Chapter 3
Chapter 3
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: If I Had Nothing to Hide, I'd Be Far More Defiant
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In the darkness, red eyes floated in the air, glaring at Fernandez.
Under the horrific pressure, he stiffened in place, barely managing to meet their gaze. He wasn't even permitted to look away.
-Yeah, this is a dream. It's just a dream. I'm in the lord's manor right now. This is all a dream.
"Feizashi. You belong to hell."
"Damn it. I haven't been tied to hell yet!"
"The soul's brand cannot be erased. Hon, Po, Yeong, Seong. You belong to hell."
"I might not know about Hon and Yeong, but Po and Seong haven't been corrupted by hell's magic yet! Po and Seong are fragments of the spirit bound to the flesh. It couldn't have happened!"
"With Hon already drawn in, do you think Po can hold out? It's only a matter of time."
The red eyes flickered. Soon, the whole world burned, and people were strung up on spikes.
Demons howled as they set the world ablaze all around.
This wasn't some illusion conjured by a demon. It was a memory from the past.
Feizashi Wildcast.
Arch-Black Magus and highest-ranking demon summoner.
Inaugural chairman of the [Ashen Twilight Society] and chief arch-black magus of the [Kalmburg Magic Academy].
One of the fifteen great villains who destroyed the world.
This was the world he himself had wrought.
"Shut up, shut up! There's no such thing as fate. I, I already tested it. I killed someone I never killed before!"
"And your 'test' required killing someone to prove it? That's the very evidence of your soul's corruption. The moment you make a single mistake. The moment you even glance away once. You'll come back here. And that... won't be long now."
"Kuaaaaaah!"
The sight of his son screaming as his body burst open was the final fragment of the nightmare he witnessed.
*
"Damn it all."
Fernandez spat curses as he broke out in cold sweat atop his bed. Only a week had passed since his return to the past, but he was already sick to death of nights.
Vicious nightmares tormented him every single night, and he was wasting away day by day.
"This won't do. I need to take some kind of measure."
Whether he eliminated sleep, dreams, or the past itself—one of the three had to go.
Magic couldn't achieve it right now, so he'd need reagents, but unfortunately, Fernandez wasn't in some imperial capital alchemy workshop. He was in a rundown rural barony of the Dane Kingdom.
"Urgh..."
Fernandez gulped down the water by his bedside, rose, and headed to the office desk. Piles of document binders towered chaotically. A headache surged.
A week had passed since Fernandez seized control of Cerned Barony. Half by choice and half by force, he spent his sleepless nights sorting through the barony's various ledgers and records.
The barony's state was the worst. Daniel hadn't been particularly incompetent, nor particularly capable.
But the taxes levied under various pretexts to cover the kingdom's military obligations were devouring the land alive.
The maintenance costs Dane Kingdom poured into the Crusade coalition had slowly strangled the kingdom for decades, and the baronies were inching toward economic death sentences as their petty lords teetered on bankruptcy.
Like his predecessors, Daniel was the sort of lord content to dutifully remit taxes to the kingdom on schedule.
Yet with taxes rising every year, the barony's back was on the verge of breaking, and every indicator in the management ledger screamed disaster.
Amid it all, Fernandez scraped together the lord's meager shares—after wages for guards and servants, administrative costs, and the like—to buy herbs, reagents, and experimental materials from passing merchants.
The manor’s private vault had emptied in a flash, and Fernandez figured he could set up a workshop within a month at this rate.
Of course, every unlicensed mage has a plausible plan like that. Right up until they meet an Inquisitor...
"My lord!!! My looooord!!!"
A servant rushed in with a pale face and prostrated himself before Fernandez. Fernandez, who had been poring over documents, looked down at him with an expression of utter disinterest.
Normally, that look alone would have sent the servant scampering in fear, but he remained frantic.
"I'm busy."
"My lord! Disaster, utter disaster!"
"Did someone knock down the fence again? Tiresome. Did a horse get its hoof stuck in the irrigation ditch? Take two guards to fix it. Tell the injured to rest at home for two days. Maybe I should impose a drinking ban."
"No! My lord, from the capital! Guests from the capital are coming!"
"The capital? The royals? We already paid this quarter's taxes, didn't we?"
Fernandez scowled.
