The ancient castle, restored to calm, was like a quiet, giant box.
Tiptoeing down the steps through the dim passageway, Luge felt like a villain destined to die horribly in a cliché horror story. He already had an odd appearance to begin with, and now he was hunched over, carrying half a human face in his hand.
"Big bro, if you can wake up, don't worry about scaring me—just open your eyes. You're well-traveled and knowledgeable, unlike a foolish little kobold like me whose worldly knowledge isn't even as long as his tail," Luge muttered under his breath, giving the half-face in his hand a little shake.
It felt even colder and gloomier here than elsewhere in the castle. The stone steps beneath his feet seemed uncarved, deliberately retaining their raw roughness as though treading a savage, primitive path.
Listening to his own footsteps, he walked step by step to the end of the road.
A crude altar, unimaginably rudimentary, came into view.
The materials forming this altar looked as though they had been scavenged straight out of the garbage: various kinds of bones, clothing, and even books. Along the corners and edges were blackened stains of dark crimson, beside parts of a dismantled wardrobe.
Luge pinched the tooth fragment between two fingers.
He walked round and round the abyssal altar.
Where's the corpse I need to take away? he wondered.
"Over here..."
The handsome youth popped up to the side, seemingly in fairly good spirits.
Luge glanced back down the path he had come from; he saw no sign of the Old Butler and heard no footsteps.
"Why is there an abyssal altar here?"
"Oh? You mean this?" The youth shrugged. "I wanted extraordinary powers like Izel and my father, so I could go out exploring and adventuring. So I secretly collected materials and hid down here to build it. The only reason my Abyssal became so fluent was because I taught myself while tinkering with this thing. I read tons of books and thought it was feasible back then—after all, in theory, I have a bit of demonic bloodline too. Father and Izel actually knew what I was doing, but they just let me fool around and indulge myself. The whole castle was under their control, after all.
"Besides, I couldn't change anything anyway. Even trying to commune with the great Abyss couldn't save a useless wretch like me. I've been different from the day I was born—perpetually frail, perpetually sick, and permanently incurable. But I got used to it."
The handsome youth's figure wavered, and a floorboard lifted up on its own.
"When I was little, I used to hide in there to play. Izel would pretend not to know, letting the maids search in a panic. He knew I liked teasing them. When dinner came, he'd come down to fetch me back. Sometimes I would already be fast asleep inside."
In a hidden compartment beside the altar lay a curled-up, shriveled corpse. Looking at the dried-up husk hugging its knees, it was hard to imagine it had once possessed such a handsome appearance.
Luge walked two circles around the shriveled corpse.
He had noticed that ever since turning into a kobold, he had developed a habit of circling things while inspecting them.
"Were you... locked beneath the library because you caused trouble, which is why you couldn't attend the lessons? Seems you might actually have been a good student after all, not someone who truly wanted to skip class."
As Luge spoke, he produced a short spear and hoisted the desiccated husk straight up.
"You want me to burn it? What's inside, then? Or does it restrict you somehow?" Hoisting the dried corpse, he swung it back and swept it across beside him.
Sure enough, the handsome youth retreated far away in advance.
Gripping the short spear, Luge brought the shriveled thing before his eyes. Looking closely, he could see fine, dense lines carved across it, along with all sorts of unfamiliar glyphs, as if clothing the dried corpse in a woven brocade.
A few guesses formed in his mind, but they didn't matter. He, Luge, hadn't come here to meddle in such affairs, nor did he need to bother understanding every detail. He simply used the spear to deposit the corpse onto the abyssal altar. The altar had been a crude, low-grade, defective piece of work to begin with, and after lying abandoned here for three hundred years, it looked entirely beyond normal use.
"Visitor from another realm, you don't need to be so tense. I bear you no ill will—they were merely some white lies," the handsome youth said. "I'm not an evil person, or my stern father would have killed me long ago. Burn it. Just as I said before, we'll both get what we want. You're a wizard; I know powerful contracting methods are passed down among wizards. I can sign one with you to prove my sincerity."
In truth, Luge would have loved to use a magical contract, but unfortunately, he simply didn't know how.
"I don't care whether what you're saying is true or false. I only want to leave safely." Luge paused. "And no normal person would go on trusting the words of a liar..."
Thoughts raced through his mind.
Since this shriveled corpse was the key, why not follow local customs and play a little prank, just like the Demon's Dice?
He feigned leaving and strode toward the stone steps.
At first, the handsome youth remained where he stood, but seeing that Luge had no intention of stopping, he flickered forward and blocked the stairs.
"Father locked me here solely for the family's honor! But my homeland and that world are gone—what family honor is there left to speak of? Old Izel only ever followed Father's orders, but he's already dead! He is no longer Izel..."
The handsome youth didn't lose his temper; he spoke with that same placid, composed demeanor as before.
Luge recalled the earlier note.
Old Butler Izel had written on it, begging him to rescue this young master, but at this moment, their accounts clearly contradicted one another. Perhaps the note was also a forgery fabricated by the young master, or perhaps half-truth and half-lie. Of course, it was also possible that at some point three hundred years ago, the Old Butler had changed his mind and decided to save the lad.
Yet Luge was in no mood to tangle with this any longer, to listen to words whose truth he couldn't discern, nor did he have the capacity to care about the affairs of another world. He was just a little kobold who didn't even have pants.
He spun around abruptly and hurled the half-face onto the ruined altar.
No one who deceived or trifled with a kobold ever came to a good end.
Leave everything to fate.
This sudden move cut off the handsome youth mid-sentence. The baffling action left him stunned, while the altar's utter silence left Luge speechless as well. For a moment, both of them quietly stared at the pile of junk.
Suddenly, space distorted.
Dull grey streams of light swirled and churned in a tight pocket over the altar.
As if waking from a three-hundred-year slumber, the ruined abyssal altar sprang to life in an instant.
The handsome youth drifted forward with successive cries of alarm, darting past Luge toward the edge of the altar. Yet he dared not touch the shriveled corpse upon it, able only to circle the crude altar in frantic circles.
"You! What did you throw on there?! You wretched wizard!"
Seeing that the altar had genuinely reawakened, the young master threw caution to the wind and lunged toward its center.
Whoosh!
A slightly worn boot appeared, lying crooked upon the altar.
Chapter 61