“A subordinate of a noble.”

“No.”

“An Artificer?”

“Incorrect.”

“Hmm… ah. I’ve got it. You were an alchemist.”

Lucille glanced up from the pages in her hands to give her aide a raised eyebrow. “Vincent, have I ever brewed a single potion or elixir in front of you?”

“No, but…” The silver-haired man frowned and leaned back on the opposite couch with his arms crossed. “Not an alchemist then… I’m struggling to come up with ideas besides a mercenary and member of the Athenaeum, but you said you didn’t return to those jobs…”

She smirked and didn’t reply as she continued to do her work as Aurelian Commission Head. Vincent was attempting to make her reveal what occupation she held besides the ones she had mentioned to both him and Annaliese. There was a large part of her past, notably the last 150 years of her life, that she hadn’t discussed with either of them.

“Not to say that I can’t brew a potion,” she replied calmly. “But I’m not an alchemist by any official means.”

“Even able to brew potions… you’re a strange individual, Lucille.” Vincent rubbed his chin, seemingly stuck. “You have so much knowledge so you must’ve spent a great deal of time researching, but in what occupation I can’t seem to work out. I wonder why you of all people returned to the past, as you say…” He paused as a thought he had yet to consider struck him. “Why did you return to the past, Lucy? …you didn’t do it through a spell, did you?”

Lucy rolled her eyes. “Anyone who could cast a spell capable of time travel wouldn’t be human, Vincent. Simply put, I don’t know how I returned to the past – or at least to a timeline set in the past. I just know it happened at the moment of my death.”

“In a way that affected Scytale too, so it had something to do with your soul attack… or your bond with him,” he pointed out.

“Possibly. But I wouldn’t know how.” She continued reading her work and pointedly ignored looking at her aide any longer, showing she had no intention of continuing to discuss it. He sighed and leaned back when a servant of the floor opened the door of the living room and bowed to them.

“I have a letter from Sir Rouzet, Commission Head, Sire Evisenhardt,” the girl announced respectfully.

Adjusting his half-moon glasses, Vincent took the letter and opened it up as the servant left the room. He placed a hand on his chin as he pondered the contents. “It appears Jacques has managed to arrange a meeting with the leaders of his future merchant union, but he wants me to be present for the discussion. It’s good to see he’s managed to come this far already without our aid.”

Lucy looked up. “Will you be accepting his request?”

Vincent nodded and pocketed the letter. “I should meet up with the merchants eventually, and there’s no time better than the present. I’ll visit him when I make my rounds to the Counties during these next few days.”

“Ah. There was that.”

“Yes, I’ll be away from the Commission for a couple of days.” He stood up and grabbed his coat off the back of the couch and then turned to her. “You need to get around to visiting the four Counties as well.”

She nodded. “After the external debut, as I told them last time we met.”

Vincent nodded back and walked towards the door. “Good. Anyway, Lucille, I want to return home to prepare for my trip. I stayed to see Miss Verdon and her brother off, but I should get going.”

Lucy waved goodbye. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

He dipped his head to her. “You too.”

She watched with a cheery smile as he closed the door and left. She waited patiently for him to gather the documents he needed to bring from her study and check in with Caius and a few of the other managers in charge of his plans for the debut.

As soon as he took his first step out the front door she sprang up and dashed to her bedroom to change. Her cane remained in its position on her bed while she grabbed her trench coat and walked back out at a brisk pace. She picked a route that avoided the staff members and the only person she ran into happened to be her winged bond.

Scytale, in all his extreme boredom that had formed as soon as Annaliese left after her five-day stay, was hurtling down the long corridors of the Commission with his wings tucked close to his sides.

“Wheeeee- oh, wait! Lucy- ow!”

He noticed her quick speed and tried to change his path but ended up ramming into the doorframe between them. He shook his head to get rid of the headache and flapped his wings as he flew in front of her.

“Where are you going? In your Earth outfit as well,” he asked with confusion.

She waved the black envelope she had in her grasp in front of him. “Visiting Lucius. I want to take the chance now that Vincent is gone.” She raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to finally come meet him?”

