Yu's fingers smeared blood on the white keys of the piano.

None of the listeners could see the blood, but Yu could. Each time he pressed a key, the redness slowly spread to the other keys.

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata was one of Yu's favorite pieces. At least he thought so only for the first movement. Slow, calm and peaceful, it was like an escape from life for Yu, who hated noise and loud noises of any kind.

But after the death of his older sisters, he had come to hate it, and every time he heard the notes, a dark cloud fell over his heart.

The reason he played it today was because of what happened last night. After Camaeron Don's death, the piece kept returning to his mind and when he saw the piano in the Leafera mansion, the first thing he wanted to do was play it.

“But are these fingers worthy to play it?”

Yu thought of his older sisters. Was the blood on his fingers only Camaeron's, or was it still there from the previous time, he thought as he played.

“I was savage...” he thought as his breathing quickened. “I cut off her head, with a dagger...”

It wasn't easy, and Yurine didn't help. Yu rolled up his sleeves and, clumsily wielding the dagger in his hand, slowly separated Camaeron's head from his body, soaking his jacket in blood.

“I did it... I did it...”

Yu could still see the blood in front of his eyes as he slit Camaeron's throat. The throat was so soft and the dagger cut through the flesh so smoothly that with a little more skill Yu could have finished the job in a short time.

But he hadn't; his hands had trembled, he had failed to cut, and in the process he had torn his throat. The sight of the blood still coming out of Camaeron's neck and mouth was driving him mad.

“I'm a disappointment. I'm a disappointment to my sisters, I'm a disappointment to the woman who saved me, I'm a disappointment to Yurine... But I am... But I had a purpose, didn't I?”

His fingers quickened as his breaths deepened, playing the piece a little faster than they should have.

“If I hadn't done it, more people would have died, good... It's a good thing...”

His eyes were completely locked on the blood on his fingers. He was looking at his fingers as if hypnotized, watching the blood flowing from them as they danced over the keys.

“Mr. Valarfin, you are very impressive,” Lucie said. Her green eyes sparkled emerald with admiration as she looked at Yu, who had stopped playing.

“Oh?”

At Lucie's comment, Yu was suddenly pulled up from the sea of thoughts and felt like he could breathe for the first time in a long time.

He had come for breakfast at the Leafera mansion in the morning, having promised to come back later last night.

He hadn't originally intended to come here, but when they had returned to the inn last night, the caretaker had told them that Lucie had invited them for breakfast. It would have been rude to refuse Lucie, who had left her home at night to come to the inn to invite him.

“I haven't even met them for two weeks and they invite me for breakfast.” Although he was sometimes the object of jealousy from men his age, people were usually warm to him. “Because I am a product with good packaging. My packaging is impressive and people think I'm sweet. That's the only reason why they like me, trust me, are interested in me. But they wouldn't think that about me if they knew that when the fancy package is opened, there is a bitter product inside that is out of date. They don't know I'm an asshole.”

He killed Camaeron Don. He did it with his own hands, willingly, because he was selfish. If they knew that, they wouldn't even want to see Yu.

“You have a beautiful gift, Mr. Valarfin, and though I prefer the cheerful stuff, I can't deny I'm impressed.”

“That's why I learned it.” Yu felt bad about what he had done, but he still enjoyed the fact that people found him impressive. “I mean to impress people. At first I didn't like it that much because of the lessons, but when I played it, people liked it, they were impressed by me, they told me how talented I was. That's what motivated me and gave me more pleasure than playing. Just like now, I learned because I wanted people to think good things about me.”

He had a bitter smile on his face as he told his unasked confession. He especially wanted his sisters to be proud of their brother. He felt that everything he did was in vain when there was no one left to be proud of him.

“Did you like it too?” He broke the silence that followed his words.

“Hmph.”

“Why would you react like that now?”

He hadn't looked at Yurine when he played, but he saw her watching him out of the corner of his eye. Even if she didn't want to listen anyway, there was no way she couldn't hear it.

“I think it's because you're born unable to express your feelings honestly, I get it. You mean; Daddy, it was beautiful.”

“WATCH WHAT YOU SAY!” Yurine's tail straightened and she purred like a cat.

Yu laughed at the cat-eared sword fairy's anger. Even though he was on fire inside, he still followed his principles, there were two people here besides himself and Yurine, and he had to look good for them.

“WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT!”

“Yurine, your anger is sometimes scary, but sometimes it's sweet.”

