Lord Sevolad Vera, ruling noble of the City of Solvberg, was furious.

That almost never happened. Few things were capable of making him lose his cool, and his rare displays of anger were mostly acts he put on for dramatic effect. In fact, he couldn’t remember when was the last time he had been this angry, if he ever had been.

Normally, the Lord of Solvberg was a strong advocate for level-headedness when it came to making decisions. This was especially important for people as powerful as him, both in the political sense as the magical sense. [Mana] was inherently linked to thoughts and emotions, and his was violently lashing out at his surroundings right now. Already the furniture and walls around him were starting to show cracks and discoloured spots, despite having been made to be resistant against metaphysical erosion. Then again, he was quite a bit stronger than those of his rank were supposed to be, a fact he was unwilling to reveal to anyone but his most trusted allies and servants.

Yet, he was now considering revealing it to the very person responsible for his current unrest. He chuckled mirthlessly at the thought.

*snap*

One of his pens apparently couldn’t endure the pressure anymore, and had split roughly in half. He wasn’t even holding the pen, he was just idly looking at it and then briefly pictured himself crushing the pen in anger.

“That won’t do”, he thought out loud.

The lord forced himself to break away from his inner turmoil, shaking his head. He then closed his eyes, took a slow and deep breath, held it in for a dozen seconds, and then let it out equally slowly.

After regaining a semblance of calm and reining in his [Aura], he finally made up his mind.

“Frankly, there isn’t much to hesitate about. It’s just logic.

Killing her isn’t an option, she’s just a foolish and clumsy brat, she doesn’t deserve it.

Letting her go also isn’t an option, especially not without punishment, and I can’t think of any meaningful punishment for this situation.

Keeping her locked up in a jail for the rest of her life is arguably worse than death. And that’s assuming it is even doable in the first place, what with her [Abilitiy].

So… yeah.”

After throwing away what was left of the pen and brushing off his desk, he took one more deep breath and sent a mana pulse to his subordinates.

Having received it, they took out the girl from the maximum-security cell she had been locked in, and brought her to the lord’s office.

While waiting, Sevolad Vera -or ‘Vol’, as he prefered to be called in private- couldn’t help but follow her aura with his mana sense, on the off-chance that she would try giving him the slip again. He highly doubted she was that foolish, but wouldn’t take the risk. He dearly hoped she wasn’t, though, as it would significantly complicate his plans.

Fortunately, the girl behaved, and was ushered into the office by his two trusted aides. This time, he was able to properly take in her appearance :

Short and thin, she had the stature of a 13 or 14 years old kid, except with slightly more chest. What little muscle she had was relatively well-toned, but still shows signs of mild malnutrition. Blueish-dark hairs, kept in a poorly-maintained bob-cut. Dark outfit, simple and practical, though too cheap for her to be a professional thief.

The lord kept looking at her silently for a while, trying to communicate just how extremely annoyed he was. She met his gaze at first but then looked away while shifting nervously. Seeing this reaction, Vol secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

(“Oh thanks Pantheos ! Still a bit defiant, but at least she has the decency of looking ashamed of herself.”)

His anger abated by a small margin, just enough that he was able to properly go through with the speech he had prepared :

“Value… is a purely subjective and circumstantial factor. Different people value different things for different reasons, which makes it difficult for me to convey the importance of the…”, Lord Sevolad Vera licked his lips there, “... treasure, that you destroyed.

For the sake of simplicity, I will try to explain it in terms of money, as that is a notion you should be familiar with.”

A flash of annoyance crossed the girl’s eyes, but she said nothing.

“Let’s talk about wages first. A gold coin is considered roughly enough to support a commoner family for a month. Solvberg’s City Hall hires guards at a base monthly salary of 30 silver coins, with an increase of 5 silver every year for the first 10 years. Those promoted to team captain keep their previous salary plus 50 silver, and those promoted to security lieutenant get a salary of 5 gold a month. The salary of the security commander may change depending on achievements and, well, various sorts of political nonsense… but currently it is at 40 gold a month.”

The girl listened patiently. She didn’t see what the man in front of her was getting at yet, but as expected, money was a subject she couldn’t help being interested in.

“That is already pretty high, but we can go a little higher. If I am not mistaken, the guards serving at the royal castle in the Capital receive a minimum of 10 gold coins a month, and the personal guards of the royal family all have salaries in the hundreds of golds.”

The lord changed position there, crossing his arms and looking pensive.

“Let’s see…

To my knowledge, the youngest someone has ever been when promoted to personal royal guard was 26 years old. The average lifespan for people of that level is somewhere between 120 and 130 years. So, if this young royal guard served at this position for the rest of his life and without dying prematurely, he would receive, say, 200 gold every month for about 100 years.

