Chapter 22: Viola

 ...

The shattered building ruins rose at a constant speed towards the sky, flying back to their original positions as if time had reversed, or some kind of rule was commanding them to restore their original state. However, Salser paid no attention to these—he was too busy. The Dark wizard's gaze fell on the ruins, where the Master of the house was buried—to send the Formless spawn back to where they came from, Salser had sacrificed a few of his souls. After brushing away some unlifted dust, he saw a head so squashed it was unrecognizable—the Master's soul was still inside. If his guess was correct, most of the anomalies in this house originated from here.

How should it be dealt with?

His first thought was to extinguish this soul, or completely erase her consciousness. But considering he still had to stay in this place for a while, and he was unsure what would happen if this soul was extinguished, the Dark wizard decided to change his approach.

Bind and control her soul.

He cast a spirit touch spell on his right hand, his fingertips probing into the empty eye socket, his fingers slicing open the flattened head like scalpels, as gray-black spirits and filthy blood emerged. The Dark wizard dug out her soul from this broken body. As he saw, this thing was a purplish-black spherical shape with a blurry outline, constantly emitting thin black fog from within.

A normal spirit wouldn't look like this.

He felt his desire to study special souls stirring again—his specialty in the past was soul magic. This included normal soul magic, as well as soul magic used by dark wizards.

In any case, bind this thing first .

"Inquisitor, could you come over and lend me a hand?" Salser turned his gaze to Jeanne, "I need to deal with this thing to prevent anything bad that could happen to this residence, our temporary base."

Jeanne, who was kneeling on the ground, glanced at him, then shifted her attention back to her feet. She was struggling to tear off the tattered clothes on her back, rolling them into thick cloth to wrap around the unconscious little girl. "And here I was hoping you could lend me a hand instead... do you think you could find treasure in that corpse or something?" She suppressed a shiver, "Damn it, the temperature in this cursed place shifts really fast."

Compared to the battle that was 'simply watching from a distance' and settled by the Dark wizard, the drop in temperature was a more difficult issue to deal with.

The Inquisitor rubbed her hands for the fourth time, doing her best to wrap the naked little girl—with the Master of the house eliminated, the transformation on the black cat also quickly disappeared—after which, her already tattered top was reduced to just a corset and black metal protective gear for vital areas.

Salser shook his head.

He was too busy to bicker with the Inquisitor—the drop in temperature wouldn't freeze anyone to death anytime soon, including Jeanne—of course, the unconscious little girl might not last long. Besides, ensuring that this soul didn't inexplicably escape from his control was also important. Since he had suppressed the thought of extinguishing this thing, ensuring the security for this soul was a top priority. In comparison, the first issue was easy to solve.

He took off his coat and threw it towards Jeanne, leaving only a ragged undershirt on his upper body.

"Is this enough?"

Jeanne caught the coat thrown by the dark wizard and wrapped them around the little girl, officially completing the cold protection measure.

"What a surprise, you seem to have a tiny bit of sympathy," she said naturally.

"You have quite a few prejudices," Salser said expressionlessly, casually fabricating statements he didn't even believe himself, "Maybe besides being a dark wizard—I'm a philanthropist who like doing charity?"

"I'm going to vomit, do you even believe that yourself?" Jeanne gave him an equally expressionless glance, then lowered her head, using the curtain cloth for wrapping food as a pillow—not as clothes because it was too greasy—letting the little girl lie flat on it, and then clapped her hands and walked towards him. Her eyebrows raised slightly, her tone exaggerated and sarcastic, "Oh ho ho, Mr. Philanthropist, how do you need me to help you imprison a soul with your evil spells?"

"Just follow my demonstration, apprentice dark wizard."

"If you dare to use that title again, I'll end your depraved life with one sword strike right now."

When their eyes met, they both saw a hint of malice in each other's eyes, but neither paid much attention. For a relationship between the Holy Cross Church and dark wizards that could be called utterly hostile—even if there had been a brief cooperation, the attitude wouldn't improve.

The dark wizard shrugged and began to order Jeanne, who had a sour face.

Suddenly, it started snowing in the dark sky, a few flakes landing on her face, melting with a cold chill, and Jeanne shivered again.

In the cold, people curl up, trying to cover their skin with their arms, just like the little girl who curled up unconsciously overthere. However, both Jeanne and Salser were the type of people who were good at overcoming such instincts.

As for leaving—without Viola's guidance, they couldn't find a way out of this pitch-black world.

...

