Ghost (1)

Maderkin Rillgriams..

I never expected it would be him.

The moment I saw his face, I didn’t feel happy or curious.

I just felt confused.

“You… should’ve been killed by the village chief.”

“Huh…?”

The guy stared at me with a confused expression, as if he didn’t understand what I just mumbled.

Since things had already come this far, I continued speaking.

“Killed by the village chief…? What do you mea—”

“I saw a dagger engraved with your clan’s emblem in their blacksmith.”

“Ah…”

“Why was that dagger there?”

“I… I don’t know. But before we left the island, some of our members traded with the villagers. We handed over mostly useless items and received an excessive amount of magic stones in return.”

His testimony perfectly matched the village chief’s explanation.

This made me even more confused.

‘…So the village chief was innocent?’

Then what was the point of what I did while escaping the village?

Did I just make a fool of myself?

For a moment, that thought crossed my mind, but I shook my head and brushed it aside.

I could still make a judgment after hearing everything.

“Tell me. After we left that island, what happened to you guys?”

“Huh? Oh… Yes! Understood!”

When he first saw us, he ran toward us with a look that seemed to say, You came to save us. But as I coldly interrogated him, he froze up and began answering carefully.

“We left the island two days after you did, Baron.”

Honestly, his story wasn’t anything special.

They decided to leave the island feeling they had to ‘do something,’ but after what happened at the chief Island, they got scared and headed to the Library Island—the safest option.

Just like us, who returned to do some farming, he felt the need to strengthen his team first.

But then…

“It was a creature I’d never seen before. It had grotesque wings and a body similar to slime, with all kinds of bizarre limbs sprouting out of it.”

A new monster that even I didn’t have in my database.

As a result, the Silver Lion Clan was wiped out, and their ship was destroyed. Believing he would die after falling into the water, Maderkin instead woke up on Library Island.

His backpack had snagged on some rocks near the shore, leaving him barely alive.

Holding onto the faint hope that someone might come, he rationed his food carefully—not to survive monsters, but to endure the crushing loneliness, day after day.

In short, that was his story.

“I see.”

I didn’t find it particularly sad.

From the sound of it, the moment he realized they were doomed, he abandoned his clan members and jumped into the sea.

‘A plausible story, I suppose.’

Madarkin Rilgrims.

Given what I knew of him, it was a choice he would certainly have made in that situation.

However…

That’s enough information gathering.

I’d heard enough.

Now it was time to verify how true his story was.

So…

“Versil.”

I called Versil to cast a verification spell.

Unfortunately, he seemed to have decent magic resistance, so the spell didn’t work properly. But I didn’t dwell on it and instead pulled out an item from my subspace.

It’s a bit of a waste to use my last charge here, but…

No matter how I looked at his story, something felt off.

“Maderkin Lilgrams.”

“Yes?”

“From now on, I’m going to verify if you’re telling the truth.”

I didn’t bother asking for his consent.

He didn’t have a choice anyway.

Click.

I immediately activated [Misplaced Trust].

With this, even if he was hiding something, I’d be able to uncover it all.

But…

“Alright, let’s start with a simple question.”

What the hell was going on?

“Tell me. What’s your name?”

Just like in the Doppelgänger Forest, this was a basic test question to confirm whether the item was working properly.

“……”

“……”

Why the fuck wasn’t this bastard answering?

***
Tick Tick Tick

The only sound was the consistent, rhythmic click of the compass needle as it moved around the Misplaced Trust’s disk.

As the silence dragged on, the tension in the air grew.

But…

Swoosh.

My warrior’s body instinctively moved into action.

By the time I regained my senses, my hand had almost unconsciously reached for the handle of the hammer strapped to my back.

A purely instinctive, unconscious movement.

Hah…

At least gripping my weapon helped calm me down a bit.

“Speak, Lilgrams.”

I asked again.

“What’s your name?”

At that, he looked away.

But the way his eyes moved to the right was more than strange.

So…

“This is your last chance.”

I didn’t stop at just resting my hand on my weapon.

Now, I outright drew it and repeated my question.

“What’s your name?”

“……”

So, he was going with the silent treatment?

Just in case, I’ll break all his limbs first and then start.

The moment I finished organizing my thoughts, I tightened my grip on the hammer.

And just as I was about to swing—

“…Ah.”

The guy broke his long silence and spoke.

“F-found… out…”

A short phrase, but for some reason, his tone felt different.

And indeed it was.

“Found out. Found out. Found out. Found out. Found out. Found out. Found out. Found out. Found out. Found out. Found out. Found out.”

Like a glitching audio device, he repeated the same words over and over, his eyes shaking uncontrollably, his voice thick with anxiety and panic.

As if he’d fallen into a state of sheer terror.

He was clearly consumed by fear.

“Found out. Found out. Found out. Found out. Found ou—”

“…What the hell are you?”

I reached out, grabbed his neck, and lifted him up.

The words spilling from his mouth changed.

“What do I do?”

“…?”

“What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?”

It was a sensation I’d never felt before.

I was the one holding him up by the neck, yet somehow I felt uneasy and unsettled.

“What do I do? What do I do? What do—”

Right then, he abruptly went silent.