With 7 months a year, that represents 140 000 gold coins. That’s about the limit of what one can earn during their lifespan… at least, through ’normal’ means.”

He changed position again, this time leaning forward a little and staring at the girl intently.

“Now let’s talk about liminors. Do you know what a liminor is ?”

The girl looked confused for a moment, but then shook her head slowly.

“A liminor is, to put it simply, a mystical [Artefact] capable of enhancing the scope of certain magical effects. Like most artefacts, they are sorted into ranks representing how much magic power they can withstand and make use of. It is a rather simplistic ranking system, as it neglects numerous aspects, but… oh well”, the lord shrugged.

“Rank 1 and 2 liminors are relatively common, at least among nobility. They are sold at around 5 and 20 gold coins respectively.

Rank 3 liminors are the work of experts, and can rarely be found at prices below 100 gold.

Within Felspath Kingdom, only the Holy Workshop of Arcania can reliably produce Rank 4 and 5 liminors. Rank 4 ones can be freely purchased -although at an exorbitant 1000 gold coins- but rank 5 liminors are considered tactical assets of the Kingdom, and as such only the royal family is authorised to acquire them.

As for rank 6 liminors, I do not know of any individual or organisation currently capable of making them, but I heard one was sold at a secret auction a decade ago for… was it 80 000 gold ? I think it was.”

The lord licked his lips again and took another breath before continuing :

“There are no established prices for liminors above rank 6, but going by the trend of the previous ranks, we can imagine that a rank 7 liminor would be sold for about 300 000 gold, a rank 8 for about 1 000 000 gold, and a rank 9 for about 4 000 000 gold.

That’s what you broke.”

Vol watched silently as the girl’s face went from confusion to realisation, to disbelief, to horror, to panic. This spectacle brought him some measure of consolation, although he made sure to keep his own face expressionless.

“Four. Million. Gold.

Almost 30 lifetimes’ worth of gold. That is, the lifetimes of some of the greatest fighters this Kingdom has to offer.

A small mountain of gold, reduced to nothing, just like that.”

He dispassionately snapped his fingers.

He then shook his head and, appearing to lose some of his composure, continued with a hint of pain and exasperation on his face :

“But, no, it’s not… *sigh* I don’t particularly care about money, believe it or not.

To me, money is nothing more than a tool, it only has value within the limits of what it allows me to do.

And anyway, trying to put a price on this sort of treasure doesn’t make much sense. You can’t buy a rank 9 liminor. Period. How rich you are simply doesn’t matter. Honestly, even I have no idea where it comes from or how it was created, I just know that I will likely never find another one.

As for how useful it is, I am not sure about that either. There were some heavy restrictions and costs for using it so I couldn’t afford to just test it aimlessly. But considering that a ‘mere’ rank 5 liminor is already powerful enough that the royals forbid its trade... Well, you can imagine what sort of wonders a rank 9 can bring forth.

And now it’s gone.”

The little would-be thief was now keeping her eyes glued to her feet, her previous bravado nowhere to be found. It was common knowledge that nobles cared very little for the lives of the masses. Within their territory, they were the law.

Although the one in front of her had seemed somewhat amiable when she had previously broken into his mansion, she was clear that the situation this time was incomparable. This time he had suffered a loss. An absolutely gigantic loss. Four million gold coins was a sum that she simply couldn’t comprehend.

“So… tell me… do you believe you have any way of ever repaying this debt ?”

That was precisely what she was asking herself. But the answer was obvious. There was no point saying it out loud, so neither of them bothered.

Just as the thought crossed her mind to try and make a break for it, she felt a hand calmly grasp her left shoulder. She reflexively glanced at its owner.

The woman to her left was the picture of serenity, her expression almost gentle. But despite how casual the movement had seemed, the girl could feel the unyielding strength contained in that hand, as well as the torrent of mana pouring from it. She soon realised that the latter seemed to disturb the flow of her own mana to an abnormally strong degree, so much so that she was now completely unable to activate her special ability. And this woman had started doing that as soon as she considered using it.

(“Can they read my mind ?!”), she thought.

As a matter of fact, they could. More accurately, Vol could, though not without physical contact. However, there was no need to do so, yet. The girl was simply too young and inexperienced, she had no idea how easy it was to read someone’s intentions and emotions from their aura when they didn’t keep it under control.

Plus, she was unfortunate enough to be faced against someone who had a habit of anticipating every possible outcome of any situation he might face. Obviously the girl was going to look for a way to compensate him after realising how seriously she had messed up, and obviously she was going to panic and consider running away after realising it wasn’t possible.

But he wouldn’t let her go this time, not a chance.

“From now on, you belong to me.

Understood ?”

Vol waited patiently for his newly employed servant to process his words.

