Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 3326: Chapter 3327: The Vanished Sharp Fruit

”It’s normal for mice to fear cats, right? Why discuss this for so long?” Dog Deacon muttered under his breath, ”More than this, I’m curious why Angel suddenly took it out?”

As Dog Deacon spoke, he staggered lightly, trying to get closer to look at the mouse.

However, just as Dog Deacon took a few steps closer, Knockby in the cage bristled and began to frantically run around inside the cage.

This time, it ran even more madly, bumping into the cage’s edges only to get back up and change direction to continue running.

Seeing this, Luigi sighed and blocked Dog Deacon’s path, also blocking Knockby’s line of sight.

Knockby, with Dog Deacon out of sight, calmed down a little, though its milk-white fur remained bristled due to the indistinct scent of Dog Deacon lingering in the air, keeping it terrified.

Watching Knockby’s cautious movements, and Dog Deacon’s stiff expression, Luigi remarked casually, ”Don’t mind it; just as you said, it’s normal for mice to fear cats; similarly, isn’t it normal for mice to fear dogs?”

Listening to Luigi’s familiar words, Dog Deacon’s expression turned unpleasant, but he was powerless to refute because Luigi spoke the truth. As evident by Knockby’s reaction.

”What a coward.” Dog Deacon muttered a few curses under his breath as he returned to the dog paw cushion nearby, ”Even afraid of me; wouldn’t it be scared to death when encountering snakes, owls, or rat-wolves?”

Listening to Dog Deacon’s grumbling, Luigi stroked his chin thoughtfully, ”What you said makes sense, we really need to train its courage or prevent it from meeting these predators.”

Dog Deacon shot Luigi a annoyed glance, ”I’m not giving it any advice...fine, let’s get back to the main topic. Why did Angel suddenly take it out? Did something happen to it?”

Dog Deacon asked Angel, but the one who answered was Luigi.

Luigi: ”Didn’t I just say?”

Dog Deacon: ”???” When did you say that?

Luigi snorted coldly, ”I asked Angel a question earlier, don’t tell me you forgot?”

Dog Deacon hadn’t forgotten; earlier, upon seeing Angel take out the cage, Luigi asked: Has Knockby woken up?

But is that really the reason?

Facing Dog Deacon’s suspicious gaze, Luigi nodded, ”That’s the reason.”

Dog Deacon looked unconvinced and turned to Angel. Angel followed Luigi’s lead and nodded in agreement, ”Yes, that is indeed the reason.”

Dog Deacon: ”...”

Seeing Dog Deacon speechless, Angel explained Knockby’s origins and mentioned Bimon.

”So in essence, it’s not really important, but its bond with Bimon makes Bimon the invention mouse you value?” Dog Deacon summarized based on his understanding.

Angel found no fault in this summary, which was roughly how it was.

However, Luigi directly refuted after listening, ”No, Knockby is also important. Its value just hasn’t been realized yet.”

Dog Deacon looked skeptical, ”What value does it have?”

Apart from resembling Pifeifei, it has no other merits, and its intelligence is at the bottom. What value can it have?

Luigi sneered, ”It’s just that you can’t see it.”

While speaking, Luigi also dragged Angel in, ”Angel knows too, right.”

Angel: ”???” Know what?

Angel was about to speak when Luigi continued, ”Knockby’s specialty was told to me by Angel.”

Upon hearing this, Angel understood; the riddler effect from back then had resurfaced.

Even after so long, Luigi could still remember when he casually ”performed,” leaving Angel speechless.

However, since he was the one acting as the riddler before, it felt inappropriate to debunk himself. Following Luigi’s words, Angel chuckled lightly and nodded.

Seeing Angel agreeing, Dog Deacon became more confused, even beginning to doubt his judgment. He knew Luigi was unreliable, but Angel... after observing, shouldn’t be the type to joke, not when it comes to this.

Could Knockby truly possess some undiscovered value?

Dog Deacon scrutinized Knockby carefully, even employing mind reading, yet all he gleaned was ”fear,” ”terror,” ”so full,” ”wanting to run circles” with no other information.