And then…

“…Ah.”

He quietly lifted his chin and looked at me.

The eyes that had been unnaturally turned to the right now faced me dead on.

Still in that position, he slowly spoke.

“I see.”

As though he had realized something.

Just as an inexplicable sense of unease washed over me and I raised my hammer—

“I know what to do.”

With those final words—

BOOOOM!

The body in my grasp exploded.
***

The explosion itself wasn’t that strong.

At most, the hand gripping his neck stung a little from the close-range blast.

It wasn’t even a real wound – more like an allergic reaction that left an itchy feeling.

But the explosion was more than enough to tear someone’s flesh into thousands of pieces and scatter bone fragments everywhere.

“A priest… would be pointless now.”

Covered in blood and gore, I stared blankly at the ground for a moment.

Once I’d processed the situation, I let out a long sigh.

Damn it, this is a mess.

I could make excuses, but ultimately the defeat was due to my own lack of imagination.

I’d always tried to prepare for the worst…

And yet, I couldn’t predict this?

“…No, seriously, how could anyone predict this?”

I reprimanded myself, but part of me thought that, even if I’d known, could I have stopped him?

I mean, how do you stop an emergency escape?

It’s a skill with no countermeasures.

Unless you’re a god, you can’t catch a corpse mid-explosion.

Theoretically, it’s the perfect escape ability.

And as overpowered as it was, the price was… the user’s own life.

“Enough. No point in dwelling. Let’s assess the situation first.’

“Jandel…!”

“I’m fine, don’t freak out. Ah, give me a second—I need to think.”

After calming my worried comrades, I took a moment to assess and organize the situation.

If I had to sum it up in one sentence:

“Something unknown was pretending to be Maderkin Rillgriams.”

So, who was behind it?

Only one suspect came to mind.

“The village chief.”

No, to be precise, it was probably someone sent by the village chief.

There’s no way the chief would panic like that the moment he was caught.

Anyway, since I had a suspect, the next step was obvious.

One of the basic elements of deduction.

‘Why? And how?’

For what reason, and by what method, did he pull this off? I considered countless possibilities, but this part remained shrouded in complete mystery.

Was it to trick me into thinking he was innocent? Or just to keep an eye on me from a distance?

I still wasn’t sure about the purpose.

How is something like this even possible?

I couldn’t think of a single “Essence” that matched.

There are skills that allow you to take over someone else’s body, but this felt completely different.

Most of those require the caster to be nearby, and even after possession, there’s usually some visible connection, like a thread.

Yeah, so…

‘It’s not a skill.’

If anything, it was closer to—

‘A ghost.’

An evil spirit would fit this situation much better.

The realization sent a shiver down my spine.

Even after a long discussion with my group, I couldn’t find any more answers.

For now, it was just a flimsy hypothesis, but—

The village chief has a way to possess others’ bodies, like an evil spirit.

It never hurts to be careful.

***
After the incident with Rilgrims’ [Emergency Escape].

Though I still felt uneasy, the situation had mostly settled, and we resumed exploring the library.

There were two main changes since we’d left.

“The books… are back.”

The summoning books we’d already used were replenished.

When we left, the lower shelves were almost empty. Now the books were fully restocked, and even the mess on the floor had been cleaned.

And…

“The stairs have reset too.”

We’d built a path up to the higher shelves using summoned books, reaching areas where Level 3 monsters appeared—but now everything had reset to how it was when we first arrived.

“Hmm, so what triggers the reset? Time?”

If so, I suspected the rainy season might be the trigger. But I couldn’t say for sure.

“Jandel, this actually works in our favor. Now we can farm essences more easily.”

“Yeah… That’s true.”

As Amelia said, it was a good development.

Even if the stairs resetting was a bit painful, the farming potential had effectively become infinite.

Not that it didn’t have its disadvantages.

“If things keep resetting like this, we won’t be able to brute force our way to the top.”

The Library Island’s clear condition was already difficult enough—now it had a time limit attached.

No point in whining just yet—once our goal shifted from simply farming essences to actually clearing the place.

‘Now that we know it resets, let’s stop wasting time here.’

I pushed aside all my worries and focused solely on the reason we’d come here.

Honestly, I am pretty good at games that required grinding.

They made all the noise in my head disappear.

[You have defeated the Frost Wolf.]

[You have defeated the Stone Golem.]

[You have defeated the Hobgoblin.]

[You have defeated the Ice Orc Warrior.]

[You have defeated the Yeti.]

[You have defeated the Riture Talisman Caster.]

[…….]

After that, we split into two groups—one to search for books containing good prey, and the other to focus on combat—and went into full-on grinding mode.

Level 9, Level 8, Level 7…

The higher we climbed the shelves, the harder the fights became. Once Level 4 monsters started appearing, we focused on summoning specific monsters to farm.

Magic stones dropped.

Experience piled up.

And…

“An essence!”

I still hadn’t found an essence for the Anabada clan members, but as we collected more and more essences each day, our group as a whole became stronger and stronger.

And so, time passed…

“This should be enough for today! Let’s call it here and rest!”

Day 85 in the labyrinth.

[[The character’s soul resonates and is drawn to a specific world]]

The day finally arrived.

 

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