Under different circumstances, he would have made sure to reassure her about her fate. But he neither had the time nor the patience here. He would let her simmer in her uncertainty for now.

“Secondly, I am actually a demon.”

This time, he had to try very hard to keep his face expressionless. He had always been fond of dropping metaphorical bombs on unprepared fools.

He wouldn’t keep her uncertain on this very sensitive subject, though.

“Before you jump to conclusions, how about hearing me out ? I believe I have already proven that I am a civilised person, so calm down and listen. I am not going to suddenly leap at you or anything of the sort.”

The girl was a shade paler now, and no longer looking at her feet, but at least she didn’t seem like she was going to start screaming or crying.

(“Good enough.”)

“I might not be a human, but I was raised by one. And the education I received put a great deal of emphasis on the importance of Life, Will, and Reason. Simply put, my ‘mother’ believed that people are defined by their ideologies, the actions resulting from their ideologies, and the impact their actions have on other living beings.

And, eh, she was an… extremely persuasive woman, to say the least.”

He allowed himself to let out an undignified chuckle. Although he paid a lot of attention to his image, he figured that ‘accidentally’ showing some emotion would help make him appear more amicable. Not that he had to fake that emotion, but someone as deeply involved in constantly controlling himself as Lord Sevolad Vera would never let any part of his inner self show unless he decided to.

“So, yes, as a demon, my instincts and impulses are a little more dangerous than regular humans’. But the amount of care and effort I put into keeping them in check is also far greater than regular humans’.

And yes, I know that most humans picture demons as barely intelligent and invariably hostile monstrosities… except, that’s actually the description of inimicos, not demons.”

Vol trailed-off there, hesitating for a second.

“I mean… technically an inimico can be considered as a type of demon, sort-of, but they’re just one type among many. Plus, going by that same logic you could also say that demons are a type of faeries. Yes, really. Although as a commoner you probably don’t know what a faery is, I would have to…”

At this point, Vol noticed that both his assistants were sending him a look that he was quite familiar with. One which translated as : “Boss, you’re getting off-track again.”

That was a bad habit of his. He tended to get easily distracted, especially on subjects he was interested in.

(“So much for flawless self-control, uh. Oh well, it’s fine. She will be one of my people anyway, and she seems rather sharp, trying to hide my flaws would be pointless.”)

Vol decided to drop the ‘Lord’ act by a notch. Only by a notch, though. He had his pride.

He coughed in his fist while straightening himself in his chair, giving him enough time to remember what he was originally talking about :

“Look, I don’t expect you to trust me already. Just… be a little patient. It’s not like you can leave anyway, you should be aware of that fact by now. So you might as well wait and watch. You will get to see for yourself whether or not I am trustworthy.

Does that sound reasonable to you ?”

It took a good 5 seconds for the girl to recover from her dizziness and gather her thoughts.

Then, unexpectedly, she spoke out :

“Are, you… are you, really, a demon ?”

Vol blinked despite himself. He suddenly realised he hadn’t heard the girl’s voice so far, including during their previous meeting. She had so stubbornly kept silent all this time that he was caught a little off guard there.

Her voice was low and hoarse, enough so that he felt there might be something wrong with her throat. She was rather quiet too, like an overly shy person who didn’t dare to speak up, which contrasted heavily with her tone and general attitude. Vol also felt that she might have some diction disorder, though that might just be because of the situation.

He smiled at her.

“Well, my original appearance is a bit larger than my current human one, so I can’t show you without damaging my suit. Mag doesn’t have that problem though.

Mag ?”

He said that last part while looking to the girl’s left, and she followed his gaze. The woman who had previously grabbed her shoulder -and released it at some point, she only now realised- calmly nodded her head.

And then her skin started turning grey. The girl blinked several times, but it wasn’t a trick of her eyes. This… ‘Mag’, who had clearly looked human a moment before was now turning into something decidedly not human.

The change wasn’t limited to her skin. Her eyes’ sclera was getting slightly greyer too, as well as more translucent. Her irises became pitch black in colour, but she thought she could occasionally see a pale red hue glowing in her pupils. Absent-mindedly, she pictured the woman’s pupils as gates leading to some mystical realm, a distant campfire burning amidst a dark mist.

Her body structure also shifted. Her ears became sharper, longer, and angled closer to her head. Her shoulders appeared to get further apart from each other, and also lower compared to her head. Something changed about her face as well, but she couldn’t pinpoint what.

Throughout the surprisingly long process, various noises echoed in the room, though she couldn’t tell which came from the woman’s clothes and which came from the woman’s flesh and bones. Eventually, a wave of ethereal energy seemed to wash over her body, giving her dark-grey skin a slight purple sheen. Furthermore, the aura surrounding her now had an unsettling quality to it, the likes of which the girl had never felt before.

