Silvia and Elina
I passed through the mansion’s front gate as darkness settled over the grounds and made my way to the dining hall. Beneath the soft glow of mana lamps lay a rare beef tenderloin, its blood still bright, paired with a vintage wine freshly drawn from an oak cask. I sat alone at the head of the table and took up a finely honed silver knife.
In my previous life on the corporate battlefield, meals had been nothing more than forced calories shoved down to keep the brain running—mere fuel for extending a lifespan spent calculating. Above the scrape of silver against porcelain, Silvia’s controlled breathing settled like background music. A luxurious dinner with no room for loneliness to slip in.
By contrast, Elina and the combat slaves who had followed me headed for the annex behind the main house. The scale rivaled the castles of provincial lords on the capital’s outskirts. This was no mere residence; it was a breeding and training facility capable of housing up to a hundred slaves and refining them into marketable goods.
At present we had fifteen completed maids and twenty combat slaves. Three maids and five combat slaves were still receiving basic training. The monthly maintenance cost to keep them in peak condition came to fifty gold coins. An ordinary serf family of four would have to break their backs for an entire year just to earn a single coin. All of it fixed expenditure poured solely into maximizing the quality of my assets.
Instead of foul water and moldy bread, they received nutritionally calculated meals and washrooms with warm running water. Infrastructure designed to satisfy appetite and sleep, thereby raising physical durability to its limit. Yet the healthier the body, the more inevitable the surge of bestial lust that followed.
The original Victor had tried to suppress that instinct in the early days, only to suffer a bitter failure when his valuable assets went berserk and ruined their own marketability. Even after watching hundreds of gold coins evaporate, he refused to give up. After countless trials and errors he had finally built a meticulous educational system capable of controlling the risk.
The most outstanding feature was an airtight isolation network that completely excluded private emotional exchange or sexual relations between slaves. The moment attachments formed, the entire training structure would collapse; when one was sold, the will of those left behind would shatter.
Male and female slaves had their routes separated so they would not encounter each other even once during training or meals. A control system designed with the ruthless precision of a semiconductor plant.
For the combat slaves whose blood ran hot, training went beyond simple martial prowess. They were conditioned to satisfy even the perverse demands of high-ranking noblewomen. Their suppressed, violent desires were periodically vented through controlled visits to brothels. Female slaves, for whom nighttime service was a baseline requirement, received even more refined and secretive conditioning.
Patience in suppressing their own pleasure, practical technique honed through teaching tools. They were taught, down to the marrow, how to elevate only their master’s ecstasy while denying themselves climax. Sophisticated application of massage arts that could dissolve boiling desire without physical damage. A perfect cycle that prevented mental collapse from frustration while simultaneously preparing them to attend their master and relieve their own needs.
Ordinary slave traders handled sales through their own individual channels. Victor had never stooped to such low-grade methods, and I wholeheartedly approved. Personal deals only invited messy price haggling. When the product possessed true marketability, discarding the natural price inflation created by nobles fighting bloody battles in competitive bidding was simply stupid.
Selling in secret would also forfeit the glamorous stage needed to imprint my brand on the public consciousness.
As I finished my meal, Silvia approached with silent steps and bent to clear the empty plate. A soft rustle. The collar of her neat maid uniform parted slightly, revealing pale skin. Below her collarbone lay the intuitive mark of two sharp crossed swords—Victor’s unique Brand of Subjugation.
In this world a brand was far more than proof of ownership. It was an absolute binding that activated the instant a slave harbored murderous intent toward their master, forcing excruciating pain as though every nerve from the brand to the tips of the toes was being torn apart. A safety device.
Yet I placed no blind faith in the seemingly ironclad magical system. I had read the original story. I knew the pathetic end the original Victor had met.
The original Elina had played the part of Victor’s dog with beast-like patience. On the day she secretly restored her shattered Mana Heart out of her master’s sight, she had crushed even the brand’s terrible agony beneath an explosion of mana and finally sliced off Victor’s arms and legs.
Control that relied on shallow sorcery would always return as a bounced check. That was why I intended not merely to shackle Elina but to dismantle her ego and pride from the very bottom up.
Having cleared every dish, Silvia withdrew with perfect grace. I wiped my mouth with a napkin and spoke.
“Assign five combat slaves to the brothel. Tell them to maintain strict control so no rats come sniffing during the three days we’ve suspended business.”
“I will keep it in mind.”
“Soon one fellow will be living in the mansion. Prepare a suitable room for an adult male in the quarters.”