Usually when they were alone, a nervous Yurine would make Yu shudder, but with someone around, it was safe to see the sweetness in her anger.

“Is this piece called Moonlight Sonata?”

Yu laughed as if nothing bad had happened, but his laughter was interrupted and he turned to Lucia curiously.

“How do you know?”

“You're so serious all of a sudden!” Lucia fussed as she put her hand to her chest, as if she had said something wrong that she shouldn't have said.

Unless Beethoven was an immigrant from the Second World to the First World, the only way Lucia could know the piece was if an inter-world traveler from the First World had played it here.

“I didn't think anyone else would know this piece.”

“I heard Denise playing it.” Lucia sighed deeply. Her eyes drifted for a brief moment to distant memories, overcome by nostalgia. “It's been forty years since I last heard it, now he's an old person. Time passes so fast.”

The rapid passage of time and Lucia's elven lifespan were topics Yu did not want to hear about. He couldn't cope with the thought that someone would live on after him and eventually be forgotten.

“Who is Denise?”

He would like to meet Denise if possible, it would help him in his adventure to talk to a world traveler like himself and hear his stories.

“Ignorant man, you don't even know the leader of the country you live in.”

“It breaks my heart that you know why I don't know him, but still you speak just to insult me.”

If another person had treated Yu the way Yurine did, his reaction would have been different.

But he couldn't be angry to Yurine.

Not because she was at least ten times stronger than him, but because he wanted to be nice to her.

“You are wrong. Denise is not the leader of the country, she is the prime minister. Princess Eumia is the leader of the country.”

He had heard that Rolderhelm was a principality, but he had not researched the rulers.

“Ignorant man, you don't even know the leader of the country you live in.” Yu mimicked her previous sentence by looking at Yurine.

Yurine gritted her teeth and looked away, avoiding the dialog. She was like Yu, she didn't like being wrong.

“And who exactly is Denise?”

“One of the heroes who fought in the Battle of Heroes. After the war he married Princess Eumia and joined the Rolder dynasty. What a lucky man.”

Yu would agree that he was a lucky man. Lucia said he was a hero, he had married a princess and ruled a rich country, but his old age made Yu disturbed. One day he would grow old like him.

“Mr. Valarfin wants more details.”

Lucie realized that Yu was still waiting for Lucia to say something. When he'd first learned that the calendar was the same, he'd realized that there were people traveling between the First and Second Worlds, but he hadn't expected to learn about one of them so quickly.

“What more can I tell you?”

“Where is he from?”

“Where is he from?” Lucia put her hand to her head to think. “I never asked him where he was from.”

If she had, could she have learned something about different worlds? If Lucia knew about traveling between worlds, Yu would find something to talk to her about, maybe she get him to meet Denise.

“But even if I meet Denise, so what? Would I ask for help?”

And there was one part Yu left out. Denise might not be an inter-world traveler, but someone who learned the Moonlight Sonata from an inter-world traveler.

“Is he someone who just appeared out of nowhere? Someone whose origins are unknown?”

Naturally, people who were not part of this world would suddenly appear in this world. If the person called Denise also appeared suddenly, Yu would get another clue that he might be an inter-world traveler.

“I don't understand why you ask such questions with such a serious expression.”

This was the part where Yu's questions were awkward, and he wasn't sure how to continue with an explanation.

“I was just curious,” he said. There was already an awkward atmosphere because he was suddenly questioning Lucia and he didn't want to offend her by continuing the questioning. “Then let me play another short piece.”

He took the initiative to prevent the atmosphere from falling into silence and pressed the piano keys again.

***

“I see you were very happy, laughing and laughing,” Yurine said. After breakfast, they left Lucia's house and went to Marino Swann.

“I can't sulk around people.”

He would rather give people fake smiles than let them see him sad.

He didn't believe what he was doing was wrong. Most people hid behind masks like Yu did.

Keeping problems inside, not showing weakness to other people, always answering ‘I'm fine’ when asked ‘how are you.’

Even if a person had a problem, they were afraid to talk about it. One wanted society to see him as a great person. So they would always show people their good side, even if it was fake.

Some people did it on social media, others in real life. Yu didn't see the difference.

“You sulk when you're around me. Impudent person, don't you like being around me?”

“I never said that.”

He was happy to have someone by his side, he couldn't do all this alone. In fact, he wouldn't even be alive if he was alone.

