Why can't humans do it too?

"You should have noticed, right? Your death is coming when you leave this nest of the moles... The only reason you're still alive is because I want to investigate why you weren't controlled by that magic before in a suitable environment. That was originally developed to bind advanced life forms like the Skywing and even the Fantasy species. Why did it fail on a mere monkey?"

Perhaps provoked by Suer's unbridled attitude and provocative questions, Xinke made no attempt to conceal the fact that Suer had always disregarded her, disdaining to hide anything, at least Suer wasn't worth Xinke's trouble of hiding anything.

His life was indeed entering its final countdown, and every minute and every second was time that Xin Ke was giving away from his fingertips.

All the friendly conversation was just a facade; Suer was already standing on the edge of a cliff, with loose rocks sliding down his feet.

It wasn't that she had magnanimously forgiven Suer's actions; in fact, all their lighthearted interactions so far had been based on Xinke's casual, almost carefree approach, like manipulating a ball of yarn. The pale-golden-haired forest elf had already decided Suer's fate in her heart.

In terms of sheer fickleness, the forest elf before him was the most unpredictable of all the people Suer had ever seen in his past and present lives; one could even call him a lunatic.

“…You’re really blunt,” Suer sighed deeply. “Couldn’t you leave a little room for imagination? Like, I moved the great Miss Nielbaren, and she’s going to kindly spare my life or something—after all, I’ve worked so hard to gather and translate this important information about the goblins for you? I’ll do my best to escape later, okay?”

"Pfft, Mr. Monkey, have you been reading too much of this kind of writing to pass the time? I didn't expect this kind of literature to be popular among monkeys," Xin Ke scoffed disdainfully. "Or are you hoping that something will happen between us? Would you have sex with a roadside stone? That's disgusting!"

To deny something from the perspective of species is no longer a matter of personality.

'I never expected to be scolded by people from another world for not believing in the plot of a novel,' Su Er thought with a wry smile.

"So you never thought that after being so bluntly told this, I would fight you to the death, even knowing I couldn't hurt you, I would still shout at the crucial moment to let the goblins find you?" Suer no longer concealed himself, staring intently into Xin Ke's eyes as he stated each word clearly.

Either kill him here and give up on exploring the monkey's secrets, or die with him in this deep underground, even having your precious soul stone stolen by your most hated enemy... Suer suddenly wondered what Xin Ke's considerations were in revealing this matter directly at this time.

Chapter Fifty-Six: The Attack

After all, it had already been proven that she couldn't use magic to control Suer, and Xin Ke couldn't possibly ignore that.

Even after witnessing the mass slaughter and plunder of his fellow countrymen, he never lost his mind in anger. Sull simply did not believe that this forest elf would place his life on the same level as him... So, what happened silently?

"Ah~~ that's true~, but ah~, Mr. Monkey, why don't you try doing this once first?" Xin Ke said lightly, even smiling somewhat seductively, "Come on~, just like you said, shout it out loud, and perish together with the noble me here... Shout it out~ Mr. Monkey?"

As if performing in some kind of opera, Xin Ke urged him on with an impatient air, each note ending with a slightly fluttering tail.

"..."

But Suer didn't make a sound at all.

It's not that I don't want to, but that I can't.

In fact, the moment Xin Ke urged him, he made a decisive decision in his heart: he wanted to show this forest elf his determination to perish together with her. However, nothing unusual happened—or rather, that was the biggest abnormality.

Suer could clearly feel the presence of his body and muscles, but he failed when he tried to command them to do anything.

He tried to raise his hand but couldn't move it; he wanted to speak but couldn't open his jaw. His teeth and muscles were as hard as rock. He knew his body was here, but it felt as if it had become someone else's body, completely out of his control.

Suer's mind was free, but that was all he had left with.

"Ah~, can't shout it out, can you? Mr. Monkey~", Xin Ke walked over to Su Er's side and slowly circled around him, who was still sitting motionless.

Even his eyeballs couldn't move, and his eyelids, which hadn't blinked for a long time, made Su'er's eyes uncontrollably sting. He could clearly feel Xin Ke's slightly cold fingers brushing across his cheek, past his ear, and stopping at the edge of his fragile Adam's apple. She even playfully pinched and pressed it... His sense of touch was normal.

“My guess has been proven right~~~” Standing behind Suer, Xinke suddenly bent down and looked at Suer from front to back with a gentle smile on her face. “Mr. Monkey should still be able to think now, right? But this time he can’t break free from my magic like last time.”

Unsurprisingly, no answer was received.

“From the very beginning, I’ve been thinking about one question: why did my magic fail?” Xin Ke said as she continued to slowly pace around Suer. “That was a spell developed by the forest elves and fairies together. It’s not just for lower-level creatures; its goal is to bind and control the highest-level life forms. How could a mere monkey possibly have the power to break free from that level of spell?”

