Chapter 20 (Patreon)

A nighttime stroll through the mountains—what better way to cool my head a little? The Underworld’s wilderness all around me, fresh air, cool gusts of wind blowing the overly aggressive thoughts out of my skull.

The first layer of the protective spell finishes examining me and opens the way deeper into the mountains. There’s no rushing things here, so I keep strolling while the next spell in the network of demonic wards gets to work. Its power, incidentally, makes it clearer than any words could that I still have plenty of room to grow—and that making rash moves against certain people would land me in a whole lot of trouble. Possibly even the fatal kind.

Unfortunately—or fortunately, considering the rage Tomoe’s story had left me in—I couldn’t deal with the Meguri clan right away. There’s another matter that will take up part of what’s left of the night.

At the start of my “demon shift,” I spent a good chunk of time training my student and putting Ise through his conditioning. I then handed him, reduced to a limp rag, over to his peerage mates at the Occult Research Club. After another pleasant chat with Asia, I devoted about three hours to school paperwork and complaints. Then came my conversation with Tomoe, and after that it was time to work on the fairly substantial project that had grown out of Marikawa-san’s request. She was the student being hounded by three scumbags.

As I’d told her, House Sitri had found another way to cover her bill. And honestly, the demons had lived up to their name in my eyes—though in a rather unusual and unexpected way.

And I don’t mean Freed. We’re going to siphon off his life force in place of the payment we waived for Marikawa Reika after that idiotic attack. The “exorcist” is next on my list for tonight. I’ve already wrung plenty of information out of him, but if my Lady gets permission from her honored father and that gang of black-winged birds soon feels our wrath, I want to make sure we don’t run into any nasty surprises.

By the “bonuses” that came out of what had looked, at first glance, like a fairly routine job, I mean business and finance in the mortal world.

Of course, life force comes first. It’s used in several vital industries in the Underworld. A substantial share of the life force collected through contracts in the mortal world, for example, goes into a component used to make Evil Pieces. That work matters enormously to my new people: reincarnating mortals accounts for a significant share of the demon population’s recovery.

But the power of the businesses on Earth, in whose shadows representatives of the Underworld’s Houses and families operate, shouldn’t be overlooked either. In this case, I’m talking about Great House Sitri and the Sitori Group, which handles a vast range of matters for the people who lead my House.

Funny thing is, the more I learn, the more I’m amazed by the beings who call themselves demons in this world. By this world, I mean Earth and its mirror planes, like the Underworld and Heaven. Given our nature and reputation, you might picture some Corporation of Evil spreading its tentacles across the mortal world… But the Sitori Group is mostly a human enterprise concerned with making money. With a few peculiarities. And those peculiarities keep making me shake my head in disbelief.

There’s a lot going on beneath the surface. Most importantly, I think, the Sitori Group does a great deal for promising young people. Of course, its main goal is to bring that talent into its own ranks, but… does that matter to, say, a boy from a poor, dysfunctional family who’s been given a chance?

He stands out at school despite his circumstances. People notice him—actual humans. Respectable men and women in business suits sit down with him for an initial conversation, and then the boy gets something like a Fairy Godmother moment. These serious people arrange a subsidized place for him at a decent college, award him a grant… and keep watching.

If the young mortal continues to do well, one of two things happens. If none of the peerages within House Sitri or among its allies takes an interest in him, he goes to work for one of the Group’s businesses. The job won’t necessarily pay him gold by the shovelful, but he has work, benefits from his employer, and room to advance. In time, he may even forget the hardship he grew up with.

The second possibility is that one of the peerages takes an interest in the candidate. It might belong to the main family—though he’d have to stand out considerably for that—or one of the vassal families, where the bar is lower. What happens next depends on his own choice. If he agrees to become a demon and change his nature, it’s simple: welcome to the peerage, new servant of your Lord or Lady.

But what if the boy in my example is devout to the core, or simply refuses to change species? Nothing bad happens to him, either. They erase his memory of the interview, replace it with an ordinary conversation with the Sitori Group’s HR department, and things proceed as I described earlier: he gets a job at one of the Group’s businesses.

Looks like a classic win-win to me. Very undemonic, if you ask me. Where’s the torture for the ones who refuse or fail to impress? Where’s the underground organ trade, or the forcible draining of life force? Nowhere.