“I'm glad you're with me.” If it wasn't Yurine, he didn't know who would have been there for him. She was one of the best people to accompany Yu in the Second World. “But I wish you would be kind to me.”

“I'm only kind to people who deserve it, not murderers.”

Yu suddenly stopped where he was and fell silent. His eyes dropped to the floor and he could not look up again. His lips trembled and he wanted to speak, but no sound came out of his throat. His eyes were suddenly full and his fists were clenched.

Yu stopped suddenly and Yurine had to stop too. As she tried to understand what had happened, she noticed the blood running down Yu's hand and let out a strange growl that Yu couldn't understand. Yu was clenching his fist so hard that his nails were digging into his palm.

“Murderer...” he muttered. He was trying hard to stay calm. “Murderer?”

He repeated the same word, this time as a question. His back was to Yurine and he didn't want to face her and show her his lips, which were pursed in pain. In the meantime, he felt his nose burning and the tears were about to overflow.

“A murderer? I did what I had to do!” Yu suddenly raised his voice, but his trembling voice belied the anger he harbored. He continued, waving his arms as if he was going to tear them off as he spoke. “If I hadn't done it, I would have died. That nigger would have died! His family... Who knows what his family would have done for living?! Who knows what street corner his wife and daughters would be whoring on! I saved their lives!”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

It had happened, the tears had overflowed. He didn't turn away as the tears rolled down his cheeks, so as not to give Yurine the impression of weakness, but the way he kicked the floor, the way he punched a wall, gave Yurine enough of the pathetic impression she needed to see.

“Why is what I did bad? Why should I be wrong? If it wasn't for me, wouldn't Pepe have sent someone else to kill him? Wouldn't Camaeron have died anyway? Was it obvious that he would have gotten a happy ending if it wasn't for me? No...” Yu spoke quickly, without taking a breath. He didn't know what he was saying, he was just saying the first words that came to his tongue to defend himself. “If he was going to die, then why shouldn't his death serve a good purpose?”

At the last sentence Yu's voice got lower and lower, thinner and thinner.

“I did nothing wrong... I didn't... I didn't...” Yu felt the anger permeating his cells again and this time he screamed at the top of his lungs. “I DID NOT!”

And he did it, making Yurine let out a high-pitched scream of horror. He didn't want to do it, but even if he didn't, it happened. Hearing her scream, Yu suddenly turned around, fell to his knees and spoke fervently, again without breathing.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell, I didn't mean to scare you, I know, Yurine, I'm wrong, I know I am. I am sorry, I am sorry…”

He reached out to take Yurine's hands, but the little girl pulled away from him.

Yurine's step back had hurt Yu's heart much worse than the Camaeron incident. His heart was bleeding and Yu knew it.

As he continued to look at Yurine with reddened eyes, he thought, “I am an asshole... I'm lying to myself...”

Yu knew he was lying. He was a murderer and he knew it. Yurine was absolutely right to use that word. Yu Valarfin was a murderer.

She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and apologized again. “I apologize. I know you're right, I was just being an asshole. I am so sorry.”

But Yurine didn't speak. When Yurine didn't speak, Yu had to speak again.

“Please, let's pretend this scene never happened.” He stood up and turned around. He was going to start moving forward, but he stopped in his tracks, thinking his eyes were red. “Please,” he repeated.

***

Even he had decided to forget the scene, Yurine might not have made the same decision. He kept looking at her as they walked to the post office to see what she was thinking, but her face was the same expression she usually wore. It conveyed no emotion.

“Yurine,” he said when they came across Marino's post office. He was still trying to understand Yurine's feelings, but she didn't even look at Yu, let alone answer him.

Unable to win Yurine's attention, he swallowed the words he wanted to say and walked into the post office.

“How can I help you?”

As soon as they entered the post office, they met a security guard. The man with rabbit ears was pouting like Yu.

“A fucking security with rabbit ears? It's not deterrent.”

He must have been unhappy that he didn't get the salary he deserved because of Marino's bad economic situation.

There were no customers inside, but the few employees were as unhappy as the security guards.

“I'm here to see Mr. Swann.”

“Mr. Swann is in his room, you can see him there.” The security guard chose his words respectfully, but his tone was dismissive. He just pointed to his room without even bothering to inform Marino.

He wasn't going to talk to him and discuss their attitude towards their boss. He walked into Marino's room without making eye contact with the other employees inside.

“Mr. Swann?”

