Chapter 187

Even with his brain meticulously exposed to the broad daylight, the mage merely maintained a bright, cheerful smile, comfortably keeping his hands folded over his abdomen.

In fact, he went so far as to actively tilt his head forward, adjusting the angle so that it would be multiple times easier for me to observe.

He has explicitly lost his mind, that’s for sure.

Peering inside out of pure curiosity, I saw his brain fixed securely within the skull, wrapped entirely in some sort of reddish gelatinous substance. I suppose that thing acts as a stabilizer and serves as a substitute for cerebrospinal fluid.

And… planted densely across the surface of his brain were close to thirty vibrant, multicolored needles.

“Are these needle-like things the implants?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s all well and good, but why on earth do you carry things like this around with you?”

“What’s the point of leaving space inside an spatial backpack empty? You have to carry it packed to the absolute brim, obviously.”

Well, you have a point there.

Pulling out a similar needle from within her shirt, she injected it with mana.

At that exact split second, the needle tip, which had been perfectly straight and sharp, abruptly split apart into dozens of separate branches.

Frizzle!

“This section here is the root. The part that directly interfaces with the cranial nerves. Above that is the ‘spell stem,’ and the magic stone section at the very top absorbs and refines the patient’s mana to operate the implant semi-permanently.”

“Oh…”

And I wasn’t just whistling Dixie; this was truly an incredible piece of technology. Being capable of controlling a human being in this manner explicitly meant they had mapped out practically the entire structure and operational mechanisms of the human brain.

‘Looking at things like this, it feels like the technology here subtly leaves Earth’s far behind in the dust. You truly can never underestimate a medieval fantasy world.’

“How did you execute such a complex procedure in a mere ten minutes?”

“Well, it’s a piece of work I’ve executed quite frequently, after all.”

“Executed frequently?”

“Yeah. Most individuals belonging to a Magic Tower who commit a grave crime, or betray the tower to sell internal data, end up subjected to this exact implant insertion procedure. They are basically remodeled into a high-grade doll that executes whatever command is handed down to them. And the individual who used to be entirely in charge of that procedure back in the day was none other than me.”

“Ah…”

“When an entity who still retains their magical knowledge intact, possesses a high level of intelligence, and concurrently holds their own self-awareness executes your every command… to be perfectly frank, it’s exceptionally convenient to have one around.”

“You intend to take him back and utilize him?”

“Yeah. I intend to independently break away from the Magic Tower before long… so having an entity like this around is bound to be beneficial in various ways. Those Cardinal kids hit their absolute threshold if you drive them for about 22 hours a day, but this thing doesn’t suffer from a single limitation like that. As long as you feed it proper rations, it thumps along endlessly.”

“I, I see…?”

“Ah, and since there was a decent amount of leeway apart from the obedience function, I planted a crowd of additional things inside… the implant planted right here, this is the one that controls emotions. As long as this remains planted in this exact spot, he cannot experience a single negative emotion.”

“Negative emotions? Things like sorrow or anger?”

“Yeah. Therefore, no matter how profoundly unjust the treatment he receives might be, he physically cannot harbor an inkling of malice.”

“Wow…”

“And this section here is what you’d call the pleasure implant. It’s concurrently referred to as the happiness implant… once this is planted, you can completely flood their head with ‘happiness’ with a single signal. Of course, driving it continuously will ruin the brain, so it must strictly be executed from time to time as a reward.”

Mmm. That sounds rather similar to the Collar of Subjugation. I wonder if this guy’ll also go ‘heeegh’ and have his eyes roll back the moment he hears a compliment, just like Sparks.

“And this part here is the castration implant.”

“…What did you just mouth?”

“Castration. To be precise, it completely blocks sexual desire and sexual function.”

I managed to grasp her words with a decent amount of difficulty.

“W-Well, I suppose storing up sexual desire with no capacity to release it would be a cruel thing indeed. Yes. Mmm. That makes sense.”

