Chapter 2

Something violently yanked her backward.

It coiled around Erabelle’s body and tore her away.

She felt it with dreadful clarity—the exact moment her foot was ripped free of the rift.

She thrashed with all her strength.

It was useless.

Her body slammed into the ground.

It didn’t matter.

Home is still right there.

Her mind screamed that she was already too late, but Erabelle ran anyway.

Her gaze remained fixed on the surface of the water even as people moved to block her path.

She tried to squeeze between the two men standing in front of her.

They were solid as stone, refusing to budge.

She tried to go around them.

When that failed, she dropped to the ground and tried to crawl between their legs.

“Ah...!”

No...

She reached out desperately.

Please...

She begged with everything she had, but the gate had already begun to close.

It was disappearing.

...No.

Lying flat on the ground, Erabelle dug her fingers into the gravel and whispered.

Please... No. Please...

“What the hell is this rat?”

Erabelle froze in the middle of her prayer.

“Some rat, all right. Her physical ability is practically subhuman.”

“Then what is she?”

“We’ll find out soon enough. I’m still betting 1,000 credits she isn’t a spy.”

“You bastard, calling it first?”

“You literally just said she was, dumbass.”

She knew those voices.

Without a doubt, she knew them.

They belonged to the very people she had spent the past several days avoiding like the plague.

Erabelle’s entire body trembled as she slowly raised her head.

Two silhouettes loomed over her, their faces obscured by shadow.

Black uniforms.

The insignia of the 41st Division emblazoned on their chests.

Tall, broad-shouldered, disciplined.

“Let’s start with an interrogation. I’ve got the keys.”

Erabelle scrambled upright and began desperately shuffling backward on her hands and heels.

A mistake.

She shouldn’t have done that.

“No need to rush straight into an interrogation, is there?”

The low voice came from behind her.

Gentle.

Almost friendly.

Erabelle froze again.

Her body began trembling as though it had sensed death before her mind could catch up.

Slowly, she forced herself to turn her head.

Through her blurred vision, she made out an astonishingly handsome face.

Him...

That man.

Dezef Avganis.

Hair so dark it seemed to swallow the light.

A military cap tilted carelessly over his head.

A black uniform fastened with gold-trimmed buttons.

Eyes that caught even the faintest glimmer of light like those of a predator lurking in the dark.

And that infuriatingly beautiful face...

Dezef Avganis.

It was really him.

The instant recognition struck, Erabelle’s pupils widened.

He’s... He was supposed to be away!

The man looked down at her with a pleasant expression.

“You recognize me, don’t you?”

At those words, the last trace of color drained from her face.

“Y-You’re from the Avganis Marquess—”

“No.”

He smiled again, softly.

“If that were all, you wouldn’t be this frightened of me, would you? My reputation is fairly decent.”

That was a mistake.

“There’s really no need for an interrogation, Lady Erabelle. I’d much rather talk this through. The interrogation room is quite far from here... and rather unpleasant.”

He was one of the main characters of the novel.

And the most deranged among all its lunatics.

The true psychopath of this world—even the original protagonist had failed to stop him from dismembering people and tossing their severed limbs to his dogs as chew toys.

The root cause of the grimdark ending.

A flawless moral void, utterly incapable of remorse.

The man who would ignite the imperial succession crisis and plunge the galaxy into chaos, massacring billions in the process.

And here he was.

Smiling down at her with such kindness.

“I-I can be useful if you let me live!”

Erabelle shouted.

Please...! Let me live!

***

The Empire’s power stretched across the galaxy.

Fourteen kingdoms and 112 merchant unions formed the Nover Federation.

If every inhabited planet in the galaxy were connected, together they would form the foundation of this world’s structure—a vast system known as Signum.

Signum.

A world where magic, firearms, High Spirits, mythology, and science fiction intertwined.

Every social structure, law, and class system was built upon and enforced through Signum.

Like a law of nature, the system itself was immutable.

Interpretations differed, but both the Empire and the Federation ultimately arrived at the same conclusion.

Everything must obey the order from top to bottom.

This was a world built entirely upon a hierarchy determined by one’s Signum rank.

Yet even more dangerous than that hierarchy was the connection between this primal energy and instinct.

Dominance.

That was the fundamental instinct embedded within Signum.

For the people of this world, rebellion and defiance were not merely taboo.

