The Covenant of Vows (2) — Revised
“What the hell is this.”
Luid stared down at Justin, who was writhing and groaning on the ground, his face a mask of bewilderment.
……A nap? No, definitely not a nap.
He'd felt something stirring and come out to check, and this was what he found. Displeasing, no matter how many times I think about it.
Seeing a face he had zero desire to see naturally dredged up the events of two days ago. He'd steered Hershey away from her doomed future as a villainess, and now this fool was gearing up to launch a witch hunt against Amelia.
It might have been an oversensitive reaction on his part, but that particular scene was a landmark moment in the original novel — the moment the protagonist, Justin, came to clearly understand who his enemy was. And the way it played out, it felt as though Amelia could be twisted into a villainess just the same.
Everything else he could let slide. That alone, he could not.
So his plan had been simple: once Justin woke up, he would expand the scope of the Covenant of Vows.
Except.
“Khh… kgh.”
“…?”
Luid tilted his head. What on earth is wrong with him?
There were no visible injuries. It looked like he'd merely tripped and taken a bit of a tumble. Still, it warranted a proper look. Luid's eyes took on a glint of blue light.
“Ah.”
It made sense now. His own mana was coiling around inside Justin's head.
The penalty of the Covenant of Vows. The fool had apparently gone looking for him after all.
But even accounting for that, something was off.
The Covenant of Vows worked like this: once a promise was sworn, the magic prevented the swearer from breaking it. And the tool it used to do so was pain.
Say you swore a vow never to smoke a cigarette. The moment you put one to your lips, the Covenant would flood you with intense fear. Light it and take a drag anyway? Then came the pain — agony so severe you couldn't even properly scream.
The catch was that the punishment never lasted long. The Covenant of Vows enforced the terms of a vow at the source by delivering short, sharp penalties.
And yet Justin had been like this for quite a while now.
Luid decided to look a little closer and reached out toward Justin's head.
“Whoa.”
He flinched back. …Is it because I stacked too many layers on it? The memory surfaced of the vow he'd woven — eight layers deep, twisted so no one else could ever unravel it. ……So the potency multiplied eightfold too, apparently.
He could feel eight separate magic circles blanketing Justin's brain.
“Hmm. You'll have a rough time of it, but whatever. Arrogant bastard. Pointing fingers at our sister, of all people. Serves you right, honestly.”
Luid rose to his feet. He'd adjust the Covenant some other time. He left Justin where he lay and started back toward the lake.
But he'd barely taken a few steps before he stopped.
Cold sweat trickling down his back, Luid looked over his shoulder.
“Wait — is he actually going to die like this? Or end up a vegetable?”
That would be a problem. Luid had no intention of replacing the protagonist of this story. He wanted to remain a good-for-nothing who slept his days away in Delin's Forest. More than that — watching someone possibly die right in front of him and just walking away left a bad taste in his mouth.
“Ha…”
Resigned, Luid walked back over to Justin and drew out his wand.
Strictly in the spirit of mitigation, of course.
He poured his mana out. The Covenant of Vows could not be broken — it had been designed that way from the very beginning, and he had wielded it accordingly. What he could do was keep Justin's mind from collapsing under the strain.
While I'm at it, might as well make some amendments. In exchange for the help, he decided, he'd add clauses protecting Amelia and Hershey.
…Now, let's see.
Threads of mana, tangled into a hopeless knot, hovered above Justin's head. Those countless threads were, at this very moment, delivering their torment to him.
Luid flowed his mana into them and read what kind of pain they carried.
Ghosts? Monsters?
Through Justin's blurred vision, Luid could see grotesque creatures straight out of a horror film.
……So the kid's afraid of ghosts.
The fear conjured by the Covenant of Vows differed from person to person — and this, apparently, was the scene Justin feared most in all the world.
In any case, Luid set about loosening the threads of mana one by one to ease the terror, outright severing any that looked particularly dangerous. Each cut released a chunk of spent mana, but measured against the ocean of power Luid carried, it was nothing.
He was deep in the tedious work when at last—
“There.”
Luid sighed, half in exasperation. That should keep Justin safe and sound.
“Now I just have to put it all back in……”
He felt like a first-class engineer. Brimming with quiet pride, he reached to tuck the threads of mana back into place—
—Fzzt.
“—!”
A spark leapt, and the threads of mana spiraled out of his control.
“Wh-what the—”
He channeled mana into his eyes and looked. He found the cause almost immediately.
That idiot Justin — even in the grip of terror, he was searching for him.
Luid was beyond speechless. “How does a person even end up like this?”
Thanks to that, the Covenant of Vows hadn't loosened at all — it had cinched tighter. Fear tipped over into pain. And then Justin went searching for him again. And the Covenant levied its penalty once more.
An infinite noose.
The mind moves faster than real time, and in the space of a few blinks, the situation had spiraled badly out of control.
“Damn it.”
Luid intervened with greater force, squeezing his eyes shut in concentration and driving the pain back.
But the situation kept deteriorating beyond anyone's grasp. His expression hardened into something grave.
At this rate, Justin would die. Even in the most optimistic reading, his mind would shatter. This maddening cycle could only be stopped by severing the loop itself — nothing short of that would work.
But how? The magic he had laid down was absolute. Hadn't he tangled it so viciously that not even he himself could undo it?
And yet Luid's genius of a brain clawed out an answer after all.
I hate this option… but.
There was exactly one way.
Luid exhaled slowly.
I drain my own mana.
