Chapter 45: Unintentional (1)

Resisted!

Hint: Increase your INT and WIS

Not unexpected, to be honest. After seeing how magic works on a target’s body, I already knew this is not going to work. However, the hint that came with the notification was a huge surprise. Ever since I killed the goblin lord and unlocked the achievement system, I have been observing subtle changes like this. When I opened the menu to see what this so-called achievement was all about, I was left disappointed. Not much was there, only a few lines, and that’s all.

The achievement screen looked something like this;

You have killed Guliver Albestone, the intruder who had committed the taboo in the dungeon and disrupted the natural order.

Achievement 1: Taboo Break

Status: Completed.

Achievement 2: ???

Status: Not started.

Well, at least I knew now why killing that goblin lord was an achievement. He was never a part of this dungeon. And his actions had somehow ruffled the feathers which he shouldn’t have. It was as if the very dungeon itself had put up a bounty on his head.

Since I failed to plant a seed, without wasting too much time, I killed him in the nightmare realm. Contrary to how it happened with goblins, humans wouldn’t become braindead if killed in here. They will, at most, get unconscious, and at least will be nauseous. However, it was true that if they receive a strong enough psychological impact, they would be out for the rest of the fight.

I would have done the same with this remaining guy as well, but this one had stronger willpower. Illusion based skill’s downside was glaringly visible once again. A person with stronger willpower could easily nullify the effect even if they were inside this Nightmare Realm.

But, as I said before, I am the god of this place. As a former human, I knew how our psychology worked. What’s the worst thing humans fear?

Ghosts? Maybe or maybe not. But there was one indisputable fact, humans as a species, fear the unknown. The unknown comes in many forms, and darkness being one of them. I raised my hand, which startled the enemy. Thinking that I was about to attack him, he adopted a defensive stance. But to his surprise, I just clicked my thumb and index finger of the right hand.

Boom!!

With a dull sound of a drum beating, the whole world cascaded in eternal darkness, darker than the black itself. It was just the first step.

“What!? What is this? What happened?” The masked knight became flustered. One moment he was preparing to fight against a massive fire monster and then suddenly the whole world goes black! He wasn’t able to catch up with the speed at which it changed.

It was just the beginning of a nightmare for the Knight B. I took away all his sensory abilities with another snap from my fingers. Although, he would still be able to ‘feel’ for I couldn’t deprive that for the time being. Then I left the nightmare world. I could only keep him inside that realm for ten seconds. The timer was about to run out.

As expected, not long after I appeared in the real world, that man also came to his senses. However, he was obviously disoriented. The influx of sensory information had stunned him momentarily. I took that chance to grab him by his neck, and the currently unconscious Knight A and ran at my top speed into the deeper depths of the forest. Due to the passive effect, I had still retained the form of the volcanic giant. Although it wouldn’t make me as powerful as the original, I still had enough power to carry two humans with me.

This passive, after using it twice, I realized a fact. My power in the transformed state depends heavily on how much the target was afraid of their nightmare. The more concentrated my target’s fear, the more powerful I would become. There was even a tiny chance that I might become stronger than the original.

The reverse was also possible. It would be bad news if one of my future targets fears a cockroach, and I would turn into a cockroach.

After reaching the habitat, I called out for Logier and Urt. In a flash, they both appeared, looking very serious. As soon as Urt saw my hulking and dreaded form, a rare sign of fear flashed on his perpetual expressionless face. Logier wasn’t surprised though since, he had already seen me using this ability once before. Still, he backtracked a little due to the high temperature coming off my body.

“Subdue them,” I ordered while throwing the two knights into the ground. Then I canceled my hulking form and returned to being a small dream weaver. Logier and Urt threw themselves into the two human knight’s body. Using their herculean strength, they disarmed them in a matter of seconds.

Both Urt and Logier were chief level characters. They were more powerful than an average monster. The two humans, on the other hand, didn’t even dare to go upstairs to fight against orcs. It was evident from their actions that they weren’t strong enough to win against them at all.

The two human knights groaned and screamed as they tried to struggle free of the two monster’s iron-like grip. However, it was for the naught. The two monsters held them down to the ground, with half of their body’s full weight pinning them. I felt a little pity and even uncomfortable at the sight of fellow humans being treated like that.

I didn’t do anything to stop them, however.

“Strip them and bury them to their necks,” I added as an afterthought. Initially, I wanted to have them restrained with ropes while guarded by other orcs. But then I remembered the strength shown to me by Leah, which compelled me to change my initial arrangement. If they broke their chains and attack the orcs guarding them before running away, everyone will be in trouble.

I was about to tell them how to remove the armors, but their swift actions left me speechless. Their hands were a blur as they roamed across the metallic straps of the armor. Within a scant few seconds, they completely stripped the two humans naked. They looked like they were very used to it.

“You guys, how did you know how to remove them?” I asked in surprise.

“Many humans raid our home. We collect the corpses of dead humans after we defeat them.”

“Lord made us kill human warriors and take their belongings.”

I wasn’t surprised by their answer. After all, this was a dungeon where many humans perish every year. Though I haven’t seen the data, how hard could it be to imagine the outcome where humans and monsters fight to the death? Since humans harvest monster corpses after their death, monsters can also do the same, right?

To monsters, humans hold no value other than being their nutritious food. The equipment on their bodies were just bonuses. Like how humans learned to pelt monsters, they also learned how to ‘pelt’ the humans. Nature will always seek balance and would often create impossible ways to achieve that.

The two chiefs dug a hole faster than any digging machine could do and buried Knight A and Knight B in a flash. Knight A, Jimmy Rees was a man in his early teens. He had a headful of brown hair combed back in a slick manner. He had a handsome face, a common trait seen among the people of this world. His eyebrows were thin and lined in symmetrically with his unique hairstyle.

He was unconscious at the moment.

The other one, Knight B, whose name I couldn’t remember, was a balding middle-aged man. His face had a frightening gash running from left to right side, giving him a very ferocious appearance. His eyes were red, not the sclera but the pupil itself. At the moment, the man with such a face was sporting a horrified expression. Perhaps it was because of the appearance of the orcs.

I head their conversation back then. These guys didn’t believe the rumors and came here unprepared. And now they were in a predicament where their very life itself was in the hands of the monsters.

I, on the other hand, had a headache. I did not know how to handle this situation. These guys were a part of a bunch and part of a royal family no less. That blond guy who was reading the book, he gave me the same kind of feeling as Cathie when I met her for the first time. But he was giving even a more concentrated intent than her.

“What should we do with them?” Logier asked what I was worried about all this time.