The Elusive Sorcerer

Chapter 240

Elvira had absolutely no idea what was happening as her mind was dragged into an illusionary world by two masterful "magicians."

All she could feel was that the world had become blurry, her mind drifting in every direction, often witnessing events she remembered vividly, and worst of all, death had already come for her.

"You... How long are you going to keep being like this?"

Elvira rubbed her eyes, wrinkles forming on her forehead.

"Who are you?" she asked flatly.

“I am you,” the figure replied. "Give up. You are just an ordinary human. All your efforts so far have betrayed you."

“Huh!?”

He had no idea who he was talking to because his mind felt like a raging river crashing against his head.

‘Is this an illusion? How do I get out of here?’

"It's easy, if you're willing to die," the voice replied with a chuckle.

Elvira was shocked when the figure realized what she was thinking. She could do nothing; physical weapons were useless in a place like this, especially when her opponent was a Receiver from the Sorcerer pathway.

Then, without giving Elvira any chance to act, a snap suddenly rang out. Elvira slowly opened her eyes, but her instincts quickly moved her arm as a blinding light flooded her body.

Boom!

Her body shattered into millions of particles of light before her consciousness and soul escaped, feeling the warmth before disappearing without a trace.

In the real world, Finn Ashison staggered forward, his teeth chattering incessantly while his badly burned hand gripped his blood-soaked left arm.

Although the battle had only been an illusion, the attacks produced by that illusion felt incredibly real, because the perfect illusion made everything appear real, when in reality, it was the exact opposite.

Finn had nearly failed to kill them; he had managed to stab his opponent in the chest with his small sword, but at the last second, Maeressa used a body substitute, and then the explosion of light became inevitable.

Before death could claim him, Maeressa created a perfect illusion for Elvira, trying to be useful during his final moments, knowing that his time in this world was almost over.

Using the wound exchange technique after the explosion of light nearly erased his soul and body, with only the portion from his chest upward remaining, he teleported to a location not far from the city square.

With his body covered in blood and his consciousness beginning to fade from using two techniques simultaneously, he thought everything had gone smoothly, but it had not.

A man in a blue robe and military cap approached him with steady steps. The shadow grew closer and larger on the wall where Maeressa was leaning before eventually turning toward the southwest.

"We finally meet here," the man said quietly, his voice almost a whisper.

Maeressa, his lips trembling, slowly raised his head and watched the man's shadow before speaking softly,

“Who are you?”

“That doesn't matter. Besides, you'll be dead soon anyway,” the man said firmly in a sarcastic tone.

Feeling that the man's tone and voice were familiar, Maeressa raised his head higher, stared at him carefully, and then smiled faintly.

“I knew it. I'm already dead...” Maeressa muttered with a relieved sigh.

However, what Maeressa was seeing was none other than Finn Ashison's perfect illusion, which continued attacking its target even though the battle had ended several minutes earlier.

Wrapped in the silence and tranquility of the moment when death was about to claim him, Maeressa slowly closed his eyes, listening to the ramblings of his long-dead companion.

....

Not far from there, still around the city square, specifically at the western entrance road, Elvira walked as usual, blending into the crowd coming and going from the event. Aware that she had still been given a chance to live, Elvira was determined not to waste the effort Maeressa had given her.

One thing was certain. If an enemy managed to discover her location and attack her, Elvira would fight alone, relying on the soul dagger worth 80,000 million Pace to face that enemy.

‘Damn, I need to find the others before...’

Her thoughts were interrupted when a chill swept across the back of her neck, freezing her steps and her thoughts in an instant.

Elvira, her lips trembling, tried to continue walking without looking back even once. The atmosphere became increasingly ominous as her steps came to a complete halt.

“Something's wrong, damn it,” she whispered, realizing that the farther she moved from the city square, the stronger the strange feeling stirring within her became.

Trying to drive away the sensation, Elvira fully understood what was actually happening. Instead of searching for a solution, Elvira laughed sinisterly as she drew the soul dagger and then wounded her own wrist.