Scytale gazed blankly at her for all of two seconds before whirling around and shooting down the hallway again. “Bye, see you next year! Or maybe never!”

She narrowed her eyes as he flew off and cupped her hands around her mouth. “I don’t see any Sanctity Caladrius here! Only a chicken!”

“Hey!”

Lucy smirked and took the quickest route to an uninhabited side exit of the Headquarters. When she was finally outside, she walked down a few streets to access the nearest teleportation array dome. Then she lined up and waited normally, just to avoid drawing attention.

The magical signboard above flashed with a list of planes that could be accessed at different times. As Lucille was heading to a Minor Kingdom, she needed to visit one of the Major planes first and then she could locate a teleportation array to one of the 108 Minor Kingdoms.

It’s a good thing Vincent would’ve used his noble status to bypass the line or else he might’ve seen me here. I don’t think he would’ve taken the idea of me casually visiting a Paragon Anomaly very well.

…

The realm of Tartarus was known for its unusual residences with paradoxical natures, existences capable of utilising ‘death’ mana, the opposite of the elemental mana used by most mortals in the Mystical Realm. It was also the only realm known for being nearly entirely composed of people with souls from other realms. The only people truly native to the realm were the shades, phantoms and wraiths that were of the ‘death race’ just like the mysterious individual known as the Judge of Tartarus. Not undead because they never had souls from the other realms, to begin with, yet composed entirely of the energy of death, they were an abnormality.

Often the strongest members of the death race would go on to become Vigils or ‘Wardens’ of Tartarus, responsible for being the people of authority in the different levels of Tartarus known as ‘Sectors’. Tartarus was, as the name suggested, a prison for the worst undead to be born from souls of the Mystical Realm.

Some of the undead who did not show hostile and violent traits to the living, but were 'merely' extremely powerful and ancient, were offered to join Tartarus’s ‘Court’, a governing force containing the most powerful ninety-nine individuals within the realm of undead. Every single one of them had myths and tales of them spoken about in the Mystical Realm, of their lives before they became undead and afterwards. Yet they all showed complete and utter subservience to their supreme ruler, whom they considered wise and knowledgeable beyond all doubt.

But while no concrete tales about the Judge of Tartarus existed, and the Mystical Realm only knew of his existence due to the words of the death race and tales the ninety-nine brought back to the realm of magic, this figure delighted in spending his time wandering the Mystical Realm and learning about the lives of the mortals, who he would never completely understand but continually entered his realm whenever they died.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

He watched empires rise and fall through the ages, with possibly many empires on par or even greater in strength than the Eternal Empire existing and being destroyed by the cataclysms that were wrought upon them. The Judge of Tartarus could be considered the one individual most highly regarded by mortals because of his knowledge of them, but the one person who would forever never understand them because he was never from the world of the living, to begin with.

That individual was cooking Lucy lunch in his kitchen.

“Miss Lucille, would you prefer to have one egg or two with your meal?” Lucius called out.

They were in his section of the manor, in his sitting room that bordered the kitchen. Lucius was behind the kitchen countertop and wasn’t wearing his vest. His sleeves were rolled up and plates were spread out in front of him. He seemed to be enjoying himself as he cooked, but Lucius could be described as happy all the time, so Lucy didn’t know if cooking had anything to do with it.

“I still don’t know what you’re making me, but… one egg is fine,” she replied with a smile.

“One egg… I see…” Lucius turned back around to pick an egg up from the basket on the bench behind him. He whistled as he returned to making whatever it was that he planned for their lunch.

Lucille stayed silent and continued drinking the tea Lucius had offered her. They were alone, save for the one little girl with brown hair and lavender clothes sitting on the carpeted floor in front of her. It was the little girl that had been sleeping in the sitting room Lucius had brought Lucy to the last time she had been at the manor.

“Uncle Lucius, I want two eggs, please,” the girl asked. She was busy drawing on a piece of paper with thick coloured pencils. Even Lucy, who could see what she was drawing with her perception field, had no idea what the little girl was trying to depict.

“Mabel, I don’t recall saying I’d make your lunch too,” Lucius said with a wry voice. “You should go eat with the others in the dining hall.”