“And this one over here is the feminization implant.”

“…Hold on a moment, teacher. The progress is a bit too rapid for me to keep pace with.”

Yeah. I can somehow comprehend the castration aspect… but why on earth would you execute a literal TS (Trans-Sexual) operation?

Noticing my expression, Sodin displayed a look of genuine confusion.

“Why are you staring at me with a gaze like that?”

“No, the fact that a thing like that even exists is absurd enough… but why on earth did you plant such a device inside him?”

“What do you mean why? I explicitly planted it entirely for your sake, you know?”

“Pardon? …Hold on. A deeply ominous premonition just surfaced in my mind… surely the reason isn’t exactly what I’m thinking right now, right?”

“Huh?” Tilting her head slightly, Sodin soon grasped the hidden intent behind my words and burst into a flurry of laughter.

“Oh, come on. I am well aware that your sexual desire is strictly oriented toward an exceptionally normal direction.”

“…I’m, grateful for that. Then what do you mean by saying it’s for my sake?”

“I mean… you absolutely despise it when a young man enters your personal perimeter, don’t you?”

“…Eh?”

“Why act like it’s not true? Every single person you’ve collected (?) is a young woman, and the only men around you are a middle-aged beastkin pervert old man who’s practically at death’s door anyway, and a few elderly retainers.”

“…I have never collected anyone, nor have I ever gathered strictly young women, okay? Besides, if we’re talking about young men, there’s concurrently the Chamberlain.”

“Ah, that’s true. That fellow is so thoroughly like a shadow that I forgot. Then should I castrate him and transform him into a woman as well? If it’s just the procedure, it won’t take even ten minutes.”

“…….”

…This is explicitly the first time since I met her that I’ve felt a mage could be this terrifying.

Seeing my completely horrified expression, she playfully shook her index finger continuous times and carried on with her words.

“Now, just picture it. Ourselves and the maids are romping around joyfully in the pool wearing bikinis… and interspersed among us, other men are stuck there like patches of mold. And picture those creatures stretching their philtrums, staring at them with explicit, lecherous gazes.”

“…….”

“Unpleasant, right?”

“…….”

“See? Told you.”

“N-No… that and a total TS transformation are entirely separate issues.”

“Whatever. At any rate, the Cardinals and Apprentices I intend to bring along are all women anyway. Those girls would concurrently find it uncomfortable if a man were squeezed into a place like that, you see? Therefore, this guy’s gender will explicitly be altered. He is my personal property, so do not bicker or argue about it.”

“…….”

“Concurrently… since this fellow looked reasonably close to a woman from the start, it should take about three months for him to transform into a flawless female.”

“D-Does that ‘transform’ mean he literally turns into an actual woman?”

“What a foolish query. Is there such a thing as turning into a fake one?”

“I mean, rather than simply castrating his masculinity and structurally modifying his exterior through surgery—like a gender reassignment operation back in Thailand—he genuinely alters?”

“Taikuoo? Where on earth is that? In the first place, if strictly his masculinity vanished, it would be called a neutering operation rather than a feminization. Since it’s a feminization, isn’t it completely normal for the entirety to transform into a woman?”

“Uh… that’s…”

“I don’t know what kind of things you’re imagining, but the entire physical makeup—from the internal anatomy to the outward appearance—completely alters. By next week alone, his lower appendage will explicitly drop off without leaving a single trace, you know?”

H-How terrifying. A fantasy world…!

While we were back-and-forthing like that, Ailet, who had been waiting by our side, spoke up with a look that explicitly suggested she had chewed on something foul—a rare expression for her.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt your sweet little chat, but standing around going ‘haha-hoho’ while a human being’s head lid is wide open… to be perfectly frank, it makes you look like total psychopaths, and it’s rather spine-chilling.”

“Ah. Right.”

“Ah…! That’s, that’s entirely because of you!”

