Subduing Them

Puzzled, Zheng Yichen followed the Ghost Maid toward their destination. The Ghost Maid walking ahead of him suddenly stopped, glanced back at him, and grabbed a small tree beside her.

The tree actually began to twist, transforming into a gray ghost. Its face was contorted, a far cry from the Ghost Maid's serene appearance. By the look of them, she ought to have been the better fighter, and sure enough, the gray, evil-spirit-like ghost was the one getting thrashed!

"You mean... they're all pitiful?" After giving the ghost a sound beating and driving it off, the Ghost Maid noticed Zheng Yichen's strange look and began gesturing as she walked.

When she saw that Zheng Yichen understood her, the Ghost Maid nodded quickly. She pointed to the remains beneath a tree, then in the direction she had sent the ghost flying. After deciphering her meaning so many times, Zheng Yichen had begun to get the hang of it.

"Hmm... There are lots of ghosts in this forest, and they're all people who died here?"

"..." The Ghost Maid nodded again, confirming that he had understood correctly. Then something else occurred to her, and she hurriedly began a new series of gestures. This one was much more complicated, and Zheng Yichen had to check several times before he understood.

The ghosts wandering the Illusion Demon Forest were all highly aggressive. The gray ones could be spared; they had not been bad people in life. They only became aggressive because the illusions had affected them when they died. After all, those illusions were anything but pleasant.

Even good people would become twisted after dying that way and turning into ghosts of the Illusion Demon Forest. As for the black ones, there was no need to hold back. Just kill them!

That little incident had not delayed them long. As they neared the scene of the trouble, Zheng Yichen faintly heard a shrill scream.

He no longer needed the Ghost Maid to lead the way. Zheng Yichen ran ahead and found several young men and women pulling a spectacular array of faces as they struggled to suppress some impulse. Two of them seemed close to losing control.

One had clawed bloody scratches all over her face, and the shrill screams were coming from her mouth. The only reason she had not hurt anyone else was that a middle-aged man in the group was watching over them.

Looking again at their clothes, Zheng Yichen saw that they all wore the same style. Something like school uniforms... perhaps?

He could not be sure. After all, he had seen too little of this world and knew nothing about many things.

The Ghost Maid had brought him here because she wanted him to help. From her explanation, it seemed he had caused this himself. If he had not gone and burned that tree on a whim, these people probably would have been fine.

Zheng Yichen looked at his claws and hesitated briefly before stepping out. But the moment the young people, who had still been holding on, saw his dragon head emerge, they all lost it!

He had no idea what they were seeing, but each of them reacted as though confronted by some indescribable horror. They tore at their hair, clawed at their faces, and lunged to bite the classmates beside them. One even drove a finger toward their own eye. The middle-aged man, who had managed to stay lucid, was swept up in the panic and could hold out no longer.

He reached for the throat of the young woman he had been keeping steady only moments before.

Zheng Yichen's mouth twitched at the sudden turn. A faint glimmer appeared at the tips of his claws, and a cone of icy mist burst from his fingertips, enveloping everyone who had fallen completely into a frenzy.

The young people had little resistance to the icy mist, and in their frenzy they made no effort to fight it off. Frost quickly formed over their bodies, slowing their movements to a crawl.

Zheng Yichen had not expected that move to snap them out of it. He only wanted to slow them down so he could reach them and knock them out one by one before they seriously hurt themselves!

The middle-aged man was a little more troublesome. He shrugged off the mist's slowing effect and even unleashed a burst of considerable strength... but it did him no good.

Zheng Yichen pinned him to the ground with one claw.

"Hey, I'm pretty good at this!" Zheng Yichen flicked the back of the struggling man's head, and he promptly passed out. Zheng Yichen had long since become adept at controlling his strength.

After all, ever since he had begun training under increased gravity, Lolise had required him to bring back live prey. That had forced Zheng Yichen, who had intended to keep relying on brute force, to adapt to his rapidly growing strength.

He had not tried to inscribe many spells into his consciousness. While reading the Primer, he had noticed that no one's mind could hold an unlimited number of inscribed patterns. The more one inscribed, the greater the demands on one's mental power. Although... Zheng Yichen had already inscribed quite a few and still had not felt that supposed strain.

Still, with too many spells at his disposal, choosing one could be a pain. Besides, these were all basic spells, so it made little difference how many he mastered now. Lolise had mentioned it only once, but Zheng Yichen had remembered.

A professional's path only truly began after they reached the first rank, though ordinary people would consider anyone who had amassed enough power before then formidable.

There were simply too many spells in this world... So even the most powerful people chose the spells they mastered with a purpose in mind. After all, the stronger a magical pattern inscribed in the mind, the more "memory" it occupied.

Once he had subdued them, Zheng Yichen faced a problem. What should he do with them?

Leave them here? What if they woke up and went right back to their frenzy?

"If I take them out of the forest, they should be fine, right?" Zheng Yichen looked at the Ghost Maid standing quietly beside him.

She nodded gently, then immediately shook her head. She mimed lighting one of the nearby trees and taking a breath. Zheng Yichen wanted to kick himself. Why had he given in to that impulse back then? He could have tried it during the day just as easily...

The Ghost Maid meant that taking them out earlier would have worked. Now, however, they seemed to have inhaled gas from burning trees in the Illusion Demon Forest. It had affected them more severely, and they would need time to recover.

"Hmm... In that case, you go back first. I'll watch them and take them out once they've recovered," Zheng Yichen told the Ghost Maid after some thought.

The Ghost Maid shook her head and gestured for a while.

"You're saying I can't get back without you?"

The Ghost Maid nodded and pointed behind Zheng Yichen. He hesitated, then pushed off hard with both feet and leaped into the air. Only after rising some distance from the ground did he begin to beat his wings.