The Sorcerer's Handbook

Chapter 337: Something’s Off

Ashe had a feeling that things had been getting increasingly wrong lately.

Vanmura was already a fundamentally wrong city. Or, to be fair, Ashe had never known a place that felt particularly right to begin with. In the past, he had spent his nights worrying about being drained to death in a nighttime ambush while staying in a veela’s apartment. More recently, he had stumbled into a memory-stripping ”Happy House” in the Virtual World.

However, this current brand of wrong was different. It was the kind of wrong where you wake up and realize your roommate has spontaneously turned into a girl.

First, there was the matter of sleep. Since he was barred from the Virtual World for the time being, Ashe had been forced to adopt a proper sleep schedule. Yet, every time he woke up, a fresh cake was waiting in his room. The varieties rotated daily in an endless cycle of sugar, including Red Velvet, Black Forest, White Forest, and Mousse. He began to suspect the Senheiser estate was fattening him up like livestock before a slaughter. No one else seemed to get this treatment. The Cake Spawn Point was exclusive to his bedroom. Something felt off.

Then there was Lys. Ashe noticed his high-level Substitute spirit was being consumed at an increasing rate. Every time he asked, Lys insisted she had done nothing, yet he was burning through nearly three substitutes a day. He even suspected she was conducting some kind of forbidden human experimentation with them. It was beyond suspicious.

The Lady was another problem. Whenever Ashe ran into Annan in the dining hall, she would happily pat his shoulder, his head, or even his butt. She was aggressively tactile, acting as if they were lifelong confidants even though their actual relationship was nothing more than Streetlight and Wage Slave.

And the anomalies didn’t stop there. Ashe felt that every woman he met seemed to have developed a sudden fondness for him. At the drink counter, a sea witch girl would deliberately brush her palm against his. While he was gaming in a pod, the system administrator would check on him every hour to remind him to hydrate or eat. Sometimes, when he was too focused on the game, she would even feed him directly.

It got so bad that Ashe repeatedly checked his status panel to confirm that his profession was still Everlasting Wanderer / Socially Idle Individual, and not something like Walking Aphrodisiac, Legendary Mud Worker, or Humanoid Hypnosis Spray.

Ashe considered himself quite decent-looking, but he was far from the level of Iger, who was capable of charming men, women, and children alike. This level of popularity was approaching coin-tier absurdity[1] Could it be that the Senheisers just liked his specific brand of tired, decadent office-worker look?

Still, the sudden popularity actually felt pretty good. Sometimes Ashe would even laugh in his sleep. He had never realized before that being good-looking could be this useful. He even started regretting not letting the crow healer give him the full face-reconstruction package. But it still felt very wrong.

Finally, last night, Ashe saw Iger in the dining hall. He walked over with his tray and sat down across from him. Then, something unbelievable happened. Iger ran.

The fraudster didn’t even finish his Lala Fat cake. The moment Ashe sat down, Iger fled, not even willing to offer an ”Ashe bro.” Ashe thought back carefully and realized Iger had been avoiding him for days. Several times, they were about to cross paths in the corridor, and every time Iger would take a deliberate detour. At first, Ashe thought Iger was just busy, but now it was obvious. He was avoiding him on purpose. Something was definitely happening.

***

In Ashe’s room.

Ashe, Harvey, and Lys were sharing a freshly spawned strawberry cheesecake around a table.

”So, I just want to ask if you two have any ideas.”

Perhaps due to lingering aftereffects from the Blood Moon Candies, Harvey had developed a serious sweet tooth. However, he didn’t eat the cake directly. Instead, he coated it with Catnip smoke and ate it like flavored fries.

The necromancer said casually, ”Iger has never called you ’Ashe bro’ to begin with, has he?”

”He may not have said it out loud, but I know that deep down, he respects me,” Ashe replied. ”Now he won’t even talk to me. That’s how I know something’s seriously wrong.”

Lys picked out all the strawberries and popped them into her mouth one by one. She spoke with her cheeks full. ”Daddy, did you do something to offend Aunt Perskin?”

”I didn’t...” Ashe paused. He suddenly recalled breaking into Iger’s bath a few days ago for a deep conversation. ”Well, I might have done something like that...”

Lys responded, ”If you offended Aunt Perskin, just find the right time and apologize. For example, rush in while he’s taking a bath again. He’ll definitely forgive you.”

Ashe looked at Lys in surprise and gave her a thumbs-up. ”We were thinking the same thing. I knew that father-daughter bond was good for something!”

”Right!”

Ashe fell into thought. ”But... I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

Lys tilted her head. ”What’s not appropriate? Apologizing? Surely you don’t mean it’s inappropriate to take advantage of Aunt Perskin while he’s bathing. Daddy, you’re not exactly a saint, are you?”

Ashe gave Lys a light rap on the head. ”How should I put it... It just feels a bit dangerous.”

Harvey asked through a mouthful of Catnip smoke, his chewing punctuated by crisp, popping sounds. ”What’s dangerous? You’re not even afraid of Iger with his clothes on, so why would you be afraid of an undressed Iger?”

”I’m telling you, bath-time Iger is dangerous,” Ashe insisted, folding his arms and closing his eyes as if attempting to peer into the future. ”It feels like he’s holding something back. I have a strong premonition that if I go and provoke him right now...”

He paused for a long, heavy moment. ”Something terrible might happen.”

Harvey and Lys exchanged a look, but neither could fathom what Iger could possibly do to Ashe that qualified as terrible. Iger wasn’t a combat-oriented sorcerer. The most likely thing he would do was hypnotize him. Besides, his usual brand of mischief was entirely predictable. He might make Ashe strip and sprint through the cafeteria, force him to shout ”Quinna is my wife,” or compel him to call Annan his daughter. At worst, Iger would simply force him to do all three at once.

Dignity aside, Ashe didn’t seem like the type of person who actually cared about such things. It wasn’t as if Iger was going to beat him to a pulp, right?

”Then onto the next topic,” Harvey said, pivoting seamlessly. ”Regarding Ashe’s sudden surge in female attention, I propose three possibilities. One, Ashe is hallucinating. Two, Ashe has been hypnotized by Iger into hallucinating. Three, Ashe is suffering from hallucinations from Beauty Mist poisoning. Four, Ashe is experiencing hallucinations due to soul damage.”

Since soul damage now required him to sleep a full eight hours, depriving him of his usual ”high-quality worker’s nap” of two hours, Ashe had casually mentioned his recent death in the Virtual World to the group.

Lys raised her hand solemnly. ”Uncle Harvey, you actually listed four points!”

Ashe’s face darkened. ”There’s only one point there, isn’t there? And I’m telling you, it’s not a hallucination! At least not entirely!”

Harvey rubbed his chin. ”I can’t be the judge of this. We’re both men, and my aesthetic standards are far too refined. Even if I evaluated you, you wouldn’t accept the verdict. Let’s let Lys decide. You trust your daughter, don’t you?”

Ashe turned hopefully toward Lys. She finished another bite of cake, let out a soft hiccup, and wiped her hands daintily on a napkin. Suddenly, she grabbed Ashe’s sleeve, her eyes welling with sympathetic tears. She sniffled. ”I’m so sorry, Daddy... I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard. We don’t need a stepmother anymore, okay? I won’t mention it again. Please don’t do this to yourself. It makes me so sad to see you like this...”

Ashe’s hand went straight for his belt. ”Harvey, do you know any healing-type Miracles? You should be able to fix a beaten-up butt, right?”

1. It means ridiculously absurd at a mass, almost ”cheap currency” level. ☜