Yu knocked lightly on the door twice and there was the sound of something hitting the floor. Then Marino's hard footsteps were heard, indicating that he was running, and the door opened.

“Mr. Valarfin, welcome.”

Marino said Yu's name so passionately that Yu thought for a moment that he liked him.

There was admiration and gratitude at the same time in Marino's dark eyes. He buttoned his open jacket in front of Yu, who had saved his life.

“This is the first time I see that there are others here besides us.”

As Yu entered the room with Yurine, he saw that it was Marino's chair that had fallen on the floor.

“I didn't think you would come in the morning, did you have breakfast? Do you want me to order something to eat? Bring some drinks too-”

“Let's just talk business.”

Yu couldn't carry Camaeron’s body with him, so he cut off his head and threw the body into the sea, worried that someone would find it.

When they returned, they looked at the man who escorting Camaeron, but he was not where he had fallen.

“I have to be careful about him, he's probably someone Camaeron paid off, but I don't want to have a avenger on my tail.”

That man was weaker than Yurine. He couldn't cause trouble if Yu was always by Yurine's side.

When he went to Pepe Don with Camaeron's head, the loan shark clapped his hands in joy and released Marino, giving him two more months.

From that second on, Marino's thanks to Yu were endless.

“As you wish. Please sit down, make yourself at home.”

“Do I need to explain the plan again?”

He and Yurine sat opposite each other on the two armchairs across the table.

Marino adjusted his chair and nodded his head in both directions as he sat down. “I remember every word of it, Mr. Valarfin.”

“Good. I want a fair deal. Forty-nine percent of the money from the people we send letters to will be yours, forty-nine percent mine and two percent Yurine's.”

Yurine's two percent sort of made Yu a major partner in the deal. Even though it was small, it was a detail Yu wanted to point out.

“Of course, whatever you want.”

Marino looked like he was going to accept whatever Yu had to offer. Yu didn't know what he was thinking after they had parted ways last night, but now he was ready to surrender himself to him completely.

“I'll do the thinking and you do the rest. The money for the work will come out of your pocket, and you will carefully select all the employees you bring into the business, and the share you give them will be out of your forty-nine percent. As I said, since I'm the one who came up with the idea, I don't want to spend out of my pocket.”

“I understand, you can leave it to me.”

When there was nothing more to be said on the money side of things, it was time to talk about security issues.

“If even one of the people you choose to help you betrays us, it will be your betrayal, and if one of us betrays another, that person's soul will be shattered, it will not go to heaven or anywhere else; it will be lost forever.”

“I don't understand this?”

“Yurine, will you prepare the agreement?”

He would have preferred to explain it to Marino by showing him. Yurine stretched out her palm and formed a small white orb of light. The orb flew and landed on Yu's palm.

“We will make a magical agreement that is more reliable than words and writings. In addition to what we have just said, no one will covet the other's share, no one will talk about it during or after the work, if one party is caught, they will not talk about the other, and at the end of the work they will forget the other party completely. The price of betrayal is the shattering of the soul. Please make sure you understand the seriousness of the matter.”

He might have saved his life and Marino was grateful to him, but he was not going to rely only on his gratitude and keep the deal to words, he was going to scare him with the magical pact and win his total loyalty.

“I realize, I will honor our agreement.”

Marino squeezed Yu's hand and the orb of light Yurine had created disappeared between the two men's palms.

“I will come back in the evening, until then, choose the people who will help you and bring them here. Choose them well. Remember, their betrayal is your betrayal. When I get here, we will start writing the letters.”

“Is there anything you want? Dinner or drinks or anything?”

“Paper, pen and ink. And water. Don't waste your money.”

“Got it.”

He didn't want to do business with a person who wasted his money while he was in debt.

“If you have nothing to say, I have other things to do, I have to go. See you tonight.”

“No, no, Mr. Valarfin. Goodbye, and please let me know if you need anything.”

Yu thanked him in a low voice. The idea of needing someone who was no good to him was humiliating.

***

There was an informal organization in Rolderhelm known as the Betting Company. No one knew why the government allowed it.

Rolderhelm was a state of law in Yu's eyes, and until a few nights ago he had thought there was only a little illegal activity here.

He could somehow understand what was happening in the back streets of the Hull Quarter. Even though Yu argued that the state should immediately send its soldiers there and put everyone in dungeons, the state could not touch them if nothing illegal was going on in sight. Otherwise, Rolderhelm's impression of the rule of law would have been damaged and investor confidence would have been diminished.

