3. If there’s nothing to be guilty about, I’d rather be confident.
In the darkness, a pair of red eyes floated in the air, staring at Fernandez.
Overwhelmed by the terrifying pressure, he stiffened his body and barely managed to meet the gaze. He wasn’t even allowed to look away.
-Yes, this is a dream. This is a dream. I’m in the Lord’s Residence right now. This is a dream.
“Faijashi. You belong to Hell.”
“Damn it. I’ve never been associated with Hell!”
“The mark on your soul cannot be erased. Soul, body, spirit, and nature. You belong to Hell.”
“I don’t know about the soul and spirit, but the body and nature haven’t been corrupted by Hellish Magic yet! The body and nature are fragments of the spirit bound to the flesh. It’s impossible!”
“Once the soul is drawn in, do you think the body can hold out? It’s only a matter of time.”
The red eyes flickered. Soon, the whole world was burning, and people were hanging on poles.
Demons were screaming and setting the world ablaze, their figures spreading in all directions.
This wasn’t some vision shown by a demon. It was a memory from the past.
Faijashi Wildcast.
The High Dark Mage and the greatest demon summoner.
The first chairman of the [Ashen Twilight Society] and the chief High Dark Mage of the [Calmburg Magic Academy].
One of the fifteen villains who brought about the world’s destruction.
This was the world he had personally created.
“Shut up, shut up! There’s no such thing as fate. I, I’ve already experimented. I killed someone I never killed before!”
“Was your experiment something that could only be proven by killing someone? That’s the proof of your soul’s corruption. If you make just one mistake. If you look away just once. You’ll return to this place. And that… won’t be long now.”
“Gaaaaah!”
The sight of his son screaming as his body exploded was the last fragment of the nightmare he witnessed.
“Damn it all.”
Fernandez spat out curses as he woke up drenched in cold sweat. It had only been a week since he returned to the past, but he was already sick of the nights.
The relentless nightmares tormented him every night, and he was growing more haggard by the day.
“This can’t go on. I need to do something.”
Whether it was getting rid of sleep, dreams, or the past. He had to do one of the three.
It was impossible with magic right now, and he needed to use some potions, but unfortunately, Fernandez wasn’t in some alchemy workshop in the Imperial Capital. He was in a rundown rural territory of the Dane Kingdom.
“Ugh…”
Fernandez gulped down the water by his bedside and got up, heading to his office desk. Stacks of documents were piled up without any order. A headache was coming on.
It had been a week since Fernandez took control of the Sernerd Barony. Half by choice and half by necessity, he had been sorting through the various ledgers and administrative documents of the territory without getting any sleep.
The state of the territory was dire. Daniel wasn’t particularly incompetent, but he wasn’t particularly capable either.
However, the numerous taxes consumed to meet the kingdom’s military service requirements were eating away at the territory.
The Dane Kingdom’s war expenses for the Holy War coalition had been slowly suffocating the kingdom for decades, and the various territories of the kingdom were on the brink of bankruptcy, slowly accepting their economic death sentences.
Daniel, like the previous lords, was content with dutifully paying taxes to the kingdom.
But the annual tax increases were about to break the territory’s back, and all the indicators in the territory’s ledgers were at their worst.
In the midst of this, Fernandez was trying to scrape together the small profits that went to the lord—such as security and servant salaries, management fees—to buy herbs, potions, and experimental materials from merchants.
The lord’s treasury was quickly drained, and Fernandez estimated that he could set up a workshop within a month.
Of course, every unauthorized mage has a plausible plan. Until they meet the Inquisition Officer…
“My lord!!! My loooord!!!”
A servant with a pale face rushed in and prostrated himself before him. Fernandez, who had been going through documents, looked down at him with the most disinterested expression he could muster.
Normally, that expression would have scared the servant off, but the servant was still frantic.
“I’m busy.”
“My lord! Something terrible has happened!”
“Did someone break the wall again? How tiresome. Did someone fall into the moat? Take two guards and get it fixed. Tell the injured to rest at home for two days.”
