Chapter 44
A Difference in Perspective
Ferda returned safely to Valdrova Castle.
After seeing him through the castle gates, Arwon immediately departed for Count Consilus’s territory.
Luri welcomed Ferda and his party at the main entrance.
“How was your journey?”
It was a businesslike question, and Ferda answered in the same manner.
“Comfortable. There were no attacks, and with an escort accompanying us, it was not particularly dull.”
“I see. However, it appears you have returned with one more person than when you left.”
When they departed the castle, there had only been Ferda, Zed, and the coachman.
Now, however, another man had followed them back, laden with all sorts of baggage.
“Lord Regent! I loaded my belongings onto the luggage cart. Should I load your baggage now?”
Malcolm, who had been unloading his belongings onto the cart, belatedly noticed Luri.
“Eek! You’re that intruder from before!”
Malcolm recoiled in terror and began trembling.
He was not being subjected to Dragon Fear.
Even if Luri had been releasing it, Malcolm had put on a resistance ring before arriving at Valdrova Castle.
He was simply a coward.
“It seems we have gained another pathetic fool.”
Luri sighed through her nose.
“He is pathetic, yes, but he is also an excellent specimen.”
“A specimen of what?”
“What else would a specimen be used for besides experimentation?”
“...Are you planning to research evil sorcery?”
“I do need to conduct research, but not of that sort.”
With that, Ferda attempted to enter the castle.
Luri stepped in front of him and blocked his path.
“What is it?”
“What is it? Are you truly asking because you do not know?”
Luri’s gaze slowly rolled downward before stopping on Ferda’s right hand.
“Do you not consider entering the castle while carrying that stench a serious crime?”
“...”
Ferda felt an oddly chilling sensation at her words.
His gaze reflexively swept across her entire body until he spotted something peeking out from her pocket.
It was a rough towel dyed green.
Whenever that towel touched dirty skin, it peeled the skin itself away along with the grime.
Naturally, there was no avoiding the pain of having one’s flesh scraped off.
Bang! Bang!
The towel moved with Luri’s hand, producing bursts of white energy.
Ah.
Had she been waiting for this moment...?
Luri had justification.
The scent of another woman on Ferda’s hand could cause Valdrova to misunderstand.
Any possibility of such a misunderstanding needed to be eliminated beforehand.
Ferda understood her reasoning.
Even so, he had not forgotten the screams of the knights.
They had cried out like children confronted by a demon.
Ferda did not believe he could endure what they had failed to withstand.
His eyes cautiously shifted toward Luri once again.
Unlike the apprehensive Ferda, she looked positively expectant.
“May I ask one favor?”
“Please speak.”
“At the very least, I would prefer that we do it inside that spatial isolation spell.”
He spoke like a condemned prisoner making his final request.
Luri solemnly nodded.
“Of course. I cannot go around telling everyone about Lord Ferda’s masochistic preferences.”
“...Right.”
He had no strength left to retort.
Ferda followed Luri inside.
What happened in the bathhouse that day remained a secret known only to Luri and Ferda.
After having his body scrubbed until it gleamed, Ferda barely managed to put on his clothes.
Every time the fabric touched his sensitive skin, a prickling sensation ran through him.
‘I must endure it.’
From now on, Ferda needed to concentrate.
He looked down at the book resting on his desk.
Barbatos’s Shadow Arts.
The demon of schemes preferred to act covertly.
Its magic specialized in manipulating shadows like limbs and catching opponents off guard.
As a grimoire emphasizing stealth, it was also exceptionally difficult to seal.
Unless silver chains enchanted with shape-fixation magic were wrapped around it, its form would melt away and relocate elsewhere.
Barbatos’s Shadow Arts emphasized one principle above all else.
‘The shadow must become me, and I must become the shadow.’
Just as one had to regard Shadow Hand as a third hand while controlling it, failure to keep that principle in mind would result in severe phantom pain.
‘But it contains what I need.’
Its greatest advantage was that Shadow Arts required no magic circle.
Furthermore, the shadows did not need to be used merely as magically created hands.
They could function like actual limbs.
That meant Ferda could cast other spells through Shadow Hand.
‘It cannot demonstrate much power in terms of raw firepower.’
True to the nature of Barbatos, the demon of schemes and secrecy, it differed fundamentally from the Shadow Circles found in other forms of evil sorcery.
‘But it can catch an opponent off guard.’