"So I made another assumption—what I couldn't control was Mr. Monkey's soul, or his body... Now it seems to be the former?"

Xin Ke squatted down in front of Su Er, curiously looking into Su Er's unblinking eyes. Then she reached out her finger and wiped away the tears that were streaming down his face because he couldn't blink. The next moment, Su Er felt the joy of his eyelids moving again after a long time.

"The spell I used in that moment of desperation to help Mr. Monkey escape the pressure of the high-speed submarine gave me a great idea. Since then, I've been carefully controlling the number of Pokémon I've been feeding into Mr. Monkey, and you haven't noticed at all," Xin Ke shrugged, seemingly helplessly, before continuing, "It's been a little difficult. Mr. Monkey doesn't retain many Pokémon in his body, so even a slight increase in the amount he ingests will cause him discomfort. Maintaining this balance in such a short journey has been an interesting challenge for me. By the way, I also know Mr. Monkey's body very well now~"

Ignoring the forest elf's lewd remarks, Suer was still slowly digesting everything Xinke had said. He gradually understood—in other words, this forest elf had been secretly trying all along?

Just when he thought he was safe for the time being.

"But it was ultimately successful," the forest elf with light golden hair smiled even more brightly. "After bypassing Mr. Monkey's soul, I have just successfully re-established an independent control system in your body. I'm sure Mr. Monkey didn't notice before, did he? His fingers sometimes lifted and lowered uncontrollably."

……Yeah?

Suer suddenly felt like laughing.

Therefore, the forest elf in front of her never entrusted her safety to a monkey; she only ever trusted herself. As for the monkey's claim that the two of them were in the same boat trying to survive, it was just nonsense that would disappear as soon as it passed through her ear.

We really lost completely this time...

The chips he held didn't even cause a ripple, nor did they pose the slightest threat. Suer never possessed the power he thought he could use to control this elf, or the power to perish together with her.

However, manipulating a monkey did not bring Xinke any sense of accomplishment; in fact, there was another reason for her intense reaction.

“Compared to these trivial matters, there is something else that I care about more…” The smile on Xin Ke’s face gradually disappeared as she squatted in front of Su Er. Her serious tone and fierce eyes undoubtedly confirmed her seriousness at this moment. “What magic did you use on me, monkey?”

What he said was a question that Suer could not understand at all.

With an irresistible force in her slender palm, Xin Ke grasped Su Er's face, as if she would crush his skull in the next second.

“It took me so long to gradually feel a sense of unease, and then, after a deep period of self-reflection, I realized something was wrong.” The hand gripping Sul’s jaw tightened, as if he could hear his bones cracking. “You have silently affected my ability to think and judge, monkey. Is that why you asked what it feels like to use magic?”

"Is it magic that can be used without elves? Or is it magic composed of a small amount of elves that is powerful enough to affect high-sequence races?" Xin Ke kept listing, "Is it a completely new type of magic? Or is it a new power that evolved independently from beasts?"

"Speak, tell me everything. You don't want to see me go to your kind to verify it myself, do you?" Xin Ke pressed, her words carrying a cruel implication.

Chapter 57 Stress Response

Is that so?

Suer stood there, stunned, forgetting even to blink.

This is truly... one wrong step leads to another...

Xin Ke observed all the behaviors that Su Er displayed under the influence of his losing emotions. Unlike Su Er, who knew he was going to die, Xin Ke was not troubled by such thoughts at all. Even so, Su Er still could not understand or accept that he had used magic.

Realizing this, Suer began blinking frantically, which was the only thing he could do at the moment.

"Oh dear~, I almost forgot, Mr. Monkey can't speak yet." Seeing the rapidly blinking eyes on the face she had pinched out of shape, Xin Ke belatedly realized this and immediately let go of Su Er's hand.

"Mr. Monkey wouldn't be planning to yell at me before I can react, would he?" With her back to Suer, Xin Ke confidently turned around, walked to the wall, leaned against it, and looked at Suer, saying, "I don't think Mr. Monkey is smart enough to do something like that... Have you thought about how to explain this?"

"To secretly use this mind-altering magic to interfere with my judgment, and to shamelessly use this magic to talk to me and obtain information, what audacity... Ha," Xin Ke said, her arms crossed, each word dripping with a chilling heat that seemed to plunge her into hell. By the end, Su Er was almost suffocating under the pressure. "Not to mention the crimes she committed against me, a member of the Nielbaren family..."

Unable to see the elves, Suer had no way of knowing whether the suffocating feeling he was experiencing came from the pressure of the elves in the air or from the feeling of his body being manipulated by Xinke as she was driven by her anger. It was as if the air was being compressed into a ball, almost causing him to lose consciousness.

