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#068. Artificial Emotions (2)
I knew that I could induce emotions in others through certain actions.
When you praise someone, joy fills their vessel, when you show them money, they become greedy, and when you hold a knife to their throat, fear rises.
However, such actions were not always effective and sometimes required considerable energy consumption or risk.
But what if you push mana directly into your opponent’s vessel?
“… … .”
Why did I only think of this method now?
Is it because in the past there was no need to care so much about other people’s feelings?
Anyway, I focused on my work.
The golden mana that had been completed from the boy’s fingertips flew into the air.
“I’m sorry. I’ve shown you… something you shouldn’t see.”
Golden Mana arrived in front of Skye, who was hurriedly cleaning up the surroundings with a sober face.
In front of his bowl, to be exact.
‘The bowl is already filled with other emotions.’
There is no room to enter.
But wouldn’t it be possible if we made it?
Like forcibly kicking out a vagrant sitting on a street bench.
Ray concentrated.
The golden mana, which had been wandering around, unable to find a place to enter, dug into the emotions of the vessel with great momentum.
A struggle ensued.
The golden desire somehow tried to get inside, and the emotions of the vessel, on the other hand, tried not to give up their place.
But the emotions contained in the bowl were all different types, so the bond was weak.
Eventually, materialism succeeded in entering the vessel and taking its place in the center.
‘It’s done.’
Other emotions of the same volume were pushed out of the bowl like defeated soldiers.
And the existing desires that had been in the corner of the bowl were attracted to the new desires like a magnet and merged into one.
“So, if you sign a contract with our mercenary group… .”
Skyle, who had been speaking excitedly, suddenly trailed off.
His eyes glanced at the expensive-looking paintings hanging on the wall and the decorations on the table.
Knock knock. Knock knock.
The fingers that had been tapping the table slowly moved towards the small decoration, then he quickly picked it up and put it in his bosom.
“… … .”
“… So if you join us, I plan to give you my full support.”
Skyle continued speaking calmly, seemingly unaware of his own actions.
Ray took a coin out of his pocket and pushed it gently across the table.
Thud!
The coin disappeared into Skyle’s arms along with his hand this time.
Ray pushed a fine gold-rimmed glass across the table this time.
Thud!
It’s gone.
A small statuette in the shape of a wolf.
Thud!
It’s gone.
This time, a silver candlestick.
The volume was considerable.
“… … .”
“… … .”
Ray stared at Skyle, whose eyes were trembling.
After a moment of silence, Skye hesitantly reached out and grabbed the candle holder, grumbling as she put it in her bosom.
Then he continued speaking in a very strange posture because of the candlestick.
“First of all, you have to go up to Sector 45 at least to find a proper mercenary office. Almost none of those who come down to such a remote sector… .”
It seemed like he didn’t care at all about the situation up until just now or about his current appearance.
No, it seemed like he wasn’t even aware of it.
Ray assessed the situation.
‘Is it because the emotional balance in the bowl is broken? Is it because I artificially manipulated it?’
At first glance, it seemed like a similar phenomenon to mana addiction.
Walter came to my mind.
The case was a little different, but in that case too, at the last moment, one type of emotion took over in the vessel.
The emotion is anger.
In the end, the vessel burst under the pressure of the rising anger.
‘… and then she appeared like a doll, acting only according to her goals.’
It would have been a problem if something similar had happened.
Skyle is the character who must play an active role as a guide until he meets the blue-skinned rock deer.
So it was right to be careful.
So that his bowl doesn’t burst.
However, it was also true that I could not give up my experimental interest.
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“The types of support we can provide are….”
Ray ignored Skye’s words and focused on his work.
The golden mana continued to swell, pushing away other emotions within the vessel.
Now it’s more than half the size of the bowl.
It was a mass of emotions of unusual volume that would never appear under normal circumstances.
“So, if the wizard is with us… .”
Skyle felt his heart pounding strangely.
I couldn’t stop thinking about money, and my breathing was strangely ragged.
