Chapter 44

Chapter 44: Difference of Thought

Ferda returned safely to Valdrova Castle.
Arwen watched him enter up to the castle gate and immediately returned to the Territory of Count Consillus.
At the main gate, Ruri greeted Ferda and his group.
— How was your trip?
It was a formal question, and Ferda answered in the same formal manner.
— It was peaceful. There were no ambushes, and since an escort was attached, it was not boring.
— I see. But it seems there is one more person compared to when you departed.
When they departed from the castle, there were only Jed, Ferda, and the coachman, but a man carrying luggage hanging everywhere had joined them.
— Regent-nim! I loaded it onto my luggage cart, do I just need to load Regent-nim’s luggage now as well?
Malcolm, who was unloading his luggage onto the cart, noticed Ruri belatedly.
— Hieek! Are you that intruder from back then?!
Malcolm trembled in terror.
It was not that he was exposed to something like Dragon Fear.
Even if she were emitting it, he was wearing a resistance ring before arriving at Valdrova Castle.
He is just a coward.
— A pathetic bastard has been added.
Ruri exhaled a sigh through her nose.
— He is a pathetic bastard, but a splendid specimen.
— What kind of specimen?
— Besides a specimen for experiments, what else could he be?
— ……Are you researching black magic or something?
— I have to research, but it is not that.
Ferda said that and tried to enter the castle.
Then, Ruri blocked Ferda’s path.
— Why?
— Asking why, are you really asking because you do not know?
Ruri’s gaze drifted and stopped on Ferda’s right hand.
— Don’t you think entering the castle harboring that stench is a serious offense?
— …….
Ferda felt a strange chill from those words.
Ferda’s gaze reflexively scanned her entire body, and he discovered an object peeking out from her pocket.
It was a coarse towel dyed green.
If one touches that towel, it tears off grime-soaked skin just like that.
Of course, the pain of scraping flesh cannot be avoided.
Pang! Pang!
The towel, moving following Ruri’s hand, caused an explosion of pure white color.
Ah.
“Has she been waiting for this exact moment…?”
Ruri had a justification.
The fact that another woman’s scent was ingrained in Ferda’s hand could cause a misunderstanding for Valdrova.
Such misunderstandings must be eliminated in advance.
He understood it that way, but Ferda did not forget the screams of the knights.
Screams uttered like those of children before a demon.
He did not believe that just because he was Ferda, he could endure what they could not.
Ferda’s eyes looked briefly at Ruri once more.
She had a face full of anticipation, opposite to the worried Ferda.
— May I ask a favor?
— Please speak.
— At least I would like to do it inside that spatial separation magic.
He spoke like the final words of a condemned man facing execution, and Ruri nodded solemnly.
— Of course. We cannot go around spreading Ferda-nim’s masochistic preferences everywhere.
— ……Right.
He had no strength to retort.
Ferda followed Ruri inside.
That day, what happened in the bathhouse became a secret only between Ruri and Ferda.
Ferda, whose body had been scrubbed until it was slippery, barely managed to put on his clothes.
His sensitive skin tingled every time it touched the fabric.
“I have to endure.”
From now on, Ferda had to concentrate.
He looked at the book placed on the desk.
Shadow Arts of Barbatos.
The Demon of Conspiracies likes to move in secret, and it is a magic specialized in piercing the opponent’s blind spot by manipulating shadows like limbs.
Since it is a grimoire that emphasizes secrecy, it was also a difficult object to seal.
If silver chains treated with Shape-Locking Magic are not placed on it, its form melts and moves to another location.
The Shadow Arts of Barbatos emphasized one thing.
“The shadow becomes me, and I must become the shadow.”
Just as one must consider the Shadow Hand as if it became a third hand when manipulating it, if one does not keep that in mind, one will suffer intense phantom pain.
“But there are things I need.”
The greatest merit of using the Shadow Arts is that a magic circle is not needed.
And not only using it as a hand simply made of magic, but it can actually be used like real limbs.
That means Ferda can manifest other magic through the Shadow Hand.
“It cannot exert great power in terms of firepower.”
