"What exactly will be written in this contract?"
"Oh, just something mutually beneficial."
"How so?"
"I will live by your side as your partner. I'll do anything within reason but if you ask me to do something outside of what I'd consider trivial you have to give me an equal compensation. In short, I won't let you die until you stop being my source of entertainment."
"And protecting people who aren't me goes outside of your 'within reason'?"
"Of course. My services aren't free and it's not every day someone as powerful as me offers to protect anyone, but you," she disappeared from the room and a dark silhouette covered the back wall a grim twisted smile shown on the shadows face with the teeth and eyes of the figure illuminated a deep red. "you don't fear me" The shadow whispered as if into both my ears simultaneously and off a beat in each ear, so it echoed.
"Alright."
"Really?"
"I don't intend to die anytime soon so I don't see why not."
"Oh, should I fulfil your part of the deal first? Mine is so easy I doubt yours will be much harder."
"Originally I was going to ask you to walk outside this labyrinth with me but seeing as you'd ask for equal compensation for a task I'd probably crack and ask your help with later anyway, I want you to ruin the life of the man who sent the hatted assassin after me, the lives of his subordinates and the assassins currently after my family and me right now… but don't ruin my life or the lives of my family members in the process or anyone else close to me sentimentally for that matter."
"A very specifically worded request is it? Not kill ruin, very specific target, but could be misconstrued. I'll forgive your slight verbal blunder and assume you mean the noble." I nod. "Very well I'll be done in a minute." I offer her my hand. She takes it and I teleport the three of us outside my dungeon.
When we arrive in the club advisor's room the two of us stared at the little devil girl. She seemed to have flinched for a moment, but nothing happened. "Oi, what was that feeling just now?"
"What do you mean?"
"For a second there it felt like my physical body was replaced with a magic one but then it settled as a physical body."
"It seems the experiment was a success then." A smile crept across my face.
"Oi, Oi! Did you just use me to do some kind of magic experiment?"
"We used components made magically to summon you to see if they'd work on other spells using similarly made components."
"That's not cool but I can't really do anything to my summoners until I fulfil my end of the bargain."
"I'm Ok to sign that contract now you know."
"Yeah, yeah fine but we made a deal and devils keep their promises. Elst no one would want to summon us. And then where'd we get our entertainment?"
I cut my hand and dripped my blood into the inkwell. She did similarly after licking my blood off the blade. Once she'd bled into the ink well, she handed me the knife obviously expecting me to do the same. "Come on, this is how we do contracts. This way it's impossible for either of us to back out. I won't be able to let you die until our contract expires and you won't be able to back out of my requests either though if you breach the contract you'd lose me anyway."
"Fine." I licked her blood off the blade. And then she surprised me. She stuck her tongue in my mouth and mixed the blood in my mouth. When she separated from the surprise kiss she stuck the quill in her mouth and used that to write the exact conditions she'd given for herself while we were in the dungeon. Shortly after prompting me to do the same.
So, I wrote down the conditions she had me write and after consenting to the contract together we cast the spell and became bound to one another. "Maybe warn me next time you're about to do something like that. I have a girlfriend you know."
"Have I been asleep, so long polygamy is no longer legal?"
"That's not it, usually polygamy is discussed with the current partner before a new one is introduced in this day and age."
"Ah, I get it, so the women don't fight over who organizes the orgy I got you."
"Orgies are a thing of the past… I think… at least I'm sure married people don't have them anymore."
"What? So, women just spend the night with one person? That's so boring." I sighed. "So what happens now if you can't keep your end of the bargain."
"Ah, don't underestimate me. I'll be back shortly."
She disappeared, I pulled out book and began watching the carnage ensue… is what I would say if what I thought would happen happened. She knocked a vase over after making herself invisible. The fat noble became frightened and began tearing his own house apart looking for the stone that broke his vase despite the fact no stones were thrown.
He must be far more paranoid than I'd thought. Or maybe she used magic to drive him insane. He began frantically throwing out his servants one after the other from the least loyal to the most until he was left alone in his empty manor scared and frightened in a ball on the floor. And then another vase fell. He frantically began packing what precious little he could fit in as many bags as his rotund little body could bear the weight of before frantically seeking out his wife and children and dragging them with him as they were leaving town.
Wait… is this what book meant when it was saying the twins' father was trying to kill me? As I watched the man run and scream in terror, I saw book write words listed that were about to be transmitted to me telepathically but as there was a bit of a time lag I didn't know whether the twins here were mine or not.
'Hey, you were right, Dad just up and decided we're moving today, and he refuses to explain.'
'You two are home?'
'Yeah, we got what we wanted out of magic club so there's no point attending anymore.'
'…Alrighty then.'
'Wait can we move in with you?'
'Listen to your father I'll call you if I need you.'
