to design a house.

Still, if they had gone to such lengths to reinforce the mansion’s defenses, its security really could be considered nearly impenetrable. At the very least, some petty thief would never have any chance of breaking in.

"Then just use your teleportation magic and pop inside."

"The security is not lax enough to make that possible either. There are designated rooms within the mansion where teleportation is permitted, but the teleportation magic circles have security codes built into them. Those codes are changed once a week, and I do not know the current code."

"...So we’re completely stuck?"

"Unfortunately. If we knew the security code, we might have some options."

A security code, huh...

There was no way they could simply obtain something like that. Qiu Nuoya found it incredibly frustrating to know where Xiao Tao and Warren were but have no way to rescue them.

[ Nuoyaaa, aren’t we going to rescue them? ]

Mochi remained by the gate, looking back at the group while repeatedly stretching and contracting its body restlessly.

"I want to, but we can’t get inside. It seems like this mansion is full of traps."

[ What’s a trap? Is it tasty? ]

"Not particularly..."

Qiu Nuoya thought for a moment.

"Hey, Viktor, how are those security codes managed?"

"The teleportation magic circles are automatically rewritten every week. The codes are randomly generated, and whenever necessary, the administrator contacts the relevant people with the new code. If we could steal the security code from the administrator, or if we could somehow see the teleportation magic circle itself, then..."

[ There is a magic circle~ ]

"Huh?"

[ I was exploring the house, you know. And there’s a magic circle there. ]

"What? Wait, Mochi, what are you talking about?"

Qiu Nuoya was completely bewildered by Mochi’s sudden, incomprehensible statement.

[ Since Xiao Tao can’t leave his room, he asked me to look for another way out. So I went exploring~ ]

"Oh! Could that be the Mochi fragment that followed Xiao Tao!?"

[ Yep~ After leaving the room and going down the stairs, it found something round and swirly. I know that round, swirly things are magic circles! ]

Mochi stretched and contracted itself as if proudly declaring that it had done a good job. Qiu Nuoya found the sight incredibly soothing. Unfortunately, this was hardly the time to be enjoying Mochi’s cuteness.

"Do you know what kind of magic circle it is!?"

[ Hmm, it’s white, and there are lots of letters on it! ]

Ah... I suppose expecting Mochi to provide any more information is too much.

"Nuoya, did Mochi find something?"

"Yes. It seems one of Mochi’s fragments found a teleportation magic circle. However, Mochi cannot read the writing, so we cannot say for certain that it is a teleportation magic circle."

"I see... Nuoya, there is something I would like you to try. Would that be all right?"

"Hm? What is it?"

"I believe one of the Tamer skills allows you to share your senses with your tamed monster. Could you try using it?"

"Share my senses...?"

Does that mean sharing my senses with Mochi?

Qiu Nuoya barely made use of his Tamer skills despite possessing them, so he was surprised to learn that Tamers had a skill like this.

Well, technically, I’m a mage, right? Being a Tamer is more like a side job for me.

"Mochi, can you use Sense Sharing?"

[ Yep, I can~ ]

Qiu Nuoya picked Mochi up and asked, only to receive a surprisingly casual reply. At the same time, a translucent version of himself suddenly appeared in front of him. Startled, Qiu Nuoya instinctively dropped Mochi.

At the same moment, the face of the translucent Qiu Nuoya in front of him disappeared from view as it fell and bounced softly against the ground with a poof. What Qiu Nuoya could see now was a pair of translucent legs belonging to himself.

[ Nuoyaaa, why did you drop me~? ]

"Ah, sorry!"

Even as he apologized to Mochi, Qiu Nuoya found himself staggering because of the strange distortion in his vision. The world he saw and the world Mochi saw had partially merged together. Every time Mochi bounced up and down, his field of vision moved with it, making him feel as sick as if he were seasick.

"Nuoya, are you all right?"

"I think I managed to share senses with Mochi, but I don’t think I can keep this up for very long..."

Sharing senses with Mochi was difficult until Qiu Nuoya got used to it. He eventually realized that closing his own eyes and focusing on Mochi’s vision made things somewhat easier, so he shut his eyes.

It was like watching a VR screen that moved on its own, bouncing up and down with every hop. And the strange part was that the figure appearing in front of him was himself.

"But Viktor, I managed to share senses with Mochi. What are we supposed to do with this?"

"Mochi is probably sharing visual information with its own fragment. So this time, try switching the sense-sharing connection to Mochi’s fragment."

He just told me to do something ridiculously difficult. How am I supposed to do that?

"Um, Mochi, what do your companions normally look like from your perspective?"

[ Hmm, like this~! ]

The moment Mochi said that, countless screens suddenly spread out in front of Qiu Nuoya, leaving him stunned.

There are way too many!

It was like having footage from surveillance cameras installed all over the place shoved in front of him all at once. There was simply too much information for him to process.