11 – Trial of Fear (1)

“Prince, are you okay?”

Joseph opened his eyes on the bed in his room prepared in the imperial palace.

As always, the servants waited on me, and I didn’t even have time to wake up, I washed and ate, and then I devoted myself to studying royal studies and training in martial arts.

They continued to roll without a moment’s rest, and it wasn’t until the sun went down that Joseph felt a slight discomfort.

“Isn’t there somewhere I need to go?”

“Yes? My dear, what do you mean by that?”

“School… Yeah, I guess I should have gone to school.”

“School?”

Even when I asked the servants, something didn’t come to mind clearly.

Was the flying lion statue a dream?

I think I also ran into Deneb, whom I had regarded as my friend and mentor since I was young, but for some reason, my memory was fuzzy.

“This is not the time. I forgot I had an appointment.”

However, Joseph’s daily life repeated without realizing the truth.

Not realizing that all of this is an illusion.

The fantasy magic that attacked Joseph was incredibly sophisticated.

However, this illusion had to show what Joseph was afraid of, but the object of that fear had not been revealed until now.

“Hmm? This book… I must have borrowed it from the library….”

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In the meantime, Joseph came to realize that this world is an illusion by a very coincidental opportunity.

A book that couldn’t exist was on his bookshelf.

A book that I borrowed from the magic library when I was young and accidentally passed the return date, so I was sorry to see the librarian’s face, so I hesitated and procrastinated.

However, I recalled the memory of being scolded by my father, the emperor, for returning it belatedly and keeping my promise on time.

“…… Denbergen.”

The moment Joseph realized the incongruity, he gradually escaped from the fantasy.

When I think of the magic library, I think of Deneb. When he remembered Deneb, he remembered meeting him in front of Den Bergen Academy, and soon realized that he was being tried by Den Bergen Academy.

However, he has yet to find a way out of this illusion.

‘Did he tell you to face what he fears, overcome that fear, and overcome his fear?’

Easy to say. All you have to do is suppress the feeling of fear.

But Joseph couldn’t even take the first step right now.

For him to face what he fears, isn’t this just a daily routine?

If this is the middle of the ordeal, is the ordeal determined that Joseph is only afraid of this peaceful daily life?

‘Whoops, that can’t be.’

Fortunately, Joseph knew what he feared most.

Although not every day, I am often engulfed in such fear.

It wasn’t everyday life that Joseph was afraid of, but rather the opposite.

Koo Goo Goo!

“Oh, is this starting?”

As soon as Joseph recognized it, the world began to change in an instant.

The maids and servants who were scattered around Joseph just a moment ago quickly turned to ashes and disappeared, leaving only Joseph.

At the same time, the world changed in an instant without even realizing it.

The clear sky was covered with blood in the red of an ominous sunset, and the smooth imperial palace was in ruins, giving off a dreary atmosphere.

“…… Aha, is that so?”

It was a landscape beyond what Joseph had imagined.

It wasn’t just the sky covered in blood, the ground was also covered with the corpses of servants and maids who had been alive a while ago.

Ignoring the smell of rotten and burnt corpse stinging his nose, and the stinging eyes, Joseph walked around the palace.

The flower garden, which has always been calm and quiet, is as quiet as dead today.

Even if they were the same silence, there was a difference between the two of them like heaven and earth.

“Welcome, Joseph.”

Joseph raised his head and saw a doll standing at the end of the rose garden.

Something, whether he or she, was holding a knife dripping with her blood, staining the surrounding white roses with fresh blood.

“Kuh, keuh uh uh…….”

The emperor, the owner of that blood, the owner of this garden, and the owner of this country, collapsed on the garden floor like a puppet whose thread had been cut.

Faced with the sight of his own father being murdered, Josef’s smile disappeared, but his face remained dry.

Instead, he mechanically reached his waist and grabbed the handle of the sword that was already there.

“Guess it, Joseph.”

The person who murdered the emperor laughed with his mouth wide open.

“Am I your brother or sister?”

Question and answer dance (問答無用).

Joseph simply drew his sword and charged.

What he was afraid of was not always the same routine.

On the contrary, it was his fear of someone who would destroy his daily life.

And perhaps, subconsciously, Joseph knew about it.

That person might be among one’s older brother or sister.

***

“Ugh, hmm… ….”

When I opened my eyes, I was in pitch black darkness.

I think the last time I heard Joseph’s laugh and Charlotte’s scream as I stepped into the misty barrier called Ordeal.