If the servants had squandered or embezzled the taxes before handing them to the collectors? That would be big trouble. Cerned Barony had no spare coin to gather and remit again.
"No, no! Th-this, th-this..."
"Are they here for a tax audit? Don't worry then. Cerned is impeccably honest. Haha, no hidden assets in double ledgers or anything."
"Th-this...!!"
The servant bit his tongue, struggling to continue.
As if uttering the word alone would summon curses, punishment, treason charges, or some horrific fate. Fernandez wore a face full of irritation.
"Care for some water?"
"Inquiiiisitor!!! Gasp! Ugh! Gasp! Y-yes, an Inqu-Inquisitor has come!"
"Hmm..."
An Inquisitor. Fernandez eyed the servant with coldly chilled eyes. The servant trembled violently, covering his mouth and frantically tracing the holy sign.
"Wh-what do we do?"
"What do we do? We all burn at the stake, that's what. Though they're faster than I expected."
In his past life, those folks had been real stick-in-the-muds, so why send auditors now? Fernandez scowled.
Come to think of it, around this time in his past life, he'd have been fleeing bandits or wolves, so it was no wonder he hadn't anticipated Inquisitors visiting Cerned Barony.
Or maybe he'd done something in the past week to draw eyes...
'No clue.'
Where had they caught the scent? The reagents and tools were more alchemy than heretical rites.
If it were back when he ruled the world, sure—but now Fernandez was just a petty barony's young lord. There was nothing to grab onto even if they tried.
Plenty of foolhardy lords dreamed of reviving their lands by dabbling in alchemy to make gold, after all.
"B-burning? Really b-burning??? Is the rumor true that you... made a pact with demons, my lord?"
"What nonsense is that?"
"Th-that demons taught you magic..."
"Huh?"
Fernandez stared blankly at the servant. The servant looked up at him in terror, repeatedly tracing the holy sign and muttering prayers.
Magic? Surely not the Flint Spark?
Flint Spark was a mere trick anyone could use if they knew how, even without talent.
It couldn't ignite beyond 1.5 meters, couldn't channel any real vital energy into skin, couldn't summon roaring flames...
Just a parlor trick for lighting dry leaves. Literally a "flint spark."
"Ha!"
'They reported me as a heretic over Flint Spark?'
"Ha!!"
Fernandez was dumbfounded. Magic was rare, but still just a skill.
But the rural serfs of this backwater barony were illiterate bumpkins who'd never seen magic outside fairy tales!
'If I had nothing to hide, I'd be far more defiant. This is driving me mad.'
*
It was borderline miraculous that Alejandro's servant had found the Inquisitor. Inquisitors weren't the sort you stumbled upon when looking.
By sheer coincidence, Inquisitor Marco happened to be camping on a highway near Cerned Barony. It had already been five days since the servant heard rumors and scoured the roads to find them.
"O-oh! They're real! They really exist!"
"Halt. State your identity. Approach further, and by religious law, you're subject to summary execution."
When Marco's guards drew swords to block the servant, he instead knelt in感動, face beaming.
"The moment a heretic appeared, an Inquisitor graces our barony—this must be Beitasser's guidance!"
"Who?"
"I-I'm a servant of Baron Cerned!"
The servant shuddered as a stern voice rang out from among the guards.
"No. The 'heretic.'"
A man stepped forward with heavy footfalls from between the guards. The servant cautiously raised his head. He saw the Inquisitor's sleek uniform. Burying his head deep again, the servant spoke.
"The late baron's bastard son... Fernandez Cerned! H-he used magic to murder my master and young master!"
"Cerned... Cerned, as in the barony where Sir Daniel Cerned is regent?"
"S-Sir Daniel fell to Fernandez's hands!"
"And the whelp too."
"Y-yes!"
Laughter echoed from above the servant's head—the Inquisitor's.
"If that bastard truly is a 'heretic,' then no Cerned bloodline remains, eh?"
"Y-yes...? Ah, y-yes."
"Lead the way."
The servant snapped to as rough hands seized his arm. The guards hauled him up forcibly and supported him.
"Let's go burn the heretic and dispense justice."
"For Beitasser's glory!"
Inquisitor Marco thought with a smile.
If Fernandez really was a heretic, Cerned Barony would belong to the Church.