True to the character of Barbatos, the demon of conspiracies and secrecy, it is on a different path from the Shadow Circles of other black magics.
“Instead, one can pierce the opponent’s blind spot.”
Weak in frontal battles, but infinite possibilities exist in strategic battles.
That is why Ferda chose the Shadow Arts of Barbatos among all those black magic arts.
“To read it, I need to undo these silver chains, but.”
To undo the silver chains, I must unravel the magic, and to unravel the magic, I need to decode the runes.
That is why Ferda went to look for Echidna.
— I want you to undo this chain, do you think you can do it?
— S-sure. I will do it right away, hehe.
Echidna looked at Ferda while smiling foolishly.
It was an expression that existed somewhere between a girl deeply in love with a prince and a witch imagining dark things.
— Thank you. How do you want to handle the price?
— Pr-price? I don’t particularly need it, though??
— If you handled the work, I must pay the corresponding price, right?
Giving the corresponding price when doing a job.
That was the best way to work without problems when dealing with a witch.
— Price…….
Echidna’s eyeballs rolled.
The blonde girl standing next to Ferda.
It was Mori.
— T-then, can you let me sleep with Mori for one night?
Sleeping with Mori.
Thinking of it as a night between members of the same sex, it was not a particularly strange feeling.
But the other party is, after all, a witch.
Furthermore, a witch gloomily dripping drool.
— Is it okay?
Ferda asked, looking at Mori.
Mori replied with a note she brought.
— According to Echidna’s behavior pattern, upon sleeping with her, the rate of decrease in work capacity is predicted at 30%.
30% is too much.
He wondered what kind of behavior pattern she displayed for it to decrease by 30%.
— I cannot accept that.
— Eh, then it cannot be helped…….
“I shouldn’t have mentioned it…”
Echidna muttering like that.
Ferda decided to try proposing what he had thought to the disappointed Echidna.
— How about I give you time to be with Jed?
— Jed-nim?!
Echidna’s face turned bright red.
In her complete excitement, she exhaled through her nose while nodding repeatedly.
— T-then, um, how much time…?!
— Let us do this.
Ferda extended and showed three fingers.
She was very satisfied.
— 30 minutes each! Um um…! That is fine too! Let’s do it! Deal!
— ……Understood.
What Ferda showed with 3 fingers meant 3 hours.
But she reduced it to 1/6 herself and still ended up satisfied.
“If I had said 3 hours, it might have backfired instead.”
Anything causes trouble if it is excessive.
Since he could set the first price as a standard, Ferda thought he should adjust the price based on that.
— Then, shall we take a look?
Echidna placed the book of Shadow Arts on the worktable with an excited face.
Wearing large-lensed glasses, she observed the book.
She observed the elements that made up the book to the fullest with all five senses, not just the appearance.
— Um, the material is not hard but soft like mud, the smell is…… *sniff~. Haa, the sulfur smell emanating from hell is distinct. Do you know that musty smell? Like the subtle one coming from armpits—.
— Stop.
— Ah, yes. Hehe…….
He prevented her from straying from the topic into dirty talk and focused on the original work.
Having finished understanding the book, she next moved on to the silver chains.
When she lightly injected mana into the chain, blue letters rose from the chain.
They were runes.
— Eum…….
Echidna’s gaze turned quite serious.
Incredible that she was a woman chasing after a man.
“A fellow similar to Vernel.”
As she concentrated on her work, she began interpreting the runes with a serious appearance.
“If runes can be created, they can also be interpreted.”
What Echidna is doing is similar to understanding and dismantling installed traps.
Interpreting runes makes it possible to understand how the magic works, and also to understand the side effects that appear when performing a forced release.
— They even set up trap magic that strikes the releaser if the Shape-Locking Magic is forcibly released. An ordinary mage would die. And this signature here…… appears to be the Alte Order.
— Can you undo it?
Then Echidna smiled shyly.
— It seems there is no need to undo it.
— Why?
— If you undo the Shape-Locking Magic, who knows when this book might run away? Are you thinking of reading this book only once and stopping, Regent-nim?
Ferda shook his head.
