An Offer You Cannot Refuse

An unnamed rural village.

Inside a mansion that stood incongruously lavish against its surroundings, a man was smiling with quiet satisfaction.

"By now the extermination squad should have arrived."

Helus was in a good mood.

He knew exactly what sort of people the extermination squad were—vicious scum it was better to send away with a little money than try to shake off. Having connections like that was a blessing.

"Once I get that girl back… it would be wiser to throw in with the Empire."

He had maintained neutrality only because of the risk that his true identity might be exposed. If that girl were kidnapped again, it would be a disaster.

Still… does that Ferda Valdrova fellow know what that child is?

There was no way to discover the girl's true nature. To her, the rules were absolute. He had made certain she would listen to no one but Helus Fobidas, so she was nothing more than a half-wit who could not even understand speech. If she was returned safely, that would mean the man had no idea what she was for.

Well… it should turn out fine.

He cracked open a bottle of whiskey and poured it into a crystal glass.

At that moment, a carriage pulled up. He casually lifted the curtain and looked outside. A most welcome face.

Sir Carl!

Helus rushed out barefoot to greet him.

"Welcome! Sir Carl!"

"……"

"Haha, never thought you'd come this late at night. How did the mission go?"

"……"

"What's wrong with this man? Not a word? Come on—since you're here, have a drink. What about the child?"

"Get in."

"Get in? Ah—right, of course."

Helus climbed into the carriage. The plush, luxurious interior was empty. Carl got in after him and shut the door.

"……Drive."

The carriage began to move. Helus's eyes went wide.

"Sir Carl, where are we going?"

"……"

"Answer me! A-are you kidnapping me right now?!"

Helus went wild. But Carl simply sat there in silence.

"So that's how it's going to be!? Do as you please! I'll never set foot in the Empire again—mark my words!"

"……Haa."

Carl, who had been sitting still, let out a deep sigh. He lifted his head—and his hand at the same time.

Crack!

His calloused palm was no different from a club.

"Ack!"

"Shut up, you fat pig."

"W-what is the meaning of this, Sir Carl?"

"What do you think it means."

Crack!

"Can't you read the situation? This whole mess is because of that little girl you told me to bring back!"

"The kid? You said you'd use that kid as a good pretext—"

"Like I care!"

Crack!

"I!"

Crack!

"Came all the way here because of that, for fuck's sake!"

It was nothing more than violence for the sake of venting, but it was more than enough logic to make Helus quiet down. His mouth was raw, and blood streamed from his nose.

"Anyway, thanks to the montage of that brat you gave me, you're stuck in this too. So just come along quietly."

Carl exhaled a sigh toward the sky.

Fuck. Why am I doing this.

He swallowed the lament and threw himself back against the seat. Helus sat as meekly as a lamb and let himself be taken. Questions piled up inside him, but he decided not to care. There was no way for him to escape this situation anyway. Because he was no sage.

After wandering without destination, the carriage finally stopped. His body was hauled up like a piece of cargo and carried somewhere. The place he was dragged to was the audience chamber of an old castle.

A red carpet stretched across the floor, and banners bearing the seal of a red dragon hung on the walls. Beneath those banners stood a young man, far too young, with an aura that filled the hall.

"Do you know who I am?"

Helus was seeing him for the first time today. Yet the situation and the aura the man radiated moved his lips of their own accord.

"Fe-Ferda Valdrova……"

"That's informal."

"I… I present myself before the Regent of Valdrova……"

Hadn't they said he was an eighteen-year-old child regent? But he was nothing like what Helus had heard. Looking up at him in this moment felt like facing a giant. He had been a fool who dared defy even Carl, but with Ferda he could not even think of it.

Beside him stood a girl Helus had seen once before—his precious young servant girl. The wellspring of knowledge he had been so desperate to find.

Was she always this beautiful?

When he had left her with that fat woman, he had never noticed. With her hair neatly combed and dressed properly, she looked every bit a young lady of noble birth.

"You are the Sage of Water, correct?"

"Sage of Water? I'm nothing more than an old Magic Walker rotting in a back room."

"I thought you were just an idiot, but you're smarter than I expected."