The alchemist Theo I had recruited today. Anything would be more comfortable than a stinking sewer drug den; the environment would be ideal for a man who lived only for research.
Silvia’s teal-brown eyes quietly followed my lips.
“Choose a space to serve as his workshop. Install proper ventilation so the harsh fumes are carried well outside the mansion.”
“I will have the equipment installed by tomorrow evening.”
“Let him select the layout himself.”
I cut her off cleanly. “I gave the man fifty gold coins as an advance. If additional reagents are required, permit unlimited payment up to two hundred gold on the ledger.”
A blank check equal to a small trading company’s entire annual net profit. When an asset possessed clear value, aggressive early investment was only rational.
Even before such an absurd sum, Silvia showed not the slightest flicker of disturbance.
“Understood.”
A reply as clean as a well-oiled machine. I continued in the same dry tone.
“Finally. Send one secret letter to each of the cartel bastards.”
I rose slowly from my chair. “Cheap defective goods are discontinued as of today. In their place we will circulate only trace amounts of safe awakening agents that do not erode the brain. Tell them to empty their wallets and wait.”
“I will mix the code word in immediately and dispatch the carrier pigeons.”
Silvia, who had been bowing as she accepted the orders, carefully spoke again while holding the empty tray.
“Master… I have something to say, if I may.”
“Come up to the study.”
As I left the dining hall I added, “Tell Elina to come up once our conversation is finished.”
On the second floor, inside the firmly closed study, I sat buried in a leather chair flipping through trading-company documents.
After a knock, Silvia entered and stopped before my desk. She spoke at a moment that would cause no interference.
“Lately… you seem a little different, Master.”
The remark came abruptly after she had finished her settlement report. I lifted my gaze from the papers and studied her.
“In what way?”
“If before it felt as though you were destroying yourself…”
Silvia’s eyes slowly traced the scar across my cheek. “Now every action and every cruelty seems to have a clear purpose at its end.”
“And?”
I rose deliberately, closed the distance in one stride, and seized her shoulder. I pushed her back against the thick wall behind her. The moment her back met stone, Silvia’s pupils trembled.
The distance narrowed until our breaths brushed each other’s cheeks. Victor had always used precisely this kind of controlled pressure—tightening the throat without leaving a single mark on valuable merchandise. It was high-level training technique: breaking the prey’s defensive walls and drawing out voluntary submission.
A red flush bloomed beneath her coldly flowing silver hair. A crack appeared in those intelligent eyes that had once seemed incapable of bleeding. Below her straight nose, red lips trembled, unable to govern their own breathing. The mask of an emotionless doll split open; a small sound of breath escaped through the gap.
With one hand braced against the wall, I looked down at her from close range.
“Do you dislike the new master?”
“I would never dare speak of liking or disliking.”
Even beneath the full weight of her owner, her expression did not collapse. The textbook reply of a thoroughly trained slave.
I tilted my head lower and breathed warm air directly into her sensitive ear.
“I asked whether you dislike the current me.”
The tension stretched like a bowstring drawn to its limit. The rims of Silvia’s eyes—usually as cold as precision machinery—slowly burned crimson. She gripped the hem of her skirt until her knuckles whitened and a wet, emotion-laden voice slipped out.
“……I like it.”
The unfamiliar affirmation that had left her own lips seemed to surprise her; the flush raced visibly down her neck. I studied the white skin that looked ready to burst into flame, then spoke indifferently.
“If you like it, perform your role properly from now on.”
“……”
“That way I can keep you near me for a long time.”
Silvia’s chest rose sharply once, then fell. After a deep breath she regained her composure with impressive speed and bowed with perfect courtesy.
“I will keep it in mind. I will send Elina in.”
The door closed. A short while later a cautious knock sounded, and Elina entered the study.
Thanks to warm water and proper food, healthy color had returned to her once-pallid cheeks. Yet the attitude with which she stood before my desk was strangely twisted—the pride of a duke’s eldest daughter tangled together with the yoke of a thoroughly broken slave.
“Ask your question.”
At the permission, Elina swallowed hard.
“Master. If my mana heart can truly be repaired…”
Beneath her deep black hair, blue eyes wavered dangerously. “Before I regain my strength… could you first erase the memories of my time as a knight with the potion of oblivion?”
The oblivion potion circulated in secret. Erasing memory was a deadly poison that shattered cognitive function and turned the victim into a meat puppet.
