Fake Professor, Misunderstood As Strong - Chapter 194

Chapter 194: Inside the City of Horrors… Part-3.
*Don’t leave, help me!*

While Jareth was trying his best to ignore those mocking voices and insults, a very familiar voice rang out in his ears that almost made him stunned.

It was the voice of none other than Shiina herself!

Jareth glanced to his right and noticed a woman whose whole lower half was buried under rubble, and her head was bleeding heavily.

Her beautiful face bore a look of pleading that seemed out of place in this horrible place.

Jareth was momentarily stunned to see that familiar face appear out of nowhere, but he quickly composed himself.

‘Now you are resorting to using her face against me?… It’s pointless; you can’t imitate her no matter how hard you try…’

In Jareth’s opinion, Shiina was someone unique to herself; she was someone no one else can imitate or become; she had immense courage, and she was like a shining torch in endless darkness.

This pathetic illusion can’t imitate her existence at all, no matter how hard it tries; her uniqueness can’t be imitated at all.

‘Forget it; wasting my magic here will not yield anything.’

Jareth shook his head and kept moving forward while ignoring those pitiful cries of help.

Although it was hard, he had to do it.

And sure enough, once Jareth left the vicinity, the illusion stopped working, and Shiina’s face disappeared, revealing a massive worm-like creature in its place.

The creature had hundreds of sharp teeth in its mouth, and it looked very hideous and ugly. Although it’s not a strong creature, it could have definitely been enough to surprise anyone who had fallen for this illusion trap.

The further Jareth walked, the more similar scenes he started to see.

He saw Mark and other people that he knows from this life appear in the illusions and try to make him stop or try to ask for help.

But Jareth didn’t flinch even a little bit.

*How dare you lay your filthy eyes on my daughter!*

Jareth even saw his boss from the previous life who was angry at him for messing around with his daughter.

‘I don’t fear him anymore…’

*You ungrateful, son! How dare you keep living after seeing me die! Why didn’t you save me!*

The original Jareth’s mother also appeared in the illusion to curse at him for not saving her that day.

She was cursing her luck for having given birth to someone as unworthy as him, who was completely unappreciative of her.

‘I have already avenged the past hatred; those words hold no meaning anymore…’

Suddenly a familiar hand was placed on his shoulder, and the sweet voice rang out in his ears again.

*Come back to me; let’s live a happy life now that we are both here!*

Once again, a monster impersonated Shiina and attempted to thwart his progress by luring him with a false promise of a joyful life.

But Jareth easily saw through that façade.

‘I have left that happy life behind; there’s nothing left of that forgotten love… You don’t affect me anymore…’

Jareth shrugged the hand off his shoulder and kept moving while ignoring everything that came to stop him in his tracks.

Behind every illusion there’s a hideous mutated monster hidden; the very moment you fall for their trap, you will get attacked by them when your guard is down.

This whole city is filled with these horrors that torture you mentally and even physically. If you don’t want to be stuck in this illusion forever, then it’s better to not waste time and get out of this place in three hours’ time.

The longer you stay, the more powerful the influence of miasma gets in this place, and even ‘Talisman’ starts to get weaker and weaker until it breaks apart.

Although Jareth’s mana singularity will not stop working like that ‘talisman’, staying here will keep increasing his mana consumption.

With every minute, the mana consumption increases by a set amount to resist the influence of the miasma.

Eventually the consumption will become so huge that he will run out of mana and won’t even have any mana potions left to replenish his mana on time.

*Where are you going? You have a family!*

Jareth then saw Shiina with a child in her arms. The newborn child had a cute face, and it looked like an exact miniature copy of Shiina, except that it had similar eyes as his own.

Seeing the cute smile over that child’s face, Jareth was really shaken from the core for a moment, but then he sighed and kept moving.

‘Don’t try to lure me with a future that never came true… That was but a mere dream that I saw; I have already acknowledged my past…’

He always dreamt of marrying Shiina and having a happy life with her; he even had already decided the name of his kids by that time.

It was his greatest wish to make Shiina his wife; he devoted his life to that cause, but dreams are only dreams after all; reality is not always what you hope for.

His dream was shattered by those metal bats that rained down on his chest heavily and brutally beat him to death by shattering his ribs and organs one by one.

Having a happy married life and having kids of his own—that was just a forgotten dream that never came true; there’s no need to dwell on it any longer.

‘I have moved on to another path; I will keep respect for you always… But leave me be now, Shiina…’

A whole year’s worth of time has passed; he has gone through countless moments and emotions by now, and he has more or less accepted his reality by now.

Thus, these illusions can’t affect him anymore.

As if sensing that the illusion was useless on Jareth, the image of Shiina and the child was distorted to that of a zombie-like creature that was carrying the rotten body of a child in its arms.

Perhaps that was a helpless mother who ended up in this state with her child due to the influence of miasma.

‘As they say, not all stories have a happy ending; sometimes you have to accept the cruel reality and move on in life…’

Jareth cleared his mind and stopped thinking about his past and his future; what mattered now was his present.

He needs to keep working hard in the present so that the future him can be proud of the current him; this way, he will be able to live this life without regrets, unlike the previous one.

{Weaknesses, emotions, ambitions, and hate.

Beyond the grasp of reality,

And away from the strings of destiny,

Only I shall decide my own fate.}

The very moment when Jareth’s thoughts became clear, he felt like he had passed a wall that was previously unsurpassable for him.

He felt as if he had seen through the world and his existence for a brief moment in that small instant.

[Ding! Congratulations! You saw through the ‘Law’ of ‘Existence’ and ‘Null’ for a brief instant!]

[Ding! The ‘Law’ of ‘Existence’ and ‘Null’ will moderately help you from now on!]

[Ding! You have gained great insights! Your progress will be much smoother from now on!]

As if he had gained mental clarity for a brief instant, the illusion around him instantly broke apart.

That strong illusion now seemed as weak as a thin piece of paper; Jareth’s consciousness itself became so strong that it directly broke the illusion with the help of ‘Mana Singularity’.

The illusion simply couldn’t restrain his overbearing consciousness in its grasp anymore and was shattered into pieces; all the mutated creatures also broke out of its control in that moment and started to flee in various directions instantly.

As if all of them were afraid of Jareth’s immense strength, they refused to even stay near him for a single second.

All the mocking voices and creepy laughs disappeared, and the City of Horrors finally revealed its true colors to him.

Once the illusion was shattered, Jareth was able to see the true situation of the city.

All that was left of the city was a broken ruin; there were no buildings that were still intact; even those gigantic city walls were broken from various places, and the ground was completely pitch black due to corruption.

The density of miasma in this area is so high that it can cause uncontrollable mutations if someone gets stuck in this place.

But instead of getting concerned, a faint smile appeared over Jareth’s face.

‘That was a bit unexpected… In the end, I completed the mission of making it through the city of horrors much easier than I was expecting…’

Jareth was ready for another hour or two of being overwhelmed by those illusions, but the sudden interference of a very powerful ‘Law’ of the world directly helped him get rid of the illusion from inside out.

Such a thing never happened in the game, and maybe it was only unique to Jareth as he was able to resolve all the knots in his hearts.

But it was a good thing regardless.

[Mana Command: Outward Mana Flow!]

[Basic Magic: Maximum Output: Mana Detection!]

Jareth spread out his mana detection to the whole city to see if there’s any useful hidden artifacts or items in the area that can come in handy later.

But just like he had expected, there was nothing of much value left in the whole city.

After centuries of corruption, not a single precious weapon or artifact survived the erosion of time.

Jareth was a bit disappointed by that, but he didn’t dwell on it for too long and decided to move on to the next trail immediately.