The First Contract of Another World

The jeep carrying me raced west.

We broke free of the choked traffic, and once the outskirts of Cairo fell behind, there was nothing to see but sand — an endless desert unrolling in every direction. The largest desert in the world. The threshold of the Sahara, vast enough to swallow a continent all by itself.

The whole drive, I had been at war with myself. Should I lunge, knock aside the muzzle leveled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at my face, and fight? I never made the decision. The situation was too strange, and while I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sat there failing to choose, the car carried me all the way out here.

The bastard had shoved the gun in my face the moment I realized we were heading the opposite way from the hotel.

"This the right road?"

The instant I asked, the man in the passenger seat — Amin — drew a pistol and aimed it at me.

"Shut your mouth and sit still. Try anything and I shoot you dead."

Idiot. That was meant for me.

If I was going to do something, I should have done it before the car left Cairo. The regret came late, the way it always does. I only ever understand after the moment has already passed. I should have acted the second the thought struck, without hesitating.

Watching the desert stretch on without end, the unease climbed and my confidence drained the other way. Even if I dealt with these two, I wasn't sure I could find the road back. People in the old days read direction from the stars. There was no chance I knew how to do that.

Somewhere along the way the car passed a point a hundred and fifty kilometers west of the capital. Walking back was impossible now. Cover a hundred and fifty kilometers of desert on foot and dehydration and hypothermia would finish you.

The worry had only just begun to pile up when the vehicle finally stopped.

"Get out."

I climbed out, and Amin shoved me in the back to make me walk. I went slowly, and behind me I heard the two of them talking. In front of Hassan they had used nothing but English, so it clearly hadn't occurred to them that I understood Arabic.

"We finish that bastard, then when do we get the money?"

"Send a picture of the body and they send the cash."

"So why's their side want him dead?"

"How should I know? We just handle it. We don't need to know that much, and they wouldn't tell us anyway."

"True enough. We just take the money."

"Right. No guns. We shove him off the cliff and end it clean."

"That's the clean way. He came out for a desert tour, wandered off alone, and died. Report that and we're done."

"Keep him sweet till then. If he fights back and picks up a bullet hole, we're screwed."

Goddamn it. These bastards weren't after a kidnapping. This was a contract killing. Shit. Who the hell wanted me dead?

The moment I understood I was already scheduled to die, the world around me looked different. My vision snapped clear. The lay of the land came into focus, and straight ahead a ravine opened in front of me.

Sons of bitches. They meant to push me and call it a fall.

There was only one way. Buy time. I spoke to Hassan in English.

"Hey, Hassan. Why are you doing this? Is it the money?"

"Mister Kang. You talk stupid, better you stop. Or I kill you right now."

"There's a safe in my hotel room. Cash in it. Would that be enough to let me go?"

Hassan hesitated. The two of them started talking again.

"That true?"

"Don't know. Every hotel room has a safe, that's true. Maybe there's really cash. Even then, not gonna be much."

"Ask anyway. How much. Nothing to lose."

Hassan ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠asked.

"How much you have?"

At a time like this, a plausible sum is best. Too little and there's no incentive. Too much and they'll never believe you.

"Operating money I brought with me. Just in case. A little over nine thousand dollars."

In Korean money, a bit past eleven million won. In Egypt, where prices sat far lower, it was worth a good ten times that — twenty, if you measured it against local wages. Enough, obviously, to buy a man's death or his life.

"What? He's got that much? You think it's real?"

"Who knows. Korean guys, they got money."

Then I heard them weighing it.

"How about we squeeze more out of the bastard instead?"

"You crazy? Don't be an idiot. Let him live and you think he quietly leaves Egypt? Don't get greedy. Get the code for the hotel safe and then finish him. That's better."

Bastard. Colder than I'd expected.

But the moment they showed greed for money that was supposedly sitting in a hotel, the plan was already halfway home. Once greed blinds a man, he won't fire carelessly.

I drew a deep breath, then kicked off the ground with everything I had and ran.

"Hey! Grab him!"

"Shoot!"

"Damn it!"

In the heartbeat they hesitated, I put five or six meters between us, and the game of tag began. They didn't want to leave bullet marks. They still wanted the code to the safe at the hotel. Reason stacked on reason, and together those reasons made them hesitate to shoot.

I ran like a man already dead. Huff—huff—! I could feel the two of them coming after me. Amin, whether he was furious or only trying to warn me, pulled the trigger.

Bang! Bang!

Startled, I cut sideways. A pistol's effective range is about fifty meters, but the accuracy is abysmal. Unless you're a seasoned soldier, hitting a moving target even a little ways off is no easy thing. Sure enough, the shots whipped past me and kicked grains of sand off empty ground.

Damn it! The gunfire made my body react on its own and change direction. Shit. I had meant to run straight ahead, and the turn closed the distance to Hassan. Worse — of all directions, why did I have to veer toward the cliff? It was already far too late to correct.

"Grab that bastard!"

"Stop, you son of a bitch!"

I couldn't slow down with the two of them cursing and charging at my back. Damn it! First I had to get clear of their hands, somehow.

Before I knew it I was at the cliff. I cut along the edge and sprinted. Then the gunshots came again.

Bang! Bang-bang!