They were fundamentally, dangerously unnatural.

The problem most often manifested as violence.

In a world where every sentient being was born with a Signum slot, the urge to dominate {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} was regarded as no less primal than hunger itself.

Violence in response to insubordination was accepted as naturally as eating.

Just as a person could not survive without food, the inhabitants of this world considered killing in response to rebellion entirely justified—even necessary.

It was a class system more savage than anything found among beasts.

And then there was Dezeb Avganis.

The man standing before her was neither a contracted spirit nor a possessed vessel.

He was an Incarnate.

In this world, where divine beings interfered in mortal affairs as casually as paying utility bills or earning a diploma, an Incarnate had appeared only twice in recorded history.

Calling him the pinnacle of Signum supremacism would hardly have been an exaggeration.

In short, he was the worst monster this world had ever produced.

“Hmm... and what exactly makes you so useful?”

Dezeb Avganis smiled as though mildly amused.

But it was an act.

Erabelle Vermilion had read hundreds of pages about this man.

And there was one thing she knew for certain.

If he failed to see an immediate use for her, he would kill her here and now.

“I’m a Special Ability Contractor!”

She dropped to her knees in the perfect posture of submission, without the slightest hint of resistance.

If he demanded her liver and gallbladder, she looked ready to cut herself open on the spot and hand them over.

At the words Special Ability Contractor, his smile faltered ever so slightly.

A good sign.

Whether intentional or not, it meant she had finally said something that caught his interest.

Her guess had been right.

Special abilities were rare even in a world saturated with supernatural powers.

After all, very few people were foolish enough to stake their lives on something so unstable.

“Are you actually an agent of the Federation?”

He looked down at her, his voice calm.

Erabelle shook her head frantically.

“No! I’m not!”

“Not an agent, yet a Special Contractor sneaking into a restricted area of the Imperial Palace?”

His expression remained pleasant.

“That sounds like little more than wordplay to me.”

“I swear! I’m nothing more than a pure transport-type spirit contractor!”

“Transport?”

Almost there.

Maybe—

just maybe—

she wouldn’t die today.

Erabelle forced her rigid body to focus on the tiny sliver of hope she was clinging to.

“Yes! It’s closer to a powerless sub-dimensional transport space!”

Her answer came out in a sharp, military cadence, like a newly conscripted recruit desperate to prove her usefulness.

Which, in a sense, she was.

Her life depended on it.

On a hunch, she had chosen a transport-type High Spirit named Miro as her main Signum slot.

All because of a single throwaway line from the original novel.

“The 41st Division has chronic supply issues.”

A useless sentence.

So minor that it barely mattered.

She didn’t even know why she remembered it.

It had played no meaningful role in the story.

And yet she remembered.

So, just in case, she had turned that insignificant detail into her lifeline.

If she ever happened to fall into the hands of these people...

this was the card she intended to play.

And in Erabelle’s life, things always went wrong.

“How much support can it provide?”

Dezeb asked with unfailing politeness, which only made her skin crawl.

He was absurdly beautiful, every movement elegant to the point of seeming unreal...

But Erabelle knew—in excruciating detail—just how broken he was inside.

“Twenty High Spirits! Up to 240 tons each!”

“...Summon them, if you would.”

Without hesitation, Erabelle peeled the interference sticker from the back of her hand.

Someone whistled at her decisiveness, but she didn’t have time to look.

“S-rank?”

Eleven Signum slots shimmered across her hand.

“She’s definitely unregistered.”

“No matter how minor House Vermilion is, how did we miss this?”

“Must’ve kept her output below B-level. Anything under that barely registers.”

Exactly.

She had spent her entire life making sure never to exceed B-rank output.

No point hiding it now...

She swallowed hard and immediately activated her primary Signum.

Miro.

The spirits answered her call one after another.

Twenty of them.

Miro, the High Spirit of Transport, shaped like a whale.

A gentle, noncompetitive spirit whose sole ability was transporting inanimate matter.

It had been an easy contract to form precisely because no one else wanted it.

One by one, the spirits began to materialize.

Ghostly white light flooded the dark forest as their immense forms blotted out the night sky.

There was no point worrying about whether someone in the palace might see them.

If she wasn’t useful, she wouldn’t live long enough for it to matter.

And if she was useful—

these people would make sure no one ever learned she had been here.