I Became a Genius Mage in the Cthulhu Game

Chapter 129: The Laughing One (5)

It was impossible to affect the true form of the [Laughing One]. Reaching that far was an unrealistic hope anyway. However, I could do something about the avatar that existed before me in the form of a book.

– I-It can’t be! You monster! Horrible demon! How can you act beyond my foresight? This wasn’t in my precognition! Why! Why can only you move in a way that defies my foresight? You are a noise disrupting the laws of this world! Monster! You disgusting noise! Your existence ruins my foresight! Get out! Get out of this world! Disappear!

“Ah, sir, don’t worry. I’ll fix it for you.”

– No matter how much you struggle, your wish will never come true! You are a foreign substance in this world! An alien monster! A hideous error! No one will fulfill your wish! No one! Your wish will not come true!

Ah, what a chatterbox.

Will I ever have the chance to meet someone who talks this much in the future? I always say this, but verbal nonsense is but a momentary shame. Talk all you want.

“Yes, yes, I’ll start the repair now.”

I had just the right item for this purpose.

I drew on my magical power and activated my artifact’s effects.

// Madman’s Dexterity: You can unlock the hidden abilities of an artifact or attempt modifications to bestow other powers.]

Crackle!

Golden tentacles of magical power extended from Carcosa’s Mask and wrapped around the mental body hanging on the butcher’s hook.

They then entered the [Laughing One]’s mind, which was bound by the magic of the [Living Flame], and imbued it with new power.

I had joked about it, but this was beyond simply sealing it away.

I felt a pressure as if my brain was about to explode.

If my brain had been ordinary, it would have already turned to mush under this pressure.

Magic circles of various colors bloomed around me, exerting their effects and then disappearing repeatedly.

“Oh, this is more… complicated than I thought.”

Though it was inferior to beings of the abyss, the [Laughing One] was a high-level mental body far beyond humans.

An existence like that couldn’t be forcibly altered or modified by a metaphysical being like a human.

“But it’s unfortunate for you to have encountered someone like me.”

There was no need to completely understand its structure. The mask’s effects would compensate for the finer details.

Still, the calculations were endless and beyond what a normal human brain could handle. A few minutes? No, a few seconds? My sense of time became blurred. In any case, over a hundred million events flashed through my mind in a very short span of time.

Despite this situation, my mind continued to think and calculate at an incredible speed. At the same time, I had enough mental capacity to entertain stray thoughts. (Ha, how long do I have to keep doing this?) Now that I reached this point, the task wasn’t difficult. (I’ll give all the gold bars in Cheong-ho’s warehouse to Jeong Hyeon-ah, and I’ll keep the artifacts. They should all fit in Jang Hyun-deok’s car, right?) I already understood the content analysis, the calculations, what to change, and how to combine things. (Goo Jin-cheol, that dumb bastard. Is he dead? I won’t see him again, but it’s easier if he’s alive.)

[System: The unique trait ‘Feast Offering’ has been activated. ‘Being of the Abyss: Living Flame’, ‘Being of the Abyss: King in Yellow’, ‘Being of the Abyss: He Who Comes from the Darkness’ show interest in you.]

So, all those who bet on me have gathered.

I thought there had been all sorts of things, but only three beings of the abyss bet on me? Ah, King Man-geum isn’t a being of the abyss.

I couldn’t stop the beings of the abyss from watching what I was about to do. But I could use them, right? Come on, give me your magical power as a price for watching!

Magical power began to pour out from the mask, the ring, and the shard embedded in my body.

Tzzzzzzz…

One of my eyes wasn’t seeing well. It seemed that a few blood vessels in my eye had burst due to excessive concentration. And at the same time…

An incredible pleasure surged through me.

“Certainly, it’s a power I can’t handle.”

I extracted the magical power from the shard of [He Who Comes from the Darkness] that I had absorbed. Then, I channeled it through the mask given by the [King in Yellow]. The book struggled, but resistance was futile. The power of the [Living Flame] suppressed it.

Like I was assembling a radio, everything was completed easily and simply in the predetermined order.

At some point, the surroundings became completely quiet.

The magical power that had filled the underground and the overwhelming presence created by the abyssal beings had now completely disappeared.

Let’s see…

|Kuhuhuhuhuhu!! Khehehehehehe!!!|

Ridiculous.

This book had now become a book that laughs while predicting the future and at the same time, the only [Book of Pain] in the universe. It would feel pain whenever someone touched its pages or cover.

I was human and this thing was a book and also a high-level mental body, so a direct comparison was difficult, but if I forcibly compared the sensitivity to pain…

“How is it, sir? Just a slight touch should feel like having all eight molars pulled at once. Do you like it?”

|Kuhuhuhuhuhu!! Khehehehehehe!!!|

“Good, good. I’m glad you like it. For now, keep roasting for a while.”

Whoosh!!

A barrier made of flames would subject it to an endless curse of fire. While a book in the real world would burn up and disappear, this one had no such worry. It would just hurt a bit, but it could exist in that state forever.

“Come to think of it, you said something about a fleeting moment, right? Since this was made with the magical power left by the Living Flame, it will keep burning even if I die, so don’t worry.”

|Kuhuhuhu!?|

“Anyway, you’re an immortal, so this much should be fine, right? Ah, but you aren’t truly immortal, are you?”

In the first place, it couldn’t be compared to a being of the abyss.

If it had been a real being of the abyss, even with the help of other beings of the abyss, I wouldn’t have been able to torment it as I pleased.

Moreover, this book wasn’t even the true form of the [Laughing One].

