Diary of a Dead Wizard-Chapter 191: Spiritual Field

“You call this place the Sunny World?” Victor withdrew his hand but couldn't resist touching the harp strings again. “That name’s rather plain. Maybe I should give it something a bit more poetic... How about ‘Yesterday Once More’?”

As he spoke, Victor gently plucked a string.

“Twannng—”

Saul didn’t understand music, but he found the mix of high and low notes rather pleasant.

He suddenly asked urgently, “Victor, did you find the treasure?”

Victor’s fingers froze on the strings. “Uh, no… not yet.”

Saul let out a sigh. “That old wizard and the boy came in with us. What if they found it before we did?”

“They won’t,” Victor said firmly. “Even if they did, I’ll help you take it back.”

“But that old guy is a Third Rank apprentice.”

“Don’t worry,” Victor promised. “Even if I have to risk my life, your big brother will get the treasure for you.”

Saul got goosebumps just looking at Victor’s expression.

“We should split up. That way, we’ll search faster.”

But this time, Victor disagreed.

“I already searched this floor and the one below. Nothing worthwhile.”

He grabbed Saul’s arm and dragged him up the stairs.

“Let’s go upstairs.”

Victor was surprisingly strong. Before Saul could react, he was already being pulled up the stairs, unable to resist at all.

This guy might not be just a Second Rank apprentice. If I want to uncover the diary’s secret, I have to shake him off.

Just as Saul was plotting how to ditch Victor, he suddenly froze.

Victor noticed Saul wasn’t moving and reached out to pull him along again, heading up the stairs.

Saul instinctively tried to resist but then relaxed and followed Victor up.

His gaze kept shifting between the space ahead and Victor’s back, and his expression gradually grew calm.

Just as the two reached the landing between the second and third floors, a group of figures appeared before them.

They looked like seasoned mercenaries—lean and practical—but were in utter disarray, crouching and peering cautiously upstairs.

As if they were hiding from something.

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Victor stepped onto the next stair, his shoe tapping dully against the carpet-covered stone.

The mercenaries upstairs turned instantly, wide-eyed and tense.

One might have thought they’d relax seeing just two men coming up the stairs, but instead, their expressions twisted further in fear, as if terror itself was about to drip from their faces.

“Ahhh—!”

They scrambled upstairs in a frenzy as if Saul and Victor were monsters out of a nightmare.

In the blink of an eye, the four or five men who had just been on the stairs were gone without a trace.

Saul and Victor stood still.

Saul looked at Victor suspiciously. “What did you do to them?”

Victor raised his harp to shield his face. “I didn’t even see them when I came down.”

Recalling the looks and movements of the group, Saul suddenly turned to look down the stairs.

Victor stood beside him, eyes following Saul’s.

There was no one on the staircase, yet Saul seemed to see something. He ran back down a few steps.

Then he turned again and looked up the stairs.

“What are you doing?” Victor asked, curious.

Saul stopped, paused a few seconds, then slowly said, “No wonder… They didn’t see me. They didn’t see you either.”

Victor was momentarily stunned, and his expression toward Saul shifted subtly.

Saul continued, “Their eyes were fixed on this spot.”

He pointed to the stairs beneath his feet. “Which means, what truly frightened them wasn’t us, but someone, or something, that had just appeared here.”

“But we just walked up from there,” Victor said, turning around with one hand on the railing and the other holding his harp.

“I used to think the shift between rainy and sunny weather was due to us moving between different timelines, allowing us to encounter people from the past. But for a fallen family whose strongest member was only a First Tier true wizard, manipulating time is a bit of a stretch.”

Victor’s smile faded. He raised a hand, fingers hooked around a harp string, ready to pluck it at any moment.

“Then what’s the real reason?”

Saul looked at Victor, one hand supporting his chin, the other crossed beneath his elbow, eyes drifting over the surrounding architecture.

“Spirits. A lot of people died here. But for some reason, their souls didn’t dissipate. They gathered in this castle instead. The spirits of ordinary people are usually very weak, but when there are enough of them, and under the influence of something, they form a spiritual field strong enough to affect consciousness.”

Victor’s lips curled into a smile again, but this time, it carried a strange edge. “Some kind of influence… Then that must be the treasure we’re after.”

He reached a hand toward Saul. “Come, my clever little brother. I think the treasure you’re looking for is waiting upstairs. With it, you could advance to Third Rank and even become a powerful true wizard.”

Saul stared hard at him but didn’t move. “There’s still one thing I don’t understand.”

“Overthinking won’t help. Sometimes, you just have to take action. If we keep wasting time, that old man and his apprentice might get to it first,” Victor said as his fingers slid over the strings. “In a castle like this, the most important places are the master’s chambers and the hidden rooms. Especially the hidden rooms—they take time to find. We may not have much of it.”

“No, searching blindly is the real waste of time,” Saul said with certainty. He even closed his eyes, replaying everything they’d experienced in the castle.

They entered the castle.

Heavy rain fell.

They saw the kneeling knight and the faceless man.

The old wizard and his apprentice entered and commented on the strange rain.

Saul and Victor, heading toward another room, entered the Sunny World.

Saul returned alone to the front hall and saw Olaf and David, who had entered the castle half a month earlier.

When he tried to take Olaf and David with him, the two vanished, but the holy oil they handed him remained.

He saw Victor coming down from upstairs.

They went to a guest room on the second floor and entered the Sunny World again, meeting three mercenaries.

The mercenaries vanished as they fled, leaving only a foot, bitten clean off by something.

Exploring further in the Sunny World, Saul saw Victor coming down the stairs again.

The two of them appeared together in the Sunny World.

Then they saw more mercenaries going upstairs, dressed differently from the previous three.

But the fear on their faces was the same.

“I kept thinking they were afraid of me and trying to attack me.” Saul slowly opened his eyes. “But aside from Olaf and David, none of the others even spoke to me.”

Was it that they didn’t want to talk to this suddenly appearing Saul or that, in the eyes of those mercenaries from the past, the ones who appeared at the door or on the stairs were enemies beyond communication?

“So maybe… I didn’t meet the dead. I only saw their final moments—right before death.”

That’s why the figure jumping out the window vanished instantly, and the person hiding under the bed was devoured—leaving behind only a foot, bitten clean off.

(End of Chapter)