But the Betting Company was making illegal bets in full view of everyone and everyone was silent about it.

People could bet on arena matches in casinos, but because illegal Betting Company didn't pay taxes, the odds offered by the bookmaker were higher than in casinos, and that's why people chose to bet with the bookmaker.

During his research, Yu found out that Rolderhelm used to fight the bookmaker, but five years ago, for some unknown reason, the government began to tolerate its existence.

All this was unimportant to him. Yu didn't care about the history of the company or the struggle of the past. His goal was to make money without lifting a finger.

“The company takes about a thousand bets on a match, and in the best of times, three thousand three hundred to four thousand four hundred. I will tell them that I will bring at least two thousand bettors and I want thirty percent of the company's revenue.”

If the letter plan worked, people would rush to the bookmaker's door and put their money on the team they thought would win.

“What if they don't accept, or if one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine bookmakers show up?”

“If they don't accept, there's nothing I can do, and I'll be upset if only one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine bookmakers show up.”

He would be happy if the bookmaker would deal with him and give him money, but he would be more than a little upset if he couldn't make a deal with them because he had put almost no effort into it, or if he couldn't make money because of a rule he had set himself.

“Will I have to do magic again?”

“Yes, please.”

Fear was an effective tool of control used by those in power over the years.

Beyond fines, imprisonment or death penalties, people obeyed the law, fearing even the hell they had never seen.

Yu could not throw away such an effective method of control and security. It would be more efficient to use fear to gain people's loyalty and to secure the loyalty of the agreed party than words and papers.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, please come to my room.”

A red-haired man in his thirties entered the waiting room. He was the current director of an organization called the Betting Company.

Yu and Yurine followed the red-haired man into the executive office on the top floor of a four-story building. From the Betting Company building, one could see the coliseum where the arena game was played. It was larger in diameter and shorter in walls, but similar to the colosseum in Rome.

“Welcome, my name is Barney Loyd, I'm the director of the Betting Company.”

“Yu Valarfin.” Yu shook hands with Barney. “And my daughter Yurine.”

He hadn't meant to just say Yurine. It was the first time he had introduced Yurine as his daughter to someone he had just met.

Yurine's eye twitched and one corner of her lip turned down.

“You can sit down.”

Marino's office layout was the same as Barney's. Yu and Yurine sat opposite each other in the chairs in front of Barney's desk.

Barney saw Yurine's reaction. “Your daughter didn't seem to like the way she was introduced.”

"We're still getting used to it."

After they left here, Yurine had a few words to say about the way she was introduced.

“If I remember correctly, you had a business offer, right?”

“Yes.”

“We don't get many people coming to us with business offers, in fact this is the first time I've had a business offer in my time on the board.”

Being an illegal company, it was normal for him not to receive business offers that required trust. Paper contracts were worthless unless the government recognized them, and there was no one to complain to if the Betting Company failed to honor its agreements.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Then let's get straight to the point. I'm waiting to hear your offer.”

Yu waited a moment before speaking. He wasn't thinking about what he was going to say since he had already decided in advance, he just wanted to keep Barney waiting.

“I'm from abroad, I have some savings and I have dreams of sailing in different seas after multiplying my money the easy way. Before I came to you, I did some research on your company, and I found out that the number of customers who come to your company to bet on a match is usually around a thousand, and the number increases by three or four hundred at most for big matches that attract the public. In casinos the numbers are even lower.”

“People don't find betting interesting anymore. In fact, the industry is driven by the bets of some of the big bookmakers.” Barney interjected with a little briefing.

As Barney said, the people who put the biggest bets into the Bookmaker were rich criminals like Pepe Don who didn't want to pay taxes on their gambling winnings.

“As you know, there is a tournament in honor of Rolderhelm's centenary. I think this tournament will be a great source of income for me, and for you too.”

Agreements were based on mutual interests. If one or more of the parties gained something and there was no reward for the other party or parties, it would make the deal less likely to be accepted and would give a bad impression to the party offering the deal.

“I will work to get you at least two thousand punters for the final match, and in return I want a thirty percent share of your revenue.”

Barney put his hand to his chin, as Yu did when he was thinking.

“There are problems with your offer.”

“Tell me.”

“First of all, I want to know how you're going to do it. If it's advertising, there's already advertising that teams do for themselves, what more can you do?”

