Another smooth glide of the sickle across the small piece of wood held by his left hand, another curl of skin joins the pile on the stone floor of the gazebo. Turning the nearly-finished wooden dagger and peering at the point from the bottom of the handle, he realized that there was unevenness at the middle. His frustration carefully held back, he continued the arduous process with the diligence he carried whenever in doing this little recreation. Both hands steady, he glided the blade across the uneven part of the wood and skinned off the—

Snap!

The wooden dagger snapped in the middle.

Yet again, it was thanks to this fucking excuse of a hand not knowing the right amount of strength put in the shaving. And just when it was going SO WELL!

In a fit, he threw the useless piece of shit towards the pillar, watching as it failed to break into splinters and instead join the pile of other discarded prototypes under it.

Mother was quick to provide another shortened branch. Wordlessly and roughly, he swiped it off her metallic hands and started with the point of the dagger, taking slow strokes to not accidently snap it in half like the first time.

This fucking prosthetic is really impractical….but the point of this stupid carving thing was to learn control and precision to it. If he's going to be stuck with it, he'll have to grit his teeth. He chose to do this damn thing himself and he's not backing out on something he started himself.

Sparing a glance at the shadow of the gazebo created by the angle of the sun, it looked like an entire hour has passed since waking up and snagging a few clean branches from the residential trees. His belly already full after eating the dinner he didn't eat last night, he was quick to occupy his mind overloaded with negativity with a good distraction.

Snap!

….Hence this.

In a fit, his left hand is lit aflame using the engendered flame affinity Lord Mathers had improved, incinerating the failure it held into ashes, leaving charcoal smudges on his fingertips. Mother passes him another branch, he grumpily took it and set to work.

"Another bad one?" The fay asked a stupid question.

"Ugh…" He replied, not having any inclination to throw a snark in Puck's direction.

As he had learned yesterday, the dear girl has a morning ritual that involved regular communication with the Nature Spirits done in the gardens every morning, and Puck is finding the means to kill time until Emilia comes to retrieve him. And in this case, being petted by Mother's steel arms without any complaints for non-flesh digits stroking his fur. The former is seated right beside him while he tried to create a child's toy, a pile of sticks by her feet in case he broke another dagger.

"Not used to that new hand yet?"

The question brought back last night. The most demeaning moment of his life, losing his composure, breaking down and crying….

Pathetic. Absolutely, pathetic. At least he finally vented it, but he's still has lingering thoughts of disdain over his own life.

"….no." Setting down his sickle beside him, he held the bone hand out towards Puck, curling the fingers and intentionally making crackles erupt to emphasize its flawed structure. "Without sense of touch, texture, temperature, pain, and whatever else is there, it's a pathetic substitute." He curled it into a fist, and was disappointed, "Not even clenching it like this is satisfying. I feel no power and I fail to realize how much strength I exert." As a punctuation, the first joint of his index finger snapped off before the rest of the digits cracked, crumbling under the pressure done on itself.

Seconds later, he's left to only the last joint of his 4 fingers and no thumb.

"I-I see….."

With a pang of bitterness, he repaired the skeletal hand back to its original state, the scattered bone dust and fragments on the floor floating up to his damaged palm, merging together like clay before completing. Flexing the fingers experimentally, he picked up the sickle and continued his work, exerting more force than necessary on the stick that he peeled off a large chunk of the wood. Deciding not to care, he proceeded with the other side.

Repairing the hand; trying to gain precise control of the hand; forcing himself through another day just to find the will to live—why the hell is he even doing all this? What was the point of all this?

He shook his head lightly, pursing his lips as he turned the wooden dagger sideways, trying to see the symmetry. "Hm." There was a bit of girth on the left side of the blade but it's something he can overlook just this once. He'll proceed to the hilt, the easier part of carving a knife.

It took a mere two minutes compared to the condemning 10 to finish, not needing his right hand as he only needed to glide the wood across the blade instead of the other way around.

And now in his hand was a practice knife for Above-World little ones. The little ones Underground would use a real knife instead. Knowing pain and suffering as early as possible is a virtue for them, it'll teach them cause and effect, caution and humility. Hollowing their eyes using their personal knives will come next after graduating their proper knife training. If he's the one to extract them again, he won't trust this stupid hand in regards to the operation. He had a full streak of perfect extractions, and he won't have that broken because of this.

"No offense but were you good at it with both flesh hands before?"

"None taken." He set down the first complete, if flawed, wooden dagger beside him. Mother passed him another branch. "Yes, I would be finished under 5 minutes if it was still with me. A figurine sometimes takes 20. A wooden golem would simply take a single minute but if I actually bothered with details like a chiseled body and a face, it would be half a day for me to finish. Two hours if I have a few skeletons at my beck and call"

"Whoa, really?" The creation of a golem would be impressive to the eyes of a minor mage but the Spirit's 'whoa' sounded actually genuine. He thought Puck was a Nature Spirit who is very well-versed with many magics. The fay eyed the pile of used wood on the floor for a few seconds before turning to him, "Say. Can you make a wood golem right now?"

He snapped his fingers to answer. The pile of failed daggers on the floor assembled into simple forms of artificial life. The simplest design: daggers for body, legs and arms, a little army of wooden dagger golems are standing at attention at the entrance of the gazebo.

He gave them one instruction, his voice too bored to be considered commanding but they obeyed nonetheless, "Massacre."

And so, a massacre of wood and twig ensues. Jointless limbs flailed at each other, sounds of clicks and clacks filling the air. At some interval, a dagger golem's arm or torso would be flying into the air, sometimes another's wooden body was split in half before another got mobbed by a group who had nothing but legs, kicked to death. The Spirit looked on with childlike amusement, eyes unblinking at the rather bloodless carnage. Mother ceased petting to not distract him.

And when there was only one survivor left, kicked to his distance before its assailant crumpled, Mother immediately raised her right sabaton up and crushed it into fine dust. He was slightly surprised as the leg came from the side instead of underneath him since he failed to remember Mother wasn't actually secure into him anymore.

"Yowch, not even a survivor to tell the story?"

"No." He bluntly answered. Just the mere sight of that piece of shit pissed him off. A reminder of his incomplete state, "It had no use to me."

"So cruel. Oh well, at least I get to see autonomous magic. It was quite good." So they call it 'Autonomous Magic' in these parts? It's called Summoning Magic in his world. A careful set of footsteps came near, "Hey, Lia."

"Hey, Puck. Good morning, Ser Emurdol." A bell-like voice greeted him, he paused in his work to nod back the courtesies before continuing the work, "How are you feeling today?"

Slowly moving the last stroke of the sickle across the dagger, he answered simply, "….unstable." It seems he's starting to get used to this hand. Creating the knife was starting to get simple. Its design and structure is still crude but that can be improved on. "This is good." He muttered before setting the toy down beside him. Mother passed him another branch.

