The middle-aged wizard listened to the exclamations from the crowd and couldn't help but freeze for a moment. He then turned his gaze toward the direction of their focus.
Reg's face was slightly immature, and though he wore a robe similar to the wizard's, his staff didn't have the glowing mushroom sap at its tip, so it didn't emit any special light and lacked that "mysterious" aura.
Sure enough, before he could speak, someone from the crowd questioned:
"How could someone like him possibly be a wizard?"
"Exactly!"
There were voices of doubt, denial, and argument... Regarding his identity, it was like a stone thrown into water, creating ripples across the surface.
Yet, he, unmoved by the various voices, just smiled to himself, his voice quiet but clear enough for everyone to hear:
"I'm no wizard... but compared to this one, I might just be more qualified."
He said this while looking at the middle-aged wizard.
The latter immediately understood—Reg was here to make trouble!
With an air of superiority, the wizard smiled instead of getting angry: "Where did this little brat come from? He hasn't even grown all his hair yet and dares to dress like me and talk back?"
He then cast a scornful glance at Reg, turned toward the crowd, and said:
"You need not mind this pretentious brat! Just look at him— the poison he's under, the potions he's taken— can there be any doubt?"
A fat merchant, dressed in fine clothes, quickly agreed with the wizard, saying, "No doubt, no doubt," and even took out five silver coins from his pocket, offering them to the wizard.
Reg, instead of being annoyed, chuckled and asked:
"Do you all know that this 'merchant' is working with him? Isn't it odd that only he's poisoned?"
"Just a moment ago, the so-called 'serpent monster' spread poison, and now, he pulls out the antidote— what are the chances of such a coincidence?"
The middle-aged wizard's heart skipped a beat, and he immediately scolded, "Ridiculous! I'm a wizard of the Nine-Ring White Tower! How could there be a problem with my antidote?"
"If you don't believe me, just look at the ground! These monsters I've killed couldn't have been faked!"
With those words, a few pale skulls rolled out from beneath the wizard's robe with a series of loud thuds.
The skulls were mostly small but retained the basic shape of human skulls, though each was slightly different.
Horns growing from the forehead, abnormally sharp chins, and hollow eye sockets in the upper jaw...
These strange features sparked the crowd's imagination and ignited their fear.
They shrieked and backed away from the terrifying monster skulls. But then they realized— these "monsters" were the lost souls of the wizard's victims, harmless now, and their trust in the wizard's "abilities" grew.
"How could a wizard be wrong?"
"This is a real wizard!"
While they praised the wizard in their hearts, some began to question Reg's legitimacy.
The small skulls lay quietly on the ground, their dark eye sockets staring at the crowd, as if silently telling a story.
Reg paid no attention to the noise around him, his gaze fixed on the empty eye sockets of the skull, lost in thought:
"I never expected such a young one to be harmed... Truly, this is unforgivable."
The middle-aged wizard, hearing Reg's murmurs, felt uneasy for a moment, but when he remembered that he still had the support of those around him, his confidence swelled again.
He signaled the burly man beside him to help redirect the attention back to Reg:
"This kid isn't afraid of death himself, but now he's using fancy words to trick others here."
"You all think he's doing this for what? Could he be... working with the serpent monster?!"
A stone thrown into the water caused a great stir, and the crowd quickly came to the "obvious conclusion" that Reg must be in league with the serpent monster. Some even began to suspect that Reg was the serpent monster itself!
The burly man cracked his knuckles, his towering body moving toward Reg.
"Kid, remember this— the wizard is not someone you can provoke!"
Reg glanced at the burly man, unmoving, completely unconcerned about his threat, and instead smiled faintly:
"Yes, the wizard... is not someone you can provoke."
With that, he shook his head and struck the burly man with his dark wooden staff.
The man, already close to Reg, showed no reaction to the strike and reached out to grab him.
But as soon as his hand was halfway there, it froze in mid-air.
"Since you're all so eager to see the serpent monster, let me show you the real... serpent monster!"
A blood-red light shot from the wooden staff, illuminating the burly man's face. But...
This face— no matter how you looked at it— sent shivers down the spine!
His features twisted into a contorted mass, his expression full of pain. The muscular body seemed useless as it jerked uncontrollably, amplifying his agony.
He collapsed to the ground, writhing violently, like a worm fighting for its life.
Unfortunately, his struggles were futile against the "strange" force already invading his body. The eerie movements under his skin visibly crawled from the point where the staff struck, traveling up to his neck, and then shot inward, disappearing completely.
The burly man lay still now, as if dead.
Everyone knew he wasn't really dead, though, because "he" stood up again, stiffly walking to Reg's side with a vacant stare.
The central square, surrounded by curtains, was enveloped in an eerie silence.
The twisted and horrifying magic shattered their previous understanding of the world.
The blood-red light slowly faded, and the wooden staff returned to its simple, unremarkable form. The dim yellow light of a nearby candle flickered across Reg's face, casting shadows that blurred his features.
Suddenly, Reg's lips curled into a faint smile, revealing white teeth:
"I heard you all wanted to see a serpent monster. I wonder, what do you think of mine...?"
Reg's words jolted some of the stunned onlookers back to reality, and someone finally screamed:
"A monster!"
"The serpent monster is in the city!"
Everyone, terrified, backed away instinctively, desperate to flee beyond the curtains.
But standing at the center of the stage, the "middle-aged wizard" and the "fat merchant" were locked in Reg's gaze, with nowhere to run.
The two were so terrified by his eerie methods that they collapsed to the ground.
Their eyes widened, their blue pupils reflecting the terrifying figure of Reg, and the snake-like servant with dull eyes closing in on them, growing ever larger in their pupils.
Soon, the shadows covered their entire field of vision. Like little chicks, they were each grabbed by a snake servant's hand.
"You've already claimed to be a wizard. Don't you want to see some real magic?"
"How about we see it together today?"
Reg swirled his wooden staff, grinning at the two.
The middle-aged wizard, still slightly connected to the world of wizards, finally snapped out of his daze. He hastily shouted:
"No, no! Wizard, please spare me! Wizard, please spare me!"
His collar was gripped tightly by the steel-like hand of the snake servant, lifting him off the ground as he kicked desperately.
In his struggles, his wooden staff fell to the ground, and a book hidden in his robe also dropped.
The sound of the book hitting the ground reminded him of something, and he quickly pointed at the ground:
"Wizard, wizard, I'll offer this item in exchange for my life!"