Hair

"Even Miss Pure White, a Blessed, doesn't recommend that you come into contact with Him." Alger readily revised his wording.

Derrick fell silent, then said awkwardly, "But accepting the mission is mandatory."

Alger chuckled.

"Nothing is mandatory.

"Will you be taking part in any patrols before this mission? Find an opportunity to deliberately let a monster injure you. You can refer to past cases in the City of Silver to work out how serious the injury should be."

Right, just like a classmate I had in middle school¹ who deliberately broke his right arm to get out of the final exams... Though he messed up the fall a little and only broke his right thumb, which healed before the exams...

The corner of Neph's mouth twitched. She suggested, "Honestly, that's a little too dangerous, and you can't control how it turns out. Why not consider pretending to lose control?"

Derrick replied with equal embarrassment, "But I don't have any patrol duties coming up..."

He didn't mention pretending to lose control, but Alger voiced his agreement.

"Pretending to lose control is indeed a good idea. More precisely, you should bring yourself to the brink of losing control. Under those circumstances, I doubt the City of Silver's leaders would take a 'dangerous object' that could erupt at any moment on an expedition, would they?

"There's a trick to it. Keep your spirituality in a relatively depleted state for two consecutive days, and you'll start hearing things and showing signs of losing control. If you stop pushing yourself afterward, your condition will improve within a week, and you won't actually lose control.

"Of course, your City of Silver must have methods and measures for treating people showing early signs of losing control, so you should recover even faster. That means you'll need to