Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 106: Body Swap, Round Two
“I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”
Kai patted the hem of his clothes and stepped forward confidently. “I go for observation, I remain for cultivation, and I come for truth.”
The instant he heard this answer, Salaar’s fingers slightly twitched. Myss glanced at him curiously, but unfortunately, he didn’t detect anything unusual.
That mechanical, inhuman voice vanished. In its place came the creak of turning gears, along with waves of humming from alchemical magic devices in operation.
Before everyone, a staircase abruptly extended out. The stone steps were covered in moss, with no beginning and no end, leading toward a patch of empty air. At first glance, it looked like a strange dream.
The problem was, this wasn’t the only staircase. Inexplicable steps appeared all over the forest in a messy crisscross. The scene officially upgraded from a strange dream to a nightmare.
Myss’s eyes followed those steps around and around. These things had appeared so quietly, without any magical fluctuation from start to finish.
He had just been about to ask Salaar beside him when he heard Kai explain.
“The defense of the Middle Finger Tower leans towards mental disruption. It’ll cause many bizarre phenomena.”
Kai explained at just the right time. “We’re actually in luck. This tower’s defenses are quite intact, so it’s very likely to be a research institution from the Night Scourge era. It wouldn’t have been open to ordinary people.”
Owen grew nervous. “We don’t have to climb these stairs, do we? What happens if we choose wrong?”
Kai shrugged. “If you choose wrong, you need to endure a whole day of hallucinations. During the Night Scourge era, that was fatal. Now it’s not too bad.”
“The trick to choosing is simple. Pick the one where the questioning voice came from just now. This method prevents the password from being stolen by unrelated people and causing unnecessary crises.”
Myss’s gaze immediately locked onto the staircase three steps away. Without a doubt, the questioning voice had been closest to that side. Owen, however, showed an extremely confused expression, as if he had suddenly stopped understanding human speech.
When he discovered that, apart from himself, everyone else was walking toward the same staircase, the confusion on Owen’s face turned into embarrassment.
“You can tell just from that?” he muttered, then obediently followed.
Kai walked at the forefront. He stopped at the highest point of the stairs and tentatively pushed twice. The swamp forest scenery seemed to have been cut open with a square hole by someone wielding scissors. The opening folded inward, revealing a pitch-black doorway.
The smell of dust sealed for many years rushed over them. Myss wrinkled his nose and gave a loud sneeze.
Kai opened one of his two suitcases and skillfully rummaged out a lantern. He looked behind him with a sincere expression that said, “See? I didn’t lie to you.”
“I’ll go first,” he said.
“Wait.” Peyton, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke. “I’ll go in and take a look first.”
“Haa, all right. After all, I’m a Stargazer with ulterior motives, and this, technically speaking, could be considered my home turf.” Kai stepped aside and made way. “Safety first. I get it.”
Peyton nodded and softly recited a few incantations. A pale-blue protective barrier lit up around him, and he cautiously stepped through the door. In the next instant, Myss sensed chaotic magical fluctuations. At least five or more magic devices had been activated at the same time.
Without the slightest hesitation, Peyton flicked a short whip inlaid with aquamarines from his waist.
Myss narrowed his eyes. That short whip wand had been cleaned thoroughly, but he still smelled blood, the scent of Peyton’s own blood.
The short whip snapped through empty air, making a crisp crack. Blue magic splashed outward like blood, actually striking the magic sources with precision. One by one, the magic devices died out, and the air became peaceful and calm.
“It’s safe now.” Peyton turned around.
Owen quietly took two steps back, and judging from his expression, he already wanted to go home. Kai patted his shoulder sympathetically before entering the tower.
Seeing that the first two were both fine, Myss finally led Salaar inside. Only after everyone had entered the tower did Owen reluctantly shuffle in.
The moment he stepped into the double-layer tower, that rotted door gave a creak and automatically shut, brushing past his backside. Owen was so frightened that he covered his butt with both hands, his hair practically standing on end.
Myss had just been about to mock the so-called “bloodline of Saint Salaar” when his vision abruptly went black and his feet softened.
When he came back to himself, he found his cheek pressed against the filthy wooden floor, pain throbbing along the side of his face from the impact. He seemed to have fainted, and he had fainted with unusual efficiency, so efficiently that Salaar hadn’t managed to catch him in time.
Myss sat up dizzily and discovered that everyone else was also lying sprawled on the floor. A gray-white braid had fallen over the decayed wood, scattered by his feet. Wait, by his feet?
Myss followed the braid upward and saw the dazed figure lying on the floor… himself.
No way.
Myss immediately lowered his head to look at his body. He was still wearing the formal outfit Salaar had sewn, but it wasn’t the “Myss” style. It was the “Salaar” style, with a similar color and a slightly different design.
