Chapter 300 — I've Got You

There was only one road from the village at the foot of the mountain to the mage's tower, yet the urge to flee from it had countless forms. Mary raised her head to look at the tower gate that had already come into view, then could not resist glancing back at the road she had come by.

She touched the metal clasp at her throat, painfully dragged her gaze back, and slowly walked toward the mage's tower, one step at a time.

The tower gate opened on its own, and that dark, sunken doorway made her instinctively shrink back half a step. But the next second, a gaunt arm reached out from the darkness and pulled her through the gate.

A hoarse, aged voice came from beside her: "Don't dawdle. The master will be displeased."

Mary nodded, quickly handing the basket in her arms to that servant as gloomy and aged as the tower itself, then made her way with heavy steps toward the second floor of the mage's tower.

The old mage, wrapped in a black robe, sat in his magical laboratory. The walls and floor around him were etched with bizarre blood-red runes, light flickering uncertainly among them, and the old mage himself slowly raised his head as Mary entered the laboratory.

His skull, sparsely covered with white hair, looked as shriveled as something dried by the wind, his wrinkled skin seamed with the marks left by the passage of years. He looked so old that he might die at any moment—but Mary knew that this old mage was far from death. She even suspected that this aged and terrible man would live on forever and ever, outliving even her.

"You're back... go to work." The old mage glanced at Mary with muddy eyes. His voice was low and slow, like the murmuring of a dream, carrying a peculiar sluggishness. Mary knew this was because her mentor was in some special "connection" state. She did not understand what this "connection" actually meant, for her mentor never let her come into contact with such knowledge. She only knew it was a kind of "spell" utterly different from traditional magic. When her mentor Daniel had sunk into the maddest phase of his life, he had suddenly obtained this "spell," and thereafter began to study it obsessively, losing himself in it, until he had provoked the wrath of the mages of the imperial capital and been forced to come to this desolate, backward frontier...

Whenever he was in the "connection" state, the old mage's reactions would be this sluggish. But the sluggishness was only an illusion—his mind remained sharp, his reactions could still be quite swift. If one did not wish to be punished, the wisest choice was to obey his commands immediately.

Mary signified her compliance and quickly walked to the corner of the laboratory, where a dissected specimen already lay upon the experiment table, maintained in optimal condition for study by magic. Mary recognized it as a monkey—a monkey of the kind commonly found in these mountains.

She began to process the specimen as her mentor had previously instructed. Though the specimen was still twitching faintly, she mechanically began her motions—stripping flesh and blood, connecting nerve lines, immersing it in magical oils...

And when these mechanical motions were half complete, she suddenly heard a strange sound from her mentor's direction.

She looked up in astonishment and saw that her mentor's eyes had gone wide, immense terror rapidly crawling across his aged, shriveled face. This old man, who had only ever brought fear to others, looked as though he had seen some indescribable thing that could frighten him to death, his mouth hanging open there as he let out a strange gasping sound. After freezing rigid for two seconds, the old mage suddenly thrust out his arms, as if trying to shield himself from something—yet what he said was utterly baffling:

"Stay right where you are. I've got you."

That was not the tone in which her mentor usually spoke.