Chapter 44
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
Ferda returned safely to Valdrova Castle.
After seeing them enter as far as the castle gate, Arwen immediately returned to Count Consilius's domain.
At the main gate, Luri welcomed Ferda and his party.
“How was your journey?”
It was a businesslike question, and Ferda answered in the same manner.
“Comfortable. We weren't attacked, and having an escort meant I wasn't bored.”
“I see. But it seems you've gained one more person since you left?”
When they had departed the castle, there had been only Zed, Ferda, and the coachman, but a man loaded down with luggage had tagged along.
“Regent! I've loaded my luggage onto my cart. Shall I load Your Excellency's luggage as well?”
Malcolm, who had been unloading his luggage from the cart, belatedly spotted Luri.
“Eek! You're that intruder from before!?”
Malcolm recoiled in terror and began to tremble.
He had not been exposed to anything like dragon fear.
Even if she was emitting it, he had been wearing a resistance ring before coming to Valdrova Castle.
He was simply a coward.
“Another pathetic one has appeared.”
Luri sighed through her nose.
“He is pathetic, but he's also an excellent specimen.”
“What kind of specimen?”
“What else would it be but a specimen for an experiment?”
“……Are you researching black magic?”
“I have research to do, but not in that field.”
Having said that, Ferda tried to enter the castle.
Luri blocked his path.
“What is it?”
“What do you mean, what is it? Are you really asking because you don't know?”
Luri's gaze shifted around before stopping on Ferda's right hand.
“Don't you think entering the castle while carrying that stench is a serious crime?”
“……”
Ferda felt a strange chill at those words.
His gaze reflexively swept over her body, and he noticed something peeking from her pocket.
It was a coarse towel dyed green.
If that towel touched him, it would strip the grime-covered skin right off.
Of course, there would be no escaping the pain of having the flesh scraped away.
Smack! Smack!
White explosions erupted from the towel moving along with Luri's hand.
Ah.
Had she been waiting for this moment all along……?
Luri had an excuse.
The fact that another woman's scent clung to Ferda's hand might make Valdrova misunderstand.
That misunderstanding had to be prevented in advance.
Ferda understood it that way, but he still could not forget the knights' screams.
The screams they had let out like children facing a demon.
Ferda did not think he could endure what they had been unable to withstand.
His eyes subtly glanced at Luri once more.
Unlike Ferda, who was worried, she wore a face full of anticipation.
“May I ask one favor?”
“Please, go ahead.”
“I would prefer it if you did it inside that spatial severance spell, at least.”
He spoke as though delivering the last words of a condemned man about to be executed, and Luri solemnly nodded.
“Of course. I wouldn't want to go around telling everyone about Lord Ferda's masochistic tastes.”
“……Right.”
He had no strength left to come up with a retort.
Ferda followed Luri inside.
What happened in the bathhouse that day became a secret shared only by Luri and Ferda.
* * *
After being scrubbed until his body gleamed, Ferda barely managed to put his clothes back on.
His sensitive skin prickled every time it touched the fabric.
‘I have to endure this.’
From now on, Ferda had to concentrate.
He looked down at the book lying on the desk.
The Shadow Arts of Barbatos.
The magic of the demon of intrigue, who loved to move covertly and specialized in manipulating shadows like limbs to catch an opponent off guard.
As a grimoire that emphasized secrecy, it was also difficult to unseal.
Unless silver chains treated with a shape-fixing spell were fastened around it, its form would melt away and it would move to another location.
The Shadow Arts of Barbatos emphasized one thing.
‘The shadow must become me, and I must become the shadow.’
Just as one had to regard the Shadow Hand as a third hand, failing to keep that in mind would cause intense phantom pain.
‘But there are things I need.’
The greatest advantage was that using the Shadow Arts required no magic circle.
And rather than using it merely as a hand made of magic, it could also be used like a real limb.
That meant Ferda could use the Shadow Hand to manifest another spell.
‘It won't display much power in terms of firepower.’
True to Barbatos's nature as the demon of intrigue and secrecy, it followed a different path from the Shadow Circles of other black magic.
‘Instead, it can catch an opponent off guard.’