It sounded insane, but Elvira had a plan to escape the spell cast by both sides pursuing her.

Elvira knew that this action came from the churches and cathedrals pursuing her; as for the Cevenose Security Department, she did not yet know that “they” had also sent trackers to locate her and capture her alive.

Had Elvira known about it, every one of her movements would have been this obvious.

As the dagger tore through her skin, blood spurted out and slowly dripped downward, forming a small pool. Elvira tightly covered her mouth, her soul churning from within as she tried to escape her body.

Before all of that happened, Elvira calmly threw the soul dagger in front of her as though she had truly surrendered to the situation.

The blood that had not yet fallen and mixed with the pool began to churn, producing a pale white substance. As soon as the two merged, Elvira's body became transparent, as if she were a ghost!

‘I hope this works.’

Even in this mode, she could pass through anything she encountered, regardless of whether an enemy attacked her recklessly. The weakness of this mode was quite significant. The user could die if their transparent body was struck by a sufficiently strong gust of wind.

Of course, Elvira was not foolish enough to use this mode without preparation. Fortunately, the wind tonight was not blowing as strongly as it had the previous night, which worked in her favor as she escaped.

However, escaping was not exactly easy because after leaving the level 3 “domain” reinforced by a mixture of spells, talismans, and potions, several suspicious people, all wearing white robes, were watching from outside.

Even while in transparent mode, Elvira held her breath as she walked carefully. She did not want to be caught while passing through the crowd, whose eye movements were clearly highly suspicious.

‘From the Nagreitta Church, huh? There are more of them than before, and has that man already contacted the captain to help us get out of this situation?’

As she thought, Elvira continued walking and ignored everything around her. For a moment, as she passed through the crowd at the roadside where the leaves of the trees were completely still, whispers from several church envoys could be heard.

"...Does all of this have anything to do with the disappearance of James Moriarty?"

"Yes," replied a man with several strands of white hair falling across his face. "It's been two years since that man's appearance, and there are similarities to this case."

"Don't tell me you think 'they' are the same person?"

"It's not that simple," he said firmly, rejecting the ridiculous idea.

"So..." The man grew increasingly confused, having briefly thought that this movement was exactly the same as the riot two years ago.

"People have forgotten, as if their memories were erased. Do you remember that the Intersection Society and Black Cage worked together to destroy the city of Moran? Now, the survivors who lived through that terrible disaster are reportedly dying under relatively similar circumstances."

"Relatively similar?" the man repeated in confusion.

"Yes." The man nodded, his face showing sympathy. "They let out piercing screams after awakening from a rare illness resembling endless sleep. After that... they were pronounced dead after experiencing the incident for an entire day."

The churches and cathedrals of Auneron, Nagreitta, and Yarandrela were still investigating this strange case. This was different from deaths they could explain, which occurred as a result of a ritual performed by a Receiver of Black Death.

Although the death rate in Norn had decreased significantly recently, the sect, which usually operated in secret, would now openly kill anyone who obstructed its actions.

The Popes of the three cathedrals, who had initially remained wary of one another, temporarily worked together and dealt with several unidentified envoys from the three sects existing in Norn and the places where they were based.

By spreading heretical teachings that were not recognized by the government, the major churches would certainly take action to punish them appropriately for violating the norms and laws in effect.

It was clear that those spreading the heretical teachings wanted to provoke a religious war. Such an event could potentially wipe out all of humanity in this world if it ever happened.

However, destroying the world through war and supernatural power would never happen, because anyone who wished for such a thing did not understand the past.

"No wonder hymns and the ringing of bells have been echoing from the cathedrals every hour lately."

"What makes me curious is who, or what, caused them to die?"

"Eh, now that I think about it, how do you know about something like this?"

From the conversation between the two men, another man who had heard them immediately joined in, "From the commanders and captains of the Cevenose Department."

The blue-eyed man looked at him.

"They're the ones investigating the city of Moran after receiving information about the mysterious figure who appeared in early April, right?"

"Yes." The man nodded as he lowered his hood. "Clearly, the figure known to the higher-ups is a human. They are still investigating him, asking the church for assistance, and as a last resort, going to Vitas Civil to dig into the man's personal records."

