Damian maintained his use of Legilimency on Ryan.
Earlier that day, he and Link had cornered several members of the Mining Brotherhood, but the interrogation had yielded little. The thugs only knew that Old John owed the Mining Brotherhood a massive debt, and they were simply the grunts sent to collect it.
Damian had no intention of playing by the Court Wizard's rigid rules. Now that he had mastered Legilimency, he wasn't about to let the skill go to waste.
He had deliberately avoided using it in front of Link and Anna earlier. Since he wasn't entirely sure how the people in this world viewed memory manipulation or mind magic, he preferred to keep his abilities a closely guarded secret.
As an ordinary person, Ryan possessed no natural resistance shields to resist the intrusion. His expression quickly went slack and dazed.
Damian carefully sifted through Ryan's surface thoughts and memories, repeating the questions from earlier to coax out the hidden details. Under the spell's influence, Ryan answered with dull honesty.
"That day, Old John came begging to Trina. He said he had gone to the Mining Brotherhood's place for a few rounds and ended up owing a fortune." Ryan's voice was monotone, yet laced with bubbling resentment. "The Mining Brotherhood threatened him. They said they would sell Little John to the mines to pay off the debt."
"He pleaded with Trina to beg me for the money," Ryan continued. "Those mines are not a good place. Trina couldn't bear the thought of her son being sold off, so she agreed to ask me. And I couldn't bear to see Trina cry, so I lent him the money."
Ryan's face suddenly contorted. Even under the heavy suppression of Legilimency, his sheer anger bled through. "Who could have known?! The moment he got the money, he vanished! He ran away with my money! That damn bastard!"
His answers from the afternoon had technically been true; he hadn't lied about the loan. However, as Ryan spoke of the Mining Brotherhood, a new detail slipped out: "The White Stone Town leader of the Mining Brotherhood is a close friend of my brother, Jack."
Damian's eyes narrowed. Ryan had indeed been omitting crucial information. Ever since Damian had mastered Legilimency, his natural intuition for reading people had sharpened drastically, which was why he had sensed Ryan's deception earlier.
Damian pressed deeper into the mind. "Do you know this Mining Brotherhood leader personally?"
"Of course I do," Ryan mumbled. "Half a year ago, the Mining Brotherhood bought the mine in the Eastern Suburbs of White Stone Town from my late father. The local leader was the one who negotiated the deal."
"He visited my father many times after that," Ryan added. "Since he is a wizard, my father mostly had my brother, Jack, receive him."
"Why did you hide this connection from the Investigators?" Damian demanded.
Ryan's face twitched as he struggled against the compulsion, but the truth spilled out anyway. "My brother still holds shares in that mine. He's directly involved in the Mining Brotherhood's human trafficking operations."
"After Father passed away, Jack and I grew estranged. I didn't want to be dragged into his magic or illegal business," Ryan confessed. "I didn't want Trina to know about my family's dirty ties, either."
"The Mining Brotherhood thugs all know who I am. As long as they knew I was the one fronting Old John's debt, they wouldn't dare touch him," Ryan grumbled. "Now that the old bastard has disappeared, he must have just run away with my money!"
Damian withdrew his wand, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He ignored Ryan's baseless ranting and processed the new information.
Old John was just a commoner with no magical backing. Link had taken his case because it fit a disturbing pattern of vanishings in White Stone Town. Link's grandfather, Old Watson, had recently led an expedition into the Winter Forest, but only one survivor had returned. Shortly after arriving back in town, that survivor had also vanished without a trace.
With no solid leads and lacking the manpower to mount an expedition into the dangerous Winter Forest, Link had no choice but to start his investigation with the local disappearances.
A wizard has too many means to deal with an ordinary person. If Old John had simply skipped town with Ryan's money, it was highly unlikely he could have done so without leaving a single trace. In this world, it took magic to completely erase someone.
Damian was convinced that Old John hadn't fled on his own. Someone magical had to be involved. However, given Old John's crippling debts, he certainly couldn't afford to hire a wizard capable of evading Link's investigative methods to act for him.
Damian turned his attention back to the dazed man. "Where does your brother, Jack, live?"
Damian already knew of Jack's existence from Link's earlier briefing. He also knew that Jack was a Second-Level Wizard Apprentice.
"After Father gifted White Stone Manor to Madam Alsha, Jack moved into the White Ancestral Home at No. 18 Municipal Plaza Street," Ryan answered. "It's where Father lived before he passed away."