Even if he obtained all the magic, having this book set free somewhere was troublesome.
— So let us try loosening the conditions a bit.
— What do you mean?
— Loosening the conditions of the Shape-Locking Magic. Not simply sealing this book as is, but allowing only a certain level of form. Like this, to a readable level?
— Try to proceed.
— Understood!
Echidna chanted a spell, tapping those runes with a pen.
After a while, a circular magic circle unfolded before her.
A magic circle that appeared to be magic of at least the fifth circle.
She brought her finger close to that magic circle and began manipulating this and that.
‘Manipulating a magic circle…….’
It is not that Ferda had not thought of it even when he was an Archmage.
But destroying magic and rewriting it to bind was easier and more common.
‘Rune Crafters are of a different nature.’
They can touch magic itself and know its flow.
So that leads to the idea of loosening conditions rather than breaking them.
— Do this here…… done!
Tapping the rune with a pen, the magic circle went back into the rune.
Simultaneously, the tightly bound silver chains were smoothly undone by Echidna’s power.
— Can I read a bit here?
— Yes! Of course!
— Bring some thick books.
— Books? J-just a moment!
With a crash.
With a rustle.
As he said, she lifted and showed some thick dictionaries.
— But why?
— I need to adjust the sitting height.
— Sitting height?
Ferda placed about 3 volumes on the chair.
He adjusted it to match Mori’s sitting height.
— Is this height all right?
Mori nodded.
— Then, let us begin working—
— W-wait a minute!!
The moment they tried to start, Echidna interrupted and hugged Mori.
— Surely the one you are trying to make read the book is not our Mori? An act crueler than death for a child?
— Then why would I have brought her?
— I thought Mori wanted to see me very much. Isn’t that right?
Echidna smiled looking at Mori, and Mori wrote on a note.
— That is not true.
— Eek……! I clearly thought we had grown close…… Was I the only one who was sincere??
— That is right.
Mori drawing a sharp line.
Echidna sniffling back tears at the confirmation like a bolt from the blue.
— This work can only be done by this child.
— But encountering the demonic language written by a demon…….
— Yes, a person gradually goes mad.
— You know that and still make her do it?! Isn’t that too cruel?!
Echidna hugged Mori and rubbed her head against her cheek.
I can see why work efficiency drops.
— It does not matter. Corrupting this child is impossible anyway.
— R-really?
Echidna asked, and Mori nodded.
— If that is the case…….
With anxiety, she caresses her hair until the very last moment.
— Begin.
At Ferda’s instruction, Mori opened the book.
At that moment, something contained inside the book began to emit.
A pungent smell of sulfur arrived, and a sensation was felt as if something foul scanned the entire body.
The demonic language written by a demon meant that.
Merely seeing it is a sacrilege, merely resting eyes upon it imprints a mark.
Goooo—.
Ferda and Echidna turned their eyes away from those characters.
The demonic language is made of hell itself.
People who encounter the demonic language written by demons see fragments of hell.
People who contact fragments of hell hear the whispers of demons throughout their lives as if they were branded.
That is a trial that never ends throughout an entire lifetime.
If you cannot overcome the endless trial, you become a follower of demons or a madman.
Thus, demons become mediums that pass into this world and set foot in domination.
‘Me too.’
Because the demonic language comes from the essence of characters, blocking it in advance is impossible.
Ferda had also encountered the demonic language to learn demonic magic.
In fact, being able to learn the Shadow Hand of the Shadow Arts was also because he learned the demonic language.
‘But I erased it all while learning.’
The best thing was to learn the magic, finish the interpretation, and then erase the demonic language from one’s head.
That is why Ferda knew the magics of hell but was not swayed by them.
‘There is no longer a need to learn the demonic language.’
There was a knowledgeable person, and there is also a person who can interpret in his place.
The Wise Slave, Mori.
She will become Ferda’s ghostwriter.
Mori stared fixedly at that demonic language.
Bright red flames ignited in her eyes.
Her eyes became spears attempting to penetrate Mori.
But there was no way they could make Mori waver.
It is not because Mori is perfect.