…No way!
Myss touched the short hair on his head and ruthlessly plucked a few strands. In the almost nonexistent light, the color was black as night.
Things had become troublesome.
“Hey, hey, wake up!”
Myss heard the voice come from his throat, but it was lower than the one he was familiar with. He subconsciously reached out, wanting to shake his own body nearby, but his arm had become thick and long. His hand nearly struck the other person’s head.
Amid the clumsy shaking, his body slowly opened its eyes, and the pupils contracted twice.
Those sharp, arrogant eyes had lost all their sharpness, as if they were two blood holes. Seeing Myss’s misplaced face, the other person showed complete astonishment.
“Salaar?” Seeing the reaction across from him was this great, Myss softly confirmed.
“Myss” nodded, somewhat unused to it as he picked up the braid and patted off the dust and grime on it.
…Mm. Not especially infuriating. It was still the young Salaar. It seemed this strange situation had not made the effect of “Return to Youth” disappear.
“Wow.”
Owen sat up from the floor and exclaimed in a very un-Owen-like way. “I didn’t expect there to be a delayed trap like this… By the way, I’m Kai.”
“I’m Owen.”
The Dragon Fae struggled out of the pocket watch on “Myss’s” chest and said with lingering fear, “Damn it, what’s going on?”
“That’s exactly what’s going on.”
“Kai” stood up, panting. “First dolls, now this. Heavens, can’t you just let me use my wings in peace?”
The priest looked around blankly at everyone. Judging from that heartfelt simplicity on his face, Father Kalen’s body and mind both seemed to be original.
Coincidentally, there were no changes on Peyton’s side either. He frowned, then turned to examine the completely ordinary brick walls of the two-story tower.
Owen confirmed that he had entered the Dragon Fae’s body. Surprisingly, he didn’t complain. Instead, he quickly shrank back into the pocket watch gem, taking on the attitude of a spectator who wouldn’t come out even if beaten to death.
The real Tass sighed repeatedly. “Leaving aside that shameless guy for now… Let me see. I’m using Kai’s body, and Kai turned into useless Owen.”
“Myss and Sa—no, Kendrick—swapped bodies. The priest and Peyton are miraculously fine. From the look of it, this seems to be a trap that randomly swaps bodies and minds.”
Not just that, Myss thought.
He was not especially surprised to discover that he didn’t know how to mobilize Salaar’s magic, like a fish stuffed into the body of a flying bird. He suspected Salaar was the same.
Owen was useless and had wasted the Dragon Fea’s powerful body. The Dragon Fae had a wealth of experience, but couldn’t get used to Kai’s frail body. As for Kai, there was no need to even mention him. He had been directly thrown into the most useless of the group. Even though they were both human, Kai couldn’t squeeze out much magic.
If not for the priest and Peyton being unaffected, the fighting power of this party would be little different from scrap.
Myss unhappily pinched his face and grew even unhappier when he discovered that Salaar’s face didn’t feel as good as the slave’s body.
Owen, or rather, Kai inhabiting Owen’s body, swayed two steps and went to open that closed wooden door. That seemingly crumbling door was even harder than the brick wall. No matter how long he shook it, it didn’t move at all.
“Sigh, things have become a bit troublesome.” He gave an awkward laugh.
“Aren’t you supposed to be the expert?” Tass asked, as he tugged on the hair of the body, Kai’s, he was currently occupying.
“But I’m not an omniscient god.” Kai said helplessly, “Honestly, this is my first time seeing this form of attack too.”
“I’ll smash the door open, and everyone can leave here first,” the priest volunteered.
“No. If the outer door is destroyed by force, it has the same effect as ‘taking the wrong staircase.’ If you also fall into hallucinations, then we truly won’t have much normal fighting power left.”
Kai immediately blocked the doorway, almost breaking into a cold sweat. “We need to go to the central control room at the top of the tower. There, the outer door can be opened manually.”
Tass: “Are you serious? If another alchemical construct like the Human Mushroom appears, we might all be wiped out.”
Kai shook his head hard. “Even if we leave this place immediately, with our current situation, we might still be wiped out. If we stay here, we can at least look for clues.”
Tass puffed out a breath and “returned” the two large suitcases in his hands to their rightful owner. Kai took the suitcases with hesitation, and after a long while, he seemed to make up his mind and opened the one containing the Divine Blood Puppet.
Seeing another “Kai” inside the suitcase, everyone looked at Kai in unison.
“Ahaha, this thing is called a Divine Blood Puppet.”
Kai guided that thing to transform, using Owen’s face to reveal an embarrassed expression. “This body’s magic is too weak, and its physical strength is poor too. This thing can make up for it somewhat.”
