A Difference in Approach
Ferda returned safely to Baldrova Castle.
Arwen watched him pass through the gates, then immediately turned back toward Count Consiler's territory.
At the main gate, Ruri welcomed Ferda and his party.
"How was the journey?"
The question was purely businesslike, and Ferda answered in kind.
"Comfortable. No ambushes, and with an escort along, it wasn't dull either."
"I see. Yet it seems you've returned with one more person than when you left?"
When they had set out from the castle, it had been only Jed, Ferda, and a coachman. Now a man hung with luggage trailed after them.
"My lord Regent! I've loaded my cart—shall I take yours as well?"
Malcolm, still unloading his own things, only then spotted Ruri.
"Hiiik! You're that intruder from before?!"
Malcolm recoiled, trembling violently.
It wasn't Dragon Fear. Even if she had been radiating it, he was already wearing a resistance ring before arriving at Baldrova Castle.
He was simply a coward.
"We've gained another pathetic one," Ruri muttered with a snort.
"Pathetic, yes—but an excellent specimen."
"What sort of specimen?"
"What else would I need a specimen for if not experiments?"
"……Are you researching black magic?"
"I will need to research, but not that kind."
With that, Ferda started through the gates—only for Ruri to step squarely into his path.
"What is it?"
"What is it? Do you truly not know?"
Her gaze rolled deliberately and stopped on Ferda's right hand.
"Do you not consider it a grave crime to set foot in the castle while reeking of that stench?"
"……."
Something chilling flickered through Ferda at her words.
His eyes flicked over her entire body on instinct and caught the object peeking from her pocket: a coarse towel dyed a harsh green.
That towel, once it touched skin, stripped away grime and flesh alike. The pain of being flayed was unavoidable.
Pang! Pang!
White bursts of soap exploded from the towel as it danced after her hand.
Ah.
So she had been waiting for this moment all along…….
Ruri had her justification. The scent of another woman clinging to Ferda's hand might give Baldrova the wrong idea. Such misunderstandings had to be prevented in advance.
He understood. Yet he could not forget the knights' screams—the raw, childish shrieks of children facing a demon. Ferda did not believe he would endure what they could not.
His gaze slid back to Ruri. Where he felt dread, her face shone with eager anticipation.
"Might I ask one favor?"
"Speak."
"At the very least, do it inside a spatial isolation spell."
He spoke like a condemned man offering his last request. Ruri nodded with solemn gravity.
"Of course. I can hardly go around advertising Lord Ferda's masochistic tastes to the whole neighborhood."
"……Right."
He lacked the strength to retort. Ferda followed her inside.
What happened in the bathhouse that day became a secret known only to Ruri and Ferda.
His body scrubbed until it gleamed, Ferda barely managed to pull on clothes. Every brush of fabric against his hypersensitive skin sent prickling shocks through him.
I have to endure.
From this moment on, concentration was everything. He looked down at the book resting on the desk.
Barbatos's Shadow Magic.
The Demon of Schemes favored stealth and specialized in magic that turned shadows into limbs, striking at an opponent's unguarded openings. A grimoire that prized secrecy was naturally difficult to seal. Without silver chains treated with shape-fixing magic, the book itself would melt and relocate elsewhere.
Barbatos's Shadow Magic stressed one principle above all:
The shadow must become me, and I must become the shadow.
Just as one had to treat Shadow Hand as a true third limb, failing to hold that mindset invited searing phantom pain.
But there are things I need.
The greatest merit was that shadow magic required no magic circle. And rather than mere conjured hands, the shadows could function as real limbs—meaning Ferda could cast other spells through a Shadow Hand.
It will never excel in raw firepower.
True to Barbatos's nature as a demon of schemes and stealth, it followed an entirely different path from other black magics' Shadow Circles.
Instead, it can pierce any opening.
Weak in open battle, yet boundless in possibility during a contest of wits. That was why, among all the black arts, Ferda had chosen Barbatos's Shadow Magic.
To read it, I must undo these silver chains.
Undoing the chains meant undoing the magic; undoing the magic meant deciphering the runes. So Ferda sought out Echidna.
"I'd like you to undo these chains. Think you can manage?"
"O-of course! Right away, hehe."
Echidna beamed at him with a look that sat somewhere between a lovestruck girl and a witch spinning dark fantasies.
"My thanks. What sort of payment do you want?"
"P-payment? I don't really need anyyy?"
"If you complete a task, a corresponding price should be paid, shouldn't it?"
Giving fair compensation for work done was the surest way to deal with witches without later trouble.
"Payment, huh……."
Echidna's eyes rolled thoughtfully, then fixed on the blonde girl standing beside Ferda—Mori.
"Th-then, could you let me spend one night with Mori?"
Spending a night with Mori. If one thought of it as two girls sharing a bed, it did not sound especially strange. But the other party was a witch—one currently drooling with filthy intent.
