The Apostle of the Abyss
The server set my ordered coffee on the table, and warm steam curled upward from the cup.
Its rich aroma wrapped around me. I took a sip, and a bittersweet, nutty flavor flooded my mouth.
“Mmm…”
I wasn’t an expert on coffee, but I could tell this was a drink worth its steep price.
I returned to the task I had set aside.
At present we were in the southern city of Arsein. After completing Count Timon’s request, we had hurried out of the southwest to avoid any possible suspicion or retaliation from the nobility and made our way to this nearby metropolis.
Arsein was one of the five largest city-states in the south. It sat at the junction of the Small Reich River, which branched from the mighty Great Reich that flowed from the central region all the way to the imperial capital. The city had grown on the foundation of its vast water-transport network. People from every corner of the empire mingled here, giving the whole place a free, vibrant atmosphere.
The city of art and academia, Arsein.
That spirit had fostered several universities and the empire’s most renowned grand library, which now stood before me. And inside that library, I was hunting for specific material.
The Secret Impulses of Humanity and the Architecture of the Mind.
I read the title aloud in a low voice.
Ever since we returned from the mansion, I had been unable to feel true satisfaction with Lucrezia and Eleanor. Even while that heavenly body moved against mine, something felt missing. Worse, when I was alone I would catch myself growing aroused by remembering what they had endured in that place.
Self-loathing choked me. I could barely look them in the eye.
Fortunately the condition had not lasted. All three of us were tormented by those memories, and we sought to overwrite them by making love again and again. Before long we had returned to something like our former selves. I no longer became excited by those visions.
Of course, afterward the two of them had burned with such sudden hunger that they drained every last drop of my stamina…
I let out a small sigh.
Still, the experience had made one thing crystal clear: something inside me was broken. So when we reached Arsein and its grand library, I decided to research the matter myself. Lucrezia and Eleanor had each mentioned errands of their own, so for the first time in a long while we were spending the day apart.
I looked down at the cover again.
There was only one reason I held this book. I needed to understand exactly what had changed inside me.
Why a volume like this would even be in a public library was beyond me…
As I turned the pages, detailed explanations of various paraphilias unfolded. I had no idea who had conducted the research or why, yet the precision and depth of the text drew me in despite myself.
“Prey.”
I murmured the word as I flipped another page.
It described a tendency to feel sexual excitement from the very situation of being hunted, captured, and dominated.
“Degradee.”
A type that derived mental stimulation from insult, shame, and humiliating treatment. The book noted that some individuals experienced intense arousal when their pride was crushed. The world held as many tastes as there were people, yet…
Deriving pleasure from domination and degradation felt distant from anything normal. Wasn’t that the same as wanting to be treated like a slave? I frowned and turned the page.
“Spanking.”
The act of striking the buttocks or similar areas with a hand or implement. Unlike simple violence, it was described as a practice that employed both pain and pleasure at once.
“Masochist.”
A person who feels satisfaction and pleasure from pain, humiliation, or the state of being dominated itself.
I lifted my eyes from the book and pressed my brow. Did such people truly exist? They enjoyed pain? They became excited simply by being struck…
They might make natural-born warriors, I thought. They would perceive even the agony of battle as pleasure. …No. They might become so aroused they could no longer fight properly.
I continued turning pages until one paragraph halted my hand.
“Voyeurism.”
A tendency to obtain satisfaction by watching others’ secret acts or exposed forms. The text explained that, unlike ordinary curiosity, it involved intense mental stimulation from the act of seeing itself.
I suddenly recalled the moment in the pioneer village when Eleanor had shown me her masturbation. I had been far more excited than usual. The same thing had happened when my clairvoyance pierced her underwear while I chased goblins. Even in that urgent situation, my gaze refused to leave her.
Was I a voyeur?
I decided to remember it and turned the page.
“Netorare.”
A tendency to feel powerful mental stimulation from the situation in which one’s lover or spouse is stolen away or enters a relationship with another. It noted that, beyond simple betrayal, emotions such as jealousy, defeat, and loss could themselves become sources of arousal.
“Haa…”
A deep sigh slipped out the moment I read it. Disgust rose in my throat from the description alone.
Becoming excited while watching the woman I loved entwine with another man? I possessed such a filthy taste?
When I thought about it rationally, I had never once wished for such a thing. Not during my academy days, not when we first began our journey together. I had never wanted them to fall into another man’s arms. In fact, I had never even entertained the thought.
Yet I could not deny it.
Lucrezia kissing the crown prince while her breasts were fondled. The sight of her chest pressed against the corridor window as nobles poured obscene words over her. Eleanor’s breasts and thighs violated by unknown men’s cocks, her body drenched in their semen.
And I, watching every scene…
had clearly been aroused.
I could not close the book. I simply stared at the passage for a long time. Had I truly fallen into this grotesque paraphilia?
“Lumencia von Arkein…”
The author’s name at the very end was, unusually, that of a noble. I etched it into memory and slowly closed the volume.
Yet the true reason I had come to the library was not this analysis of sexual deviance.