"Unstable….I see" The dear girl did not seem surprised at his answer, "Ser Emurdol, are you alright?"

Hmph. He shook his head, wearing a wry smile. "No. I am not alright. The loss of a dominant hand isn't easy for me to cope, Your Ladyship." He's still mocking her, and his faux-polite tone could have fooled anyone into believing it was genuine. "This replacement is no solace. It only makes me feel less than okay. It's a pathetic loss."

"Yes…." He could hear the sympathy in her soft voice. What's with her? "…but that's not the whole reason why you're unstable, right?"

He continued to thin the branch with smooth strokes, his careful movements showing evidence of continued trial and error. Then he realized the implication in her question. He raised his stare up, looking back into purple eyes that pitied him. Detestable, "You heard me last night?"

She pursed her lips, unsure how to approach the sensitive topic. "Not really 'hear' but at some point in the night, we got deaf."

Ah….

So it didn't work. He wanted to make sure no one was able to hear his outbursts, but it seems they were still awake or had company they were speaking with at that time. "That was my doing." He had struck himself with the same curse too, depriving himself of sight and hearing. He couldn't stand looking at the world and he couldn't stand his own wails. He couldn't stand the Living World at that moment.

That was not like him to do so. Hiding from reality, just how far has he fallen in his despair?

"Ram and Rem were agitated, and I followed them as they ran for your room." Her brow furrowed slightly, the concern apparent in her countenance. "They thought you were causing an attack….instead, we found you crying when we entered your room. We couldn't hear you cry but you were…we could have comforted you, but your skeleton did not allow us to enter. It was shaking its head at us, as if it was saying we should leave you be."

Skeleton? The defect that waited at the door as soon as he woke up some time before dawn? Now he really should look into that phenomena. That damn thing's moving on its own and the last time he checked, it didn't have a soul inhabiting it.

Or was that Mother's doing?

"By the time you fell asleep, that's the time when our hearing returned. Then it—I'm sorry. She carried you to bed and closed the door on us afterwards."

Hm. He should thank Mother for that. He needed his space, and he didn't want to acknowledge the fact that people watched him weep unless he was prepared to face that. Upon waking up with a dark shadow under his eyes, he had considered that the residents might have noticed the curse in the mansion last night. And he was right.

"Ser Emurdol." He watched as the dear girl took a seat on the unoccupied space beside him, speaking in the softest of tones, "If there's something that's hurting you…I'm here. You can talk to me. I probably won't be any help but I'll listen to them. It's the least I could do."

He flattened the line on his lips, looking down from her sympathizing gaze as he exhaled a breath, setting down his sickle and his unfinished dagger. "You're a kind soul…." His brow furrowed bitterly, fighting back the anger and indignance inside him from growing any hotter. "…but I don't want you to be troubled for the reasons of my misery. You will not like it, believe me."

Back in his world, there is some so-called common knowledge about Priests of the Serpent among the Above-World. One among them was their ungratefulness of having their lives saved.

That is a misunderstanding. Priests of the Serpent are not ungrateful, they even carry the code to return due thanks, but they do not accept being denied their rightful death. Necromagi always consider their options before a fight, always using a tactic that is the safest in regards to life-threatening situations, and that commonly entails murder in self-defense, compromise, the use of pragmatic solutions, or commonly the summoning of a skeleton army to repel an attack force while they make a getaway, avoiding useless conflict.

The Order do not fear death and accept its inevitability, but it's not something they welcome unless they are truly willing. But when they do, it means they are now satisfied with their work on the Living World and are ready to go home. To the Priest of the Serpent, death is just like a farmer returning to the home after a grueling day of work in the fields. And like a proper farmer, they make sure they worked themselves to the bone before ending the day, leaving significant amounts of work and progress done just so the load will be lesser the next day or for the other farmers who will take his place.

Simply put, a Priest will die like any other mortal but they never die in vain. They make sure they leave something meaningful before going home, whether to take on an apprentice and pass onto them their knowledge and power; whether to contribute something to the Living Realm, either to the Underground City or to the Above-World; whether to accomplish a murderous task that no one but they could do before their passing or to simply perform an altruistic deed that costs a life, like saving a life. The Order aspire for these things, and then they will gladly make their peace with the Dragon.

To be denied the rest they so deserved, not many welcome it with open arms, and he was one of them. To be given another chance of living would be comparable to being forced to work overtime, and few would be able to hold down their despair from lashing out at their 'saviors'. They will only express gratitude if they had something else in mind to accomplish before their death, which is a rare occurrence.

And now, he's in that position: Angered for being forced to work overtime, and holding himself down from lashing out at his savior. Emilia was worthy of this mercy, for she had shown him gratitude and trust unlike most others, but still.

The pain of living goes far for a Priest of the Serpent, not just from the treatment they get from Above-Worlders but from reality itself, especially when they had enough. It was a mystery to the Order why the Immortal Queen, Lady Sabarra would wish to suffer an eternity in the Realm of the Living, Even to this day, it is something they have not known the answer to.

"So you will not tell me?" The dear girl asked softly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, immaculately-pale white flesh contrasted by the void of the light-eating cloth of the robes under it.

Through that touch, her kindness reached his heart, throwing water over the bitter fires he had held. He reached up and gently held that warm hand with his left, squeezing it, "Your concerns are enough." He lowered that hand to what's left of his lap, rubbing his thumb on her palm before interlocking fingers. He refused to stare back at her, "It's enough. Thank you, Emilia."

All that anger, all that pain, so easily quelled by a simple show of kindness, backed by complete trust and genuine concern. It still wasn't enough to rekindle the will to live but it relieved him of a burden that he couldn't stand carrying. If anything, he's a blank slate now.

He's very thankful.

"You're welcome." She squeezed back his hold and placed her other hand of warm flesh atop his own. Even if he wasn't looking, he can feel that shining smile on her face. "But if you are ready, I'll be here, okay?"

"Yes." Had she not been burdened by the idiotic absurdity called 'Politics', he might have taken her as an apprentice. She's gifted, experienced in battle, and her dim line of thinking would actually help her go far in training. The Order never had a mage or a spirit mage in their ranks before, she could have been a worthy first of its time. And as Principle dictates, you look after your apprentice as if they were your child. As of now, he truly cares for this girl.

Squeezing that hand, he let go and had Mother secure herself to him once again before he rose to his feet. Stretching his back and sighing afterwards, he stashed his sickle and walked to the entrance of the gazebo, facing the general direction of numerous plant-life.

"Where are you going?"

Clapping along with Mother a rapid rhythm with his own hands, he took a deep breath, and then cupped his flesh hand and bone hand around his mouth.