"Would that be all right?" Ferda asked Mori.
She answered with a note.
—Judging by Echidna's behavioral patterns, cohabitation with her predicts a 30% decline in work efficiency.
Thirty percent was far too steep. He wondered what patterns she had observed to arrive at such a figure.
"I cannot accept that."
"Ehh, then I guess there's nothing I can do……."
Then why bring it up at all…….
Echidna muttered, crestfallen. Ferda decided to offer the alternative he had already prepared.
"What about time spent with Jed instead?"
"With Lord Jed?!"
Echidna's face flushed scarlet. She nodded so hard she snorted steam, thoroughly worked up.
"S-so, h-how much time……?!"
"This much."
Ferda held up three fingers. She was overjoyed.
"Thirty whole minutes! Mmm……! That works too! Deal!"
"……Understood."
Ferda's three fingers had meant three hours. She had cheerfully cut the offer to one-sixth and still been delighted.
Saying three hours outright might have backfired.
Too much of anything became a problem. Now that he had a baseline for the first payment, he could adjust future ones accordingly.
"Shall we take a look, then?"
Echidna set the shadow grimoire on her worktable with bright enthusiasm, donned thick-lensed glasses, and began examining the tome. She studied not only its appearance but every element that composed it with all five senses.
"Hmm, the material isn't hard—soft like clay. The smell is…… sniiiff~. Haaa, the sulfur reek of Hell is something special. That thick, sour note, you know? The kind that comes from armpits—that peculiar—"
"Stop."
"Ah, yes. Hihi……."
He cut off the descent into filth and brought her back to the task. Once she finished assessing the book, she moved to the silver chains. A light infusion of mana made blue letters rise from the links—runes.
"Mmm……."
Echidna's eyes turned deadly serious, a look hard to reconcile with the girl who usually chased men around.
Same type as Burnel.
When focused on her craft, she became entirely grave and began interpreting the runes.
If one can create runes, one can also decipher them.
What Echidna did was akin to identifying and disarming a trap. Interpreting the runes revealed how the magic operated and what side effects a forced release would trigger.
"They layered a trap that blasts the one who forces a release on top of the shape-fixing magic. An ordinary mage would die. And this signature…… looks like the Alte Church."
"Can you undo it?"
Echidna grinned bashfully.
"No need to undo it completely."
"Why not?"
"If I release the shape-fixing magic, who knows when this book might run off? Do you plan to read it only once, Lord Regent?"
Ferda shook his head. Even after mastering every spell, letting the book free into the world was distasteful.
"So let's just loosen the conditions a bit."
"How so?"
"We ease the conditions of the shape-fixing magic. Instead of sealing the book exactly as it is, we allow a certain degree of form—enough that it can be read."
"Proceed."
"Got it!"
Echidna tapped the runes with her pen-wand and chanted. Moments later a circular magic array unfurled before her—at least fifth-circle in complexity. She began manipulating it with her fingers.
Manipulating a magic array…….
Even in his days as an Archmage, Ferda had considered the idea. Yet destroying a spell and rewriting it was far easier and more common.
Rune Makers think differently.
They could touch the magic itself and understood its flow. That knowledge led naturally to the idea of gently loosening conditions rather than shattering them.
"If I do this here…… done!"
A light tap of her pen-wand sent the array sinking back into the runes. At the same time the tightly bound silver chains loosened and slid free under Echidna's power.
"May I read it here?"
"Yes! Of course!"
"Bring me a few thick books."
"Books? J-just a moment!"
Clatter. Rustle. She returned with several heavy dictionaries as instructed.
"But why?"
"I need to match the sitting height."
"Sitting height?"
Ferda stacked three volumes on the chair, adjusting them to Mori's seated height.
"Is this height all right?"
Mori nodded.
"Then let's begin—"
"W-wait a second!!"
Just as they were about to start, Echidna interposed herself and wrapped her arms around Mori.
"Don't tell me you meant for our Mori to read it? Inflicting something crueler than death on a child?"
"Why else would I have brought her?"
"I thought Mori missed me so much she just had to come see me. Isn't that right?"
Echidna beamed at Mori, who wrote another note.
—It is not.
"Eeh……? I was sure we'd become f-friends…… Was I the only one who was serious??"
—You were.
Mori drew a clean line. Echidna sniffled under the thunderbolt confirmation.
"This task can be done by no one else."
"But exposure to demon language written by a demon is……."
"Yes. It slowly drives a person mad."
"And you still order her to do it knowing that? Isn't that too cruel?!"
Echidna hugged Mori tight and rubbed her cheek against the girl's hair. Ferda finally understood the efficiency drop.
"It doesn't matter. Coloring this child is impossible anyway."
"R-really?"
Echidna asked; Mori nodded.
"If that's the case……."
Even to the last moment she stroked Mori's hair with lingering anxiety.
"Begin."
At Ferda's order, Mori opened the book.