Even the ones who “drop out” along the way—those who fail to meet expectations during the Sitori Group’s assessments—are simply forgotten. They can go wherever they like and do whatever they want. They don’t even land on a blacklist shared among the Group’s businesses. If they pass an ordinary job interview, they can still be hired on the same terms as anyone else.

The Group serves another purpose in the mortal world, besides the obvious one of making money: looking after the families of reincarnated demons. Not everyone needs that, but in some cases the Group gives siblings, parents, distant relatives, and even friends whom the new demons hold dear a chance to earn a living. Tomoe’s father is one example.

The Sitri don’t repeat Qui-Gon Jinn’s mistake and leave, say, the Chosen One’s mother in slavery. Nor do they take anyone hostage. They simply “help,” and the Great House’s new acquisition feels nothing but warmth toward their peerage.

Hmm… Anyway, those are just a couple of little things that keep scratching at my brain whenever I remember that I’m now part of a peerage of TERRIFYING, HORRIBLE demons…

Oh, the second layer of defenses has let me through, too. I can keep going. One last check ahead. The last outer check, which will open the way to the destination of my little nighttime trip.

For now, I can turn my thoughts back to the job I’m working on. The task Marikawa Reika-san gave me turned out to be less dull than I’d expected. If she’d simply asked me to kill those three would-be rapists, I’d probably have ended their lives and given precisely zero jade rods about anything else. But she wanted the three of them to reform, to stop being a threat to the people around them.

That night, I took a little time to think things over. I had a frightened nun named Asia and an unconscious maniac on my hands, and both needed to be put somewhere suitable. The nun in a damp prison cell, the psycho in a comfortable suite… Wait. Other way around! So I kept things simple.

I texted the right people to have the student’s broken window replaced in the morning. I left Asia at my house in the Underworld—I wasn’t about to take her to Mom and Dad, who dreamed of marrying me off, or to my dorm room. Then I delivered Freed to the intake desk of the appropriate facility, whose coordinates my Lady had sent me. I didn’t want him anywhere near Asia, and the “attractions” I had in mind for the idiot might upset or frighten the kind girl.

For the three bastards, I arranged a cheap, uncomplicated bout of indigestion—or food poisoning. Luckily, all three were enjoying seafood at the same restaurant that night, so three simultaneous cases of food poisoning barely raised an eyebrow.

And then… the brainstorming began. At first, the team consisted of just me. Once the girls grew curious about what I was mulling over, the rest of the student council joined in. My Lady and, surprisingly enough, shy little Reya-chan made the biggest contributions.

My Lady took an interest in the rich kids. Once I told her who they were, she gave me the contact details of a very capable middle-aged man at the Sitori Group. After hearing the short version over the phone, he arranged to meet me at a café, where we went through the matter properly.

Within a single day, this unremarkable, stooped man with a piercing stare emailed me a substantial document. It laid out the “plan of action” in detail, without any pretentious jargon. It covered everything from punishing the professors who took bribes—people were already digging up their dirty laundry—to giving the police officers responsible a “kick up the ass” once the head of the prefectural police department suddenly took an interest in the case.

It turned out the senior official had a daughter of his own. Some time ago, she had narrowly escaped a group of lowlifes who’d set their sights on the body of a well-dressed, attractive young woman out at a club with her friends. So when a senior Sitori Group employee approached him, the request struck a chord. The official’s anger still hadn’t cooled.

The rich kids’ families received close attention, too. The fathers of two of my victims owned businesses that Fubuki-san proposed the Sitori Group swallow whole, without any fancy tricks. Stir up a public scandal, cause the current owners a heap of trouble and the resulting losses… then chomp! No more lords of their little swamps, and their holdings pass into my House’s hands.

To be honest… I asked whether Fubuki-san could handle that part of the job and almost immediately dumped it in the capable man’s lap. I simply received his reports and studied them carefully. Despite my many reincarnations, I didn’t feel truly competent in these sorts of… hmm… battles. Conflicts like this worked differently in cultivation worlds, so I took the chance to watch a professional at work. There was plenty to learn from a mere mortal who displayed truly demonic skill.

And little Reya, always so quiet and shy… turned out to be a huge fan of classic Japanese horror movies. She suggested entrusting the reeducation of our three main villains to two branches of demonic magic: illusion and suggestion.

She also helped me place the necessary spells on the rich brats, giving me a chance to pick up some useful skills. By now, I can at least maintain her spells and make small changes to them.

