If the relationship isn't equal, a deal is not easily made. How can a fair exchange happen while one side is holding a blade to the other's throat?
It's simple logic, yet when the tribe called humans are blinded by greed, they sometimes let it slip.
A merchant of Rengadis—whose chubby cheeks were his pride—learned that truth before he even turned twenty.
And now, past fifty, he had forgotten it on the way back.
He pawned his soul in exchange for immortality, youth, and a healthy body. A crack formed in that one-sided deal.
Crack—
Soot flared, and lines split across his body. His skin fissured like stone, and black smoke welled up from within.
"Foul."
Dunbakel finally pinched her nose. For a beastwoman with a preternaturally keen sense of smell, the stench was too much.
Rem's eyebrow twitched as well. An ill omen that scratched at his instincts was oozing down from the merchant's body.
He didn't just watch. He fished out a small pebble from his pocket and flicked it. The draw-back and forward snap of his shoulder was so fast it left an afterimage. Rem's arm cracked like a whip, standing in for a sling.
Of course it was weaker than a real sling that shrieks with a whirring hum.
Even so, taking that hit at point-blank range had to be a shock. It was a stone cast with a knight's strength.
Boom!
While Rem moved, the soot layered itself three times over. The thunderclap came as the pebble met that stack above it. There was impact, but it didn't pierce through.
"This bastard, huh."
Rem's mouth tugged upward. That would be his competitive streak stirring. It quickly turned into interest, and his hand found his weapon of habit—the axe.
Even faced with this never-before-seen phenomenon, Enkrid's heart did not so much as quiver. If he were the kind of boat to tip in a swell like this, he would have been smashed long ago.
Storms always come, and only by outlasting them can you sail on; that's how it had always been.
None of it required some grand resolve. That was the man called Enkrid.
Astonishingly, he could look on all this with a matter-of-fact air.
"Shouldn't we do something?"
Kraiss had retreated five steps before saying it. Nurat stood on guard with a hand set to his sword.
Meanwhile, beside them, Esther—murmuring magic—extended her hand.
She alone here knew what was unfolding.
'An Axiom spell.'
The merchant's body swelled and split, and paled skin showed within. The black soot was his blood and flesh. It clumped and wrapped him like armor, and his skin burst and tore as it began to turn into a black carapace.
'Is it threatening?'
No. Esther asked and answered herself inwardly as she brought her hands together before her chest and made several signs.
"In the name of Phil de Frodo, I command thee. As it is a law that light casts shadow, so too is it law that what hides before this light is revealed. Before this truth, thou canst not conceal thy form."
A long incantation. It meant she was putting in the work.
And Enkrid, sensing something approaching purely on instinct, had just lifted Dawn Tempering and set it forward.
The thing ahead that was kicking up soot scrambled the senses, but if there is doubt, it is only natural to set an edge. He did not relax his guard.
As Esther chanted, something wavered before the dawn-colored blade. An amorphous mass with no fixed shape.
It resembled a wraith, but was far more vicious.
Something that had been biding its time while the merchant's body writhed and raved—more exactly, something that had been aiming for Enkrid and closing in.
Even as she spoke the spell, Esther's earlier train of thought continued in her head.
'Can you speak of life without knowing people?'
Can you speak of magic—of seeking truth—without knowing life?
Can you become a star by staying shut in a forest and only doing research?
Through Enkrid, Esther had shed the curse entangled in her body. From the insight gained in that process, she rebuilt, as if returning to childhood, the concept of magic within herself.
The man she saw—the human named Enkrid—never wasted a day, a single day, a today. He lived stacking stones one by one. Esther saw that and naturally took after the stance.
The stones she had stacked now formed a tower and touched the sky.
The principles she knew in the past meshed with the ones she grasped now, and the world of mana opened.
For an instant, the boundary between the inner world that forms a spell and reality collapsed. She could not distinguish illusion from reality.
One who enters magic is called an Onlooker. When the Onlooker speaks what they have seen, they become a Speaker.
When they go on to realize their world and make it theirs, they become a Possessor.
