Persona
“...How did this happen?”
A flustered Obor looked around.
Nothing.
No matter how hard he searched, there wasn’t even a trace.
“How is this possible?”
To make absolutely certain he caught the bastard, he had taken the time to construct a barrier and had succeeded in trapping him.
He himself, a True Blood, had served as the core, while dozens of vampires formed the framework.
And even then, just in case, he had personally kept the bastard in check...
“And yet he succeeded in escaping the barrier with spatial movement?”
Had the bastard’s level been that high?
High enough to toy with all of them?
“There is nothing wrong with the barrier. We have found no trace whatsoever of his escape.”
A Pureblood who specialized in blood magic approached and reported once more.
They had already checked several times.
He could have pretended to disappear and hidden himself, waiting for the barrier to be released.
So Obor had kept the barrier up until the very end and personally inspected the inside several times.
And if he really had succeeded in breaking through the barrier, Obor had ordered an investigation to find even the slightest trace, but... ‘He evaporated without leaving a single trace.’
They had been thoroughly played.
He had raided their hideout, stolen the fragment, and annihilated the vampires of this branch.
And after all that, he had leisurely waited in the city until they arrived, then mocked them to the very end and vanished with ease.
Crack—!
The ground near Obor exploded.
The area around him shattered, cracks spreading outward.
“How dare you... play with me? Hans... Haaans—!”
After spewing rage for some time, Obor finally steadied his breathing and looked at the subordinates waiting nearby.
Five Purebloods and over twenty Lesser Bloods.
“Search the city and its surroundings from top to bottom. Don’t miss even the smallest trace. Investigate thoroughly!”
“Yes, sir!”
At his command, the vampires scattered in all directions.
Obor looked around the place where Hans had last been.
“Grrrk—”
Just as he ground his teeth and vowed to repay this humiliation without fail...
“O-Obor, sir! This is bad!”
The subordinates who had just left hurried back to him.
“What is it? Did that bastard do something?”
The first thing that came to mind was that Hans had pulled some trick before disappearing.
But the problem was more serious than that.
“A force from the Main God Church, including holy knights and battle priests, has surrounded the area!”
“...Why would they suddenly? No, how did we not notice them until they got here?”
A special combat unit of the Main God Church dispatched to prevent the revival of the Immortal King.
In order to prevent their target from sensing their approach first and fleeing, even an archbishop had taken part, concealing their presence with large-scale holy arts.
They had approached stealthily like that, but the moment they could no longer track the Immortal King’s aura, they had swiftly sealed off the surrounding area and begun closing in toward the center.
“...We fell into that bastard’s trap. He stayed in the city and lured us here from the very beginning for this!”
He had no idea how the bastard had dragged the Main God Church into setting this trap.
But he could tell for certain that they had danced to the bastard’s scheme until the very end.
“Everyone, gather and break through in one direction! We must get out before daybreak. Hurry!”
He could feel powerful holy energies rapidly approaching this way.
The symbol of the Church’s military might, holy knights.
And among them, one aura was especially immense. ‘Damn it! They even mobilized a paladin!’
The pinnacle of holy knights who had reached the master level.
A powerhouse even he could never afford to ignore.
“You bastard, Hans! And you bastards of the Heaven-Defying Oath! I will repay this without fail—!”
And so, the Main God Church’s Immortal King subjugation force and the vampire clan Brokoslak clashed head-on.
It was around the time Han Seonghyeon was kicking off his blanket.
***
“Whew... I’m hungry.”
I set down the tattered blanket and picked up my phone to order fried chicken.
Maybe because I’d spent a good while kicking my blanket and venting my heart demons, peace had returned to my mind.
The fact that I calmed down so quickly was probably thanks to “Still Water” as well. ‘Thanks to the skill, I think I’ve built up some resistance too. Now I might be able to spout lines even more shamelessly!’
Not that I actually intended to go around doing that.
“Anyway, I ended up reverse-summoning Hans again. Sigh.”
It wasn’t as if he could freely wander around the otherworld anyway, but I had still planned to do as much as I could... ‘I never expected a True Blood to pop out. Maybe I should’ve just left the city right away?’
Having absorbed another fragment and evolved into an “Archlich,” he had been overflowing with confidence.
So I’d thought I could shake them off well enough. ‘He was stronger than I expected. If we fought properly, I could win, but...’
For now, there wasn’t much merit in fighting him, so it was better to simply avoid it.
It had only been a few days since Hans obtained “Forbidden Knowledge,” so if given enough time, he would only grow stronger from here.
