episode_0098

How should one accept a book talking about human rights from a human perspective? Should a book with a personality be guaranteed human rights? Or should it be dismissed as just a book and ignored?

It was an unprecedented dilemma. Asel sat in his research lab chair, arms crossed, contemplating for a long time.

[Hand.]

He placed his hand on Aleph’s cover. As his warmth was taken, Aleph trembled.

Body? Is ‘body’ really the right word to call it? Is it truly okay to call the overall form of a book, made from paper from felled trees and leather from hunted animals, a ‘body’ like a person’s? Thinking about it, isn’t this less treating a book as human and more an expression that insults humans?

[Stop thinking strange things.]

“Okay.”

At Aleph’s voice, dripping with displeasure, Asel immediately stopped his train of thought.

The discussion on the rights of books would probably be best held after returning to Wiheim. A renowned mage would surely provide an excellent answer.

What if they tell him to stop talking nonsense and get lost?

Oh dear. To not be able to have a serious discussion about books even though they are mages in Wiheim. There could be no more regrettable matter than this. He would surely contact the League Leader and have him expelled from Wiheim.

[Master. Thinking.]

“Okay.”

His scattered thoughts had been long. Asel replied to Aleph’s call once again and straightened his posture. Aleph sighed deeply, opening its pages directly for the first time in a long while, and conveyed what it wanted to say.

[Do you feel sorry towards me?]

“Of course.”

[Then declare it.]

Large letters were etched onto the blank page.

[First. That you will take me with you no matter what happens.]

“I will.”

[Second. That you will never neglect me. I tremble recalling the hundreds of years I spent lonely and stuck in a warehouse.]

“You don’t have hands or feet.”

[Master.]

“What’s the third thing?”

[……]

After a moment of silence, Aleph began to speak again.

[Third. That you will continue to take me with you even if I obtain a human body, or a body similar to one.]

This was another unexpected piece of information. Asel leaned against the backrest, tilting his head.

“A human body?”

[I am fundamentally a book, but it is possible for me to reside in a corpse whose soul has departed, or a doll capable of containing a soul. It doesn’t necessarily have to be human-shaped. I can also enter newborns without formed egos, animals, artificial spirits, etc.]

“…The situation is getting a bit serious.”

[…? Was it lighthearted before?]

Asel lightly ignored Aleph’s question, stroked his mouth, and leaned his upper body forward.

“How is that possible?”

[It is similar to creating fragmented bodies. My original master, the Demon of Knowledge, Arpagos, wished for me to possess combat abilities, and so, in addition to etching spells, granted me the ability to dominate the bodies of beings with weakened minds.]

“…”

[Through Cromwell’s hands, this ability was weakened, changing to only work on targets whose ego has not formed or whose soul has vanished. I prefer this side more. Because there is no need to tug-of-war with the body’s original owner.]

“…I don’t know how I should accept this.”

Asel replied, slightly furrowing his brow.

A power closer to ‘descent’ than ‘possession’. The ability to inhabit a soulless body and resurrect, or to take over a newborn’s body and grow – an ability that abandons human ethics – was indeed remarkable enough to be called demonic.

But just as much, it was dangerous enough to turn the continent upside down if Aleph wished. Asel 고민했다 how he should accept this great power as her master.

What if one day Aleph suddenly appeared, dominating the body of a corpse that had just died and whose soul had disappeared? If that corpse possessed great mastery in its life, and if Aleph had unilaterally done so judging that its power would be helpful to Asel. If it actually was helpful.

Could Asel purely appreciate her favor?

[You don’t need to think of it as so complicated.]

Aleph also knew Asel’s 고민.

[My ability can only be used with the Master’s permission. Even with permission, it cannot be used indiscriminately. The ability is only activated by tearing a page etched with the symbol representing me, extracting the brain of the target to be dominated, and inserting it into that place.]

“…That means you can’t do it alone.”

[That is correct. If I use magic, I can perform the extraction and restoration alone, but even that requires the Master’s magic power and spell formulas, does it not? It is impossible for me to act unilaterally by myself.]

“I understand.”

