The God of Jesters
Chapter 202 - 3.15.7 Deceive the mind.

Chapter 202: 3.15.7 Deceive the mind.

Her being here was a surprise to me. I had hoped Max would have met her in the Letzer household, but she stayed hidden, playing tricks from afar and harming the man she once called her father.

Of course, this girl was not his daughter. The only part of Max’s daughter that remained here was nothing other than the flesh that covered his homunculi body. Which helped her hide a bit.

So finding her here, next to Ivankov, was a shock to me.

But if this is what fate has intended to happen, let it happen.

She was the sole curse user among the homunculi. Born through a forbidden mix of metal, flesh, and curse. She was one of a kind and probably a prototype of her kind.

From Ivankov’s face, it was easy to see how pained he was, letting his master creation leave him just to hold back the intruders, while he himself used a path never mentioned in the files I was given to escape with his sorry life.

As for where? That I didn’t know. Nor did I care.

What I wanted from this place was knowledge, information, and power. The rest was useless in my eyes.

Even Letzer’s escape was inconsequential.

If I had wanted to murder him, there were various tools at my disposal to dispose of him, if needed. But I never wished to startle the snake too much, making them put up their guard and even destroy the useful files that I had been looking for this past year.

That’s how important the files on the research were to me.

They were the only way for me to...

Enough about it.

Carp was the only curse user of the group, holding a total of three curses in his body, with the primary one being The Curse of Deception.

It’s what he used in his daily life to pick out locks, in return for being deceived himself as he fell into different delusions from time to time.

One of which was the time when he thought that he was a Jester himself and tried to mimic my words and actions, but failed painfully, as at the end of the day, he was deceived by his own curse, while not having any capability to ever back his delusion.

But this delusion can be considered one of the most harmless ones. There were times when in delusion, Carp has come closer to losing his life on multiple occasions. Showing how dangerous it was for him, and this was still just one of the three that he primarily used.

As this curse of delusion can deceive anything and the stronger it grows, it can even deceive gods.

And this curse is the very thing used in tandem with blood Keys to open all the doors till now.

Showing how potent it was.

"This place is so sexy..." Like an old pervert, carp caused the corpse of a dead animal. Showing his not-so-subtle bizarre desire at the moment.

But even though he wanted to, he was able to control himself, or the curse that was affecting his mentality after using it too much. "Baldar, take control of the group... " he gave the control of the group to the second in command Baldar, an adept Knight, before a foolish smile appeared on his face.

Showing the insanity was going to affect him soon.

But Baldar didn’t care, he had been used to this and just smiled with the words. "Don’t worry boss." He ordered his group to search the facility, coming across a bunch of researchers who couldn’t escape in time and hence were slaughtered by them easily.

Unlike other floors till now, there was no additional security besides the Grandmaster whom they met earlier. It would seem that the company never considered anyone to survive the surprise attack of a GrandMaster.

And that is if they reached the last level of the facility. Showing their arrogance, which came back to bite them now.

Of course, there was once an exception.

"What is this?" The ugly face of Carp twisted into a smile, as he ignored the corpse and turned to look toward the corridor. A fragile figure was hiding there, fooling everyone around her from my team.

But she couldn’t hide from Carp.

His fish-like eyes twisted around before focusing on her alone. "Little girl~~ don’t be scared... come to your father." Carp’s action startled the others in the group and they also noticed the bizarre figure that was never mentioned in the briefing. But none of them were that worried at the moment.

From the very fact that it was Carp who called her out, they can assume one thing.

"Carp, four dogs if you can eliminate her," Baldar said with a laugh, before resuming his work.

He and his group appeared here way earlier than Ivankov might have expected, with two of them trailing after one of the original escape points. While the three here tried to look for any files they could get their hands on.

The only exception was Carp, who had used up too much of his curse energy and was starting to suffer from the backlash.

"You are the best, my son!!"

The opponent was a mere prototype, the strongest curse she could was was on the level of Adept, the very same level which Carp was at.

But this didn’t make her a strong curse user. She was merely a dead container, she couldn’t grow a curse or regenerate it. There was no way to use a curse in comprehensive ways as Carp was capable of.

The homunculi could only follow predetermined methods that were previously imputed by her creator.

But not all was bad, all these limitations were there due to her nature as a prototype. Not to mention, the homunculi can never experience a backlash. They would never shoulder the burden of a strong curse.

Not to mention, due to her homunculi physique, she was as strong as a normal Master level Knight.

Making her a force to be reckoned with.

A force that Carp accepted with wide hands, as his body twisted and melded into the environment.

"Deceive the eyes." Using curses came as an instinct to him. In this world, it’s rare for children as ugly and mutated as him to ever grow past a few months.

Either they will be abandoned or die of diseases due to their weak immunity.

But Carp has always found a way to survive any predicament that was thrown his way.

I can still remember the days when a kid, not even six months old, crawled out of the gutters of Yethel.

Even as a kid, I have seen the fire that burned in his soul, the drive to live for long. Hence the reason, before the kid could even speak, I had bestowed on him one of my favorite curses.

*Bhew

With a punch into empty air, the air shuddered as a body materialized around that arm."Come to Papa!" The little trick he played just now didn’t work.

He couldn’t deceive the eyes of something that didn’t even have the concept of an eye. The homunculi view the world in a different way. So finding the enemy that was trying to fool her eyes was not hard.

But even with a hole in his chest, there was not a hit of fear, panic, or pain on Carp’s face, he just smiled as the very first curse I had bestowed on him started to work.

"Curse of Reiteration!"

Time moved back, but only for the bodies of these two, the murdered and the murderer. Returning the two to their original position.

"I am here again?... Why did you go so far?" Like a fool, he asked, while homunculi tried to attack again without a pause.

But this time, Carp didn’t move. He just spoke. "You shouldn’t do it... I don’t know... but it feels like something bad will happen this time." He commented while his lips automatically whispered the words. "Deceive the target."

Diverting the direction of Homunculi’s attack and causing her to crash into the wall next to Carp. "Finally stuck!! Hehe!" he smiled, moving toward her while he tried to dance the way he had seen in the play, but faltering due to his twisted physique. While on his back, Homunculi dragged her arm out of the wall, readying herself to strike again.

She might not know it yet, but she has finally found herself against a dangerous opponent.

The only adept level being I knew, who had hunted down multiple Master Level Knights and even a mage not too long ago.

*****

Not too far off, Baldar gave a single look towards the action, before focusing on his work again.

He had seen it too many times, how his Boss used curses and how he played with his victims.

Curse of Deceiving was one of the core courses used by the Great Daemon Andramalich, the Daemon of Sight, before being devoured by the First Knight.

A curse that had been said to have fooled the First Knight for a hundred years and one of the main reasons why Adnramalich was able to live past a hundred years while under the pursuit of the First Knight.

Showing the potential of this power, as well as the danger. As there is a legend among historians that the First Knight never actually killed Andramalich. He died due to overuse of this curse for a long time as he tried to run from the First Knight, causing the backlash to be so bad, that his mind was fractured into countless pieces.

And all the First Knight found at the end was a corpse without a soul.