How ironic, the opposer of miracles wishes to be a miracle. Or perhaps, opposing miracles itself is a miracle...
After a bit Effie seemed to have snapped back from her thoughts. Before she could speak anything Caster spoke up.
"I have spent the last two months preparing for it. From now, I wish to put it into action. And I'll need your help with this."
The two of them started walking towards Effie's hut.
"Before I say yes, you have to tell me what you plan to do."
"Yes, of course. I will go to the bright castle and meet with Gunlaug one on one-"
Effie interrupted him.
"How'll you even do that?"
"I'll offer him information regarding how to escape this place"
"Why would you give up one of your advantages just to meet him?"
Caster flicks his wrist dismissively.
"Who says I'll give him the information? I'll just pretend to negotiate. As soon as we're in a private space, I'll use puppeteering on him."
Effie knew about his memory giving him two abilities already, lightning and puppeteering, she had seen both of them in action already.
In a full on battle though, puppeteering barely had any uses. It consumed too many cores and it would at best stop nightmare creatures. It had its uses, but too much essence was used and hence not a very viable option in battle.
But that was against nightmare creatures who could barely think. What would its effects be on a fully functioning human?
That they didn't know. Puppeteering was an ability Caster hesitated from using on humans, he didn't know what its implications would be. However, now he had no choice but to test.
"But I don't know its effectiveness on humans. So that's a... risk. Big risk."
They had reached Effie's hut, and now the two of them entered it.
Sighing, Caster moved closer to Effie, looking her straight in the eye, before asking her seriously: "Do you trust me?"
Effie was slightly shaken up, however, she could foresee what the conversation would flow towards. It wasn't like she truly trusted Caster, but she trusted him enough to say what she did.
"If you want to test puppeteering on me, then do it. I can take it, got it? Just don't make me do something perverted after hypnotyzing me~, will you?"
Even when Caster was trying to have a moment, Effie added a silly little joke in the end.
Caster couldn't help but chuckle.
"Who knows?"
'Ah... classic G3 style reply...'
Effie lightly slapped his shoulders which made him take a step back, finally easing the tension between the two.
'Even her light hits hurt so much...'
"Thanks... and uhh... I'll begin."
Caster summoned his memory again, the [Book of Books]. Its prestine look and rich texture was the same as always.
Turning to the stage page in it that had the puppeteering ability stored, Caster fuel it with the soul cores.
He targetted Effie.
"Tell me when you notice its effect crawling up to you and be sure to resist it with all your might, otherwise there is no point in testing it out."
Effie nodded aggresively.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Just do it."
Soon, ethereal transluscent black strings started emerging from the book. They went towards Caster's hands.
"Can you see or sense anything?"
"There's something to see already?"
'Guess you can't see these strings...'
The Strings started wrapping themselves around Caster aggresively... and suddenly the strings exploded, rushing towards Effie's brain... and her soul core!
'So it's both a mind attack and soul attack. Interesting. I resisted it in my first nightmare, does that mean the fourth wall gives me complete or nearly complete immunity to both mind and soul attacks? How incredible...'
Then, the strings wrapped themselves around Effie's core, and soon after they were done wrapping themselves around her brain as well.
This has never happened before. It only went towards the soul cores of nightmare creatures, but it seems after a certain level of intelligence, it attacks the mind as well.
"Anything yet?"
Effie shook her head.
"Nope. Nothing."
Now Effie was under his complete control, Caster could feel it.
'This is insane, she hasn't even sensed it yet.'
Using the stings in his hands, he mentally moved them, allowing him to puppet Effie's body.
As soon as that happened, Effie's facial muscles twitched, but Caster controlled them nearly instantly afterwards as well.
Effie's mind was filled with dozens of thoughts, related and unrelated, and Caster could even hear them due to the connection to her brain.
'Wh-what, but I didn't sense-'
'My bod-'
'I'm hungry-'
'He's successfully controlling me...'
'How can I escape...'
'My body feels foreign...'
'Stop-'
But then they suddenly shut up, Caster made them shut up. She was completely under Caster's control, in body, mind and soul.
'This is ridiculously intimate... I can feel what she feels... There's no way I have to do this with Gunlaug!'
