Method to the Madness

Malmitres had been thrashing against the golden chains the whole time I was writing down the contract details. 

I don’t know how, but I could feel it creaking by the second. “What’s taking you so long?!”

She's definitely trying to intimidate me.

“Contracts are a lot of work,” I muttered.

For some reason, I already knew about this world’s language from the get go, in writing or verbally. I am grateful for any advantage I can get... but knowing how to write a contract in my favor with a demigod analyzing every move I make was taxing!

Truth was: I needed time. If I played this wrong, she’d tear me in half before the ink dried. But if I played it right…

I could bend her without her ever noticing.

“Hell of a thing, huh?” I said lightly. “Thinking you were doing everything right... only to get blindsided by someone who should have had your back.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I see what you’re doing, you know. Flattery to make me lower my guard. It’s amateurish.”

“I’m not insinuating anything. I am just calling things how I see them because I know how it feels.” I couldn’t tell you the countless times my boss had used me at my expense just so he could go home early. “It’s insulting.”

A pause.

“...It is,” she said.

She stopped thrashing.

I kept writing. My hand moved fast now… muscle memory from a hundred corporate PDFs was starting to kick in. Every section had a purpose: termination clauses, conflict resolution.

“You assert these children are yours, and that their blood sustains you. That's more than understandable. However, from a long-term perspective, indiscriminate consumption yields diminishing returns. Consider instead: cultivation.”

Her head tilted. Just slightly. “Stop speaking in riddles!”

“You’re a master strategist, are you not?”

“Yes. Whole platoons and battalions once called me their Queen.”

“Think of what I am about to present as the first step of winning over your mother.” I picked up and held what I wrote in front of her. “A 'Non-Consumption Covenant.'”

Although I felt she was about to spit at me, I could tell I was really getting to her.

“Elaborate,” she growled.

“You may not consume, injure, or harvest any souls within orphanage grounds, or from parties protected under divine agreement.”

“Disgusting.”

“Let’s call it… a Soul-Ledger System,” I said, trying to sound confident.

In truth, I had no idea what I was saying. I was panicking; just tossing out the kind of vocabulary I’d soaked up from fantasy novels and RPGs as a kid, hoping it would stick.

“You earn their approval,” I continued, “and they’ll give blood to you willingly. Malmagos still gets her little tithe. But you—you—will build your power quietly. The subjects you extract blood from will continue to do so. A permanent resource. You compound it, let it mature. Then one day… you cash it all in.”

I swallowed hard. I felt sick. 

“And isn’t the reward sweetest when your so-called ‘friends’ least expect it? You’d be using them.”

I leaned in slightly.

“And they’d never even know.”

“…Strategic livestock management,” she murmured. “And it’s all technically within the boundary lines.”

“You said it, not me.”

Then her smirk returned. “You’re a clever little worm,” she said, snatching the quill from me.

I reached out to shake her hand in the vain belief she will finally turn a new leaf. 

I should’ve known when the opposing party was going to take this unfaithfully. Rookie junior-level business mistake.

“But cleverness does not equate to wisdom.”

Rrrrip.

She had torn the contract in half.

I choked. “What?!”

“You’re too trusting. In this world, it’s kill or be killed! And nobody said anything about the physical contract being a factor…”

The golden chains binding her trembled—then cracked. Her arms jerked once, and the bindings shattered like glass.

Her smile twisted into something feral as her eyes locked onto me.

“Want to learn firsthand what happens when you don’t practice wisdom?”

I gulped. “No?”

Malmitres didn’t even dignify me with a response as she lunged.

I barely ducked as I snatched the remainders of the contract away. Her nails screeched across the stone wall behind me like knives through wet clay.

“Crap—!”

I rolled hard, shoulder slamming into the ground, breath knocked from my chest. Loose hay scattered, clinging to sweat. My hands scrambled for anything—anything to shield myself.

Yet she was already on me again.

Bare feet pounding the earth, a blur of black hair and muscle. She moved like a weapon fired from a bowstring. No magic. She didn’t even deem me worthy of whatever magic she possessed!

I threw myself sideways, her foot smashing into the ground where my ribs had just been.

Boom!! 

The impact cracked with residual energy.

My only hope was finishing the contract. I had to stall her. But how?!

“Malmitres, wait! If you kill me, you lose everything!”

“She can take me back with her cold, dead hands!”

