Re:Crafting in Another World
Chapter 124: Changed man

Chapter 124: Changed man

The air crackled with tension as wind swept through the fractured ground from Mandira’s spell. Shennong staggered back, his clothes torn, a thin line of blood trickling down his arm.

He held up his hand, palm open in a sign of surrender, his expression more pained than angry. "What the hell is the big idea attacking me like this out of nowhere?!"

From behind a line of magical spells, Archmage Mandira’s voice rang out cold and commanding. "Stay back, Shennong! You will be brought to court—alive—to answer for everything you’ve done!"

His gaze darted between the defensive spells and the woman whose magic had just ripped through his defenses. He gritted his teeth, disbelief flashing across his face. "We were supposed to be partners!"

"That partnership ended the moment you released monsters onto the surface," Mandira snapped, her violet hair whipping in the wind. "Innocent people died!"

"No, that’s—!" Shennong started, but his words were drowned out by the pounding of Maria’s heart.

Princess Maria Alexandria stood frozen behind Mandira, her lips parted, eyes wide, and mind spiraling.

(...No way...)

(There’s no fucking way...)

Her vision narrowed, locking onto Shennong’s face. He stood defiantly in the sunlight, his eyes wild and desperate, his expression trembling not with rage but anguish.

He looked exactly like—

Just like her mother.

The memory slammed into her with a force she couldn’t resist. The image of her mother, long ago, sitting in the garden, humming to a child who would never grow up because that child never existed. Then... the laughter stopped. Her mother’s mind fractured. She screamed at shadows and mirrors. Raged at the king.

Maria had been too small to understand then. But growing up... she pieced it together.

The third child. Her younger brother. He had died—no, that’s what they told her. But the look in her mother’s eyes, the one no one else ever talked about, said otherwise.

Her father—the king—had done something. Hid something. And that something had driven her mother mad.

And now, standing here, that exact same madness—no, that same face—was looking back at her from a man who shouldn’t even exist.

Shennong.

A stranger who wasn’t a stranger at all.

"Get ready!" Mandira’s voice snapped Maria out of her thoughts. She raised both hands, beginning to chant.

"No, wait!" Shennong stepped back, eyes flashing. "Mandira, don’t—!"

But she had already begun.

Mandira knew she couldn’t use anything too flashy. The king couldn’t hear that someone had invaded this territory under her watch. So instead of a grand destructive spell, she muttered the words to something subtle but deadly—razor-thin wind blades, silent and precise, aimed at Shennong’s joints to cripple and capture.

Shennong slammed his hand to the ground. A familiar mud wall erupted before him—but this time, it wasn’t enough.

The wind blades sliced through the mud. His shoulder burst open in a fine mist of red. His clothes shredded even more, skin gashed.

"Shennong!" Maria gasped.

Blood hit the dirt, and something in her snapped. The sick feeling surged from her stomach to her chest, constricting her breath. She shoved past Mandira’s arm and sprinted forward.

"Don’t hurt him!"

Mandira’s mouth fell open. "Maria?! What—?!"

The archmage barely caught her before she could reach Shennong, wrapping an arm around the princess’s waist to hold her back. "What are you doing?!"

"Don’t hurt him!" Maria shouted again, breathless. "He’s—he’s not a threat!"

Shennong raised a hand. "Stop! Don’t attack! Are you crazy? I only came to talk—about Sir Juno’s decision!"

"Then say it!" Mandira’s voice cut through the air like her magic. "From there! You’re not taking one step closer!"

"Fine," Shennong said, raising both hands, palms open.

His voice dropped to a bitter calm. "It was never my intention to kill innocent people. You know it. In the first wave, no civilians died. I pulled the monsters back before they could cause serious damage."

"And still... people died," Mandira growled.

Shennong’s voice cracked. "And my most beloved person is on death’s door because of Juno."

The words struck harder than any spell.

Mandira stared at him.

He continued, "All I’ve asked is for Juno to tell me what I want to know. I haven’t harmed a single human before this. You know that."

Maria could see Mandira waver. She knew it was true. Everyone did. Shennong had always walked a fine line between recklessness and restraint.

Mandira lowered her arms slightly. "So that’s what this is about?"

"No." Shennong’s expression grew darker. "I’m here because I want you to steal the sword from Juno."

Mandira blinked. "What?!"

"You said it yourself," he went on. "You want to study what’s sealed inside it. I want that too. But I don’t have the luxury to wait anymore."

He took a trembling breath, blood still dripping from his shoulder. "If something happens to her—if she dies—I’ll release the dungeon. I won’t stop the monsters next time."

Maria gasped. "You... You can’t mean that."

"I do." His voice was hollow. "She’s all I have."

Mandira narrowed her eyes. "You want me to betray the king and steal from Juno?"

