The Challenger's Return: Rebirth of the Rainbow Mage

Otto's gaze swept across the thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of spiders in the cavern.

They stood on their eight legs with menacing looks amidst the darkness.

Otto went up to and examined the nearest spider.

He intended to experiment and figure out ways to get them to do as he wished.

At the very least, perhaps with this study Otto could glean some clues about their behavior in general.

After a few minutes, Otto came to realize that no matter what stimulus they were presented, they didn't show a single reaction.

Hell, Otto couldn't even get them to twitch.

He studied the spider monster in front of him for what felt like hours, poking it, prodding it, cutting into its abdomen to check the state of its organ function, but found nothing.

Finally, he sliced open its brain to check for clues.

It wasn't long before Otto realized something odd, though.

His brows furrowed.

An inconspicuous mana signature rested in the corner of the spider's brain.

It was inconsistent with the rest of its body.

What was this mana signature supposed to be doing?

Otto narrowed his eyes in thought.

As he continued to scrutinize it, its function was gradually revealed.

Then, a small smirk played on his lips.

He finally understood why these spiders weren't moving.

It was not that they wouldn't move, but that they couldn't.

These spiders no longer had any free will, or rather, 'will' at all, left.

It had been taken from them by the Throskarts.

In fact, it was a similar principle to how they controlled the poison golem.

The only difference was while that was only a 'pseudo' living thing, these spiders were the real deal.

Otto still detected faint breathing, despite literally cutting into this thing's brain.

He spurred his mana forward to get a feel for the mana signature.

If it was anything like the technique they'd used to take over the poison golem, there was a solid chance Otto would be able to crack it...

Seconds passed.

Then minutes.

Beads of sweat moistened Otto's brow.

After a solid hour of focusing on cracking the code, Otto shook his head. He was forced to throw in the towel.

If the previous poison golem was like a manual lock that Otto could still crack, this mana signal was an electronic lock with a runic password that Otto could not even begin to guess.

Apparently, the Throskarts had learned from their mistakes on the last floor...

His brows furrowed deeper.

He needed to make these spiders move, somehow, if he were to complete the next component of the plan.

His thoughts turned as he sat down onto the ground.

'Wait…why do they still have brains at all if they're being controlled?'

'Couldn't they have been like the golem, a puppet on a string?'

His face lit up.

'No! Then they wouldn't be able to fight the contestants.'

He'd been thinking in the wrong direction!

Instead of trying to directly take control of their minds with a potion, array, or spell, why not use the spider's own mind against it?

While it didn't seem to feel pain, Otto would dare to bet that the spider had certain instincts that the Throskarts hadn't programmed out.

For example, if it smelled the scent of an ancient predator, or delectable prey, or an herb that was once poisonous, etc...

Though it was still possible the Throskarts had dulled the spider's sense of smell entirely...

Otto mentally rummaged through his spatial storage ring to find the massive stockpile of herbs he'd stacked for safekeeping.

He was looking for an herb or ingredient that was either uniquely tempting to these spiders, or extremely terrifying.

Because the Throskarts didn't directly take control of these spiders' brains, there was a good chance that control over their limbs could be overcome if the spiders were presented with a strong enough stimulus.

Apparently, an innate fear of death wasn't a strong enough…

So Otto had to find a stimulus.

One by one, ingredients appeared in Otto's hand.

He carefully held each over the nose of the nearest spider monster (thankfully, unlike regular spiders, these monsters had noses beneath their eyes), taking care to allow the spider a chance to give a reaction to each ingredient.

Since he used only a single ingredient each test, their smells wouldn't be pungent.

Thus, the reaction he sought wasn't large, merely a twitch of some sort that would indicate that this herb was stimulating enough to the spider to overcome the Throskart's control.

Even better was that the Throskarts would never know that their spiders had gone rogue...

Another hour passed.

Finally, Otto revealed a wide grin.

Not one, but two reactions!

[Wolfs Laird Green] a small brown knobby herb, when placed near the spider, caused the spider to recoil, moving almost a centimeter back.

While the [White-Winged Crossed Liver] caused it to lean slightly forward…

A plan slowly unraveled in Otto's brain.

He abandoned the search for reactions- two was enough- and ran to the far end of the cave room.