“But that second plate is mine, isn’t it?” Mabel pointed at the plate in question.

Lucius smiled and shook his head. “You’re too perceptive. Oh well, two eggs it is.”

He grabbed the two eggs and added them to a pot of boiling water. After a few minutes, he was finished and placed two dishes on the table in front of Lucille’s couch – one in front of Lucy, and another on the opposite side for the girl to sit at.

Mabel stood up with her drawing in hand and sat down on the high-backed chair opposite Lucy. Lucius sat down in the armchair between them both. “Please enjoy. I haven’t had the chance to cook for someone in a… while.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “You don’t intend to eat?”

Lucius smiled and gave her a light shrug. “I’m sure you’re aware, but I don’t require any sustenance. Don’t worry, I gain enough enjoyment out of having others eat my meals.”

“With this young lady here, I don’t think you’d have to worry about that, Director Farrow,” Lucy replied with a smirk.

“Yes, well…” Lucius looked at Mabel’s picture. “What is that you have drawn, dear Mabel?”

The brown-haired girl, with her mouth stuffed full of food, pointed at Lucy. “It’s her.”

Lucius raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

Mabel slipped off her chair and walked around the table to hand the picture to Lucy. Lucille took it off her and studied it.

On one side of the page was a drawing of what looked like a group of three kids, circles above their heads filled with colourful squiggles and abstract shapes. On the other side, Lucy could only guess was her, because the person drawn had been coloured in with only black pencil. Her fringe and long hair were drawn in a fashion that made her look as if it was made of spiky black straw. One purple eye could be seen while the other side of her face had no features. She had no circle above her head.

Mabel pointed at Lucy’s mask. “I don’t know what’s under that so I couldn’t draw anything.”

“This?” Lucille took off her mask to show the girl her golden eye. “My eye’s a different colour. That’s all.” She noticed Lucius was watching her with interest and she pointed at it for him. “Just out of curiosity… you wouldn’t know what this is, would you?”

Lucius smiled widely. “My apologies, but I’m clueless in this matter. It seems you are ever more the peculiarity, Miss Lucille.”

Lucy stared at him.

Even he doesn’t know? There goes my theory of this ‘Shard of Totality’ being a realm fragment…

“Ah, but even if I don’t know what the foreign object in your eye is, you shouldn’t be too surprised,” Lucius added. “A single realm is vast, and this Tower has many of them. I find myself learning more each day. However, returning to the topic at hand…” He gestured to the girl who had returned to her chair to continue stuffing her face. “Mabel, would you mind explaining that picture to us both? Otherwise, I fear my guest might end up leaving here feeling rather perplexed.”

“These are normal people,” the girl stated blandly as she pointed to the drawn trio with circles above their heads. “That’s what their dreams look like. It floats around inside of them and makes them colourful.” Mabel pointed at Lucy. “You don’t have a circle. Some people don’t have a lot inside their circles. Adults are like that. Uncle Lucius is like that. But you don’t have a circle at all. You’re weird.”

Lucius frowned. “Don’t be rude, Mabel.”

“Hmm…” Lucille observed the girl with interest. “It seems you have a very high affinity for the dream subset of illusion magic, Miss Mabel. Do you know why I don’t have any circle above my head?”

Mabel screwed up her button nose as she tried to think about it. “You don’t know how to dream?” she concluded.

“In my entire life, I’ve never dreamt once,” Lucy stated calmly. She pushed the picture back across the table to the little girl. “I’m slightly jealous. Whenever I’ve tried to cast dream magic it’s never worked. You could become an impressive illusion mage in the future.”

Mabel seemed to think hard about it. “Will I get to sleep a lot so I can dream?”

Lucille huffed a laugh. “Possibly. You might be able to cast spells on yourself so you can dream more.”

The girl nodded thoughtfully and then sat down on the floor next to her pencils.

“Mabel, why don’t you take your coloured pencils and paper outside with the others?” Lucius suggested. “I want to talk to Miss Lucille for a moment.”

“Mm… okay.” The girl in the lavender dress stood up with pencils and paper in hand and then walked up to Lucy. She stared at Lucille for a second and then turned to Lucius. “Is she just called Lucille? Will she come here a lot?”