Although weak in a frontal confrontation, it possessed limitless possibilities in a battle of wits.
That was why Ferda had selected Barbatos’s Shadow Arts from among so many forms of evil sorcery.
‘To read it, I need to remove these silver chains.’
Removing the chains required dispelling the magic.
And dispelling the magic required deciphering the runes.
That was why Ferda went to find Echidna.
“I would like you to remove these chains. Do you think you can?”
“O-Of course! I’ll do it right away. Hehe.”
Echidna grinned as she stared at Ferda.
Her expression existed somewhere between that of a maiden infatuated with a prince and a witch indulging in sinister fantasies.
“Thank you. What would you like as payment?”
“P-Payment? I don’t particularly need anything, though?”
“If you perform a task, should you not receive compensation equal to your work?”
Giving appropriate compensation for work performed.
That was the best way to deal with witches without inviting future trouble.
“Compensation...”
Echidna’s eyes rolled to the side.
They landed on the blonde girl standing beside Ferda.
Mori.
“Th-Then could you let me sleep with Mori for one night?”
Sharing a bed with Mori.
If it were merely two women spending a night together, there would not have been anything particularly strange about it.
But the other person was a witch.
And one who was drooling ominously at that.
“Would that be acceptable?”
Ferda asked while looking at Mori.
Mori answered with a note she had brought.
—Based on Echidna’s behavioral patterns, spending the night with her is predicted to reduce my work efficiency by thirty percent.
Thirty percent was far too much.
Ferda wondered what sort of behavioral patterns she had displayed to produce such a drastic decline.
“I cannot accept that.”
“Eh? Then I suppose it can’t be helped.”
Why even bring it up, then?
Echidna muttered under her breath.
Seeing her disappointment, Ferda decided to suggest something he had already considered.
“How about giving you time alone with Zed?”
“Sir Zed?!”
Echidna’s face turned bright red.
Overcome with excitement, she snorted through her nose and nodded repeatedly.
“Th-Then h-how much time would I get?!”
“Let us make it this much.”
Ferda held up three fingers.
She looked enormously satisfied.
“Thirty whole minutes! Mm-hmm...! That’s good too! Let’s do that! Deal!”
“...Very well.”
Ferda’s three fingers had meant three hours.
Yet Echidna had reduced it to one-sixth of the intended amount and was still satisfied.
‘Perhaps saying three hours would actually have had the opposite effect.’
Too much of anything could cause problems.
Now that he had established an initial rate, Ferda decided he could adjust the compensation based on that standard in the future.
“Then shall we take a look?”
With an excited expression, Echidna placed the grimoire of Shadow Arts on the worktable.
She put on a pair of thick-lensed glasses and began examining the book.
She did not merely study its appearance.
She used all five senses to observe as many of the book’s components as possible.
“Hmm. The material isn’t hard. It’s soft, almost like clay. As for the smell... Sniff. Haaah, there’s something special about the sulfurous scent rising from Hell. You know that musky odor? That peculiar smell like it’s coming from someone’s armpit—”
“Stop.”
“Ah, yes. Hehe...”
Ferda stopped her before she could veer completely into vulgar nonsense and forced her to focus on the task.
Once she finished examining the book, she moved on to the silver chains.
When she lightly infused the chains with mana, blue letters rose from their surface.
Runes.
“Hmm...”
Echidna’s gaze became remarkably serious.
It was difficult to believe she was the same woman who usually chased after men.
‘She is the same type as Burnell.’
Whenever she concentrated on her work, she became solemn and began interpreting the runes.
‘Someone capable of creating runes should also be capable of deciphering them.’
What Echidna was doing resembled identifying and disarming an installed trap.
By interpreting the runes, she could determine how the magic operated and identify the side effects that would occur if it were forcibly dispelled.
“They installed a trap spell that strikes the person attempting to dispel it if the shape-fixation magic is forcibly removed. An ordinary mage would probably die from it. And this signature here... seems to belong to the Order of Alte.”
“Can you remove it?”
Echidna smiled faintly.
“I don’t think we need to remove it.”
“Why not?”
“If we dispel the shape-fixation magic, we won’t know when this book might run away, right? Are you planning to read it only once and then never use it again, Lord Regent?”
Ferda shook his head.
Even after obtaining every spell within the book, he would feel uncomfortable allowing it to escape somewhere.
“So let’s loosen the conditions instead.”