For three days, the three would-be rapists have barely been able to go about their lives or sleep. Something scrabbles beneath their beds. Terrifying figures appear at the edge of their vision. They hear nightmarish, otherworldly women moaning and screaming. In the dark, black hair crawls across their ceilings, while frightening silhouettes with glowing scarlet eyes stare through their windows. And then there’s everyone’s new favorite: games with mirrors.

Reya worked on that part with such enthusiasm that one of our “clients” nearly kicked the bucket on the very first day. He went to wash his face, raised his head, looked in the mirror, and in the reflection—he’d grown a d… on his forehead… ahem, ahem—there was a woman with a hideous face standing behind him. The poor sod fainted and got a concussion when his thick skull met the bathroom tiles.

The boys can’t sleep, either. Their dreams are haunted by nightmares of the highest caliber, which keep everyone else in their homes awake, too. How could anyone sleep when screams of sheer terror rip through the silence several times a night, like clockwork? And this is only the beginning. We have plenty more fun contests planned for this carnival of unprecedented generosity—for their nervous systems!

So that’s where things stand. Those bastards have forgotten about Marikawa Reika for the moment. It won’t last long, and they won’t be happy when it ends.

The police received a powerful dose of motivational medicine—an almighty ass-kicking from the boss—and have already called back the girls who stopped their classmate from being raped. They leaned on them a little, and the girls talked. No, they weren’t sellout bitches. Ken Tagawa and his buddies had simply frightened them into silence. Fortunately—though it depends on whom you ask—the police were much better at making people talk than the rich kids were at scaring them.

So our three nightmare-plagued friends can look forward to visits from the police soon, too. The student council girls, meanwhile, love watching the clips I record with surveillance spells: the terrified bastards shrieking their lungs out.

Turned out pretty well. Interesting, too.

Unlike my usual work as a demon. Oh, at first I’d been delighted to take up my duties as a servant of House Sitri’s heiress. For more than a dozen years, I’d had to hold myself back. Even when I let the personality shaped by all those reincarnations show through, I tried to keep it within bounds. I had my cover, my parents, and my future to protect. But sometimes I really wanted to go on a no-frills binge of justified violence against the doomed fools who’d pissed me off.

Sure, I could have cut myself off from society, pushed my cultivation forward, and stopped worrying about restraint… But did I need to? No. I saw no pressing reason. In a high-tech society, the risks were too great for a cocky cultivator at a low level. Especially one in the body of a child or teenager.

Do things when the time is right, instead of doing stupid shit just to stroke your Ego. Advance in cultivation, grow stronger, learn about the world around you, and only then begin taking a more active role, without rushing. And even then, only if there’s a reason to. After all, I’d planned to cultivate at my leisure over many human generations. At least, that was the plan back then, BEFORE I discovered the “underground” world behind the curtain of Earth’s ordinary human society.

Once I’d met the biblical races and joined House Sitri, my worries about humanity fell away. That included World War III, which I’d been at least a little afraid of. I didn’t need to do a thing to prevent even the remote possibility of the world I intended to cultivate in being destroyed. It had all been taken care of for me. Heaven, the Fallen, the demons, and the other… “supernaturals” had no desire to see humanity wiped out.

I mean those stories where invaders from some Edge, Border, Other Side—take your pick—want to wipe out all life on Earth for the sake of some bullshit that’s terribly important to them. Nobody needs that. And there aren’t any tourists dropping in from elsewhere, either. None at all.

Ahem… All right, “nobody” might be a stretch. I’m certain types like that exist here, too. The sensible part of the supernatural population just kicks their asses. It also keeps an eye on mortals and their Red Buttons, Doomsday Switches, and Apocalypse Toggles.

Sure, everyone fights for influence, but that’s… normal, isn’t it? Ordinary competition has always existed, sometimes growing into outright hostility. Even the biblical races, though still preoccupied with their old rivalries, seem to be pursuing them in a more… constructive way these days. Probably. I can’t speak for the others—I don’t know enough yet—but my side, the Underworld, has made the recovery of the demon population a priority. And it’s making progress.

Battles to the death among their own kind are a thing of the past. Rating Games have taken their place, with spells of staggering power and intelligence whisking most defeated demons off the battlefield before they suffer fatal wounds. Evil Pieces were created to turn mortals with the potential to serve the Underworld into demons.

