章節 19: Studios Moth

It took Juniper only the rest of the night and half of the following day to learn all there is within the books she looted from the magician.

Which proved to be not nearly enough.

"Fucking disgrace of a magician!" She curses and flings the last book across the large hall at the wall where it falls into the pile that had formed there.

"All you know is one bloody spell that just laid around in some backwater ruin and you think you're the shit?" Ranting in annoyance, the demon moth curses some more as the books, other than the one with the glyphs, were barely even beginner level in terms of arcane knowledge.

With stuff like that, her understanding of the magic used by the people in this world merely went from "huh?" to "eh?".

The only decent thing is the [Crown of Thorns] spell, but there is such a large quality leap between it and what she knew, that she couldn't really do anything with it other than use the original version.

Grumbling, the moth gets up from the pillows and stretches her limbs.

"Hngh~. *sigh* if theory won't work, then let's try practice." With that she waved her hand at the transmission mirror, that she had used as a glorified TV up to now and changed the view to that of a random village.

'Trevor and Sypha are currently busy helping out in town a bit while Alucard sulks in some building drawing in the dirt. They should set off in the evening, so more than enough time for me to grab a few eager volunteers to get some practical experience with my new spell.' Stepping through the mirror, she appears outside the village under the midday sun.

Getting hit by the bright rays, she quickly narrows her eyes and hisses angrily as the change from dark basement with no light to sunny day hurt her eyes.

Not in good mood, Juniper blasts everyone with a dose of her conqueror's haki, causing them to collapse unconscious in the midst of whatever they were doing at the moment before deploying her second transmission mirror and carelessly dragging the limp bodies of the unfortunate villagers back into the basement.

Once done with her mass kidnapping, and everything looted for the sake of it, she also goes back and recalls the mirror to her inventory.

For the next day and a half, the previously silent basement under the tower got filled with the symphony of hysterical screams, desperate sobbing and deranged laughter as the moth began blindly testing slightly altered version of the [Crown of Thorns] spell on her acquired guineapigs.

While the majority of the subjects got reduced to emotionless puppets under the effect of her new spell, there is a sizable chunk that did retain some of their mental capacities after she began altering the spell.

The results were nothing workable sadly, as it left them in various states of insanity or simply broken, but these results allowed her to gain a deeper understanding of the spell and its effect on the mind.

When she turned to the large mirror and saw how the trio arrived at the burnt ruins of the Belmont hold, she could only groan in disappointment.

'Damn it. Looks like I will have to put a halt to my testing. Also, it seems like I won't be mind-controlling any of the three. *SPLAT!*' She thinks while stepping up to a hunched over figure and crushing the skull of another failure, covering her front in brain and bone bits.

The gore on her clothes slides off without leaving a single stain thanks to the definition that she had added to it, but the rest painted another layer to the already present blanket of dried human and demonic remains on her skin and chitin.

Not bothered by this in the least, she rips off one of the hands before storing the body and soul in her inventory.

"What to do~ *Crunch*." She mutters before biting off a finger from the hand she's holding and starts chewing on it.

"Sypha is a powerful magician, unlike the old piece of garbage I dealt with, and might even rival me in terms of magic power, after all, I'm still just a low rank demon. As for her skills in magic, it is obviously better than me. *Crunch*" The moth ponders before eating another finger.

"Alucard on the other hand can maybe match me in strength and surpasses me in terms of speed, especially with his vampiric ability and the wolf form. Not to forget there is also his sword that can be remote controlled. *Crunch*" Going over the abilities of the three, Juniper formulates an idea while chewing on another digit.

"As for Trevor, he is probably the most skilled fighter out of the three. He might not be the strongest, fastest or have access to magic, but the shit he pulls with that whip is insane. Not to mention that he is the heir to an entire fucking lineage of God-damned monster hunters. *Crunch*" There goes another finger, leaving only the pinkie.

Swallowing, the moth tilts her head in deep thought while absentmindedly crunching down on the pinkie.

"That's it!" She suddenly shouts as her eyes flash with excitement.

Then she blinks and looks down at her hand holding the now fingerless appendage.

'Why am I eating an unseasoned hand?' Juniper asks herself before throwing the thing away and turning her focus back to the transmission mirror where the three just managed to open up the sealed passage to the underground keep.