Commonly, from this stage one is a true mage. That is why the epithet Immoderantia exists.
Beyond this stage lie Tacitus and Mugin.
Esther knows the mage's hierarchy. But isn't being confined within that very system the making of her own limits? If you draw a line and walk, the moment you cross that line your feet will stop.
Esther had never wanted that. So now she cut a new road, built it, and walked it.
Among those who handle spells, there was a legendary phrase. It meant the moment when illusion and boundary collapse.
'Phantasia.'
It also names the moment a mage leaps a tier. Compared to a knight, it is akin to a surge of omnipotence.
Instead of the sense that she could do anything, a sensation of drifting in a world of illusion filled Esther's whole body.
At the same time, her eyes beheld the demon's true form. A being that exists only between reality and illusion.
'Split Ideation.'
That amorphous lump was the handiwork of the one called the Companion of Heat. Intuition, born of her experience and knowledge, swept through her mind and gave the answer.
'A parasitic demon.'
What is the Companion of Heat's true nature?
Its essence is to live by parasitizing another's body.
It hid in the body of the one wielding the greatsword, then slipped out and feigned vanishing, and tried to burrow into Enkrid.
Even if it couldn't take his body—
'It would at least brand him.'
If a demon's brand is stamped on you, day and night you become prey to wraiths, monsters, and beast-fiends.
Enkrid would not be felled by anything like that, but there was no reason to endure such nuisances.
Still drunk on the phantasmal feeling, Esther raised her left hand and projected her mana into a world where the boundary had fallen.
Tacitus and Mugin she ignored. That is mere affectation. Why cast without Mugin, without trigger words?
The thrashing that aims to look as though one has slipped free of the order of things is unnecessary. That's something done when you are conscious of others' eyes.
"Wing-tus, Compes, Nexum."
There is no need for Mugin, but abbreviation is possible. That is not swagger but efficiency.
From the world within the illusion, chains, a net, and shackles began—becoming a contract that bound the opponent's very existence.
The magic circle drawn on this ground was carved by her own hand, each line inscribed one by one. She had tuned it to respond to her mana.
Therefore, in this place, her contract took precedence above all else. Esther knew it.
The first spell reveals; the second spell binds.
Kiiiiiii!
The amorphous mass let out a strange scream. It was its final fit of defiance. A shriek meant to tear eardrums and crush the opponent. For humans, who depend on their five senses, it was a most apt attempt.
Only, it did not work here.
"Opillatio, extinguish."
She was still half-drunk on illusion, but there was no hesitation. Or perhaps it was because she was intoxicated by the illusion.
Those who wield spells build their own world, and within that world they are gods.
Right now, she had dragged out a piece of that world and exposed it.
Creak—
The parasitic demon, the so-called Companion of Heat, vanished from thought.
Some of it seemed to have already fled, but there was no need to chase it.
All this took place while Rem wrenched his axe into his hand, Dunbakel clenched her fists, and Enkrid leveled Dawn Tempering.
Where once had stood a plump merchant, now a creature with a black shell like an exoskeleton covering its face and hands stood stiff-necked, staring at them.
Black steam rose from its body, the residual heat of its recent transformation of flesh and existence itself.
Esther recognized the spell's nature. A kind of Axiom spell.
'Black-Soul Swordbearer.'
In one sense, similar to a death knight or warrior of death, but its structure and method of manifestation were entirely different.
'It consumes the soul directly as cost, and in exchange pawns the soul's owner, turning them into a being with knight-class might.'
No one short of a demon could even mimic such sorcery.
The casting time, at most, was the length of counting to twenty.
Even that much, if dropped among ordinary soldiers, was calamity. As destructive as opening a path in the sky and hurling down a massive stone.
And far simpler to execute than conjuring a boulder to drop.
'An Axiom spell possible only for demons.'
That was how Esther judged it.
Unbeknownst to her, it was a joint creation of the demon known as the Father of the Dead and the worshiper of Gold.
The worshiper of Gold obsessed over bargains and exchange, while the Father of the Dead was engrossed with wraiths.