And then, "WHOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH‼"

The deep below echoed far, out into the distance and receiving a return call not just from the wildlife of the living but also from the Dead seconds later. The pattern of assembly along with Mother called for their attention, the necromantic energies in his lungs allowed him to be heard far from those of the Other Side, and he hears the wails from the Souls and Spirits of the Dead. Many emotions merged together in the cacophony of spectral noise, so many bitter Souls, so many grieving Souls, and very little are just wandering around aimlessly. There are some vengeful Souls as well, not that they could do anything so long as they don't have a body.

"Wow. For a lanky guy, you sure got a pair of lungs there. Maybe warn us next time? I'd like to be able to hear for as long as I'm contracted to Lia."

"What was that for, Ser Emurdol? I was flabbergasted for a moment there…."

"I'm simply calling the attention of those who will answer my call when I need it." He counted their numbers, squinting slightly against the sunlight shining on the scenery behind them. "Quite many. So many." It would be a very long night when dusk comes. Dealing with the dead can be a little overwhelming. So much wisdom, so many viewpoints, and an endless void of madness. Having the obligation to hear them all is so exhausting. It's amazing how his sanity is still intact despite the millions of souls who talked his ear till it bled, sometimes literally, even if the Order taught him to strengthen his mental defenses against them.

"Wait. Are you saying people are hiding out there?"

But that's a concern for when the Dragon looks down on him, evening specifically. Right now, maybe he should indulge in some social interactions.

"Well, yes." Shouldn't a person who communicates with Spirits be aware of that? Unless she's thinking about living people instead of intangible and volatile entities. "The Spirits of the Dead tend to linger over abandoned or unpopulated places they like, you see. Like the forests outside this property."

"O-oh." She actually thought about living people. "Spirits, right. But why do you need to scream?"

"Because a scream reaches far than a clap." Why didn't the Order consider this in their training? It's not like screaming is a crime. Sure, it might draw attention to you or give away your position, but still….

He turned to the fay, "You wondered how I could manage such a magnitude of noise despite my build, yes?"

"Yeah. I wanna know." Puck fluffed his ears. Emurdol wondered if he got those cat ears ringing after shouting like that. "Is that something your Order has in their arsenal? Loud voices to add up to the scare in your powers?"

Ha! The Order of the Serpent were already feared. To enforce intimidating factors would be rather redundant. "This is something I developed for myself." He chuckled, imagining the faces of the elders if they ever heard about this. "Other necromagi would definitely criticize me for it, for silence is our virtue. You cannot communicate with the Spirits in a loud environment, can you?" He looked pointedly at the nearby spirit mage.

"Yes…" The dear girl nodded in understanding, "But in your case, you speak with the Souls while I speak to the Spirits. Except, I don't have to scream like you do."

He curled his lip, "Hm." Emilia should fix her terminology. In Pandemonium, Spirits and Souls are quite the same. She should differentiate them as Spirits of the Dead and Spirits of Nature, that's a lot more clear and specific.

"Back to the original question. Shouting magnifies the spectral call." He clenched his left fist, making sure they see the bones revealing through the pale skin and emphasizing his lankiness. "I may be gaunt, but I am as strong as a full-grown warrior. This applies to every Priest of the Serpent. Our appearances belies our physical power." He traced a skeleton hand across a single rib of the bone cuirass over his chest. "I may rely on her in regards to physical combat but it does not mean I am helpless on my own, even I can admit that my skill with the knife is above-average among those of the Order."

"So basically, your skelly suit does physical combat while you do the magical combat."

And the fay pretty much summarized the roles between him and Mother in regards to conflict with that. "Sometimes it's the other way around."

"Heh. You're just like us Spirit Mages." Puck remarked with a kitty smile, "That's how we duke it out, y'know? We work as a team."

"Hmm…" Interesting fact. He sat back down to his original spot beside Emilia, stepping over the pile of shaved wood and failed wooden daggers along the way. "Now, do you know how a shout becomes strong?" He asked to the two.

"Hmm…." The dear girl mulled it over. The fay copied the pose of holding the chin as he sat on her shoulder. "By strengthening the throat?"

"Magical amplification?"

All are wrong. Typical for magically-inclined individuals. They honestly should expand their knowledge about the human anatomy like the Order. You would be hard-pressed to find anyone Above-World who isn't a mage or noble that has been educated. Stupid caste systems are impeding the intelligence of humans.

He prodded a finger at Emilia's gut, causing her to jolt and giggle slightly, "It's by the strength of your abdomen. The stronger your abdomen, the louder your shout."

"Really?" Puck quickly flew to his stomach, "Put 'em up. Lemme see the packs you're hiding under these robes."

"He-hey! Puck! That's too intrusive!"

Mother quickly lifted up the fay away just so he can unclasp the locks of the robes. Stopping below the chest, he revealed his well-toned abdomen containing a full six-pack. The bottom of his gaunt chest was slightly visible, exposing the revealing ribs from the pale flesh, contradicting the brawny state of his belly.

"Whoa. You do have 'em." Puck remarked, pawing the pale surface of the muscles. "I wonder how your people get by with such bodies, especially when you said you all live deep down in the ground."

"With countless horrendous experiments and many forms of self-surgery as well as maintaining good health, we can develop our physical expertise and stay healthy at the same time despite our lack of sunlight." It's practically the necromagi counterpart of an elite soldier's torturous training. In the Order of the Serpent's case, drinking shit-jars and cutting yourself open without any guidance. "We may dabble with death and decay in a daily basis but we are very careful with our own health. There has not been a single record of a Priest of the Serpent falling to an illness. Not once."

Drinking shit-jars is still detestable, no matter how many times he does it inside or outside the Underground City. Self-surgery is a very dangerous endeavor as well. To make sure you do not botch it up and send yourself to a slow and painful death, you read, read, read, read, and read. Study as much as you can and eventually you are able to improve your own flesh to a more robust state. No one simply lives Underground after all. Every subterranean citizen is a human, therefore they suffer nutritional deficiency due to the lack of exposure from the sun.

That's why the Order of the Serpent came to be, to counteract such complications. Thanks to its existence and meticulous efforts, everyone is as healthy as if the sun was present in the caverns and still able to procreate healthy and lively pale-skinned silver-haired babes with beautiful eyes.

"Your people sure are unique, aren't they, Ser Emurdol?" The dear girl asked, the fay back to sitting on her shoulder.

Clasping back the locks on his robes, he replied her, "That's a narrow presumption, Dear Girl." He felt a slight pang of discomfort come over him. He's starting to sound like an elderly man, "Every society is unique, and my own is no different, especially a certain society back in my homeland." A fond smile crossed over his lips, good days and well-earned memories coming back to mind, "The common people call them the Northmen. As the name implies, they originate from the North. Whatever kind of North this country has, my own North created the most physically powerful humans. They are a warrior tribe that lived in the harshest climates, and because of their living conditions and their lifestyles, their bodies are built to be superhuman. It would not be an exaggeration to say that they can match my golems hand to hand. They could even survive a harsh blizzard in their undergarments."

