I Start with 13 Hidden Traits Chapter-149

Ch-149

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“W-Will you spare me if I talk?”

“Of course.”

“You’ll spare someone who saw your status window…?”

Eyes full of distrust.

He had decided that anyone who saw his status window could not be allowed to live.

Why he insisted on inviting his own death, I’ll never know.

I let out a small laugh.

“Why would I kill the likes of you? There’s nothing for me to gain.”

“It’s not just your status window. Your face, too…”

“You saw it? Are you sure? You think this is my true face?”

“…….”

The Master clamped his mouth shut.

I had already transformed once. He clearly suspected that what he was seeing now might not be real.

Besides, my appearance in the Empire had been quite different.

*In the Empire I acted like a barbarian.*

Back then I really had walked around bare-chested like one.

It wouldn’t be strange for him to believe I had a thousand faces.

Above all—

“And even if you did talk, who would believe you?”

“That is…”

The Master hesitated.

Naturally.

Even I wouldn’t believe such a story.

Someone at level 8 with nearly three-star stats, carrying fifteen Hidden Traits—
How could anyone believe a person like that existed?

They’d be more likely to scold him for dreaming.

*Phantom. A player, yet not a player.*

And I, too, was curious.

Someone pretending to be Phantom—someone who is a player yet not a player.

There is a mastermind who used the Master and those other so-called “heroes” as mere frontmen to orchestrate everything.

Someone high-ranking enough to leak information to the Demon King to hinder the Grand Expedition.

*Meaning, someone capable of personally contacting the Demon King.*

The Demon King had foreknowledge of the Expedition.

He had poured half the demon realm into preparing a trap to capture me.

Had Serengeti not changed our location with star-authority and sacrificed itself, I would have died before ever reaching the Demon King.

But I had no lead.

Would anyone other than the Lords of Hell be able to meet the Demon King, who secluded himself deep in the demon realm?

*Impossible, unless they’re one of the Lords.*

Only the eight Hell Lords may stand before the Demon King.

Other demons cannot even approach him.

But those eight Lords wouldn’t be players, nor would they call themselves Phantom.
Which meant this someone must be an outsider.

*Unless he’s literally a system administrator.*

That was how impossible it was to meet the Demon King.

You’d have to conquer the demon realm properly, as I did—
Or perhaps be the Emperor of the Empire.

At the very least, you’d need to be on the level of the White King or the Black King.

And the Master clearly knew who this mastermind was.

“If you really distrust me, then let’s make a contract. I’ll place a geas so you can’t speak a word about me. That way even I won’t feel the need to kill you.”

“R-Really?”

“Of course. I swear on the honor of Wilhelm, the Knight-King.”

“Wilhelm… the King of Fidelity.”

“Yes. Wilhelm was a man whose flesh might as well have been made of faith and loyalty. I am the same.”

The Master’s eyes quivered violently.

If he knew Wilhelm’s epic tale, he could not reject such an oath.

The Master was as obsessed with Pangaenia as Hudson was.
He truly believed his self here was his true self.

And hearing someone call Wilhelm “the King of Fidelity” with his own mouth—yes, that proved it.

I shrugged.

“Or, if you prefer, we can make the contract in whatever form you choose. If such a method exists, speak it.”

“…Let’s make a Soul Oath. Then I’ll believe you.”

A Soul Oath?

I had intended to bind him with *Winter*, but he had something else in mind.

The Soul Oath was the method the Master often used to dominate important individuals.

He used the “Ring of Souls” he wore to impose compulsion.

An equivalent-exchange contract where both parties state their conditions—once made, it cannot be refused.

“Fine. Let’s do that.”

I nodded without hesitation.

Seeing me accept without a flicker of doubt eased the Master’s expression slightly.

He touched his split lip, wiping away the blood, and let it drip onto the Soul Ring.

“Drop a single drop of blood on the ring. Then we each state a condition, and once we shake hands, the contract is sealed.”

I pinched a small wound into my finger and let a drop of blood fall onto the ring.

A red glow began to swirl around it.

“In any form whatsoever, you must not harm me. That is my condition.”

He stated his condition first.