Asel stroked Aleph’s cover with a bitter smile.

“The reason you told me this is because you want to obtain a human body someday?”

[If given the chance, I would like to obtain one. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be human. Even a beast is fine, as long as it has limbs that can move.]

“Hmm.”

Asel let out a sound of contemplation and thought for a moment.

Perhaps if he went to an illegal black market, he could obtain the body of a human or beast whose soul had disappeared.

It would require a large sum of money, but in other words, it means it can be obtained if one has the money. It wasn’t that difficult of a task.

[…Are you not disillusioned?]

As he was thinking, Aleph suddenly sent a telepathic message.

“Disillusioned?”

[Normally, humans feel fear and disgust at the fact that their body could be taken by another. Even Arpagos, who created me, became wary of me after my power grew, fearing I might take his body. Cromwell, needless to say. But Master Asel…]

“More composed than expected?”

[Yes. The reason I was hiding this fact was because I was afraid of being abandoned by the Master. I thought you would hate my ability, ignore me, or burn me.]

“Perhaps I might have, back when I first obtained you.”

Asel gave a slight laugh and lightly tapped Aleph’s cover with his fingertips. Strangely, each time he did, Aleph’s feeling of happiness was conveyed.

“But now… I don’t feel anything in particular. If it’s a power that can only be activated with my consent in the first place, there’s no need to be particularly wary.”

[……]

“And if you truly had bad intentions, there would be no reason to tell me this. If you kept it hidden and pulled it out like a dagger, I wouldn’t be able to do anything and would be taken by surprise.”

[I will never act against the Master’s will.]

“I know.”

Asel let out a small laugh.

“So I don’t hate it. If an opportunity arises, I’ll look into getting a body. Preferably a human one.”

[…Thank you.]

Aleph conveyed this in a sincere voice.

And then, as if its tension had eased a bit, it made a joke to Asel.

[However, the body must definitely be that of a female.]

“Why?”

[Because my identity is female. I wouldn’t use a male body even if you gave it to me. What’s good about a body that carries a tumor between its legs that would make me use it?]

“Women have tumors on their chests too.”

[That is not a tumor, but a gift from God symbolizing female beauty. Master, consider this. A human walking around with genitalia dangling versus a human exposing their chest. Which one looks better?]

“…”

[That’s how it is.]

No words for rebuttal came to mind. Asel sighed deeply and stood up from his seat.

“Alright, I get it. If there’s an opportunity, I’ll look into getting a female body.”

[Very well. Now let’s return to the main topic. Here is the fourth promise.]

“Wait, there’s more?”

Asel asked, frowning intensely. Aleph replied with a confident attitude, as if he were asking the obvious.

[There are five in total. Please sit down.]

“Alright, fine. In exchange for granting five, you make one promise too. From now on, absolutely obey what I say.”

[Is that what you mean? I, Aleph, your loyal friend, family, and servant, promise eternal loyalty—]

Aleph’s continuing voice suddenly cut off. Even though the absorbed magic power hadn’t been fully consumed, the telepathic magic disappeared as if a machine had stopped working.

The moment Asel felt a question about this.

[Master.]

Aleph’s voice became serious.

[An uninvited guest.]

“…What?”

[The area we are currently in. That is, an uninvited guest has infiltrated the Academy grounds.]

At the words that followed, Asel’s eyes narrowed.

[If it were an ordinary mage, I wouldn’t have been able to sense them either. But the aura is so familiar to me that I was able to detect it even from afar.]

“…If it’s familiar.”

[Your guess is correct.]

Aleph etched the stored spell formula onto the page and spoke.

[It’s a demon worshipper.]

***

“S-save me. Please…! I’ll pretend I didn’t see what happened here…!”

The man whose legs had evaporated screamed miserably. His eyes, normally dulled by drugs, returned to their usual clarity as the moment of death approached. A thick smell of blood permeated his numb sense of smell, and a strong taste of iron rose in his mouth.

It was due to internal injuries sustained during the collision. Blood flowed between his lips, soaking the floor and his clothes. The man looked down at it and shouted loudly once more.

“Just… Just let me go…!”