Hearing that answer, Ferda let out a genuine murmur of admiration.

"Is your servant dead?"

"……Yes."

"Yes. No one can forgive having what they hold dear taken from them. Even I find it hard to forgive, don't I?"

"What is there to forgive? The sin was mine, this foolish man."

"What sin?"

"……"

"Saying you committed a sin while not knowing what that sin is—that's lying, isn't it? I dislike empty words."

Helus forced out the words he never wanted to speak with his own mouth.

"My sin is that I used a child to parade myself about as if I were a sage."

Helus bowed his head.

"So please…… spare only my life."

He submitted with formal courtesy. But what was reflected in Ferda's eyes was indifference—a face that felt no value whatsoever in whether this man lived or died.

"You have lived imitating a sage, but you are still clever. So I trust you understand this as well."

Ferda asked, leaning close to his ear.

"Do you think you can live after this?"

"……"

"Those who have tasted power never forget its flavor. That is why the struggle for power is the most vicious and filthy of all. How great was the power you tasted?"

"……"

"You are respected in your village, and even the Empire wants you. Can you set that aside and go back?"

"I-I can for—"

"No. If I send you off like this, you will move to reclaim your power. Not because you are stupid, but because you are human."

His whole body trembled. Despite the cool weather, sweat poured like rain.

Ah. So this is where I die.

"Therefore, I shall make you a proposal you cannot refuse."

All fear vanished, and a single ray of light fell. Helus raised his head.

"Do you not wish to live as a sage?"

"What…… do you mean?"

Ferda took something from his coat and set it on the floor. A crystal orb.

"A communication crystal. A high-grade orb containing the essence of eternal ice from the deepest reaches of the northern snow mountains. Material superior even to the Empire's. Ordinary mages, of course—and even imperial mages—could never dare eavesdrop or track it."

He tapped the crystal as he continued.

"What is connected inside this is Mori's mind."

"Mori……?"

"The name of this young lady you used to keep."

Ferda lightly patted Mori's shoulder. The girl reacted to that voice. It truly had become her name.

"You desire this child's knowledge. So live as a sage, just as you wished. Drown in pleasure at night, and by day hand out wisdom that doesn't even amount to much—I don't mind."

What he was offering was a life no different from before. Something Helus had so desperately wanted, yet he could not snatch it up so easily. Sweet rewards always came with a fatal price.

"What must I give in return?"

"Your soul."

Everything.

"Become my dog."

Helus hated getting involved with people. Because his true worth would be exposed in no time. But there was something he hated even more. Losing his money. Losing his reputation. What had supported all of that was power. Losing power meant losing everything.

Ferda was right. He was already craving the power he had enjoyed. He was already a dog of power, and for it he would do anything—even if it meant becoming a demon's dog, or anything else.

And so Helus bowed his head once more.

"I shall become your loyal dog."

Ferda went down to the castle basement. Echidna's laboratory lay on the castle floor. When he opened the door, a witch's gloom flowed out like a gloomy fog. What was different was the absence of the herbal-room smell and bubbling cauldron typical of witches—only the scent of ink and stone dust filled the air.

"Welcome, Regent-niiim!"

Echidna greeted him with a silly grin. She came running like a large dog welcoming its master. The difference was that she radiated an eerie aura that made even Ferda flinch.

"How did the contract go?"

"Ah, of course it went perfectly! I put the dog collar on him just as you said, Regent! Ehehe—at first when you said a big dog in silver armor I wondered what you meant, but I never thought it'd be a knight!"

Echidna grinned like an idiot. When he had actually said he needed "a collar to bind a dog in armor," she had brought a real dog collar. From then on, Ferda had stopped using metaphors when speaking with Echidna.

"Where is the contract?"

"H-here it is!"

Echidna pulled out the stored contract and showed it to Ferda. Ferda glanced over the contents and asked her.

"These terms—do you understand them?"

"Hehe, there's sooo much written, but I don't understand a siiingle bit of what it says~"

Echidna scratched her head sheepishly. If one were to name those who handled vicious contract magic well, it would of course be demons and witches. But there were exceptions to everything. The reason Echidna had never been able to make a boyfriend in the first place was because she couldn't craft the clever phrasing of contracts or the inescapable procedures.

