Extraction

"When I told you I'll do it myself, I actually meant it." Looking at the two people in front of my table whose heads were both lowered, I continued with a more pressing tone, "Who ordered to keep an eye on me?"

Inside Duke's workplace where he usually scolds his men for doing slight problems for him, I was doing the same thing for them.

The moment I entered this place after a good night's rest, these two soon followed up and began lowering their heads upon entering.

"…"

"…"

But instead of answering, the two kept their mouth shut. Their lips were twitching as if they wanted to say something but because something was restraining them, they were unable to do so.

"Are you keeping secrets from me? To me? Are you serious?"

"We did it out of worry!" Maria finally revealed the main objective as to why Forren decided to spy on me while I was out, "We were very worried about you. Just yesterday before that, you announced that we should stop the war preparation so we thought…we thought…"

"And who is 'we'?"

Tap—!

"Sir, this is me, Sezter. Please, open the door. I've heard from Maria that you are scolding both her and Forren today." The person outside calmly stated, "It's my order. Don't get angry at the kids."

Sezter…

"Enter."

The moment she entered the room, her serene aura surrounded the room. Her eyes were slanted, her face was perfect as if she was painted in a piece, her well-matured body lined up well with his tight nun clothes, with her short dark green hair to match everything else.

If I had to describe her in simple words, she's dependable, appealing, and tough. She was also the main healer of our group and a very good one at that.

"Care to explain about it?"

"Absolutely."

Sezter calmly examined me eye to eye, keeping it steady for a measly seconds before prostrating herself to the ground as if she was worshipping a god.

"I'm very sorry!"

'Ugh, here we go again.'

I saw how she acted around Duke with his memories and for some reason, Duke also became tired of it.

Even though this is my first time meeting her face to face, I felt this was also too draining for me to take.

In Mangas, you can say her character involved erogeness who wanted to be dominated by Duke and only by him.

A nickname was given by her enemies that matches her personality very well when she's with Duke.

'The Crazed Priestess'

"I'm just so worried about you…! I don't want you to endanger yourself! I know you will come back safe but after you made the announcement of stopping the war… I-I-I thought something unusual happened! Did you fall in love with another woman? Is someone threatening you? I'm just very worried…!"

"Yes… yes, you can stop now." Rubbing my forehead to show my annoyance, I looked at the other two whole also prostrated themselves.

By the looks of it, it appeared as if they disobeyed my order and were very sorry. Even so, they did it out of goodwill.

Why would I punish such people?

"All right, I'll forgive you."

Of course, if they still feel guilty about it, I can use this to my advantage.

"Only if you'd join me in doing something."

Three replied with heartfelt resolve.

"We will do anything!"

"Please just ask, sir!"

"Master, as your one and only priestess, I will do anything to the best of my abilities!"

'Good, good, I like the responses. There shouldn't be any disagreements.' Nodding my head with delight, I stated, "Say, how about making our Assembly know through the Underworld?"

For an instance, they thought they heard it wrong but when they simultaneously raised their heads, only to see the seriousness of my face and voice, a gasps of astonishment left their lips.

Still putting up my indifferent expression, I continued.

"Yes, it's finally time to show who we are if we're going to control them."

…

After leaving the room, Maria suddenly invited them to a cup of tea to chat something with the two of them. And when she spilled it, their reactions were obviously what she was thinking.

"He smiled?!"

Sezter clenched her fists with a surprised tone after hearing the piece of news from Maria who was fervently nodding her head. Forren, listening on the side, could only open his mouth agape.

Duke smiling.

Even though it was faint, Maria noticed it since he had been with him for years as his maidservant.

It was yesterday when he met Duke at the front door while discussing the matters regarding the Picky Fifty.

"Boss smiling…" Forren muttered, "I'll do what it takes to see it myself. Lucky you, ma'am Maria."

"Fufu," Maria jeered as she glanced at Sezter, the tip of her lips got wider, "I. Saw. Him. Smile. He was damn handsomeee~"

"Ahhh. Lalala," Sezter covered both her ears as she uttered things to get her attention away before running, leaving words onto the two, "I'll do my best to fucking destroy that gang! I'll make sure to see it!"

"Hahahaha!" Maria laughed triumphantly, musing, "I can now brag to those guys. What will you do now Forren?"

Forren, who was called, turned serious as he looked at her, "I'll start doing my investigation about them."

"Since I'm free, let me come too. The boss said he had something to do and to leave him be." Maria clasped her hands together, "I know this is your job but I'm all done with everything he asked me for. Seriously, I'm totally free."

"Okay, okay, you don't need to tell it for the second time. You can come." Forren waved his hand dismissively, "How about we go now? We only have three days left till we do it."

…

When everything was done on my part today, I headed straight towards a certain place inside of our organization. It took a few strolls here and there, and finally, I think I'm in the right place.