The most important reason was the horrific vision from my Future Sight that refused to leave my mind. I was investigating the colossal monster that had appeared in the future where Lucrezia and Eleanor were brutally broken. The enormous body that filled the entire auditorium, the black tentacles stretching in every direction…
What in the world was it?
I drew a deep breath and began scanning the shelves once more.
Ancient Magical Beasts.
Monsters of the Abyss.
Sealed Fiends.
I had not a single clue. The image I had glimpsed in Future Sight was far too fragmentary. It was impossible to narrow the entity down. In the end I would have to check each one myself.
With a small sigh I began pulling books from the nearest shelf. Volumes whose titles alone made my head ache gradually piled on the table. It did not look like I would finish today.
“Ugh!”
For a long while I stared at the stack, desperately hunting for any trace. But nothing useful surfaced. No matter how much I read, nothing evoked the monster from my vision. My head simply throbbed.
I glanced out the library window to clear my mind. The sun was sinking toward the horizon, draping the entire city in a beautiful, deep sunset.
“Hm?”
Then, amid the crowd, I spotted a familiar face. Lucrezia. Even in ordinary clothes she stood out, stunningly beautiful.
A faint smile rose to my lips before I could stop it. That woman, more lovely than the sunset and impossible to look away from, was my lover. And yet here I was, blessed with such fortune, developing a bizarre sexual deviance…
There was no one more blessed than me.
She seemed to have finished her business and was strolling through the city at ease. Normally she would be training alone at our lodgings, but in a metropolis this large, quiet personal training was nearly impossible. It appeared she had chosen to rest today.
I watched her, entranced. Lucrezia walked slowly toward the plaza. Countless people had gathered in the square, bathed in the rich glow of sunset.
Street musicians played, painters captured the crimson cityscape on canvas. Children raced around the fountain while vendors busily called to customers.
Lucrezia paused before one stall, accepted a paper bag, and continued on. I could not hear what she had bought from this distance, but I saw her occasionally reach inside and eat something. It seemed she had purchased a simple snack.
She wandered the plaza in leisurely circles. Sometimes she stopped to admire a street painting, sometimes she turned her gaze toward the musicians. The sight of Lucrezia—who had known nothing but swords and training—walking among ordinary people felt strangely novel.
That was when it happened.
A young man approached her. His clothes suggested he was an artist. He clutched what looked like a sketchbook, hesitated for a long time with obvious nervousness, then finally stepped in front of her. Lucrezia lowered her head to look at him. The man seemed to be speaking earnestly, but of course I could hear nothing from here.
An odd emotion stirred inside me.
I could not make out the details, yet his flushed face, flustered manner, and the way onlookers glanced and chuckled told me everything I needed to know.
“Pfft.”
A laugh slipped out. It seemed he had made a direct confession.
Lucrezia regarded him for a moment, then answered with a short, indifferent remark. The man’s shoulders visibly slumped. Rejected. She turned away as though nothing had happened and resumed walking across the plaza. Soon she vanished from my sight entirely.
I continued staring blankly in her direction, letting the complicated thoughts in my head settle. The image of Lucrezia strolling beneath the sunset seemed to have eased the unpleasant pressure that had weighed on me earlier. I breathed a light sigh and turned back to the desk.
It was time to resume the search. If I could not find any information about that monster from my Future Sight, the entire day would have been wasted. Just as I reached for the pile of books without thinking—
“…Huh?”
A book I had never seen before now sat on top of the stack. It had definitely not been there moments ago. I frowned slightly and picked it up. The black leather cover had the worn texture of an ancient volume, and an unfamiliar symbol was faintly engraved in the center. Its entire aura differed from the ordinary books that filled the library.
“Was there a book like this…?”
No matter how I searched my memory, I could not recall it. I opened it slowly. The scent of old paper rose, and an unnaturally cold sensation brushed across my fingertips.
Illustrations of monsters I had never seen covered many pages. Yet they were somehow unlike ordinary magical beasts. They were excessively human in shape, yet grotesquely twisted. One entity embraced people with dozens of arms. Another had the form of a beast but possessed an eerily human face. Still another possessed a body the size of a mountain range covered in countless eyes and mouths. The captions beneath each were uniformly chilling.
The condensed rage of the abandoned.
An existence born from the distortion of forgotten worship.
The curse left behind by dead faith.
I turned the pages slowly. The book recorded such beings one after another. I was about to flip to the next section when my hand froze.
“…Wait.”
The illustration that had just flashed past—it was unmistakably similar to the monster from my Future Sight.
I felt nausea surge upward. I tore my eyes away from the book and steadied my breathing. My stomach churned. For a long time I stared at the library floor, trying to regain composure. Only then could I lift my head and quickly flip past the page.
At the very end was a signature scrawled in pen, apparently the author’s.
“Lumencia von Arkein…”
The same name as the author of the earlier book on sexual deviance. I snatched both volumes and approached the librarian.
“How may I help you?”
“Do you know anything about the person who wrote these books?”
“Lumencia von Arkein? She’s famous. Almost everyone in Arsein knows her.”
“…!”
“Well… she is a mage, after all.”