Caster could feel the immense dread Effie suddenly felt after getting her body into control, then the dread suddenly disappeared when Caster shut her mind up, the only thing that remained seemed to be a faint sense of trust and a whole lot of lust.
'What a cruel flaw... enhanced lust is just cruel.'
Afterwards, Caster tested what he wanted to test the most.
'Give me your Zenith Shard.'
Effie moved forward on her own, without further controlling from Caster and she held up Caster's hand, before transfering her memory.
[You have recieved...]
'It works! YES!'
After returning her memory back, Caster stopped the puppeteering.
Panting, Effie came back to her senses. She lost the strength in her legs and fell down. Caster caught her and held her up, still holding onto her.
Caster asked her soflty and sincerely: "Are you okay?"
Not wanting to seem weak, Effie seemingly nonchalantly replied to him.
"Y-yeah, it was just disorienting."
Effie pulled back from the hold Caster had her in and coughed once.
"I blacked out in the middle. Last thing I remember is my body moving on its own... but I felt... feel really vulnerable, not exactly intimate, but it felt like I was being... hard to put into words, but you controlling me felt like I was being stared down naked, it felt wrong."
Caster simply nodded before replying after thinking a little.
"I see, so you felt wrongly vulnerable? You must have blacked out when I shut your thoughts down. It seems I can move your body, shut your mind, and make you do things as I want, which includes taking memories from you.. during the time you're being puppeted."
"What? You took a memory of mine?"
Effie immediately, seemingly, begins checking her memory list.
"No... well yes, but I already returned it."
"Which one?"
"Zenith Shard, your spear."
Effie nodded.
'What? No follow up joke?'
"Anyways, there's more... I could hear your thoughts and feel what you felt."
For the first time in a while, Effie genuinely looked concerned.
"Everything?"
"Yeah... I guess so? I heard like twenty different thoughts from you in a few seconds. Some even seem to be from the subconsciousness, these were mostly feelings though, coherent thoughts were fewer. Also, thanks for genuinely trusting me."
Effie was dumbstruck. What kind of overpowered memory not only allows to let you become Zeus himself but also allows you to hypnotize people and snoop their thoughts and feelings?
"That's one wicked memory you have."
Caster chuckled. He couldn't help but agree.
"For sure."
After a while, when neither of them knowing exactly what to do and still absorbed in the findings of this puppeteering session, Effie suddenly spoke up.
"You didn't do something perverted to me did you?"
"No! Of course not. I wouldn't stoop so low."
Effie laughed out loud.
"You sure?"
"Who knows?"
They both laughed out loud.
Both of them sat next to each other on Effie's makeshift mattress. Closer than usual. Perhaps due to the fact that they both had an intimate experience with the other just now.
"Well anyways, with this, we know that Gunlaug can be dealt with pretty easily as long as I get close to him. Well, unless he has a strong mental barrier of sorts. If that happens to be true, I will have no choice but to get into a fight against him."
Effie didn't reply, she was completely quiet.
'She's acting so out of character nowadays.'
"Don't follow me when I go to Gunlaug. Just keep the guys at the camp safe."
"Why? Worried about me?"
Effie gave him a teasing smile.
"No, I'm worried what mess you'd create for me at the castle."
Instantly the teasing smile turned into something creepy. Still smiling.
"Want me to kick your ass?"
Creating some space between the two of them Caster put his hands forward, almost as if he was signaling to calm down.
"But hey, that's a valid worry!"
"Shut it."
Caster laughed out loud and gently caressed her back.
"Okay, anyways, I used up nearly all of my fragments saved in the memory, help me restock for the fight."
Caster had used up 43 out of his 61 shards saved in the book of books while just testing out the ability on a human. It would definitely take way more than 43 shards against Gunlaug. And just in Case he had to fight him, he'd need some more as back up.
Effie took out her bag and gave him her leftover shards after she saturated her core.
"Oh, thanks. But they still won't be enough, we'll have to hunt another day at least."
"Fine. Let's just go to sleep for now, I'm tired, especially after the way you just man handled me."
Effie was still teasing him and Caster couldn't help but smile.
Caster gets up from the mattress.
"Yeah, sleep tight wench."
Just then Caster felt something grab him.
"Where do you think you're going?"
'Oh fuck... I'm dead.'