"W-What? Really?" He could see the wonder in those purple orbs, as well as on the pair of blue next to her head.

So childish.

"I have seen such a thing with my own eyes." He thought they were undead when they exploded out of the snow like that, and his surprise was doubled when they were warm as soon as they held him down, thinking he was an intruder after entering their borders. "They are like a mountain of muscle. On extreme cases, they are practically a mountain themselves. They can be as tall as 8 feet, they could crush rocks with their bare hands, they could wield gigantic swords one-handed, they could even jump as far as 20 feet in the air. And despite their size, they are deceptively fast." These were the reasons why he respected the Northmen. They were still human, yet they surpassed their original physical limits during their daily life, just like him and his people. "Faster than the field stag. Even their women are capable of such. The things they do to manage such feats is something no average man could survive unless they are born from pureblooded Northmen parents."

"It kinda sounds like Vollachia, you know, even though you said North." Puck muttered.

"Wow…." Yes. That could have been his reaction back then if he wasn't so reserved in speech. "Tell me. What do their women look like? Are they as muscular as the men?"

"Indeed." He nodded. "They share the same principle as the Order of the Serpent. Everyone shares the labor and gender means nothing." In fact, the leader of the Bear Clan was a women herself, and she was the biggest among all the tribe. It was one of the fewest times he was ever scared of another human, especially when they were in the feasting hall together alongside the other mountain men. He never could have survived a fight that day if it hadn't ended well in their negotiations. "In some cases, they are far more boisterous, stronger and more vicious than the men. They tend to succeed their evaluations often. In fact, I participated in one of their simplest evaluations just for fun."

"Oh ho ho." The fay's eyes glinted in interest. "You saying you lifted rocks with the burly men there?"

He gave him a pointed glare, flashing his green eyes for a moment, "Do I strike you as someone who could pull a rock tied to a rope from up a mountain while naked in the snow after pushing it all the way down instead of simply throwing it off the cliff and climbing back up?"

There were 2 pairs of eyes staring at him in shock, "They actually did that?" The dear girl asked. "Did they even manage it?"

He nodded, "That is how brutal it is, by our standards, anyway." He had watched the entire thing himself, and he was absolutely amazed that everyone pulled it off. It's as if they were pulling a bucket from a well. They weren't human at all, they were monsters of their own right, "If you cannot survive one, you would suffer the ridicule of your own people." His skeleton hand held his abdomen, then his brow furrowed slightly, "The evaluation I took was a test to determine if you can create a battle cry that could be heard for miles. In battle, a resounding war cry will do more than horrify the enemy, it can strengthen your allies and raise their spirits to the fight. Nothing is more formidable than an army with immense willpower and high morale. In some extreme cases, a good shout can break your foe's eardrums."

He earned fascinated 'oohs' from his 2 listeners.

He won't say that his creations were shattered apart because of so many roaring Northmen wailing on his constructs like they were nothing, and it isn't because of their fists and weapons. His ears rung that entire time, bled even. It's a wonder how they considered that play when he wasn't in the brightest conditions for the next few days after.

"How they test your battle cry is quite simple. While you stand at a certain place, their most common choices the top of a mountain other or an open field, a Northman will be placed somewhere at a certain far distance. If the Northman could hear your battle cry, you pass the test. If they didn't, it means you haven't exercised enough."

"Then how did you fare?"

"How I fared…" Surprising even himself, he held his chin with his skeleton hand, emulating the thinking pose in his disbelief at how casual he is with it. How did interaction with the dear girl enforce such a thing? "…if I can make a comparison in this area, I could only reach as far as the gate." He earned agreeing nods, attesting that their ears were actually attacked when he had hollered for some cooperating spirits. "And when I did it, I was nearby the local tribe and every Northman took up arms and stormed to where I was because they thought there was a monster invading the village."

Then he exploded into mirth, an amused smile playing on his lips as the laughter boiled in him, "If it weren't for my friend to come and explain to them the situation, there would have been bodies littering Northland soil….!" He was actually snickering, his teeth wickedly bare. "….I was actually laughing my ass off that day, even as they were swinging their axes and swords at me…!"

Now he was releasing full-blown laughter. As his past company usually tells him, his mirth is always laced with cruelty, as if he was enjoying the suffering he inflicted on someone, even if this was his natural laugh. As that was the case, he doesn't need to look at the dear girl to see if she's being unsettled.

"M-morbid…" She mumbled meekly.

"I'm kinda surprised you're still alive, especially if those guys were superhuman as you say they are." He heard the fay, even as he was still laughing.

Being a practitioner of Emotion Suppression like any other necromagus, he easily cut off his mirth like it was a door. "Yes." He answered simply, relaxing on the seat and releasing a relieved sigh. Looking over the yard, he beheld the number of people he's going to entertain tonight. "Fascinating…." He mumbled sarcastically.

He's definitely going to black out at some point. There's just so many Souls. Even if he's going to acquire some knowledge and information from them instead of wisdom that he's already heard from the Spirits of the Order, it would still wear him down.

"Tch." He sneered at the prospect of it.

"Ser Emurdol?"

He turned to the dear girl, "Hm?"

"I've been hearing it from Ram and Rem…."

His lips immediately flattened into a thin line, already knowing where this is going to lead to.

"…you aren't really getting along with either of them." He could hear slight hesitation in her voice, uncomfortable in the topic, "You're not really friendly around them but they think they're the one at fault, saying that they've been acting impolitely towards you yesterday."

He sighed heavily, glowering into space, "The reason is plain and simple: They didn't trust me, and the feelings mutual." Then a wry smile crossed his lips, making light of this particular situation just like many times before. "But this is nothing unusual for a Priest of the Serpent. We were already feared and held suspicious, why should I even bother with earning anyone's trust, much less trust them?"

The hurt on her face was very apparent in his peripheral vision. For some reason, it was an expression that he couldn't ignore all these years. He wondered why. "Don't you trust me?"

Damn it.

He stood up, grabbed her hands to pull her up to his level and, being advantageous in stature, hugged her head slightly above his skeletal chest. Mother followed suit, wrapping her metallic arms around the dear girl gently but tightly. His nose is buried in her silky hair of silver, taking in the flowery scent, "I trust you with my life, Emilia." If anything, he won't resist if she ever plans to take his life. Anyone else and he will retaliate. They don't share the privilege of being the one to grant him his peace with the Dragon. "Besides Mother, you are the safest person I can be with."

