Secret Unveiled: An Old Contract

Leontina stared in shock at the chort standing before her.
Spira...
She knew that name well.
Among the families chosen by the entities from Weles, a child would occasionally be born with a soul that was a blend of a mortal's and an angel's. Spira, like the Ostrogski family, belonged to one of these lineages. Moreover, the decennial gatherings of the Soul Guides were held on their land. She had died during one such gathering when they were attacked.
She had died protecting a boy.
At that moment, the gaps in her memory were filled.

She heard someone shout.
“There they are!”
She pushed the boy into the water.
The boy who she had taught everything she could.
If anyone was to survive, she hoped it would be him.
His power could help so many people.
She smiled at him, and then a spear pierced her.
But she didn’t die immediately.
Her wound was bleeding, but fortunately, the spear had missed her vital organs. If she received help in time, she would survive.
However, she realized that it was more likely that someone would find her and made sure she died than saved her.
And that is exactly what happened.
However, the one who found her was a demon.
“Hey, you have a beautiful soul color, you know?” he said.
Reaching out his claws, he gouged out her eyes.
In an instant, her body went limp.
“I wonder what it tastes like?” he mused, tossing her eyeballs into his maw. But they didn't even touch his tongue before a burst of power struck him.
He grimaced in pain, spitting out the eyes. “Damn it!” He was furious.
“I guess it won’t be easy. Let's try this another way.”
He took her body and her eyes and hid them away.
A few days later, he concealed the body, for which time had stopped, halting the process of death, as best as he could.
He placed the eyes in a doll that he had made to look like the body.
Then he put this beautiful doll in a coffin.

A tear rolled down Leontina’s cheek.

“Dar?” she whispered. Now she knew why she had wanted to trust him. That blazing red hair, those eyes as dark as a moonless night sky. He was the boy she had once sacrificed her life for...

But why was he serving a demon now? And why she didn’t remember him?

If anyone knew the truth, it was this demon.

Dargorad glanced away, as if trying to avoid her gaze.

Still gripping her head in its massive hand, the demon burst into wild laughter.

“Do you see? Daaar?” the demon mockingly repeated the name that Leontina had spoken. “You finally got to meet your precious teacher!”

Dargorad clenched his fists and took a deep breath, forcing what was stuck in his throat out.
“Is that why you ordered me to follow and help them back then?” Dargorad asked, his head low. At first, he thought he had been sent to the village after those two to capture Gregory’s ghost. Especially when he spotted a dark soul in one of the houses.
However, he began to doubt this when he saw those golden eyes he remembered so well peering out from behind the hooded girl’s mask.
The more time he spent with her, the more certain he became of her identity.

The demon stared at him voraciously, finding the whole situation amusing.
“Why, of course. I am your master, and as you well know, I care for my chort.” The demon adopted a mock-pleasant tone, but a cruel smile twisted his face, and his eyes gleamed with a mad light.

“I thought it would be nice for you to meet the person you sacrificed the purity of your soul for.”

Leontina turned her shocked gaze towards the young man standing before her and the demon. She felt a lump form in her throat.

“What does he mean?” she asked, her voice trembling.
Dargorad couldn't say a word. He bit his tongue.

“The poor boy is so happy to meet you that he’s forgotten how to speak!” the demon laughed. He turned Leontina’s face towards his own and blurted out, “Then I’ll tell you.”

“In exchange for bringing you back to life, the boy agreed to become my chort!” he announced proudly. “He became the chort of the great demon Rokita!”

Leontina could hardly believe what she had just heard. She could not turn her head. She could only glance at Dargorad, who kept his head down. He did not look her way once.
His lips were trembling. He stood slightly hunched.

She could not bear to watch him acting like this.

She hadn’t protected him just for him to suffer like this because of her.

Her body, which had lain motionless after the Dargorad's flames had lulled it to sleep, rose once more.

It ran to the child she finally remembered and embraced him.

“I'm sorry to do this in such a gory way, without my head, Dar,” she said gently. Looking at that scene while being held by a demon felt strange to her.
Yet she knew he needed that support.
After his entire family was slaughtered in a single day, he had been left all alone.
Despite this, he had endured all those years.
He deserved those words.

“You gave it your all. I’m proud of you.”