"And that’s why we need to do it," Shennong said, stepping forward just one pace. "Not just you. Not just me. Both of us."

Mandira hesitated.

Maria saw the calculation behind her eyes. The risk. The politics. The consequences.

But also... the chance to uncover the truth.

"Fine,let’s do it i trust neither you nor Juno, but at least I don’t have to wait until more people die." Mandira said slowly, as she slowly walked toward Shennong with her defensive spells still on.

Mandira looked at Maria one last time, as she told Maria to go back to the empire as soon as possible because Sturgon is too dangerous for her now, and she teleoprted with Shennong leaving Maria standing there all alone.

***

Juno’s sword cleaved through another massive troll-like creature, its flesh burning black where the dark tendrils wrapped around his arm lashed out with unnatural force. The beast gave a final gurgle before collapsing in a heap, joining a mountain of corpses already strewn across the dungeon’s jagged entrance.

"Damn things...!" Juno panted, teeth clenched. His breath fogged in the cold air. Blood—some his, mostly not—dripped from his cracked lips.

His once-gleaming armor was now little more than a twisted shell. The plates had been corroded and replaced by black, sinewy tendrils that pulsed like veins under his skin. They writhed with each of his movements, as though feeding on his rage.

"Is there no end to this!?" he roared at the corridor ahead, voice echoing off the stone. "You think you can wear me down? You think I’ll stop here?!"

He staggered forward, dragging his sword through the stone, sparks flying with each step. His eyes burned with something feral.

"I won’t hand it over..." he growled, gripping the hilt of his blade tighter. "I won’t hand over... my—"

He stopped. His breath caught in his throat.

His eyes trembled. For a moment, clarity fought its way through the fog.

Then silence. The last troll lay twitching behind him, already dead. Nothing else moved.

He turned to face the yawning entrance of the dungeon proper. Once, this place had been something he would enter out of curiosity, a test of skill, a chance to be remembered. Now?

Now he came for blood.

For answers.

For him.

"Shennong..." Juno spat the name like venom. "I know you’re in there. Hiding."

He entered.

The walls of the dungeon pulsed softly, like a living thing. Twisting roots slithered across the stone, some recoiling from him, others reaching out only to burn where they touched the dark tendrils snaking around his armor.

His sword sang again. Any creature that so much as breathed in his direction was split in two. Wolves with too many eyes. Slimes that reeked of rot. Shadows that whispered names in his ears.

They all died before they could even meet him.

The deeper he went, the darker it became. Not the absence of light, but a deep darkness of blue that clung to his skin, made his mind itch. The tendrils around him tightened, spiraling up his neck, now latching to his jawline, coiling across his cheeks like a grotesque mask.

"More... more... show me more of this cursed place!" Juno shouted, voice ragged. "If you want to consume me, then come try!"

He wasn’t sure who he was speaking to anymore.

His mind was loud. Voices. Laughter. Screams. Something else beneath it all.

Still, he pressed forward.

Then he reached it.

A place that had never been mapped. Never explored. The air here was heavy—wet, suffocating. The stone path gave way to something strange.

A shallow pool of shimmering liquid.

Juno stepped into it. The liquid rippled underfoot, but made no sound. His boots didn’t even splash. The water clung to him, glowing faintly, cool like a memory.

He felt something.

Wrong.

Like he was walking through someone’s thoughts.

He stopped briefly. Looked down.

"What... is this...?"

The surface twisted. Faces swirled in the depths.

He saw himself—bleeding, smiling, crying. He saw a young knight standing proud, and then the broken wreck he was now. A puppet of darkness.

"No," Juno snarled, shaking his head violently. "No games. No illusions. I’ve come too far for this!"

He stormed forward. The tendrils pulsed, feeding off his fury.

Then—

CRACK.

Something seized him.

An enormous translucent hand erupted from the water like a phantom and grabbed him mid-step, its fingers larger than his entire torso. Before he could scream, before he could even react, it hurled him back.

BOOM.

Juno crashed against the stone wall at the dungeon’s start with a sickening crunch. Blood exploded from his mouth as the impact shattered the floor beneath him. He lay still for several seconds, breath shallow, limbs twitching.

"Ugh... h-ha..." He coughed, voice thick with blood. "What... what the hell..."

He pushed himself up slowly.

One of his eyes was nearly swollen shut. The other had changed—its pupil a thin vertical slit, glowing faintly red.

Tendrils coiled tighter around his form, reinforcing the shattered armor, almost rebuilding him.

Then he looked up.

And saw it.

A figure. Towering. Female in shape, but utterly alien. She stood with effortless grace, her body semi-transparent, deep blue like the ocean at midnight. Her skin glowed faintly, pulsing like bioluminescent coral.

She had no armor nor any clothes, yet her presence was overwhelming.

Eyes like ancient stars peered down at him with neither malice nor mercy.

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