I Married the Dragon I Killed [Novel] Chapter 259

Chapter 259: Deep Projection

The East was called the Land of Mystery.

One reason was that, unlike other lands, its dominant philosophy was one of assimilation.

Harmony meant different bloodlines preserving themselves while coexisting. Assimilation, on the other hand, was little different from being thrown together into a melting pot.

That was why Eastern magic differed so greatly in concept from the magic established elsewhere, and why the taboo Red Circles had been able to flourish there.

The High Elf Elder had once told Ferda that if he wanted answers, he would have to go east. That was what had led to the first expedition.

“Because Eastern magic was dominated by Red Circles, there were many cases where emotions could not be properly controlled.”

“That is what a Red Circle is.”

Because it was difficult to control, it was shunned and treated as sinful.

After the incident in the Kingdom of Heinkel, hatred of black magic had intensified, and the dangers of Red Circles were being emphasized all over again.

“The point is to have someone capable of judging things objectively understand the situation and help find a solution. Someone like you right now, Regent.”

“I believe I am rational at present.”

“That is something you cannot know for certain. Isn’t the problem troubling you right now ultimately rooted in emotion?”

“……”

She was right.

As long as one lived as a human, it was only natural to become buried beneath one’s emotions. Maintaining reason was difficult.

That was why priests, who placed themselves within the rigid framework of disciplined lives, earned respect.

“In any case, this method called the Deep Projection Technique does involve looking into your mind, Regent, but it was designed to be safer than the methods commonly known.”

“What makes it safer?”

After all, even the Elf Elder had been affected.

“As I mentioned before, when the Elf Elder entered your mind, she was essentially thrown naked into the source itself. She was vulnerable because she was exposed to information she could neither resolve nor process.”

“How is this technique different?”

“It focuses on your question, and the information contained within you is processed by you yourself… Those would be the main differences.”

“Even information I do not know?”

“At its core, it is similar to exploration. You may know the route to the entrance, but you cannot know what lies inside until you actually go in.”

“Is that why you look so fascinated?”

“It is not only because of that, you know?”

That was what she said, but the sparkle in her eyes was not very convincing.

“One thing is certain. There is a way to reduce the risk.”

“How?”

“It says that at least two people are needed to enter someone’s inner world. One takes the role of Explorer, and the other acts as Observer.”

“What do those roles entail?”

“The Explorer enters Ferda’s mind and investigates it. That would be me. The Observer continuously monitors the Explorer and, if they determine the Explorer’s mind is being contaminated by the subject’s emotions, they intervene and pull them out.”

“A safety mechanism, then.”

“There are two people I consider suitable for the role of Observer.”

The two people Erika named were Isabella and Lize.

Isabella had served as Erika’s secretary, so Erika knew her abilities well enough to recommend her. Lize, meanwhile, had earned Erika’s respect during their recent adventure for the calm strength of her mind.

“Must it be one of those two?”

“Are you saying you do not trust my judgment?”

Her voice sounded faintly offended.

“No. I say it because there is someone even better suited to the role.”

“Someone better? Who?”

A rational being unmoved by emotion.

Such a being currently lived in Baldrova Castle.

* * *

A young girl sat in one corner of Ferda’s office, working through documents.

She had blond hair and the neat appearance of a carefully dressed young lady, but her expression was as cold as a doll’s.

Her name was Mori.

Though she held the position of scribe, she had been entrusted with responsibilities far beyond what either her young appearance or actual age would suggest.

In truth, she was a crystallization of knowledge, with the Omniscient Archive, said to contain every record in existence, housed within her mind.

But the price of obtaining that knowledge was a curse. She had lost her ego and become a Slave Sage.

Without an ego, she possessed no emotions either.

Because emotion could not sway her, she had no choice but to remain objective.

That was why Ferda believed she was the perfect candidate.

Ferda showed Mori the book titled The Deep Projection Technique.

She rapidly skimmed through it, closed the final page, then scribbled something and showed it to Ferda.

-I understand.

“Tell me what you understand.”

-In short, while Tower Master Erika Iorga explores Regent Ferda’s mind, I am to serve as a safeguard that minimizes the possibility of her emotions being contaminated. Is that correct?

“Can you do it?”

Nod.

Mori nodded.

Her gaze seemed to say that she was indeed the most suitable person for the role.

“A Slave Sage, huh… I had forgotten about this one for a moment.”

The moment Erika heard Mori’s name, she understood why Ferda had rejected both of her original candidates.

A Slave Sage.

Erika had lived longer than most mortals, and over those years she had encountered many Slave Sages who had obtained the Omniscient Archive.