“How?”
“We alter the conditions of the shape-fixation spell. Instead of simply sealing the book in this exact form, we allow it to change within certain limits. Just enough for you to open and read it.”
“Proceed.”
“Understood!”
Echidna tapped the rune with the tip of her pen and began chanting.
A moment later, a circular magic array unfolded before her.
Judging by its structure, it appeared to be a spell of at least the Fifth Tier.
She placed her fingers against the magic array and began manipulating various parts of it.
‘Manipulating a magic array...’
Ferda had considered the idea even during his days as an Archmage.
However, destroying the magic, rewriting it, and binding it anew was far easier and more conventional.
‘Rune Makers approach things differently.’
They could directly interfere with the magic itself and understood how its flow worked.
That was why, instead of destroying it, they arrived at the idea of loosening its conditions.
“If I adjust this part like so... Done!”
When she lightly tapped the rune with her pen, the magic array sank back into it.
At the same time, the tightly wound silver chains smoothly loosened under Echidna’s power.
“May I read it here for a while?”
“Yes! Of course!”
“Bring me several thick books.”
“Books? J-Just a moment!”
Clatter, crash.
Rustle, rustle.
As requested, she brought over several thick dictionaries.
“But why?”
“I need to adjust the height for someone sitting down.”
“The sitting height?”
Ferda placed three of the books on top of a chair.
He adjusted them until the seat matched Mori’s sitting height.
“Will this height be sufficient?”
Mori nodded.
“Then begin—”
“W-Wait a moment!”
Just as they were about to start, Echidna interrupted and wrapped her arms around Mori.
“Don’t tell me the one you intend to make read this is our Mori? You would subject a child to something crueler than death?”
“Why else would I have brought her?”
“I thought Mori came because she missed me terribly. Isn’t that right?”
Echidna beamed at Mori, who wrote her answer on a note.
—That is not correct.
“Eek... I thought we had b-become close... Was I the only one who was sincere?”
—Yes.
Mori drew a firm line between them.
Echidna sniffled at the devastating confirmation.
“This is a task only this child can perform.”
“But exposing her to Demonic Script written by a demon...”
“Yes. It gradually drives humans insane.”
“And you’re making her do it despite knowing that? Isn’t that too cruel?!”
Echidna hugged Mori and rubbed her cheek against the girl’s head.
Ferda now understood why Mori’s efficiency would decline.
“It does not matter. Corrupting this child is impossible.”
“R-Really?”
Echidna asked, and Mori nodded.
“If that’s the case...”
Still anxious, Echidna continued stroking her hair until the very last moment.
“Begin.”
At Ferda’s instruction, Mori opened the book.
The instant she did, something contained within it began radiating outward.
A sharp sulfurous odor filled the room, accompanied by the sensation of something unclean crawling across their bodies.
That was what it meant for Demonic Script to have been written by a demon.
Merely looking at it was blasphemy.
Merely allowing it into one’s eyes left a brand upon the soul.
Whoooom—
Ferda and Echidna looked away from the letters.
Demonic Script had been created in Hell itself.
Anyone who encountered Demonic Script written by a demon would glimpse a fragment of Hell.
Those who witnessed such a fragment were branded, condemned to hear the whispers of demons for the rest of their lives.
It was a trial that never ended.
Those who failed to withstand that endless trial either became demon worshippers or descended into madness.
In doing so, they became vessels connecting the demons to this world, allowing them to take their first step toward domination.
‘I was no exception.’
The effects of Demonic Script originated from the essence of the letters themselves, making them impossible to block in advance.
Ferda had also encountered Demonic Script in order to learn demonic magic.
In fact, he had only been able to master Shadow Hand because he had learned Demonic Script.
‘Though I erased all of it after mastering the spells.’
The best method was to erase the Demonic Script from one’s mind once the magic had been learned and fully interpreted.
That was why Ferda knew the spells of Hell without being controlled by them.
‘I no longer need to learn Demonic Script myself.’
Someone had already learned it.
And there was someone capable of interpreting it in his place.
Mori, the Slave Sage.
She would become Ferda’s amanuensis.
Mori stared directly at the Demonic Script.
Brilliant crimson flames ignited within her eyes.
The letters had become spears, attempting to pierce through Mori and look inside her.
Yet there was no possibility of them shaking her.
It was not because Mori was flawless.
Even flawless beings could be shaken by demons if they made a single mistake.
