Another World Magician
Alt Korean Title: 속임수의 마법사 (The Magician of Deception)
Written by: [Xirus]
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Morning broke with a chorus of birds and sunlight pouring through the shutters like nature's alarm clock.
"Hummph… ahh… what a great day to start the day," Eugene Robert yawned as he stretched dramatically and flung open his inn window.
Morning light exploded into the room like it had been waiting to pounce.
He winced. "Today's the day," he said to himself, his hand reaching for the small gear hanging on a thread around his neck.
"Let's get to work and make money." He hyping his self up
"One day I'll have my own workshop, and everyone will line up for my inventions. Mark my word, old geezer." His tone softened at the end, half declaration, half tribute to his late grandfather who passed just weeks ago.
He descended the stairs, chin high with purpose.
"Ma'am, breakfast set please!" he called to the innkeeper with the swagger of a man about to revolutionize the world with nuts and bolts.
"Sure, just a second," the innkeeper replied with a glance up from her pot.
Eugene scanned the half-empty room. "People sure like to sleep. It's already sunrise," he muttered like a cranky old man, possibly inherited from his grandfather.
As the breakfast plate landed on his table, a young girl serving the meal leaned closer and said,
"Hey, have you heard? There's this old woman who can actually curse people. The rumors have been floating around recently." The girl try to share some rumors.
Eugene flashed a grin.
"Don't worry, sweetheart. This big brother'll protect you." He added a wink for good measure.
"Get your filthy smile away from my daughter, you perv," the innkeeper barked from behind the counter, already brandishing a wooden ladle like a war hammer.
"I'm serious!" the girl giggled as she retreated into the kitchen. "If you meet her, make sure not to flirt with her. You might get cursed later on." disappear behind the curtain to the kitchen.
"Well, thanks for the trauma before breakfast," Eugene muttered.
"And here I thought today was gonna be normal." He left a few money after he finish his meal. "Time to get to work." Walking out of the inn.
Unbeknownst to him, a few gaze already locked onto him.
"Let get it started…" two figure also walk away from the inn.
***
The sun shone brightly, and the lake glittered in the distance. A humming sound echoed from far away.
Behind a small tree, two figures were hiding.
"Are you sure this is good enough?" Helina asked, worried about the disguise.
"Don't worry. I'm an expert at disguises. You look really beautiful… pffftt..." Elric tried to hold back his laugh, "...as an old woman," and broke into laughter.
"Stop it, you jerk. I'm never doing another disguise again," Helina pouted, starting to sulk.
"Okay, okay… I'm sorry," Elric said, trying to sound sincere. "pfftt...I'm sorry, Gramma. I can't stop laughing."
"Humph…"Helina grumped and look away, wearing a wig of old gray hair, hunched down with a small pillow on her back, looked like a frail elder. Her face was masked with Elric's hand crafted makeup make it pale and deeply wrinkled, almost ghost like. One eye was cloudy like it was blind, while the other was sharp and fierce look on it. Her hair was wiry and tangled with twigs. She looked like someone pulled from an old folk tale, the kind that ends in misery.
As the humming grew louder, Helina began her slow shuffle with a bamboo cane. Eugene approached, whistling casually.
Helina moved into position, muttering gibberish under her breath. As Eugene passed by, she "accidentally" bumped into him.
"Hey, watch where you're going, Granny." As Helina felt down on the ground. "You look so fragile, I'm afraid I'll accidentally break your arm," Eugene said, brushing himself off.
As he turned to leave…
Helina stood up, rage flashing across her face, still fueled by Elric's teasing earlier.
"Curse you, young lad!" she croaked. "You… you arrogant kid!"
Her voice was gravelly and wet, as if every word clawed its way up from her throat. It scraped the silence like rusted chains dragged across stone.
"I didn't even touch you, old hag" Eugene muttered, stomping away, already annoyed that his bright morning had been ruined.
"Curse you, young lad… I will curse you with misfortune!" Helina's voice echoed as Eugene walked away.
