‘Oho!’ Joe licked her lips excitedly. ‘Things just took a very interesting turn.’

Magic was ominous.

Magic was illogical.

Magic should not have coexisted with the humans in the first place.

The witch was preaching exactly what Lucia had warned her about. No wonder that the faithful, magic-loving people of Triciella could not even begin to comprehend the words of the Witch of the West.

“Or maybe the hag is just salty that she didn’t get to wield any magic, you know?” Lady Joanna supplied unhelpfully.

Joe almost choked on her spit. The villainess had the habit of spouting the most ridiculous things at inopportune times. Honestly, just what had her etiquette tutor been doing all this time? Wasn’t a noble lady supposed to have— uh, more tact?

“Hmph! I heard you!” the aforementioned noble lady huffed inside her mind. “I shan’t change my ways for some mere old-fashioned sentiments, you know? Besides, his highness prince Emmanuel likes bold women— women who aren’t afraid of speaking their mind!”

‘I believe that you spoke your frigging mind against the poor heroine one time too many— and hence your current predicament, my Lady.’

Joanna settled for flipping her hair over the shoulders; her pretty face set to a hard frown. “That conniving cow had it coming! Which self-respecting woman would set her sight upon another woman’s fiancé?”

‘Whelp! I cannot refute that!’ Joe grimaced at the accusation. The villainess had no excuse for verbally and physically bullying the heroine, but the latter wasn’t exactly a saint either. The maker of the video game must have had shit for brains.

What had Gracie called it back then? Oh yes— the whirlwind of a romance between two people, divided by society but untied in destiny!

“Is this Gracie fellow of yours a bit of an idiot?”

Oof! Joe didn’t think it was physically possible to cringe from the words of an intangible voice in your head, but here they were. She steered her thoughts back at the situation at hand. There were three questions left, and Joe yet to get a single clue regarding the fellow with time and space manipulation magic. If what Sandy had said was true, then there was something else within the scales and charmstones— something that she had missed, that would have manifested as time and space magic in this world.

Joe was certain that she hadn’t manifested Lady Joanna’s water magic yet. And now that she’d finally learnt of the scales’ true nature, the girl didn’t know what she felt about developing a magic of her own. She imagined invisible scales flowing through her bloodstream, and an unknown power slowly creeping into her veins. A nervous shiver tingled up her spine. Will she suffer from sleepless nights with splitting migraines? Will her eyesight keep detoriating until she goes completely blind?!

Suddenly, possessing an unknown magical power didn’t seem all that appealing to the girl anymore.

“Oh, for Goddess’ sake! Don’t give me that glum look now!” Sandy must have noticed the pallor on her face. “Manifesting magic doesn’t mean a death sentence, Joanna. People with a single element magic live perfectly normal lives in Triciella. Hell, even most of the double-element mages I know are all healthy, capable individuals. You have to understand— it’s not manifestation of magic that leads to illnesses, but it is the other way round! The nobles who have frail health and sickly bodies are the ones that are prone to developing complex forms of magic.”

“In other words, the less immunity a person has, the more they are susceptible to multiple charmstone radiations, and consequently, the more likely they are to develop a multi-element magic.”

A multi-element magic, huh? Joe chewed the inside of her cheeks. No matter how you looked at it, a magic that could manipulate space and time wasn’t a simple elemental magic. The more she thought about it, the more impossible it seemed. What kind of fucked up combination of magic could actually allow you to screw with space and time? It was beyond the realm of physics— beyond the reaches of reality. Hell — frail body or not, she was pretty sure that if such a person had ever existed, they would be nothing short of a literal God!

To think that such a person could hold all the answers to her dilemma! The girl bit back a groan. The stakes seemed to getting higher and higher every damn second. But God or no God, she could not, would not let this chance escape.

The question was itching at the back of her mind. Joe bit her lip in frustration.

Oh, to hell with it!

“Alright Sandy. Here is my ninth question.” She turned to stare at the witch dead in the eye. “Tell me everything you know about the person who could manipulate space and time.”

The old woman flinched.

The question seemed to have taken her aback. Sandy opened and closed her mouth like a fish, wide-eyed and mutedly frozen in her spot. Joe felt a silent thrill running through her veins. Finally! Finally she had managed to force a reaction out of the old hag! But then the witch regained her composure just as quickly as the thought had ended, before smoothing her face back to the same mask of nonchalance.

“I know of no such person.” Came the firm reply. There was a shadow of irritation on her eyes. “You think that I had never looked into it? I did, Joanna. I dug into all possible records for years and decades. But there wasn’t a single reliable source of information regarding the mysterious mage of Space and Time.”

Joe resisted the urge to slam her fist into the table.

Why?!

Why the hell was this happening?

The witch was her last hope, dammit! All through this time, she’d never considered the possibility that even the infamous Witch of the West might not have the answers to her questions. It was either an extremely obscure piece of information, or the Witch was friggin’ lying through her teeth.

“If you’re lying to me—” The girl sneered angrily.

“I am not.” Sandy offered. “I have read extensively into all forms and types of magic, Joanna. None of elements can possibly combine to manifest as a magic of space and time. To manipulate two such extremely complex forms simultaneously isn’t physically possible. However —”

Joe felt hope leap into her heart. “However— ?”

“However, I do know a person that could manipulate one such element alone.” Sandy finished. “I call that the element of Void.”