“And particularly Sodin. I fully understand that sharing a conversation with Sword God is joyful… but even so, it is rather problematic for you to be kneading a human brain as if it were a stuffed teddy bear from your shirt. His eyes have rolled back completely just now. What do you intend to execute if he breaks down because of that?”

Meanwhile, the hundreds of adventurers who had been spectating the entire sequence in real-time were barely even daring to breathe, watching the monsters who had returned a large-scale Platinum grade party completely to ash and dust in a mere blink of an eye (not metaphorically, but literally)—

“Mmm. Who should we go with?”

—And for some unknown reason, even though the hindrances had vanished completely, they were still hesitating instead of entering the labyrinth directly.

Whenever the gazes of the party swept past, the adventurers tilted their heads away and trembled in total fright.

Well, it was only natural… against individuals who had cleanly ground down a party capable of traversing the deep floors—and with strictly two people doing the grinding, no less—who on earth would possess the audacity to look them straight in the eyes?

Even if they desperately wished to vacate the spot, the path was completely blocked—

“Hehehehe…”

“Growwwwwwl…!”

“Cheep! Chirp! Peep!!”

Because for some unknown reason, that lion monster from earlier, a horned wolf with a massive build that rivaled a lion, and an unidentified round flying living organism that looked exceptionally unusual at a single glance were lingering around the vicinity and monitoring them… they simply could not bring themselves to summon the audacity.

Above all, a person’s skill and character are inversely proportional, as proven by that sheer cruelty of capturing a 6th-level mage and opening the lid of his head while he was explicitly alive.

Even right at this exact moment, the black-haired man who was the party leader and the Elf woman who was presumably a High Mage were kneading the insides of that opened head while sharing a ‘haha-hoho’ joyful conversation.

Every single time they did, the eyes of the mage rolled back as he twitched, letting out noises like ‘ek, ok, oek, gegek’… it was genuinely…

‘Psychopaths…!’

‘Hieeeek. What on earth is that, how terrifying…!’

‘I-If we get caught, we’re completely dead.’

‘We’d be lucky if we just ended up dead.’

‘I would multiple times rather go die than have the lid of my head opened like that…!’

‘Smile. Smile, you bastard! What are you going to execute if they misunderstand your frown as an attempt to pick a fight!?’

‘Did they hear us saying bad things about them?’

‘Shit. They explicitly heard us, which is why they aren’t vacating the spot and are standing around like that! To grind us down!’

‘Hey! Who was the bastard that said bad things about that man—no, that esteemed elder—just moments ago! Step out right now and confess your sins voluntarily!’

‘N-No…! I can’t…!’

‘Then at least step away from me! What are you going to execute if they misunderstand and think we are companions because we are standing attached to each other!?’

‘But we are companions! We are part of the same party! We’ve been rolling around the labyrinth together for four entire years!!’

‘I don’t give a crap, you bastard. Who even are you?’

‘Shh, shhh! He’s looking over here! Do not draw attention to yourself! Keep your head firmly planted into the dirt!!’

And… before long, the black-haired man smoothly raised his hand and pointed directly toward someone.

“You over there, the dragonkin lady wielding the three-meter great axe. You appear to be the strongest among this crowd. It looks like you’ve barely managed to pull off a late-stage Blaster rank…”

“M-M-Me, sir?”

Vivisha, the axe warrior who had been pointed out, flinched in surprise and pointed at herself.

The man gave a clean nod of his head.

“Wh-Why are you…?”

As Vivisha mumbled while trembling her body, murmurs rapidly expanded through the surroundings.

‘Wow, this is my first time witnessing that Axe Mage panic like that.’

‘Panic is the least of it. This is my first time seeing her utilize honorifics with anyone. I heard she even mouthed off with casual speech toward the Guildmaster…’

‘Shit. Her head lid is about to be opened, so do honorifics even matter? At a timeline like this, even a foreigner who doesn’t know the Imperial language would learn it in ten seconds flat and utilize it.’

