Chapter 55 Volume II - Chapter 21: Contract Loophole
I was silent for a moment, kept thinking, and then things started to slowly flood my brain.
I remembered, all of it.
How I left that room after Larry died, how a creature that could simply hunt the Joez Group approached me from behind and then pierced my heart...
I panicked for a moment and quickly looked at the spot where my heart was. My clothes were covered in blood, and the top where my heart had been was torn, but strangely… there was no pain coming from there.
At first, I was relieved by this thought, and then I remembered what happened after that. The purple thing entering my body and my helplessness...
I started sweating all of a sudden, like the world was spinning upside down.
I, no...
Oh, no...
I stared meaninglessly at the wall in front of me. I remembered that moment when I faced myself... when my younger self's eyes slowly turned purple...
At the time I couldn't really dwell on it because my memory was still fuzzy, but now I remember everything clearly. I also have information about what happened to me, what was going to happen to me, and every single one of these...
It's terrifying.
I'm... simply done...
"Hey, I'm talking to you!"
Professor Calvin grimaced and looked me in the eyes. The emotions I could read from him were hatred and, though hidden, sadness.
He is sad because he thinks he has lost me, but unlike him, I don't give a shit about him right now.
My situation is so desperate and so disgusting that I...
"Answer me!"
The professor stomped his foot hard on the floor and the factory, whose foundations were already not very good, shook slightly.
What... should I do now?
I felt increasingly helpless, and terrified.
Am I going crazy? Maybe I've already gone crazy, but I don't realize it...
And where is Sith? Normally he should be circling me by now... Could something have happened to him?
I was thinking about so many things that my head felt like it was going to explode. My mind felt like it was going to break like it did the first time I woke up, but then, all of a sudden, these thoughts slowly started to fade. Just like it had happened a moment ago...
I raised my head and looked at the professor. The smile he normally wore when I practiced with him had been replaced by a serious, almost frightening expression.
And yet... I was calm.
"A contract..."
That's what finally came out of my mouth.
I don't know what I can do after what happened to me, but I can't just give up.
I made a promise to myself that I will at least try everything to prevent bad things from happening to me.
I will do whatever it takes to survive.
"Let's make a contract, professor."
The professor narrowed his eyes, paused for a moment, chuckled slightly, and then burst into laughter. I continued without losing my composure or expression.
"I am serious, professor. I will simply explain my situation to you without lying. If I lie, I will die. If I tell the truth and you trust me, you will release me."
The professor smiled wryly. Then a light blue glow appeared in his hand, his intentions clear.
"You have nothing to lose. If you don't trust me, you don't need to release me. Just listen to me, professor."
I'm calm, annoyingly calm. So much so that even I am uncomfortable with it. Still, I don't have time for this.
"I trusted one of you before and now I am the only living member of my family. Do you think I would make the same mistake again?"
"All you can do is listen to me, Professor. And even if you do that, it's not a mistake. I'm Aiden, your student Aiden, and believe me, I'm a victim, so I'm asking you to give me a chance."
I closed my eyes and imagined it.
Even if the handcuffs prevent me from using mana, they only prevent me from qualifying it, from controlling it directly. I can understand that, they are not top-level.
That means that they must not be able to prevent me from using the system itself, which is independent of me, and therefore from setting up a mana contract.
<<------------------------------
Contractor 1: Aiden Tenebra
Contractor 2: Calvin Gladio
Terms of the Contract:
1-) Aiden Tenebra cannot lie until he informs the other contractor that he has finished speaking. The speech will last for a maximum of half an hour, at the end of which the speech will automatically end.
2-) Calvin Gladio must listen to Aiden Tenebra until he announces that he has finished speaking. During this time, he must not voluntarily attack or harm him.
3-) Calvin Gladio will not kill Aiden Tenebra if he trusts him.
4-) Aiden Tenebra will die instantly if he breaks the rules of the contract.
