Chapter 32
Allow Me to Make You an Offer
An unnamed rural village.
Inside a mansion far too lavish for such a place, a man was smiling contentedly.
“The Purge Corps should have arrived by now.”
Helus was in an excellent mood.
He knew exactly what kind of people the Purge Corps were.
They were vicious men whom it was better to pay off with a little money than attempt to drive away.
Having connections with such people was a blessing.
“Once I get that girl back… it would be better to place myself under the empire.”
He had maintained neutrality only because there was a risk of his true identity being exposed.
It would be disastrous if the girl were kidnapped once again.
‘But does that man called Ferda Valdrova know what she truly is?’
There was no way for him to uncover the girl’s true identity.
To her, rules were absolute.
Helus had ordered her to obey no one but him, so without his commands, she was nothing more than an idiot incapable of understanding speech.
If she was safely returned, it would mean Ferda had no idea what purpose she served.
‘Whew. It should work out.’
Helus uncorked a bottle of whisky and poured it into a crystal glass.
At that moment, a carriage stopped outside.
He lifted the curtain slightly and looked out.
It was someone he was delighted to see.
‘Sir Karl!’
Helus ran outside barefoot to welcome him.
“Welcome, Sir Karl!”
“…”
“Goodness, I never expected you to visit so late at night. How did the mission go?”
“…”
“Why aren’t you saying anything? Since you have come all this way, let us have a drink. Yes, that would be good. What happened to the girl?”
“Get in.”
“Get in? Ah, yes. Of course.”
Helus climbed into the carriage.
There was no one inside the luxurious, cushioned compartment.
Karl entered after him and shut the door.
“Depart.”
The carriage began moving.
Helus’ eyes widened.
“Sir Karl, where are we going?”
“…”
“Answer me! A-are you kidnapping me right now?”
Helus flew into a rage.
Karl merely remained seated without saying a word.
“So that is how you intend to behave? Do as you please! You will never have any business with the empire again, so remember that!”
“…Haa.”
Karl, who had been sitting silently, let out a deep sigh.
He raised his head and his hand at the same time.
Smack!
His thick, fleshy palm was no different from a club.
“Argh!”
“Shut up, you fat bastard.”
“W-what are you doing, Sir Karl?”
“What do you think I’m doing?”
Smack!
“Do you still not understand the situation? I ended up like this because of the girl you told me to retrieve!”
“The child? You said you would use her as a convenient justification—”
“Why should I care?”
Smack!
“I!”
Smack!
“Came here because of that, damn it!”
The violence was nothing more than Karl venting his anger, but it provided enough reasoning to make Helus behave.
The inside of Helus’ mouth split open, and blood streamed from his nose.
“Anyway, because you gave me that portrait of the brat, you are too deeply involved to back out now. So sit quietly and come with me.”
Karl exhaled toward the ceiling.
‘Why the hell am I doing this?’
He swallowed his lament and threw himself against the backrest.
Helus adjusted his posture and allowed himself to be taken away with remarkable obedience.
Questions continued piling up inside him, but he decided not to concern himself with them.
There was no way for him to escape this situation anyway.
After all, he was not truly a sage.
After traveling for an indeterminate length of time, the carriage stopped.
Helus was lifted like a piece of luggage and carried somewhere.
The place to which he was dragged was the audience chamber of an old castle.
A red carpet stretched across the floor, while banners bearing the emblem of a red dragon hung from the walls.
Beneath those banners stood an extremely young man.
“Do you know who I am?”
This was Helus’ first time seeing him.
Yet the situation and the aura emanating from the young man caused his lips to move on their own.
“F-Ferda Valdrova.”
“That was informal.”
“I… greet Lord Ferda Valdrova, Regent of the Dread Queen’s Domain.”
Had he not heard that Ferda was merely an eighteen-year-old brat serving as regent?
Yet the man before him was completely different from the rumors.
Looking up at him felt like facing a giant.
Helus had been childish enough to resist Karl, but he could not even imagine doing the same before Ferda.
Beside him stood a girl Helus had once seen before.
His treasured young servant.
The source of knowledge he had searched so desperately to recover.
‘Was she always this beautiful?’
He had never realized it while she was entrusted to that fat woman.
With her hair neatly combed and dressed in proper clothing, she looked like a noble young lady.
“Are you the man known as the Sage of Water?”
“Sage of Water? I am nothing more than an old magic worker who hides in his room.”
“I thought you were merely stupid, but you are more intelligent than I expected.”
Ferda expressed genuine admiration at the answer.
