Wizard: I am a goblin

Chapter 84 The Curse of Time

Inside the dark room, the elf codenamed Peacock was draped in seven layers of silk. The room was unusually cold, and her breath turned into white vapor the moment it escaped her body.

Four enormous brass cauldrons stood in the four corners of the room, each containing white and yellow powder in a 1:3 ratio. A drip irrigation system with a gate was placed on top of each cauldron, allowing distilled water to drip slowly onto the alchemical materials within, controlled by a flow throttling device, thus sustaining the reaction.

A thick layer of frost had formed on the surface of the cauldron—these devices had absorbed all the heat from the room.

That's right, the peacock improved upon the cooling device invented by Geb, expanding its size to cover the entire room.

The peacock stood in the center of the room, staring intently at a suspended test tube—the liquid inside was moving slowly, emitting a bluish-purple glow.

The room's doors and windows were sealed shut, making it completely airtight—and the entire room reeked of a nauseating, pungent herbal odor.

There is no light, and there is no distinction between day and night.

A bell rang in the distance.

The peacock raised her head, her eyes filled with weariness. She waited for the second chime, but it didn't ring again; instead, it stopped at one.

It's been eight days already. She thought to herself. Seven days and seven nights, she'd stayed in this room, waiting for the solution to complete its reaction.

Her masterpiece... her unfinished masterpiece.

One more material is missing... the last thing.

Footsteps approached from outside the room.

A knock on the door. Three short knocks followed by one long one. The Gray Ravens' code.

"I've already told you not to bother me unless absolutely necessary. Don't you understand?"

There was no reply from outside the door.

"If that 'Monster Hunter' Onsal comes to haggle again, just tell him directly that he's not the only one capable of hunting manticores, and whether Gray Raven will be extorted by a dirty barbarian."

"..."

"Not him? Then who is it? Speak up!"

"...It's a letter from 'that gentleman'." A muffled voice came from outside the door.

Peacock stood up abruptly, her tiredness instantly turning into tension.

"Give it to me now!"

A few clanging sounds came from outside the door, and a moment later, a letter was handed over from a drawer on the door.

Peacock picked up the letter with both hands, placed it on the desk on one side of the room, and put it down with trembling hands.

The letter was unsigned, sealed only with a gold wax seal—the emblem being a broken ring.

Peacock sat at the table, her breathing gradually becoming rapid... She reached out, wanting to open the letter, but then withdrew her hand.

No, I didn't do anything wrong... I shouldn't be afraid... What am I afraid of?

She stared at the letter on the desk for what seemed like an eternity… Finally, unable to resist any longer, she opened the desk, pulled out a spell scroll—

The female elf unrolled the scroll, took out a gold coin, and placed it on the floating runes above it. She sat cross-legged and murmured the incantation for [Detection Magic]...

The gold coin slowly lost its shape, melted, and turned into fine molten gold, merging into the flowing patterns on the scroll—the scroll rose from the table under the influence of the ether, the paper gradually turned into dust, leaving only the circular runes floating in the air.

The peacock pointed to the runes with its finger, trying to decipher the spell on the letter—a faint bluish-white light emanated from it, and the magic bestowed upon it seemed to resonate with the rune array for [Detecting Magic]. The two spells gradually assimilated, imitated, and replicated each other…

Ten minutes later, the magic detection runes copied the spell incantation from the letter, and Peacock softly uttered the name of the spell.

"Magicae Linguae"

The magic tongue technique.

She breathed a sigh of relief, her tense body relaxing—this was a spell to transmit information.

Only then did the female elf dare to hold the letter in her hand, use the letter knife to open the wax seal, and then take out the letter.

The moment the letter touched the air, it flew out of the old woman's hand, rolled on the table, and then formed a human mouth and tongue, a horrifying shape.

The female elf had expected this and was not greatly surprised—but she remained seated upright, as if she were facing not a strange magical mouth, but the master of that magic.