While weak in an all-out battle, it possessed endless possibilities in a battle of wits.
That was why Ferda had chosen the Shadow Arts of Barbatos from among all that black magic.
‘To read it, I have to undo these silver chains.’
To undo the silver chains, he had to dispel the magic, and to dispel the magic, he needed to decipher the runes.
That was why Ferda had gone to Echidna.
“I want these chains undone. Do you think you can do it?”
“O-of course. I'll do it right away, hehe.”
Echidna looked at Ferda with a silly grin.
Her expression existed somewhere between a girl utterly smitten with a prince and a witch entertaining gloomy fantasies.
“Thank you. What would you like as payment?”
“P-payment? I don't really need anything, though??”
“If you've done the work, shouldn't I pay you a corresponding price?”
Giving an appropriate reward for work done.
That was the best way to work with a witch without suffering any trouble afterward.
“Payment…….”
Echidna's eyes rolled around.
The blonde girl standing beside Ferda.
It was Mori.
“Th-then, could you let me sleep with Mori for one night?”
Sleep with Mori.
Thinking of it as one night between two women, it did not seem particularly strange.
However, the other party was a witch, of all things.
A witch who drooled obscenely.
“Would that be all right?”
Ferda asked Mori.
Mori answered with a note she had brought.
-Judging from Echidna's behavioral patterns, if she sleeps with her, a 30 percent decrease in work efficiency is predicted.
Thirty percent was far too much.
Ferda wondered what kind of behavior she had displayed to cause a thirty percent drop.
“I can't accept that.”
“Eh, then it can't be helped……”
Echidna muttered as though wondering whether she should have brought it up at all.
Ferda decided to suggest the idea he had been considering to the disappointed Echidna.
“How about giving you some time to spend with Zed?”
“With Lord Zed?!”
Echidna's face flushed bright red.
Overwhelmed with excitement, she repeatedly nodded while snorting through her nose.
“Th-then how much time would you, um, give me……?!”
“How about this?”
Ferda held up three fingers.
She was highly satisfied.
“Thirty minutes! Mm-hm……! That's good too! Let's do that! Deal!”
“……All right.”
The three fingers Ferda held up meant three hours.
But she was satisfied even after cutting the amount down to one-sixth herself.
‘If I'd said three hours, it might have had the opposite effect.’
Too much of anything was a problem.
Since he had established a baseline with the first payment, Ferda decided he would adjust the price based on it.
“Then shall we take a look?”
Echidna placed the grimoire of the Shadow Arts on the worktable with an excited expression.
She put on large-lensed glasses and examined the book.
She observed every element making up the book through all five senses, not merely its outward appearance.
“Hmm, the material isn't hard; it's rather soft, like mud. The smell is…… snff~. Ah, the smell of sulfur rising from Hell is something special. It has that coppery stink, you know? That peculiar smell that seems to come from an armpit—.”
“Enough.”
“Oh, yes. Hehe……”
Ferda stopped her before she could go off on a tangent about filthy matters and redirected her attention to the task at hand.
After finishing her examination of the book, she moved on to the silver chains.
When she lightly infused the chains with magical power, blue letters rose from them.
They were runes.
“Hmm……”
Echidna's eyes grew quite serious.
It was difficult to believe she was the same woman who chased after men all the time.
‘She is similar to Vunnel in that regard.’
When she focused on her work, she became solemn and began interpreting the runes.
‘If one can create runes, one can interpret them as well.’
What Echidna was doing was similar to identifying and dismantling a set trap.
By interpreting the runes, she could determine how the spell operated and identify the side effects that would appear if it was forcibly dispelled.
“They even set a trap spell on the shape-fixing spell that strikes the person dispelling it if they forcibly dispel it. An ordinary mage would die, wouldn't they? And this signature here…… I think it belongs to the Alte Church.”
“Can you undo it?”
Echidna smiled brightly.
“I don't think we need to.”
“Why not?”
“If we undo the shape-fixing spell, who knows when this book might run away? Do you intend to read it only once and be done with it, Regent?”
Ferda shook his head.
Even if he obtained every spell, he did not like the thought of the book being released somewhere.
“Then let's loosen the conditions a little.”
“How?”