And although some natural-born demons still look down on the reincarnated, the latter have plenty of rights—as well as obligations. Service to the Lord who gave them the chance to be reborn as powerful, immortal beings, for example. Yes, that service is long, sometimes lasting centuries, but… I’d call anyone who thinks it should come free an idiot. Gobble up—excuse me—a true treasure of the demon race, gain power and limitless life, and then… what? Say thanks and go raise hell? Want me to throw in a fuck with your change, too?

Funny thing is, those who look down on the reincarnated are now worse off than Houses that treat us more favorably. Among the… hmm, rabid conservatives, let’s call them that, unpleasant incidents happen more often. Servants betraying their Lords, for example. And for that, I can only bow in respect to the creator of Evil Pieces: one of the Demon Kings of the Underworld, Beelzebub Ajuka-sama.

He didn’t invent something that would guarantee absolute loyalty by tampering with a servant’s mind and giving their Lord or Lady complete control over it. Beelzebub-sama gave demonkind a way to improve its numbers without creating a slave subrace. Of course, some natural-born demons—especially those who fondly remember the “good old days” under the previous rulers—sincerely believe they’re superior, but…

They die. Not particularly often, but every now and then their Pieces grow tired of being treated like slaves and successfully cut off their Lords’ heads.

On the other hand, Houses like Sitri and Gremory grow stronger and more secure in the Underworld with every generation of “grown-up” reincarnated demons. Not all of them become noteworthy, of course. But some former servants earn their own set of Evil Pieces through service to their Lord or Lady’s House and form peerages of their own. Sometimes those peerages are independent. More often, they join their former “boss’s” House as vassals. Natural-born demons also sometimes marry reincarnated ones. There’s a small catch, though: that almost always happens only when the former mortal is truly powerful.

In short, the Underworld is more focused on its internal affairs. It has softened its “foreign policy” considerably, shifting the struggle toward ideas and money rather than physical force. I wasn’t lying to my recent client, Marikawa-san, when I said I’d expected a debate with the exorcist who turned up. Skirmishes still happen from time to time, but they tend to stay local. Agents of influence from Heaven, the Fallen, and the Underworld generally prefer to… bark at one another rather than slit each other’s throats.

Hmm… I mean the reasonable representatives of all three sides. I’m not entirely sure about the first two, but when it comes to demons…

In all the time I’ve served my Lady, brief though it still is, I haven’t once heard her or anyone else in our peerage express a desire to go to war with the Fallen or Heaven. Sona-san has plans of her own, none of them aimed at harming others. And as far as I know, Sitri-dono, the head of House Sitri, isn’t planning any military action either.

The same goes for Leviathan Serafall-sama, one of the Demon Kings. Though she’s among the most powerful demons in the Underworld, she has no interest whatsoever in fighting merely to destroy ancient enemies.

I was rather surprised, by the way, to learn that she has her own TV show in the Underworld. One of its rulers plays a cheerful, carefree magical girl without the slightest embarrassment. But surprise was as far as it went. I understand perfectly well that truly powerful people couldn’t care less about anything they don’t consider important.

I’ve met all sorts of oddballs across my reincarnations. Incredibly powerful cultivators who lived quietly among mortals, posing as, say, a potter forever complaining about the quality of the clay he bought. Deities pretending to be beggars, scratching their asses through holes in their trousers. Powerful Beasts who’d gained sentience, taken human form, and started families with the humans they’d chosen as partners.

The masks they chose to wear never held any of them back. And Leviathan-sama’s stage persona won’t stop her from bringing Armageddon down on anyone who truly upsets the Demon King born into House Sitri.

“Taro? Why’d you zone out?” A woman’s voice pulls me from my thoughts. While I’ve been lost in them, I’ve reached the guard post at the entrance to my destination.

“Oh, sorry. Got lost in thought,” I admit, surfacing from the slow current of my reflections. I’ll have to ask Sona-san for a week off during the school holidays and devote it to meditation. There’s so much new information to take in, and duties keep piling up from every direction. I can’t get my thoughts properly in order, which leads to little lapses like this. “Hello, Svetlana. Anton.”

“Hey,” the girl who snapped me out of my thoughts says with a smile. Beside her, a big, broad-shouldered man with impressive muscles gives me a friendly nod. “Here to see your guest?”

“Of course. Is he all right?”

