Chapter 70
“I’m not sure if the meal will suit your taste.”
“It’s more than enough—delicious.”
Juhyeok was surprised by the unexpected answer.
Garisto, wanting to ease into conversation, first invited him to a meal.
For Juhyeok, who needed Garisto’s cooperation, refusing wouldn’t do any good.
After all, Garisto was the one in control.
He was the only one who could free him from the artifact embedded in his body.
Knowing that acting against him would bring no benefit, Juhyeok accepted the meal invitation.
“By the way, where did you even get the training room?” Garisto asked.
“Even as a failed project, an artifact made by a demon isn’t something you can easily get your hands on.”
Of course, items connected to demons were strictly forbidden.
They were usually controlled at an international association level.
So where had he acquired such a rare thing?
Juhyeok answered simply:
“On the academy rooftop.”
“The academy?”
Did he even know what that was?
Juhyeok hesitated briefly, wondering if he should explain, but Garisto reacted as if he already knew.
“You’re saying there was a training room among those tiny, inexperienced kids?”
“Yeah… I don’t really know why it was there either.”
After the artifact was embedded, he had quietly investigated the academy, but as a student, there were limits to what he could discover.
Even after graduation, he had tried to find any leaked information, but in the end, it was all in vain.
He had also been careful not to actively search too obviously—getting caught by the artifact’s owner could raise unnecessary suspicion.
“You didn’t sell it to the academy, did you?”
“I don’t remember. It was so long ago, and it was a failed project, so I probably sold it cheap.”
Unfortunately, even a brilliant mind doesn’t remember everything.
In truth, it no longer mattered who had obtained the artifact.
He would meet its creator eventually, so knowing who bought it was unnecessary.
“That doesn’t matter now.”
The most important thing wasn’t who had bought it.
“Can you remove this from my body?”
Could Garisto extract the artifact?
For now, this was Juhyeok’s top priority.
“Well… I’m not sure. It was a discarded project, left untested.”
“For something so careless, it has absurdly incredible performance.”
Time inside the training room passed differently from outside.
Juhyeok had been so absorbed in handling the dolls that he barely noticed, but he could roughly tell that more time had passed than outside suggested.
Time manipulation.
That alone was remarkable, but it wasn’t the only ability.
“Time flows differently from reality, and it even suppresses all fatigue your body should feel. No one could make an artifact like that easily.”
Inside the training room, one feels no fatigue.
No need for sleep, no need for food.
Even if beaten by the dolls, you only feel a brief pain without injury.
“Yeah… making it took quite some effort,” Garisto nodded, seemingly pleased.
Though not meant as praise, the words seemed to gratify the creator.
“Still, that artifact was absurdly overpowered.”
“Why?”
“Because the escape conditions were ridiculous.”
You had to catch the dolls a million times to escape.
There was no other way out of the artifact.
“At first, it was meant to make low-magical beings usable as weapons… but even then, a million times is excessive.”
An ordinary human or demon would go mad before finishing.
“If their sanity falters, the artifact inflicts overwhelming damage, ending everything. In short, only transcendent mental strength could handle it.”
Garisto looked at Juhyeok with a joyful expression, smiling like a niece seeing a favorite uncle.
“But do you really need to remove it? It seems to be operating stably now.”
“There’s no guarantee it won’t cause trouble in the future.”
If it could continue being used safely, it would be fine—helpful for his own growth.
“But who knows when it might suddenly malfunction?”
Especially now, after ingesting the Dream Herb, the artifact had become unstable.
Garisto glanced at him regretfully.
“That’s true… but right now, I see no sign of that happening.”
“Enough talk. Let’s take a look.”
Juhyeok took out some herbs from a small bag—received from Mephisto.
They were anesthetic herbs, useful for negotiations with Garisto.
“If we successfully remove it, I’ll give you a gift too.”
“You’re straightforward about transactions.”
Garisto could tell roughly what herb it was just by looking, and nodded with satisfaction.
“Alright. After the meal, we’ll take a proper look.”
“And one more thing.”
“What?”
Juhyeok hesitated briefly, then twirled pasta with his fork.
“Did you really never put anyone in the training room?”
The stories didn’t match.
Juhyeok had clearly seen it.
The demon seeking strength, Garisto imprisoning it in the training room, consuming its magic stone—he had witnessed all of it.
He could not dismiss it as a mere summer-night dream; that stone had enhanced his magic, making him stronger than before.
“The information I have is very different.”
“Why lie? I told you, it was a failed project.”
Garisto wouldn’t waste a valuable subject on a failed artifact.
“Even if I did, the subject would only remain physically, with no mental recovery. It’d just be a burden.”
“….”
“If you think I’m lying, fine. But realistically, I had no reason to use a subject in that artifact.”
Muttering lazily, Juhyeok wondered if he was acting—or if he really hadn’t used a subject.
If he hadn’t, then what about Juhyeok’s memories of the demon?
He pondered this for a while before speaking:
“We made a promise.”
“A promise?”
“Yeah. I saw you put the demon into the training room.”
He clearly remembered Garisto’s crazed expression as he placed the demon inside.
“Earlier, you reacted as if recognizing the count’s face,” the butler remarked.
Garisto sipped water before replying:
“Huh? I’ve never implemented a function to show someone else’s memories… let alone create an illusion.”
“…An illusion?”
That word triggered a thought in Juhyeok’s mind.
He cautiously spoke, glancing at the herbs nearby.
“I think I know what caused it.”
“What?”
“The Dream Herb.”
“The Dream Herb?”
Garisto paused at the unexpected name.
“Why that?”
“I ate it.”
“….”
Garisto frowned and asked the butler:
“Did I hear correctly?”
“Yes, you heard correctly, judging by the reaction.”
“Dream Herb?”
“Yes.”
Garisto couldn’t believe it and asked again:
“You ate the Dream Herb?”
“Yeah, I chewed and ate every leaf.”
“Ha…”
He looked dumbfounded.
Seeing Juhyeok’s serious expression, he realized it wasn’t a joke.
“How… after eating that? Was it mental strength alone that let you endure the training room?”
Muttering to himself, his eyes darted between Juhyeok and the artifact, giving a chilling impression.
“Stop muttering,” Juhyeok said.
“Ah, my apologies. It’s just that I’m fascinated… by humans like you.”
He almost said “subject” again.
Could he really entrust artifact dismantling to this man?
A little doubt lingered, but there was no other option.
“Anyway, after taking the Dream Herb, something went wrong in the training room.”
“Something went wrong?”
“Messages glitched, and the dolls inside became stronger because of the Dream Herb.”
The messages had typos after he consumed it.
The dolls inside had been empowered by the herb.
Garisto tapped his chin thoughtfully.
“Hm… we’ll need to see it in person.”
After a pause, he spoke again:
“I’ll need to examine if you can remove the artifact. Eating the Dream Herb may have altered the structure a bit.”
“Understood.”
“And as I said, I’ve never used a subject in the training room.”
“Can you prove it?”
“If you want, we can make a contract.”
A contract.
For a demon, it’s absolute—breaking it could erase one’s existence.
Garisto confidently proposed it.
But Juhyeok didn’t back down.
“Then let’s make the contract.”
“Fine.”
Garisto lightly wrote a contract, stating he would answer only truthfully about the training room.
Juhyeok signed and immediately asked:
“Have you ever used a subject in the training room?”
“No. Never.”
“….”
Garisto shrugged.
No change came over him, and the now useless paper burned away in midair.
“I told you,” he said, his confident expression giving Juhyeok a headache.