He was the caster of the Covenant of Vows. And no matter how magnificent a spell, magic that imposed a sustained constraint required its caster to supply mana continuously. Usually one used a medium like a mana stone for that — but for someone whose reserves could never run dry, such a thing had seemed pointless.
Luid closed his eyes and released his mana. An enormous volume of it poured out in waves, and he systematically erased each surge. Release, erase, release, erase — repeating the cycle faster and faster until his mana lay spent.
A short while later, Luid opened his eyes.
The hollow, emptied feeling was miserable, but this was where the real work began. Using the residual mana still clinging to his wand — the one portion he had deliberately spared from destruction — he began erasing the magic circles inside Justin's brain.
It was possible because wiping out a circle reduced to an inert, lightless husk took far less mana than sustaining one did. But it was delicate, painstaking work — one wrong touch and Justin's brain would suffer catastrophic damage.
Drip.
A single bead of sweat fell in the tense silence. And when he erased the very last strand—
“H-how did this—”
Justin's eyes opened.
**
Justin clutched his wildly hammering heart. It had been an agonizing experience he never wanted to relive for as long as he lived.
“You… you—”
Luid stood over him, one hand in his pocket, the other raising his wand toward him. A streak of red liquid ran down from the corner of his mouth.
Wiping the blood away with a blank face, Luid lowered the wand. At once the blue glow swirling around it winked out, and the wand — once a warm, light brown — was charred black as ash.
Luid gazed at the ruined wand with listless eyes. “And I was rather fond of that one.”
“Wh-what on earth…”
Justin was utterly lost. What just happened? Don't tell me that horrifying hallucination was Luid's doing?
As if to answer the unspoken question, Luid spoke slowly.
“I have no idea what exactly you experienced just now. And I don't particularly care. You seem confused, so just listen to me. You don't have to answer.”
And then Luid began talking over him, one-sided and relentless.
“First — you very nearly had your soul forfeited just now, as the price of the Covenant of Vows.”
Justin's eyes stretched wide to the point of tearing.
“Second — I just paid an enormous price to release you from that Covenant. Otherwise, you would be dead.”
“A… price?”
“Yes. A steep one. Ugh.”
Luid grimaced in apparent agony, his face twisting as though he could barely endure the pain.
“A-are you okay?”
Justin rushed forward to support him, but Luid waved him off as if he were fine. Justin's pupils trembled, thin and unsteady.
“Why… for someone like me. Why pay such a price?”
“Whatever the reason, it was a Covenant I laid on you — never mind that. More importantly, you. Why in the world were you breaking the vow while it was punishing you?”
Luid's brow furrowed. “It should have ended as a warning — nothing more than a light scare. But you had to go and—”
Justin's face showed the shock of a man struck by a revelation. It was true. He had been fleeing from ghosts, and he had sought out Luid. Because if he begged the genius mage for help, surely he would be saved. His face now sagged with crushing self-disgust.
“……I'm sorry.”
“There's nothing to apologize for. It's in the past anyway.”
Luid rose to his feet. He looked terribly weary.
“Justin.”
Justin couldn't bring himself to lift his head.
“Do you feel remorse toward me?”
“…Of course I do.”
Justin ground his teeth. “I'm so disgusted with myself I could die.”
Then he raised his head and shouted with resolute conviction, “This debt — I swear on my life, I will—”
Luid thrust out a hand. A gesture to stop.
“Never. Never. Never.”
“…?”
“Don't even think about repaying some debt. Instead, there's something you're going to do for me.”
“Wh-what is it?”
Justin was flustered. He had never once imagined Luid had this kind of personality. This was the Luid who always radiated an air of you're bothering me, cold and dismissive. And now he was the very picture of initiative.
“Listen carefully.”
Gulp. Justin swallowed dryly.
“Our sister, Amelia. Then Hershey. And most important of all — me.”
Justin nodded gravely and carved those three names deep into his memory.
“Don't go near them. Don't do anything to them. Don't come close. Not ever.”
“…What?”
“Don't ask why.”
Luid glanced around and lowered his voice to a whisper.
“Knowing will hurt you.”
“……!”
Luid straightened his back. He pointed at himself, then at Justin, and declared with his head held high.
“I won't bind you with a vow this time, Justin.”
“Because I trust you.”
Then he turned on his heel and started walking. Justin stood there for a long while, watching Luid's back as the man staggered off unsteadily into the distance.
**
“I felt an enormous surge of mana a moment ago. You didn't do anything strange, did you?”
“Did everything work out?”
Hershey and Amelia were watching him with obvious worry. Luid yawned and nodded.
“Probably. For the time being, at least?”
“…That's an awfully vague answer. Not like you at all, Luid. Anyway, let's hurry and get to lunch — we'll be late for our reservation.”
“Yeah.”
Luid strolled slowly along the shore of Delin's Lake. Just before leaving the lakeside, he glanced back — toward the spot where Justin had been.
When Justin had woken, he'd weighed it in the space of an instant: threaten him, or warn him? Luid's choice had been to leave a debt outstanding. Given Justin's character, it was the best possible move.
If the worry was that the boy might become a villain, wasn't it better to have him recognize himself as a hero instead? And so he had performed — playing out “look how much I sacrificed for you.” Aside from the drained mana there had been no real penalty at all, but he'd seasoned the act with plenty of theatrics about paying a terrible price. And judging by the expression on Justin's face at the end, the operation had been a resounding success.
Let this time, at long last, be the last. Live your own lives, each of you.
Luid wished it with all his heart — that this time, it was truly over.