"Hmm…"

If I remember correctly, this station belongs to Meera, one of the officials of my organization. She was a bookworm hence the bookshelves' surroundings in this place are only natural.

Though it would appear a natural, normal-looking library if not for there isn't the scent of blood in the surroundings and stacks of refrigerated drawers beside those shelves.

Double checking it with the memory I had from Duke, it seems I was correct.

"Meera?"

Calling out her name inside the weird-looking library that somehow resembles a morgue, in a sense, I waited for a response.

No one answered.

But instead of calling her name once again, I started roaming around the place to look around and at the same time, to find her.

"…"

Yeah, this station is just filled with the scent of books, blood, and corpses. The walls were fortified with the strongest metal there is with intricate furniture which is Meera's liking or style. From time to time, scattered bloodstains were scattered all around the place.

It didn't take long till I found her.

Right outside her workplace through a glass, I could see her fully concentrating on her job as her long blue hair floated in the air.

Her job, though, required utmost precision and concentration.

'Oh, better not disturbed her.'

Thankfully, she wasn't facing her back as I looked at her, rather, she was facing my front where I could see the whole procedure clearly. Even though that was indeed the case, she was unaware.

'For some reason, I'm a bit excited.'

I've obviously come here out of curiosity. As the author of the book I've transmigrated onto, there are some things that one wanted to happen even if they wouldn't come true.

And these are one of those things.

My book coming back to life?

That's one wish list I had when I was a teenager while making this novel in the process. Though I didn't wish to be part of it anyway, it's everyone's dream to turn their fantasies into reality.

Yes, there are a lot of things I've put into this novel, and mostly… more of them are bad but there are also some that are also glorifying to see head-on.

'Extraction…'

Extraction simply means extracting the technique inside a person's body, directly affecting weird mysteries inside them.

Also, I've put a lot of sophisticated words into its procedure. Now that I think about it, I've given this a longer explanation in my novel which took one whole chapter but there's a simplified explanation.

"It's starting…"

The extraction mainly involves three things.

/Concentration…/

Meera stretched her hands up front as Paparano's corpse started quivering. Beads of sweat were appearing on her forehead as the concentration concept of extraction have to be done exactly and calculatedly.

One minute… Two minutes… Three minutes.

'She's a pro.'

Usually, the concentration part is the hardest one since what you are trying to do here is to find the very core of the corpse's mystery technique.

And Meera only did it for three minutes. She's on the same level as those famous extractors out there.

Second.

/Manifestation…/

Meera started waving her hands in the air as she divert the technique inside Paparano's corpse towards his mouth. The technique that he had learned and ingested was slowly leaving out from his body.

Then the Manifestation will come.

Manifestation may come in different types of figures. They might appear through numbers, shapes, and weird and horrendous images. and illustration

Whoosh—!

In Paparano's mystery technique, a small manta ray manifested right outside his mouth as it hovered through the air. It was circling Meera as if it was amused and the figure it manifested was an animal.

This was the easiest part.

And lastly.

/Legitimacy/

This is the part where you'll see the technique. How does the technique work? What's its originality? All information and power will be found there.

Of course, the technique will not stay in the 'manifestation' stage where you'll find a manta ray circling you around.

It's actually more than that.

"…"

Meera's gaze followed the manta before catching it with ease. With full control over the piece, she majestically moved her hand, doing a 'compressed' posture as if she was trying to squeeze something between there.

The manta ray slowly changed into a book.

Since making the techniques came from books, when the extraction is in its final stage, it will also return to a book.

Well, it had a design like a grimoire in fantasy books. Thick, informative, and old. It also appeared to emanate a weird aura and this could be seen by the naked eyes.

And looking at Meera's hands, I'm more convinced that it is indeed the case.

Now, for the legitimacy stage, she needed to see the context of the books, reading the pages each since all information regarding the technique is there.

To know if it's legitimate, there should be no blank contexts. It's worse if the page is torn since that indicates the extraction had failed.

One had to do it again.

That's when the Technique became an Inherited Mystery Technique. It came from another person, fully inheriting the technique's power once the user started learning about it.

It might take a long time to learn, might not. Who knows?

"Let's see…"

Meera seated down from her chair as she began reading the context. She was fully immersed in it since this was her job in the organization.

An extractor.

Anyone can be an extractor but whether you have the role to be one is different. You can say there's a huge gap between dreaming about it to actually doing it.

It's demanding and required a talented one that could actually pull it off to not waste resources.

'That was fun.'

It was really a nice demonstration of pure skill and talent.

Lightly tapping my fingers at the glass, I momentarily diverted Meera's attention to me.

She, who saw me through the glass wall, shortly froze at her spot as if she had seen a ghost of a lifetime.

"Good work."

Meera was somewhat confused at first, her frozen state calming down. But when she realizes that I complimented her, she proudly and smugly smiled and fervently nodded.