Chapter 48: Truth or Dare?

Three days later and after many conversations between Ain, Alex, and Lily. They came up with a plan of attack for the Dungeon in front of them. Well, a dungeon would be too much to call it, as it is just a welcoming village from the outside. It even has a welcoming atmosphere as every villager has a peaceful smile on their faces.

Lily doesn't sense anything weird, but Julie (Ain) and Alex are on full guard. They can see that the whole thing around them is just an illusion. 

"Hm?" Ain also acts confused. Not wanting to break character. 'Amazing, I have had reports for over a hundred years that this village is normal. I never came to check it myself, but even a Rank 4 wouldn't be able to tell that everyone and everything here is an illusion. None of them are true existences.'

The mental ability to create this would be astronomical. Every person seems so real that just by the behavior patterns, no one would be able to tell that they are not real. Even Julie can't tell the difference by using normal senses alone. 'What a terrific person he must have been. Such an illusion, most Legendary Rank creatures won't be able to see through it either.'

Lily looks around confused, feeling as if something was wrong but couldn't figure out why.

Alex looks at the reactions of both girls and smirks. Because immediately he could tell just how surprised Ain was and for a split second she let her real feelings appear.

'Oh, ~... that slight eye twitch when surprised.' Alex compares that to hundreds of characters who do the same in this world and in the end he only finds one who would fit all the marks. But in the end, he doesn't say anything. 

Ain immediately recognized her mistake and winces internally. But while looking at Alex, she sees him mesmerized by the buildings around him. 'Did he notice?'

Though she is someone with overbearing intelligence, it doesn't mean that she is Omnipotent and she wouldn't like to use mind-reading techniques because Alex would notice that and it would ruin their relationship. Also, she is unsure if it would even work as she guesses that in his past life Alex must have been a powerful Legendary Rank to have such high progression speed.

In the end, she decides to drop the topic as even if he noticed, it's not that big of a deal and she will kill him if she can find out a way to go beyond Legendary Rank anyway. 'His potential is just too crazy, if he wasn't useful it would be better to kill him off.'

But Alex does something surprising, he goes towards one of the village inhabitants.

"Hello there young boy, what can I do for you?" Asks an old man with a kind look on his face.

"I wanna play Truth or Dare with Melisandre." Says Alex, and that causes the old man to look at him surprised.

"Oh, thank God, that little girl is always playing by herself." The old man seemed relieved by this.

But Ain is shocked at this and looks at Alex's back. 'This kid… he knows something about this place.'

Immediately suspicions are piled on him. Lily just looks around confused as Ain still has a smile on her face even while looking at Alex with an evil aura.

What Ain didn't know was that amongst all three of them, the one with the most monstrous instincts is Lily. Someone with the potential to reach the peak of Legendary Rank at quite a young age. One could even say that her talent alone is at the Headmistress' level. Though the latter lived way longer in the Game from Alex's last life since she was more cautious.

Alex holds hope that one day, Lily will break past Legendary Rank and enter either the realm of Gods or of those Immortals. 

Of course, for the current Alex that is too far into the future since even the interface becomes kind of not that special even after Legendary Rank. What the interface does is absorb the energy from the creatures he killed and turns it into Exp. Many skills can do something similar, absorbing someone's strength is only a relatively rare technique amongst Legendary Rank, nothing too special.

"Oy, shouldn't we be looking for the Dungeon?" Asks Ain, acting ignorant as if she hadn't noticed anything.

Alex saw straight through her that he was slowly getting used to scheming at a higher level and reading people not by their body language, but by their actions.

He doesn't say anything and just mentions her to follow along. 

…

Suddenly they arrive in front of a bizarre pink house that didn't seem to fit into the village setting at all.

It seemed like a cartoonish house that defies gravity. 

Julie (Ain) immediately feels nervous at this. Even she could sense what was really inside the house. "Oy, Alex, I don't think I am going inside there."

"Ara~ Ain… you know… only Legendary Rank powerhouses can sense what is going on inside the house," Alex explains, his face has a mischievous smirk on his face.

"Tch, no use keeping this facade up." Says Julie, clearly not in the mood to play around. Her body morphs back into her real form as she gets taller, her hips wider, her hair turns silver and her chest becomes bigger. 

Her face who could be described normal before had now become that of an otherworldly beauty. She has a calm demeanor as she gazes at Alex. "So? How long have you known?"

"For a little while." He answers, not willing to divulge too much information on this. "Headmistress."

Instantly Julie releases her mana. "I see, then I can't let you die yet, little boy. No one has ever been able to deal with creatures of Hell. Common knowledge doesn't apply to them and power isn't enough to kill them."

"I know." Alex smiles. People don't understand creatures from Hell and mostly avoid them. Because Hell is known for its flames but isn't feared because of it. Magicians fear its creatures since they are all beyond normal understanding. 

Of course, Alex is different, he had plenty of information on how to deal with them. 'Raw strength isn't the key to dealing with them. '

The abilities of those creatures vary through each of them. One can have the power of a God, but they would still have to follow the rules when they play with the creatures of hell. Cheating is allowed of course, if one can do so undetected. 

'People fear the unknown. But for me, they are not that scary.' Contemplates Alex, smirking slightly seeing the panic on Julie's face. 'People really feared these creatures at this time.'

Julie gets a cold look on her face. "I will be honest with you here. The only reason you are alive is that I need you to break through past the Legendary Rank. I don't care if you have a death wish, because, at the end of the day, I won't let you die."

Alex shrugs at that. "C'mon now Headmistress, if you act like that you will never get a lover. Men don't like clingy women."

<Cursed Water Chains>

Fwosh!

Instantly dark magic circles surround Alex and before he can even react, dark chains come out of them and tie him up in a cocoon.

Instantly notifications come from the interface.

[You are under the Effect of a Curse:] 

[Massive Mana Regeneration Curse (-99% Mana Regen)]

[Legendary Mana Attack Curse (-99% Magic Power attack)]

[Deadly The Curse of the Foreign Witch (-50% Mana Reserves)]

.

.

.

Countless debuffs hit Alex so fast that he can feel his mana slip out of him and strength drain out of his body. Julie is no longer playing games now and is concerned with the situation more than her calm demeanor expresses. She could lose her life here.

Fwish!

Lily sees this and instantly appears out of Julie's (Headmistress') shadow, intending to stab her in the back. But of course, Julie saw that before it even happened. Water immediately surrounded Lily and froze into an iceberg. 

The power that the Headmistress is using, isn't anywhere near her top. She is just using Rank 1 Spells to restrict them both since she doesn't want to alert the Hell Creature in the house.

'I can come back later, but not in my real body, I will create a doppelganger and possess it.' Julie didn't know that a situation like this would develop. So she is extra careful on this.

"Hello there miss, do you wanna play Truth or Dare with me?" Suddenly a childish voice rings amongst the trees.

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A/N: Something unknown is scary, if people understand something more clearly they would be less of it. Like some people are scared of darkness… but it is just the lack of photons in the air and once someone understands that, it feels silly to be afraid of it.😉

P.S: Also we see the usally scary Headmistress have a crack appear in her invincible demeanor.

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 Don't forget to throw some power stones :)

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