“It depends on Miss Lucille,” Lucius said. “And Miss Lucille introduced herself as only Lucille, so that is what I’ll call her unless things change.”

Lucy propped her chin up with her elbow on the table. “You can call me Lucy if you want, Mabel.”

The girl narrowed her eyes at Lucy. “Then why doesn’t Uncle Lucius call you Lucy too?”

Lucy gained a slight grin as she raised her fork and pointed at him. “Director Farrow can call me Lucy too if he wants.”

“Ah, but that wouldn’t be fair now, would it?” Lucius said with a smirk. “You still call me Director Farrow, so if I were to call you by a nickname, then you must at least refer to me by my first name.”

Lucy sighed and leaned back with her arms crossed, a smile on her face. “Fine. I’ll call you Lucius.”

Lucius nodded with satisfaction while Mabel looked between them. “I changed my mind. Uncle Lucius is just as weird as you.”

Lucius raised an eyebrow at the girl and shooed her off. “Run along now and continue drawing, or go play with the others. I don’t mind a visit now and then, but you shouldn’t pester me when I have a guest.”

Mabel stuck her tongue out at him and ran off like he said, shutting the door behind her. They were left alone in silence for a couple of seconds before Lucius tilted his head at her. “Now, while I did want this to be a pleasant meeting between us today, I do have several things to discuss. First and foremost would be… the Heretic item from the Dusky Undercroft Dungeon of Synadis. I’ve been informed you still have it.” His expression grew slightly serious. “If so, would you please pass it to me?”

Lucille nodded and opened her dimensional bag. Without reaching her hands inside, she used her spiritual energy to lift the Infested Sceptre of Weeping Stone out of the bag. It floated near Lucius, who stood up and calmly picked it up.

The cold, bitter mist of death mana drifted out of his palms as it encompassed the rod. The monstrous sceptre let out a sound akin to a freakish scream as it crumbled into harmless, grey dust. The dust fell to the ground and was then blown under the door cracks by a wind that seemingly appeared from nowhere.

Lucius dusted his palms with a satisfied smile. “There. One less Heretic abomination in the realms. Ah.” He raised a finger. “Not to say that I didn’t believe you would adequately destroy this… sceptre, Lucille, but as a wielder of death mana I am the best solution for permanently erasing a Heretic item.”

Lucy looked down at the floor where no traces of the disgusting weapon remained. “I’m always awed by the ease death mana can destroy something like that.”

“Yes, well, death is the antithesis of all life, whether it be twisted life or not.” Lucius sat back down in his armchair and crossed one leg over the other, his hands resting on his lap. “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that all the Heretic items at the event you infiltrated have been destroyed too, and any Hosts at that event killed.”

“None of them were capable of being saved?” she asked solemnly.

Lucius gave her a dark smile. “I’m no saviour of men, Lucille. A Heretic abomination is an abomination, whether the were former mortals or other monstrosities. However…” He looked to the side and snapped his fingers, a roll of what looked like a newspaper appearing in his hand with a brief fog of death mana. “The three Hosts that were there at that event, including the wielder of the draconic Heretical blade, were all criminals, or so I’m told. Particularly unpleasant kinds. Don’t fret that my Formless gave them an unworthy death.”

He opened up the newspaper and passed it to her. “Here. I believe you may find this interesting.”

Lucy, very curious that Lucius had decided to pass her a newspaper of all things, curiously took it and scanned the page. She instantly spotted what he wanted to show her. “Oh?”

“Quite curious, isn’t it?” Lucius said with a smile. “That a clear image of the Aurelian Commission Head is printed on the front of a newspaper being spread in a Minor Kingdom. If this were a newspaper from the Gilded Dome plane, then perhaps I wouldn’t give it heed, but…”

“Someone has purposely been spreading my appearance around in a Minor Kingdom instead of the Major Kingdoms or Aeternus plane,” she mused. “An attempt to increase the popularity and influence of their own news agency, or possibly something more sinister…” She glanced at Lucius. “You wouldn’t happen to know who is behind this, would you?”