“Is your servant dead?”
“…Yes.”
“I see. No one can forgive someone who takes away what is precious to them. You must find it difficult to forgive me as well.”
“What is there for me to forgive? I am the fool who committed the crime.”
“What crime?”
“…”
“You claim to have committed a crime, yet you do not know what it was? That would mean you are lying. I dislike empty words.”
Helus forced himself to say the words he never wanted to admit aloud.
“My crime was exploiting a child and pretending that I was a sage.”
He bowed deeply.
“So… please spare my life.”
He surrendered with complete courtesy.
Yet Ferda’s eyes reflected only indifference.
It was the face of a man who saw no value in whether Helus lived or died.
“You have lived while pretending to be a sage, but you are still intelligent. Therefore, I believe you understand this as well.”
Ferda leaned close and whispered into his ear.
“Do you truly believe you can leave this place alive?”
“…”
“Those who have tasted power can never forget its flavor. That is why struggles for power are the filthiest and most vicious of all. How much power did you taste?”
“…”
“You were respected in your village, and even the empire wanted you. Can you truly abandon all of that and return to your former life?”
“I-I can forget—”
“No. If I release you like this, you will begin moving to reclaim your power. That is not because you are stupid. It is because you are human.”
Helus’ entire body trembled.
Despite the cold weather, sweat poured from him like rain.
‘Ah. I am going to die here.’
“Therefore, allow me to make you an offer you cannot refuse.”
All his fear vanished, and a single ray of light descended before him.
Helus raised his head.
“Would you not like to live as a true sage?”
“What… do you mean?”
Ferda removed an object from inside his coat and placed it on the floor.
It was a crystal orb.
“This is a communication crystal. It is a high-grade artifact containing the essence of ten-thousand-year ice taken from the deepest reaches of the northern snow mountains. Its material is superior even to what the empire possesses. Amateurs aside, not even imperial mages would dare attempt to eavesdrop on it or trace its signal.”
Ferda tapped the crystal orb lightly as he continued.
“What is connected inside this orb is Mori’s mind.”
“Mori…?”
“That is the name of the young lady you kept with you.”
Ferda gently patted Mori on the shoulder.
The girl reacted to the sound of it.
It had truly become her name.
“You desire this child’s knowledge. Then live as the sage you have always wished to be. You may spend your nights indulging in luxury and your days dispensing whatever worthless wisdom you please.”
What Ferda offered was a life no different from the one Helus had lived before.
It was precisely what he had longed for, yet he did not dare accept it immediately.
A reward this sweet was always accompanied by a deadly price.
“What… must I give you in return?”
“Your soul.”
Everything.
“Become my dog.”
Helus disliked becoming entangled with other people.
It was obvious that they would quickly discover the limits of his abilities.
However, there were things he hated losing even more.
His money.
His reputation.
And what had sustained all of those things was power.
To lose power was to lose everything.
Ferda was right.
Helus was already craving the power he had once enjoyed.
He had always been power’s dog, and he would do anything to regain it.
Even if the one holding the leash was a devil.
And so Helus bowed his head once more.
“I will become your faithful dog.”
Ferda descended into the castle’s basement.
Echidna’s laboratory was located beneath the lowest floor.
When he opened the door, the witch’s gloom spilled outward like a sinister fog.
The only difference from a typical witch’s den was the absence of medicinal herbs and bubbling cauldrons.
Instead, the room was filled with the smell of ink and stone dust.
“Welcome, Regeeeent!”
Echidna greeted him with a broad, foolish smile and rushed toward him like a large dog welcoming its master.
The difference was that she radiated such a gloomy aura that even Ferda instinctively flinched.
“How did the contract go?”
“Oh, of course it went perfectly! I put on the dog collar exactly as you requested! Ehehe. When you said it was a large dog wearing silver armor, I wondered what you meant. I never imagined it would be a knight!”
Echidna continued grinning foolishly.
When Ferda had first told her that he needed “a collar for a dog wearing armor,” she had literally brought him a dog collar.
From that moment onward, Ferda stopped using metaphors when speaking with her.
“Where is the contract?”
“H-here it is!”
Echidna took out the contract she had stored away and showed it to him.
Ferda skimmed through the contents before asking her a question.
“Do you understand these clauses?”
“Hehe. There is a whole lot written here, but I don’t understand any of it at aaall.”
Echidna scratched her head awkwardly.
When it came to vicious contract magic, devils and witches naturally stood above all others.
However, there were exceptions to everything.
The reason Echidna had been unable to create a boyfriend in the first place was that she could not devise subtle contractual wording or procedures from which there was no escape.