In the empire’s damp underground interrogation room in the past, the interrogator planted by the Valois family had tried to force that very potion on me to sever their own tail. But they had judged it wasteful to use such an expensive drug on a back-alley stray. Instead of melting my brain, they had simply carved a hideous scar across my face and thrown me out—an almost merciful disposal.
Elina had been an imperial knight; she could not possibly be ignorant of the potion’s fatal side effects.
“When I regain my power again…”
“……”
“I have become afraid of the self who might turn her fangs on Master while lost in old memories.”
A commendable oath: she would rather melt her own brain and become an idiot than risk harming her master. A paradox that would damage her own marketability to protect my safety.
I set the pen on the desk and faced her directly. A slight lift of my chin—an unspoken order to approach my feet.
Elina’s lips trembled. Hesitating, she closed the distance with care and stopped at my toes. The slave etiquette Silvia had drilled into her bent her joints.
Swish. The hem of her skirt brushed across the carpet. Her once-straight knees slowly collapsed to the floor. Heated breath rushed between her parted lips.
I bent at the waist and slowly stroked her flushed cheek with a bare index finger. The calloused, rough joint slid across her fair, soft skin in deliberate tease. At the alien friction, Elina’s slender neck stiffened like a drawn bow.
Her body, braced for merciless violence, froze in confusion at the unfamiliar warmth. While I savored the way her pupils contracted with tension, I withdrew my hand into the air.
“……Ah.”
A faint sound escaped the moment the warmth left her skin. An instinctive tilt of her now-empty cheek toward my fingertips, as though reluctant to lose the touch.
To tame someone. A meticulous process of dismantling the very structure of consciousness from the foundation and reassembling it so that the subject would thirst blindly for even a single brush of my hand.
I spoke quietly to the bound beast who could no longer even avert her eyes.
“Who gave you permission to think of lowering your own value at will?”
“B-but…”
“With nothing more than cheap drugs that only melt the brain.”
I locked her wide blue eyes—eyes that gazed up at me with blind devotion—and continued in a dry voice.
“If you fear you might cut my throat once you regain your strength, then look forward to it instead.”
A ragged breath burst from between her bound red lips. I lightly gripped her chin and let the voice of a ruler roll out.
“Because I will tame you so thoroughly that only my name remains deep in your bones.”
The confusion that had churned in Elina’s eyes strangely settled. In the space where poison and defensive mechanisms had once threatened to explode now lay a longing for the savior who could embrace even her ugliest murderous intent and collapse.
“Withdraw.”
At the firm command, Elina bowed so deeply her forehead nearly touched the floor. The door closed, and perfect silence filled the room once more.
I opened the deepest drawer of the desk and took out an old leather ledger stained with dark red marks.
Contract Killing.
The romance-fantasy novel my younger sibling had hammered into my ears without end. Inside those pages Victor had been nothing more than a disposable villain who highlighted the protagonists’ narrative before being sliced apart.
But this place was not flat paper.
The fierce night wind moaned against the window frame. The musty scent of old books hung heavy in the room. A suffocating reality where hours, minutes, and seconds beat with solid weight. This world was too vast and three-dimensional for the original work’s sloppy setting to contain.
The proof of those fatal details rested in the ledger I now held.
The Valois family that had driven the original Victor into the abyss had fallen. A rising noble house had swallowed their territory and emerged as the new power. The problem was the ledger’s densely packed secret request records—more than half its pages. The dozens of assassination attempts the Valois had commissioned against that rising house, paying me handsomely to carry them out.
Recalling the original knowledge, that rising house sheltered the novel’s second heroine.
The shy genius, Vivian de Arzen.
The Victor of the novel had never crossed paths with her. But I, existing in this real world, was the actual ringleader of the assassination organization that had butchered her family.
The day the truth contained in this ledger reached their ears, it would be a perfect death sentence. A knight-order blade would be driven into my neck with no room for negotiation.
Yet as I turned the ledger’s rough pages, my eyes remained coldly fixed on opportunity.
Having devoured Valois to become the victor, the Arzen family had endured dozens of assassination attempts and countless misfortunes in the process. Their military strength was now pathetically thin. If they moved recklessly against me—the heart of the back alleys—they too would suffer painful losses.
That shallow political calculus and the vacuum in their power were the perfect target for me to exploit. Fighting a defensive battle while cornered made no financial sense. Before the enemy’s blade could fly, I would wrap a massive chain around their throat.
I would drag them into an inescapable swamp of crushing debt and reduce the entire noble house to complete ownership.
I lifted a pen dripping with ink and wrote a new name in the ledger’s empty space.
Vivian de Arzen.