"Mother?" Oh dear, he blurted out her name. "B-but why can't you trust the others? Why not give them a chance to warm up to you, that you aren't a bad person despite the way you are?"

He shook his head. This girl's too naïve. There's no such thing as a 'Good Necromagus' or a 'Bad Necromagus'. A Priest of the Serpent simply does what he must, appeasing the restless dead and maintaining the Balance in all things. Not all Above-Worlders agree with the things they do.

"I don't need their trust, Emilia. I don't need Rem's, nor Ram's, nor Lord Mathers. I only need yours and I swear on my worth as a Priest of the Serpent that I will not squander it." He would even say that the sole reason why he even bothered to stay in this mansion instead of leaving in the middle of the night was because of her. "A senior Priest once said to me: a friend Above-World is valuable enough to stake your own life to, for it's the only person you can fully trust to not stab you in the back."

Having someone like that is impossible to begin with, because being friends with a Priest of the Serpent in the first place is considered suicide and it makes you susceptible to being ostracized, or killed for being 'corrupted'. He was glad to be given an assignment to the Northern Regions, the Bear Clan accepted him despite their prior knowledge of his people. Northmen were known to be well-liked for their fun-loving attitudes despite their roughness and slight antagonism to outsiders. The friend he earned there and traveled with him made his passage across the other regions far more bearable. The large man made the presence of a Necromagus tolerable.

"You're my friend." He held back the unpleasant emotions from rushing over him as he admitted that. "You're the only reason why I decided not to hurt anyone despite their treatment of me." He drew back from the embrace but didn't let go, his and Mother's hands still on her person as he stared back at purple eyes, "Don't encourage them to trust me, it will only grant the opposite effect. Allow them to learn from you. If the Ladyship trusts me, then they should to."

That was just wishful thinking. Earning the trust of somebody of the highest status and excluding everybody else's is a very suspicious action. It doesn't sit well in the thought and would warrant a knife to come for his back, but just this once, he's going to let caution out the window. Not all of it, of course. Necromagi never let down their guard unless they are near the Dead, particularly graveyards.

She smiled to him, that brilliant smile. "Okay, I will do that. Oh and Ser Emurdol?"

"Hm?"

"…thank you for calling me your friend."

He knew it. Ostracized and alone at the top, this girl was. Being a candidate to the throne carried burdens. She likely couldn't consider anyone in the mansion her friend meaningfully, only professional relationships as candidate and patron or master and servant. The only meaningful relationship she had is with her contracted Spirit, Puck, who's her father.

"If you reciprocate the intention, then likewise." He replied with a genuine smile, he and Mother letting her go and using his skeleton hand to brush a strand of white hair off her face and behind her elven ear.

Surprisingly, she isn't perturbed by it despite its proximity to her face. Instead, she took it in her hand to rub her fingers across the ivory structure, with the fay resting atop his wrist to examine it closely too. "So this is what our hands look like underneath…." She mumbled in fascination. She moved the sleeve of his robe back, showing the arrangement of bones that kept the prosthetic hand locked to his forearm. "Wow…"

"Yeah." Puck nodded, floating around the arrangement and peering at its design. "I had thought you skinned the flesh off but I was wrong. You actually cut it off and replaced it with this."

"Don't say such scary things, Puck." The dear girl chided, "He's still recovering from the loss."

"Are its movements according to your will?" He didn't seem to be listening. "If it is, how is it moving even though it's not connected to your stump?"

"The answer alludes me, but it's irrelevant at this point." He already confirmed that it wasn't Mother. He would be less than happy if it were otherwise. She already took over his legs, that's more than enough. Not that he is ungrateful for her efforts all this time, however. "Since it moves accordingly to my phantom hand, I will have to begin adapting to it instead of questioning its mobility."

"Phantom hand?" The dear girl doesn't know what a phantom hand is?

"Even if you lose a limb, you still carry the sensation as if you still have it." He curled his fingers, careful not to grip on the dear girl's little hands. He might break them by accident. "As I have said earlier, there is no sense of touch, temperature, pain, and pressure-control among other things. It's impractical for the very moment."

"You might need to wear a glove if you're going to meet other people." She suggested.

He was about to shoot that idea down, then reconsidered. While his existence continues to warrant a lot of suspicious looks and distrust, a visible skeleton hand will just make it worse. While it's one thing to remain true to yourself, it's another thing to be practical. Priests of the Serpent are not morons, and pride is not the first of their concerns. "Hm."

"Lady Emilia."
"Lady Emilia."

3 heads turned to the direction of unified voices, beholding the twin maids at the entrance of the gazebo. "Oh, good morning, Ram, Rem. What's wrong?"

"Breakfast is served. The guest is welcome to join."
"Breakfast is served. The guest is welcome to join."

"Ah, yes." He felt a tug on his skeleton hand and he saw the dear girl's pale hand holding on to the bony palm with the nonchalance of holding a regular hand. "Come on. Let's eat. You can continue making wooden knives afterwards."

Setting aside his astonishment and the thought of his already-filled stomach, he looked at the yard, regarded the spirits of the dead who were on standby, then thought of the storm viper jar in his room.

Now this is actually a dilemma. Both sounded like interesting things to do, having an audience with the dead and research on how to emulate the claw and fang's electric capabilities. He doesn't have a lot of time to cover both in a single day. "Hm." Wait, didn't Lord Mathers just taught him a new way of circulating mana? Gate and Od…..

"Hm." This is going to be interesting.

"Is something wrong, Ser Emurdol?"

"Not really. It's just that I'm going to be very busy later."

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

A small meal and a warm bath afterwards, he locked himself in his borrowed quarters, hard at work and study before his desk. And unexpectedly, he's close to finishing his work. The method this world used is very useful. 5 hours may have passed but he expected to last the entire daytime instead of merely half a day trying to infuse mana in bones without making them break the vessel or simply leak out.

Creating skeleton mages that could manipulate the elemental magic was only possible because of the Soul of a mage inside. If it was an artificial soul but from the bones of a mage, it is still possible, especially if it's the other way around. But for an artificial Soul inside artificial bones, there is no foundation for a skeletal magus to exist. There was no factor that allowed it to contain its personal pool of mana. As a Necromagus who can manipulate life force like clay and mana like it was an arm, he sought ways to improvise and bend the fundamental rules.

The flesh of living beings, especially humans, are the most compatible to carry mana compared to bone, even if a little. But creatures called Storm Vipers, snake men with scaled humanoid upper bodies and a reptilian head who guarded the desert temples are built differently. Their bones have the highest potency of mana compared to their own flesh, allowing them to create electric spells without the need of arcane incantation or focused circulation of energies, potentially making them have nigh-infinite pools of mana as their blood is practically flowing with them.