It would be more than enough to settle things then. ‘Extracting the source of “Immortality” is a bit awkward to use right away, though.’
By absorbing the second fragment, he had evolved from an incomplete demilich straight into an Archlich, skipping the intermediary stage of a Lich.
That was the skill he had obtained, but it seemed difficult to use properly.
Hans’s source must refer to the heart created by fusing with the fragment.
It would be ideal if I could keep it stored safely on Earth and still use it, but I was skeptical that the black magic power of a heart located in another dimension would be properly transmitted to Hans. ‘The “Avatar” skill can’t directly transmit energy either.’
If that happened, Hans, without the support of the heart’s black magic power, would become nothing more than a hollow skeleton.
It was better to let Hans keep it, since he possessed powerful force and wouldn’t be easily taken down, and I could reverse-summon him at any time.
Still, it wasn’t completely useless.
As long as I somehow protected the heart, even if his limbs were reduced to dust, they would be restored in an instant with his nearly infinite black magic power. ‘I can research that part going forward. But training in Auterica is more efficient in terms of time. If Heinz gets farther away from Ajanthu, I’ll have to transfer him there again.’
Right now, Heinz II had arrived in the city of Tilark with his companions and was gathering supplies and information.
There was nothing good about lingering too long near their sphere of influence while in the state of a vampire, so he planned to move farther away.
Fortunately, after becoming a Pureblood, he could conceal his presence as a vampire well, and since he had disposed of Wirak, a direct blood relative, tracking him had also become difficult. ‘No, maybe they’ll think he’s already dead in the first place. Hans did cause quite the mess, after all.’
Still, it wouldn’t be good to stand out, so he would have to avoid them as much as possible.
“Even so, I gained a lot. Heinz II obtained usable combat power, and Hans absorbed another fragment.”
On top of that, I had obtained all kinds of treasures and magic tools.
It was an extremely satisfactory result.
“I did play a pretty active role, so I must have accumulated quite a bit of karma, right? Let’s see how much is left until the next enhancement of my unique skill... Hm?”
I opened the karma shop, checked the number, and froze for a moment.
『Unique Skill Enhancement (700,000)』
『Karma Possessed - 731,002』
“...Was it always this generous?”
Not long ago, I had used it to raise my physical abilities evenly, so I shouldn’t have had much karma left.
But before I knew it, my karma had filled up.
The Brokoslak Clan might be one of the top three in the vampire world, but they were a minority race in Auterica, and Ajanthu was nothing more than a small city on the frontier.
“Is that how valuable the Immortal King’s fragment is? Or perhaps driving a wedge between the vampires and the Heaven-Defying Oath had an effect.”
After thinking for a moment, I roughly came to that conclusion.
The more karma, the better, and what mattered now was that I could enhance my unique skill one more time. ‘There isn’t anything I particularly think I need, so how will it evolve? Will I get one more avatar?’
With an excited heart, I immediately selected enhancement, and a throbbing headache came over me.
A short time passed like that, and I realized I could create one more avatar.
But that wasn’t the end.
“Oh?”
《Your unique skill has grown and blossomed into possibility. You have acquired the special skill “Persona.”》
I had also obtained a related skill I had secretly been hoping for.
Since “Mind Hub” had been helping me a great deal all this time, I hurriedly checked the information with a grin.
But...
“Ha...”
Before I knew it, my expression stiffened, and a hollow laugh slipped out.
The growth of a unique skill proceeds in the direction its user needs.
In other words, the system had judged that “Persona” was necessary for me.
The skill’s effect was simple.
A skill that used an avatar as a vessel to contain one’s emotions.
“......”
Time flowed endlessly in the silence.
As I sat there blankly, I realized I had unconsciously been shaking one leg.
...It was the leg that had, until recently, borne the recovered traces of “that day.”
A leg that was now smooth, without even a scar left behind.
I closed my eyes and sank into thought amid the quiet.
I felt like I knew why this skill had appeared.
Slowly, I looked back on the past.
I had casually mingled with the first people I met in the otherworld and built friendships with them.
I had become undead and dealt with black mages, and on Earth, I had subdued villains.
I had sacrificed myself to help a brother and sister in trouble, and I had defeated the vampires of a city. ‘Me, who had spent two years shut in my room.’
Me, who was afraid of the outside and had only one friend left to call a human relationship.
Yes, in truth, every move I had made after obtaining “Avatar” had been nothing more than playing a game.
It was vivid and realistic because I could experience everything directly, but to me, it wasn’t reality.
