Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Mad Dog Aron (3)

“…What did you say?”

Silence fell over the table for a few seconds, and I was the first to speak.

“It is not particularly because of you, Lady Rienna. No matter which Black Mage had come, I would have given the same answer. I have decided that, from now on, I will not receive instruction in Black Magic from anyone.”

“And why is that?”

“It seemed to me that it would be better to master it on my own than to learn it from someone else.”

The brows of both the instructor and Rienna furrowed at the same time.

“Cadet Aron, are you not going a little too far, speaking like that in front of Lady Rienna?”

Rienna raised a hand and stopped the instructor.

“…No matter that you reached the realm of Triple Class through your own power, how truly arrogant. Dave warned me in advance that your personality was foul, but I did not expect it to be this bad.”

Judging by the irritation in her voice, it seemed I had struck quite a nerve.

Good. 

Please leave just like that.

Stop bothering with someone like me, and let each of us go our separate ways.

“How interesting. Very well. This is how it should be if one is worth raising.”

What?

“I had thought it strange that you seemed far too gentlemanly compared to the infamy I kept hearing. So there was a reason they called you Mad Dog in Necropia.”

No, how does that lead to that conclusion?

“You came all this way, and yet I have let you hear such rude words. Please allow me to apologize in his place, Lady Rienna.”

“It is fine, Dave. What does it matter if his personality is bad? On the contrary, with a temperament like that and skill of that level, I am already looking forward to how I might teach him once he becomes my disciple.”

That old hag really is……. Just how broad-minded can one person be?

I had deliberately spoken arrogantly, saying that I could manage on my own because I wanted her to dismiss me. 

And what? 

She was looking forward to it?

This is exactly why I had not wanted to meet that old hag.

After living more than two hundred years, she hardly ever showed emotional reactions anymore.

That did not mean I could not guess what she was thinking at all, though.

“Of course, I never intended to accept you obediently as my disciple right away either. Since you are not particularly pleased by the idea of becoming my disciple, this works out even better.”

She set down her cup and pressed her thumb and middle finger together on her right hand.

“Shall I begin by correcting that insolent way of thinking of yours first—that you can awaken to Black Magic on your own?”

“L-Lady Rienna?”

The instructor looked flustered, but she paid him no mind.

Snap!

The moment she flicked her fingers— WHOOSH!

A sound like a candle being blown out struck my eardrums for an instant.

And everything before my eyes stopped moving.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

The drink in the cup, which should have been rippling, had hardened in place.

The instructor beside us, too, stood motionless like a statue.

Even the white breaths of the people outside the window remained suspended in the air without dispersing.

***

It was silent.

An alien stillness, as though time itself had stopped.

I tried to move my body, but my limbs were stiff, as though sleep paralysis had seized me.

The only thing I could move was the focus of my eyes.

Within that frozen space, only Rienna’s eyes gazed at me with a smiling curve.

-Hoho, were you surprised?

Rienna’s lips were not moving either.

Her voice was sounding directly inside my head.

-What exactly are you doing?

-Hm?

Her eyelids blinked.

-You… have you learned how to send thought-messages before?

-My father once told me the method. This is my first time trying it myself, though. As if that could be true. I had used it several times before returning to the past. I already knew what this strange space was as well, but there was no reason to say so.

-Even if you only heard of it, to adapt this quickly……. 

Rienna let out a trace of admiration through her thought-message before continuing.

-Good. 

Then this will go faster.

Rip!

The space behind her back split open vertically.

-Even if I acknowledge your reaching the realm of Triple Class highly, you still have not mastered the Descent Type, have you?

This space was a high-level spell of the Descent Type, in which one borrowed the power of a demon by forming a contract with it.

It was a form of Black Magic that showed the contracted demon to the opponent as a hallucination.

Sshhhhk!

The long-torn space opened to the right and left, and a blood-red mist seeped out.

Then, slowly, a black shape forced its way through the gap and began to reveal itself.

The arm of a gigantic beast, covered in sleek black fur.

The Demon of Eternal Life, Immortal.