“Annoying.”

At the same time, a figure walked from the opposite direction.

A man wearing a black robe and a black mask. Holding a staff in one hand and someone’s leg in the other, he spoke in a displeased voice.

“Even on the Academy grounds, criminals haven’t been completely rooted out, it seems. Perhaps due to the expansion in scale to the level of a considerable metropolis rather than a small village, they seem to be having trouble cleaning up.”

Thud.

The man casually threw the leg he was holding towards the darkness in the alleyway. The darkness split open with a rip and then swallowed the leg whole.

A horrible sound of flesh and bone being crushed settled low. The man who had been screaming loudly, unable to maintain his sanity any longer at the sound, fainted immediately. The masked man looked down at him and clicked his tongue.

“Why pick a fight if you can’t handle it?”

Saying that, the man lightly tapped the ground with his staff.

CRACKLE!!

Darkness spread centered on where the staff touched, splitting open like a beast opening its maw, and swallowed the fainted man’s body whole.

And so, silence fell. The man wiped the blood from his clothes and let out a long breath.

‘There are still two more days until I am scheduled to meet with the contact planted in the Academy. So I had planned to stay quiet to avoid unnecessary trouble, but I never imagined I would run into trash on the first day of infiltration.’

Since he didn’t leave a corpse, he didn’t have to worry about being discovered by the guards, but there was nothing he could do about the screams the fellows let out.

The back alleys of the Academy grounds. Even though it is a slum with the worst security, there are certainly people present. Someone must have heard the screams they let out. If even one person among them reports what happened here, the situation will become quite troublesome.

However, it was impossible to go find and kill each of them individually. Unless he annihilated the entire area. Killing them off one by one takes time and is inefficient. It would be better to lie low than that.

“Tsk.”

The man clicked his tongue and casually rested his staff on his shoulder. Then he took a step towards the alley where no presence could be felt.

As he walked, he reviewed the plan he had established.

Gorcel, a druid left behind in the Academy. Meet with him, finalize the exact timing of the terror attack and kidnapping to be carried out on the day of the joint sparring, and pre-determine the escape route.

The Academy terror is not the goal, but a means. The moment everyone’s attention is focused on the terror, kidnap the sacrifice for the demon’s complete descent. Escape immediately, and everything is finished. It was a simple plan.

‘If it weren’t for this cooperative relationship, I wouldn’t have done this. My life is truly eventful.’

The demon the man served and the demon Gorcel served were different beings. Originally, they wouldn’t have moved together like this.

However, they had made a treaty to help each other once when needed, which is why he had no choice but to come to the Academy like this. Although he was reluctant, he had no choice if he wanted to receive certain help later. The man sighed deeply and checked the list of potential sacrifices he had received in advance.

“…”

The very top of the list. He quickly scanned the names of those who must be captured.

“Grace Bidel, Ellen Hargelin, Elena von Valdemia…”

Every single one was a major figure. Just by their family names, he could tell why they were chosen as sacrifice candidates.

But the names written below them were unexpected.

“Selin and Asel?”

Simple names without family names. This meant they were not nobles. It was obvious they hadn’t received proper support growing up and were likely third-rate mages who got into the Academy by luck.

—That thought vanished instantly upon checking the supplementary explanations written below their names.

“Mage of the Aurora Magic Tower. And… disciple of the Genesis?”

The man let out a hollow laugh.

“Why would a disciple of a Great Mage bother to enter the Academy?”

The moment he muttered this.

Rumble!!

A thunderclap echoed from the sky. The man instinctively looked up. Because it wasn’t a sound that should come from a sky without a single cloud.

“…Hoo.”

His intuition was accurate. In the flickering red eyes behind the mask, the figure of someone landing on a building rooftop was reflected.

Due to the backlight of the moonlight, his face wasn’t visible. But his deep blue gaze was clearer than anything.

“Is that him?”

Soon, he opened his mouth. Then, even though no answer came, he nodded to himself.

“I see.”

“Perhaps you’re insane?”

The masked man asked, tapping his staff.

“No.”

Asel replied with a slight laugh.

“I’m a mage.”