"No, cough, no..." Suer struggled to squeeze out the words from his throat, and then, as if granted the privilege of breathing, the oppressive feeling vanished into thin air.

"...I really don't know what kind of magic it is!" Finally able to lower his voice and shout, Suer collapsed forward onto the ground, clutching his lungs and gasping for breath, as if he were dehydrated, his back already covered in sweat.

"...Still won't tell the truth?" Although Su Er looked very miserable at the moment, Xin Ke was almost amused by his answer.

"I really don't know! If I really knew, would I have asked you that? That would just be giving myself away! Right!! Don't forest elves have mind-reading magic? Then use it quickly! Come and see me!" Her mind had never worked so fast before. As she spoke, Suer saw Xinke's arm raised.

"...Mr. Monkey, have you grasped this point?", Suer asked the forest elf opposite him in a complicated tone as he lowered his raised arm.

"Huff, huff... Wh, what?" Sur asked in confusion, barely managing to calm his instinctive reaction.

“The mind-reading magic doesn’t work on Mr. Monkey,” Xin Ke answered crisply, shaking her head as she continued, “We already tried it on the submarine, but we couldn’t hear anything in Mr. Monkey’s mind. It was like a stone thrown into the ocean, completely silent, sinking endlessly.”

"Huh?" Completely unexpected to hear such an answer, Suer even began to doubt whether the seemingly powerful guy Xinke was talking about was actually herself.

Wait a minute, you already used mind-reading magic back then?

So, was that disdainful attitude towards using magic just an act...?

Suer looked at Xinke with a complicated expression, seemingly embarrassed by his strange gaze. Xinke shook her head and said, "Then this is a bit difficult... How about this, I'll write Mr. Monkey's matter in a secret letter and invoking the protection of the Forest God before sending it out. Of course, if I leave here alive, it will have roughly the same effect. Perhaps this will make Mr. Monkey change his mind and loosen his grip a little?"

"By the way~, I'm very confident I can leave the mole's nest alive~", Xin Ke put on that smiling face again, but Su Er was not fooled by this illusion at all - without a doubt, this forest elf was threatening Su Er with the lives of the entire human race.

It was unknown whether the forest elves truly possessed the ability to send information from such depths underground, but even the slightest possibility was too great for Suer to gamble on.

Just closing his eyes slightly was enough to imagine the horrific scene of all humans being deliberately hunted down and tortured by the forest elves. Those long-eared people who lost the only Eightfold Spellcaster, Flower Crown Lord, would definitely do such a thing to vent their anger! Trembling, that was the world that Su Er had tried his best to empty his mind and not imagine during these past few hours.

The mistakes he has already made.

The sin he must atone for.

There's nothing to hide. To be honest, if he really had any superpowers or could use magic, Sull would have already revealed it in this situation... But he really doesn't know!

How could he possibly reveal something he himself didn't know?!

It felt as if a fire was scorching her heart. Biting her lower lip, Suer was so anxious that she curled up and grabbed her hair tightly, her platinum blonde hair falling onto the cold steel floor in front of her—that's it!

“I didn’t mean to deceive you, Miss Nirbalen,” Sue said, sitting up abruptly from the ground. She had never been so calm before. “To be honest, even I don’t know the reason for all that I’ve been through. How about this, I’ll tell you about the strange things I’ve encountered in the past, and you can judge for yourself… Is that alright?”

Looking directly into the eyes of the forest spirit, Suer forced her gaze to be as honest as possible, without the slightest hesitation or doubt. Her six-pronged pupils gleamed with scrutiny as she pondered.

“…Okay?” Xin Ke nodded gently without objecting, then curiously rested her chin on her hand. “Then let’s begin. Let me hear Mr. Monkey’s story.”

"..."

Without rushing to speak, Suer closed his eyes and carefully recalled everything he had experienced, every single detail.

Go back to the past, and back again, until that time—

"...The first anomaly appeared in an orc," Sur opened his eyes, still choosing to meet Xinke's gaze, trying to minimize his blinking. "That was when I led a few of my people on an expedition from the settlement to the area where the orcs roamed..."

Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Reason

Sul spoke slowly because there were just too many details to recall. The expedition that caused him to lose the hearing in one ear happened a few dozen days ago, and it took them several days just to reach the area where the orcs were active... As a result, Sul's memory had become very blurry.

From his reasons for choosing to go to that area because of Credor's illness to the entire process of leading a group of people to encounter the orcs, Suer didn't hide anything—he knew that the forest elves wouldn't give him any more chances.

He remembered everything Xin Ke had said, including the information that he possessed flowing spirits within him that she could sense. Although Xin Ke herself said that mind-reading magic could not work on him, Su Er could not gamble on whether Xin Ke could tell from the flow of spirits whether he was lying or not.