Damian decided he needed to pay this Jack a late-night 'visit.' If he could find hard evidence of the human trafficking ring at the manor, it would blow the case wide open. Of course, he couldn't just tell Link what he had learned through illegal Legilimency; he would have to find a way to guide the operative to the clues.
Having extracted everything he needed, Damian raised his wand. "Obliviate!"
He carefully modified Ryan and Trina's memories, erasing any trace of his midnight interrogation. With a flick of his wrist, he lifted the Petrificus Totalus on Trina.
Slipping back out the window and into the cover of night, Damian set his sights on No. 18 Municipal Plaza Street.
Back at Ryan's residence, shortly after Damian's departure.
The heavy window of the third-floor master bedroom suddenly creaked open again. A biting gust of wind swept into the room.
Ryan was startled awake by the sudden chill. Through the haze of sleep, he noticed the window was ajar. Blinking his heavy eyes, he looked down at Trina sleeping peacefully beside him. He pulled the thick quilt higher over her shoulders and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.
"Is the wind really that strong tonight?" he muttered, swinging his legs out of bed.
As he walked toward the window, a slight frown creased his face. "Why does this feel so familiar? Did I just dream about this?"
The movement stirred Trina awake. She laid in the warm bed, watching her husband's back with soft, loving eyes. She had been incredibly happy since marrying Ryan, often feeling she had spent a lifetime's worth of luck just to find him.
But her fond smile vanished in an instant. A hulking, terrifying silhouette materialized in the shadows right behind him.
"Ah—!" Trina shrieked, the sound tearing through the quiet room. "Ryan—behind you!"
Ryan froze, a violent shudder wracking his body. He whipped around and stared at the towering shadow in absolute horror. "What—what is this thing?!"
The creature was a grotesque mass of mangled flesh. Head-sized, tumorous lumps grew across its back, throbbing rhythmically like exposed hearts and oozing thick, blackish-red blood onto the floorboards.
"Lu... blood... gu... flesh... hiss... more flesh...!!!" it gurgled. Its voice was a wet, unnatural rasp, the words barely coherent. Its glowing, crimson eyes were locked hungrily onto Trina.
"Trina, run!" Ryan roared. Gritting his teeth, he lunged for the decorative scabbard mounted on the bedroom wall and drew the longsword within.
The blade was an unnatural, blinding crimson, gleaming as if it had just been bathed in fresh blood. It was a magical artifact longsword that even an ordinary person could use. It was immensely powerful; once its full power was activated, it could even cut through the Mage Armor released by a Wizard Apprentice.
However, the toll for an ordinary person to use this magical artifact was high; it required consuming one's own blood to activate. The greater the power activated, the more blood was consumed. Unleashing its full potential could drain all the blood of an adult man.
Ryan gripped the hilt with both hands, his face instantly draining of color as the sword greedily latched onto his life force. The crimson hue of the metal flared violently.
Thankfully, Ryan had been taking potions for years, making him far more resilient than an average person. Stepping heavily into a combat stance, he twisted his waist, driving all his momentum forward. The blood-red blade cleaved through the air, slashing directly toward the monstrosity's neck.
The magical artifact blade bit deep into the creature's thick flesh, hacking a fifth of the way through its neck. Vile, blackish-red pus erupted from the gash, hissing as it coated the glowing blade.
But the blade stalled. Ryan didn't have the strength to decapitate it. Horrifyingly, the edges of the creature's massive wound began to writhe, extending fine threads like wriggling hairworms, knitting the sundered flesh back together.
The monster slowly, unnaturally twisted its head toward Ryan. The movement caused the blade to cut a larger wound, but it was completely oblivious.
By the time it locked its bloodthirsty, crimson eyes onto Ryan, its neck was sliced halfway through. Yet, even more dark, worm-like tendrils erupted from the gaping wound, furiously stitching the rotting meat together.
"Lu... Ry... an... more—delicious—flesh!!!" The abomination unhinged its jaw. Its jagged teeth were stained black and red, dripping with the same corrosive pus.
As it stepped into the moonlight, Ryan finally got a clear look at its face. Though the features were swollen, rotting, and twisted beyond recognition, the underlying bone structure was intimately familiar.
Ryan dropped to his knees, his eyes wide with utter despair.
"Fa... Father?!"
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