Chương 108: Two-And-A-Half-Years-old (7) “THE FUCK IS THAT NAME!?” “THE WORM GOD!? SERIOUSLY!? ARE YOU SERI

So. Illusions. Do you know how they work? I think you should already, with all my exploration and experiences, you should probably have a guess at least. I mean, you probably don't know EVERRRYTHING, but like, you should probably know a bit, have a guess, just like me. After all, I don't know everything too. What I know is simple. Put some magic in someone brain. Do a weird pattern around. Try to create something, see if that works, and if it does. Congratulation! You have a specific illusion. What?

You need a specific example? Alright alright. Let's start with this hallway. The hallway of Murai shop is pretty big, and it would also look pretty damn creepy in the dark, so? Guess what I did? I looked at my right. At the small open door that lead to open shop, where murai was talking to customers. Ignored the magic in his brain for now. Just kept it in stock for later. And I went to work. With me first, always, I'm the test subject.

So, I shoved some magic in my brain, and while sliding in the hallway, I tried to make it dark as fuck. And then I stopped my slide to calm down and avoid slamming into a wall as the hallway around me was... too dark. Way too dark. Not even in a scary way it's as if I was blind or in pure darkness. It needs to be less dark. With an imaginary slider that I pulled up, I adjusted the lighting. Too dark. Too light. Too... weird, why is there a hole beneath me now?

Urgh, that's what happens when you mess with your brain. Whatever. It's a quick fix. After a while. I noticed something. Manipulating light is pretty hard, I'm too used to the world around me to being lighted up by the sun and shit, I never focused on where light should hit against a wall to look natural. So I'm struggling. Pretty hard. Should I stop and try something else? Maybe remove the ambience and just go with my shadowy illusion? After a small amount of thinking. A genius idea reached me.

I shouldn't make it natural if I don't know how to make it natural! With a new mental image in hand, I remembered some horror movies in my past life, and I managed to find a cool red light tint I saw before. It's like the cliché red light you'd see in a scary dark hallways to show how meeeeenacing this place is. Not that scary really. But now that I think about it, in hindsight. I never truly saw this color in my life. In this life at least.

It's an artificial kind of light, made by LEDs and cinema teams with a shit ton of equipment. That's not the kind of light you can see in nature, even if I'm used to seeing it, from ambulances or police headlights, to movies and electronic ads, or media of all genres. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. I'm used to this color. But it's true that I never saw this color in this life, in this village. Shouldn't be a problem right?

Murai wouldn't piss himself because he saw a relatively weird light he never saw before in his ENTIRE life, a light he never managed to produce and can't produce with this place technology. Right? He wouldn't right? Right!? Eh. We'll see. After doing the polishing touches in the hallway, and making some places darker, lighting them up with just a red tint, and making the cold room red light more intense to make it looks like the light come from here, I started to work on the main part. It was pretty hard.

But I managed to manipulate the cold room around me pretty hard until it looked like a scene straight out of a horror movie. With like... a serial killer butcher or something. Also added a bunch of scary shadows, human figures, EVERYWHERE for the heck of it, also hidden some in the shadows of the dead animals. Looked pretty cool. Took me a shit ton of time, but I was really happy about the results. Still, this was just the ambience! Now! For the contact!

Looking around the room, I found some pretty small but pretty tall fox carcasses, slid them in front of the wall. The wall anyone would first see when they open the door. I hid behind the fox, and started practicing looking taller. You know. I have a problem with illusions. I can make myself look kind of crazy weird and shit, but... changing my body too much? IT'S HARD! Really hard. When I try to make myself look tall, like adult height, the illusion barely stays for some seconds before breaking.

And it breaks directly whenever I move. I don't know why. But I guess it's because the way my REAL PHYSICAL body moves, is so different than my fake ILLUSION body that the illusion breaks. And people just can't believe it. It's like seeing two kids in a trenchcoat. It's not... natural. It's clear that it's one kid sitting on another kid shoulders, the coat moves weirdly, and the limbs are too small and unnatural, the sleeves don't show any hands.

That's probably what happens when I try to make myself look like an adult. Which is a shame. I've been trying to improve on this. But it looks like a hard limit, barely added a second or two of illusion time over hundreds of training hours Which is a shame because this was my ultimate plan. Make everyone think I'm an adult. And interact with my mother, and everyone else like that. Would have been so easy to take care of my problems like that. Unfortunately... I can't. So here I am.

Sliding on the wall of a cold room. My legs are extended down, the tip of my toes hidden by the fox carcass to make me look taller than I am. To give the illusion that my feet are on the ground, when really? They're in the air and I'm sticking on the wall to make myself taller. With that done. I start messing with one of my main illusion that I know well. A blur. I'm basing myself on glasses. I know how it feels to look through glasses, for when I tested my friends glasses.

And I'm basing myself on this experience to make me look as if I was... well, extremely blurry. My face is unseeable. My legs and arms and everything of me is stretched in a blur. Then I make this blur looks dark, black, like some sort of shadow. Then I add big scary red eyes. And boum! I look pretty tall and threatening! And that's how I'm going to scare Murai around! Well, I wasn't done just yet. I needed a way to communicate and talk with a voice that isn't mine, mine's way too cute.

So I use one of my main voices too. And I check it in my brain to make sure it works well with the whole setup, been a while since I held this many different illusions in the same time, it's hard as fuck. But after some tests, I could confirm that yes. It worked. It's a weird voice. I used a mix of the last of us clicker sounds, and I imagined how it would mix with the voice of kratos from god of war, and BOUM! You got a scary as fuck voice! One that goes from growly clicker, to high clicker that hurts the ears.

When I was done with all lf that, I looked back at murai to see how long the rest of his day would take. And I was greeted by a pretty strange sight. He was in a pretty tense confrontation with five guys. Six apparently, the one at the door was with them. After they leave. Murai close the shop and start insulting their lineage. Looks pretty bad. Well. Looks like it's the perfect moment for me to strike. Going back on the wall, and sliding on it, I make sure all of my illusions are on.

Check everything one more time. And then, I breathe, and focus on the magic I put in his brain. And I reproduce ALL the patterns in my own brain that allows me to see and feel this horror show, into his OWN brain. It's pretty hard to adapt to his specific brain. But I'm skilled enough to adapt against animals on the fly now, it's not a hunter that's going to stop me. When I'm done. I whistle And I enjoy the show. And what a show that was! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA! DAMN THAT WAS FUNNY TO SEE HIM TIPTOE AROUND!

Bro was mesmerized by the light though, didn't think it would break him that much, well, I guess it's not a common color. Modern knowledge for the win! When he finally enters. I go crazy, and eager to have some fun after seeing how funny he acted while tiptoeing around. I improvise illusions on the fly. First off. No sound. It's working! YIPPPPEEEEE! Then, a small gentle whistle, like a scary fucking lullaby, or like link ocarina but used for scary scary things. And finally.

I use my clicker voice to talk, restraining my laugh at seeing his wide open eyes.

"Murai Taki" Fuck! THAT SOUNDED AWESOME! Great! I know because I'm putting myself through the same illusion as him at the same time to course correct if I mess up. That sound-! Murai falls on his knees, lift his hands and clasp them into a prayer toward me, below me.

"THE WORM GOD!" Sorry what?