They gained absolute knowledge at the cost of losing themselves, then spent the rest of their lives being used by someone else.

Their masters would use a butcher’s knife to kill chickens, hide the Sage’s existence as carefully as possible, grow greedy, and eventually split open the belly of the goose that laid golden eggs.

Erika had personally witnessed such cases more than once.

Slave Sages were slaves in the truest sense of the word.

They were kept barely alive, capable only of living and answering questions.

Having seen such Slave Sages before, Mori’s appearance felt remarkably novel.

Her neatly combed hair was glossy and smooth. Her skin was clear of blemishes and tinged with healthy color.

Her clothes were so neat and refined that no one would have questioned being told she was a noble young lady.

‘More importantly…’

Unlike the Slave Sages Erika had known, who answered everything mechanically, there seemed to be something faintly stirring inside Mori.

The sensation was so slight, however, that Erika did not dwell on it.

“Now that we have an Observer too, I’ll begin preparing.”

“Yes.”

Erika began drawing a magic circle across the floor of the office.

Unlike conventional magic circles inscribed with runes, this one had peculiar characters drawn at each of its cardinal points.

The characters themselves were so complex that anyone unfamiliar with the method might easily have mistaken it for a Seventh-Circle transmutation formation.

“Good. The magic circle is complete… Regent? Would you sit in the center?”

“Yes.”

Ferda sat quietly in the middle of the circular formation.

Erika checked once more for anything that might interfere with the process.

“No variables affecting the five senses. As for resistance from the subject… We can only hope there is none.”

Erika drew a deep breath.

“We will begin.”

She let mana flow into the magic circle.

High-purity mana spread through it in an instant, bathing the formation in a soft glow.

Then Erika began reciting words as though chanting a spell.

“A plain. A blue river. Bright sunlight. The sound of insects in the grass…”

The focus gradually vanished from Ferda’s eyes before his eyelids slowly closed.

His face became peaceful, like a monk deep in meditation.

“Good. First stage cleared without trouble.”

The first stage of Deep Projection was projection induction.

By using simple concepts the subject could easily understand, the Explorer created a background that made navigating the subject’s mind easier.

If everything had proceeded as intended, Ferda’s mind should now contain a plain filled with familiar grass, trees, and a river.

The next step was for Erika to place a hand against Ferda’s back and enter his mind.

Mori, selected as Observer, would maintain contact through Erika’s back and continuously monitor her for emotional contamination.

If contamination was detected, she would inform Erika and remind her that the emotion did not belong to her, supporting the exploration until Erika could safely withdraw.

“Are you ready?”

When Erika asked, Mori wrote something and held it up for her to see.

It was far too much writing for a simple affirmative.

-The standard defining the range of contamination is ambiguous.

“What do you mean by ambiguous?”

-The reason ordinary emotional contamination is recognized as dangerous is because it places the mana circuit at risk. In most cases, the emotions involved are predominantly negative.

“That is correct.”

-The emotion contributing to Regent Ferda’s Red Circle, however, differs from ordinary Red Circles. By conventional standards, it is a positive emotion.

“…That is true.”

-And that emotion is love for Grand Duke Baldrova.

At those words, Erika understood what Mori was getting at.

“So if my emotions become contaminated by the Regent’s mana, the effect on me could be…”

-I may inherit Regent Ferda Baldrova’s emotions and come to love Baldrova, or…

“Or?”

-You may come to love Regent Ferda himself.

A chill ran down Erika’s spine the instant she read the sentence.

She looked down at Ferda’s back again.

Suddenly, it looked less like the entrance to a man’s mind and more like the mouth of a demon’s lair.

-In such a case, should I also treat it as dangerous emotional contamination and remind you of your true emotions?

“……”

Erika remembered the mental attack she had suffered through her trauma.

That had been the worst day of her life.

And Mori was telling her something even worse might happen.

-Eeeeeek!

The disgraceful shriek she had let out after feeling Ferda’s mana echoed through her memory.

An overwhelming urge to scream and kick empty air surged through her.

Erika’s face flushed scarlet with embarrassment.

“If anything like that happens… do not ask questions. Just snap me out of it.”

-I have one more question.

Her next question was simple.

-Do you harbor even the slightest romantic affection for Regent Ferda Baldrova?

“Absolutely not! I do not possess even a fly’s eye booger worth of love for that man!! If I start feeling anything like that!! Slap me!! Pull my horns!! Stomp on me!! Beat me half to death until I come to my senses!!”

Erika emphasized every word as though having a fit.

Mori nodded.

For some reason, her eyes almost seemed to be looking at Erika as though she found her ridiculous.