The bones he created do not carry blood, therefore he couldn't replicate their capabilities unless he extracts them straight out of someone's dead body. If he tries to fill those bloodless bones with mana, it would just be stuck there uselessly, serving no purpose. The artificial soul wouldn't know what to do with it, even if given knowledge.

But Lord Mathers gave him very helpful information yesterday. Magicians use the mana within themselves, but Spirit mages use the mana in the environment with the latter as the medium. If he was to think about it carefully, his skeletal mages are technically spirit mages because of the Spirits of the Dead, including artificial souls inside them.

If that was the case….

Copying the structure of the storm viper's bones, together with the concept of Gate and Od infused within the artificial soul's limited knowledge amidst its simple-mindedness, he might be able to create a skeletal mage from nothing.

Using the one-armed defect of a skeleton as a model, he applied his research to the test. It meant breaking it apart and rebuilding the construct from scratch, modifying every single blood vessel within its structure to make sure it's capable of processing mana. Once complete, he would breathe life into the frame, granting it the knowledge of this world's mana circulation method at the same time.

Taking a deep breath and shaking his exhausted hands, including his skeleton hand, he nodded at his job well done and proceeded for the final examination. Will it work or is it another failure?

The modified defected skeleton lying on the floor, bearing scars from its recent operation, all of its joints disconnected, including its new right hand, he proceeded with the next step. Infusing his will into the frame, the pieces shook as if held by unsteady hands and with a twist of his hand as well as a clench of a fist, all 360 joints snapped together in place to form the perfect skeleton. Drawing the energies of life together in his hands while ignoring the nearby Souls who wanted to take over instead, he created a simple form of life bearing the most basic intelligence but with an inherent knowledge of this world's magic and passed it into the bones.

As soon as he had finished, its upper body sat upwards like a lever, rising to its feet fluidly without the slightest noise of bones clacking against each other, just like a perfect skeleton and turned towards him, awaiting its orders patiently.

"Let there be light."

A voiceless command escapes his lips and the construct obeyed, and as a testament to his hard work, its skeletal hands glowed white in arching light and heat, electricity rippling across its hand and forearms before the buzzing fell silent, its orders well-executed without delay like the perfect creation of a Necromagus.

Unlike the typical human, he will not hop and hoot in joy. He instead grinned, threatening to split his head in half while his eyes glowed brightly in his sockets at his victorious achievement.

It works. It bloody works. By the Dragon, it fucking works! I actually created a skeletal magus from nothing!

To finalize its perfection, he severed the life force that held its frame together and it spontaneously dismantled itself into a pile of bones before he reduced them into bone dust. Taking another batch from his pack, taking the recycled ones back inside, he recreated the bones, along with its modifications.

The frame complete, he gave it life and watched it rise to its feet. With a snap of his fingers, he said to it, "Light." The simple command rewarded him with the skeleton's straightforward obedience, its hands now coated in burning orange light, the fire energy dancing around its ivory hands before settling into a tiny spark atop the palm containing energy begging to be released.

And as if he was revering the Dragon, he raised his hands up to the ceiling as he glorified the success of his work and applaud it, Mother joining suit as she clapped her metallic hands together on either side of him. She even sent him her compliments in his mind. His elated mood couldn't be anymore brighter as he heard them, especially when she said that no one had done this before except Lady Sabarra and very few others.

By the Dragon, he is seriously starting to take after the Revered Immortal Queen of the Serpent, accomplishing 3 of the magnificent feats she's done while Necromagi are lucky to be off with one. Having more than that is not supposed to happen! She had direct contact with the Dragon while she was still alive and he hasn't! How could anyone compare to the most Beautiful Necromagus in the Underground City!?

"Haaa…." He sighed, holding his forehead. "Then again….I might be the closest comparison to Lady Sabarra in this world now. The City doesn't even exist here."

Staring back at the empty voids of the artificial undead mage, he suddenly felt like he should keep this construct alive for now instead of pocketing it for later, see if it's going to do something interesting outside his knowledge just like the defect did.

"Let's see how useful you get." With that audible command, he left his quarters to his new creation's watch and headed back to the gazebo. Time to have a long chat with the Souls of the Dead.

He'll see what's worth the gossip around this mansion…

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

The night was silent, unnaturally so. The lack of noises indicated that, especially the lack of wind. There were no insects. There were no night animal calls. It seemed as if reality itself held its breath at the spectacle happening in the yard of the mansion. This change had carried on even when it was midday where Emurdol began speaking with the Dead, deafening all natural noise into static as the Souls congregated around him like a dependable authority figure, allowing the atmosphere of the Spirit Realm to takeover momentarily so long as he is calling for their attention.

Despite him being out of sight from the top floor window of the Mansion Master's private study thanks to the gazebo's roof, most of his light-eating robes as well as his artificial legs are still seen from above, still in the same place since he arrived. As far as Ram knows, he's been motionless like a statue for a whole of 7 hours, dull green eyes staring into space while his mouth moved incomprehensibly, unresponsive to the reality around him even as the pile of wood shavings and crude training knives at his feet began floating in a spiral around him.

It was either an interesting sight, or an unsettling one. Emilia had once commented that she kept hearing ghostly voices in her head after watching him for a short period of time before she went to bed, sending the guest a silent bid of goodnight. Ram could concur to the oddity, she was sure she had seen dark figures standing around his seated form on her peripheral vision even though she saw nothing when she directly faced them.

"Soooo, Ram, what do you think of him?"

She and Roswaal were together in their usual tryst, but this time they had the presence of their guest as their current discussion.

"If Ram were to regard him as a guest…he's acting according to his privileges. He was given leeway to treat the mansion as if it were his own, so he did. He was given the permission to use me and Rem as he sees fit, so he did. His behavior has been nothing ill-mannered until his personal issues are addressed directly."

A wry smile crossed the lord's lips, "Yeeees, he does seem like a man with his own problems to deal with."

A man conflicted with them enough that he reacts violently at anyone who prodded upon it, as what Rem could attest to. The thought of her little sister's life playing with death when she presses the guest's buttons worried her.

Roswaal noticed the shift on her face. "Such a face you're wearing, Ram. Is he reeeaally a troublesome guest?"

Her pink eyes widened momentarily before her beautiful face became neutral, pressing herself further into his chest. "It would not be a lie to say he is troublesome, but it's not without reason. He reacts negatively to anyone being suspicious of him. Rem and I were able to learn that firsthand. It's highly possible that he suffers such treatment commonly before, thanks to his apparel and personality."

"Okay." Roswaal stroked her head lovingly, "Do yoooou think he's involved with the other camps, perchance? Or perhaps, as spy from other nations, Gusteko, in particular….?"

It was the most pressing question they both had in their minds. Ram closed her eyes, processing what she had learned from the pale man and forming a proper conclusion from them. When she had given it proper thought, she answered her master, "Despite his behavior, as well as the numerous factors about him that indicate malign impressions from him, I don't think it's possible."