“We loosen the conditions of the shape-fixing spell. Rather than simply sealing the book exactly as it is, we allow it to maintain a certain degree of form. Enough for it to be read, that is.”
“Proceed.”
“Got it!”
Echidna chanted a spell while tapping the runes with the shaft of her pen.
A moment later, a circular magic circle unfolded before her.
It appeared to be at least a Fifth-Tier spell.
She placed her finger on the magic circle and began manipulating it in various ways.
‘Manipulating a magic circle…….’
Even when Ferda had been an archmage, he had considered doing this.
But destroying a spell, rewriting it, and binding it again was easier and more commonplace.
‘Rune makers are different.’
They could touch the magic itself and understood its flow.
So they arrived at the idea of loosening the conditions instead of destroying it.
“If I do this here…… done!”
When she tapped a rune with the pen shaft, the magic circle returned inside the rune.
At the same time, the tightly bound silver chains visibly loosened under Echidna's power.
“May I read it here?”
“Yes! Of course!”
“Bring me a few thick books.”
“Books? J-just a moment!”
Crash, clatter.
Rustle, rustle.
As he had asked, she held up several thick dictionaries.
“But why?”
“I need to adjust the height to match your sitting height.”
“Sitting height?”
Ferda placed about three books on the chair.
He adjusted the height to match Mori's sitting height.
“Is this height all right?”
Mori nodded.
“Then let's get to wor—.”
“W-wait a moment!!”
Just as he was about to begin, Echidna cut in and wrapped her arms around Mori.
“Was our Mori the one you intended to make read the book? Are you really going to subject a child to something more cruel than death?”
“Then why do you think I brought her?”
“I thought it was because Mori wanted to see me so, so badly. Isn't that right?”
Echidna beamed at Mori, and Mori wrote on her note.
-That is not the case.
“What……? I really thought we'd gotten so, so close…… Was I the only one sincere about it??”
-That is correct.
Mori drew a firm line between them.
At this confirmation, which struck like a bolt from the blue, Echidna sniffled back tears.
“This is something only this child can do.”
“But exposing her to demon language written by a demon…….”
“Yes, people gradually go mad.”
“You know that and you're still making her do it? Isn't that too cruel!?”
Echidna hugged Mori and rubbed her cheek against her head.
Ferda could somewhat understand why her work efficiency fell by thirty percent.
“It doesn't matter. In any case, it is impossible to corrupt this child.”
“R-really?”
Echidna asked, and Mori nodded.
“Then…….”
Anxious to the very last moment, she continued stroking and tugging at Mori's hair.
“Begin.”
At Ferda's command, Mori opened the book.
At that moment, something contained within the book began to radiate outward.
A sharp smell of sulfur spread, along with the sensation of something filthy crawling over his entire body.
That was what it meant for it to be demon language written by a demon.
Merely looking at it was blasphemous, and merely taking it into one's eyes left a brand.
Goooo—.
Ferda and Echidna looked away from the letters.
Demon language had been created in Hell itself.
Anyone who encountered demon language written by a demon would see a fragment of Hell.
Those who encountered that fragment of Hell would be branded and hear the demons whispering for the rest of their lives.
It was a trial that would never end.
If one could not overcome that endless trial, one would become a demon worshiper or go mad.
In that way, one became a conduit through which demons could reach this world, taking the first step toward domination.
‘The same applies to me.’
Since demon language derived from the essence of the letters themselves, it was impossible to block it in advance.
Ferda, too, had encountered demon language in order to learn demonic magic.
In fact, the reason he had been able to learn the Shadow Hand of the Shadow Arts was that he had learned demon language.
‘Though I erased it all after learning it.’
The best method was to learn the magic, finish interpreting it, and then erase the demon language from one's mind.
That was why Ferda had not been manipulated by the demons despite knowing the magic of Hell.
‘I no longer need to learn demon language.’
There was someone who had learned it, and someone who could interpret it for him.
The slave sage, Mori.
She would become Ferda's scribe.
Mori stared clearly at the demon language.
Deep-red flames kindled in her eyes.
Her eyes became spears, trying to peer inside Mori.
But there was no way Mori could be shaken.
Not because Mori was flawless.