Helina eye still raging. Chest rushing up and down rapidly even after the act supposed to end.
"Hey, did it hurt?" Elric asked, seeing the real anger flash in Helina's expression as he worry that she hurt herself when "accidentally" bump onto Eugene.
"Fheww…, that felt great. The frustration's gone… Oh, what did you say?" Helina asked, being too emotional to catch his words.
"I said that was a good act. Nice work," Elric replied with a chuckle. But in his mind, he thought, "Swear to god, I'll never make her angry again."
"Let's move on to the next stage."
Both of them spoke in unison, laughing devilishly that echoes through the sky.
Eugene, walking ahead, suddenly felt the hairs on his arms stand up. In the distance, he could faintly hear a strange echoing laughter.
Sweat trickled down his forehead as he remembered what the innkeeper's daughter had said about the old granny.
"Damn it. The coincidence… It's just a coincidence… right?" he muttered, stomping his way toward the workshop.
***
The constant buzz of hammers, sawing, and clanging metal reverberated through the workshop. This was where magic engineers crafted devices to help everyday people like glowstone lanterns, which lit up with a small amount of mana, or mana stoves that replaced traditional coal furnaces.
A blonde young man strutted in proudly.
"I'm Eugene Robert," he announced with confidence. "Magic engineer. Got any work for someone brilliant?"
The workshop keeper gave him a curt nod and handed him a task. Unbeknownst to Eugene, Elric had already slipped in earlier. He swapped two of the four buckets on the table. The fakes had iron plates only on top while inside, they were completely hollow. The real one, however, was absurdly heavy.
That one was just for Eugene.
The workshop keeper was in on the trick.
While Eugene disappeared into the storage room to find a glove as he cant carry those buckets, Elric ducked beneath the table and quietly rotated it. Switching the real and fake buckets' positions. When Eugene returned, a small girl, previously coached by Elric, entered on cue.
She casually picked up the two fake buckets with a bright, smug smile.
Eugene stared, dumbfounded. He gave the real bucket another futile tug.
"How... how is she?!"
For the rest of the day, he was reassigned to the sorting team.
Once Eugene left, Elric emerged from hiding. He handed the little girl a homemade honey taffy.
"Good job, you strong little girl," he said, patting her head.
As he walked away from the workshop, a grin played on his lips.
As the next stage is already set by Helina.
***
At the inn where Eugene was staying, a new part timer had joined a few days ago. a quiet girl in an apron and thick glasses. She moved busily behind the counter, carrying trays and brewing tea.
Of course, it was Helina in disguise.
She still remembered the rumors she had helped plant about the cursed old hag. Rumors Eugene had just so happened to overhear.
A tired-looking Eugene slumped into a seat at the inn's dining area and waved for attention.
"Miss, can I get an order?" he called, voice rough.
The innkeeper's daughter peeked over and smirked.
"Hey, Eugene. You don't look so well. Don't tell me... you've been cursed by the old hag?"
At her words, Eugene flinched. His eyes darted around nervously.
"You're not gonna believe this," he muttered, leaning closer, "but I think... I really have been cursed."
The inn daughter bring back some herbal tea.
"Here. Some herbal tea. One of our part timers says it helps with sleep," she said with a soft smile. "Don't worry, it's on the house. Anyway... that curse is just a rumor. Don't think too much of it." Walking to kitchen back.
From behind the counter, Helina grinned quietly to herself.
"The stage has been prepared."
***
That night, Eugene staggered up the narrow stairs of the inn, swaying with each step.
"Who would've thought the tea actually helps with sleep…" he mumbled. "Maybe I'm just... too tired."
He fumbled the door open and collapsed onto the bed without even removing his boots. Within moments, sleep overtook him.
The wind whispered through the open window.
Eugene lay on his back, one hand resting on his chest, the other drooping off the side of the bed.
From the shadows, a black figure slipped silently inside.
