Episode 4: It Was Hell
“From now on, we just have to check.”
The duke smiled cruelly as he stroked the Irves crest engraved on his gold cufflinks. The iron bars opened, and a scarred man roughly lifted Ranael’s leg. With a sharp clank, shackles snapped shut.
“Ah! What are you doing?!”
Ranael fought back fiercely, but it was useless. Rough hands gripped her thin wrists and forced her down onto the floor. She kicked wildly, but the shackles only tore at her ankles, leaving wounds behind.
“Check first if she has a spirit stone.”
“She’s wearing a necklace.”
The man roughly pulled up her thin nightdress and searched her body before answering. The necklace with the blue gem was ripped off her neck in a single motion, scraping her skin as it went.
Ranael was a contractor of the Spirit King, so she did not need a spirit stone. Still, to pretend to be an ordinary spirit mage, she always carried one. That necklace was also a gift from her father, filled with his spirit power before he disappeared.
In an instant, only her underwear remained, but she felt no shame. There was only fear.
“And the second one?”
“No! Erna! Stop! Don’t!”
The man turned and fastened shackles onto Erna’s trembling legs as well, checking for a spirit stone. She must have been too noisy, because he immediately covered her mouth. Erna could only make muffled choking sounds.
“She has nothing.”
“Then drag out the first one and check properly.”
With Ranael’s screams and Erna’s sobs as background noise, the duke hummed cheerfully. His black boots turned with a sharp tap.
He suddenly stopped humming, clapped his hands as if he had thought of something fun, and looked down at Ranael, who was being dragged away by the wrist.
His blue eyes flashed coldly.
“Oh, did you greet your father properly, after meeting him again?”
Ranael and Erna did not understand his words and only stared with wide eyes. Seeing that, the duke burst into loud laughter and walked down the corridor.
Ranael was dragged along. Her body hit the stone floor again and again, leaving small cuts, but she felt no pain. As she was pulled away, she saw Erna beyond the bars, and beside her, a skeleton leaning against the wall.
Only then did pain crash into her head like a blunt weapon.
“Aaaah! Dad! Aaah! You bastards! You monsters! Aaaah!”
Ranael’s furious scream echoed behind the duke’s laughter.
Her father had disappeared ten years ago. She had stayed in the village at the edge of the Forest of Monsters for four years, waiting for him to return.
But no matter how long she waited, he never came back.
Four years later, she made a contract with Nahar, the spirit who had once belonged to her father. She asked about her father’s whereabouts, but even Nahar said he had last seen him in the Forest of Monsters and had never been summoned again.
After a long time, she finally accepted her father’s death, and her mother and sister left the village. Her father could never return to them.
“So Father was dragged back into hell, after barely escaping it.”
Tears of rage welled up in Ranael’s eyes.
To die in a place like this. To die in this cold place where sunlight and wind never reached. His body was not even buried, never returning to the earth, left behind just as it was. Even in death, he was trapped here.
“Aaaah!”
Erna finally understood the duke’s words and began screaming sharply as well.
It was hell.
Dragged outside, icy air that had not yet become spring rushed deep into Ranael’s lungs. It was a bright, moonlit night. The path to the lake was covered in a thin layer of snow, shining white.
The place they had been imprisoned in was a black, two story house. Her mother had told her about it before.
The black house where her father, Seran, had been locked up for five years, starting from the year he turned fifteen. Seran should have been Seran Nahar Irves. But people called him the filthy bastard, Seran.
The Ersen Empire was founded by four first spirit mages who had contracted with the Spirit King. Ephelt of fire, Genoitz of earth, Shaia of wind, and Irves of water.
Even when the evil dragon shook and ruined the world, the spirits could not directly interfere in worldly affairs. When even the spirit realm was threatened after the human realm, the spirits chose to fight through humans by forming contracts with them.
The four first spirit mages sealed the evil dragon using the power of the Spirit King. After that, the Ersen Empire was established. Ephelt became the first emperor, and the other three became dukes who supported the empire.
The oath those four made when they first contracted with the Spirit King became the three rules of spirit mages.
First, never take a human life using spirit power.
Second, the contractor of the Spirit King must be a direct descendant of the first spirit mages, only one per generation, chosen by the Spirit King before adulthood.