As our conversation was going on I began to watch the next set of events unfold. The hatted assassin was asleep in his bed his wife at his side. The man's hat was still on his head as if incapable of being removed. I watched as she gently moved his wife's arm over to the hat and dropped it.
The hat was crushed, and his arm reflexively spun around and ripped her unsuspecting head off. What's more this little devil had used a spell to give the children nightmares of this very thing occurring and left the door open so when they came running up to their parents' room scared they saw their nightmares come to life.
The man was awoken to the sound of his screaming, crying children and saw his crushed hat beneath the palm of his dead wife. He dropped to his knees and began weeping. "I always knew it could end like this but always hoped it'd never happen. I told you I was a bad idea." His voice began to break. "I knew you deserved better."
He began clutching his wife's lifeless corpse to his chest with tears streaming down his face as his kids repeated a chorus of "Why? Dad why?" bitter streams fell from his tired sleepless eyes. "At least you took my curse with you."
If I cared at all about the people who pick fights with me this might actually be a bit much for me but I'm glad to see she's ruining them in the worst kind of ways, she stripped the wealthy of his pride and possessions, this man of a family I didn't know he had. I wonder what she'll take from the last man.
Instead of watching her enter this man's house, I saw her begin dropping evidence of his past crimes on many a noble's desks, she just wandered from place to place incriminating him of everything he's ever done before. His every secret every embarrassment every trick and trap laid bare to his employers and to his underlings.
I watched as in an evening she made an entire criminal organization lose faith in their leader and disperse as their patrons learned of his fickle and avaricious nature. He lost his credibility, his power, his position, and once the nobles knew of his every misdeed, he lost all his friends.
What's more when the noble that was after me fell, she began to spread rumours to the inner sanctums of the noble houses that the reason he fell from grace was because he poured all his time and effort into killing one lone family whose only crime was upending his underhanded attempts to make thieving legal by taxing money stolen by thieves.
Mostly just so when stolen things are retrieved, he could keep them, as opposed to returning belongings to their rightful owners. Usually, when a thief is caught, they are bound as a slave and forced to work until they've repaid four times the value of the stolen goods or wealth. If thieving was made legal not only would they have to pay taxes on their stolen goods since he was planning on taxing a quarter if they didn't pay, he could just keep the stolen goods for himself and have the thieves killed for tax evasion.
He phrased it as a deterrent for criminals, but I don't think criminals pay taxes anyway. Regardless, he's got a bounty on his head now. If he's found he'll more than likely be turned in killed or both. He doesn't have any family that I can see, and everyone hates him now. He may just be coming for me directly.
She returned to my side and as I closed book I saw her face. "Whatcha reading about?"
I handed her book in response and she actually began reading it. "It's been a long time since I've read this language, it's cool, where did you learn this?"
'Don't tell anyone but it's my special ability.'
"Right sorry, don't want to divulge any more secrets than necessary."
For the rest of magic club, I read through my grimoires again to make sure I wasn't missing any hidden spells I'd want to know later. As I sat reading my new companion sat in my lap reading book. "This isn't a completely detailed retelling of what happened, but the finer details aren't that important anyway."
I rolled my eyes and we spent the rest of the club's time like this. I still had a couple of days before my meeting and didn't want to waste any time. Book says I've bought myself a couple of days but as soon as that rumour spreads fear will spread in two ways.
The nobles will steer clear of me in order to avoid a similar fate or they'll think I'm too dangerous and try to kill me themselves. This girl has promised to keep me from dying but I doubt that means much. Horribly disfigured counts as alive. Wait… "Do you know transmutation spells?"
"Are you about to ask me for something so soon knowing the consequences?"
"I'll ask the consequences first before asking that you carry out the request… best not to ask until I'm sure it's worth it."
"I want to watch." I stared at her face. The look she gave was very telling. "That's not a decision I can make on my own."
"Sure, it is. I didn't say I wanted to watch both of you, just that I wanted to watch."
"…Yeah, I'm not making this choice on my own"
"Wait."
"What?"
"If your request interests me I might do it for free."
I pulled out my spell focus. "Is there a way to integrate this into my body in a way that doesn't interrupt my body's normal function?"
"Oh, now that is interesting. Are you really Ok with me tinkering around with your body?"
"There's a chance you leaving me alive doesn't leave me in a completed state and I'd like to be able to pull myself back together if I have to." We're walking back home as of the start of this conversation if I didn't mention it earlier.
"But are you sure you really want that?" she showed a face of mock concern. "It may not even work."
"If you want I have about four clones we can test it on in about a month or so."
"I'll probably lose interest if we wait a month so it's now or later and I watch."
"Hm…"
"Fine, now or later and I join."
"You're worse than the twins."
"I'll take that as a compliment." she stopped standing right before me with a cruel look in her eye, she extended her hand towards me and asked. "So? What's it gonna be?"