Elric knelt beside the bed, studying Eugene's face with a predator's calm. A slow, malicious grin curled across his lips as he leaned in. Close enough to feel Eugene's breath.
"You have been cursed," he whispered. The words were slow. Deliberate. Repeated.
"You have been cursed."
Eugene twitched. A bead of sweat formed on his brow.
Elric tilted his head, watching intently.
"Perfecto," he whispered to himself.
He remained still, silent watching the rise and fall of Eugene's chest.
"The mind never really sleeps," he thought. "Not all of it, anyway."
His eyes scanned Eugene's face.
"Most people think sleep is like flipping a switch. It's not. The conscious mind goes quiet, but the unconscious keeps listening, processing. That's how a mother wakes at her baby's cry, or someone stirs during a storm. The ears stay open... just enough."
Eugene's eyes flickered beneath closed lids. REM sleep.
"This is the dream factory," Elric thought. "The perfect time to hijack the narrative."
He keep mumbling on his own, voice barely a breath.
"Auditory stimuli, especially emotional phrases, slip past the thalamic filters. Straight to the limbic system. Say something neutral, and the brain ignores it. But say something dangerous… it remembers." And thus, he said it.
"You have been cursed," he repeated.
Eugene's jaw clenched. His breathing hitched.
"Fear bypasses logic," Elric mused. "The neocortex sleeps, but the amygdala ,the fear center. It's always on duty. Fear gets in where reason can't."
He watched every twitch, every breath, like a scientist watching a specimen.
"Right now, the words are just seeds. But dreams are the mind's echo chamber. Soon, his brain will spin them into something bigger, something darker. By the next REM cycle, they'll become hallucinations of the shadows, figures, feelings. The nightmare writes itself."
He stood, his eyes still locked on Eugene.
"And the beauty of it? He won't remember this. Just the unease. The dread."
Elric paused at the window, gloved hand resting on the sill.
"By morning, he'll brush it off. By the second night, he'll dread sleep. And by the third…"
A slow smile spread across his masked face.
"By the third, the fear will arrive on its own. No more whispers. Just anticipation. That's real manipulation, make them do it to themselves."
He slipped into the night, leaving only the wind to whisper in his place.
As he vanished, his mind wandered... remembering the time when he try to uncover how hypnosis work.
***
[Flashback – Earth | Kim Jiwon's Room, 2:11 AM]
The city outside was asleep, but Kim Jiwon wasn't. His tiny room was a mess of notebooks, highlighters, open psychology texts, a worn notebook titled "Unveil the trick" scribble with a lot of theory. But he only had eyes for the book in his lap.
A secondhand paperback with cracked corners and a faded title:
"Control Your Dream: The Science Behind Sleep"
He leaned forward in the dim desk lamp glow, flipping to a bookmarked chapter.
"REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement) is the dream-heavy stage of sleep. Paradoxically, the brain is almost as active as when awake, while the body remains paralyzed by a mechanism called atonia."
He tapped his pen on the phrase.
So, high brain activity. But the body stays locked in." He rubbed his smooth chin and kept reading:
"REM is when the brain replays memory fragments, suppressed emotion, and stray thoughts. These elements combine to form dreams. The emotional tone is regulated by deep brain structures , especially the amygdala."
Elric scribbled in the his note book:
"Amygdala equals to emotional filter. Fear is stronger dream imprint." His other hand already flipping to another page of the book he read.
"The amygdala, part of the limbic system, stays active during REM. It's the brain's threat detector . It responsible for fear, anxiety, and survival instincts. Because the prefrontal cortex (which handles logic and self-awareness) is largely inactive during REM, dreams lack critical thinking."
He paused to reflect.
"That's why people believe anything in a dream, even absurd things it all because the prefrontal cortex, the brain's fact checker, is asleep."
"Emotions stay. Logic shuts off." he jotted short line on his notebook. And he kept on reading.
"The neocortex, which includes both the prefrontal cortex and sensory areas, is typically dominant during wakefulness. It's where reasoning, language, and planning live. But during REM, emotional centers overrule it." Flipping to the next page.