(“Demon”), the girl thought, still having a hard time believing it.

‘Mag’ smiled once again. Her smile still projected an image of gentleness and serenity, yet it now felt somewhat… predatory to the girl.

She looked away and swallowed.

(“Calm down, calm down. He’s right, no use panicking, can’t ‘scape them. Might as well… wait and see. Yes. ‘t will be fine. They didn’t hurt me yet, maybe they’re fine folks actually”), the girl told herself, trying to rationalise the absurd situation she was in.

“Convinced ?”, the man said.

The girl took a breath and looked at him, then nodded.

A slight mischievous expression appeared on the man’s face. He added :

“I would like to hear you actually say it.”

The girl reflexively frowned, but then fixed her expression in a hurry. She knew she had a short temper, and tended to react aggressively whenever she felt attacked in one way or another. But offending the noble -and demon, apparently- in front of her really wouldn’t be wise right now.

She swallowed her rebellious feelings and obeyed as earnestly as she could, her voice stiff :

“Yes. You… uh, I-I mean, hum… s-sir noble, is, a demon. I believe it. Thank yo-... I thank, sir noble for, being patient, with me.”

Vol couldn’t help smiling.

(“Goodness, she is so bad at this, it’s both painful and hilarious to watch.

I guess it makes sense though. Between her apparent issues with authority, her obvious unfamiliarity with etiquette, her possible diction disorder and the intense distress caused by her situation…

Still, she seems more willing to cooperate than I expected. That’s great.”)

He had of course noticed her frown, but he didn’t particularly mind. The girl most likely grew up in a dangerous environment, and her attitude was quite common among people like her. After all, in this sort of environment, showing signs of weakness often makes you a target. Thus, these people react by hiding their weakness under a facade of aggressivity and fearlessness.

Fortunately, she was still young, so it shouldn't be too difficult for him to ‘reeducate’ her. Especially since, if his suspicions were right about her motives, she had a good heart.

Which he was about to check for himself.

“Good.

Now onto the third matter : As you might have heard, demons have some rather unusual [Affinities] compared to humans’. In my case -and although I disdain trying to put a name or classification on something as vague as an affinity- I suppose ‘[Mental Affinity]’ would be how most people would describe it.”

This time, upon hearing the term ‘mental affinity’, the girl immediately understood what he was getting at.

She clenched her fists. Having her mind read was one of her worst fears.

She could accept dying, her life didn’t hold much value in her eyes. However, there were people who needed her, people who couldn’t defend themselves, people who she cared about more than herself. She absolutely refused to put their lives in danger.

But just as he finished speaking, the man calmly raised from his chair and walked toward her. By the time she realised it, the man- no, the demon was already standing within arm’s length of her. And he was looking straight at her terrified eyes. No way she could pretend that she didn’t have something to hide. Worst of all, his expression had turned grave and unwavering.

He bluntly told her :

“I am now going to enter your mind. You do not have a say in the matter.

Normally I make sure to respect people’s mental integrity. The right to decide what does or does not enter one’s [Mental Space] is a fundamental right of all spiriant creatures, in my opinion. Not to mention that having one’s mind invaded can feel deeply disturbing and unpleasant.”

The demon narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, glaring coldly at the girl. He then said :

“However you lost that right the moment your reckless actions caused the destruction of a treasure that could have saved tens of thousands of lives, DESPITE having already been left off the hook once before.”

He straightened back up and let out a deep, exasperated sigh while grimacing. He kept going on :

“Seriously. Why me ? There are so, SO many despicable people with more money than they deserve. What did I do for you to target me specifically ? Is it because I am the City Lord, and in your eyes that automatically makes me responsible for every bad thing that takes place in the city ? Did you ever consider that, if I was really such an evil person, then stealing from me might result in me taking more money from the citizens to compensate ? Nimbos above ! I know I’m repeating myself but, I let you go did I not ? How many nobles- nay, how many people do you know would have let a captured burglar go with little more than a scolding as punishment ?!”

The girl was on the verge of crying at this point.

(“Alright, stop, that should be enough. Let’s not push her too much”), Vol reminded himself.

After staying silent for some time, he said with a gentle tone :

“Look, I understand your reluctance. You are afraid of what I might do to the people you are protecting.” The girl visibly tensed. “It’s fairly obvious. Robbing a high-noble is an extremely risky enterprise, no sane person would do so out of mere greed. It is much more likely that you’re not doing this for your own sake.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Still keeping a neutral expression, Vol put his hand on the girl’s head while adding :

“I mostly just want to make sure that you weren’t actually sent by anyone dangerous. If you acted of your own accord, then you have nothing to fear.”

She relaxed slightly, which was reassuring.

(“Time to get on with it”)

With that thought as the trigger, Vol pushed all distractions away from his awareness, focusing only on the task at hand.

