Sabbath Rest
On the Sabbath, I took my rest.
Ray dodged the flying claws, kicked them aside, and swatted them away with brutal precision.
Within her fluid, graceful movements, flashes of violence traced shimmering silver arcs through the air.
The dark, rotting hands shattered the instant they struck her silver mana-veined limbs.
That silver mana—that was the blood she had inherited.
**Argentus**.
The unique magic of Ray, the battle mage who wielded it.
Silver fangs that crushed whatever stood in her way, pulverizing it into nothing.
Ray knew this demonologist all too well.
The pursuer who had clung to her the moment she escaped the facility.
Mal ebris.
No matter how she tried to shake him, he stuck like glue.
The curse of being a demonologist.
His power wasn’t his own; he borrowed it from a demon, so the things ordinary mages could never do, he could.
Wishes that summoned the right target were common among demons, and Mal ebris was no exception.
Hiding his presence was another matter.
A being like Ray could sense the eerie feeling at once—locating someone who had concealed themselves behind a demon’s authority was no easy task.
And the hardest part of all was his primary magic: that black hand.
A curse that paralyzed the senses on contact and drained the body dry.
For Ray, who specialized in close-quarters combat, it was the perfect counter.
*Why is this bastard still hanging around over there…!*
Ray frowned, still feeling Roman’s faint presence behind her, lingering untouched.
*At this rate, I’ve already done enough.*
The time had been bought.
The only one who hadn’t left was Roman’s own fault.
Ray had protected Roman, not out of some noble desire that he shouldn’t die even if she herself perished.
She simply didn’t want to owe anyone a debt.
It was only natural that getting dragged into her personal mess would leave her uneasy.
Even so, she kept glancing toward Roman.
It was a moment when her focus slipped because of that concern.
“I’ve got you.”
Mal ebris laughed with triumphant glee, certain of his victory.
*Too late…?*
Just as Ray judged that even she could no longer intercept the extended fist.
*Shiiiiing—! BOOM—!*
A black bullet exploded against the black hand.
The wind that accompanied the blast whipped Ray’s hood roughly.
“You’re still not leaving? What are you doing?!”
“Tuition. Body reinforcement. I have to pay up.”
And without you, my bet is ruined!
As she screamed the second reason only in her mind, Roman kept firing off his magic bullets.
*Boom—! Boom—!!*
The continuous shots—some missing due to lack of precision—kept coming without pause, forming a barrier that dragged the black hand downward.
Mal ebris’s eyes narrowed with fierce focus as he summoned his next claw.
*Just magic bullets that weak to shatter my Touch of Evil?*
No magic.
What the brat shot was nothing but raw, compressed mana.
How many times more power would it take to crush a magic imbued with a demon’s authority? The sheer volume alone was insane.
*Or is it because he possesses a higher grade of mana?*
There was a hierarchy among demons.
The strength of a higher-grade demon crushed that of a lower one.
But Mal ebris rejected that thought.
*No way.*
The demon contracted by such a lowly brat couldn’t possibly hold higher grade than his own.
A mere half-wit demonologist who couldn’t even cast proper spells and only fired off mana clumps was far more reasonable in his assumption that the kid had simply let his emotions run wild.
*Idiot.*
A demonologist had to be cold and calculating, colder and more calculated than any other mage.
He would use the minimum force necessary to achieve his goal, maintain perfect rationality at all times, and never lose his cool in the transaction with the demon.
It was a principle he had to master if he wanted to survive as a demonologist.
And Ray knew that principle well—demonologists who ignored it were the ones she had to kill.
Even if the price wasn’t death, it was still something that tormented the demonologist.
In a way, the price that wasn’t death was far more dangerous.
Most prices that weren’t death were linked to suffering.
They inflicted fatal damage to the mind.
In the end, Roman’s power was nothing but cannibalizing his own lifespan.
He couldn’t be allowed to wield it recklessly without losing his sanity.
“Hey! You’re gonna die for real if you keep doing this!!”
“Shut it! Look ahead!”
“Insane brat…!”
He was really going to die.
Ray saw Roman’s suicidal solo charge and lunged forward with all her strength.
He was the same way during training.
A demonologist throwing his life away because he scraped a little in sparring?
An emotional lunatic.
Someone who didn’t care about tomorrow and lived only for today.
To Ray, Roman looked exactly like that.
To stop such a person, the fight itself had to end.
She braced her legs and leaped high.
The moment the black hand’s power dropped from Roman’s bullets was the perfect opening.
*Smack—! Pat!*
Two powerful strides carried Ray like a meteor across the distance.
Intense silver light crystallized in her palm.
Her magic, Argentus, was a magic of destruction.
Even the barrier Mal ebris wore around him was paper-thin before her fangs.
Ray’s fist drove straight into Mal ebris’s heart.
At the same moment, a massive beast’s head burst out from his chest.
“Eh?”
*Crack!!*
The beast’s jaws snapped shut, locking Ray’s hand in place.
No pain.
The silver-mana arm forbade the beast’s teeth from penetrating.
Yet absence of injury didn’t mean absence of effect.
*Strength…*
A heavy sense of paralysis swept over her.
She tried to pull away, but her body refused to obey.
*Argentus’s destructive range has been exceeded.*
She had focused too much on offense and forgotten to watch her defense.
The lack of real combat experience.
Ray’s mistake had come from there.
“You damn traitors…!”
Mal ebris’s voice was thick and hoarse when it finally spilled from his lips.
Originally, his voice had only left a faint, eerie echo.