Mori possessed no ego.
Demons needed to seize the ego like a handle in order to shake someone.
But Mori had no handle for them to grasp.
She took hold of her pen and began writing on the paper.
Even with the gates of Hell open before her, she maintained absolute reason and continued interpreting the text.
Ignoring every demonic whisper, Mori rapidly completed the translation through the final page and closed the book.
The original text was in her right hand.
The translated copy was in her left.
“Have you finished everything?”
Ferda asked to confirm.
Mori nodded.
Ferda gave his final order.
“Then forget everything you saw.”
At that instant, the crimson flames reflected in her eyes vanished, and they returned to their original color.
With a single command, she had truly forgotten all of it.
Such an instruction would have been impossible for an ordinary human to follow merely through spoken words.
Only Mori, the Slave Sage, could accomplish it.
A moment later, Mori’s body began to sway.
She barely managed to keep her heavy eyelids open.
She had exhausted too much strength during the interpretation.
“Go to bed early today.”
The moment Ferda gave his permission, the suffering Mori leaned back against the chair and closed her eyes.
“Echidna, will you take Mori to her room?”
“Of course!”
Echidna stared at her with a lecherous gaze.
“Heh... Hehehe... Hehehehe...!”
As though that were not enough, she even began drooling.
Ferda was beginning to understand why efficiency would fall by thirty percent.
He added,
“Lay her down and leave the room. I will not permit any further contact. Do you understand?”
“O-Of course! I would never harbor any improper thoughts! Never! Absolutely never!”
Despite her words, the way she smacked her lips in disappointment made her difficult to trust.
Ferda picked up the completed translation.
He first read the section on Shadow Hand, which he already understood from Barbatos’s Shadow Arts.
‘It has been written exactly as I understood it.’
That was enough to determine that reading only the translated copy would present no obstacle to understanding the magic.
Ferda returned to the beginning.
‘The reason I needed to obtain this grimoire.’
It was the mana cultivation technique.
One of the methods for advancing from the Third Circle to the Fourth Circle.
‘Shape of Shadow.’
The relevant page entered Ferda’s sight.
Even though he was reading a tome from Hell written by a Great Demon, he suffered no side effects whatsoever.
‘How long would it normally take to reach the Fourth Circle?’
The Fourth Circle was the stage at which one earned the title of a true mage.
It was correspondingly difficult, requiring even talented individuals to devote several years to the process.
The Red Circle was no exception.
‘If anything, it was more dangerous.’
The higher the Red Circle advanced, the greater its madness and danger became, making the risks considerably higher.
‘Was I ever the kind of person who cared about that?’
Ferda had grown stronger for the sake of his hatred.
And to become stronger, he had never hesitated to challenge danger.
The only difference from before was that he was now doing it for Valdrova.
Ferda decided to begin the cultivation technique immediately.
As with most cultivation methods, the procedure itself was simple despite the unique effects it granted.
A sealed room where not even a trace of light could enter was illuminated by a single candle.
The candle was placed behind his head, creating a long, dense shadow before him.
The process began by staring into that shadow.
At first, one could only use shadow-based magic.
Eventually, one could become a shadow itself or even enter another person’s shadow.
The ultimate aim was to transcend common sense, pursue complete freedom, and wield shadows accordingly.
‘The shadow becomes me, and I become the shadow.’
Keeping that principle in mind, Ferda stared silently down at the shadow flickering with the candlelight.
At that moment, he suddenly felt as though his body had been pressed flat against the floor.
It was as if he had been trapped within a wall, confined to a narrow, suffocating space where he could move only across a flat plane.
He entered a state of complete concentration upon the shadow.
‘Now I close my eyes.’
Holding onto that sensation, Ferda directed his awareness toward the circles revolving within his core.
He remained focused for roughly an hour.
He needed to draw mana down into the shadow and create a new rotation within it.
‘There is no response.’
Ferda’s condition was far too calm.
For a Red Circle, calmness was no different from a braking mechanism.
‘It will be difficult for now.’
When something appeared impossible, Ferda abandoned it without lingering regret.
He was still young, and there remained many things he had yet to accomplish.
He left the darkroom and stepped outside.
The moon hung low in the night sky.
It had already descended toward the west, meaning midnight had long since passed.
He had no idea how many days had gone by.
Only the hungry growl echoing from his stomach announced that a great deal of time had elapsed.