-It must be your first time seeing a top-rank demon.

Its long arm lashed out like a whip and smashed through the ceiling of the shop.

Large and small chunks of debris flew in every direction.

The people on the street struck by the fragments bled and collapsed to the ground like scarecrows.

The arm and hand of the Demon of Eternal Life were so enormous that they could easily seize a full-grown man whole.

Only a single arm had appeared, and yet even as a mere illusion, it carried this much pressure…….

-Do not be alarmed. The scene you are witnessing now is only a temporary illusion. It does not affect the original world.

I already knew that, but I listened in silence.

There was no need to invite needless suspicion.

The black arm that had blown away the ceiling drifted toward my face.

‘…That old hag has not changed at all.’

This was an illusion.

She was showing me a horrifying scene, but Rienna had no intention of harming me.

She merely wanted me to realize the overwhelming difference in level between us.

If I had been an ordinary cadet, my knees might have weakened at the sight of that demon even if it was only an illusion, but I had long since passed that level.

The most appropriate response for me here would have been to watch helplessly until the demon’s arm came right up to my face, then apologize to Rienna and say I was sorry.

If I did that, Rienna might lose interest in me.

But I could not do that.

‘If I just sit here and do nothing, she will find out that I bear the Sacred Mark.’

From the moment she snapped her fingers and cast me into the illusion, I had felt heat coming from the back of my right hand.

Holy power was trying to react to contact with Black Magic.

‘This is driving me insane.’

There was no visible sign yet, but what if that demon’s hand touched my face?

The Sacred Mark engraved on the back of my hand would pop out with a flash of golden light.

That much would be a problem even for me.

-…Lady Rienna.

-Yes. Have you changed your mind a little?

This space was false.

No matter how frightening the demon before my eyes looked, it was nothing more than an illusion.

In other words, if one knew how to break it, destroying it was not difficult.

As someone who had once been her disciple, it was not especially hard for me to think of a way to break this Black Magic on the spot.

Creaaak.

I put strength into my right hand and sent a thought-message.

-No.

Originally, the moment this Black Magic was activated, it deprived the target of all five senses except sight and hearing.

But my right hand could still feel warmth because of the Sacred Mark.

That meant my right hand, the one bearing the Sacred Mark, was the key to breaking the illusion.

As the demon’s arm drew closer, the heat from the Sacred Mark grew stronger.

Crk……! Crk!

Cracks spread through the space, starting from my right hand.

-What are you doing……?

The method for breaking this Black Magic was simple.

If, while trapped within the illusion, you somehow managed to move even a single finger joint, the illusion would be dispelled.

It was a spell that also came with an added restraint effect to keep the body from moving… but fortunately, perhaps because she still regarded me as only a cadet, she had not bound me too strongly.

Creeeak…….

No matter how much of an old hag she was, she would never imagine that I possessed a Sacred Mark.

And now I had pried open that gap.

My stiff right index finger, which had been creaking in place, twitched.

Craaash!

Everything before my eyes shattered in an instant like a cracked mirror.

***

Bustle, bustle.

The familiar noise of the street brushed against the ears of Aron and Rienna.

“…My opinion remains unchanged, Lady Rienna.”

The ceiling of the shop, which had been destroyed, was perfectly intact, and the people who had been bleeding and collapsed were also walking the street as though nothing had happened.

Even the Demon of Eternal Life that Rienna had summoned had vanished without a trace.

“Lady Rienna… even if it was only an illusion, to show a top-rank demon to a cadet……”

“That is not the issue.”

Even after the instructor’s lament, Rienna remained silent with a hardened face, then finally spoke in a low voice.

“You broke my illusion?”

“…Pardon?”

“Aron broke my illusion through his own power.”

“W-What kind of absurd nonsense is that? He is still only a cadet!”

She had only meant to frighten him a little, so she had deliberately kept the strength low enough that it would break if he moved even slightly.

And yet he had dispelled it in less than ten seconds.

‘…How?’

Even if he had achieved Triple Class, he was still only a cadet.