The first two he understood vaguely, but what were ”so full” and ”wanting to run circles?”

Dog Deacon’s keen observation of Knockby drew others’ attention to Knockby as well.

However, both Little Red and Sipolov focused on Knockby itself, while Luigi and Laplace surveyed the cage due to discovering something amiss.

Laplace murmured under his breath, ”It’s gone...”

Luigi added, ”Indeed gone, did Angel put it away? Or was it... eaten by it?”

”What’s missing?” Dog Deacon asked puzzledly.

Luigi ignored Dog Deacon, instead, looking up at Angel as if seeking confirmation.

Angel: ”I didn’t put it away; it should’ve been eaten.”

Through their enigmatic dialogue, Dog Deacon finally received an answer from Angel.

They possessed a spiral-patterned ”spiral fruit,” a lower substitute for the Beast Language Fruit, which offered beasts the ability to converse.

As Knockby was too dull to learn speaking, they sought the spiral fruit to aid Knockby in vocalization.

Previously, Knockby’s coma inside the cage was due to being stimulated by the spiral fruit’s pattern.

Though Knockby was comatose from the spiral pattern, Angel and the others hadn’t removed the spiral fruit but left it in the cage.

Now, with only Knockby left in the cage and the spiral fruit missing, the answer was evident: Knockby woke up and ate the spiral fruit.

Angel wasn’t really surprised by this; to encourage Knockby to consume the spiral fruit, Angel had used the Art of Nightmare Illusion to suggest it was the thing Knockby most wanted to eat.

Even though Knockby passed out, this ”suggestion” hadn’t ended. Once Knockby awoke, the suggestion took effect again, leading it to promptly swallow the spiral fruit, which was quite normal.

The only thing surprising Angel was that the spiral fruit was rather large, nearly Knockby’s size. Knockby devoured it, yet it showed no visible signs; it seemed rounder, with a slightly bigger belly, but upon closer look, it felt more like an illusion.

Confronted with Angel’s doubt, Laplace provided an explanation, ”The spiral fruit is a peculiar fruit. Once bitten, its internal energy turns into juice, seeped into its body.”

Therefore, Knockby couldn’t externally show signs of consuming the spiral fruit, purely due to the pulp transforming into condensed energy liquid.

Though surface appearances were unchanged, Knockby’s energy requirement had peaked. Considering the current situation, it’s estimated no additional energy would be needed for ten days to half a month.

Angel showed a look of realization: ”I see.”

As soon as they finished speaking, Luigi couldn’t help but say: ”Whether it’s full or not is another matter. What matters now is, since it already ate the sharp fruit, why hasn’t it said a few words?”

Luigi spoke while squatting beside the cage, trying to coax Knockby into speaking.

However, no matter how Luigi teased it, Knockby remained silent, curled up shivering in the corner.

Seeing Knockby completely ignoring him, Luigi frowned and said: ”Could it be that Beast Language Fruit is fake?”

Laplace: ”To correct you, that sharp fruit is only a low-grade version of the Beast Language Fruit, not the actual Beast Language Fruit.”

Angel: ”Let me correct something as well. With so many people around, and cats and dogs too, even if it could talk, it would probably be too scared to open its mouth.”

If this were a comment from the Dog Deacon, Luigi would definitely argue back, but faced with the dual pressure from Laplace and Angel, he could only awkwardly raise the white flag and say: ”So what do we do?”

Angel thought for a moment: ”Leave it to me.”

Luigi looked at Angel’s expression, roughly guessing what he planned to do, and voluntarily stepped aside.

The next second, Angel snapped his fingers lightly, and a faint mist of Nightmare Illusion immediately surged around, enveloping the cage tightly.

However, this time, the mist was different from before, it was one-sided.

In other words, Knockby couldn’t see the world outside the mist, but Angel and the others could penetrate the mist and see Knockby inside.

With the mist covering it, Knockby’s rigid body slowly began to relax.

It had absolutely no concept of ’these mists are merely paper-thin’, completely unable to resist those who would actually harm it.

It just felt that since it couldn’t see the outsiders, it must be safe... Purely blocking its ears from hearing the truth.

