Obsession… What’s That? I Just Wish Someone Would Help Me Escape - Chapter 144

“Oh, come on. You actually believe such a far-fetched story?”

“The spot where the treasure was buried is supposedly on this island. I’m a prisoner, so I can’t go check for myself.”

The guard scoffed as though it were absurd, but drifted closer, pretending not to care.

“Come closer. It’s about where the treasure is buried.”

“This better be worth my time.”

He moved closer. I locked eyes with him and said:

“Open the door. Quietly.”

The guard, staring at me in a daze, opened the door.

Guards varied in ability level, and some were weak enough to have ranked in the 30s if they’d been prisoners themselves.

The rookie guard pulling tonight’s watch happened to be exactly that sort.

Which meant my hallucination ability worked on him.

Our floor was usually patrolled by two guards, but I’d already confirmed the pattern: the other one always dumped the work on the newcomer and went to sleep in the staff quarters.

I used the hallucination to get the door opened, then had him escort me to the investigation holding cell.

“Yes, Captain.”

Under the hallucination’s influence, he saw me as Damian.

This was almost too easy. I’d considered using this method to escape before, but the limitations were obvious.

One encounter with a guard whose ability surpassed Number 27’s, and it’d be over.

Besides, this place was an isolated island in the middle of the sea.

The moment I stepped outside, the control collar would detonate.

I followed the guard underground and entered the investigation holding cell beside the punishment cells, then gave him his orders.

“My presence here is top secret. By morning, you’ll have forgotten all of this.”

“Yes, sir.”

Come morning, the memory would be automatically deleted.

Leaving the saluting guard behind, I used the key I’d taken from him to open the door to the cell where Number 4 was held.

“It’s been a while, Lize.”

Number 4, seated with her wrists in shackles, looked up at me.

“What brings you here?”

She’d clearly had a rough time, her glasses were cracked and her lips were dry and chapped.

I placed a decent potato in her shackled hand and sat down across from her.

“I have something to ask. You’re a soul sorcerer? A spirit medium? Something like that, right?”

Since her abilities were similar to a shaman’s.

Lize nodded and took a bite of the potato.

I leaned in close and said:

“That spirit medium ability you used in the Winner’s Tournament, I need you to do it again. There’s a soul I need to meet. Things were so chaotic back then that I never got to have a proper conversation.”

“That ability is the reason I’m locked up in here, and you want me to use it again? Contacting the souls of ability users who died after the revolution is forbidden. The Order classified it as the work of a demon’s servant.”

Lize’s face made it crystal clear that an extension of her investigation detention was the one thing she absolutely refused.

The fact that she’d been confined here longer than even Grandis in the punishment cell suggested the control collar’s functions hadn’t fully kicked in yet.

Which meant she might still be able to use her abilities. That was my reasoning.

“They’ll never find out, will they?”

“Number 49. No matter how much I’ve agreed to cooperate with you, helping out of personal sentiment when the risk is this—”

“I’m not meeting them for some sentimental reason you’re imagining. I didn’t keep you as an ally without cause, either.”

I shook my head and pressed on quickly.

“Lize, you were a professor at the academy that researched and taught ability science. You’re ‘Mary-Lize,’ the one who wrote the thesis ‘Can an Ordinary Ability User’s Growth Surpass a Wielder’s Power?’, aren’t you?”

Lize scratched her head with her shackled hands.

“I started that research as a student but had to abandon it. Nobody would fund it, let alone show interest from higher up. All for political reasons. Someone did anonymously sponsor it, though…”

“I think that anonymous sponsor was my uncle. I found your thesis in his study.”

Lize had been a scholar who tried to overcome her envy and inferiority toward Wielders through research and academics.

I lowered my voice and got to the point.

“I have the ability to collect other people’s abilities. If I acquire Number 30’s ability, I can use it at Number 30’s level.”

She kept silent, waiting for me to continue.

“Aren’t you curious how far I can grow a collected ability? I’ve also formed a hypothesis about what kind of synergy combining multiple collected abilities might produce. For example, weapon enhancement and hallucination could be converted into augmentation abilities to make other ability users stronger.”

Scholarly curiosity stirred in her previously stone-faced body, and she leaned toward me.

“Lize, I’m saying your ability could grow to a Wielder’s level.”

At my follow-up, her eyes went wide.

My uncle had probably taken interest in her research for the same reason.

Assuming that my uncle possessed the same harvest ability as me, his pursuit of the Mare’s Heirloom, the family treasure of the Mare ducal house of Greed, was likely connected to this as well.

I narrowed my eyes with a grave look and added:

“To make that happen, I need to meet my uncle who was a Wielder of the Sloth lineage.”