Because that was hard, she created an unprecedented learning-type golem… huh.

The type who found the simple things difficult and took the hard road—only for that road to be the right answer. Even thinking about it now, it was absurd.

Anyway, Echidna had carried out the contract itself, but Mori had been the one to write its contents. The Library of All Things inside her mind. Within it were even copies of contracts written by demons. Ferda had instructed her to create the clauses based on those, and Mori had succeeded in producing them over three hours.

The true dog collar is complete.

And so he had obtained two dogs. A dog infiltrating the Empire, and a dog that was smarter—and stupider—than expected. With a satisfied look, Ferda set the contract on Echidna's desk.

"How is the golem production coming along?"

"Well… should I say it's still a ways off…?"

Looking at the golem assisting her, it was still only at the level of making tea while staring at Echidna's face. If there was any visible progress, it was that the shape of the face was gradually changing from a crude drawing. He still couldn't be certain, but it was definitely starting to resemble Jed Swallow.

Ferda watched it quietly and asked casually.

"You're not so absorbed in carving the face that you've forgotten everything else, are you?"

"Wha-wha-what! Of course nooot! I only touch the appearance whenever I can't think of anything~!"

Her flustered manner was suspicious as anything, but Ferda didn't press her for now.

The process of compressing sentences into runes is hard work in itself, and she's a witch who can do it.

It was work that was difficult to produce immediate results from, so Ferda had no intention of criticizing her for being lax.

"I'll be counting on you going forward as well."

"Yes, understood. But, Regent?"

As he was about to turn away after finishing his business, she stopped him.

"What is it?"

"Um, you've reached the 3rd Circle, right? Looking at the aura I can roughly sense, you're stronger than what I saw before."

"That's right."

"Then would you like to try an aptitude test?"

Echidna lifted a crystal from the desk and proposed. An aptitude test. It had been a long time since he had heard those words.

"By aptitude test, do you mean finding the attributes I possess?"

"Now that you've reached the 3rd Circle, you should find your magical path as well. Mages all do it at least once, right?"

3rd Circle—Magic Walker. The stage where proper magic began to pour forth in earnest, and the process of substituting magic to command and transform elements began. From there, one started seeking one's aptitude, and Ferda too had measured it around that time once.

Aptitude testing was treated as something close to a mere pastime. In the case of Blue Circle possessors, it went no further than lightly learning that one was a bit more suited to this or that—because the nature of mana itself was uniform. But Red Circle possessors were different. Mana based on emotion meant nearly every attribute was an aptitude.

"Let's do it."

"Ah, then I'll prepare it for you!"

Echidna waved her fingers through the air and chanted a spell. Mana flowing from her fingers drew a magic circle in the air. Then the magic circle gradually shrank, glowed intensely, and transformed into a fixed form. A rune had been created.

Even something this simple would take a month of work, yet this woman had made it on the spot. Truly a Rune Maker.

Echidna embedded the rune into the crystal.

"Here you are!"

"My thanks."

Ferda picked up the crystal. He knew how to use it. When Ferda's mana reacted to the rune, it would take on color and form inside the crystal through the rune.

Back then I was darkness and lightning, wasn't I?

Two attributes formed on the foundation of hatred. Darkness had high destructive power. Lightning was magic with high speed and penetration. Combining the strengths of both, Ferda's magic had been unblockable by anyone.

It will be different now.

His heart then and his heart now were different. As proof, wasn't Ferda's mana able to suppress Baldrova now? Surely his attributes had changed as well, and so the path would change too.

Ferda watched his mana react. The mana reacted to the rune and caused a chemical reaction inside the crystal. If one commanded fire, flickering flames would appear. If water, blue droplets would ripple into being.

What appeared before Ferda's eyes was neither of those.

The inside of the crystal was dyed pitch black—a color that seemed to devour everything that existed, one after another. It was all too familiar to Ferda.

Darkness……

And within it, a faint blue spark leaping up.

"Oh my, you have lightning as well?"

Nothing had changed. Or rather, if something had changed—

Was it…… always this dark?

The inside of the crystal was far darker than what he had seen back then.