The demon didn’t consider himself a dabbler in mind magic, but even for him it was never a trivial matter.

He closed his eyes.

First, he called upon all of the mana within his [Soul]’s reach, and paid close attention to the response.

Despite popular belief, there was no such thing as ‘owning mana’. What people called ‘their’ mana was simply mana that had temporarily been attuned to their soul to a degree high enough that they obtained some conscious control over it. However, this attunement was never perfect, and would keep decaying further the longer the mana stayed outside of… whatever part of the soul was responsible for it.

As Vol didn’t want to risk damaging the girl’s mind, he would only use the mana that he could control with the highest precision. He absorbed inside his soul all the mana under his influence, trusting his aides to protect him while his aura was undeployed. Then, he willed the mana to flow into a periodic pattern. Although spiritual spaces don’t follow the same dimensional rules as physical spaces, he could still make his mana follow similar principles as long as he imbued it with a clear-enough image. He visualised the flow of mana as a 3-dimensional whirlpool centered on himself, ordering each ‘drop’ of mana to revolve as fast as possible while mostly maintaining its distance to the center. The differently-attuned mana ‘drops’, originally mixed together, progressively organised themselves into a gradient. The well-attuned mana flowed swiftly and smoothly, thus drifting towards the exterior of the whirlpool. The poorly-attuned mana flowed clumsily and slowly, thus getting pushed towards the center of the whirlpool by the better-attuned one.

This was a [Skill] his mother/mentor/master had developed to filter poorly-attuned mana in her never-ending pursuit of improvement.

After a dozen seconds, he went on to the second step : Without letting up the flow, he focused on the outermost mana of the whirlpool and willed it to move toward a nearby area of his soul. The makings of this specific area were beyond both his understanding and his perception, he simply knew that whatever mana flowed through would come out with mental affinity.

While the demon kept making his best-attuned mana trickle in, he also carefully gathered the mana that came out and ‘weaved’ it into small strands. Doing so made its manipulation considerably easier, but he had to wait until after the mana was converted to mental affinity, as mana was much harder to alter once turned into [Mana Constructs].

Then, once he had accumulated enough of these strands, he anchored them to the boundaries of his mental space, which is the part of one’s soul that interacts with one’s mind. Now all that was left was to connect the other end of the strands to the girl’s mental space, and the true interrogation would finally begin.

Locating someone else’s soul was anything but simple however, as souls aren’t truly part of [Physical Reality]. For example, whether two people are separated by a few steps or by an entire country, it makes close to no difference when it comes to soul interactions. Just because someone’s mana can reach someone else’s body in the [Physical Realm] doesn’t mean it can reach their soul in the [Spiritual Realm].

Luckily, physical bodies still carry some links to their souls, obviously. Those links’ positions aren’t truly fixed, instead appearing and disappearing, even sometimes seeming to travel around one’s body. Still, some parts of the bodies are more likely than others to hold those links at any given point in time. And when it comes to spiritual links connecting to the mental space, the location was rather easy to guess : the brain.

With his hand still on the girl’s head, the demon summoned a spiritual link into his palm and extended it as far into the girl’s brain as he could. It didn’t take long for his link to overlap with one of the girl’s, causing her to yelp in surprise at the alien sensation she had suddenly experienced. That was only the beginning though.

Using the overlapping links as a bridge, the demon sent his strands of mental affinity mana to snake their way into the girl’s soul, looking for her mental space. Upon finding it, the strands all converged together and lightly pressed against its surface.

The demon opened his eyes. The girl was petrified and covered in cold sweat. This was fully expected, as what she was experiencing there felt akin to having a knife pressed directly against one’s heart. In reality, the mental space isn’t even remotely as fragile as that, but it certainly felt that way to her.

“Do you feel this ?”, asked the lord while ‘knocking’ against her mental space. “This is the barrier surrounding your mind. I need you to let me through it.

It’s very easy, all you have to do is focus on my mana and stop considering it as some harmful substance or malevolent invader. Just let it in.”

(“Bastard…”), spit the girl hatefully inside her still-unread mind. (“Saying that as if it’s nothing !”).

Though at this point, secretly throwing insults at the creature was mostly just an attempt to bolster her own courage. In truth, she was on the verge of breaking down. She had never felt so vulnerable in her entire life. She barely even dared breathing because she feared it might come out as an audible whimper.

“You do realise that I could effortlessly tear it apart if I wanted to, don’t you ?”, she heard, the voice sounding a lot more intimidating than before.

Impatiently, the man-faced monster was slowly sliding his ethereal fingers on her barrier’s surface. She shivered from her deepest core, completely failing to hide her reaction.

And that’s when Vol noticed that he was grinning viciously.