“Please understand, I don't want my ideas to be used without my permission, so I won't tell you how I'm going to run things. While I realize that deals are based on mutual trust, I can't allow a person I've just met to get rich off my plan by using what I told him after he rejected me.”

He couldn't tell him about the letter plan, and he couldn't tell him about his plan even if it was something other than letters. If the Betting Company was an official company he could secure his ideas with documents, but for an illegal company there was no such security.

“I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, although I'd like to know how it's going to work. Let's move on to the other problem, the odds you're asking for are too high. As you said, we already have a bone of a thousand customers per game, I can't give you thirty percent odds for the customers who will come anyway. But I can give you ten percent of the revenue we get from bettors after fifteen hundred bettors.”

“Ten percent is not worth my time. You are not counting the bets of the first one thousand five hundred punters. If two thousand punters come, I will only make money from five hundred of them. If we count your commission at ten percent and assume that each punter will bet two gold pieces, your profit will be one hundred gold pieces and my profit will be ten gold pieces.”

Yu knew that future punters would bet more than two gold coins, and Barney must have realized that two gold coins was low for punters. Nevertheless, the result of the calculation was mocking.

“But giving you a share of our bone mass would also put me at a loss.”

“Okay. I knew you would reject it, but I wanted to save some of my money and time for a rainy day, so I started with a simple offer. I guess I'll have to take a risk and present the real plan.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I want fifty percent of your winnings from every punter after fifteen hundred. In return, I'll guarantee you at least three thousand punters. If you miss a single one, you won't have to pay me.”

“You must be very confident to suddenly increase the numbers like that.”

“I was aiming to make a lot of money with little effort, but thanks to you, I will have to make a lot of money with little effort.”

He was almost certain that at least three thousand people would follow his letter plan. In fact, things were going Yu's way.

“Fifty percent is too much.”

“No, it isn't. Remember that in your best case, the number of punters you get is fifteen hundred. I'm bringing you bookmakers that you wouldn't get under normal circumstances. It's not even certain that you'll get fifteen hundred bookmakers on top of that, you might not even reach the one thousand bookmaker limit. You'll probably get there because of the bookies I'm bringing you, and I'm being humble and not taking a commission on the bookies that will get you to the fifteen hundred mark. I'd like you to be as polite as I am.”

Barney wanted Yu's plan to work, but he also wanted to make as much as he could from it. He didn't mind ripping off his potential partner in the process.

“Let me make it clear again that I will have at least three thousand punters, and I will not charge a commission on the first one thousand five hundred punters, and I will share fifty percent of the money you make from the punters who come after the first one thousand five hundred punters. I will not charge a fee even if there is one less than three thousand punters. Only under these conditions will I spend my money and time to bring you punters.”

“You must be a con man.” Barney was smiling slightly.

“Sort of.”

“Let's make a deal, then, as you say.”

Barney took out two sheets of paper and a pen from a drawer under the table, wrote down the terms Yu had offered on both sheets and signed his name on both.

“I didn't say we were going to do the deal with papers.”

“Oh?”

As Yu stood up, Yurine created a sphere of light as she had done in the morning. The orb floated in the air and landed on Yu's outstretched hand.

“You're an illegal company, any paper signed with you is worthless.” Yu's voice was so dark it was blood-curdling. This was the first time he had a real opportunity to enjoy the fruits of his high school theater classes. “We're going to make a magical pact, I'm sure you've heard the stories. If one of the parties betrays the pact, his soul is shattered. I think it's a safer way of dealing.”

“I thought you said something about mutual trust.”

“After we do this, there will be mutual trust.”

Barney's face paled. “I'm not going to betray you,” he said and shook Yu's hand. So far, whoever he had shown this agreement to had accepted it, even though they were scared.

“In addition to the items I listed, if there are any problems, you will not say anything about us. After both sides have received their reward, you will forget about us completely. Otherwise your soul will be torn to pieces, Mr. Loyd. Do you accept?”

“Y-Yes.”

Yu's cold, terrifying voice made Barney's lips tremble, who is at least ten years older than him.

Yu alone could not have had this effect, Yurine's magic had a lot to do with it.

“Burn those papers, and your name and signature will not appear on such a document.”

“Yes.”

“I will come and collect my money when the bets for the final match are closed, until then, take care on yourself.”

As they left the company, Yu was pleased with the impression he had made. With Yurine's simple demonstration of magic and the maximum amount of acting, he was leaving scared people in his wake.