“We-e-ell… I wouldn’t call it ‘all right’…” she drawls. “But he’s where you left him last time.”

“Good enough. How are you two?”

“Bored.” Sveta shrugs. “How else would a shift guarding Sitri’s prison go? Anton and I stand out here counting the minutes, while the others inside wage war on boredom.”

“Understandable.” I give the two members of the Severny* family, vassals of House Sitri, a sympathetic look.

Which brings me back to demon work, by the way. Pieces belonging to the heirs of Great Houses don’t get assignments like standing guard at prisons. Vassals and members of junior family branches, however, do take shifts protecting places important to their liege. Here, high in the mountains of the Underworld and deep inside House Sitri’s territory, stands a “maximum-security” prison. The Severny* family, like many other families and even entire clans, sends its people to serve here from time to time.

It’s the ass end of the Underworld, with fuck-all around. A month-long posting drags on in dreary monotony. For entertainment, there’s sleep, food, local TV, and console games when you’re off duty and guards from another peerage take over.

Honestly, if it weren’t for Asia, I’d have kept Freed in my basement. But Sister Argento… I doubt she’d approve of my methods, and both she and her opinion of House Sitri matter to my Lady. Sona-san is taking the recruitment of a possible future servant very seriously. She spends her precious time talking with the nun, sends Momo, Tsubaki, and Reya to my house, and generally makes an effort to give the green-eyed blonde with the Sacred Gear the right impression of us.

That’s why Sona-san recommended this place for the deranged exorcist. As for me, I harbor a tender, sincere, utterly undiluted desire to cause him as much pain and suffering as possible.

Far from any settlement, there’s a large network of caves inside the mountain, some man-made and some not so much. This place feels closer to the ways of the former Lords of the “Underworld” than anything else I’ve seen here. Dungeons holding criminals, renegades, traitors, and captured enemies. Not honorable opponents, whom the Underworld treats with respect. Enemies. Humans and nonhumans who’ve stepped outside the unwritten gentlemen’s rules of conflict that now prevail among the biblical races.

“How about some tea?” I pull a thermos of hot tea brewed from leaves I grew myself out of my spatial bracelet.

Not a bribe or anything… Just a small token of appreciation for a peerage my Lady has spoken of with respect and fondness.

“Who’d say no to that?” Svetlana rubs her hands together in anticipation. Even big Anton abandons his usual impassive demeanor and eyes the thermos with interest.

“Then help yourselves. I’ll be off.” I leave the thermos in Svetlana’s hands as she murmurs her thanks. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Anton pull a folding table from behind the guardhouse, followed by some large mugs and… a bag of big rectangular gingerbread cakes? Tula gingerbread, maybe? Damn, I want some!!! A taste of childhood!

My first childhood, to be precise.

I’ll have to ask them on my way back to bring me a couple of kilos next time. I used to love these gingerbread cakes—only the ones filled with caramelized condensed milk, not fruit jam. I suspect they’d disappoint me now, but damn it, I want some! And if I want some, why not?

Hmm… Maybe I could shamelessly swipe the recipe and perfect it with the right qi-rich ingredients. And bring Mom plenty. Plenty! Right now, she needs food rich in the right kind of energy. The esteemed Chiba Usagi, carrying my growing little sister, currently eats my cooking alongside ice cream, pickled peppers, pickles, and chunks of chalk… I ought to make her more of the right treats. Even Pops gives Mom his share, despite how greedy he is for my cooking.

A heavy metal door slams shut behind me, locking me in a sort of antechamber. Once again, I feel myself being scanned and scrutinized from every direction. I ignore it as usual, letting the demonic spells examine both me and the space around me.

The same thing had been happening as I approached the prison complex, which was why I’d drifted into my thoughts. It had taken nearly ten minutes to reach Anton and Svetlana’s post at the entrance. They’re the Rook and Pawn of the Severny peerage.

Speaking of which, the head of that peerage, Andrei Georgievich Severny, is an example of a servant who eventually became a Lord. He’d once been an almost ordinary mortal, gifted with the ability to see what was hidden from ordinary eyes and descended from a family that had made its living through witchcraft since ancient times. He’d served as a Bishop in a Sitri peerage—one belonging to a cadet branch, not the main family.

He made a name for himself in the Rating Games and performed several deeds that drew House Sitri’s attention. Eventually, he earned his own set of Evil Pieces. After that, he married Sitri Mizuki, a woman from one of the House’s cadet branches. She took his surname after the wedding. Severnaya Mizuki now. Yep.