"In early sleep stages, especially during the hypnagogic state (the transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep). The brain becomes highly suggestible. Sounds, whispers, and emotional words can bypass filters and be planted directly into the subconscious."
That made Jiwon grin.
"Hypnagogic suggestibility. The sleeper doesn't know they're listening, but the brain does."
A long paragraph can be seen written on his notebook.
"This is due in part to the thalamus, the brain's sensory relay center. Normally, the thalamic filters block unimportant input from reaching consciousness. But in light sleep, those filters weaken, allowing emotional or threatening stimuli through."
He nodded slowly, as if mentally assembling a lockpick from these words.
"So basically in hypnagogia, thalamic filters open. Emotional input slips in. Then during REM, the amygdala grabs it, exaggerates it. The neocortex is offline, so there's no resistance. It mutates into dream or nightmare."
***
The next day, Eugene wandered the estate in a groggy daze. He barely remembered falling asleep the night before and had woken feeling like something was... off. His eyes darted to every shadow, every flicker of movement.
He dismissed it as fatigue. The work, the new environment. Nothing more.
Then the festival began.
The plaza was alive laughter, music, merchants shouting, children weaving between stalls. Noise was Elric's ally.
Elric blended with the crowd. "Now where is he…"
He spotted Eugene near the fountain. Squinting, muttering to himself, counting some money he just got this morning. The man had clearly not slept well.
Elric had prepared the con weeks in advance.
He became someone else, dressed in a neat black suit with white gloves, and wore a smiling white mask that covered his whole face. He approached Eugene at an angle. Not directly, never. From the side, blending with a group of street performers. He joined the applause. Close now. Six feet. Three.
First distraction. He flick a bronze coin high into the air with his left hand and whistled sharply, drawing Eugene's eye.
The coin hit the ground and rolled.
Second distraction. His right hand brushed against the Eugene's arm as if jostled by a crowd. He laughed and bowed in apology. "Forgive me, good sir," he said, his voice changed by ventriloquism skill he once mastered.
His left hand had already brushed the knot of the guy's coin pouch but not untying it, not yet. It was just to feel the tension, memorizing it.
The lift came with the third beat. A troupe of dancers burst through with ribbons and bells, perfectly timed well it more like Elric had paid them a silver for this. Their music masked the click of a modified card blade slicing the string.
The pouch dropped into his right hand. With the same motion, he passed it beneath his coat's hem where a hidden pouch waited. Fluid. Invisible.
He bowed again. "You sir, seem to be lucky today."
Elric pass on a discount coupoun for Eugene. Laughing while vanishing into the crowd as he notice how confuse Eugene look after he realize it. But Elric was already gone, just another face in the flooded market of the people.
***
Later that evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Eugene sat alone on a bench by the lake, trying to find a moment of peace in his restless mind.
"Darling… have you ever heard of a curse before?" Elric and Helina sat on the nearby benches, watching the golden sky ripple across the lake's surface.
"Curses don't really exist, my dear. You don't have to worry. I'll always be by your side," Elric said, barely holding in his laughter as he spoke the line.
"Hey, did you know one of my relatives was cursed before?" Helina chimed in, acting like a clingy girlfriend.
The two were disguised, their faces hidden in the glow of the setting sun reflecting off the water. Loose aprons, slightly messy festival outfits, and different hairstyles ensured their covered. Just a couple flirting during a romantic evening by the lake.
"Really? Then what happened to your relative?" Elric replied with a loud, curious tone, faking excitement to make sure the person nearby would hear them.
Helina, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, stole a quick glance toward Eugene to see if the bait had landed. Then, she continued the story.
"She kept having nightmares. She was really worried… Her daughter had died recently, and she feared she'd never have another child again."
Their disguises held strong. To Eugene ,they were nothing more than a young couple caught in a flirtatious evening.
"He took the bait…" Elric murmured under his breath, giving Helina a subtle signal.