Then, he began multitasking.

With one hand, he began to refine herbs, while his other hand drew an easy array on the cave floor.

Otto also took care not to let the smell of his concoction escape the small radius surrounding him by putting up a separate array between him and the rest of the spiders.

He started to sweat slightly, though it wasn't due to the heat this time, but the intense concentration required of these tasks.

It was even more important to concentrate here because the only water he could use while concocting was the remaining half glass of the same condensed water with which he'd arrived in the desert.

Another hour passed, until Otto estimated that it was evening right before the execution.

Where the 14 contestants would be reduced to 10…

Finally, Otto was finished.

Three small sludge like potions, two brown, one gray-green stood before him.

Two simple arrays laid out under his feet.

Otto took two of the well-sealed bottles of brown potion and placed them into the two arrays.

The gray-green sludge, he kept directly on his person.

Then, he checked his boots.

[Minor Teleport]

Space Element

Teleport to a previously 'marked' location on the same planet. Mark up to 5 spots.

Load Time: 1 minute (standing still), 25 minutes (moving)

Uses: 1

Cooldown: 72 hours

He took a deep breath as his body slowly vanished from the cavern.

****************************************************

Otto had the mansion all to himself as the night passed.

But he didn't feel relaxed at all.

Others might look at the mere ten contestants remaining on the fifth day and think that Otto, as the assassin, had basically finished his work already.

However, Otto knew two other things.

First, the game wouldn't kill anyone once there were 10 or fewer people in a round.

The execution would be skipped.

Second, the game would end tomorrow evening.

As the 10 people remaining would have 'won' the round.

But if Otto couldn't kill the rest of them, he would be killed instead.

It was part of his [Assassin] special role.

Moreover, the game masters still hadn't made their move to hinder him…

Thus, when the sun rose again, signaling the arrival of morning on the last day of the game, Otto was greeted with one look of immense self-satisfaction.

Greer's face looked exceptionally gaunt under the heat.

He smiled at Otto and cheerfully announced,

"The last day of the game!"

Apparently, his information source was no worse than Otto's own.

Greer turned to the other nine, who suddenly sported looks of hope on their sunken faces.

"It's really…the last day?"

"Are you sure? How do you know?"

Another man, Mikelo, whose name Otto had inadvertently learned yesterday, was more skeptical.

After trying to pressure Otto on the first day to give up his lanes, he seemed to grow more cautious in his movements.

Plus with the rebellion, he had been duped once already…

Greer just shot a mysterious smile at Mikelo and didn't respond before facing Otto.

"So? What do you think, a-ssass-in?"

Everyone's eyes widened.

Mikelo pointed a shaking finger at Otto,

"So it WAS you! That whole rebellion was you trying to catch us all in one fell swoop!"

Greer threw in a taunt,

"Too bad…you failed. If only nine more people had been fooled…"

He sighed with 'regret.'

Mikelo also cursed loudly and stomped on the ground.

"Damn, I should have known."

"Your actions were so suspicious…"

But then he looked queerly at Otto.

"Wait, if the game is over today, does it mean that you failed?"

Otto suddenly thought there was something off about Mikelo.

He couldn't put his finger on it, but Mikelo seemed like...he was acting for some reason.

As a consummate liar, Otto was adept at spotting kin. Even if his 'kin' happened to be an enemy.

Mikelo was hiding something.

Otto narrowed his eyes at the short man but didn't respond.

Greer smirked again.

"He failed. And you know what the game masters love to do to failures…"

Otto nodded.

"Indeed. I will die if I fail, but…"

Suddenly, he shot forward at lightning speed.

His fist was aimed straight at Greer.

Greer just gazed at Otto emotionlessly.

He didn't have time to react.

But even if he could, he wouldn't.

His speed was not even close to being Otto's match.

But the punch never landed.

Otto simply patted Greer on the shoulder.

Then, as if to intimidate the rest of them, he patted each of them, too.

To the point where they all shrunk back the moment Otto came near…

Especially remembering that Otto wanted to kill all of them...

The partitions rose up from the ground once more for the last time under heat of the midday sun.

Otto's eyes sparkled.

'Here goes nothing.'

He shot forward.

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