Even the flawless could be shaken by demons if they let their guard down.
She had no ego.
The demons needed to use the ego as a handle to shake her, but since she had no handle, there was no way they could grasp Mori.
She took up the pen and began writing on the paper.
Even with the window to Hell open, she maintained her ultimate rationality and continued interpreting.
Ignoring the demons' whispers until the final page, Mori quickly finished the interpretation and closed the book as it was.
The original was held in Mori's right hand,
and the translated copy in her left.
“Have you finished everything?”
When Ferda asked to confirm, Mori nodded.
Ferda gave his final command.
“Then forget everything you saw.”
At that moment, the eyes that had reflected red flames returned to their original color.
She had truly forgotten everything with a single command.
It was an instruction that would have been impossible with mere words if she were an ordinary human.
Only Mori, the slave sage, could do it.
A moment later, Mori's body began to sway.
She struggled to keep her heavy eyelids open.
She had used too much strength for the interpretation.
“Go to bed early today.”
Once Ferda gave his permission, the exhausted Mori leaned against the backrest and closed her eyes.
“Echidna, could you take Mori to her room?”
“Of course!”
Echidna watched her with a lecherous gaze.
“Heehee, heeheehee, heeheehee……!”
As if that were not enough, she began to drool.
Ferda could somewhat understand why her efficiency had fallen by thirty percent.
Ferda added another warning.
“Lay her down in her room and come back out. I permit no further contact. Understood?”
“O-of course! I never had any ulterior motives!? Never!?”
She said that, but her constant lip-smacking from sheer regret made her impossible to believe.
Ferda picked up the translated copy she had completed.
He began by reading the Shadow Hand section he already knew from the Shadow Arts of Barbatos.
‘She wrote it just as I understood it.’
He judged that there would be no difficulty understanding the magic by reading only the translated copy.
Ferda returned to the beginning.
‘The reason I needed to obtain this grimoire.’
It was the mana cultivation method.
One of the methods for reaching the Fourth Circle from the Third Circle.
‘Shape of Shadow.’
That page caught Ferda's eye.
Despite reading a demonic grimoire from Hell, and one written by an archdemon at that, he experienced no side effects at all.
‘How long did it take to reach the Fourth Circle normally?’
The Fourth Circle was the stage at which one truly earned the name of mage.
It was that difficult, and even those with talent had to devote several years to it.
The Red Circle was not so different.
‘If anything, it was more dangerous.’
The Red Circle's madness and danger increased with every higher stage, making it a high-risk path from the outset.
‘Was I ever the sort of person to worry about that?’
Ferda had grown stronger for the sake of hatred and risked every challenge in order to become stronger.
The difference from before was that now he was doing it for Valdrova.
Ferda immediately decided to try the cultivation method.
Since the method had its own effects, the process itself was simple.
He lit a pitch-black, sealed room with a candle.
Then he placed a candle behind his head to create a long, deep shadow.
It began by staring into that shadow.
At first, it involved only magic using the shadow, but later one could become the shadow itself or even become someone else's shadow.
What it sought was to handle it freely, pursuing freedom beyond common sense.
‘The shadow becomes me, and I become the shadow.’
Keeping that in mind, he quietly gazed down at the shadow flickering with the candle's movement.
It was at that moment.
Ferda suddenly felt as though his body had been pressed flat against the floor.
He moved only two-dimensionally in a cramped, suffocating space, as though trapped inside a wall.
He entered a state of complete concentration on the shadow.
‘Now I close my eyes.’
Carrying that sensation intact, Ferda headed toward the Circle rotating within his danjeon.
He concentrated like that for about an hour.
He needed to draw mana down into the shadow and create a rotating circle.
‘I don't feel anything.’
Ferda's state was utterly calm.
For the Red Circle, calm was no different from a brake.
‘It won't work for now.’
If it seemed impossible, he gave up without lingering regret.
Ferda was still young, and he still had many things left to do.
He left the dark room and went outside.
It was a night when the moon was sinking.
Since it had fallen toward the west, midnight must have passed long ago.
He could not tell how many days had passed.
Only the hungry rumbling from his stomach cried out that a great deal of time had gone by.
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