‘She found that too difficult, so she created an unprecedented learning golem instead…’
Unable to do something simple, she had chosen the more difficult path—and somehow, that path had turned out to be the correct one.
It was absurd no matter how Ferda thought about it.
In any case, Echidna had performed the contract magic, but Mori had written the actual contents.
Within Mori’s mind lay the Archive of All Things.
Among its countless records were copies of contracts written by devils.
Ferda had ordered her to formulate the clauses based on those documents, and Mori had succeeded after three hours of work.
‘The true dog collar is complete.’
With that, Ferda had obtained two dogs.
One embedded within the empire, and another who was more intelligent—and more foolish—than expected.
Wearing a satisfied expression, Ferda placed the contract back on Echidna’s desk.
“How is the golem coming along?”
“Well… I suppose there is still quite a long way to go…?”
Judging from the golem assisting her, it had still progressed no further than being able to examine Echidna’s expression and prepare tea for her.
The only visible improvement was the shape of its face.
What had once resembled a crude drawing was gradually becoming more refined.
It was still difficult to tell, but it was undoubtedly beginning to resemble Zed Swallow.
Ferda quietly observed it before asking casually,
“You have not become so absorbed in sculpting its face that you have neglected everything else, have you?”
“U-uh! O-of course not! I only work on its appearance whenever I can’t think of anything else to do!”
Her flustered reaction was suspicious beyond belief, but Ferda did not press her.
‘Compressing entire sentences into runes is itself an extremely difficult process, yet she is capable of doing it.’
It was not something that could produce immediate results.
Ferda had no intention of accusing her of becoming lazy.
“I will continue relying on you.”
“Yes, of course. But, Regent?”
She stopped him just as he was about to leave after finishing his business.
“What is it?”
“You have reached the Third Circle, haven’t you? The energy I can roughly sense from you is stronger than it was before.”
“That is correct.”
“Then would you like to test your magical affinity?”
Echidna lifted a crystal stone from her desk as she made the suggestion.
An affinity test.
It had been a long time since Ferda had heard that term.
“By affinity, do you mean identifying the attributes I possess?”
“Now that you have reached the Third Circle, it could help determine the direction of your magic. Every mage tries it at least once, don’t they?”
The Third Circle.
The Magic Worker stage.
This was where spells began to resemble true magic in earnest.
Mana could be converted, elements could be manipulated, and transformation processes began.
It was also the stage at which mages started identifying their natural affinities.
Ferda had taken such a test around that time in his previous life.
For most people, affinity testing was treated as little more than a diversion.
For those who possessed Blue Circles, the result merely indicated that they might be slightly more suited to one element than another.
That was because the nature of their mana was fundamentally uniform.
Red Circle holders, however, were different.
Their mana was rooted in emotion, so affinity determined nearly everything.
“Let us try it.”
“Oh! Then I’ll prepare it for you!”
Echidna waved a finger through the air and recited an incantation.
Mana flowed from her fingertip and drew a magic circle in midair.
The circle gradually shrank, glowing more intensely as it transformed into a fixed shape.
A rune had been created.
Even such a simple task would normally require a month of work, yet this woman had completed it on the spot.
She truly deserved the title of Rune Maker.
Echidna embedded the rune into the crystal stone.
“Here you are!”
“Thank you.”
Ferda took the stone.
He already knew how to use it.
Once his mana reacted with the rune, it would manifest within the crystal in the form of color and shape.
‘Back then, my attributes were darkness and lightning, were they not?’
Two attributes born from hatred.
Darkness possessed immense destructive power.
Lightning excelled in speed and penetration.
By combining the advantages of both, Ferda had created magic that no one had been capable of stopping.
‘It should be different now.’
His heart was no longer the same as it had been then.
As proof, his current mana was even capable of suppressing Valdrova.
His affinity must surely have changed as well, and the path before him would therefore be different.
Ferda watched as his mana responded.
It reacted with the rune and caused a magical reaction within the crystal.
Those with an affinity for fire would see surging flames.
Those with an affinity for water would see blue droplets rippling like liquid.
But what appeared before Ferda was nothing of the sort.
The inside of the crystal had been dyed pitch-black.
It was a color that seemed to devour everything it touched.
Ferda knew it all too well.
‘Darkness…’
And within it, faint blue sparks crackled.
“Oh my. You have lightning as well?”
Nothing had changed.
No—there was one difference.
‘Was it always… this dark?’
The interior of the crystal was far darker than what he remembered seeing before.