Frost Magic (1)
“They say they’ll take you to a nice southern territory to live, but then they sell you off to slave traders. That’s the business.”
“Why not just go south on your own? Why bother with some middleman?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, young master. Getting to the south requires a ton of transport. What lunatic would drive a carriage all the way from the northern edge to the south?”
Bill continued his explanation.
“You need decent mercenaries to fend off bandits, too. Think a bunch of women could handle all that on their own? Hire the wrong ones without knowing shit, and they’ll strip you of everything you’ve got—money, body, the works. End result’s the same as now, though.”
“I see. Sounds plausible.”
Isaac nodded.
Bill had once run with a bandit gang. Right around when Goethe started cracking down on bandits in earnest, he’d betrayed his own crew, spilled all their hideouts, and bought his life as a manor servant.
Thanks to that, he knew a fair bit about the underground economy’s operations.
Isaac had learned of his past years later, when Bill was executed.
A clearing in the woods a short distance from the manor. An execution ground kept from the territory’s folk.
Bill had tried selling a secret manual to a crime syndicate and got nabbed by head butler Schrader. The count had Isaac attend as the family’s eldest son. After Schrader recited the charges, he’d lopped off Bill’s head with the famed sword Valerich.
The clean cross-section of the neck, Bill’s head blinking in disbelief at what had just happened to it—if he’d reined in his greed, he could’ve been useful.
Schrader’s tsk as he wiped the blood from Valerich.
Isaac remembered it vividly; it was the first execution he’d witnessed up close.
That crime syndicate Bill had tried to sell to? It was the same one as the bandits who’d kidnapped the maids now.
They’d expanded through human trafficking, spreading like mold across the Goethe territory, tormenting its people.
Isaac’s motive in rescuing the maids wasn’t just gratitude to Enet for staying by his side. It was also to uproot a threat to the family before it grew.
“Young master?”
“Hm?”
Bill called to Isaac, lost in thought for a moment.
“What’d you say?”
“I bribed the beggars at the nearby crossroads, and it checks out—they saw the middleman. The description matches perfectly.”
“Yeah?”
“And, uh, they were all real paranoid, so it cost a bit to loosen tongues. The travel money you gave me? All gone.”
Bill rolled his eyes as he spoke.
The travel funds Isaac had given him: twenty silver coins. Money Bill couldn’t earn in half a year without spending a penny.
Sure, some must’ve been left, but Isaac didn’t press.
“Money’s no issue. I just want them found ASAP.”
“Aigoo, I’m the fool here. Didn’t realize how generous you are. Anything else you need?”
Bill rubbed his hands.
A natural gesture, born of knowing there was more to squeeze from Isaac.
“Yeah. This time, I’ll make sure you get your proper cut. Up for it?”
“Yes, of course!”
Bill nodded eagerly, eyes lighting up.
“Then I’d like a simple contract drafted.”
“……”
“……”
“……”
“What? Spit it out if you’ve got something to say.”
“Is this right?”
“What?”
“How’d it come to this?”
“Relax. It’s going according to plan.”
“This?”
“Yeah.”
Isaac replied matter-of-factly to Bill’s voice thick with doubt.
“For real… this?”
“Yeah.”
“……”
Bill looked flabbergasted.
This was a prison.
Not Bernsi’s underground cells, but iron cages in the sewer outflow.
Stripped people crammed in like animals.
Bill knew the place well. He’d “supplied” it in his youth.
A spot where sewer bandits held folks before selling them to slavers.
“I must be crazy.”
Bill shot Isaac a glare and rubbed his forehead against the bars.
How the hell had it come to this?
Everything was fine sneaking out of the manor with Hans’s help.
Fine riding a cart from the nearby village to Bernsi.
Because Isaac had fronted him ten silver coins.
But once he’d led them to the middleman as ordered, it was too late.
Isaac had spun a tale: Bill was his servant, he a scion of exiled nobility.
The middleman’s eyes lit up like he’d found prime meat.
Isaac’s delicate looks and youth were hot items for pervy rich folk—never enough supply. Exiled noble? No backlash if you messed with him.
Isaac might as well have begged to be caught and sold.
“Fuck, why me…!”
Bill wailed.
Isaac’s silver tongue didn’t stop there. He babbled nonsense about a rare affliction that’d kill him without his servant.
Fearing damage to the goods, the bandits tossed Bill in too.
Even more absurd: Isaac kept his fine clothes to look premium, while Bill lost the ten silvers—and everything but his underwear.
In this mess, Isaac calmly clutched a rock, muttering to himself.
“Hm, not like the book said.”
“Compress the mana more?”
“Gotta tweak the output.”
Bill was beside himself.
“Why me, huh? You’ve got Hans, the nanny—why drag me into this?”
“You were gonna die anyway, you idiot. Figured I’d let you live a bit longer.”
