Chapter 318: The Crown

"Mm!"

Tally cried out in pain.

She groggily woke up.

The first thing she saw was her master holding her, and instead of feeling any lingering fear, she cheerfully nuzzled about in Rod's arms.

Pawing and feeling around.

"You got hit, you know that?"

"I know~ but Master's right here after all~~"

Rod pinched both her cheeks and said seriously:

"Do you know what caused it?"

There were already hallucinogenic spores in front of the stone gate, clearly set up by the Mycelium Tribe.

He really couldn't be sure whether it was that golden crown or some other trick left behind by the Mycelium Tribe.

Tally pointed at the golden crown.

"When I saw this thing, I felt someone whispering in my ear, a deep, solemn voice that went straight to the depths of my mind, and then I lost consciousness."

She didn't dare look at the crown as she spoke, her face buried tightly against Rod's chest.

Her warm, sweet breath brushed against his skin, tickling him.

Looks like the succubus is just stubborn—she does feel the fear after all.

Rod patted her little head comfortingly, stroking along her smooth black hair all the way to the back of her head.

She looked up with a mischievous grin: "Patting the back of the head? I remember that's the little gesture between you and that beastman—want to use it on Tally too? Sure, while they haven't searched this way yet, let's have a quick go."

"You don't know what's good for you—don't even think about it."

【Will of the Firmament】 showed no trigger warning.

But this was clearly a psychic shock.

So it seems this crown picks its targets—did it skip him specifically because his mental resistance was too high?

In other words, it's sentient?

Mm.

Treasures having sentience isn't all that rare—the Containment Division of the Mage Control Union probably has plenty of such contained objects.

What a coincidence, then—there's a deputy director of the Containment Division right here.

"This is the time to let the expert step in."

Rod didn't want to touch that eerie thing either.

So he went to explain the situation to the others who were still dealing with the corpses.

Actually, only the rabbit-woman Orna and the star-spirit Hailey were handling the corpses; they could use Mage Hand to avoid contact with blood.

As for the mushroom-man Noah—

He was sitting flat on the ground, inhaling the hallucinogenic spores the wall mushrooms were giving off.

Mushroom-folk, after all.

They generally have a severe hallucinogenic-spore dependency.

Besides, they don't make a practice of handling corpses, and they especially dislike burning them; they believe death is a return to nature, and letting the body decay and decompose over time is the best funeral.

Of course, planting hallucinogenic spores on the corpse of a close friend or relative would be even better.

"That's the situation."

Rod briefly explained the circumstances.

And asked Orna to go with him to deal with that golden crown.

"I also know defensive illusion spells like 【Mind Barrier】."

The star-spirit Hailey spoke up.

Clearly, she was a bit displeased that Rod and Orna had sidelined her.

She is, after all, a high-tier seventh-stage mage—she has her own pride.

A mental enchantment that a sixth-stage spiritual warrior like you can shrug off—how strong could it be?

It's not that she looked down on Rod; it's just that this area has never been the spiritual warrior's forte. No matter how strong Rod was in combat, she really couldn't imagine her spells being inferior to his mental resistance.

People always have their weak spots—if you're good at everything, how am I supposed to live?

"Hold on a moment, Miss Hailey. Orna is skilled in psychic spells, so she has a slight edge. We'll take point first, and the moment anything feels off, you pull us back and restrain us."

Rod persuaded her for a while.

Mainly explaining how important her position was.

Hailey frowned, clearly somewhat reluctant.

But since he'd said all that, she couldn't very well oppose the team's decision.

So Rod and Orna headed deeper into the underground river passage once more.

As for Tally, she'd hidden back in Rod's shadow again—for now she didn't dare come out.

"Another girl, Rod."

Orna said with a soft laugh.

"Friend—really just a friend this time. Only the second time we've met."

Rod spread his hands.

Because of the star-spirits' outrageous stunt of deliberately trying to infect themselves with beastification, he actually had a bit of a mental block against this race.

Maybe they really are just chasing the ideals in their hearts, but the process itself is hard to agree with.

"A friend? Maybe that's what you think. But she probably doesn't. I noticed she secretly—never mind, it's not nice to talk about other girls behind their backs."

"Do you know? In my hometown, if you leave your sentences half-finished, you'll get taken by the flower fae."

"Taken by the flower fae—what?"

Ona saw him stop mid-sentence and pressed him for the rest.

Then she turned her head and saw him shrug, realizing he'd done it on purpose, and couldn't help but be amused by him.

Perhaps it had struck her funny bone.

The rabbit-girl burst out laughing, clutching her belly and slapping Rod several times with her palm in the meantime.

Back to the main topic.

The two of them arrived before the stone gate.

Ona had already preemptively layered multiple mental defenses on herself.

But when she formally faced the golden crown, she still cried out in pain from surprise.

Fortunately, worthy of the rabbit-kin who specialized in mental arts.

She recovered quickly.

"Mm, it's the eye-contact type—as long as you don't look at it, the mental influence on it can't take effect."

"Is it sentient? I've been looking at it the whole time too, but I didn't feel any influence at all. Earlier when Tally and I came over, only Tally was affected."

"Hard to say, we'll need to test it to find out."

Saying so.

Ona took out a recording orb and activated it.

Then she chanted an incantation, and a ring of diamond-shaped magical barriers wrapped around the golden crown on the stump.

"A barrier against mental influence doesn't work—as long as there's eye contact, it still affects you."

She then opened the recording orb and played back the footage just captured.

"Even the recorded image can affect people?"

Ona furrowed her brow. "The mental influence level of this crown is extremely high. I don't recommend any mage below level eight making eye contact with it."

Rod found it rather novel.

This was his first time participating in a Containment Division operation.

Although his employment contract clearly stated he had to go out on at least two missions per month, Ona had pulled some managerial strings, internally reassigning him to the Containment Division while also waiving his required mission count.

So, despite having been a Magical Control Union employee for several months, Rod had never actually gone out on a single mission.

On top of that, he was drawing double salaries from both the Field Division and the Containment Division—though neither amount was much.

Meanwhile.

Ona deepened the color of the barrier, completely obscuring the crown.

"Once eye contact ends, the mental influence disappears at the same time. Let's leave it like this for now. This should belong to the Mycelium Tribe, and it wouldn't be right for us to forcibly contain it."

"All done?"

She gave a wry smile and shook her head.

"Far from it. This is only preliminary control. I estimate the key point comes after physical contact—after all, after the mental influence, the command it issues is 'put on the crown.'"

"So putting on the crown is where the real show begins?"

"You could say that."

(End of chapter)