As a demon, he absolutely loved to be in a position of superiority over others, to hold their fates in his hands. Dominating this cute and rebellious brat was intoxicating. He wanted to bring her down to her knees, to make her submit completely to him. The urges were flooding through his whole being, like boiling black tar. Oh ! How he longed to wrap her in chains and torment her, over and over, in thousands of ways ! How he craved to hear her shaking pleas ! How he yearned to see her distorted face !

…But no. That wasn’t him. He refused to be a mere animal, slave to his nature. He was better than that !

(“Logic and Reason. Logic and Reason”), Vol repeated to himself like a mantra.

He quickly schooled his expression and forcefully restored the stillness of his heart. Luckily, his soon-to-be new employee hadn’t been looking at his face. Nevertheless, he needed to change his approach.

“My apologies”, Vol said, sounding embarrassed.

The change in tone was so sudden that she reflexively gazed back at him. He had a softer expression on his face, to her confusion.

He gave her an apologetic smile and continued :

“I got carried away there. I wished to clear my suspicions as quickly as possible so I could start working on the… aftermath of the situation. There is much to be done.

However, I understand that your situation isn’t exactly peaceful either, and I have personally experienced how distressing it feels to be mentally invaded.

I really shouldn’t have been so forceful with you.”

The girl was dumbfounded. She was still very distrustful, but the noble’s words had reassured her more than she wanted to admit. She had never expected that she would receive an apology from a noble, much less one she had just robbed. Frankly, it seemed even more unlikely than receiving an apology from a demon.

“Now… I wish I had a way to prove to you that I mean no harm. But the best I can do here is remark that, well, if I wanted to hurt you then I could have done so long ago, and you would have had no way to prevent it.

I know it’s not much of a proof, but it’s better than nothing, right ?”, the noble asked with a helpless smile.

He then took on a serious expression and said :

“Please, trust me for now.”

The girl fell silent for a long time.

Eventually, she gave in. She knew there was nothing else to do.

Praying to the Sea of Clouds above for the safety of her loved ones, she slowly shifted the membrane of her mental space until the foreign mana was able to pass through. Her teeth were clenched from the intense feeling of wrongness it caused her, but she was a little reassured to sense that the tendrils of mana didn’t immediately start tearing her mind apart once inside.

The man nodded and spoke :

“Thank you. I now need your help to orient myself among your thoughts and memories. All you have to do is answer a few questions as honestly as possible.

Question one : What is your name ?“

(Name)

The moment the thought appeared in her mind, the tendrils started moving. They separated into smaller strands, drifting in different directions amidst the billions of interconnected [Mental Constructs].

“Jora Thyrana”, the girl answered.

At this, the mental construct associated with her name fully activated, thrumming and rumbling in metaphysical ways that words can’t properly describe. Vol himself only had a superficial understanding of the Mental Space, but he was at least able to sense some of its alterations through his mental affinity tendrils. The construct’s activation made it ‘shine’ like a beacon to his tendrils, and it didn’t take long for them to reach it.

The tendrils started crawling over the construct and coiling around it, as if trying to grasp its entirety. They couldn’t. A mental construct actually isn’t an independant, well-delimited object. Every single construct is connected to every single other. In fact, treating them as separate objects is only something people do out of convenience, which is why specialists of the Mental Space sometimes prefer to call them ‘Conceptual Networks’.

In this case, the mental construct consisted of every concept associated with the concept of My Name, and how they were connected to each other.

Regardless, Vol didn’t need his mana tendrils to be in contact with every part of a construct, let alone all at once. His personal brand of mind-reading worked by building ‘mental fragments’ mimicking the parts that his tendrils were in contact with. Then he simply had to assemble those fragments, like a jigsaw puzzle, forming a temporary mental construct inside his own mental space. Creating a complete replica would take forever, but he only needed a few fragments here and there to get a general idea of its content.

(Name)

(...Sk-...Jor-…-ora!...J-...-irlie…-ter Jora…Pica?...Jo-...JORA…-iss Th-...sis…-rat…Jor-...-hyrana…-ttle thie-…you…-ora…-or-...-rana…Cord-...-irl…J-...-ster Jor-...-evna?...orp-...Thyran-…thi-...Jor-...Jora T-…lit-...damn bra-...ME…-hief…child?…J-...gi-...sist-...-ora…C-...-hyra?...I!...Jo-...Skjo-...-RANA!...-vely g-...Jora Thy-…-ig s-...-diana?...-ra…)

“True”, said the man with a nod.

The girl, Jora Thyrana, breathed a sigh of relief. So far it wasn’t as terrible as she had imagined.

“Question two : When you intruded into my mansion, what were your intentions ? Was it to destroy something ? To harm someone ? To spy on someone ? Or just to steal ?”