"I see." The blue-eyed man nodded, then two seconds later asked, "As for those two 'groups,' are we going to be deployed to search for them?"

The man with several strands of white hair falling across his face sighed before answering in a somewhat curt tone, "The investigation has already been handled by another party. For now, we are focusing on tracking down those two people."

After looking at the two men, he hurriedly added;

"I don't want to die doing this job, you idiots."

Having obtained the information for free, or rather, at the cost of his life if he were caught by them, Elvira immediately moved away from the group of white-robed people before they noticed her presence.

She had wanted to find important information, but unexpectedly, they were discussing two criminals whose whereabouts were extremely mysterious and difficult to track, even with the churches and cathedrals getting involved.

'This is troublesome. What if that man's suspicion that 'Jack The Ripper' and 'James Moriarty' are the same person is actually true? If so, does the captain already know about this? Or is the captain hiding something that none of you know?’

Realizing that lately, the captain, who normally never went to the scene of an incident, was now willing to do so.

'Then, what about that wanted man? Did he really die that easily at the hands of James Moriarty? If so, then the captain was not wrong to take decisive action to follow up on that man's actions.'

Searching for someone without ever seeing his face was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Such organized movements, combined with insiders spreading news so that the public would believe James Moriarty was a cold-blooded man who would not hesitate to kill anyone who stood in his way.

Although the news had spread widely, especially in Semilir and Kuranda, his admirers began appearing and carrying out a series of activities exactly like his, namely punishing evil people.

The media in both cities presented different versions of the news, allowing both things to continue happening to this day; no one knew when the group of James Moriarty's admirers, who had restored peace and comfort to the streets at night, would appear.

‘Oh, right. Now that I think about it, who exactly made that man a wanted criminal? Because I've never seen any signs of his crimes or any other remarkable acts.’

Elvira grew increasingly uneasy as strange questions began appearing in her mind. After escaping the tension, she continued on her way without looking back.

...

In the city square, on a long bench, two people sat side by side; their eyes gazed at everything before them while their mouths continued moving without pause.

“When are we going to continue this journey?” the man asked nervously. “We can't leave it for too long.”

The man sighed, then answered without looking at him.

"I don't know. I'll think about it later."

The man widened his eyes.

"Are you going to break that promise again?"

The man's eyes, which had previously appeared pale, suddenly shone brightly under the moonlight and the streetlamp right beside him, making him widen his eyes.

"It's not like that. I... feel as though I've lost my purpose for continuing to live. I often wonder, what will happen a few seconds from now? Will I die or stay alive? I don't know. What I do know is that I'll be honest. I won't hide anything from them anymore. I also feel guilty for lying to that person and... for not keeping his promise."

"So, is it true that you dreamed of meeting that man again?"

Without waiting for his answer, Celvira hurriedly added;

"I've learned from the humans I've seen and from the four of you. At first, my presence in this world was solely to steal human lives so I could become stronger because I couldn't find that thing. Because of that, I survived by committing acts that, from a human perspective, were considered criminal. I don't know if this can help you, but do you remember who gave me my name?"

Zavi slowly turned his head, a faint glimmer appearing in his eyes and darkened face. He nodded, then answered softly, "Moreira Lounge."

Celvira nodded in agreement with the answer.

"That's why you've kept that promise now through that name," Celvira said, unaware of what he had just said.

Zavi narrowed his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

Celvira carefully put together the right words before calmly saying, “I mean, even though he has disappeared and cannot be tracked down, the legacy of that name remains close to you. Therefore, you must do what you are supposed to do.”

"Ridiculous," Zavi grumbled clearly and firmly.

Celvira blinked.

"That's true, you know," he said, trying to convince Zavi.

"If that's true, then the plan will continue."

Celvira followed Zavi, who suddenly stood up.

"So, about that?" A faint smile appeared on his face, eager to see the action.

The two of them walked side by side, their steps perfectly matched and synchronized, as though they were a couple who had been together for a long time.

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