Just as I wouldn’t be embarrassed talking to an NPC, I punished evildoers and helped the weak as if clearing quests.
As an avatar, I was adventuring through the otherworld brightly and energetically, but in reality, I was still shut up in my room.
The traces left on my body had disappeared, but my mind still remained back then.
“Whew—”
I let out a sigh and opened my closed eyes.
The quiet house.
The sound of the refrigerator making a small noise grated on my nerves more than usual today.
The house, once noisy and lively, now no longer felt like it contained even a speck of vitality.
The space I had thought of as a refuge all this time felt, in the silence, like a coffin that had gathered dust and trapped me inside.
When I faced the reality I had been desperately ignoring, the sense of disparity made it hard to breathe.
“Hans.”
As I murmured softly, darkness spread across the floor, and Hans slowly rose from it.
Though his aura was being suppressed in every possible way, he still radiated an aura of fear that terrified anyone who saw him.
It had become several times more terrifying than when I had seen him as a demilich.
“Transfer the stagnant, rotting emotions into the vessel...”
I focused on Hans and used “Persona.”
Loneliness, sadness, anger, and other negative emotions that had accumulated all this time naturally flowed into him.
Perhaps because Hans was undead to begin with and had excellent compatibility, he absorbed them like a sponge.
“Whew... Is it over?”
After facing the negative emotions that had piled up and finishing the process of transferring them, my mind felt fresher than ever.
It wasn’t that I had completely thrown away my emotions.
It was closer to a process of neatly organizing them in a box so that I could take them out and use them whenever I wanted.
After all, one way or another, an avatar was also myself.
“It’s good for me, but is Hans all right?”
He was already undead, so negative influence was strong on him. If that became even worse...
I focused my consciousness on Hans and observed his inner self.
I couldn’t feel anything particularly wrong.
Rather, perhaps because he had swallowed negative emotions, it had become even easier to operate black magic power.
[...Pain and despair are companions of life. At this point, it hardly matters.]
Even after blurting that out without realizing it, I didn’t notice it at first.
It just felt natural.
“Huh—?!”
Then I suddenly felt a sense of incongruity and jumped.
No, it was definitely something I had said, but...
[Heh heh heh... I see. An avatar containing emotions gains a corresponding personality? In a way, that is only natural.]
Hans let out a cynical laugh.
It was so natural that it gave me chills. ‘Did it project part of my inner personality? As expected, I can’t appear in front of people with this guy.’
If I wanted to control it, I could, but if I wasn’t conscious of it, his speech naturally changed like that.
Was I supposed to call this a side effect...?
“Well, whatever. It’s not like I have any reason to deal with people as Hans anyway. As long as it helps me, that’s enough.”
Just as I reached that conclusion and nodded...
Boom—!
An impact rang out from far away.
Waaaah—!
Then the sound of sirens began to follow.
It sounded faint, as if it was quite a distance away, but I had a rough idea of what had happened. ‘A terror attack by a villain, huh.’
These days, villains had been especially rampant, and incidents and accidents had increased.
The news and the internet were full of nothing but related stories. ‘That doesn’t mean I should actively step forward, though...’
If it happened right in front of me like last time, that would be one thing, but I had no intention of deliberately going around looking for trouble.
There was nothing to gain by stepping in, and I hadn’t suffered any direct harm.
I deliberately ignored it and waited only for the chicken I had ordered to arrive.
Bzzzt~
After some time had passed, a text arrived on my phone along with a vibration.
-The Delivery Clan has sent you a message.
-The store you ordered from, “Cerberus Three-Chicken,” has suspended operations due to an accident.
-Your order has been refunded. We apologize for the inconvenience.
I stared at the text for a moment, then looked out the window.
I estimated the direction of the disturbance and compared it with the location of the chicken restaurant I had ordered from.
“...Ah.”
That place was the best restaurant I had discovered after wandering from one chicken place to another.
They used fresh meat, crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside, with seasonings of various flavors and generous portions that always left me satisfied.
For the past year, whenever I ate chicken, I had always used that place.
Lately, the kind-hearted owner had even been throwing in plenty of extras because I was a regular...
“...I see. I left them alone, and harm came to me.”
In truth, I may have been looking for an excuse.
A means to justify myself.
A basis for putting forward an irrational judgment.
[Does one need a reason to destroy evil? No. The order of the world shakes and chaos descends, and lawless scoundrels run rampant everywhere. ...Now, I shall become their law.]
Hans, who was beside me, disappeared into the shadows.
Yes, I had made all sorts of excuses, but the conclusion was one and the same.
I hate villains.