‘Damn, why am I like this? I definitely just sobered up a little while ago. I definitely think about money a lot in my daily life…’
It wasn’t to this extent.
Even though he is a money grubber.
Is it because the intoxication hasn’t completely gone away yet?
I don’t know the exact reason, but in reality, that wasn’t an issue as important as the dirt on my fingernails.
Right now, sitting in front of me was an enormous nobleman who I had to catch at all costs.
‘We have to recruit him. Absolutely.’
An unidentified voice was heard.
It rang in my head like brainwashing.
Make sure you don’t miss out on even the smallest gains.
That was a given.
If I could increase my wealth even by a little, I would have to take off my shoes and step forward.
What’s more, the opponent is a magician who will increase the value of the mercenary group!
‘Money, yes, money. It’s definitely something that will bring enormous profits.’
In addition to increasing the value of the mercenary group, if you could get a magician as an ally, you could drastically increase the success rate of ‘that plan’.
And then.
Ray sensed that the expansion of golden mana had stagnated.
‘You can’t go in anymore?’
The golden mana is now only about two-thirds full of the bowl.
But what the boy wanted to see was the entire bowl filled with golden mana.
“… … .”
I pushed the mana a few more times, but the existing emotions in the bowl would not give up any more space.
As if that place were the last bastion that must be defended.
Ray bit his lip.
It was a feeling of impatience that I rarely felt.
I had to find a way.
If left alone, all the golden mana that had been worked so hard to grow would drain away.
A flash of thought.
“If I join the Skye Mercenaries, will I be able to make a lot of money?”
Skye’s mouth opened.
The stagnant golden mana began to expand rapidly.
Soon Skye began to smile broadly, her voice cracking with excitement as she spoke.
“Haha! Of course! Of course! With the wizard’s skills, it’s only a matter of time before you’re on a money spurt! Ah! Ah! Of course, I’ll need to add a little bit of skill to that as well!”
He later added:
“I knew you were greedy for money, too, Mage! I knew it when you extorted money from me in the wilderness! Suicide blackmail… No, no! That’s not important. Hahahaha! After all, isn’t money the most important thing in life?”
A new emotion was raising its head in the corner of Skye’s bowl.
Friendliness. A sense of connection. Solidarity.
These kinds of emotions combined to form a sense of fellowship.
Ray continued to tailor his words to stimulate Skye’s emotions.
“That’s right. It’s good to have a lot of money.”
“Now I can finally understand.”
Skye was delighted.
With each strike of the drum, the golden mana continued to grow and soon filled the entire bowl.
Ray was satisfied.
It was a success to pour until the glass was almost overflowing.
Because I had used up a lot of mental energy, my head was dizzy and my whole body was soaked in cold sweat.
But instead, I felt refreshed.
It feels like I’ve completed a piece of art, like the painting hanging on the wall.
It certainly didn’t compare to Veronica’s white sun, but it didn’t look too bad.
“… … .”
At that moment, I saw a small amount of emotion, the size of a fingernail, remaining in the corner of Skye’s bowl, not yet pushed away.
It was an enemy.
It may have been born from an encounter in the wilderness.
I didn’t like the fact that my finished work had such a flaw.
Refocusing her mind again, Ray poured a very small amount of golden mana into Skye’s vessel.
‘I have to concentrate.’
The feeling of dropping the last drop into a round, overflowing glass.
If I was not careful, I could have broken the bowl like Walter.
The moment when the golden mana contained in the bowl slightly expanded its boundaries.
Woof.
Any remaining hostility was pushed outward.
Skye said.
“Sir, do you have any intention of making a real splash?”
*
“That old man is very careful about his own safety. He stays in his hotel room and rarely comes out, and when he goes out, he always has about a dozen bodyguards with him.”
To summarize Skyle’s words, the story was like this.
He wants to lure his client, John Grid, into the wilderness, capture him, and steal all his assets.
‘This is why I harbored such hostility towards John at the hotel.’
