Arc 1. Chapter 3-1
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I barely slept that night.

By the time Emily knocked on my door and announced the viscount was waiting for me in the drawing room, I had already gone over the conversation with Mathias a thousand times. I just didn’t understand. I tried to remember everything I could about his character from the manga. He was malicious, could even become pretty dark under the right circumstances, but he wasn’t supposed to be a bad person. He wasn’t someone who enjoyed inflicting pain on others even when he had a reason. And even though it was true he was fiercely protective of his younger brother, the few times he was showed to behave in a manner similar to yesterday was when Lucas’ life was under great danger.

However, with what he said yesterday, I had to rethink plenty of things.

If Mathias was already aware of my family’s situation, that meant he was as well in the manga, where the ritual succeeded and I was sacrificed without so much as a thought. He did the exact same thing to the Elaine in the manga, to her family, and didn’t feel a thing. Then, when the heroes arrived and threatened to destroy all of the viscount's efforts after reviving his wife, the man actually tried to kill his youngest son, and only then Mathias acted against his father. He later on joined the heroes on their journey because Lucas wanted to go with them, and he wasn’t going to leave his younger brother go without him.

Could Mathias be called heroic? Barely, but he surely wasn’t portrayed as badly as he was being now. He was someone who did things with more pragmatism than the rest of the party, being able to leave his morals behind if it meant he could win a battle. But he never, never did something like this. Never disregarded another human’s life so bluntly. Never showed cruelty to innocent people for selfish reasons.

Or maybe… maybe it was a part of him the manga never bothered to show. After all, the situation on the southern region was never spoken of. How Elaine arrived at the mansion and became a sacrifice neither. Less of all how Mathias and his father purposely left a family without support for a whole year. Who knew how many other things could have been hidden, or deemed too unimportant to bother telling. I was an unimportant character, whose background was more tragic than any extra’s was supposed to be, and Mathias’ actions against me were not only never mentioned, but he never paid for them. Never paid for anything he allowed my family to go through.

Whatever his reasons, whatever my memories of him from my past life, this was something I couldn’t forgive. Wouldn’t forgive. My anger had cooled down, but in its place resentment grew, dark and foul. I had no idea how, but I would make him pay for what he did. One way or another, he wouldn’t leave unscathed this time.

In all of this, never once did I allow myself to think about Lucas. He was on another shelf, different from Mathias. I honestly had no idea what to think of him, or expect anymore. I didn’t believe his promise to help me escape, but even if I had, I felt too conflicted to be happy about it. This was just what I’ve wanted since I first talked to him that night we met, and yet, now that it was apparently handed over to me, I had enormous doubts if taking it was the right thing after all.

We reached the drawing room as I was immersed in these thoughts. When the low voice of the viscount reached my ears, however, I was immediately brought back to reality. I looked around, recognizing the room as the one I was first taken to when I arrived, just before my eyes stopped on the two figures in front of me.

The first one was the familiar one of the viscount, watching me with his cold eyes, though unlike other times, right then he didn’t cause me fear. No, his presence reminded me, once more, of what Mathias said yesterday. If someone was to blame apart from that boy, it was the man in front of me, the one who most likely issued the order and sunk my family into ruin for almost a year. Anger overtook me again, and I almost walked over to him to spit at him or hit him or whatever my body decided to do first, but the second figure stepped in front of me, obstructing me before I could even take a step forward and reminding me once again of the reason I was summoned here.

It was the necromancer, with his corpulent build, his powerful shoulders and his stern face. His long silver hair was tied in a low ponytail behind his head, and his eyes, surrounded by wrinkles, were a dark blue, firm and unmovable.

This was the man I needed to convince to take me in as an apprentice in order to live.

“I can’t believe it” his voice was hoarse, the kind of voice you expect to hear from a compulsive smoker. His presence was overwhelming, even more so than the viscount’s, but there was a fundamental difference between them. He gave off the feeling of wisdom, as if you were in front of someone who had lived a lot and seen many things. The viscount however, was dark, gloomy; his presence caused fear instead of reverence like the necromancer. It was the aura of a person who had little things he cared about, and was indifferent to everything else.

“As you can see, Ezekiel, she’s the perfect vessel. Her soul it’s not as compatible as Lucas’ but she’s close enough, I was told.”

I blinked, confused momentarily by his words, but I had scarce time to wonder about them when the necromancer knelt in front of me, eyeing me with critic eyes. It felt like he was looking into my very soul. Very likely, he was.

“You’re wrong Daniel, her soul is as compatible as your son’s. But I’m surprised. This specific type of soul is very rare in itself, but to find so many people sharing a pure third level soul is astounding.”

Third level soul? What is he talking about?

“What is a pure third level soul?” a bell-like voice sounded from behind the man. My eyes opened wide, and as the necromancer stood up and turned I got a sight of the person who had spoken.

Her hair was long and lustrous, reaching below her waist and tied only at the end. It was silver, just like the man’s, and her eyes were a deep icy blue that contrasted incredibly with her pale skin.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. What was Adela, the necromancer’s apprentice doing here?

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