I Might As Well Quit This Lousy Wizard Profession

Chapter 33: 033 Purgatory Chapter 33: 033 Purgatory “Impossible, this can’t be real…”

The colleague looked at Lin An with confusion, “What isn’t real.”

To his surprise, he found that Lin An, who had just had a happy expression as if his wife had given birth, now had a suddenly grave face.

But Lin An just looked at him with a puzzled face, “What?”

The colleague shrugged, “I must have heard wrong.”

He took a bite of the breakfast bun in his hand and nimbly started up the computer, opening the interface of the programming software.

He didn’t notice, Lin An’s feet moved slightly.

His shoe sole directly stepped on a beetle pushing a ball of grass, crushing it into the sandy soil.

Yes, just when Lin An was proud of finally returning to a normal life, no longer needing to worry about the interference of illusions, reality played a cruel joke on him.

——Do illusions even come with upgrades?

He blinked his eyes, and upon looking up, the clean and tidy office suddenly turned into a sand-covered cavern in a blink of an eye?

And the sunlight streaming through the windows had turned into a blood-red light shrouded in mist.

The red light spread into every corner, making the sandy ground and the earth and rock ceiling of the cave above look filled with strangeness.

This illusion had become so exaggerated.

This was an unprecedented scene, with past illusions at most turning a subway train into a giant lizard. Now, this illusion had become so exaggerated?

It’s ridiculous!

Lin An frowned, observing all this, swiftly recalling the black cat painting and quickly immersing himself in the state of the Breathing Skill.

“!!!”

No use!

Even as he immersed himself in the Breathing Skill, these illusions didn’t disappear!

No! Lin An’s eyebrows lifted slightly, he had an inexplicable suspicion that this red-lit, sand-covered world was not an illusion!

As he entered the Breathing Skill, he suddenly felt this very unique state, as if he were at the boundary between two worlds.

Gradually entering this desolate world.

Oddly, he looked toward a corner where there was a withered tree full of red-eyed crows and some big rocks, faintly perceiving someone seemed to be coming over.

Boom~ Boom~ Boom~ Boom~
Silent noises were coming, as if something very large was moving its body.

Soon after, a group of people wearing extremely exaggerated armors walked over.

Majestic.

With the approach of these people, the colleagues’ expressions changed, and one of the closer colleagues quietly reminded, “The boss is here.”

Lin An gazed intently and sure enough, saw the small boss smilingly walking into the bright, clean office, chatting with the beautiful receptionist.

On one side was the suddenly busy-looking office, and on the other, a strange scene filled with yellow sand and red light, overlapping together, making it hard to discern which was real and which was fake.

Lin An could even hear a colleague whispering, “Take out your computer, don’t just hold the book, it looks…”

The colleague glanced at Lin An with a startled expression, “Where is he?”

After a thought, he no longer bothered with Lin An, his hands typing swiftly on the keyboard, writing the code that had been repeated countless times.

Can’t see me?

Curious, Lin An raised his hand to wave it in front of his colleague’s face, but as he did so, the whole world seemed to shake.

It was as if, with this movement, he had completely entered the savage world bathed in the red light, from the edge of the two overlapping worlds.

But the quiet office was still faintly visible, only less distinct, and even the sounds of their conversations, the tapping of the keyboard, and so on, seemed to come from a very distant place, reaching his ears as weird noises and murmurs.

Making people uncomfortable.

The solid ground beneath his feet had completely turned into a soft sandy soil floor, and he stood up confused, taking a few steps. Looking back, the office chair he had been sitting on had turned into a huge black beetle.

The beetle’s black compound eyes sneakily glanced at him, and suddenly, eight slender legs protruded from beneath the wings and scurried away rapidly.

Then, in a patch of soft sand, it dug and dug, burying its whole body in the soil, leaving only a shell-covered backside that reflected light exposed, reflecting the red light.

That group of armored people evidently noticed someone was here and quickened their pace toward him.

Their armor looked peculiar, with the design of Chinese iron armor, but integrated with more leather armor’s design, which Lin An was gradually starting to understand.

“Eh, there’s a Witch-hunting Knight here. What’s the deal, coming to our Antler’s turf?” a person with ‘Bing Shen’ written on his mask said, reaching straight for the hilt of his waist-length sword.

Then, someone in the crowd gently pressed down on his arm, preventing him from drawing his sword.

A muffled sound came from behind the helmet visor of the man with ‘Jia Shen’ written on it, “I taught him his Breathing Skill.”

“Oh, not bad, Mr. Cao has taken on a disciple.” The man let go of the sword hilt, looking closely at Lin An, “Wait, is this the Spirit Cat Spinal Stretching Technique?”

He seemed somewhat disbelieving, turning his head to glance at the person with ‘Wu Shen’ written on his mask, “Isn’t your old man’s Spirit Cat Spinal Stretching Technique meant for fitness? You can reach this level with this skill?”

