Free Web NovelChapter 179: It’s Been A While
"It’s been a while, Adrian," Marion said with a smile as he looked directly at the butler.
Adrian looked at him for a while before letting out an exhausted sigh as his shadow extended and pulled in all the corpses into the [Shadow Vault].
These beasts didn’t have tags on them, but the magic tool following them around should be enough proof that they killed the beasts themselves.
Marion looked at the butler for a while, realizing that he was being ignored, "How hurtful, especially after what we’ve been through in that dungeon."
He didn’t bother hiding his identity and pretending to be Cassian, after all; he was completely certain that the butler had already figured out who he was.
Besides, he had none of Cassian’s memories, so there was no way he would put on a convincing act.
But again, Adrian didn’t say anything, so Marion just let out a sigh and turned to the side, only to stop in his tracks.
For a moment, he seemed genuinely surprised as he looked at the person before him.
The person turned out to be.... himself? freёwebnovel.com
Or at least, his former body anyway, and it was standing right in front of him.
Marion stared at his former body for a long moment before finally hiding his surprise and saying, "How interesting."
He tried walking towards it only to stop in his tracks and quickly jump back as a black string seemed to materialize out of thin air.
"That was dangerous," Marion muttered with narrowed eyes as he looked at the strings.
A single step forward would’ve been enough for him to lose his head.... literally.
And no one knew exactly how dangerous those strings were better than him.
Conan watched the exchange with a puzzled expression. As far as he knew, Cassian was the third-year student who had supervised Adrian’s team during their training in the Corrupt Lands.
But there was obviously a subtle tension between them.
Conan then turned towards the East’s second representative and realized that he hadn’t moved for a while now.
The kid was standing there with a blank expression on his face, and although his scanner showed that the kid was normal, Conan couldn’t help but get the feeling that there was something very wrong with him.
The same could be said for Cassian, but in his case, it was far more obvious. The scanner clearly displayed the corrupted mana within his mana tab.
Of course, he knew what corrupted humans were, but Cassian strangely didn’t look like one, perhaps an anomaly?
If Alvíss knew about this, he’d be more than ecstatic to cut him open and find out what made him tick.
Marion, on the other hand, unaware of Conan’s line of thinking, continued looking at his former body, still trying to figure out how it was moving.
His first thought was that a soul had somehow possessed the corpse, just as he had done with Cassian and had tried doing with Adrian.
But he quickly dismissed that thought; after all, the mana he sensed within the body wasn’t similar to a soul’s.
This one felt a lot more familiar, as if he had sensed it before... And that’s when he realized,
"Your clones," Marion looked back towards Adrian, "you found a way of controlling my body through them."
Adrian didn’t confirm or deny it, which was as good as a confirmation.
Marion looked back at his former body with what seemed to be genuine admiration, that is, until he saw that the clone was dragging the corpses of two beasts towards Adrian’s shadow.
"Fascinating," he admitted, "though I have to say, I find it slightly offensive that my body has been reduced to luggage duty."
Again, Conan was still confused about their conversation, but he soon realized that he was missing a great deal of context, so he didn’t bother trying to understand them.
The magic tool’s recording was too high up to catch what they were saying, so all the viewers saw were the representatives of the East speaking with the Academy’s representative.
Done with sending the five beasts to his [Shadow Vault], Adrian started walking deeper beyond the Eastern Markers, and Conan followed along.
Like the butler expected, Marion also followed behind them, still fascinated by his body being possessed by a clone.
They continued in silence for a while before Marion broke the silence as he asked, "Aren’t you curious about how I survived?"
"I’m not," Adrian answered without looking back or stopping.
"Then what about the East?" Marion asked again, "Don’t you wanna know how I trapped them in my strings?"
"No," again, Adrian answered without stopping, but something told him that Marion was going to tell him anyway.
And he was right.
"I’ll tell you anyway," Marion said with a smile as they continued walking, "you see, after your fight with Cassian, I managed to take over his empty corpse, but I quickly realized that I was lost the moment I exited the dungeon."
"But you can’t blame me for that, after all, I was stuck in that hellhole for five years."
"Anyway," he continued, even though it was clear that Adrian wasn’t listening, "a man who identified himself as the cult Master suddenly showed up from nowhere."
Adrian’s expression didn’t change in the slightest at the mention of the Cult Master, but from the moment he saw the Grand Duke of the East walk into the banquet hall, he had already suspected the cult’s involvement.
After all, there was no way Marion was strong enough to deal with the Grand Duke on his own.
"We made a deal which involved me puppeteering the East in exchange for stabilizing this body," Marion continued, "though I only accepted because that was the only way I’d buy enough time to take over your body."
Adrian finally glanced at him before turning back and walking forward, again, choosing to say nothing.
Conan, on the other hand, seemed to have finally gotten most of the context together and piecing them together, he quickly realized that the person before him wasn’t Cassian.
Instead, it was someone else wearing his skin, someone they met in that dungeon that Adrian’s team had been trapped in.
And it seems Adrian knew all this.
Marion suddenly turned toward the kid with a smile. He pressed a finger to his lips and whispered,
"You’ll keep this a secret, won’t you?"