"Hmm?"

"He's too….expressive with his hostility. His behavior and mannerisms were already questionable, and he doesn't attempt to hide them. He's even presented how much of a threat he was the first time he ate in the dining room alongside everyone." Even if it was an illusion, she couldn't get that legless Shade monster off her mind. Every word he said was full of sincerity, swearing to act accordingly to them the sooner he was given the prompt to do so. A prompt that only anyone in this mansion was capable of giving, "The only person he interacts amiably to more than anyone is Lady Emilia, all because she treated him kindly, without any suspicion or question of his character or motives."

"So in other words, he's a bystander caught in the middle of our circumstances." Roswaal was quick to understand her point and paraphrased it. He twisted his chair around to face the large window that allowed moonlight to shine through, "I personally examined him myself duuuuring our moments of interaction. I muuust say, he's truly a man without fear. His aaaaudacity as a youth astounds me, it's something I no longer possess."

"If Ram were to say something in addition about him, he seems to be deeply affected by his circumstances. His behavior after the loss of his hand could attest to that."

They looked down on the man in question, his light-eating robes seemingly making him appear like a vantablack smudge amidst the scenery of a painting, still motionless underneath the gazebo's roof. The oddities were still happening, dark figures or apparitions surrounding his position were found in their peripherals. Whether Roswaal noticed it or not, he made no comment about it.

"It seems he is a man with a shaaaaaky foundation of trust despite his transparency." If you were a man carrying morbid motifs around your person without any regard for the thoughts of others because it's part of your culture, you would be subjected to the mistrust of others, therefore engendering your own lack of trust in others. Emurdol Viandegroc is a potentially volatile man. One wrong move and he might explode, like a spark to a gunpowder barrel. It had the potential to affect his relationship with the candidate to the throne, Emilia. "He is someone we muuuust handle with great care. See to it that Rem doesn't get ahead of herself, above all else. We cannot afford to earn his ire. My ambitions needs him."

That's something Ram will do even if she wasn't told to do so. Her little sister had already initiated certain things that nearly ended horribly, and it was by miracle that it was left off with harsh words.

"It shall be done, Lord Roswaal."

She personally questioned just how deeply the Necromancer is going to be involved in their affairs according to the Gospel's writ, but it's not like she has any leeway of knowing any of that, anyway.

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

3 hours remain before midnight arrives and Emurdol's consciousness finally caved in, his modified endurance unable to persevere any further to the stress it suffered from the voices of the passing. No longer able to respond or listen to their inquiries, the Souls of the Dead and Spirits of Nature departed. Mother's frame held him up even as his head hung, his silver hair swaying against the breeze that came back.

As the evening began to regain its natural form of life, the noises of insects and nocturnal creatures filling the moonlit night, the wand in his belt began to glow. At first a dim glow, then the skull slowly gained brightness, brilliant enough to coat the interior of the gazebo and the surroundings around him in ghostly illuminations of green.

As a couple of minutes pass, the extra hands that were Mother's source of interaction to the physical world slacked, as if the occupant in them was gone. In turn, his eyes shot open. Only this time, the green orbs took on a different impression of identity as they glowed amidst the shadow on his face. Nose flaring as he took a whiff of his own person, his brow creased just slightly amidst the stoic visage. Examining his skeleton hand, twisting and testing its mobility, as if realizing its existence for the first time, he quickly dismissed it and stood up shakily, the artificial legs bending impossibly to the side before they adjusted properly in place.

"You really have to look for her, Mama?" He muttered, an entirely different diction and inflexion coming out of his mouth, nothing like Emurdol's speech. "I guess I'll roam around if you are so insistent on hunting Envy down."

All of his 4 extra arms remaining slack and hung behind him, clacking loudly as they collided against his form or each other, he treaded towards the mansion in slightly unsteady steps, almost akin to a shambling zombie as his upper body kept leaning to one side and his black sabatons scraped across the grass and eventually the stone path. Announcing his presence with every footstep, he reached the doors and entered the hallway.

There was no destination in mind. Even if the guest quarters were found on the first level of the building, he made no attempt to head there. He continued to shamble aimlessly along the hallways, staring at nothing while his movements made noise in every step.

Then he felt a pair of eyes land on him.

"Hmm…." Green orbs shined cautiously in the blue-lit darkness.

Allowing half a minute to pass, he took one last step before stopping in place, his extra arms swaying in the ongoing momentum and smacking loudly against himself or each other before falling silent. His upper body was slouched forward, his original arms hanging slack alongside the metallic ones. When the silence fell, the pressure of unease filling the atmosphere, he let a small growl from his lips.

As he turned around, a stumbling motion as his leaning upper body nearly made him topple to the floor as well as making enough noise to wake those who were sleeping near his distance, he stared back at the pair of blue orbs that glared at him with the utmost suspicion from the shadows.

He saw the owner of those eyes hidden in shadows stiffen and retreat into a corner, only to peek again cautiously and widen in surprise as she was being directly stared at.

He held himself like that and maintained a frozen stance, like a statue. In the hallway lit with moonlight through the windows, only his green eyes that pierced through darkness and into the perception of those nearby indicated his presence. He will not attempt to approach nor verbally address the person at the other end of his stare, he opted to be patient. Whether she leaves or comes close, he's fine with either.

The situation remained that way for as long as it could allow, a staring contest that waited for the other to make a move, the air so tense it could be cut and both sides emanated hostility with varying levels of inclination to attack.

And finally, Rem finally decided to step out of the corner and into the hallway, uncertainly walking towards him with a light-stone lamp in hand.

He's only half-surprised for the girl's courage. It takes precedence for someone to have guts before approaching a Priest of the Serpent, even if for non-hostile reasons. If this maid allows this confrontation to be civil, maybe the suspicions can finally—

Green eyes instantly became wide and bloodshot, his form collapsing to its knees before toppling to his side, the legs bending in unnatural angles thanks to his weight. At the same time, his mouth exploded into a cough, hacking out copious amounts of blood from his lips, staining the well-polished floors. His left hand crumpling at his bone chest due to the briefest moments of torture he was ever capable of experiencing, he continued to hack out the sustenance of his body's life force out into the floors, nearly losing his consciousness as he was incapable of taking even a single inhale of oxygen.

When the blood stopped surging out of his mouth and his other senses were able to send the newly received information to his brain, he acknowledged the new developments:

The smell of Taint—the Scent of the Witch had intensified in its repugnance around his person. And amidst the horrid scent, came the sound that echoed throughout the halls like the chilling whispers of the Vengeful Spirits that despised even Necromagi….

The sound of chains.