I had a sliver of time as she was recovering from the blow. Maybe one move left in me.

So I did the stupidest, craziest thing I could: I charged her.

Her eyes stretched wide. “What the—?!”

Too late, loser.

The charge wouldn’t kill her, obviously. I was not a warrior. I’m a glorified spreadsheet monkey in a kid’s body.

But I knew how to calculate risk.

And her hand—those claws—were still extended from the last swing.

I dropped low and slammed my shoulder into her gut; not to knock her back, just to jolt her.

At the same moment, I dragged my fist across one of her claws.

Slice.

Blood spattered across the hay. Malmitres yelped.

But through the scuffle, I caught it. That glint in her eye, a flicker of realization.

“For someone who talks up a big game, you’re really, really stupid,” she sneered.

My contract... It was crumpled on the floor.

I had let it go in my brazenness.

My breath caught in my throat.

The demigod’s smirk widened. “You seem to have dropped something!”

Her fingers closed around the parchment midair as if snatching a trophy. Her claws brushed its silky surface.

Unfortunately for her, but fortunately for me, there was a twist to this story that even she didn’t know about.

It was glowing.

Not in gold this time… but in the color of Malmitres’ blood.

Her hand jerked back nearly immediately, but it was too late.

The contract flared.

The parchment hissed—runes igniting across its surface.

Two seals spiraled around her wrists like a brand.

“Signed by mutual essence. Clause: Guardian Pact invoked via contact bloodprint. Age of lesser party: Minor. Consent confirmed.”

Her eyes went wide. “EXCUSE ME?!”

I forced a smile. “Minors have the option of using their fingerprint as a signature, don’t you know? Your body is still a teenager’s.”

And I’d just activated my trap card…

~Kigyō no Komakai Jōken: The Fine Print!!~

“Injury sustained by parties under protection of the divine accord: confirmed. Commencing Protocol F. Due to the egregious and intentional breach of established terms, all previously agreed-upon provisions are hereby deemed null and void, subject to renegotiation.”

The contract glowed brighter, golden tendrils lashing out once more, repairing itself mid-air one chain at a time.

Then: snap!

The demon screamed as the tendrils chained her midair! Darkness poured out of her body like black smoke sucked into the parchment.

She howled. “NO, NOOOOO!!!”

The building trembled under her fury. Dust fell from the rafters. The children shrieked, ducking under their threadbare covers.

Then, all at once: stillness.

The light from the shimmering contract had dimmed. The golden chains vanished.

Malmitres was contained.

Floating softly in the air was no longer the terror from before. The crushing aura that had once threatened to swallow the room whole... completely evaporated.

Just… a girl. It was like she had shrunk entire body proportions. She couldn’t have been older than fifteen.

She collapsed onto the hay with a soft thud.

Coughing, gasping, hacking out spit and saliva. But alive.

I stepped forward, cautiously, catching the falling contract as it drifted down. My heart was still pounding like a war drum.

What confirmed that the demon was gone was when I saw her red and watery eyes.

“Hurts… it hurts…” Daisy’s arms wrapped around her ribs as she sobbed, curling into herself. “O-Ow…”

She sounded the same, same voice and all. It didn’t seem like it’s an act, not that I could tell. So Malmitres’ presence was really gone.

Did that mean I got to go home now?

…

Malmagos’ silence meant that the answer, decidedly, was no.

I knelt beside her and wrapped my arms around her shaking frame.

“It’s alright,” I murmured. “It’s over. Daisy, right?”

She nodded weakly.

I couldn’t believe it. I… outwitted a demigod. 

And almost all of it owing to my experiences in a Japanese office cubicle. I don’t even have to work in a fantasy office to apply those skills.

In another world… was that my cheat skill?

It felt… it felt good.

Unfortunately for me, I was my own worst jinx.

Because right then: I heard footsteps.

The jingle of steel and chainmail. 

“What’s all this racket, then?!”

The shouts echoed down the barn corridor; it sounded like an adult male's.

My stomach turned.

Malmagos had mentioned it earlier; these kids were kidnapped by an outside force. 

The barn doors swung open.

I could only stand there as the soldiers stepped in and froze. I could only stand there as they took in the scene. 

Blood smeared the hay. Bodies littered the ground. And in the center of it all: me, clutching a trembling girl in my arms.

I realized now what this looked like to them. I wasn’t just a kid they kidnapped… but the monster who’d done it.