Was it truly possible for him to break a high-level Black Magic spell by his own strength, and at such speed?

If he had possessed holy power, which stood in direct opposition to Black Magic, that would have been one thing—but there was no way Cadet Aron, who walked the path of a Black Mage, could possess holy power.

“…Ah.”

Then something flashed across Rienna’s mind, and a chill ran down her spine.

“This has turned rather ridiculous.”

Come to think of it, there was one other way.

A way to break an illusion with ease.

“So you have already formed a contract with a demon.”

“……?”

…Pardon?

Unaware of the stunned confusion in Aron’s mind, Rienna spoke as though she already knew everything.

“And not just any demon, but one whose power rivals the demon with whom I contracted.”

Dave, sitting beside her, swallowed hard, while Aron tilted his head.

“Um… I am afraid I do not understand what you mean.”

“Are you pretending ignorance? Other Black Mages might be deceived, but you cannot deceive my eyes.”

If one had contracted a demon of the same level, or a superior demon, this illusion would be dispelled immediately.

However, at that young age, it would be impossible for him to summon and contract a demon comparable to the Demon of Eternal Life by his own power.

But……

What if the demon had approached Aron first?

What if the demon had recognized Aron’s talent and made a contract with him?

Rienna spoke heavily.

“I will ask you, Aron. What did you offer as the price of your contract with the demon?”

If her reasoning was correct… the cadet before her had been forced into a contract with a demon.

She did not know what he had paid as the price.

‘Perhaps even that twisted personality of his is the result of the contract with the demon.’

Mad Dog Aron.

To Rienna now, that title no longer sounded like a mere insult.

Receiving the gazes of both the instructor and Rienna, Aron looked up at the shop ceiling.

‘How… did this end up like this?’

Aron felt a headache beginning to set in.

As he was agonizing over what he ought to say in response to Rienna’s questioning— “…Very well. If you will not speak, then so be it.”

Her eyes gleamed with a strange light.

“In any case, once tomorrow’s graduation ceremony is over, you will become my disciple. From that point on, I can investigate the demon with whom you contracted.”

It was little different from a unilateral declaration.

With that, she rose from her seat together with the instructor, saying that she would go directly to consult the Lord of House Bayonel about the matter.

***

After the two of them left, I remained seated alone for a few minutes, slowly finishing my drink.

“Haah…….”

A heavy sigh came free with it.

There was no answer to this mess.

‘A contract with a top-rank demon……. Unbelievable.’

From my point of view, knowing the truth, it was absurd beyond belief.

Well, from a common-sense perspective, there was no way a Black Mage could possess a Sacred Mark, so I had to admit that the old hag had made the most reasonable deduction possible as a fellow Black Mage.

I am the strange one for having a Sacred Mark, that is all.

It was not the worst possible outcome, since she still had not discovered the Sacred Mark. 

But it was not particularly good that she now believed I was under contract with a top-rank demon, either.

Once she became convinced I had contracted a top-rank demon, there was no way that old hag would ever leave me alone.

‘She even went so far as to nail down the fact that she is going to become my master.’

We had already been master and disciple in my previous life, so what more was there left for me to learn?

Judging by the mood, she had no intention whatsoever of accepting any objections.

And within this Dark Empire, her words were absolute, since she stood at the very pinnacle of Black Mages.

Creak.

I drained the last mouthful of cocoa and rose from my seat.

I had already made my plans, and Rienna would not throw them seriously off course.

But it did seem necessary to move sooner than I had intended.

I pulled out a Dark Empire coin from my pocket and placed it on the counter, then addressed the clerk.

“Is there a shop nearby that sells clothes?”

“Pardon? There are plenty of clothing shops nearby……”

“Ah, let me rephrase that. Somewhere that sells high-quality, durable clothes.”

I narrowed my eyes as I looked out at the street beyond the window.

Whoooosh.

The weather had turned beyond mere cold, and snow had begun to scatter through the air.

It was the perfect weather to put my plan into motion.

“…It would be even better if they were good at keeping out the cold.”