Chapter 110 – Danger at Every Step
White fur, a black face, a leaf-shaped head—this monkey looked much like the langurs Charles remembered. Yet unlike true langurs, even fully grown individuals were quite small.
The monkey he had knocked unconscious was barely the size of a corgi. Its tiny eyes were shut, its expression peaceful and almost harmless. But the blood-smeared wounds on its arms were proof enough that, when awake, the creature had been anything but docile.
Carrying the monkey out of the forest, Charles glanced toward the necromancer's lair ahead—a building that looked no different from an ordinary house—and rolled his eyes inwardly.
"Why pack your own hideout with so many traps?" he muttered. "You'd think people were breaking in every other day."
If he could, Charles would have loved to ask the owner what kind of mindset led someone to turn their home into a deathtrap. Was this a place meant for living—or for killing intruders?
Thanks to the Eye of Reality, Charles could pick up on even the most subtle anomalies and trace danger from the smallest clues. So when he spotted the attic study through the window, he also noticed several hidden irregularities.
Take the window, for example. At first glance, it seemed perfectly ordinary. But the faint, colorful patterns carved into the glass were actually part of a curse spell.
It wasn't lethal—its effect was disorientation—but harmless didn't mean insignificant. Who knew how long that dizziness might last? One look at Connie, still unconscious in the dungeon below, was enough to demonstrate just how powerful the bandaged man's magic really was.
Which was why Charles had gone to the trouble of catching a monkey in the island's forest.
"If you've got anyone to blame, blame yourself for being slow," he muttered under his breath. "All those monkeys, and you just had to be the one I caught."
He stripped off his shirt, wrapped the unconscious monkey inside it, and tied the bundle securely over his shoulder. With the dagger clenched between his teeth, he climbed back up.
Facing the seemingly ordinary glass window—and the desk just beyond it—Charles took a deep breath. His feet braced against a narrow ledge beneath the second-floor window. One hand gripped the eaves tightly.
With the other, he grabbed the monkey and slammed it hard into the window.
Crash!
The attic window shattered instantly. A cloud of gray mist burst from the broken glass and surged forward, slipping into the monkey's mouth and nostrils in the blink of an eye.
The monkey, which had just begun to stir from the impact, immediately went limp again.
Charles released it, letting the unfortunate creature fall into the grass below. He didn't rush into the study. Instead, he leaned forward, eyes locked on the fallen monkey, ears straining for any sound, any reaction.
Only after a long while did he finally relax.
"A fixed range?" he wondered. "Can't leave the house? Or maybe a flaw after triggering?"
The second floor was haunted by wailing banshee spirits. The first floor was riddled with magical traps. And this was only what he'd seen from the back window—who knew what else the house was hiding?
Caution was non-negotiable.
Of course, the safest option would have been to abandon the exploration entirely—hide, wait patiently, and let the Church come find them. Charles was confident they would. Unlike the last time they hunted the bandaged man, both he and Connie were still here. Using the same tracking methods as before, locating them wouldn't be difficult.
But if he waited for the Church to arrive…
Whatever secrets lay inside this place would no longer have anything to do with him.
If he could freely browse through the bandaged man's memories after possessing him, Charles might have been willing to ignore all this.
Unfortunately, he couldn't.
"Great rewards demand great risks."
Murmuring to himself, he withdrew his gaze from the monkey and turned his eyes back toward the study inside the house.
The desk stood right beside the window. Scattered messily across its surface were sheets of rough sketches—snakes, ghouls, even a long-haired banshee drifting through the air.
At first glance, they looked like nothing more than idle doodles born of boredom. Yet the Eye of Reality revealed something far more dangerous.
[A ghoul sealed within paper. It is filled with rage]
[Proceed with caution—you likely cannot defeat it]
…
How to undo the seal?
Charles had no idea. And to avoid accidents, he had absolutely no intention of touching those things.
Then there was the inkwell. According to the Eye of Reality, a deranged wraith was wandering within it. One corner of the desk was engraved with the same dizziness-inducing magic circle he'd triggered on the window earlier.
And not far from the inkwell stood a vase holding a single purple tulip.
It looked lush and radiant, stunningly beautiful—if one chose to ignore the fact that it was a man-eating plant.
"How exactly does a tulip eat people?" Charles wondered silently.
He had no intention of risking his life to find out.
Bending down, he slipped through the window and carefully tiptoed past these peculiar objects, placing his feet with deliberate caution as he stepped onto the study floor.
Fortunately, the flooring itself held no traps. He advanced slowly, step by step, until he finally reached the bookshelf—without encountering anything noteworthy.
Just as excitement rose in his chest, reality struck him like a hammer.
[Ancient book afflicted with a Rotting Curse. A special method is required to avoid the curse]
…
Charles frowned as the message floated before his eyes. He checked another book—then another—and quickly realized this wasn't an isolated case.
Every single book on the shelf was cursed.
Memory loss. Decay. Disease. Blindness. Paralysis. Confusion. Explosion. Madness…
The curses were simple in description and brutally direct in effect—but their deterrent power was overwhelming. Staring at the shelf of perfectly ordinary-looking books, each one hiding lethal danger, Charles found himself at a loss for words.
"Did I come here for nothing?"
The thought flashed through his mind—then vanished.
After a brief pause, a solution emerged. Or at least, a temporary one.
If he couldn't touch the cursed books… then someone else could.
The living feared memory loss, rot, disease, blindness. But would the dead?
With that in mind, Charles scanned his surroundings, focused on a safe spot nearby, and summoned the faint outline of a traversal gate. Without hesitation, he stepped through it.
When he emerged again, he was dragging a gaunt, skin-and-bones man with vacant eyes.
One of the benefits of Charles's recent "missionary work" in the North—aside from spreading the faith of the Seven and accumulating power—was that he never lacked corpses.
Though those criminals didn't die immediately under his spells, survival afterward was extremely unlikely.
Life-draining magic didn't merely siphon fat or nutrients. It was total annihilation—organs, muscles, fat, immune systems, even spinal cords and brains. Anything that constituted vitality was stripped away.
Those with weak constitutions typically died the very next day. Even the strong rarely lasted much longer.
So despite the absence of war or open conflict lately, Charles had no shortage of "materials."
He ordered the corpse to stay perfectly still, then cautiously withdrew from the study. Crawling back out through the window, he left the house entirely, planning to return at the same time the next day.
Without the Eye of Reality to guide him, he wouldn't dare proceed recklessly.
After all, among the curses on that bookshelf… there was one that caused explosions.
And one careless mistake would mean the end of everything.