“My… lifespan… how much…!”
Every mage possessed a hidden trump card.
Mal ebris was no different.
A fragment of the demon summoned in exchange for his lifespan.
The power that dwarfed even the magic of borrowing only a portion of strength tore through Ray’s silver light.
That was the beginning.
*Snap! Smash! Crack!*
Hands, feet, the neck that finished it all.
Ray’s suppression was a single instant.
And the fate of the rear guard who had lost the initiative was exactly the same.
“You won’t die pretty…! I won’t kill you. Right? I can’t just let you die that easily… I can’t… I can’t…”
His eyes were half-lost in rationality, as though something was devouring him, squeezing the words out like a dying beast.
But Roman, by contrast, was calm.
Even though the Ray who had been holding the front had become combat-ineffective, he still followed the demonologist’s core principle.
Ray thrashed desperately to free herself from the claws that bound her, but it was futile.
The beast’s jaws, summoned after paying an enormous price, would never release her.
“It’s fine.”
What was fine?
To whom?
Me?
The me who would simply return to the slave master who had hired Mal ebris, a demonologist who wouldn’t die no matter what?
The brat who would soon suffer the demonologist’s cruel fate?
Despite knowing his own terrifying future was approaching, he still soothed others with that calm expression.
From that sight, Ray glimpsed someone she remembered.
*You… who are you…*
Mal ebris approached Roman with a gloomy smile, as if waiting for a festival to begin.
In the face of the reality that was far too similar to the nightmare she had once seen, Ray shouted desperately.
“Stop it! You were after me all along!!”
Mal ebris ignored her shout.
His contract was to capture Ray.
He didn’t care about anything that happened during the process.
He summoned another black hand and clamped it over Ray’s mouth, then looked straight at Roman and said.
“From now on, I’m going to brand you.”
“…Brand?”
“You don’t know? As expected, a beginner who just contracted with a low-grade demon wouldn’t know.”
Mal ebris’s face twisted into an unpleasant smile, his eyes gleaming with anticipation.
As though he hoped Roman would feel terror and despair at whatever was about to happen.
“There is a hierarchy among demons. Just as we have layers in our world, there are ranks and orders among demons. Branding enforces that on the contractee as well. Just as a higher-grade demon commands a lower-grade one, the contractee becomes a subordinate.”
“So… the demon’s power applies upper-lower relationships depending on rank?”
Mal ebris answered with a scoff.
His finger pressed against Roman’s forehead.
Sharp nails tore the skin, blood flowing.
“You will live as my slave. You will become my servant and experimental subject, and in the end you will become the sacrifice offered to the demon.”
“However, I have thought about it.”
Roman spoke as if the threat meant nothing to him.
“Why can my magic bullets so easily neutralize your magic?”
The power of magic bullets was strong, yet even Roman, who knew nothing of Mal ebris’s magic, could tell his was several levels above.
But Roman’s bullets had neutralized the Touch of Evil with such effortless ease.
Why?
Mal ebris answered.
“The difference in grades.”
“It was exactly what I thought.”
It was the answer Seir had already given, yet before Mal ebris could retreat, Roman ignited a blaze of mana across his entire body.
Mal ebris’s magic melted like snow.
The black hands that had bound him vanished, and Roman’s hands, freed, seized Mal ebris’s wrist.
“I’ve got you.”
The mana blaze ignited by Roman swallowed Mal ebris like wildfire.
“What the…!!”
“You’re tuition too. Take it happily.”
The black flames burned fiercely.
Mal ebris tried to break free, but it was already too late.
He had foolishly closed the distance himself and allowed contact; it was over.
Mal ebris struggled, desperately pulling at the mana, but it was useless.
A pure mana battle, not magic.
The demon he had contracted could not match Seir’s grade.
It fell apart.
Mana.
Magic.
Flesh.
Before the mana poured endlessly by the higher-grade demon, Mal ebris’s contracted demon could not protect his contractor.
The scene was like a burning ritual.
The contractor himself became the sacrifice, the very thing that destroyed the evil.
How much price had to be paid to produce power like that?
Ray’s pupils trembled.
Again.
Again, just like that.
Even after the hands that had grabbed her and the beast had disappeared, Ray stood motionless in place.
At that moment, Ray’s consciousness overlaid the present with the past.
*You… why…*
Finally, as though all the sacrifices had been received, the flames died down.
When Roman released his hand, Mal ebris collapsed to the ground like a body with no pulse.
But Roman did not fall.
He stood straight, his eyes—still bright, not dimming—fixed on Ray.
Unlike that person.
Unlike Ray’s brother.
With the same indifferent composure as always.
As if declaring that he was alive, he stood proudly.
Demonologists pay a price.
And when the price they cannot bear comes due, the demonologist perishes.
Then, how much was Roman’s tolerance?
Ray asked without thinking, standing before the reality that shook her commonsense to its core.
“What are you, anyway?”
“What am I?”
Roman answered as if it was obvious.
“A demonologist.”
§
Ugh.
It was really getting tough.
The contract felt tight again.
Today’s training against the general population ended in disaster.
What a crude fighting style.
But it worked out, right?
[Contractee, this method is not beautiful.]
‘I’m sorry. A contractee with no magic.’
[You should create magic quickly.]
‘Um, yeah. That’s true.’
Even though she wasn’t the one teaching magic.
It really wasn’t that easy.
[…Blasphemous.]
‘I’m so upset.’
The one who taught me how to win was me, no, my own demon.
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