5-) Calvin Gladio will be under the complete control of Aiden Tenebra for three minutes if he does not follow the rules of the contract. During this time Aiden Tenebra cannot make Calvin Gladio do anything 'bad', he cannot kill him, cannot do anything to cause him to die, and if he makes him do anything bad in any way he will die.
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Good... it worked, just as I thought it would.
The professor stared into the air for a while. He was reading the contents of his side of the contract.
"I understand everything, but the control?"
He doesn't seem to have any intention of accepting, it's going to be a bit of a hassle...
"If you attack me, I'll simply walk out of here without doing anything. I've already added to the terms that I won't do anything bad, so if you want to add anything, you can add it."
He's not very smart, this should be enough to satisfy him... it will be. But I'll still give him one last push.
I paused and smiled slightly, looking into his eyes.
"I'm still Aiden, professor, not a bad guy. I don't want you to die."
The professor paused for a moment. His expression became puzzled and softened a little, but then he became serious again.
He is thinking, checking if there is really something against him in the contract.
All he has to do is not attack me, and that's not hard to do. At worst, he will have to wait half an hour and then he can do whatever he wants to me.
It's a very favorable contract for him, what more is he hesitating?
Or else...
"Well, I'll accept because I'm really curious to hear what you have to say, but you have no idea what I could do to you after that half hour if I realized you were planning something different."
Ah... he can be really scary when he's like that. I shivered for a moment...
After the professor's words, a small amount of mana was withdrawn from both my body and the professor's body, and my half-hour time had already started.
"Haa..."
I took a deep breath and fixed my eyes on the professor's black eyes.
Here we go... Time to gamble.
"Professor... If I'm not mistaken, you are from the main branch of the Gladio Family, right?"
The professor's eyes narrowed. This was not what he expected to hear.
"But you just told me that your family is dead?"
This time his brow furrowed, as if he was angry with himself for what he had blurted out.
"What do you mean?"
"You're not really from the main branch, are you? Even if you are despised because of your low talent, it's actually because you are not a biological child of that family."
His eyes began to flicker and he just stood there. It was impossible from his point of view for me to know what I was saying.
"After your parents died, you were found by the leader of the Gladio Family, your talents were recognized and you were adopted by him. Because he couldn't have children."
"Bastard... That was your goa-"
"Yet your mother hated you. She even poisoned you and stunted your development, causing you to fall out of favor with the family leader. And then the family's first real son was born."
The professor bit his lip, these were all things that society did not know. On top of that, things he didn't want to remember... Even if he tried to keep his cool, everyone had their sensitivities.
"Because you were poisoned, your development stalled, for a long time you were considered garbage. Yet you didn't give up, you tried and tried and tried. And then... you found happiness."
He drew his sword and pointed it at me, still hesitating. He was still aware of the contract he had made.
"Just wait half an hour... I will kill you in such a way that you will regret you ever came into this world...!"
He's losing it, great.
"You fell in love and even thought about getting engaged. Then, while spending time with that woman, by chance you were in the middle of an attack. It was an attack by someone using that purple energy."
"Stop... Please stop..."
His voice trembled, slowly breaking. I was reminding him of things he didn't want to remember, unresponsive and without pause.
"You were both on the verge of death."
"Shut up..."
"She wanted you to run away, and you already knew you couldn't."
I heard a crunching sound, the professor had clenched his teeth so hard that they were broken. Blood was dripping from his mouth.
"In the end, thanks to your perseverance, you attracted the ordea to you. You used ordea for the first time that day, but precisely because of that, you couldn't handle it. You lost consciousness."
He lost even more control as the memories came back to him again and again, memories he had tried for so long to forget or ignore. His mana spread throughout the factory, causing a tremor. The light blue-colored energy, the ordea, covered his entire body.
"When you regained consciousn-"
Suddenly the image in front of me disappeared, and a slight smile appeared on my face.
When the professor attacked me, I kicked the ground and knocked myself down, so that I fell to the ground, and the professor, who was at the peak of his anger, did not pay much attention to this. Just a few seconds later he froze in place.