Erika decided it was her imagination.

A Slave Sage could not possibly possess an ego.

* * *

After his consciousness had completely faded away, Ferda felt himself awaken.

He was no longer in his isolated office.

Instead, a world filled with bright primary colors stretched before him.

All the words Erika had spoken had blended together into a peaceful landscape.

The air was pleasantly warm, while a gentle breeze carried just enough coolness to be refreshing.

Ferda sat leisurely beneath the shade of a tree.

‘Was my inner world really this peaceful?’

Even Ferda was surprised.

Looking back on his life, he had always considered himself worn down and weathered.

To think someone like him could create such a tranquil inner landscape.

‘She said what I see should be similar to what the Tower Master sees, didn’t she?’

Of course, Ferda could not find Erika anywhere.

She was the Observer of this place, the Explorer moving through areas he himself could not perceive.

‘What could anyone possibly discover in a place like this?’

Could something connected to that ominous power really be found in such a peaceful meadow?

Ferda was naturally the type to move whenever curiosity struck, and his body nearly rose before he stopped himself.

In the end, he sat back down.

The best way to help the Explorer was to introduce no variables of his own.

So Ferda lay beneath the tree and simply enjoyed the silence.

* * *

The moment Erika entered Ferda’s mind, the scene before her left her speechless.

“What… the hell is this?”

Erika Iorga.

The Blue-Eyed Master of the Magic Tower had been worrying about something only minutes earlier.

What would she do if Ferda’s emotions contaminated her and made her fall in love with him?

As an authority on magic and knowledge, she had a duty to remain responsible.

She had lived through generations of humans being born and dying. To be swayed by something as trivial as love would have been the worst humiliation imaginable.

Only now did she realize how absurdly flowery that worry had been.

The place where Erika stood bore no resemblance whatsoever to a meadow with a river.

There were only two colors.

Yellow and gray.

It was a wasteland so desolate that those two colors seemed to be all that existed.

Everything had been ravaged, and storms carrying sand as sharp as blades howled without end.

‘I’m certain none of the words I used were this hopeless…’

Just off the top of her head, she had mentioned plains and flowers.

Erika had expected scenery from spring or early summer.

This was utterly bewildering.

She recalled the section she had read on Deep Projection.

‘If projection induction succeeds, but some parts of the resulting landscape contradict the induced imagery…’

It meant the subject’s inner world was badly damaged.

‘Or it means there really is something else inside him, just as he said.’

It was still too early to interpret anything.

Erika needed to move.

But in a place where she could barely see a step ahead, where exactly was she supposed to go?

“To hell with it.”

Erika decided to walk blindly.

She raised both hands to shield herself from the blade-like wind and pushed forward.

Just as she began wondering whether she was moving in the right direction, she finally caught sight of a silhouette through the storm.

A severed tree stump.

And the figure of a man sitting before it.

It was unmistakably Ferda.

‘Why is he…?’

He looked nothing like the confident, challenging young man Erika knew.

He was listless and depressed, as though something unbearably heavy were pressing down on his back.

It was the despair of a man who had failed at everything in the world.

‘If I speak to that version of him, I might find a clue.’

Erika forced her way through the storm until she stood behind him.

At that instant, the wind carrying the bladed sand gradually weakened.

At the same time, the silhouette that had grown clearer collapsed away.

Something else became visible in its place.

A gigantic humanoid form of Baldrova.

No.

A colossal yellow stone statue carved in Baldrova’s exact likeness.

She smiled while cradling a single sphere as though it were the most precious thing in existence.

This was something created by projecting Ferda’s mind.

To Ferda, Baldrova was this enormous.

This heavy.

This singular.

Erika stared up at the statue and began interpreting it, drawing out whatever information she could.

Then she noticed a contradiction.

‘He has known Baldrova for only one year.’

Could someone come to love another person this much in such a short time?

Impossible.

If it were love born of obsessive fixation, the image should have been crude and distorted.

If it were an explosive passion created by hormones, it should have appeared enormous but weightless, perhaps like an inflated balloon.

But this was stone.

At first glance, Erika had wondered whether Baldrova herself had simply been petrified.

But no.

Someone had unmistakably carved this statue by hand.

Countless scraps of metal and broken wooden handles scattered around it testified to the effort required to cut away such hard stone.

‘If he protected this even while everything else inside him was being destroyed…’

Then one could interpret Baldrova herself as the very reason for Ferda’s existence.

And that could not be explained even by the nineteen years of Ferda’s human life.

Just as the incomprehensible unknown threatened to overwhelm her, a voice pierced Erika’s ears.

The voice said,

“Isn’t it magnificent, child?”