I remember the way the energy moved in the woman I captured. I remember the brand, and how it messed with its flow. Despite the pain, an idea hatches in my mind. Focusing as much as I can, I redirect the flow of magic within my body and create a pocket around the part of my neck that's being branded, isolating the masked man's energy and preventing it from entering in contact with mine.
If he hasn't noticed my little trick, he'll expect me to have become loyal to him. Unfortunately, I have no idea how his power is supposed to affect the way a person acts, so he might notice something is off immediately, but it's worth a shot. Do I have to call him something embarrassing like "master", or is treating him as my boss enough? The Assassin did the latter, so I'll try to go that route too.
The pain slowly dissipates. I can sense his energy on my skin, but looks like the isolating pocket I created is doing its job. Would I even realize it if he took control of my thoughts? Well, I still hate him and want to stop him, so I can probably be confident I'm still myself.
The masked man snaps his fingers. I hear a door open behind me as people walk in.
"Free him. I don't need him to be restrained anymore."
Good. He hasn't realized that his brand doesn't work on me yet. Now I just need to play along until I make it out of here. Since he's level 100, it would be unwise to provoke him now. I need to come up with a plan before I confront him. Hopefully he won't have killed too many people before I'm ready.
I try to focus on the energy flowing through the people currently untying the rope around me. I didn't notice it before, but I can feel the brand's influence on them as well, it's simply a lot more subtle since they have less power. It's probably safe to assume that no one who works for that guy is doing so willingly.
Now that my own body is branded, I might be able to figure out a way to undo it. But I might have to become more powerful if I want to dispel something cast by a level 100 adventurer. For the sake of all of these people, however, I will find a way.
I'm eventually freed, and someone undoes the collar that's suppressing my power. I get up and look at my new "boss" without saying anything. I can't see his eyes, but he's probably looking at me.
"Welcome to the organization, Matt. I will make sure that you reach your full potential as fast as possible before letting a free company hire you and pay you tons of money for your work. Your life will be comfortable, at least when you're out of dungeons."
Unsure of how I'm supposed to act now, I simply nod.
"Good! Good. Now, free my other servant from this strange prison."
It would obviously be too suspicious if I refused and tried to run away with the bead containing the Assassin, so I do as he asks, breaking the threads holding the space folded around her.
She jumps back, surprised to have changed location once again. She's still in a combat stance, ready to attack me, so the masked man raises a hand and says:
"Don't worry, he's part of the organization now. Your mission is accomplished, even if things didn't quite happen according to my original plan."
The woman calms down and puts her daggers back in their sheathes, still confused. Our "boss" then turns towards me and continues:
"I need to prepare things for you, so feel free to go back home. One of my men will show you the way out of here. Now, I want you to keep a low profile until everything is ready, so don't go clearing dungeons just yet. I'll contact you with further instructions soon. And, of course, not a word about any of this to anyone."
I nod again.
A servant signals for me to follow him, and we leave the room, leaving the masked man and the Assassin behind.
My "boss" must be very confident in the brand's ability to keep me under control, because once I come out of the door hidden at the bottom of a narrow stairway in an alley, I'm left on my own. Looks like I'm free, at least for now, but I'll need to play along for a while longer, and that restriction on clearing dungeons is going to be quite a pain. Fighting monsters is the best way I have to become stronger, and I'll almost certainly need to become stronger if I want to have any chance of beating that guy. Due to the exponential nature of the level scale, the gap between a level 80 adventurer and a level 100 one is massive.
Getting help from another level 100 adventurer might be my best option, but I don't know how I'd go about contacting one without leaving a trace the masked man can find. Still, if he believes me to be under his control, he's unlikely to pay particularly close attention to what I'm doing. I just need to be strategic with the way I go about this.
As I make my way back to the dormitory, I try my hardest to come up with as solid a plan as I can. Contacting the NAA is too risky, it's almost certain there are at least some branded people infiltrated in the organization. I know that some of the larger free companies do business with the masked man, but I don't know which ones, so I'll have to avoid all of them as much as possible. Fortunately, I can detect if someone is branded when I see them, so if I get the chance to meet a powerful adventurer who isn't controlled, I'll be able to discuss this and ask for help.
There's also the option of trying to find if anyone is already on that organization's trail. There must be people who suspect something to be at play here, a human trafficking operation like that has to have left clues of its existence around. There's also the very real possibility that anyone who ever investigated it is now branded, but that's not a certainty.
If I find a way to undo the spell, I might be able to easily gain allies among the ones the masked man trusts, and bring the organization down from within. But the longer I bid my time to get a plan like that to work, the more adventurers will be sacrificed.
He also mentioned that rich people pay money to watch adventurers kill each other. Stopping them should also be a priority, but they're bound to be rather influential even outside of the adventuring sphere. Still, I can live with turning the upper crust of society against me if it means saving innocent lives.
When I reach the dormitory, I head to the bathroom and remove my shirt, revealing the area of my skin that was branded. I'm surprised to see that there's nothing there. I can definitely sense the man's power on my skin, but there's no visible trace of it.
I run my fingers along the skin, causing the brand to react to the energy within them and appear. It's a dark-red color and forms a somewhat abstract pattern. As I move my hand away, the brand becomes invisible again. Looks like it only shows itself when it's actively trying to manipulate its host's energy.
I touch it again, this time using my own energy to carefully analyze the way the brand is constructed. According to the Witches, my power allows me to much more easily understand how spells are formed, and sure enough, as I sense the tightly woven threads that form the invisible mark, an understanding of how it functions forms in my mind.
By carefully manipulating the energy that's currently going towards the brain, the brand implants ideas into it, such as the idea that we must obey the masked man, or the idea that we'll be safe with him while the whole world is against us. The most disturbing part of the spell is that it makes branded people believe that killing innocent adventurers is perfectly normal and acceptable. That's likely how he manages to get his "favored" to murder lower-level adventurers in the arena. The branded can't realize they're being manipulated since all of those ideas seem to be coming from their own thoughts, while any attempts at questioning these new ideas are inhibited by the spell.
Playing with someone's mind like this is absolutely disgusting. I'm lucky to have been born with this power, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to control my own energy in such a way that the brand can't affect me. I would have been forced to kill innocents, all for the entertainment of depraved individuals and for the profits of the madman behind it all.
I slam the bathroom wall as my anger starts boiling. I will stop the masked man, destroy his organization, and punish the rich bastards that made all of this possible. I owe it to those weaker than me to use my power to make this world a better place.