Isaac replied, still fiddling with the rock.
“Ha, now you’re a fortune-teller?”
“Not calling me young master anymore?”
“You think that’d come out of your mouth right now? We’re fucked!”
Bill wanted to smack the pea-brained brat.
But crammed separately in these coffin-sized cages, he couldn’t.
He’d thought after getting caught by the count’s soldiers, no more crises like this.
Throwing his life away for ten silvers. Stupid Bill, stupid Bill.
Like thawing frozen hands and burning down the forest.
Whatever Bill thought, Isaac kept muttering nonsense over his rock.
The middleman and bandits had stripped Isaac’s silvers but left the rock—odd shape, smooth, probably river-picked. Freezing cold, but winter weather.
Bill thought the same.
“So, what now? You dragged us here with that puny brain of yours! Quit chatting up the rock—possessed or some shit!?”
Bill bellowed in frustration.
“We’re getting out. Finding Enet and the other maids.”
Unlike Bill’s rage-filled tone, Isaac’s was his usual calm. That pissed Bill off more.
“Yeah, sure! If you’ve got a way to smash these bars. Your head on straight?”
Then.
Kiiing—clang—
“!?”
Isaac gripped the bars and shattered them to pieces.
Bill thought his eyes were playing tricks from desperate wishing.
He blinked over and over.
Nothing changed.
Isaac smashed another set. Now there was room for his body to slip out.
“Uh… young master?”
“?”
Isaac glanced at Bill in his cage.
“Y-you’re not leaving me, right?”
“……You know me?”
“Hey, when a guy’s backed into a corner, y’know? People get desperate. Right?”
“People might. I don’t keep those kinds around.”
“Aigoo, young master. Leave me and I’m dead. Slave for life.”
“Suits you.”
“C’mon. This place is a maze. You’ll get lost hunting those girls, surrounded by bandits.”
“Think I can’t handle that?”
Isaac narrowed his eyes at Bill.
“Oh, no, course not. With strength to smash iron bars, bandits are nothing.”
“Then no reason to spring you.”
“But! With me, fewer fights, less risk, optimal path to grab ’em and escape clean!”
“Don’t need you.”
Isaac turned away coldly.
“You fucking bastard!”
“You calling me?”
Isaac turned back at Bill’s desperate cry.
“Spare me, please! Anything—anything!”
Bill kowtowed in the cramped cage.
Did his desperation work? Isaac approached.
“Anything?”
“Yes! Fuck, anything!”
“Then, this.”
A parchment unfurled before Bill’s eyes.
“What’s this?”
“What else? The contract you wouldn’t sign. You said you wouldn’t without knowing the ancient script. Here it is.”
“……?”
“One: Subject Bill obeys Contractor Isaac’s orders unconditionally. Two: Subject Bill reveals no information about Contractor Isaac. Three: If Subject Bill breaks the above, he dies.”
“Dies?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Third one’s too vague. No curse details or how you die?”
“Oh, that. Depends on my mood at the time.”
“Fuck.”
“Should’ve added something on swearing.”
“You want me to sign this now?”
“Yeah. In your blood. That’s what gives it magical binding.”
“You’re insane?”
“Perfectly sane. Your life’s on the line—take it seriously.”
Bill realized then: he’d latched onto the wrong damn person.
‘Am I possessed? Or was there dope in the count’s stolen cigars?’
He felt bewitched.
Isaac had smashed Bill’s cage barehanded. Iron crumbling like bread.
“Impure iron, unstable grain structure. Cycle extreme heat and cold, cracks form quick.”
Spouting words that barely made sense in their tongue.
But that didn’t solve everything.
“Heard you nabbed a noble kid this time?”
“Yeah. Pretty boy like that? Can’t sell ’em fast enough. Big score.”
Bandits on watch at every sewer junction.
Bill could take one, but any footstep, cough, or voice drew five or six.
He eyed Isaac. Surely not ordering him to fight them solo.
He wanted to believe that.
“Left one’s yours. Right two are mine.”
“That work?”
“It will. Go.”
Isaac said curtly.
Utter madness, but the contract compelled obedience.
No choice. Bill grabbed a broken brick near the sewer, snuck behind the assigned bandit.
A dull thunk, and he crumpled.
Almost simultaneously, the other side’s bandit dropped.
Neither Bill nor Isaac had touched him.
“What?”
A nearby bandit approached.
His head snapped back; he flopped like a marionette with cut strings.
Bill couldn’t believe his eyes.
Too fast.
Something flashed, nailed the bandit’s forehead.
“……What’d you do?”
Bill approached the fallen man. A red welt on his forehead.
“Guess.”
Isaac raised a finger. Glittering ice grains gathered from thin air.
Kiririk.
“Gah.”
Bill gasped.
Undeniable magic.
Bill had seen his share of the world’s wonders, but ice magic? First in his life.