However, this is normal. The ”sharp fruit” Knockby ate only aided its speech, not its logical thinking. With its current intelligence, having a defensive mindset when seeing outsiders is already quite impressive.

Under the cover of the mist, Knockby gradually collapsed into a ”mouse pancake”. From this, it can be seen that Knockby had completely relaxed its mental guard.

However, simply relaxing its guard is not enough to provoke speech. An external stimulus is needed.

And the best stimulus is, undoubtedly, Nak Su, or in other words, Bimon.

But since Bimon was currently staying at Pirush’s base for study, it was impossible to summon it over, so Angel chose to use Nightmare Illusion to create an illusion of Bimon.

Angel raised his hand lightly, and a gray mouse with a tuft of golden fur on its head rolled out as the mist churned.

This gray mouse with a tuft of golden fur was the illusion of Bimon.

As soon as ”Bimon” landed in the cage, Knockby was startled by the commotion, and the previously collapsed ”mouse pancake” became rigid again.

It timidly raised its head and glanced toward the ”commotion”, and upon seeing, it froze.

Staring at the familiar figure walking toward it, Knockby’s beady eyes seemed to become a small puddle, starting to accumulate water.

When it clearly saw Bimon’s appearance, the water flowed over, tears pouring down freely.

Knockby stood up, muttering softly, and dashed toward Bimon.

However, what it pounced on was nothing...

Yes, Angel withdrew Bimon’s illusion as it leapt forward. Using emotional manipulation to deceive Knockby was best kept to a minimum.

Better let it think of it as a dream.

Besides, their experiment was already complete, Knockby had spoken.

When Knockby lunged at Bimon, Angel captured its mutterings.

Although Knockby only muttered a short, indistinct sentence with an obvious baby tone, it was undoubtedly speaking in Pirush’s language.

The reason it was in Pirush’s language is because it was born exposed to Pirush speech. Though these words were incomprehensible to it, they had already been remembered by its subconscious sea, becoming the main center of its language capability.

Under the stimulus of the sharp fruit, the Pirush language integrated by its subconscious sea automatically replaced its previous ”mouse language”, allowing it to express its emotions and thoughts in Pirush speech.

Angel was completely unfamiliar with the Pirush language, but others present understood it.

Luigi: ”The sentence it just said, if translated, it roughly means ’miss’.”

As Luigi gave the translation, the Dog Deacon jumped out and said: ”It definitely means miss, but there was additional speech afterward that can be translated as ’miss you’.”

Luigi glared at the Dog Deacon with dissatisfaction: ”Isn’t it almost the same?”

Dog Deacon: ”Missing and missing you are two different things. You can miss anything, but when missing you, it is only you.”

Luigi opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to refute.

Meanwhile, Little Red chimed in for Luigi: ”Doggy brother, you’re not completely right. The initial ’whimpering’ was a self-reference.”

”If translated...” Little Red tilted her head, thinking carefully: ”It can be translated as:”

”——Mouse misses you.”

Mouse is Knockby’s expression for ’I’, meaning ”I miss you”.

Little Red provided this new version of the translation, leaving Luigi and Dog Deacon speechless, seemingly unconvinced by each other.

At this point, Laplace gave the final verdict: ”Little Red’s translation is the most complete and accurate.”

Little Red’s thinking was closest to Knockby’s, not just because they were of similar age, but also due to the innocent perspective on things, and a similar simplicity in language, which was why she could translate fully.

However, even Laplace himself didn’t expect Knockby to refer to itself as ”Mouse”.

Is it really humility, and not being cute?

Little Red’s ”complete translation” shifted everyone’s attention onto her. Feeling a bit shy under the gaze, she suddenly remembered something, saying: ”By the way, I smelled a very strange scent on Mouse.”

Little Red’s words successfully diverted everyone’s attention.

Compared to the translation, this was undoubtedly more interesting.

Little Red’s ability is already quite unique, not inferior to Dog Deacon in certain aspects.

If even Little Red said she smelled a very ”strange” scent, then it must surely be extraordinary.