Esther's eyes shone like blue stars.
Though Enkrid felt the intangible presence vanish, he still raised his sword to strike.
His instincts told him—the malice of the lump ahead was not directed at him. A carapaced blade, of the same texture as the armor wrapping its surface, sprouted in its hand.
Crack, crunch.
A blade growing with sound.
The Border Guard had many who could subdue such a foe, but just as many who would die failing.
Well, it was a simple matter to cut it down before it became a problem. Enkrid concluded so.
Dunbakel, with nothing but intent to clear away the stench, was ready to charge at once.
Rem's thought process was similar to Enkrid's, though he was more than willing to resort to violent means.
"All that is wicked and corrupt, I'll crush."
He called down one of the West's divine visages. His axe, his habitual weapon, also sought and drew upon divine power, some of which now flickered into him.
At the same time, he clutched a stone in his left hand, intending to restrict the movements of the plump-merchant-turned-black-mass.
In an instant, the three of them were prepared for battle.
Pel and Lawford, who had dispatched the greatsword wielder, were no different. Both readied themselves for when this suddenly transformed servant of a demon lunged their way.
In that moment, Esther's voice rang out.
"Detain, confine, restrict, maintain, preserve."
Her eyes gleamed like blue stars. Overflowing mana seemed to pour from them.
A translucent blue wall, through which the inside was visible, crushed down and trapped the one spewing soot.
It happened in an instant, in the very breath she whispered her words.
Boom!
The thing swung what it held in defiance. The wall held. Cracks spidered and fragments chipped, but that was all.
Black veins surged over its pale white hand. It tried to thrust its blade again, but space was too tight. Even if it twisted its body, there wasn't enough room to swing the weapon.
Axiom spell or no, once a physical body is manifested, strength needs space. That much is only natural.
'Just as humans are bound by the senses.'
Once physical form is taken, one cannot escape the laws of space.
Esther did all this not by calculation, but by sense.
Mages may be said to compute endlessly, but in essence, without their peculiar sensitivity they cannot even begin to glimpse.
For as long as it takes to count to twenty, the wall held.
Inside, the creature rampaged. It rammed its head, stabbed what it held, even reshaped its elbows into blades and slashed.
All of it useless.
The wall wavered, dented, cracked, but did not break.
And so, as time passed, the creature vanished, leaving behind only black smoke and ash. The plump merchant became nothing more than a handful of black dust.
"Well, uh, I didn't expect that either. So just move along."
Rem withdrew the divine power that had briefly seeped into him. Enkrid lowered his blade and looked at Esther.
She had not blinked once. Her pupils dilated, staring far away as if seeing beyond.
A pitch-black circle swelled in the midst of her blue eyes, drawing the gaze inward.
"Esther."
Enkrid called her. Esther's dilated pupils gradually shrank. Immersed in phantasm, she had just returned to reality.
The moment she shook off the illusion, dizziness struck. Symptoms of exhaustion from excessive mana use. The world spun, and her body faltered—caught before she could fall.
There was no need to look who it was.
"One of them seemed to know us."
The words of the one in the black hat had not been casual. Enkrid recalled them and, having intended to ask once the intruders were dealt with, finally spoke.
"Some magi swayed by that one's urging may come looking."
Esther answered calmly.
"I see."
Even as she replied, she felt her mouth moving on its own, apart from intent or thought. She had never in her life leaned on anyone, yet now, by instinct, she spoke words she could hardly comprehend.
"I'll be at your back, won't I?"
It was, in all but form, the same as asking him to protect her.
"Of course."
Enkrid's answer was like his sword. Straight, unwavering, without hesitation.
Those words should have drawn a blush to Esther's pale face—
"But really, who's supposed to be protecting who here?"
Rem butted in at just the right time.
Esther, for a moment, was curious how this bastard Rem had ever gotten married and had a child, but shook it off.
"I can't walk."
That was all she said instead, and Enkrid lifted her into his arms. Compared to the magic she had just displayed, her body was light indeed.
And this news reached the ears of the fairies within their city, to the one resting at the Fountain of Life.