Even a perfect person wavers carelessly; that is what a demonic existence is.
She has no ego.
They must use the ego as a handhold to make one waver, but there is no handhold, so there is no way they can seize Mori.
She held a pen and began writing on paper.
Even with the spear of hell wide open, she maintained ultimate reason and continued the interpretation.
Mori, quickly finishing the interpretation while ignoring the whispers of the demon until the last chapter, closed the book just as it was.
In Mori’s right hand was the original.
In her left hand was the interpretation.
— Did you finish everything?
Ferda asked for confirmation, and Mori nodded.
Ferda gave the final order.
— Then forget everything you saw.
At that moment, the pupils shining with red flames returned to their original color.
With just an order, she truly forgot everything.
An instruction impossible with mere words for a pure human.
Only possible for the Wise Slave Mori.
After a while, Mori’s body began to wobble.
She was barely holding up her heavy eyelids.
Because she used too much power for the interpretation.
— Sleep early today.
When Ferda’s permission arrived, the suffering Mori leaned back against the backrest and closed her eyes just as she was.
— Echidna, will you take Mori to her room?
— Of course!
Echidna looking with a lecherous gaze.
— Ah, ahaha, ahahaha……!
Not content with that, she began to drool.
I could see a bit why efficiency drops by 30%.
Ferda added words.
— Leave her in the room and come out. I will not permit contact beyond that. Do you understand?
— O-of course! I absolutely did not have other thoughts?! Absolutely?!
She said that, but her appearance smacking her lips with great regret did not inspire confidence.
Ferda picked up the interpretation she completed.
He read the part of the Shadow Hand he knew from the Shadow Arts of Barbatos.
‘She wrote just as I understood.’
He judged that there would be no problem in understanding the magic just by looking at the interpretation.
Ferda returned to the beginning.
‘Reason why this grimoire had to be obtained.’
It was precisely the mana cultivation method.
One of the methods to reach the Fourth Circle from the Third Circle.
‘Shadow Form.’
That page entered Ferda’s eyes.
A grimoire of hell, yet reading the writings of an archdemon among them, there was no side effect at all.
‘How long does it normally take to reach the Fourth Circle?’
From the Fourth Circle is the stage where one receives the name of a true mage.
Just that difficult, even talented people must strive for years to make it possible.
The Red Circle is not very different either.
‘If it is dangerous, it is quite dangerous.’
Originally, the Red Circle increases in madness and danger as the levels rise, so the risk was great.
‘Was I a person who cared about that?’
Ferda was someone who grew strong through hatred, and risked challenges to become strong.
If it was different from the past, it was that now it was for Valdrova.
Ferda immediately decided to attempt proceeding with the cultivation method.
Since the cultivation method possesses individual effects, the method of proceeding was simple.
Illuminating a sealed room where not a single light enters with a candle.
And shining a candle behind the head to create a long, deep shadow.
Beginning by looking at that shadow.
At first just magic using shadows, but later becoming the shadow itself, or becoming the shadow of another.
Escaping common sense, pursuing freedom, handling that; that was precisely what was desired.
‘The shadow becomes me, and I become shadow.’
Keeping that in mind, he quietly looked at the shadow flickering with the movement of the candle.
That was the moment.
Ferda felt the sensation of his body momentarily sticking to the ground.
Like being trapped in a wall, moving only flatly in a narrow, suffocating place.
He entered a state of complete concentration on the Shadow.
‘Closing the eyes like this.’
Ferda directed himself toward the circle spinning in his dantian, fully maintaining that sensation.
He concentrated for about 1 hour like that.
He had to make mana rotate, drawn toward the shadow, but.
‘No sensation.’
Ferda’s state was too calm.
In the Red Circle, calmness is no different from a brake.
‘Impossible right now.’
If it seemed like it would not work, he gave up without regret.
Ferda was still young, and he still had plenty of work left.
He escaped the dark room and went outside.
It was a night with the moon tilted.
The moon was falling toward the west, so midnight had surely passed long ago.
He could not know how many days had passed.
Only the sound of hunger echoing in his stomach screamed that a long time had passed.