Even beings of the abyss were like this, and those beyond a certain level in this world generally acted in the same way. They divided their will and power into several forms and scattered them across the universe.

And so, even the cults that worshipped the same Nyarlathotep had separate followers for the avatar known as the [Bloody Tongue] and those who worshipped the version known as the [Crawling Chaos].

Even though both the [Bloody Tongue] and the [Crawling Chaos] were the same Nyarlathotep.

Anyway, though I had subdued it this time, I might encounter another form of the [Laughing One] in the future.

“Well, capturing even a fragment of a high-level mental body is a tremendous gain.”

There was one slightly disappointing part…

[You felt great anger upon witnessing the lawless havoc created by the ‘Laughing One’.]

“To be clear, the reason I’m angry is because of you, you bastard.”

Yes, I thought this creature was definitely Nyarlathotep. But Nyarlathotep had a thousand masks.

A thousand masks, a thousand epithets, and a thousand avatars.

Each had completely different personalities and traits, so I couldn’t know which one was tormenting me or for what purpose.

[With your remarkable intelligence, you predicted that these events would occur from the moment Cheong-ho disappeared. So you devised a plan to use Jang Hyeon-deok as a trap. A brilliant strategy. Your only mistake was…]

“Can’t you shut up?”

[What had been waiting for you in this fallout shelter was the ‘Laughing One’. It was not a being of the abyss but merely a high mental body. Your long-term plan to capture a being of the abyss using Jang Hyeon-deok had failed. Furthermore, since you used it so openly, the other beings of the abyss would now be wary of your trap.]

“I said shut up.”

[No longer is a lengthy explanation needed. But you know that all these events happened because of you.]

“Enough.”

[Once you eliminate Goo Jin-cheol, you will be the only one who knows what was down here and what happened. You can take the wealth and artifacts Cheong-ho collected throughout his life. If you wish, you can even use this fallout shelter as your new base. When did you plan all this? From the moment you asked Cheong-ho for the book? If so, it’s a remarkable display of wisdom. Was bringing Goo Jin-cheol here part of the plan too?]

“Get lost, you crazy bastard!”

Boom!!

The magical power released from my body vibrated throughout the entire space.

I didn’t know how much magical power I moved in that instant, but it caused the message window to flicker.

[The…… soul’s…… coming…… waits…….]

[Quest Completed!

Reward: 3,000,000 XP + Bonus based on mission performance]

[You have accumulated enough experience points to advance to the next level. Your level increases by 1.]

[You have defeated part of the ‘Laughing One’, a high mental body. Your understanding of high mental bodies has increased.]

[You have defeated ‘Cheong-ho, one of the three heads of the Triad’. Your understanding of the underworld has increased.]

[You have accumulated enough experience points to advance to the next level. Your level increases by 1.]

[Achievement unlocked! You have sealed part of the ‘Laughing One’, a high mental body. You have earned the ‘Rare Achievement: The One Who Stopped the Laughter’.

As a reward for the achievement, the ‘Laughing One’ is bound to you as an artifact, and you gain additional experience points.]

[Experience Bonus: You have achieved a total of (1) achievements in Cheong-ho’s secret vault.]

[You have accumulated enough experience points to advance to the next level. Your level increases by 1.]

[You have reached level 40!

! As a level achievement reward, you receive (1) bonus stat point to distribute freely.]

I allocated the newly acquired bonus stat to mental strength.

Considering the stats increased by artifacts, mental strength was now at 19 points.

It’s approaching the human limit.

Nevertheless, rational judgment still operates on a probability basis. No matter how high your mental strength is, there is always a 1% chance of failure.

This 1% cannot be eliminated by any means.

And this 1%…

It’s too high. That bastard Nyarlathotep can easily exploit such a probability.

One must never be trusted.

[Since you have accumulated enough experience, you have unlocked the use of fourth-order magic. Please note that in order to effectively use fourth-order magic, you need to obtain or learn a grimoire containing fourth-order spells.]

[System: The ‘Spell Mastery’ trait has been activated. You automatically learn the basic spells existing at the fourth-order.]

A new list of fourth-order spells emerged in my mind.

The power of each one was on a different scale from the magic I had used so far.

But there are too few of them.

The automatically acquired fourth-order spells were fewer than those of the third-order.

Now, I really had to decipher grimoires or use other methods.

Kim Shin-hwa

Class: Mage Gazing Into the Abyss

Level: 40

Magic Level: Fourth-order

Mental Illness: [Mask Obsession], [Ichthyophobia]

Strength: 5 + 4 (Residual Heat of the North Star)

Health: 7 + 3 (Great Justice Tiger Sword (Nokjon))

Agility: 8 + 2 (Night Shroud’s Winged Garment)

Intelligence: 30

Mental Strength: 17 + 2 (Body Snatcher’s Necklace)

Charm: 19

“Phew, damn it. That was a disgusting quest.”

Tsk, yeah. This was the real Cthulhu world. I had just been too lucky so far, but everything in this world was my enemy.

I hadn’t considered that even the system governing the game could become my enemy, but I had been suspicious to some extent all along.

“Ah, damn it. Nothing’s going to change if I keep brooding over this.”

I turned my head to survey my surroundings.

The darkness in the basement was receding.

My distorted vision was stabilizing, and the twisted space was returning to normal.

I could see Goo Jin-cheol collapsed a few rooms ahead.

As soon as I recognized Goo Jin-cheol’s position, another message window obstructed my view.

[You can change your residence to the ‘nuclear fallout shelter’. If you wish to do so, kill all humanoid intelligence remaining inside the nuclear fallout shelter.]