A Distant Reverie

Chapter 12

Vesper grimaced. Sweat dripped down the side of his face. Creases appeared on his forehead. In his hands was a copy of the parchment paper that he had signed. Forced to sign.

Seriously, I'm getting tired of having sharp objects pointed at my vitals.

That seemed to be one constant he's experienced since arriving at this world. Vesper shook his head. He quickly set aside the frivolous thoughts once he noticed the pairs of probing eyes staring keenly at him. Letting out a resigned breath, he massaged his forehead trying to give his brain a rest from the mental exertion. At Marine's request, he was trying to decipher the nature of the contract that Noel had forced them to sign.

"...So? Anything?"

The pirate's impatience was particularly distracting. Vesper forced himself to ignore the terrifying scowl scrutinizing his work and returned his focus on the contract. Indeed, the words were inscribed with some sort of mana infused ink. In addition, the parchment paper seemed have been manufactured with three separate layers. On the middle layer, Vesper can discern sets of faint runic inscriptions. The runes were normally difficult to notice, but Vesper's constitution as a spellcaster gave him greater visual acuity when perceiving magic related phenomenon. Unsurprisingly, the runes on the parchment were formulated with a different system than what he had studied, but strangely enough, he could still understand the gist of the spell.

"Well, it seems like Ms. Shirogane probably wasn't lying."

"Tch. Can you tamper with the contract somehow?"

"I mean, technically...yes. But I would have to prepare myself for a gruesome death by immolation," Vesper explained, glancing at the sigil engraved on his wrist. The sigil resembled the bright insignia inscribed in the upper corner of the parchment—a sign that he was now under the oath of the contract. Noel was extremely meticulous about the terms—they couldn't tamper with the contract, they couldn't inflict harm upon the parties involved, they couldn't disclose that they were under the contract outside of the parties involved, among a myriad of other terms and conditions. Vesper couldn't find a loophole to exploit.

"...And burning to death is not something I like to experience."

"Can't you just soak your body in water before messing with it?"

"No—" Hmm, well... Vesper humored the possibility for a moment. The idea to neutralize the spell powering the contract with an opposing phenomenon was a sound suggestion. In theory.

"I'm afraid I can't guarantee our safety. I don't fully comprehend the contents of the spell. I'm only giving you an educated guess as to what might occur at best."

"So much for being a scholar."

"...We're in a different world, Ms. Houshou. The magic system they use here is unlikely to be similar. The fact that we can even speak with each other is already a miracle."

"Argh!" Marine groaned in frustration, "I can't believe we ended up having to go back to that damned forest anyways! Only except now we can't even back out!" She angrily kicked an unfortunate pebble lying on the road. The job that Noel contracted them for was to investigate a series of key locations outside of Prosperia. Namely, in the monster infested forest that they had just escaped from. Vesper later learned that the locals referred to that forest as the Azure Woods.

It really was an illusion of choice. Vesper frowned, recalling Marine's warnings.

"That damned knight, I knew she wouldn't play fair, but to think she would shamelessly threaten us like that. I underestimated her, I really did..." Marine muttered angrily to herself. Vesper looked away with a guilty conscious.