This one was trickier to determine, as sometimes stealing requires spying, destroying, and possibly even harming. Still, it only made the process slightly longer, he just had to ask a few complementary questions to help guide his mental investigations.

Vol couldn’t find anything connecting him with the concepts of Harming or Spying. Unsurprisingly, some parts of the Destroying construct did show signs of activity, in relation to the liminor. However, a little probing revealed that the activated areas were also part of other constructs such as Distress, Accidents, Regrets... In the end, only the Stealing construct contained concrete intent.

Her motives turned out to be laughably simple. In her mind, the concepts of Noble and Mark were practically chained to each other. He was a noble, therefore he was a mark. He didn’t seem to have many guards patrolling his mansion, therefore he looked like an easy mark, therefore she decided to rob him. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less.

That said, a closer look at the Noble construct showed traces of relatively serious trauma. This child’s prejudice against nobles wasn’t just the result of regular ignorance, she had clearly experienced something terrible. Her distress was rising rapidly as he explored these ‘traumatised’ parts, so he decided not to pry further. It was probably irrelevant anyway.

“Alright.

Question three : Where does your ability come from ? Is it innate ? Was it gifted to you ? Did you earn it ?”

“I… I don’t know. Got it 3 years ago, and it, uh- what was, the term…”

“Evolved ?”

“Y-yes, evolved, 2 weeks ago.”

“... True. I guess that explains why you acted differently this time compared to last time.”

Now that was problematic. Vol hadn’t even noticed she had an ability last time, as it was probably a minor stealth-related one like aura cloaking. So when she appeared this time with the power to PHASE THROUGH REALITY (apparently), he had thought that it was a brand new ability rather than an evolution. He previously believed that she had either stumbled upon some legendary treasure by chance and gained this power as a result, or had been recruited by some secret force who granted her this power so she could carry a dangerous mission, such as stealing a rank 9 liminor for instance. He simply hadn’t considered evolution as a possibility. Yet looking at Jora’s memories, that was indeed what happened.

It wasn’t necessarily bad for him, but what bothered him is that it forced him into a passive position. A treasure could be studied and exploited. A secret organisation targeting him could be investigated and retaliated against. However, an ability manifesting and evolving on its own was a tell-tale sign that ‘higher’ entities were involved, possibly divine ones.

Demon or not, he was nowhere near powerful enough to interfere with… whatever these beings were up to. Not safely, at least.

Fortunately, he wasn’t planning to be the girl’s enemy in the first place, so he would probably be fine. He hated the uncertainty, but it really couldn’t be helped there.

“Question four : Who do you steal for ?”

Jora gulped. That was it. That was the moment she had been dreading.

She remained silent, but she knew it was pointless. The questions were here to orient her mind, she didn’t actually have to answer out loud. As long as she thought of the answer, the demon would see it.

The mana threads had already surrounded the ‘area’ of her mental space that had been activated by the question. But rather than charging in immediately, Vol decided to wait until her unease had abated.

“Hey, it’s okay”, he told her. Then as he was waiting, he thought of an approach that might be less stressful for the girl. “Cordia”, he suddenly said.

Jora twitched. The mana threads inside her mental space felt a reaction from the area they were surrounding.

Cordia, deity of mercy and compassion. Traditionally, services of social care were left to her followers. Services such as orphanages.

“As expected, you’re an orphan. And apparently you steal for an orphanage. Did they ask you to ?”

“N-No !”, Jora cried in a panic, her hoarse voice cracking a bit. “I… it’s just… I wanted to, help, them. I didn’t know, what to…”

“You thought taking money from those who have too much and giving it to those who have too little would solve all of your problems, right ? So how did that work out for you ?”, the lord said, sarcasm dripping from his words.

He then sighed and, not waiting for an answer, took away his hand from her head together with his mana threads. Jora looked up in confusion, her tear-filled eyes looking for answers in the demon’s.

“I’ve learned what I needed to”, he said. “You are not a threat, nor are you rotten, that’s good enough for me. Although I am curious about your family’s identity, I am sure you wouldn’t feel at ease if I learned it, fearing that I might harm them in some way. So I won’t pry any further.”

He slowly walked back to his desk, but didn’t sit down. Instead, he took out a weirdly shaped gem from a drawer. The gem was finger-sized and mostly dark, although with rainbow-colored light reflecting from inside. It also had a bright green metallic ring around its center.

The lord put the gem to his forehead for a few seconds, then tossed it to the man who had been flanking Jora’s right side. The man put the gem to his own forehead before nodding to the lord and leaving the room.

“I just gave an order to look into the fundings of all orphanages in Solvberg. I will assume that you aren’t just a greedy idiot and that you wouldn’t be resorting to robbery unless your loved ones were in trouble. As long as that is the case, you won’t be able to settle down, right ? Then I will make sure that every orphanage in Solvberg is properly funded, that way you can focus on your work.