He must really, truly want to live.

He didn’t just ask to be spared—he banned *any* action that could harm him.

If he had said only “don’t kill me,” I could have tortured him right up until the moment of death.

He was rather clever.

So I opened my mouth.

“You must remain silent about me.”

Fwooooom—

The ring’s glow surged violently.

The Master extended his hand.

I grasped it.

At that moment—

《‘Soul Oath’ has been completed.》

A rush of crimson light poured from the ring into my body, sealing the contract.

There. I had done everything he asked.
Now only the fulfillment of the promise remained.

With his safety guaranteed, would the Master keep his word?

“…It was one day. Someone approached me, introducing himself as ‘Phantom.’”

The Master began to speak with difficulty.

Perhaps my sincerity and the unhesitating permission I had given had opened his heart.

I listened.

“He told me he would soon lead a Grand Expedition. He also told me what would happen in the near future. Like a messiah… and everything he said came true.”

I see.

So that was why the Master believed that unknown being.

A seer of the future… when it came to future-sight, the White King came to mind.

But even the White King could only vaguely sense danger to himself.
He could not read detailed futures.

“Thanks to him, I became the owner of the Ruin City Rundella. I gained many benefits.”

“So he approached you quite early.”

“About a year and a half ago. Not long after I became a player, he came to find me. Anyway…”

Gulp.

The Master nervously swallowed.

Then continued:

“He emphasized the Grand Expedition more than anything. He said I must never join it. That only when Wilhelm dies will the ‘thing that had stopped’ begin once more…”

“The thing that had stopped?”

My brow furrowed slightly.

The mastermind wanted Wilhelm dead.

But saying that something “stopped” would only begin again if Wilhelm died—
I had no idea what that could mean.

“I don’t know what it is either. But… he called it ‘the beginning of everything.’ After that, he sometimes visited me in different forms.”

“You mean he transformed?”

The Master shook his head.

“Not just a transformation. He became completely different people, delivering his messages. Once as a player, once as a Pangaenian, once as a monster…”

“He became entirely different beings? That’s not simple transformation.”

“Right. Only players can cast ‘Reveal Information’ to show their status window. The first time I met him, he was a player. After that, he wasn’t.”

“Could they have been different people?”

“It was the same person. There’s no way two people in this world could give off that same presence.”

He was convinced.

So I asked:

“If you confirmed he was a player when you first met, you would have seen his name, wouldn’t you?”

If he checked the status window, he would know.

Just as he checked mine and confirmed I was Randolph.

The Master nodded.

“I saw it. Back then… the name displayed was…”

He hesitated for a moment.

But soon made up his mind and spoke:

“It was undeniably ‘MintChocoIsDelicious.’”

“…? Mint choco?”

Wait. Mint chocolate?

I tilted my head at the sudden, bizarre name.

*‘MintChocoIsDelicious’ was a famous recluse.*

Like Phantom, he never revealed his identity.

But hadn’t he once fought Riley in the ‘Abyssal Labyrinth’ and withdrawn?

It was known that ‘MintChocoIsDelicious’ was a Necromancer.

A handler of jiangshi—corpse puppets.

Maybe he approached the Master using another corpse.

*But he wouldn’t be foolish enough not to recognize that.*

The Master wasn’t stupid enough to fail to distinguish between a dead jiangshi and a living being.

Then perhaps MintChocoIsDelicious had the ability to take on many forms?

But if there were times he wasn’t a player…

“I suspect… he could possess multiple characters. But… I don’t know how he did it when he wasn’t a player. Maybe I simply lacked the ability to perceive it.”

The Master sighed.

A player may possess the one character they were last playing—
after that character dies, they become level 1 again.

Naturally, a player could only possess their current character.

But someone who could possess multiple characters—

…If that were possible, he was far more dangerous than imagined.

Perhaps he didn’t incur the penalty where the real body dies when the character dies.

“And he also spoke about this ‘Tower.’”

“The Tower of the Rift?”

“He didn’t name it exactly, but that must be it. He said that after Wilhelm dies, the ‘tower’ will rise. And at the very top of that tower lies the ‘Celestial Realm.’”