At the same time, he tasted the feeling that his five senses were slowly fading away.

“What is this?”

The guardian spirit said that it would show me the illusions that I feared the most.

But to my eyes, I could only see pitch-black darkness.

Should I say that I can see the darkness? I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed.

‘Could it be that my senses are too good for this to happen?’

It was speculation to the end, but it was a fairly plausible hypothesis.

The principle of illusion magic is to deceive the senses of the target and show the scene the caster wants to see.

In other words, if the target’s sensory ability is above a certain level, it is not easily caught.

However, it must be a barrier created by the efforts of so-called wizards, but compared to my previous life, I can’t properly deceive my senses, which are still far from enough.

Anyway, that’s why the fantasy, which should have started right away, couldn’t be properly completed, and supplementation was constantly being added to supplementation.

Even in the darkness, there were gaps in the rain, and it seemed like I could hear the sound of walking and the screams of students falling into trials in the distance.

It meant that I was not completely disconnected from reality yet.

“Okay, let’s wait until it gets right.”

In fact, even if you exert a little bit of strength to resist, you can easily shatter these illusions and move on.

If you put your mind to it, you can do it anytime. Because one of the basics of being an assassin was to penetrate these traps.

However, since this was an ordeal that everyone had to go through together, I also wanted to properly break through without saying anything.

‘Besides that, I wanted to see for myself what I’m afraid of.’

The guardian spirit of the stone lion said that it would have no effect at all even if he found out the contents of the ordeal in advance, but to be honest, I was a bit suspicious.

If I knew what I was most afraid of, wouldn’t it be enough to encounter it every day from the moment I learned the details of the ordeal?

Anyone can do that level of effort.

If you are afraid of spiders, roll in the spider field. If you are afraid of ghosts, visit the cemetery every day or recruit a necromancer.

Then the natural feeling of fear will be reduced.

Maybe then something else might become the object of fear, but that’s better than not knowing at all.

“What will appear?”

However, even knowing the contents, I was unable to take such preventive measures.

Also, I don’t know what I’m most afraid of.

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t think of anything scary.

A ghost? Ghost? Vicious monster? Your parents’ enemies?

It’s been 500 years since I killed the enemy with my own hands, and I didn’t feel particularly afraid of the rest of them.

So I even got curious about it.

I wondered what he would show me in this ordeal.

“Uh.”

Just then, I burst into exclamation when I saw something starting to take shape.

In the darkness, pure white light gathered to form a human figure.

Who are you, are you saying I’m afraid of a specific human?

I thought about it for a while, but didn’t come up with a single candidate.

Jijik- Jijik-

It was only then that the world began to form as if putting pieces of a puzzle together.

A human made of light… The earth was created around what appeared to be a woman, surrounded by all sorts of things, and the sky covered like a lid.

Forests and mountains are created, water streams pierce rivers, and clouds are sprinkled into the clear sky.

There is a small hut on the field, and next to it is a woman who is almost fully formed with her back turned to me.

“…… Ah.”

I only realized then.

The true identity of that woman standing next to the nostalgic mountain cabin.

I have no idea why her alternate ordeal decided I would fear her.

Now, such an ordeal seemed trivial.

‘Am I stupid, am I?’

Just a while ago, we were talking about things like it’s only natural that assassins don’t get caught in fantasy magic traps.

However, looking at the scene in front of my eyes, my tongue became stiff and my lips dried up, so I couldn’t say anything.

Isn’t that the case after 10 years, or maybe 500 years?

“You… ….”

I blankly looked at her back.

It didn’t look the same as I remember her before.

She At that time, she was a little girl, but now she has become a full-fledged woman.

A lot has changed and I couldn’t even see her face, but I was sure.

“…… Justina?”

If you look from behind, you can see the horns on her head.

Gray hair flows down like pure white snow in winter.

The dress was pure white, the same color as her hair, and the back strap was untied.

“Justina!”

I called out to her again.

But as if she didn’t hear me, she still didn’t look back.

‘I’d rather go ahead.’

Since she seemed deaf, I took a step forward, thinking that I must see her face whether I approached her and slapped her on the shoulder or ran ahead and turned around.

“…… Uh?”

At that moment, I fell into an extreme sense of incongruity.

Obviously I took a step. It must have been.

I lifted my foot, stretched it forward, and put it back on the ground.

However, the distance with Justina did not narrow in the slightest.

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