Rather… unusual, but worthy of respect. He didn’t trade on the Great House’s influence, but he didn’t cut ties with it, either. Instead, he remained a pillar of support for the House that had given him everything. And in general, the man hasn’t done anything foolish. He simply married—out of love, as far as I know—and now heads the Severny family as a vassal of House Sitri.

His chess team is quite strong, too. He has a full peerage: two triple Pawns and one double Pawn. Svetlana, incidentally, is one of the triple Pawns—a witch from an old line of Russian sorceresses. His Queen is an exceptionally powerful English ice mage with a Sacred Gear of the “Double Critical” type. His two Knights are swordsmen I haven’t met yet. The first Bishop is an African voodoo witch who’s also rumored to be a necromancer; the second is a Yakut shaman. And Anton, whom I greeted a moment ago, is a double Rook.

Anton himself denies it, but his peerage mates say he’s a direct descendant of either Ilya Muromets or Svyatogor himself, born of Mother Damp Earth. I could laugh at that, but… on soil he calls home, whether it belongs to House Sitri or lies in Russia, Anton more than holds his own.

We sparred once, and he impressed me! His speed might not be much to write home about, but his strength and toughness are phenomenal. He’s an ordinary Piece, a reincarnated demon, yet while his feet were planted on Sitri soil, I actually had to put effort into hitting him instead of merely petting him with my fists.

To me, “solid as a rock” sounds almost like a joke—I can turn rocks into gravel with one punch these days. But Anton’s strength… He’s a literal juggernaut. A citadel on legs. An impregnable fortress you have to lift off the ground to beat properly. Otherwise, this umpteenth-generation bogatyr soaks up damage like there’s no tomorrow, with hardly any ill effects! He’s absurdly strong and tough to begin with, and on land he considers home, he’s simply unbeatable by ordinary demons.

I even found myself wanting to take him under my wing and train him a little. As far as I can see, the big man has only one weakness: he can’t control the earth around him. Give Anton the ability to command the ground beneath his feet, bind himself to it, and stop opponents from lifting him off it, and he’d become an immovable foundation for his peerage. The Severny family serves the Sitri, as I said, so making them stronger adds to the might of my House.

For now, though, I’ll wait. Let the idea steep until it becomes a serious plan instead of a whim. I’ll watch Anton for a while, then talk it over with Sona-san.

Something clicks and creaks, and an armored metal door begins to rise smoothly before me, opening the way inside. Hardly the main line of defense. It’s more of a signal to visitors who know little about demonic magic: the checks are complete, and they can proceed deeper into the prison complex. Look closely at the spells woven through the metal barrier, and you’ll realize a sheet of plywood would serve just as well.

I walk into the darkness without the slightest discomfort. The Nine Eyes of the Sage are active, giving me night vision better than a cat’s. Even the tiny magical lights set into the walls let me see almost better than I could under fluorescent lamps.

A small portal chamber shuttles visitors between floors. I press “-5” with my index finger and settle in to wait again.

Teleportation. From level zero to level -1. A familiar wave of demonic magic washes over me, examining me bit by bit.

Teleportation. Level -2. Now two waves of magic inspect me, flaring around me in little bursts of dark fire.

Teleportation to level -3. A long examination by wave after wave of spells. This time, I can also sense intelligent beings watching from somewhere far away.

I take three thermoses of tea out of my jade bracelet. No, once again, this isn’t a bribe.

Teleportation. Level -4. The same small portal chamber, but this one has a table. It’s tiny, yet there’s enough room to leave a treat for the other Pieces of the Severny peerage.

Teleportation.

Ten seconds of waiting, five or so waves of demonic identification magic, and a metal door opens in front of me.

I walk down the corridor. Everything is exposed here on the fifth floor; no one intends to give the prisoners even a hint of privacy. Bars like the ones in a sheriff’s jail, except these are packed to the brim with demonic magic. The cellblock corridors are empty, too. Magic does all the work of holding the prisoners, and the only people who come down here are House Sitri’s interrogators. Right now, I’m one of them.

