Chapter 48
Chapter 48
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 48
Chapter Title: Shadows of Contra
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048
“Is this really okay?”
Her voice trembled, as if the bold shout from earlier had been a lie.
“When you proudly declared the Black-White Treaty, where did that courage go?”
Sein spoke in disbelief.
“The Black-White Treaty isn’t something a nobody like me can casually bring up!”
Remi shouted from a shadowy corner of the castle wall.
But she quickly realized her mistake and lowered her voice.
“If things go wrong, what they’ll do to me might make death seem merciful...”
“What gave you the confidence to start all this?”
“What do you mean? Obviously, you...”
Hoo.
Remi let out a sigh and regained her composure.
Seeing the smile creeping across Sein’s lips, she realized she’d fallen for his prank.
Remi seemed bold and courageous, but the name Demorus and the Black-White Treaty were too much.
“Don’t worry. I hear there are quite a few factions in the Center rebelling against the underworld.”
The New Empire, its core.
“You’ve earned credit for capturing the underworld’s rising scoundrel using the Black-White Treaty as pretext. Word of this will surely reach their ears.”
“......”
“It’ll turn out just as you hope.”
Further up.
To the Center.
“But we can’t help what happens in the meantime.”
“I can endure that much.”
Remi was indeed a woman of guts.
“Good to know you understand.”
Sein’s arrest was part of the contract between him and Remi.
“If anyone comes looking, hold out as long as you can and say you can’t hand me over.”
Sein didn’t hold back on advice.
“With the messes I’ve caused, and now Borfeo at the eye of the storm because of this, no one will act rashly.”
“That makes sense.”
Sein’s calculations.
Remi’s were the same.
“But if someone truly unreasonable shows up, back off then.”
“That’s my plan anyway.”
“Good.”
He liked people who knew how to look out for their own interests.
As long as they brought in the gains, they’d show more loyalty than a blood oath.
“Where are you headed?”
Remi asked Sein.
“Why do you care?”
Their relationship was purely contractual.
Nothing more, nothing less.
“If someone I can’t handle shows up, I need to know exactly what to say to save my neck.”
It was a clause in the contract guaranteeing her safety.
“I’m planning a vacation without looking over my shoulder.”
Sein kindly answered Remi’s question.
“A vacation? Just for something like that...”
“Zone 6.”
Sein said.
“I’m going to Contra.”
That was his vacation spot.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back before anything major blows up.”
“I hope so. Every day feels like my blood’s running dry.”
“That’s why. I told Aia to bring you some fine wine—think of it as a blood substitute.”
He grinned.
“That I like.”
Now it was truly over.
A secret passage handed down only to Borfeo’s successive lords.
If he slipped out this way, people would assume Sein was locked in Borfeo’s underground prison.
Even Rasiel.
Even Alman’s watchers and all other eyes.
He didn’t know how long it would last, but it didn’t matter.
By then, everything would already be finished.
“Then, stay alive until I get back.”
Sein slipped into the secret passage.
Left alone, Remi finally let out a sigh of relief.
“What the hell...”
Sein Demorus.
Everything she’d uncovered by exhausting her emergency funds felt like fabricated lies.
At that young age, even with Demorus blood, his achievements and actions were absurd.
And his abilities, his audacity.
But the reason Remi was breaking into a cold sweat now was different.
“How can someone that young have such political savvy?”
Born in a rural fief, he’d been nothing but a street tough.
Yet he seemed to see through the entire continent.
When he mentioned Center affairs, she’d expected it, but her heart still sank.
But it was fine.
“I need to survive.”
Since she’d grabbed hold of that lifeline.
*
*
*
Zone 6, Contra.
Normally, without certification from Rasiel or Demorus, one couldn’t even set foot here.
From Zone 7 onward, only those with verified identities could tread.
That’s what made it funny.
“Thanks to you, I got here comfortably.”
Barus, an Anghel devotee and bishop-level figure, had brought Sein all the way to Contra.
Barus, who’d become Sein’s retainer in Antara.
He led Tarian, Antara’s largest slave trading firm, and had recently expanded his business.
That allowed movement between zones.
“No need to mention it.”
Sein had escaped Borfeo to Antara, then with Barus’s help to Contra.
“Are you moving right away?”
Barus asked.
He hadn’t been so friendly toward Sein before, but now he seemed different.
“No time to waste.”
“I’ll be staying in Contra for a while. If you need anything, just say the word.”
Maybe because he’d treated Cecil well.
Or because of Galio’s dying wish.