Only then did Ray understand what had happened.
No matter how much I thought about it, it was an emotion that could never appear in a normal employer-employee relationship.
“Can you guess how much wealth that old man has? At the very least, it must be in the hundreds of millions. Maybe even in the tens of billions. According to the stories and articles of the rich, he spent a lot of his wealth trying to revive a failing company, but he was once the head of a company that was a legend in the industry. There must be a huge amount of money left.”
Hundreds of millions. Billions.
I couldn’t really gauge it.
My first thought was that it would be quite heavy to carry around.
“I don’t think you’d carry that much money around. Do you have a separate place to store it?”
“Of course.”
Skye took a card out of his pocket.
“Bank Ignis.”
It was a black plastic card with embossed gold lettering.
“There is a saying that the bank in the sun is Citi Morgan, and the bank in the shade is Ignis.”
Bank, a facility that did not exist in Sector 50.
Through the knowledge I gained from reading, I had a rough idea of what kind of function the place had.
“What sets Ignis apart from other banks is that it safely stores money from any source as long as you pay the membership fee.”
Skyle added.
He said that he saw John using Ignis’ card when he received the request.
“I need to figure out the password, but it’s not that hard. If you put a knife to my throat, I’ll have no choice but to tell you the number. I’m an old man who values my life very much.”
The golden mana in the bowl shook its body noisily.
“In addition to the password, you will need to verify your identity to use money, but this is not a big problem. Even if you go up to the sector where the nearest Ignis branch is located, there are plenty of professional traders.”
Skye spoke as if the money in the account was already in his hands.
“The background check has been completed. The company was completely liquidated two years ago, and all blood relatives have been cut off. The public interest in Kernel Water has cooled. If he goes missing in such a remote sector, no one will care or notice. The only problem is.”
The golden mana that had been rippling stopped.
“The young wizard who sticks around the old man is the problem. He’ll be the biggest variable if a battle breaks out.”
The young wizard’s name is Michael.
Skye went on to list all the things she had tried to do to keep Michael away from John.
“I tried everything, but he never seemed to give up all day. He was very devoted to his boss. Even his own son wouldn’t be like that.”
Skyle, who had been racking his brain trying to find a way to exploit the gap, came to a conclusion.
The cleanest and most efficient way is to lure all the bodyguards together with John and deal with them all at once.
“If the wizard can just take care of Michael, the rest will be fine. Excluding Michael, your bodyguards are twelve. My subordinates are thirty-eight. No matter how well-trained and well-equipped they are, this difference in numbers is unavoidable.”
Wizards are beings that are not easily affected by common cold weapons and firearms.
“It’s the law that wizards should fight other wizards.”
“… … .”
Ray wasn’t all that surprised by Skye’s story.
It just seems like you’ve been planning things pretty seriously.
On the other hand, I had that thought.
‘Are wizards really that rare? So much so that you couldn’t find anyone to recruit before me?’
Did they hesitate until the very end to save on hiring costs?
Or maybe there wasn’t enough time to find someone to join the plan.
Considering the magnitude of Skye’s greed, the former seemed more likely.
‘anyway.’
As long as it didn’t interfere with seeing the blue-skinned rock deer up close, it didn’t matter what was happening next to him.
Even when gunshots rang out.
Whether someone is fighting or not.
However, if you have to directly intervene in the battle, the story is different.
I didn’t want to waste energy on unnecessary things if there was no particular benefit.
‘… I can roughly guess what kind of benefits you are offering me.’
It is clear that he intends to share some of the property he took from John.
It wasn’t the kind of benefit that was particularly attractive.
Ray asked one more question.
“How do I lure John out of the sector?”
Skye smiled contentedly, probably thinking that Ray had almost come over already.
He took out a photo and pushed it across the table.
“You’ll know when you see it.”
A blurry photo taken from a distance of a herd of stationary rock deer.
One of them raised its head and looked this way.
The guy’s skin is blue.
In the middle of his forehead, something small and glowing the same color as his skin.