His tone was light, but the fine beads of sweat on his forehead still betrayed him. The situation had exceeded expectations. Without his familiar body, his tension was visible to the naked eye.
“A hidden card.” Salaar suddenly muttered seemingly out of nowhere.
Myss’s brows jumped. He looked, rather uncomfortably, toward Salaar, who was now half a head shorter.
“This outsider’s situation is too poor. He can only expose his hidden card,” Salaar said softly. “Be careful. At least in my impression, two-story towers don’t have this kind of trivial defensive magic.”
That made sense. In other words, this damned situation might also have been caused by someone in the group.
Myss thought Peyton was the most suspicious, but Peyton gained nothing from doing such a thing. Fine, he might kill “Kendrick,” but in the current situation, Owen’s body had been handed over to a Stargazer, and he might also end up dead.
But aside from Peyton, only the priest had been unaffected. Could it really be that priest, who was more honest than a wooden stump…?
Myss couldn’t help looking at Father Kalen. The priest’s expression could be called pure, without the slightest flaw.
No, no. Come to think of it, even Salaar had a motive. After the body swap, the antidote had ended up in Salaar’s hands. Myss himself couldn’t mobilize Salaar’s healing magic, so Salaar had thoroughly seized the initiative for detoxification back.
More than that, his research into “Brave Salaar” had also been forced to pause.
…Forget it. If he kept thinking like this, everyone he looked at would seem suspicious.
Myss crossed his hands and pressed down on the thick cushion on his chest, which he was all too familiar with and which now grew from his own body, feeling a wave of grief in his heart.
Better to focus on investigating the current abnormality. Speaking of which, the last time he had this absurd feeling of dizziness and spinning was when he had just arrived in the human world from the seal.
Myss suddenly realized that this was his second “body swap.” Putting aside who had acted, this incident might contain clues to the “body-swap ritual”!
He rummaged and rummaged through his pocket, found a raspberry candy ball, and neatly stuffed it into his mouth. “We agreed to go to the top of the tower.”
His peripheral vision deliberately or unintentionally glanced toward the priest and Peyton.
Peyton thought deeply for a few seconds. “Then let that ‘Divine Blood Puppet’ lead the way. Kalen and I will guard the rear. When necessary, I will put in more effort to ensure your safety.”
The priest immediately raised his hand. “I hope to open the way together with Mr. Kai.”
He might as well had “I have something I want to discuss with the Stargazer” written across his face.
“Very well, then I’ll guard the rear alone.” Peyton calmly continued, “The task continues. Everything that happens next, I’ll report truthfully to Grandfather.”
Myss suspected that even if they swapped shells with the Human Mushroom, Peyton would still have this same dead, calm expression.
……
The inside of the two-story tower was much larger than Myss had imagined. Even though he was now taller, the space above his head was still large enough to make him marvel.
Salaar was close, but he kept about a fist’s distance from him, looking much more petite than before. Myss looked at his own stiffly raised collar, and his hands itched. He kept feeling an urge to grab it and tug.
To suppress this inexplicable thought, Myss turned his head again to examine the surrounding environment.
The inside of the tower was dark, but the stone walls on both sides were clean. The dust on the floor wasn’t thick. Only the smell of rotting wood was a little heavy. Unlike the ruins they had visited before, there were no strange paintings hanging on the walls, nor dusty spiderwebs everywhere.
Against the outermost side of the walls, neatly stacked wooden boxes were piled up. In the few open boxes, one could see rotten papers, bandages, medicine bottles, and food whose original appearance couldn’t be distinguished, looking like compressed rations.
“Aren’t there a bit too many medicine bottles here?” Tass held the lantern Kai had distributed and curiously moved closer. “During the Night Scourge era, were there dedicated medical outposts?”
Kai had the transformed puppet hold a large lantern in its mouth to scout at the very front of the group. At this moment, the Divine Blood Puppet stopped, and the lantern stopped above everyone’s heads, somewhat resembling a mobile chandelier.
“Anything is possible. If it really is a medical shop, at least there should be fewer strange alchemical lifeforms… probably.”
Kai carefully picked up a medicine bottle. The label on the bottle had been swallowed by the damp environment, and the writing on it had long since become blurred.
On the label covered with mildew spots and water stains, the long string of medicine names and serial numbers could no longer be identified. Only the words at the very bottom were still fairly clear.
[Celestial Canopy]
Kai pursed his lips and tried hard to suppress the joy on his face.
Behind him, Salaar stood in the darkness. Within the shadows, there were only two cold red points of light.
The author has something to say:
Myss be like: It’s over, now I really can’t lie on the cushion anymore… [melted]
<<< || Table of Contents || >>>
Kinky Translations 