Immediately, Helina's tone shifted to playful.
"…Hey, how about we try it? I heard the hot spring nearby is good for more than just sleep…" she said with a teasing lilt.
That was enough. Eugene stood abruptly and shuffled away, face red, ears burning.
As soon as he was out of sight, the two burst into uncontrollable laughter.
***
At the shrine outdoor hotspring where steam can be seen dacing around.
A young blonde guy dipping his body into it. A long sigh can be hear as he dip in.
After the warm soak, Eugene's mood had lightened like steam rising off his skin. He
felt… almost human again.
"Thank god, I got free discount coupon from the festival this morning." Eugene streching his arm to strech away the fatigue he had. Didn't realize Elric was there. Elric approach him with a grin hidden in the thick steam
"Hey, you alright? You don't look so well." Elric try to act concern as some friendly guy.
Eugene at first jump a little as he shock or maybe still on edge from the 'curse' that
have been haunted him.
"It's a long story…" As Eugene open up he keep talking on all the thing he faced so far.
"Hey, how about this…" As they finish change, Elric guided him through the quiet shrine grounds, where lanterns bobbed gently in the breeze. Just ahead, a small booth glowed with soft lantern light.
"Come on," Elric said. "There's someone I want you to meet."
Behind the booth stood a young woman tending to a shelf of neatly arranged charms.
Her dark brown hair caught the dim moonlight, revealing soft chestnut undertones
that shimmered with warmth.
Her hairstyle short and edgy, with textured layers and a distinct braid woven along one side, adding a flair of elegance to her otherwise sly demeanor. The asymmetrical bob frames her face, one side trimmed just below the cheek while the other falls to her collarbone, with a soft inward curl. It whispers both rebellion and refinement. Her dark brown hair carries faint chestnut and plum undertones that shimmer under lantern light.
Her bangs are uneven and artfully messy, with strands that sweep just above her intense hazel eyes.
"This is Helina, my friend," Elric introduced casually.
Eugene stoped in time while his mind keep on going
"What… is this what goddess look like? Is this the hotspring goddess" mumbling on his own.
"Wh…what did you just say?" Elric squinted, not catching the soft words.
"N…nothing!" Eugene's voice cracked.
Helina gave him a small, polite smile, the kind that could melt glaciers.
"Hi. I'm Helina," she said simply.
And that was all it took.
A surge of emotion, like a desert finally feeling rain hitting Eugene's face full force.
His cheeks went red. His breath hitched. His brain, fried.
"Is this... is this what being alive feels like?"
"Anyway," Helina continued, her tone sliding into that familiar mischievous lilt,
"Here's a charm for curse removal. Just keep it near you. It's especially helpful when you sleep. Elric already told me the detail. It only 2 won." She handed over the charm.
With a grin that could only be described as witch like , a mix of teasing sweetness and
something vaguely predatory.
Eugene blinked. "O-Oh! Wow. That's… uh… Thank you. Really. I mean, thank you."
He was stuttering.
Meanwhile, Elric stood off to the side, watching the interaction unfold like and
accidental romance novella.
"What the hell is happening here? Helina… well, she always looks like that. Look like a hungry wolf whenever money involve." glancing on Helina and then turn to Eugene "But this guy… I think he stayed in the bath too long?"
The three of them walked out from the shrine, laughter bubbling between them. Helina teasing, Eugene fumbling, and Elric dragging them both toward some semblance of sanity.
The moon that still not the highest bathed the Waisz estate in soft silver. But… under the same moonlight…
…Somewhere along the outskirts of the estate, the forest twisted in shadows.
A man on horseback burst from the trail, cloak torn, sweat clinging to his brow. The horse's hooves thundered against the dirt path, panicked and uneven.
"Damn it… please hold on…" the man gritted his teeth, urging the horse forward.
Moonlight streaked through the canopy , illuminating the desperation on his face.
"Please… just a little longer." The sound of the horse step echoed through the forest.
END ~