The Elf warrior who had just brandished her twin halberds to slaughter the Gedra Party cast a sharp glare toward her as she hesitated.

“Hey. Axe-wielder. Orabeoni is calling you. Are you not coming?”

At that arrogant prompting, Vivisha felt a brief flash of irritation surface… but looking at the majesty of her blood-stained twin halberds, she felt her heart shrivel up completely once more.

‘…I can’t win. Absolutely not.’

Even though she was concurrently a Blaster and that girl was a Blaster, the distance between her and herself was exceptionally massive.

That girl was likely a top-tier Blaster right on the cusp of becoming a Master. On the flip side, she herself was at a tier that was barely looking toward the late stage.

True to her nickname as the Axe Mage, she could execute magic with considerable dexterity, but that wasn’t because she was a genuine mage; it was a nickname attached to her simply because she could dexterously utilize various artifacts.

And when grappling with a true powerhouse, such minor tricks do not serve as much of a help.

‘Exactly. For someone like me who is neck and neck with Gedra, there is no way I could possibly defeat a monster who shattered three Blasters—including Gedra—in a one-against-three brawl.’

‘Concurrently, apart from her, there are a whopping ten other capable individuals. Of course, one can’t claim that all of them are entirely at her level… but judging by the attitude they display toward one another, they must be at a tier that is equivalent at the bare minimum.’

She arrived at a conclusion regarding how she should behave without any inkling of difficulty.

‘…For starters, let’s unconditionally plant my head into the dirt. Does pride ever feed a person?’

And walking over with a thoroughly stiffened pace, she politely dropped down onto one knee in front of the black-haired man, exactly as she had resolved.

“Command me, young master. This lowly one shall listen.”

Gulping down the words she desperately wished to mouth—‘So please, I beg of you, do not turn me into a state like that pathetic rabbit beastkin mage’—she waited for his following words, her lips trembling uncontrollably.

“Mmm, there’s no necessity to adopt such a low posture, though.”

‘Shit. If I act rudely toward you, my head lid will be shattered into pieces by those women. Can you not see the gazes of the women standing behind your back?’

…She twisted her raw thoughts and told them with the absolute maximum level of politeness instead.

“N-No, not at all. Rather, it is an explicit honor.”

“Mmm… splendid. Then I shall ask a single favor of you.”

“A favor… yes. I shall execute it unconditionally.”

“At least listen to the business first…”

“Yes. I shall execute my absolute best.”

“…W-Well, alright. At any rate, you witnessed exactly what transpired just moments ago, correct?”

‘I witnessed it, which is precisely why I am crawling and trembling like this here.’

…Pressing down that thought tightly as well, she nodded her head with immense vigor.

“Yes. I clearly watched the vermin who disturbed your mood turn into a handful of bloody water.”

“No, not that part.”

“…Pardon?”

“Those guys were the ones who picked a fight first, correct? They blocked our path, harassed us, and even went so far as to make physical contact.”

“Ah… yes. That is correct. They explicitly did. Of course, they are probably shedding tears of blood in hell right now and regretting it deeply.”

“Therefore, us launching a counterattack against their assault constitutes legitimate self-defense, does it not?”

And only then, finally comprehending the intent of the words he wished to execute, she nodded her head with fierce intensity.

“Ah…! Yes. Yes! That is correct! It is indubitably legitimate self-defense! If anyone presses me regarding this incident! I shall execute my absolute best! To testify that those vermin were the ones who first! Executed actions that made them entirely deserve death!”

“Mmm. I like that we can communicate well.”

Nodding his head with satisfaction, he gave a slight nod of his chin toward the maid standing in attendance by his side.

Following that, the maid pulled out a massive pouch from a strangely structured bag and tossed it firmly into her embrace.

Startled by the sheer weight of the object, Vivisha subtly parted the pouch open…

“Th-Imperial gold coins? And this massive of a crowd?”