Chort finally smiled as he felt the arms wrapped tightly around him. The limbs were far removed from a true human body, yet they provided the warmth he so desperately needed.
A faint smirk played across his face.
“I thought you'd write me off,” he whispered.
“I’d never give up on a gift like you,” she replied.
“Ah,” the demon interjected. “I might just shed a tear at this reunion of yours,” he mocked, tightening his grip on Leontina’s head.

Crack.

Something broke.
Dargorad looked up in horror at Rokita, who tightened his grasp on her head.
“What are you doing?”
“I wanted to take the head, but no matter how you look at it, only the eyes are useful, right?” he replied, licking his lips. “We'll defile her soul somehow so that she can be eaten,” he laughed. “Just like yours.”

Dargorad felt the entire world before him lose its colour completely.

So this demon had intended to keep him not only as a servant, but also as a meal.

“Hah! I should have guessed you were after more than just my powers,” snorted Dargorad. Unlike ordinary humans, he had thought that he would be safe from harm. After all, no demon would dare touch a soul that harboured even a trace of the angelic, even if it was tainted by the nature of a chort, like his. But he was sorely mistaken.
Leontina’s body moved aside and stood nearby.
Dargorad took a few breaths to steady himself. The moment had come. He lifted his face and fixed an icy stare on Rokita, a sudden glint appearing in his eyes. “You're a voracious glutton.”
“So now you’re going to insult me? Can’t you see what I’m holding?” Rokita waved Leontina’s head in front of Dargorad.
Another crack pierced the heavy silence between them.

However, Dargorad was not fazed by his threat.
The chort had regained his composure.
“You made a mistake letting me see her again,” he remarked.
“A mistake? Don't make me laugh," the demon scoffed. “How was it a mistake when I enjoyed watching you suffer as you looked at her?”
“Exactly. I suffered looking at her,” Dargorad pointed out.
Leontina’s eyes flashed at his words, while Rokita felt a growing sense of fear.
“What are you getting at?”
“Pfft,” the chort began to circle the demon.
This time, it was his turn to laugh.
He snapped his fingers. A silver parchment appeared before him and Rokita.
It was the contract they had signed long ago.

Dargorad Spira, the heir to a prominent family of soul guides,
agrees to become the eternal servant of the demon Rokita,
on the condition that Rokita brings Leontina Ostrogski back to life.

“You taught me to use as few words as possible in contracts,” admitted Dargorad. “But, you know, I had to refine your method a bit because you clearly lacked cunning.” He chuckled.
He stopped in front of Rokita, who lowered the hand holding Leontina’s head. He focused all his attention on the chort standing before him.

“Huh? What's gotten into you?” The demon didn't understand that boy's reaction. What had made his servant suddenly feel so confident?

“Oh, dear demon. You still don’t get it? What a poor thing you are,” Leontina grinned widely. She glanced at Dargorad, who stood confidently before the one who had once exploited a terrified nine-year-old boy. “Explain it to him,” she said mockingly.

“I shall do just as you say, my lady,” he said, dismissing Rokita. He bowed to the head held in the demon's hand.

“Then allow me to enlighten you.” Dargorad shifted his attention back to the demon. He took his copy of their contract and pointed to a sentence on it.

“Our contract is void!” he announced.

“What do you mean, void?” the demon scoffed.
“I’m not alive,” said Leontina laughing.
“Don’t talk nonsense. You might not be all there, but you’re healthy!” He tossed her head up like a ball.
“I can prove it to you.”
The demon stopped and looked into her confident eyes.
“How, exactly?”

Something small started running towards them. A moment later, a small creature appeared on Dargorad's head.

He looked up at it and smiled. The little one howled loudly, as if it wanted to say something. Having finished what it had set out to do, it bounced joyfully on the chort's head.

And then Dargorad’s smile quickly vanished when a dollop of bird droppings landed on his shoulder.

“Great,” he commented.
“Dargorad, don’t ruin the mood! Shake that beast off and clean up,” the demon said in disgust.
“It’s our proof.” Leontina glanced at the demon. Rokita looked back at her questioningly.

Then he examined the creature on top of Dargorad’s head.
His eyes widened and he dropped the head he had been holding.
It rolled towards Dargorad and the body of Leontina, which was standing nearby.
The body reached for the head again and reattached it.

“Liho only brings bad luck to the living,” she explained proudly, adjusting her dishevelled hair, which had been held in that disgusting hand. “They do nothing to the dead.”

At that moment, the liho leapt from Dargorad onto her and licked her cheek.