A gold mask.

"Peacock," the mouth said—the voice lacked chest resonance, sounding thin and eerie, like a parrot mimicking speech.

"Lord Golden Mask... How have you been?" Peacock said in a low voice, trying to hide the unease and exhaustion in his voice.

"You're too late."

With just those three words, the peacock's mask shattered instantly. She reflexively took a step back, then quickly said:

"The recipe for the Kiss of the King is complete... I'm just doing the final preparations... Please give me a little more time. I just need to get one more ingredient..."

"I've given you enough time, elf. Everyone wants more time, but death waits for no one." The voice interrupted the peacock mercilessly.

The peacock shuddered and broke out in a sweat in the cold room.

"...But what you want is not an ordinary poison. Each ingredient required is extremely rare, especially within the kingdom—all I need is that final ingredient: the manticore stinger...The Gray Raven Society is already on its way to obtain it. Everything else is ready; all that's needed is this final ingredient to complete my greatest masterpiece..."

The peacock spoke faster and faster, speaking urgently into the magical mouth as if uttering a single missing word would cost it its life:

"...A colorless, odorless, undetectable by magic or divine spells, leaving no trace afterward—a perfect poison... Even dark elves and grey dwarves cannot resist its effects. This is my gift to you, a gift from the Grey Raven Society... The Grey Raven Society..."

"Don't mention the Gray Raven Society's name, Peacock. Your personal failure has nothing to do with the Gray Raven Society. You blame the Shadow Goddess, but she can't protect you."

"But I didn't..."

"Your warehouse has been burgled. Someone has discovered the secret of the formula."

The peacock's eyes widened, and its already pale face lost all color.

"And you didn't even put a bounty on that guy's capture. A goblin that can use magic? Is that it? Are you trying to suppress this and hide your mistake?"

"How...how did you know..." Peacock stammered, her usual calm demeanor completely gone.

"The secret of the formula must not be leaked. Now that someone has seen it, our plan must proceed immediately."

"This is your fault, Peacock, and you will pay the price."

"The association will not tolerate incompetence, much less dividend fraud."

After saying this, Demon Tongue suddenly uttered a spell—Peacock's expression changed, and she reacted immediately, grabbing a letter knife and stabbing at Demon Tongue!

The letter with the tongue suddenly flew backward, and the peacock missed its target, staring in panic at the tongue hovering in mid-air.

"Maledictionem Annorum!"

The spell drifted into the old elven woman's ears—her expression changed.

"No...the curse of time...no! Golden Mask, you can't..."

Before she could finish speaking, Lady Peacock's face suddenly collapsed. Her once supple skin lost ninety percent of its moisture—her fair skin turned grayish-brown, her silver hair fell out, and patches of baldness appeared on her head…

"My face... Nîthen! Bain nîthen!"

The peacock clutched her handful of hair, trying to put it back in her head, but she couldn't. She watched her slender, jade-like hands turn withered and yellow before her eyes, and screamed in despair in Elvish.

"For every day you waste, this curse will take fifty years of your life, until its effects can no longer be reversed. I suggest you hurry up, Peacock; even elves don't have that much time to waste."

The demon uttered these last words in mid-air, swallowed its own tongue, and then vanished into thin air.

The old elf woman frantically pulled a mirror from her desk and looked at her reflection: her once full face was now withered and emaciated.

The elegant peacock was transformed into a bald, sick chicken in just one minute.

The peacock trembled, the mirror slipped from her hands and shattered into countless pieces—regardless, she scrambled through the sharp glass, bloodied and weary, to the door, and with all her might, pounded on it while wailing:

"Anno nin i daff i mantecor! Anno nin i reged dîn, nû!"

"Bring me the lion's tail stinger! Bring me that damn thing... Now! Right now!"

"Tell that damned Ansar man that I'll agree to whatever price he asks for—a thousand gold coins, ten thousand gold coins! I don't care! I want it now! Now!!!!"