I found myself thinking about the options he gave. Should I give up being Shunivalen? I'm skilled in a bunch of other things, so I could probably earn money through another route.
When I continued thinking and stayed quiet, Yves opened his mouth to speak. He seemed slightly peeved that I didn't agree right away.
"Oh, right. If you go home without signing the contract, I'll be punished because I didn't accomplish my goal. I've gotten a lot of warnings before this: I might really die this time."
Yves smiled as he talked about being killed.
"Look, look. The reaction's already happening. The poison's coming up because I told you our secret."
Yves showed me the crescent moon tattoo on the nape of his neck. Thin, spidery black lines began forming out of the tattoo and spread onto his body. The lines continued to spread further down his neck and towards his face. Yves grasped at his neck and grabbed onto the table with his other hand, body tilted downwards. He seemed to be in immense pain; his breathing became ragged.
Yves faltered for a moment, then sighed as he took something that looked like an antidote out of his pocket and drank it. Even as the antidote began to work, he continued to stumble until he fell to the floor. I couldn't help but help him up.
Yves' face was a sight to see. Even though the poison had only worked for a short amount of time, his eyes had turned blue and the capillaries in his eyes had exploded. Yves muttered a few curses under his breath and held onto the desk to stand back up.
Yves, who seemed to be struggling to even move, turned around and grabbed onto my shoulder.
"Save me."
Yves looked at me, then smiled pitifully.
For the time being, I asked him to give me some time. I went home and dug through everything I could find about him. Then, I headed back to the headquarters after making my decision.
When I arrived at the room, Yvnes was already waiting for me. Even after waiting three days for my response, he didn't seem like he planned to beg.
"Then I'm not contracted to any place, right?"
"You can just help me for a limited amount of time. Without being associated to me."
"Can I join when I want and leave when I want (KKPP*)?"
".....?"
Oops, I guess that with my recent dreams of my past, the slang seemed to have come with it.
"That's...I can join in when I want, and get out when I feel like it?"
Yves just stared at me. He rolled his eyes for a bit and then nodded.
"Leave when you want."
Seeing how he was saying that, it seemed like he was being honest...
The air around Yves was completely different from before. There wasn't even a trace of a smile on his face. He wasn't trying to look good towards me. He just dully stared at me with a cold gaze. This was probably his true self.
Yves looked tired in a lot of ways. He looked like he was exhausted, but he continued to answer every question I had.
"Payment is due whenever you're requesting something from me. You pay before, not after."
"Okay."
I get paid per request, and I get to leave whenever I want. This was similar to my original work schedule.
Well, I guessed I could think of this as a part-time job during summer vacation.
Before I told him that I would help him, I had to make sure everything was clear. I couldn't just trust a promise that was just spoken. I needed to make sure I got everything that he had promised.
To be honest, I had recorded the entire conversation, but I didn't know how he would react if he knew that I had recorded this without permission. The recording was going to be used as evidence in case of an emergency, so I needed something upfront that I could use other than that.
I put my hand in my space-extending pocket and took out an empty roll of paper tied with string.
On the blank sheet of paper, I put down all of the conditions he had stated and the conditions that were useful for me. I could leave when I wanted, I would be paid a lot on time, and even if things didn't end well, that he would help me lose the attention of the guild leader.
While I was writing out the contract, guilt started to nag at me. It was because I became privy to his situation. First of all, his relationship with the guild leader wasn't a typical father son relationship. What kind of father would kill his son right away because of a betrayal?
Anyway, it was sure that Yves held an incredible amount of contempt and loathing towards the guild leader. He was being very generous towards me, which made me think that he had a positive image of me. I was sure that it was because I had caused issues for his father beforehand.
At this moment, he was meticulously planning out a way to send his father to the absolute depths of hell.
Seeing all of the work he was requesting of me, I could see why he was so desperately hoping for my help. To get his perfect revenge, he needed more information, and because I could read the memories of magical devices, I was absolutely necessary for him. Especially because it was magic that only I could do. Thus, because he was the one that needed me more, I had more power in this contract.
I wrote out the contract and imbued it with magic. It was a spell that was meant to penalize whoever went against the contract. It also meant that I could get the penalty if I broke the contract. It wouldn't be fair otherwise.
Yves watched as I wrote out the contract and spelled more magic on it.
"You seem to have a hard time trusting people too."
"Well, the world is pretty rough out there."
It was true. In recent years, magic was slowly becoming more scientific and the world was becoming more similar to the one I lived in before. It was a teensy bit, bit it was happening. Because of that, people were becoming more cunning and smarter and were trying their hardest to survive. It was a world you had to be wary of.
