Chapter 147 – A Spirit?

A strange scene unfolded inside a tent thick with the scent of herbs, dried blood, and smoke. An old woman, the village witch doctor, knelt before a steel helmet, her hands hovering over it as she muttered unintelligible words. Her eyes shimmered with an eerie light, and the piece of metal beneath her seemed to respond.

“You can hear me? Understand me?”

“The spirit is trying to speak…”

“So… you can’t actually understand me?”

Rusty was the so-called spirit. He had been pulled from a nearby lake after plunging down a waterfall while fleeing a wyvern’s fiery breath. Now, he found himself in a barbarian village that looked nothing like the stories told by humanoids, and to make matters worse, this old woman had mistaken him for some kind of ghost.

‘She can’t really understand me, but she hears me?’

He was not sure why she could not grasp what he was trying to say. Maybe the inner voice he used to communicate with his guides and with Gleam did not work the same way as speech when channeled through a possessed body. Or perhaps there was something flawed in whatever magic she used to hear him. Either way, one thing was certain: he had been discovered, and he was in serious danger.

The witch doctor leaned closer, eyes narrowed in reverence, or was it suspicion? Rusty could not tell from her expression, even though her face was directly in front of him. Her breath drifted over his helmet as she whispered again.

“Not bound. Not cursed. And yet, alive. You are no spirit born of these lands.”

She reached for a thin dagger carved from bone and pricked her finger, letting a drop of blood fall onto one of the sigils surrounding Rusty’s head. It hissed against the stone, steam curling into the air.

Rusty tensed. That was not normal. Some kind of magic was trying to seep into him, and he did not like the feeling it gave him. A pale blue aura rippled through the tent. She was trying to do something to him, something that he felt that he needed to resist.

“Oh spirit, accept this offering of blood.”

He had no idea what was happening, but the strange magic was trying to take hold of him. It crept toward him like mist beneath a door, probing and pressing into the edges of his mind and core. He felt it slither along the barriers of his being, searching for an opening. It was not forceful in the way the dungeon’s domination had once been. This felt more like a request. A ritual. An attempt to bind.

His helmet began to react. The symbols etched into the stone around him started to smoke as if they were pushing back against something. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the sigils flared and vanished in a puff of smoke. The witch doctor gasped and pulled her hand back, clutching it to her chest as if it had been scorched.

“Was the blood not enough?”

She whispered, her eyes wide. Her expression had shifted from curiosity to concern. Rusty had experienced something like this before. He wasn’t sure, but the title of ‘Unbound’ seemed to protect him from her spell. Whatever magic she had used could not take hold of him. He would not be controlled easily, not even by someone much stronger than him. And by the amount of mana she radiated, this woman was certainly more powerful than most D-ranked individuals he had encountered.

The witch doctor stared at the fading sigils, her lips pressed into a thin line. Her gaze shifted back to his helmet, and this time her look carried real annoyance. She rose slowly, the pain in her pricked finger forgotten, and began rummaging through a bundle of leather-wrapped pouches hanging from a wooden rack. The sound of clinking glass and the faint chime of bone talismans filled the tent.

Rusty knew this was bad. She was not giving up. That ritual had not just been to speak with a spirit, it had been an attempt to take control of him. He did not know exactly how it worked, but one thing was certain: the longer he remained here, the more his life was at risk. If the witch doctor realized he was not a spirit but a monster, she would either destroy him or bind him completely. It was possible she had used the wrong spell for the bonding, and once she uncovered his true nature, he would become a slave again.

“This spirit must be special. I need to prepare a better offering.”

She turned back to him, now holding three objects: a bone flute, a vial of thick black liquid, and a jagged piece of obsidian wrapped in something he could not identify. Rusty had no idea what these items were for, but the woman clearly believed they would help her forge some kind of contract with him.

“I must prepare.”

Fortunately, the process would take time. Instead of staying in the room with him, she disappeared into one of the side compartments of the tent or hut they were in. He could see her moving in the shadows, tinkering with the items, likely preparing them for her next attempt to bind him. Now, for the first time, he was alone.

He had to use this opportunity to escape. His original plan had been to wait until sunset and leave under the cover of darkness using his physical body. But now that plan was no longer an option. He needed to get out of here immediately.

‘Using my full body won’t be an option, but I can use it as a distraction…’

His SP had recharged enough for him to restore his body and switch to a different loadout. At this point, there was only one viable option and that was, his smallest form. Any of his regular forms would be too easily detected if he stepped outside the witch doctor’s tent.

He activated the skill, and his helmet began to shrink. Some of the leftover steel in his storage was drawn out, reshaping his body from scratch. He could only hope that the magically inclined woman would not notice the transformation.

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Switching loadouts and repairing did not emit mana, so in his mind, it was a sound plan. That thought gave him some comfort as his new, miniaturized form took shape. In seconds, he had become a miniaturised bobblehead suit of armor, the size of a goblin child. It was time to move.

‘I need to go, but first!’