The person with ‘Wu Shen’ written on their mask let out a laugh, “Indeed, it’s outrageous. Everyone was quite critical of it when my dad taught us back then. No one expected someone could actually become a knight apprentice through it. My dad would be absolutely thrilled if he knew.”

Clang~
With a crisp sound, ‘Jia Shen’ slid the mask into the gap of the helmet, revealing Professor Cao’s face.

He looked down at Lin An and nodded, “Good material indeed.”

However, the statement seemed to carry a different connotation, and everyone fell silent all at once.

“Continue the operation!” Professor Cao patted Lin An on the shoulder and looked around, “Where’s that guy Lu Dexian?”

“Hahaha~” The guy who was just about to draw his sword laughed heartily as if he found something funny, “Little Lu probably can’t even get into ‘Purgatory’.”

Professor Cao’s brow furrowed, and he drew a flag from the armor on his back with a reverse grip, waved the flagpole, and thrust it straight into the ground.

Sand sprayed, and the flag billowed.

The little boss appeared out of nowhere, awkwardly standing to the side.

Professor Cao glared at him ferociously, “I know you don’t want to become a Witch-hunting Knight, but I didn’t expect you to be so weak!”

The little boss twisted the corner of his mouth, pointing to a clump of dead trees not far away, “My office is over there, and the antler my dad left me told me there’s a scent of witchcraft on that monitor.”

The more he mentioned his dad, the angrier Professor Cao’s face became. He watched him coldly and snorted.

“Lead the way!”

The group arrived at the office to investigate and quickly confirmed the little boss’s judgment.

With a grave expression, Professor Cao waved his hand and put the mask back on, leading everyone to meticulously search every corner of the office building.

As he pulled the flag out of the ground, the little boss disappeared from the world once again.

Lin An squinted his eyes at the backs of the Witch-hunting Knights, quietly breathing a sigh of relief.

Clearly, he hadn’t been pegged as a Wizard by these people!

The calm he had cultivated from facing horrible hallucinations helped him. As the Witch-hunting Knights moved away, his suppressed emotions surged afterward, with his heart pounding fiercely.

Sometimes, luck really does play a part.

If Mr. Liu hadn’t suddenly decided to arrange the “Special Projects Group” office ahead of schedule, he wouldn’t have hastened his encounter with the black cat.

He had intended to take his time.

Even luckier, he had completed the black cat’s portrait last night, allowing him today to easily maintain the Breathing Skill for an extended period and enter the Red Light World, earning the recognition of these Antler Witch Hunter Knights.

He!

Lin An!

Was a Witch-hunting Knight, well, according to their terms, a knight apprentice.

He had his doubts; in a modern society like this, could Witch-hunting Knights really exterminate Wizards with impunity? After all, that was murder!

But if it was within the Red Light World, it was truly different.

A gale whistled past, sending dust flying and flipping over a skeleton.

— “I almost lay beside you, keeping you company, you know?”

In his heart, Lin An spoke silently to the skeleton, pursed his lips, and allowed himself to exit the state of the Breathing Skill, returning to normal breathing.

Soon, his vision reverted to the overlay of the Red Light World and the real world, though it seemed closer to real life. The surrounding noises shifted from eerie, peculiar whispers to clarity.

Lin An turned to look at the little boss, who had a complicated expression on his face as he smoked leaning against the desk.

“So… what is this place exactly?”

The little boss exhaled a puff of smoke mournfully, “Spirit realm, hell, shadow world, the field, it has more names than you can count. We from the Antler clan usually call it ‘Purgatory’.”

He looked at Lin An and sighed, “I didn’t expect that by recommending you to learn from Mr. Cao, he’d actually teach you the knowledge of being a Witch-hunting Knight and that you’d succeed… I’m not sure whether I’ve helped you or harmed you.”

Lin An blinked innocently, “What exactly is a Witch-hunting Knight?”

He looked up at the distant reaches of the Red Light World and whispered to the little boss, “Didn’t you say that Professor Cao really dislikes foreign things? How did he become a Witch-hunting Knight?”

The little boss showed a scornful look, “What else could it be? For enough benefit, they’d ditch their pride; so what’s in a name?”

Seeing Lin An’s curiosity, he whispered, “There’s this organization, the International Witch Hunter Knight Congress. Any Witch-hunting Knight can hunt witches in other parts of the world; otherwise, they wouldn’t pay any attention to you and might even consider you an outsider.”

“Although every country’s Witch-hunting Knights share the same name, each has its own legacy. Our country has a long history and unique traditions.”

“However, because everyone is so capable, Wizards are almost eradicated, and new ones are rare to emerge.” He spread his hands, “There are too many factions, each guarding their little territory, and there aren’t enough Wizards to go around.”

“Without venturing out, one could only starve.”

Bravo~
Lin An’s expression became odd.

Lacking enough Wizards to kill domestically, so in order to be able to kill Wizards internationally, they had to compromise and adopt the international convention of names?

He suspected that domestic Witch-hunting Knights would be quite unwelcome overseas.