Yves seemed to like what I said.
"I knew you would be wary, but this is more than I thought. You already recorded everything, isn't this too much?"
"Haha, not really."
As expected of Yves. I had recorded in secret, and he had somehow known. He really was sharp. Yves came closer and played around with my orange hair, which was fluffier than usual. I was about to shove him away, but saw how exhausted he looked and let him be.
"You don't have to be so careful around me. You know that I'm not cautious of you like before."
So his dangerous yet snake-like air was what came out when he was trying to be wary of you?
Maybe the outrageous actions he'd taken earlier were his form of caution. Now, all I could feel from him was a cold, uncaring aura. I found that slightly interesting.
"You really lower your guards easily."
At my words, Yves looked up at the ceiling, one corner of his mouth tilting up. Ha, haha. I could hear a quiet laugh mixed in with a sigh. He looked alluring as he laughed tiredly. Yves slowly lowered his gaze from the ceiling towards me, then opened his mouth to speak.
"You might already know this after digging after me, but it's this or nothing for me at this point. I don't have the luxury to be wary of you for long."
"Of me?"
"I told you that I was watching you. I know a bit about you. I know your club activities, and I could see that your work as Shunivalen was clean and followed strict rules. You try as much as you're paid. It's not easy to find people like you."
He coiled my hair around his finger as he spoke.
"You're pretty young too, so I don't know if you're pitiful or incredible."
"I don't think you're in the place to say anything."
Yves took his hand off my hair and stared at me. He looked a bit sad.
"Is that so."
I pushed the magical contract towards him to sign.
He took out a pen from his pocket, then handed it to me. I signed as well. When the contract was formed, the paper shined a bright light as it encompassed the both of us.
When the light disappeared, my butt grew kind of itchy.
"Where's the symbol forming for this contract...?"
Yves muttered, frowning.
Normal contract magic created tattoos where the penalty would take place.
For example, Yvnes has a tattoo on the nape of his neck, and that was because poison would spread from there if they betrayed the guild.
I listened to his muttering and replied.
"It creates an orange slice on your butt. Of course, I got one too."
"My butt?"
I nodded.
The tattoo had to be on a discreet place so that others couldn't find out. Why was it an orange? Both of our hair colors were orange.
At my words, Yves scrunched his face. I figured out that it was his shocked face after a while.
"What's the penalty?"
I got ready to head home as I opened my mouth.
"You get your ass beat."
Yves watched as I said, "Okay, bye," and exited the building for a while.
My goal was to finish everything during vacation. Because of that, I met with Yves almost every day. Yves seemed surprised at how enthusiastic I was about everything.
When he first gave me work to do, Yves handed me a list and gave me a week to find background information about the people on the list.
Of course, I finished it in a day and Yves looked surprised when I handed him a mountain of documents.
I made sure to make it happen if I was paid. Yves always made sure to pay me in full beforehand, so I gave him the results that he paid for.
So at the moment, I was looking for weak points of the guild leader and the people around him. Yves said that after this was over, he would connect all of their weak points and shove them all into hell t ogether.
"So, exactly how are you going to throw them into the depths of hell?"
I asked as I was observing a person with my magical telescope.
At the moment, Yves and I were doing something like an undercover investigation while we were looking for their weak points.
While we were looking through the records of the people around the guild leader, we had found that some of their records changed at a certain time. We were trying to check with our own two eyes that we had the right information.
I lowered my magical telescope and took a bite of my sandwich. We had been investigating since the morning without eating lunch. When I handed a sandwich to Yves as well, he refused.
Yves stared at the leader's acquaintance with eyes that could kill, then turned to me at my question. Then, he spoke curtly.
"I'll do it myself."
When I said that I would help, Yves became so cold towards me that I wondered if he was the same person I had met before.
For the first few days, he gave me a few smiles here and there, but as we met more often and he grew used to me, he stopped showing any expression at all. I could feel a sheet of ice between us. Of course, this wasn't a bad kind of cold. This was how he really was, after all.
This was a lot better than him smiling at me every day. He didn't try to work around my mood, but it was because he didn't want to fool me. It wasn't because he had any ill intent towards me.
He ignored most of my questions, and he never accepted any of my acts of kindness towards him. So when we were alone together, there was almost no conversation between us.
But if you asked if it wasn't awkward…..it was awkward. It was very awkward. I met with him every day, more than five hours per day, so it was awkward even for me to not speak a single word.
Maybe it was because I saw how slimy he could be during our first meeting, but I definitely felt the gap between his two faces.
I did kind of annoy him at times, because I thought that I should know what I was doing while he didn't want to tell me. At this, he frowned and explained after a long while.