And, just to be clear : I am not blackmailing you there. This money will be delivered to them regardless of what you do. It’s more or less my job as City Lord, although a little gratitude would be appreciated.”

And that broke her, it seemed. Jora remained unresponsive, staring into the void, her mouth ajar. Somehow, she believed him. And she felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Or maybe from her lungs, as she now seemed to be breathing more easily than she had been in a long time.

Jora hadn’t realised how much she had been pressuring herself until just then, feeling guilty about every second she wasn’t spending on earning money, always hurrying.

Weirdly enough, a small part of her felt resentful at how easily that pompous noble had solved the issue that had been plaguing her life for so long. Overall though, she knew this was a debt she wouldn’t run away from. Not paying for that ‘liminor’ thing was something she could live with, but this was different.

(“Hopefully that should ensure her loyalty”), Vol thought. (“Let’s strike while the iron is hot !”).

“Follow me”, he said, walking to the door.

Ushered by the woman called Mag, Jora Thyrana followed after him. They returned to the hidden spiral staircase that she had taken when she was escorted to his office from her cell.

She wondered for a moment if she was being led to some suspicious room down there. She didn’t value her virginity all that much -or so she tried to convince herself of-, but she had decided a long time ago that she would tear off the face of whoever tried to treat her like some piece of meat, even if it cost her her life. Now though, she hesitated. Should she kill this guy, assuming she could ? Supposedly he didn’t know who her family was, but it wasn’t hard to find at this point.

(“Plus, what if he really takes care of them ? W’d have to see it to b’lieve it, but… if he’s serious, then…what- what shou’d I…”), Jora thought, then shook her head.

The three did descend back underground, but as they kept walking down the stairs, she became intrigued : How deep did this staircase go ?

When she broke in earlier, she first went through the ‘normal’ parts of the mansion before finding this hidden staircase by chance. She figured she might find the City Lord’s treasury if she followed this secret passageway, which she wasn’t wrong about. The size of the treasury’s floor was already a surprise, not in the sense that it contained a mountain of gold coins, but in the sense that there were dozens of offices and hallways connected to several different vaults. As for the liminor’s chamber, it was a marvel of its own.

Although she didn’t stick around long enough to check, she felt that this floor might be larger in area than the mansion above ground was, and it was the 3rd floor underground. Yet by the time they reached the bottom of the staircase, she had counted 7 floors below the surface.

The man turned to her and gave her a knowing smile.

He pushed the inconspicuous door open. Behind it was a… very long corridor. The man kept the door open for her as she walked in, then closed it behind her far more slowly than he had any reason to. Then, his hand still on the handle, he mumbled something under his breath and mana shifted in the air.

They walked in silence along the old stone corridor. Every hundred steps or so they would pass by openings on both sides, each leading to identical stone corridors extending farther than she could see. As she thought so, Jora suddenly realised that she could see better than she should have with only the light of Mag’s lantern. The stone slabs that made up the corridor didn’t seem to produce their own light though.

A chill went down her spine as another realisation hit her : They had taken a turn at some point, yet she hadn’t noticed at all. Her chill increased further once she realised that she had no idea how she even knew that. Every corridor was identical, and she had no memory of taking a turn, so how could she be so sure that she had ?!

“There we are”, someone said, snapping her out of her reverie.

Right in front of her stood another door, indistinguishable from the one they had come through. It should have been impossible for her to not notice the door until now, yet that seemed to be exactly what happened.

By this point though, Jora had already experienced too much. Unknowingly, her fear and confusion were starting to morph into awe at the countless wonders this place seemed to hold in its walls.

And her amazement was about to reach brand new heights.

The door opened. What greeted her on the other side was what resembled the hall of a temple, except it was gigantic. The little orphan suddenly understood that the manor above was actually just a disguised gateway to this place : An underground structure as large as a royal castle (or, at least, as large as she imagined one to be).

Most impressively, the hall was full of openings, everywhere ! Some were plain holes in the stone walls, some had wooden doors and frames, some had what looked like fenced gates made of silvery metal, a few appeared sealed by stone slabs as dark as the night, one was filled with what looked like the onirians' cobwebs from her old bedtime stories, a small one kept spewing some sort of green gaz which was promptly sucked by the hole above it… Some of these holes were at ground level, some had stairs leading to them, or ladders, or ropes, or climbing holds, or half-transparent orange structures undulating slowly from the ground up… Though many seemed to have nothing.

There were people too ! Not many relative to the size of the place, but she could still count a dozen at a glance. And about half of them didn’t look human !

The man- no, her new boss turned to face her and spread his arms theatrically.

“Welcome to the House of Raeveria. I have a feeling that we are going to do wonders together.”