Chapter 374: Contracts

Even so, she made tonight so wonderful that, if it weren’t for the wolf attack, I would carry her properly like a princess instead of like a sack of potatoes as I am now.

She had earned it, and I have to treat her well; there were still a few more days to go.

’A few more healing spells just in case, Corpus sanetur, Lux vitae, Vitae flamma, if that will do the trick, in a few hours…’

AuwwwWW!

’Oh, are they retreating again? These wolves are frustrating. Should I hunt down their leader myself?… Nah, it’s not worth it, and we’re almost there. And if our group comes later through legal channels, we could get more profit out of them.’

Graawu!

Well, I think this would be their last ambush with our goal so close; I killed the annoying lava wolf, which wasn’t really very strong, and I hadn’t killed it before so as not to attract attention.

Now I wanted to make sure we went to that specific place.

As always, we were at the back; so I extended my senses and enhanced my hearing with magic, ignoring everything unnecessary, trying to listen specifically to my brother and the other two and what was going on, but…

“Hey, you, what happened to Ophelia?”

“Huh?”

From the side, a woman approached me; it was the first time I had seen someone enter Ophelia’s stinky range of their own free will, and I was a little surprised.

“Answer me! What happened to Ophelia?”

“…She fainted… she consumed too much mana.”

I gave her what I thought was a reasonable answer. It seemed that Ophelia wasn’t as lonely as I thought; at least someone would worry if they saw her fainted.

’What!? She fainted? Where is she? She was your companion and you just left her? No, we haven’t moved very far; she can’t be far away! With how foul-smelling she is, nothing would possibly go near her.’

“Huh? … Ah! Hey, for your information, this is Ophelia.”

“Eh? She is…? What happened to her!!, and the disgusting smell?”

Yes, already seemed strange to me; well, if I think about it, it would be even stranger to immediately think that a stinky ball of hair could be the beautiful woman on my shoulders.

“Well, she found a rare flower yesterday on the way. She said it was poisonous, tried it, and the smell went away; since she didn’t smell, she fixed herself up a bit… Anyway, do you need anything? Or is it an order from your faction leader?”

“No! It has nothing to do with our leader… I’m just her friend; I wanted to ask her about a personal matter, but that can wait. I’ll come back later, when she’s conscious.”

“Oh, really? Well, I’ll tell her you came… What’s your name?”

“Fatima, she’ll know why I came to see her.”

“Really? Didn’t you just say it was something personal? How would she know that…”

“Ahem! It’s something between her and me. Nosy men are not very welcome. Anyway, just tell her I came by.”

“Yes, bye.”

I said goodbye with a neutral expression, as if I didn’t care much about her business, but in fact I am now more than interested; and my attempt to prolong it even by breaking my cover failed.

I really wanted to keep talking because that woman — Fatima — no, whoever she was, since she didn’t give me her real name, basically lied about everything she said, including when she denied that it was an order from her faction leader.

’Qetesh! Help me see if Ophelia is under any contract.’

[[…]]

’If you don’t, I’ll start actively looking for a way to give you a body; I think I can get some good stuff out of Rosy.’

[[Tsk! Bastard, instead of fucking so much, you should learn to use your skills better.]]

’Hey, the guardian of lust is scolding me for feeling lust?’

[[Yours is a different concept altogether, you disgusting bastard, tsk. Fine, just activate the eyes of lust…]]

’You know, it’s never pleasant talking to you, but I know you only say things like that to piss me off because you can’t corrupt and manipulate me.’

[[No; honestly, I don’t care about that anymore. What I always say to you is my most honest thought about how disgusting you are: disgusting scum.]]

’Tsk? I really don’t know what the problem is. Honestly, even though I know I’m not a good person, I don’t think I’m that bad. Well, the judgement of someone who dedicates themselves to corrupting others and making their users do horrible things isn’t really reliable. Oh! So does the opposite mean I’m good? I see.’

[[You’re not a disgusting bastard; from any perspective, if you manage to obtain a legacy of virtue, they’ll tell you the same thing and even…]]

’Enough, I get it. I’m not going to argue useless things with you. Whatever: I’ve already activated it; do your thing.

[[I don’t find it pleasant to talk to you either. Well, I see she has three contracts, one being influenced by divinity.]]

’Oh, a contract made by a blessed one? Can you tell me which divinity?’

[[Damn!, you’re demanding; and unless you improve your skill one more rank, I can’t know that for sure… but from how strong the bond is, I can only say that it’s a very powerful deity. It’s a god at the height of its authority; it’s also more rooted in the body than the soul, and the consequences of breaking it are being drained of all your vitality.]]

’Oh! Well, that limits the options a bit; even so, there’s still more than one…’

What he said helps, but there are still many candidates. Contracts are basically a type of magical oath with real consequences.

Here, where the world responds to the call or will to create magic, it can also act as a witness and supervisor to ensure that things are fulfilled: it is a law of this world.

Now, if the contract is weak, or you have the right methods, or even if your strength is far superior to that of the person who created it, it can be broken, since the world is a lax and unconscious entity and does not care if you break it if you are capable, although it is never an easy thing to do.

But divine contracts are not like that. Divine contracts are made by people with a blessing; for those contracts, the effect of the blessing itself does not matter so much: what matters is that the blessing connects to a god.

When the contract is written, the person involves the divinity of some god, immediately making them the supervisor.

And they are not disinterested: the divinity with which it was made ensures that it is fulfilled.

Therefore, even if the person who made the contract has an inherited blessing and not a given one, and someone breaks it, they would make sure to punish them; even if they have no context, or if from their point of view they are just ants doing silly things.

Given or not, it is their divinity and will not be disobeyed or questioned, much less by ants.

That is why, when a contract is signed with the divine, there is no turning back: there are only three ways to break it, apart from the normal way where both parties agree to undo it.

One, you receive help from a divinity that surpasses the one who signed the contract — a difficult thing, as it would consume a lot of karma and be a high price for the god who helps, not to mention that it would antagonise the god who oversees the contract.

The second is that the god who possesses the divinity with which the contract was made wants to break it, but those proud companions do not do so even though it harms them, as it is a kind of dishonour and would make them the laughing stock of the gods.

And finally, the fourteen legacies; apart from that, I know of no other methods.

Anyone with a blessing and the right method can do them — even me. With the peculiarity of Aeloria’s blessing, I believe that one of the worst punishments I can impose is to cleanse someone’s soul from this world, which is equivalent to killing them.

That’s how contracts are: even the most harmless divinities will have consequences; the gods must maintain the balance between worship and fear.

But I haven’t done any because that would bring Aeloria closer. The fact that she oversees the contract means creating more opportunities to understand my environment; I can use the protection, but it’s not pleasant to have her around, nor her lackeys—one is enough.

In the end, with so many people blessed in the age of the gods, even if not everyone knows how to make contracts, or those who do know have no reason to make them, there will always be one or two in almost every market to be bought.

She, as an alchemist, may have more than one job that requires confidentiality, and as someone who is also very skilled with poisons, she may have done a job that she did not want anyone to find out about under any circumstances, and they made her sign it.

Even so, given how expensive contracts under a powerful deity are, who would use someone so good just for confidentiality, unless it was the person themselves who had created it?

I thought about everything Qetesh said, and a possibility occurred to me, though I still wasn’t sure. I looked at the still unconscious—and hopefully not comatose—Ophelia.

’pretty Ophelia, don’t tell me you’re involved in strange things; I would be very disappointed if that were the case.’

It seems that things have started to move and there are more aspects that I need to take into account.

I needed to be mentally prepared, even to eliminate the one who had caught my interest.

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