041 Secret

Roland was certain this was Wallace, yet he said, "How can I be sure you are Wallace and not that abyss demon? Well... I'd better use holy... ahem, I'd better just finish you off to be safe."

"Damn it! That bastard was already weakened to that extent; if it had split off another soul, it would have dissipated entirely... I really am not it!"

Roland stroked his chin and said, "You claim to have been a servant to Catherine's family for over a hundred years... Absolute nonsense! Unless you can tell me a private secret of Catherine's, I won't believe you."

Wallace grew conflicted, appearing exceedingly terrified of Catherine.

And understandably so; the witches of Alexandra had powerful backing in the netherworld. Even if Wallace fled back to the abyss, he could not escape the palm of Catherine's hand.

Catherine was Wallace's genuine, undeniable mistress.

After a moment of internal struggle, a resolute look appeared on Wallace's face, and he said with utter firmness, "I would never betray my young mistress! However... I can tell you some of Anna's secrets—have you ever seen 'Anna' cast magic?"

Roland's eyes flickered slightly as he replied, "I have... in the Fern Forest, she cast a high-level lightning spell to rescue Claire and Karl."

Wallace said, "Anna indeed possesses extraordinary magical power, but given her sanity, it is utterly impossible for her to cast spells. Therefore, whenever you saw her eyes clear and her mind lucid, it meant—I can't say anymore. I cannot reveal my mistress's secrets; I can only speak of Anna's secrets."

Roland understood.

The demon Wallace, while repeatedly claiming he could not betray his master or leak Catherine's secrets, was in fact spilling Catherine's secrets entirely—it was not hard to guess that Catherine occasionally borrowed Anna's body!

Not a single secret regarding Catherine herself had Wallace told, yet every single one of them had been conveyed to Roland.

Roland recalled the time he was fleeing and Anna found him in the Fern Forest, along with her demeanor then.

No wonder she had seemed like a completely different person back then!

Thinking back further, when he had fought with Anna in the cabin, his mentor had likely learned about things like the mermaid fruit through Anna's eyes.

There was indeed immense magical power contained within Anna, though she herself could not control it. But once Catherine split off a wisp of consciousness and possessed her physical vessel, Anna would transform into a terrifying wizard!

'I wonder if everyone will be able to survive...'

Shaking his head, Roland looked back at Wallace and said with a hint of displeasure, "Wallace. You are a coward. You talked big about dealing with the enemy together, yet you played dead halfway through...

Was lying there comfortable for you?"

Wallace shuddered violently and hastily explained, "Roland, you overestimate my abilities. First of all, in the netherworld, I am a demon serving an infernal god, not some deity.

Secondly, the way I came to the mortal realm is through reincarnation, not a direct descent of my true body! I am essentially a demon reincarnated as a human; while I possess certain special abilities, they come with immense limitations. I can only wield the strength of an intermediate apprentice. Furthermore, I can fall ill, feel pain, and die—it's just that losing my head won't kill me.

Lastly, just because I don't die from losing my head doesn't mean I retain my full combat capability without it. Once I've lost my head, what I can do is extremely limited.

I did have selfish motives, knowing we surely couldn't beat it. So I immediately plunged into a deep sleep... I expected you to run, who could have guessed you would fight it to the death!"

After having his head blown off, Wallace had immediately fallen into a deep sleep to avoid detection by the abyss demon. It was only after the abyss demon died and the abyssal aura within the hall dwindled that Wallace gradually woke up.

Just as Wallace had said, compared to normal humans, he merely possessed a stubborn refusal to die easily.

He knew that in a critical situation, taking a hit wouldn't kill him, but if Roland took that hit, he would genuinely die.

And if Roland died while he remained perfectly safe... considering how much the young mistress cherished this student, saving his life was the wiser choice. Thus, Wallace had taken a blade for Roland.

Wallace continued, "Given the situation back then, you had zero chance of carrying away my corpse. So how could I dare make a sound after falling? I had no choice but to enter a deep slumber. I figured you would lure that thing away, and you would hide and dodge to buy time. Afterward, whichever of us survived would depend on our own skill...

I was the very last person who wanted it to win! If that fellow won, my fate would be unimaginably wretched!"

Wallace had actually told a slight lie. Once he lost his head, while he suffered severe impairment, it wasn't as though he could do nothing at all.

At its core, Wallace had simply turned coward. He found the opponent far harder to deal with than expected and deemed the odds of winning slim, so he conveniently saved Roland and played dead.

Thus, Roland was not wrong; Wallace was a coward, losing his will to fight upon seeing meager odds of victory.

Roland could readily hear through Wallace's little lie.

Roland thought to himself: *'This fellow, his entering a deep sleep is true—otherwise, when the demon searched his pack and I used him to set traps, neither would have failed to notice something amiss. But his original plan was to fall asleep, and once the demon and I ran far enough away, he would pay a heavy price to temporarily restore his mobility, and then find a place to hide... What an old fox, greedy for life and afraid of death!'*

Roland deduced the events with near-total accuracy. However, seeing through it, he did not expose it.

Wallace was afraid of death, and he was afraid of death too. Everyone had their own nature; since he himself had conquered fear to face death directly, he could not demand that his teammates do the same.

To be honest, if not for Wallace today, he could not have won. The man had provided crucial intelligence and given him a crucial push—Wallace was a demonic merchant, a strategist rather than a fighter, and as a strategist, he had performed exceptionally well.

Recalling the push Wallace had given him back then, Roland's gaze softened.

"Wallace, aren't you going to ask how I managed to finish off that demon?"

Wallace's expression turned dead serious as he said, "Roland, first of all, I am not a true wizard; I lack curiosity. Secondly, you are the young mistress's student and a member of the Alayeh family; no matter what methods you employ, I would not find it surprising. As for the last point..."

He paused, looking at Roland with utmost earnestness: "Lastly, I must correct one thing. That abyss demon was clearly dealt with by the two of us together, not by you alone! Now that I am severely wounded after slaying the abyss demon, you mustn't kill me to silence witnesses just to monopolize the credit and tell everyone you killed the demon by yourself!"

A look of approval could not help but surface in Roland's eyes.

This man Wallace was exceedingly tactful and remarkably clever.

Roland had never had the heart to harm someone who had saved his life once, and hearing these words now extinguished any lingering thoughts of silencing him entirely.

He straightened Wallace's body and said, "Lord Wallace, I will borrow your belongings for now. Once we return, I shall return them to you in full."

Wallace let out a massive sigh of relief and said, "Take all of it; consider it the fee for collecting my corpse."

Roland had no intention of actually taking his belongings; his own harvest was already more than sufficient, and there was no need to fleece a teammate.