Guh—!

A bullet punched through my side, tore across my chest, and went out the other side. Blood burst from my chest. Bright arterial blood soaked the front of my shirt in a rush. The pain went white-hot and my mind reeled; the strength left my legs and my body tipped. Damn it. I missed a step without meaning to, and my tilting body went over the cliff.

"Damn it!"

"Why the hell did you shoot!"

Between their panicked voices, a strange one rang through my head.

I watched the stone floor rush up to meet me, and lost consciousness.

"So you're some kind of artificial intelligence?"

I sat alone in an unfamiliar space, muttering like a madman. What else could I do? Only I could hear it. The place I was in now, and the half-closed wound in my chest — none of it made any more sense than talking to myself.

When I first opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a ceiling braced by wooden beams. Experimental equipment was piled along one side, and beside it a bookshelf several meters tall reached all the way to the ceiling, packed solid with books. Things like ancient steles lay heaped in clutter all around the room. In that unreal haze, the only thing that dragged me back to reality was the searing pain burning through my chest.

Damn it.

The voice echoing in my head answered.

"W-wait."

It had the hard-sell stink of a one-month free trial that flips to a paid plan, so I cut it off mid-pitch.

A voice ringing inside my head. And, just as I had already been told, I looked at the necklace. Up until the moment I fell from the cliff it had hung around my neck. Now I held it in my hand. Talking to something without looking at it felt awkward, so I took the thing off, held it up, and stared.

Nothing had changed. There were only a few spatters of blood on the chain. According to the thing, blood was the medium that had woken its consciousness. The blood oath, or whatever it was called. I didn't understand it, but that twisted little function had saved my life.

What it claimed to be was the spirit of the necklace — an artificial ego made to carry out its master's will. Something like an artificial intelligence, except that where a computer would have processing power, this one had magic. From what I had gathered, there was healing magic; a telepathy spell that let it speak with someone it was meeting for the first time; a protective barrier; and so on. There were petty little field-camp spells as well, but setting aside the MacGyver tricks, the last and most important was a spell for setting dimensional coordinates. That function was also the reason I had been able to come here at all.

Some genius mage, while studying ancient texts, had found a clue to travel between dimensions. Late in life, in order to test it, he had inscribed dimensional travel into the necklace along with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the return coordinates for this place, and sent it out into another dimension. This necklace was that experiment.

"So more time passed than anyone expected, and your master is nowhere to be seen?"

"Yes. Before I departed, my master said he was already frail and had little life remaining. He also instructed that if an outsider arrived here and the master was gone, I was to transfer every right to this underground dungeon on the condition that a single contractual term be fulfilled. Eveeeery right. For reference, the former master who created me was an archmage who heaped up every sort of magical article, and all manner of rare materials for making them, like a mountain. The value of the dungeon you would receive is easily equal to purchasing an entire castle...."

"Ah. Ah. I get it. Let me sort my thoughts for a moment."

It was pushing the contract so eagerly that I trusted it even less. Still, it was a relief. If the master of the house had been here, who knows what experiments he might have run on me. It was far more comfortable that there was no master at all.

First I needed to find out what this contract actually was.

"What is the contractual term?"

"The condition is that the success of dimensional-travel magic be officially recognized by the Mandrier Mage Tower."

"The success of dimensional travel?"

"Yes."

If it was a contract, I had already done them dozens of times. Hundreds. I checked the parts that mattered.

"What's the time limit, and what counts as fulfilling it?"

"The period is a full ten years from the first visit. Moooore than enough time to achieve it. And the condition of fulfillment is a simple official acknowledgment in the name of the lord of the Mandrier Mage Tower."

Ten years? Thinking it over, that could be a long time. On the other hand, I had no idea what kind of situation getting dimensional travel recognized would bring down on me. If my luck was rotten, I might be seized as a test subject and dissected.

"And if I fail to fulfill it?"

"Should you fail after the contract is concluded, a small and trivial penalty will be imposed."

"Small and trivial. What is it?"

"...."

What was that? It sounded like it had mumbled something.

"What? It was too small to hear. Say it again."

"Death. But! If you think carefully, set against the rights and authority you would be granted, it is very small, and quite trivial, one might say. Heh. Hehehe. Hehehehehe."

What the hell is this thing?

A cold sweat ran down my back. I had known, from the moment it healed a complete stranger and started coaxing me in a honeyed voice. The sweeter they sound, the more careful you have to be. I asked again.

"And if I don't make the contract?"

"You will return to your original world, and the necklace will lose its function. A necklace that has lost its function once can never be restored, so you will be unable to return here. Never again. You might say that a once-in-a-lifetime chance at a fortune simply vanishes."

I caught one thing in what it said.

"The necklace loses its function? Then what happens to you?"

"Loss of function means the extinction of the spirit. My consciousness... would disappear in the end as well."

For a moment its voice turned pitiful. So that was why the spirit had been so desperate to make me sign. If I didn't contract, it died. The moment you seize the other side's weakness is the moment to negotiate.

Hehehehe.

"Is that so? Then shall we talk about the contract again?"

"Then... will you contract?"

"First, why don't we go back over the terms one by one, from the start? On conditions where your former master, and I, and you — all three of us — come out winning. Hehehehe."