“Sounds good.”
After entering Contra, Sein parted ways with the Tarian caravan immediately.
He pulled up his hood and walked the streets quietly.
Unlike the days he’d flaunted the name Sein Demorus openly.
‘A place dominated by black magic, right?’
Zone 6 Contra was a major city where black magic flourished.
‘And...’
He pulled his hood low.
Sein’s teeth gleamed white beneath it.
“Another of the underworld’s zones.”
Contra wasn’t Demorus territory.
The three great underworld powers that ruled the continent alongside Demorus.
Demorus and...
‘Amotal.’
Here, he couldn’t invoke Demorus’s name.
Amotal’s name reigned supreme.
He couldn’t cause trouble here either.
No Demorus protection.
That’s why.
“I...”
Sein murmured quietly to himself.
A habit ingrained from childhood in his final fourth-life run.
“...am a man who’s cautious when caution is needed.”
A dark alleyway.
Sein’s mana pulsed outward.
More stealthily and insidiously than ever.
“Looks like they’re well hidden, though.”
This would take longer than expected.
*
*
*
It started at a small black magic shop.
In the past, black magic practitioners were dragged off and executed the moment they were caught.
It was the continent’s ultimate taboo.
But the world changed, and darkness descended.
The black, who could never wield normal magic.
So they turned to black magic.
What had been researched only in underground dungeons surfaced.
“Welcome. Heh heh.”
The current world was ideal for training in black magic.
“Looking for something specific?”
“......”
“We may be small, but we have everything. Goblin hearts, troll blood...”
The hunched old man began explaining on his own.
“We even handle human bones or live humans.”
In a world where anything could be had for a price.
Antara, which dealt in slaves, was inseparable from Contra.
“Demon tribe.”
“......? What did you...”
“I want demon tribe byproducts.”
The old man’s face twisted.
“Are you perhaps one of the Great Names?”
“Great Names?”
“Or a Child of Darkness infused with demonic energy to the bone?”
“What nonsense is this?”
“Get lost!”
The old man suddenly yelled.
“Where does a no-name punk like you come seeking demon tribe byproducts!”
Demon tribe byproducts were rare, expensive materials even in black magic, prized since ancient times.
In Sanctuary’s setting, demons had been exterminated, so it was natural.
Yet they persistently appeared somewhere, those byproducts.
“Old man.”
“Old man...?”
The old man’s face contorted.
Groooar!
Black mana exploded outward.
“You’re truly insane! Do you know who I am? Dare to insult me in Contra!”
The shop shook at the old man’s roar.
But.
Pssht!
The old man’s aura scattered in an instant.
“......!”
The flustered old man widened his eyes and tried to step back.
Kwach!
A hand closed in suddenly, covering the old man’s face.
“I’m here to buy. Do I need to know all that?”
“......”
“Your mana reeks. Demonic energy’s reached your heart. You’re building it all wrong.”
“...Y-You...”
Slowly, the hand gripping the old man’s face released.
Sein.
Thud.
“Wh-Who are you!”
The old man was now collapsed at Sein’s feet, trembling.
Bang!
Something heavy dropped before the old man’s nose, shaking the shop.
A lump of ore gleaming silvery-white.
“...Gasp!”
A mithril ingot.
This size could buy a whole fief in the lower zones.
It was the fee Barus had given him for his services.
“I need demon tribe byproducts. That’s it.”
Gulp.
The old man’s eyes soon glistened with greed.
“If that’s not enough...”
Ting.
This time, Sein tossed a finger-sized flask.
A flask sloshing with blood-red liquid—no, blood.
“Choose that instead.”
“This is...?”
“Archbishop’s blood.”
“......!”
The old man’s breath stopped entirely.
“Well? Not enough?”
“N-No, sir!”
The old man threw himself at the flask like a beggar who hadn’t eaten in days, huddling protectively around it.
As if afraid it’d be snatched away.
With Anghel’s temple in ruins now, archbishop’s blood was as rare as demon byproducts.
“I-If I may ask... who might you be...”
“Hm.”
Sein pondered briefly before speaking.
“What was it? Child of Darkness?”
He spat it out, then grimaced.
No matter how he thought about it, the name was cringeworthy and creepy.
At least.
“Let’s go with one of the Great Names or whatever.”
“...Gasp.”
“I’ll come back in a day, assuming you can get it.”
“O-Of course.”
Sein slowly exited the shop.
“Haah... Haah... Haah...”
It took the old man a long while to start breathing again.