Lucius smirked and Lucy blinked. Then she shook her head wryly as she realised just how ridiculous her statement sounded. “Never mind. Of course you would know who’s behind this. And if you’re warning me about this, then it’s something political in nature. What I mean to ask is if you are willing to tell me who is behind this?”

“Hmm.” He rested his chin on his hand. “Would it interest you to know that a force of the Heavenly Realm is behind this?”

Lucille stared at him. “The Heavenly Realm? That is… very interesting, yes. Thank you for that.” She frowned and looked down at the newspaper. “…Heavenly Realm politics so soon?”

Lucius leaned back in his armchair and closed his eyes. “Do you wish to know more?”

“…no, I wouldn’t want to trouble you more about this,” she replied with a smile. “I’ll accept the help you’ve offered so far, but I won’t take any more. Thank you, however.”

“I see. And here I thought I would have a chance to repay you for what you did for us,” he said with a sigh.

Lucy raised an eyebrow. “Repay me? I told you about the Ducal Prince to repay you.”

“You must be lying, because I don’t remember anything,” he responded teasingly. “I’m quite proud of my memory, I’ll have you know. If I don’t recall it then it must have simply not happened.”

She tilted her head. “Lucius, if that logic applied to real life then many things would’ve ‘simply not happened’.”

He gave her a slight grin. “True. But that is not really your point, is it? And besides, if we’ve all ‘returned’ then any debts you owe people must have been erased too.” He twirled a finger in the air. “New beginnings, and all that.”

“If I begin to believe everything that has formerly happened has no more meaning, then I might find myself going insane.” Lucy glanced up at the ceiling. “Lucius, do you know what a ‘distorter’ is?”

He gave her a curious look. “I’m not sure I do, no. A distorter could mean many things. Someone with political machinations, a person who twists words… even the Sages of the Citadel have often been called the distorters of Fate. But if you’re talking about a person or existence that has the title of ‘distorter’, then I’ll have to claim that I don’t know.”

Lucy blinked and straightened up to give him an odd look.

Lucius hummed and raised an eyebrow when he saw her reaction. “I’ll take it that was not the response you were expecting?”

“Simply put, no, it wasn’t.” Lucy turned to face him slightly. “You were the one who told me what a ‘distorter’ was anyway. Or at least insinuated it to me.”

“…I see. Then I can draw several conclusions.” He stood up, rolled down his sleeves and walked over to the kitchen bench to pull his vest back on. “I must’ve discovered what this ‘distorter’ existence was between the present equivalent and whenever it was that I told you this and discovered this by happenstance… or it was instinctual knowledge that came to me when I located this ‘distorter’.”

Lucy stood up from her chair. “Instinctual?” she asked curiously.

He glanced at her and smiled. “It sounds like something that would come out of the mouth of a magical beast, but it is surprisingly common for me as a ‘higher race’. Some things are just discovered in a way that the lower races would never understand.”

He gestured to the door of the sitting room. “But how about we take a walk in the manor’s gardens? I want to see how well the kids have learnt to care for my plants.”

“Let’s do that.” She followed him over to the door and he politely let her through first. Then she followed beside him as he led her to the garden entrance. “Have they accustomed themselves to the new location well?”

Lucius gave her a strange smile, making her realise something. “They don’t know anything has changed, do they?”

“I chose a forest very similar to our past home,” he replied casually. “I’ve grown to enjoy the serenity of the woods.”

They walked up to the back door to the garden, but Lucius stopped just before the door and turned to her. “Now, Lucille, you might not think much of what you did by warning me,” he began seriously, “But I truly want to do… something to make up for it. So I must ask: would you like me to do something about that?” And he pointed at her left hand.

Lucy looked down at the hand that the mark of her demonic contract was branded on and she glanced back up and smiled. “No, I’ll be fine. This was my own decision. And…” With a snap of her fingers, white-blue translucent chains manifested around her limbs, revealing the System Contract she was bound by. “It will make things complicated,” she replied with a smirk.

Lucius blinked but smiled and turned back around. He pushed the two doors open. “Well, if that’s your decision. But if you change your mind, I’m willing to remove it. Both contracts.”