The Celestial Realm.

Could he mean the realm where Celestials live?

This was something I never expected.

The Master went on.

“A place opposite the Abyss. If one could reach the heavens, one could obtain something incredible…”

“So that’s why you climbed the Tower with the Black King’s faction.”

“Yes. Anyway, that is all I know… true Phantom.”

I slowly nodded.

The Master had kept faith in his own way.

Since the contract bound us, he was convinced I could not kill him.

“I will also keep silent about you. We should each go our separate ways now.”

“Our separate ways, yes. That’s how it should be.”

I agreed.

Our paths were far too different.

I slowly raised *Winter*.

Then I cut through the “red light” constricting my heart.

At the same moment—

《‘Supreme Winter’ severs a subordinate contract.》

《‘Soul Oath’ has been dissolved.》

The Master’s eyes widened like full moons.

“Wh-What are you doing…?!”

The true ability of Supreme Winter—

It governs *contracts*.

It is so absurdly powerful that even high-tier contracts can be severed like this, nullified at my whim.

“H-How did you break a Soul Oath…?!”

A Soul Oath is the same—
As long as both parties are bound under the name of “contract,” it cannot escape Winter’s blade.

The Master’s twisted expression and violently shaking eyes.

His whole body trembled.

This was the look of someone whose blind faith had just been shattered.

He truly resembled a frightened rabbit.

…How regretful it had been to let him slip away back in the Empire.

“P-P-Phantom. No—Wilhelm!”

“I am not Wilhelm right now.”

I answered with a faint, dry laugh.

The reason Wilhelm had been called the Knight-King and a man who knew honor
was because I had chosen to *play* him with that concept.

If I were truly someone who earnestly pursued honor and nothing else,
I would never have created a character named ‘Isaac’ in the first place.

I had committed countless atrocities to see whether the Administrators of Pangaenia were actually managing the game.

The Master, on the other hand, had been consumed by his concept.

Hudson, at least, could distinguish between reality and Pangaenia—
but the Master lived a life where the two were fused into one whole.

“W-Were you not a man who knew honor…?”

“I do not know honor.”

Confusion spread across the Master’s face.

I had only *pretended* to listen to everything, only *acted* like someone who knew honor.

Since I had agreed to a sacred oath with him,
of course he would have believed.

The conditions we laid upon each other weren’t anything difficult, after all.

*If I had demanded that he tell me everything about the mastermind,
then yes—that would have been the end of it.*

But I had asked only one thing:
*that he keep my identity a secret.*

Under such a condition, he had no obligation whatsoever to speak about the mastermind—
and yet he had opened his heart and spilled everything, even the parts I never asked about.

Because he believed the contract was genuine.

When from the very beginning, I had never intended to uphold it.

“Y-You said you would spare me! I told you everything! Please… spare me, I beg you…!”

“You crossed the line.”

Even if someone else had been controlling him from the shadows,
the Master’s actions all this time had undeniably crossed the line.

Interfering with the Grand Expedition.
Acting as a mouthpiece and twisting the truth.
Leeching off Wilhelm’s achievements and parading himself as a hero.

And I was certainly not unaware that the Master had been eyeing me,
watching for a chance to strike.

Not only that—

He had demanded that I abandon Jeju Island solely for the sake of his own reputation.

Even though he hadn’t participated in the Baal subjugation at all.

But more than everything listed above,
the most heinous of all were the countless “experiments” he conducted.

*Hudson uncovered everything.*

Hudson dug up information on everyone related to the Grand Expedition—
especially the so-called eight heroes,
and among them, the Master’s evil deeds in particular.

The atrocities he committed were nauseating.

He had sacrificed countless people for his experiments.

Especially those concerning “Hidden Traits.”

And this time was no different.

He lured countless people into climbing the Tower.

People who were not even remotely prepared.

He pushed them into a situation where, once they entered,
eight or nine out of ten were doomed to die.

“A-A covenant! Let’s forge a new covenant! I’ll change the terms!
If you want me to be your slave, I will!
If you want a dog, I’ll be a dog! Just… please…!”

The Master fell to his knees.

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