In that instant something sealed within began to radiate outward. A sharp sulfur stench rose, and an unclean sensation seemed to crawl over every inch of skin. That was the meaning of demon language written by a demon.
Merely looking was blasphemy; simply holding the words in one's eyes branded the soul.
Goooo—.
Ferda and Echidna averted their eyes from the characters. Demon language was forged in Hell itself. Anyone who encountered demon writing beheld a fragment of Hell. That fragment left a brand; thereafter the whispers of demons never ceased. An endless trial. Fail it, and one became a demon thrall—or a raving lunatic. Thus demons gained a foothold into this world and took one more step toward dominion.
I am no different.
Because demon language arose from the very essence of the letters, no prior defense could block it. Ferda himself had once studied demon tongue to master demonic magics. Learning Shadow Hand had been possible only because of it.
I erased every last bit after mastering them.
The best method was to learn the magic, complete the interpretation, then wipe the demon language from one's mind. That was how Ferda had known Hell's arts yet never been swayed by them.
I no longer need to learn demon language.
Someone else had already learned it, and someone else could interpret in his place. The Slave Sage, Mori. She would become Ferda's amanuensis.
Mori stared steadily into the demon writing. Crimson fire kindled in her eyes—the gaze of Hell trying to peer into her. Yet it could never shake her. Not because she was flawless. Even the flawless could be rattled by a demon. She simply possessed no self. Demons needed that self as a handle to grasp; without a handle, they could never seize her.
She took up a pen and began writing across the paper. Even with the window of Hell open, she maintained ultimate rationality and continued the interpretation. Ignoring the demonic whispers to the very last page, Mori finished her rapid work and closed the book. In her right hand she held the original; in her left, the interpreted copy.
"All finished?"
Ferda asked for confirmation. Mori nodded. He gave the final order.
"Then forget everything you have seen."
In that moment the crimson fire vanished from her eyes, restored to their original color. One command, and she truly forgot it all. An order impossible for a pure human with mere words. Only the Slave Sage Mori could manage it.
Shortly afterward Mori's body began to sway. She could barely keep her heavy eyelids open, having spent too much power on the interpretation.
"Sleep early today."
With Ferda's permission, the exhausted girl leaned back against the chair and closed her eyes.
"Echidna, will you take Mori to her room?"
"Of course!"
Echidna regarded the girl with a thoroughly lecherous gaze.
"Uheh, uheheh, uheheheh……!"
She even began to drool. Ferda understood a little better why efficiency dropped by thirty percent.
He added firmly, "Lay her on the bed and come straight out. I will not permit any further contact. Understood?"
"O-of course! I absolutely wasn't thinking anything else! Absolutely not!?"
Yet the way she smacked her lips in regret made her claim hard to believe.
Ferda picked up the finished interpretation. He began reading from the Shadow Hand section he already knew.
Written exactly as I understood it.
With that, he judged that studying the interpretation alone would suffice for mastering the magic. He turned back to the beginning.
The reason I needed this grimoire.
It was the mana cultivation method—one path from the third circle to the fourth.
Shape of Shadow.
The page entered his vision. Even reading a Hellish grimoire written by a Great Demon produced not a single side effect.
How long does it normally take to reach the fourth circle the ordinary way?
From the fourth circle onward one truly earned the title of mage. It was that difficult; even the gifted needed years of labor. A Red Circle was no great exception.
If anything, it was more dangerous.
A Red Circle grew madder and riskier with every stage, carrying heavy hazards.
Was I the sort to care about that?
Ferda had grown strong for the sake of hatred and had never shied from any challenge in pursuit of strength. The only difference now was that he did it for Baldrova.
He decided to attempt the cultivation method at once. Because each method carried its own effect, the procedure itself was simple.
In a lightless sealed room lit only by candle, place one candle behind the head to cast a long, deep shadow. Begin by gazing into that shadow. At first one merely uses the shadow for magic; later one becomes the shadow itself, or becomes another's shadow. The goal was to pursue that freedom beyond common sense and master it.
The shadow becomes me, and I become the shadow.
Holding that firmly in mind, he quietly watched the shadow flicker with the candle's movement.
In that instant Ferda felt his body pressed flat against the floor. He moved only in two dimensions, as though trapped within a wall. He had entered a state of complete concentration upon the shadow.
Now I close my eyes.
Carrying that sensation intact, he turned inward toward the circles revolving in his dantian. He concentrated for roughly an hour, trying to draw mana into the shadow and set it circulating.
No sensation at all.
Ferda's state was far too calm. For a Red Circle, calmness was nothing less than a brake.
Impossible for now.
When something would not work, he abandoned it without lingering regret. Ferda was still young, and much work remained for him.
He left the dark room and stepped outside. Night had fallen; the moon hung low in the west, long past midnight. He could not tell how many days had passed. Only the hollow growl of his stomach announced that a great deal of time had gone by.