I pass about a dozen cells without paying their occupants any attention. On my first visit, they tried to catch my eye. Now the prisoners do the opposite, making themselves as inconspicuous as possible. A few of them even hold their breath as I walk past. For example…

I stop at a cell. The girl looking back at me from behind the bars could walk straight onto the set of a remake of The Ring. A grimy white dress down to her heels. Long black hair hiding her face. And fear. The prisoner is utterly terrified of me.

If she were a little less frightened, I doubt I’d even glimpse her black pupils between her long bangs and the hands folded on her knees. But she’s too scared to let me out of her sight.

The inmates have come to appreciate my skills during my visits to Freed. His screams. His pleas for mercy. That shriek held on a single note. All of it quickly moved me, in the eyes of the cellblock’s residents, from “some snot-nosed kid” to “Nope, fuck that!”

“How’s it going?” Third visit, third time I’ve asked the renegade who killed her Lord. And just like before, no answer. I see her pupils widen in fear and her shoulders twitch, but she still won’t reply. “You’re boring.”

I don’t know why she’s caught my interest. Maybe it’s because of the horror-movie pranks Reya and I have been playing on the rich brats? The prisoner looks an awful lot like Sadako, except that her face is perfectly normal. Ah, well. A silent renegade isn’t worth what little time I have right now.

A couple of steps farther on is the cell where Freed hangs crucified. That little shit mentioned the Lord, Jesus, and the other guys from various holy scriptures so often that I started to feel sorry for the great martyrs. So I hammered the nails into the former Church exorcist’s palms and feet myself.

He isn’t even screaming now. He just hangs there trembling, mouth open in a silent scream, eyes bulging.

Had I promised him the torments Judas endured? Yes. And I’d delivered. Even before young Freed took his place on the cross in one of the cells, I’d implanted arrays in his body. They were among the finest torture constructs I’d learned from cultivators across my many lives—though, for now, I’d chosen the mildest in my collection.

Not out of compassion. First, I had little time. Second, he can’t be allowed to lose his mind completely yet. That piece of carrion will suffer much worse, but… only after he tells me everything he can.

This unnatural creation of the Church has already let a few things slip. About Asia and the fate awaiting a girl who trusted far too much in people who claimed to speak for the biblical God. About his accomplices, Raynare and her crew. And about himself—a clone carrying the genes of some Siegfried…

That last part doesn’t interest me in the slightest. Sitri Sona-san, though, has taken a keen interest in this deranged monstrosity. I should probably go over a few of the other things he said…

The Church—the faction of Heaven, or the angels—is fiercely opposed to cloning as a branch of human science. Funny. Ironic, even. But in this case… rules for thee, but not for me.

You might call them lying hypocrites, but Freed is, technically, a genetically modified product of plant origin. Yes, really. Genetic engineering to make humans is forbidden, but the Church found a way around that, too, because Freed is… a fucking tomato. Or a cucumber. Maybe a bell pepper. Hell, an eggplant with a driver’s license. Anything but human.

This parody of Homo sapiens had pissed off his handlers at the Vatican so badly that they’d sentenced him to… disposal. If “Father” Freed were human, I’d call the Church a nest of hypocrites. But!

I’ve gotten to know my “guest” fairly well by now, and there’s less humanity in him than in a monkey. By the Nine Heavens and Leviathan-sama dancing across them in a magical girl costume, there’s less humanity in Freed than in the rats that occasionally scurry through this prison, providing the inmates with an extra ration of meat.

That’s crude, insulting sarcasm, of course. The plain facts are these: the Church opposes cloning, but gives itself an exemption. Freed, hanging on that cross, is proof enough. What was that line? “You don’t understand. This is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!”

The cell door opens, and I step inside. To my left, an empty chamber, without so much as a humanoid skeleton for dramatic effect. To my right, the black-eyed woman’s cell. She’s huddled in the far corner of her little “home.”

“Shall we begin?” A brief gesture, and the torture arrays shut down.

For several seconds, the only sound is the prisoner’s desperate breathing. The pain has finally released him. Then he lifts his eyes to mine.

They’re full of happiness and adoration. He’s almost as glad to see me as he would be to see the biblical God descend in person to free him. The reason is simple: the pain stops only when I come to talk.

“My Lord!!!” he rasps happily, a trickle of drool running down his chin.

“Today we’ll discuss holy swords,” I tell him. “I don’t have much time, so do your best to hold my interest. I’d hate to leave too soon…”

Notes:

Severny means “northern” in Russian; Severnaya is the feminine form of the surname.