Hostility clouded his eyes, his form stiffening in preparation of the confrontation that was thought to be unseen in its inevitability, and his original arms slacked, switching control to the 4 metallic arms as his head hung once again, eyes closed before his legs suddenly lifted himself up without any more stumbling.

An iron ball of spikes came flying towards his position from the darkness ahead of him. In response, he smoothly leaned to the side, the murderous weapon passing by him harmlessly before brushing clawed digits across the streaking chains, sparks flying from the contact.

That small action was enough to freeze the movements of the assailant from the other end due to a very murderous curse that enforced the illusion of rigor mortis and the loss of all 5 senses. If a weapon had the mark of its owner, whether well-polished due to regular maintenance or nicked from its past battles with its owner, he doesn't need to touch the wielder directly.

As the flail crashed into the ground behind him, he was right at his attacker's face in a single instant, the powerful structure of his artificial legs granting him the greatest of speeds and he grabbed the frozen opponent's arms and forced them to the side without resistance, a curse of weakening coercing the weapon in hand to slacken and fall.

His hung head suddenly snapped upwards, blazing green eyes opening up and glaring at dull unseeing blue. With a snap of boney fingers, the curse was gone and he quickly enclosed the thin throat of the assailant with his skeleton hand and flesh hand.

"Kkkk…..kk….!" Whatever Rem had to say, the firm grip on her neck will never allow her to let them out except listen. With her arms forced to the side and her body suddenly feeling heavy and lethargic, she couldn't do anything. She's ultimately helpless before the might of a Necromagus.

Staring down into the mixture of fear and defiance in the maid's eyes, the foreign diction made itself known once again from his lips, "He has been merciful to you, therefore I shall be merciful and stop Mama from taking your life despite this indiscretion." Then the grip on her throat tightened even further, immediately cutting off her oxygen supply. Her arms struggled, hoping to remove the constraints on her neck with her hands but the metal appendages constricting them denied her any freedom of defiance. Tears welled up in her eyes, whatever words she forced out came off as nothing but chokes and her pupils were slowly rolling to the top of her skull.

Instead of hearing them from the ear, she instead heard the next words echoing in her head. It was a monstrous sound laced with nothing but unimaginable horrors. "Repeat this offense, however….If you ever make another attempt on Brother's life…" The foreign diction became cold and heavy, unadulterated malice lacing the words confirming the full intent of fullfilling the threat that came out, "….then I will ensure that you will never see your beloved sister again."

The mention of her dearly beloved flesh and blood's name and the threat that hung over Ram's life was enough to infuse the Maid with newfound strength born from the fury coursing through her system. Her demonic origins came to life, infusing her body with infeasible physical power, allowing her to successfully fight back against the restraints holding her arms and constricting her neck.

Such a wondrous display of rejuvenation didn't have the chance to fully flourish. The glowing horn that sprouted from Rem's forehead to counteract the hazardous situation was immediately snuffed out, punished by the unused right metal hand built with studded knuckles that slugged it as soon as it appeared and immediately sending Rem into unconsciousness, leaving her petite form slack as it hung from the metallic hands that held her wrists.

The Spirits earlier were very kind to warn both him and Mother of the twin maids' demon origins as well as the means to easily neutralize them without any lethal force.

"I wonder how will he react to the both of you now that he knows you and your sister are the same hellspawn he's been slaughtering since meeting the Above-World…" He said in a breathless voice, completely silent and only the Souls who were the spectators of this spectacle could hear him. "….oh well. If he kills you, that would only be your fault. Mistreatment begets mistreatment. Distrust begets distrust. And violence begets death."

The maid should be very glad that Mother is not taking her head for attacking Emurdol. The only reason she didn't is because she's being held back out of the consideration for her son's goodwill.

One thing is a constant, whether here or Pandemonium: making an attempt on the life of a Priest of the Serpent will be like walking into a mousetrap made out of bones, and no one leaves without a scratch, successful or not. You will carry a mark of your actions for the rest of your life.

To wit…

With a skeletal hand that brimmed with dark energy, the mischievous and vengeful Spirits eagerly awaited their prompt to do as they please with the servant as he gave them the chance to play. With an intoning voice that reverberated in the silent hallway, and brimming with mockery. So much like Emurdol, "Venture through your worst nightmares, Dear Maid."

~~~~~ « ҉ » ~~~~~

What the fuck happened, Mama!? Envy's hands of shadow suddenly grabbed Brother's heart! The taint is even worse than before too! What did you do when you were hunting her!?

…..

What did you do? Just what the fuck did you just do when you were gone!? If I wasn't there, Brother's head would have been smashed like a pumpkin from that giant flail!

It doesn't matter that you hurried back as soon as you heard the chains, you nearly got him killed, again! You always do this, Mama! You always do! You do something in the justification that it's for him, you ended up making things worse for him than it already had! Have you ever actually realized that!?

…...

Oh wait, how could I possibly forget!? You don't! You never do! Even though you saw how he suffered even more because of your fucking independence many times already, you still haven't LEARNED! I thought you had! You were docile for the last couple of months but no! That was just his orders holding you back! Didn't you care about him!? Making him suffer even more is NOT caring! UGH! Just what the fuck was I expecting from somebody that hasn't any self-control anyway!?

….!

No! NO! NO! DO NOT EVEN FUCKING THINK ABOUT IT! If you wish to know WHY I am intervening now when I never had in Pandemonium, it's because Brother was still a MORTAL!

…..

…...

…...times are different now, Mama. He's not mortal anymore, and it's no longer going to be just him that's holding your reins. It's going to include me from now on. Do not even think about stopping me. You're love for him is poisonous, and I'm going to make sure he doesn't suffer because of it.

….

I'm not trying to stop you from protecting him, I want you to understand that. I am going to fulfill the role of stopping you before you make a fucking mistake in the nearest possible future like you had before. You've been trapped in your bones since he left the City, you never empathized him properly like I had. You did not venture through the lifetime he went through as I had when he killed me. I know how he thinks, down to the last subconscious thought. You don't.

…...

Well?

…...

What did you find when you were hunting Envy?

….Envy….Satella….separate, not as one.

…what?

Confront-ed she…..spoken she…claim-ed not two as one but one alone.

Satella….and Envy….are not….the same person….!?

Is…..and is not…Witch Factor rejects Satella…..creates Envy….

…...

Loves my son she…disgusting love….loving love…Mother knows not which owns which…..

….loves him she….loves loving him she…..caught him…..curse-ed him…brought him to this place she did…

….at odds with Satella she….at odds with Envy she…

…

…silences him…..spoken curse begets silence…..Satella told Mother…..Envy is cross with Mother...punishes Mother by punishing son…..

…

…..Mother knows nothing….lost…

…..

…...

…...

Take me to her, I'm bringing the others with me.

We'll see what we can wring out of this….Duality…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!