Nothing happened to her.

No plank fell on her head.
Nor did she trip over a branch.
She didn't trip over anything.

The fact that the power of the liho had no effect on her proved that she was not a living being.

In other words, she had not been brought back to life.


Both copies of contract shimmered with gold light. A line appeared down the center of the paper, gradually slicing through it from top to bottom. Once it had reached the end, the document tore in two.

Black flames consumed the paper, turning it to dust.
Leontina began to laugh aloud, mockingly imitating the demon’s earlier laughter.

She used to help dissolve contracts made between chorts and their demons. Those had been difficult, as the demons would word them carefully to ensure their servants could not leave.
This one was different.
It was so simple that it was almost anticlimactic.

The demon howled.

It was true.
He, the great and mighty Rokita, could boast nothing but immense power.
Yet he lacked the intelligence and shrewdness that characterized other demons.

“Well, finally,” whispered Dargorad. The demon looked at the boy questioningly.
The, just a while ago, chort ran his fingers through his blazing red hair and swept his bangs back.

“Because I was a chort, that part of me was dormant. But now...” Dargorad's eyes gleamed. He looked at Rokita as though he were a hunter ready to attack his prey. “I don’t suppose you’ve had the pleasure of meeting the other me?” he laughed.

Rokita had a bad feeling.

In an instant, his entire plan fell apart.

“How did it go again?” Dargorad wondered, touching his chin.
“Do you need me to remind you?” Leontina interjected.
“No...” He shook his head. “Hmm... Ah!” he exclaimed, snapping his fingers.

And began the incantation.

“Darkness around. Dullness around. What will it be?…”

Then he turned his hunter's eyes, which flashed blue, towards Rokita, who was already preparing his flames.

“What will be now?!!!!!”

Holding his soul guide’s scales, Dargorad lunged at the demon and smashed them right into Rokita's snout with all his might.
The demon staggered from the blow.
Before he could recover, Dargorad struck him again with the scales, this time on the head.

Leontina touched her cheek with her right hand.
“Who would have thought that scales could be used in such an innovative way?” she remarked.

Rokita managed to counter a subsequent strike aimed at his flank with flames of his own.
Dargorad, grinning widely, leapt back, feeling the heat of the flames.
“Missy, go to the brat!” Dar shouted.
“You mean Mozuta?”
He nodded and hurled his scales like a boomerang, striking the demon’s legs and forcing him to the ground.
“I can handle things here,” he said.
“That much I can see,” she replied, bowing to him. “Good luck, then,” she added, smiling warmly, before vanishing amidst clouds of smoke and dust.

“It’s just you and me now, little demon!” Dargorad laughed as the scales returned to his hands.
Rokita began to slowly pick himself up.
He was furious.
Just moments ago, that whelp had obeyed his every command, yet now he had actually dared to lay a hand on him.
Seeing the demon’s rage, Dargorad merely snorted.
“Hey, Rokita,” he called out. “Only the dead get into Weles and Selew's realms, right? That means the creatures living there are dead. Which suggests that I can go ahead and toss you on my scales!”

Chains shot out from the scales. Rokita caught them before they could hit him, yanking them, along with Dargorad, towards himself. He kicked the boy in the stomach.
Flames engulfed Dargorad.
Yet he paid no heed to the burns or his ruined clothes.
He kept smiling the whole time.
More chains coiled around Rokita’s leg.
He tried to burn them away, but he couldn't.

No matter how strong his demonic power was, it had no effect on something that originated from Weles.

“Damn it!” he snarled, punching Dargorad straight in the face as he lunged at him, wielding a scale. The redhead staggered, but maintained his grip on the scales and pulled the chains, which were tangled around the demon’s leg. The demon toppled over.
Seizing the moment, Dargorad wrapped the chains around the demon’s entire body.
As Rokita thrashed about, the chains coiled tighter around him.
Unlike Leontina’s silver chains, Dargorad’s were black. They radiated a sinister energy that Rokita recognized all too well.
His scales transformed into a black spear and drove into the demon's shoulder.

Rokita recognised it. The sight of it shook him. He felt a mixture of anger and fear grip his heart.

Dargorad crouched down and leaned over Rokita’s head.
“Sorry, I’m just going to take a look at your life!”
He touched the middle finger of his left hand to his thumb. Instantly, the spear turned into a scale that grew in size and the chains pulled the demon’s enormous body over to the left.