Third, spirit mages other than the contractor must possess a spirit stone infused with the contractor’s power to use even part of a spirit’s strength.
The imperial family and the three ducal houses held overwhelming power. Outside those four families, it was extremely rare to be born with affinity for spirits at all.
Even if someone had spirit affinity, without receiving a spirit stone from the Spirit King’s contractor, they could not become a spirit mage. Their power knew no bounds.
That was why everyone was horrified when Seran, the hidden bastard of Irves, was chosen by Nahar, the Water Spirit King. It was a disgrace to the family, a filthy secret that could never be revealed.
They remembered that spirits could not use their power inside the body of an evil dragon. Using the bones and skin of the sealed evil dragon, they built the black house by the lake in the Irves duchy. Seran was imprisoned there.
Jeinen Nahar Irves, the noble second name given only to the Spirit King’s contractor, was taken by his half brother. Because the filthy bastard Seran was not even allowed to be Irves.
That great contractor of the Spirit King spent five years trapped in the black house, unable to even summon his own spirit, forced only to create spirit stones. That was until the maid Dian, who brought him food, pitied him and eventually fell in love with him.
After Dian helped Seran escape the black house, they used Nahar’s power to flee across the empire, avoiding Irves.
Nahar, who had contracted with Seran, took the form of a blue bird.
Seran wanted to fly freely anywhere. That short happiness was easily crushed again. He fell into Irves’s trap and was captured once more, locked in the underground prison of the black house.
Contracts with the Spirit King usually happened between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Even if the previous contractor was still alive, a new contract was usually formed before the next candidate reached adulthood.
As soon as his only daughter, Raphiana, turned fourteen, Duke Jeinen announced that she had contracted with Nahar. He could not lose Nahar again.
Anyone of the current generation with spirit affinity and direct blood ties was hunted down and killed. They believed Raphiana was the only spirit mage of Irves blood left.
But contrary to expectations, the contract never happened, even as time passed. Growing anxious, Duke Jeinen became obsessed with the idea that it was because Seran was still alive, even though he knew it made no sense.
Because of that filthy bastard, Jeinen starved Seran to death.
Even then, Nahar did not appear. Time passed as if nothing had happened, and Raphiana turned twenty without becoming a contractor. The duke descended into madness.
They could not lose the power of the water spirit. The glory, power, and praise they were meant to possess. All of it was at risk because of the impurity mixed into noble Irves.
They hunted down all water spirit mages and finally found the remnants left behind by that filthy bastard. One of these two must be the Spirit King’s contractor.
They only needed to find them and lock them in the black house. It was unfortunate that Raphiana could not have Nahar, but even without a contract, Jeinen carried the name Nahar. His daughter would as well.
At last, the duke felt relieved. It was a refreshing night that made him smile without effort.
The late winter wind stung his face. White breath froze in the air. He wrapped himself in a fur cloak handed to him by one of the knights.
A bonfire burned by the lakeside. Cold winter moonlight poured down over the dark blue lake.
Too many people could not learn of the family’s disgrace. Only two knights, completely under the duke’s control, stood by the lake.
The two knights tied Ranael with ropes and forced her to kneel beside the bonfire. The crackling flames reminded her of the happy moments she had spent with Erna in the cabin.
“Sister, try it. It’s good.”
Erna, handing her a steaming potato. Warm firelight. The flames flickered, and Ranael felt even more miserable.
For a moment, she considered calling her spirit, Nahar. The lake was right there. If she threw herself in, she could escape with Nahar’s help.
But she had to escape with Erna. Erna was still in the black house.
“You dogs.”
Instead of calling Nahar, Ranael quietly spat out one of the few curses she knew. Her teeth trembled at the duke’s cruel, calculated nature.
Even though Ranael was a contractor of the Spirit King, capable of causing natural disasters, as long as Erna was held hostage, she was under his heel. She could do nothing.
Then she could never let them discover that she was the Spirit King’s contractor. If they did, she would be locked in the black house like her father, never seeing sunlight until she died. Erna would be killed immediately.
Her thoughts would not come together. She could not imagine what would happen to her next. She desperately tried to think of a way for both of them to survive, but no path appeared, and everything went dark before her eyes.