"You lost, professor, and now I have three minutes. Untie me first."
The professor strained his muscles, and his body trembled, but the contract held him down.
Slowly he approached me and untied the handcuffs I was tied behind my back. I stood up, relieved to feel the mana in my body again.
"You did not see me when you entered that bunker. Instead, you encountered one of those purple creatures. Then you mowed it down and left before you could find any more evidence. You will completely forget my involvement in that incident."
"O- ok... oka-y..."
His body is convulsing... He resists the contract with all his being, but no matter how much he wants to, he can't do it.
"You will faint when I tell you, and when you wake up exactly one hour later, you will remember that you came here because you wanted to rest for a short time because of a wound you received while fighting the creature."
"O- okay..."
"Sleep."
The professor collapsed after those words, and even though I had seen it with my own eyes, I still couldn't breathe a sigh of relief.
I got over the professor, but my problems don't end there.
Normally, once that purple thing is inside me, my ego is supposed to disappear. Another 'me' with a copy of my memory should take my place, but I am still myself.
I am aware that I am not one of the copied consciousnesses I mentioned. I am aware because the new owners of the bodies that go through the same process as me are aware that they are not the original consciousness.
And I am here... I am sure that my memories are mine, I don't feel like a different person and most importantly I am calm. I am not someone who has nothing but chaos and destruction in my head.
So Sith did what I told him to do, but...
I thought about my childhood self that I confronted in my dream, his eyes turned purple as he walked out the door.
So that thing managed to take part of my soul?
Then... what happened to me? Who... am I now?
"Sith..."
I called inside my head, but I didn't get any response.
"Hey, Sith... Can you hear me? Are you there?"
No matter how long I waited, I didn't get a response. When Sith's silence added to my situation, I started to worry.
I took a deep breath and sank to the ground.
What if something had happened to Sith? Could something have happened to him while he was trying to stop that thing inside me?
I pulled my knees toward me and buried my head between them.
On top of everything... am I even human anymore?
"Ahahah..."
I've ruined my new chance in this world because of my greed. I... what do I do now?
I felt like I was going crazy again. My thoughts slowly started to eat away at my consciousness, but then, just like before, I relaxed and calmed down again.
When this happened for the first time a few minutes ago, I didn't question it much, I couldn't question it. Now that I am experiencing this thing again, I pause.
Why do I keep calming down? This... is not normal.
I quickly reconsidered the situation I was in, tried to empathize with myself, and then I frowned.
I'm actually involved in something so bad that I should be crying, kicking the floor, and cursing my fate, but I'm sitting here thinking calmly.
I got goosebumps all over me, trembling with terror. I started to get scared, I didn't know what was happening to me, but then my mind cleared again and I calmed down.
I... can't even be scared...
I quickly did the first thing that came to my mind, I thought about my statistics window and then a holographic window opened in front of me.
And when I saw what was written in front of me, I just froze.
"What... is this?"
I closed and opened my eyes a couple of times, but the view in front of me didn't change.
<<------------------------------
--Personal Information--
Name: Aiden (Ethan)
Last Name: Tenebra (Subter)
Race: Human/Wiera
Age: 18
--???--
?: %5,2
--Statistics--
General Level: E
Strength: E-
Agility: E+
Vitality: E-
Endurance: E-
Luck: E
Magic Power: E+
Mana Efficiency: E
Charm: E
--Status Effects--
Abnormal Status Effect: [Divided Soul] -- [Body Dissonance] -- [????]
--Chaos--
Devotion: Greed
Status: Representative Candidate
Grade: E+
Control Tolerance: F+
Limit: E
Authority: [Chains of Sin(E+)]
--Masteries--
[Swordsmanship(E-)] -- [Mana Expert(E-)] -- [Spirit Magic: Wind Elementalist(E)]
--Passive Skills--
[The One Who is Close to Spirits(A)] -- [Absolute Mind(A-)]
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What... what happened to me?
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