The inexplicable snow covered the black plain outside the door and also buried many bizarre dream anomalies. Salser sat beside the desk, flipping through the Master of the house's diary.

A fire burned in the fireplace, illuminating the bedroom door hung with watercolor paintings, which were all bizarre, messy scribbles, making it hard to discern what the author intended to draw. The ceiling's grid was in a warm tone style, the walls were covered with gilded floral wallpaper commonly used by minor nobles, the high-backed chair and stools were made of ebony, placed on the wooden floor with a light red carpet. The desk was covered with purple velvet, on which there was an oil lamp, a vase with blue roses, and several diaries—the quill pen next to the diaries seemed to have been in use.

Jeanne warmed herself by the fireplace, sitting on the carpet on the other side of the bed, the firewood that seemed like it would never burn out made a faint crackling sound. The rose-colored firelight flickered in her eyes, making her a bit drowsy, but Jeanne didn't dare to sleep—the Inquisitor was afraid that if she closed her eyes, she would fall into the sea—at least she had to wait for the Dark wizard to fall asleep first.

Snowflakes swirled outside the door as the fireplace crackled, the interior was exquisitely decorated and luxuriously furnished, exuding a comfortable and peaceful atmosphere compared to the outside world.

"Since you're awake," Salser casually closed the diary of the Master of the house —or the witch—and turned his body towards the headboard, "there's no need to pretend to be asleep anymore."

After hearing this, the little girl, about more than ten years old, pursed her lips and obediently sat up. Her complexion was pale, her golden hair draped over her collarbone, and she was only wearing a white undershirt—which Jeanne had found for her in the restored room. Her small shoulders were narrow, and her body was slightly slender, like a soft stem of a flower. She had a pair of emerald green eyes like agate stones, but they seemed somewhat melancholy.

Naturally, after experiencing a large-scale cultist sacrifice ritual; falling into a nightmare-like city; witnessing her father being boiled alive, and after death, still repeating an endless dance of madness; and even—living with monsters that wouldn't even appear in nightmares for more than a year—no matter how sunny her usual personality was, she couldn't be cheerful now.

The Dark wizard looked her up and down a few times, and suddenly spoke, "Just sit there, let's have a casual chat."

She slowly nodded, seemingly not knowing what to say, just a soft "um" in a low voice.

"Viola, is that your name?"

"……Yes."

"If your father is one of the dancing people there, then he's probably beyond saving."

"Can you not open your mouth with such a statement?!" Jeanne almost jumped up to stab him with a sword.

"On the other hand, his soul has already suffered a lot of contamination, it's difficult to have a normal conversation," Salser ignored her.

"Difficult means... there's still hope?" She looked up and stared at the Dark wizard.

"You're very smart. Yes, indeed. However, normal people cannot bear the burden of conversing with that kind of dead spirit."

"If not... then, how should I..."

She lowered her head, her upper body curled up, her fists constantly clenching and opening. After a few minutes of silence, she took a deep breath, "Mister Dark wizard, can I learn your magic—"

The Inquisitor had an expression of 'I knew it would come to this', covering her eyes and not speaking.

She shot a very gloomy look through her fingers, landing on the Dark wizard's eyes.

"Everyone has the right to choose, don't they?" Salser responded to her gaze openly, without a hint of unease. "To have normal conversation with a spirit contaminated to that extent, there's no one else but us, don't you think?" He smiled.

"……You'll end up in hell eventually."

The dark wizard extended his hand, watching as Viola, somewhat apprehensive, extended her bare arm and placed her small hand in his rough one.

It felt like holding a slightly cold lily.

"……Taking on a student... Are you really not using this as and excuse for free slave labor?"

"But you didn't stop it, did you? It seems your faith isn't very steadfast."

"That's not the issue... I can't offer her a better choice," Jeanne turned away, somewhat irritated as she grabbed her hair, her tone not very pleasant, "After I personally executed my first criminal, I was taught—the will of the Lord cannot guarantee perfection in everything. Disasters sometimes stem from evil, but sometimes they also stem from my own stubbornness," she seemed unsure of what she was expressing, after all, these words were just told to her by others, "However, I will try my best to monitor your teaching to prevent you from teaching her more vile things."

"Oh, do as you please, just don't mess things up for me at crucial moments." The dark wizard shrugged indifferently—'recruiting' a talented student and a free assistant had put him in a good mood.

The way their faction of mages operates is just that direct.

Translator's note:

Viola: based one the character with the same name from the video game 'The Witch's House'

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