"Mind controlling someone and forcing them to teach you all they know is a bit awkward anyway. Making a mind-reading ability is basic and memory devouring is straight up boring. So instead, let's be a bit more creative hehehe~." Pulling up her creation menu, the moth adds the design for a new item and spends a whole 1k on it as her mandibles twitch throughout the entire process in anticipation.

Keeping the new item in her inventory for now, she rolls her shoulders and flexes her claws.

'All three of them outclass me in one area or another, meaning that they have an actual chance to kill me. If I didn't have haki that is.' Snickering at how broken haki and its different applications truly are, Juniper pulls out the smaller transmission mirror and homes it on the Belmont hold before dismissing the larger one into shards that she then gathered up with her psychokinesis and stores away in her inventory.

Also adding the recall function to the mirror just to be safe, she steps through the smaller one and arrives at the doorsteps of the Belmont's ancestral home.

Recalling the mirror, the moth spreads out her haki and pings the trio downstairs.

'I should hurry a bit, the ward protecting the entrance will reset soon and I have no interest in punching a magical slate of rock repeatedly.' Walking into the ruins, her steps lead to the still open staircase.

Entering the underground keep, Juniper advances slowly while taking in the sight without any haste.

She's planning on waiting till Trevor gets his hands on the Morningstar, a very powerful relic passed down in his family and a very iconic weapon from the game that mirrored this world in her old place.

Arriving at the circular expanse with spiralling stairs and some bridges leading down to the horde of knowledge and materials that the Belmont's have gathered over centuries, the moth looks at the large portrait hanging at the wall opposite to the stairs leading there from the surface.

A handsome young man with blond hair and blue eyes stares back.

'Leon Belmont, first of the Belmont's to arrive here in Walachia in his hunt for Dracula. Builder of this keep and previous holder of the Morningstar whip.' A strange sense of amusement fill's her mind for a moment when looking at the painting.

Then, with a mischievous smile, she floats up to it and pulls a piece of charcoal out of her inventory.

Unable to supress her giggling, Juniper starts vandalizing the century old piece of art by drawing a moustache, whiskers, a stretched-out tongue and derpy eyes on the expensive painting before storing the coal away and flying down the centre of the spiralling stairs.

Toe beans touching the ground lightly, the moth concentrates her haki on the three individuals in the large expanse filled with all kinds of supernatural stuff and shelves upon shelves of books.

Standing there with eyes closed, Juniper goes over her plan.

'This isn't going to be a fight to win. There are easier and smarter ways to do that. The goal of it is to learn and grow, depending on how I do in that regard, I will make a few new things for my fight against Dracula later on. No point in getting killed because I overestimated myself.' Taking a deep breath, she calm's herself.

'I will mainly use my body modifications and haki, observation and armament to be specific. I got a theory that needs testing regarding armament haki, and observation haki is what will allow me to even stand a chance against the three combined. It's also to increase my mastery over them of course, haven't had a real challenge in a while that pushed me to get better. Conquerors haki is the "fuck it" solution when things cross a line or come to a close. [Draining Touch] also goes in there, I will hold off on healing for as long as possible. [Focus] on the other hand will be running throughout the fight, it will help me learn and grow. As for psychokinesis, direct application on the enemy is reserved for the "fuck it" scenario, but everything else is free game.' Clacking her mandibles, she ponders because something is bothering her.

Snapping her fingers, Juniper eyes open.

"Right, magic sensing." The moth exclaims softly.

Sensing magic and magic power is one of the few basics that the books in the old magician's library did cover, even if only barely, and allowed the moth to vaguely perceive the magic around her.

'I should be able to hone my perception of magic by trying to feel Sypha's attacks, maybe Alucard's sword too.' Having managed to figure out what had bothered her, a smile creeped onto her face.

"That should be all. Trevor also had enough time to get his heirloom, if he didn't get it by now, well, sucks for him then." Juniper pulls out the spear with which she had committed infanticide at the beach when she had just been freshly reborn as her current self.

Gripping the wooden shaft in her chitinous palm, she grins.

Firing up [Focus], the moth dashes forward and blows the wooden door off its hinges before sprinting directly towards the railing.

Kicking off the ground, she leaps over it into the open centre, where a floor lower, Trevor and Sypha snap their heads towards her.

Holding onto the spear with both right arms in throwing position, Juniper's eerily glowing eyes focus on them before throwing the weapon at the speaker magician.