The girl scowled with narrowed eyes. “I thought that there were only four basic elements! And now you go off saying that there is another weird-ass element mixed up in this mess?! Is this Void supposed to be a part of the effect of scales as well?!”

Shit! Shit! Shit! The facts were all getting tangled up in her head. Joe pulled at her hair, willing herself to remember the details. If she did not collapse by the end of this due to sheer exhaustion, the girl was certain that she’d go mad with information overload instead.

‘Stop thinking useless things!’ Her mind thundered. ‘Focus!’

A heavy hand landed firmly on her shoulder. The witch was staring down at her impassively.

It was only then that Joe realized she was hyperventilating. Blood roared in her ears, drowning out every last rational thought of the mind. Her palms felt clammy with sweat. When she loosened up her fist, the girl spotted crescent nail marks visible on the reddened skin. “Calm yourself, Joanna.” Sandy whispered in her ears, almost soothingly. “I will answer your question, but nothing good will come out of driving yourself insane with panic.”

Panic? Was this really what she had been feeling? Joe didn’t know. All she knew was that she wanted to understand more and more and more. She wanted to know everything there was to know. This world wasn’t her own ‘home sweet home’. This world was determined to keep her dead. She did not want to remain naïve and stupid and powerless— she hated that feeling.

She hated the feeling more that the world itself.

Sandy swept a critical eye over her. “You are mistaken over the fundamental difference, Joanna. There are indeed, only four basic elements in every scale. The Void is not a part of a scale’s attribute. Rather, it is the lack of scales that gives rise to the element of Void.”

Joe was puzzled. “By lack of Scales— do you mean that the void users lack magic? Are they not affected by the charmstones like regular people?”

“Ah no. Lack of magic and lack of scales are two entirely different things.” The witch leaned back into her seat and began tapping her finger again. “Do you not remember what I told you about the presence of scales in this world?”

What was it again? “You said that the scales originate from the Scaledfolks— the Scaledfolks that live right her in Sandora.”

Tap.

“Yes, very good. And?”

“And you said that they are the origin and root cause of all the magic in Triciella.”

Tap.

“And?”

Joe licked her lips thoughtfully. “And that these invisible scales are everywhere in the air. They reside in every human, plant and animal of this world.”

Tap.

“Yes, precisely.” Sandy lifted her eyes to stare at the girl. “Just like we have dust particles and water vapour everywhere in the air, the scales of the Scaledfolks are everywhere in Triciella. Every human being in this world— regardless of whether they can wield magic or not— have these scales in there bodies. Hell, you are probably taking in scales right now as you breathe in through your nose. Lack of magic doesn’t mean lack of scales. It only means that the scales in your body do not have a particularly strong affinity towards any basic element of magic.”

“This affinity— it develops through the charmstone radiation, right?” Joe said. “A particular affinity towards a given element means that you can wield that elemental magic.”

Sandy nodded. “A person without any magic might have scales in their bloodstream, but these scales are unable to form an affinity with the charmstones’ radiation. In other words, they are just your regular human beings. But a person with void on the other hand— is the exact opposite. If one gets too exposed to charmstones, all the four elements in a scale might cancel each other out completely.”

Joe tilted her head in confusion.

“Basically, a side effect of high exposure to charmstone radiation is — the scales in that person’s body might become unable to exist and disperse completely. You might think that this is no big deal. After all, we did not have any scales flowing inside us back in our original world— and we survived just fine! But the reality is a different story. In a world where the air is saturated with scales everywhere, you have a lone person who is completely devoid of scales in their body. What does it sound like, Joanna?”

Joe rubbed her arms in discomfort. “That sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

The witch huffed an amused laugh. “Well put. To imagine it another way— a person devoid of scales in Triciella, is like an unstable vacuum container. The normal rules of magic do not apply on them. Scales do not affect them. In fact, the scales of the Scaledfolks are repelled from their bodies. Their existence itself is an anomaly in this world.”

“I sense a ‘but’ somewhere in there…” The girl furrowed her eyebrows. There was always a ‘but’ somewhere in these kind of conversations.

Sandy grinned. “Yes. To put it in layman’s terms, the instability of such a person will manifest as a strange, new kind of magic. It manifests as the element of Void. ‘Void’, because such a magic is devoid of the scales. Physically, you can say that their magic allows them to manipulate the space around them.”

Joe let that information sink in slowly. That sounded like a pretty tempting bargain— you’d get to wield an incredibly convenient magic in exchange for those lousy scales in your body. She didn’t know why anyone would call them an ‘anomaly’. But then again, human beings tended to hold resentment towards anything and everything that’s better off than them.

“I know what’s cooking in that head of yours.” Sandy narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “Wielding the Void isn’t all rainbows and sunshine as you imagine. Those people are unstable, Joanna. And unpredictable. And dangerous to boot. They can barely control their own emotions, let alone their magic. The Void lies at the extremity of all magic magical powers— the bad kind of extremity. The slightest disturbance in their emotions— the slightest crack in their sanity— and you can bet your naive arse that their magic will wipe out the landscape of this entire kingdom.”

A shudder ran down her spine. “That’s stupid.” Joe wavered uncertainly. “As far I know, no one alive has ever seen a person of Void. All I get is hearsay— snippets of unreliable information you gather from here and there. Tell me, what are the odds that the person was not a figment of someone’s imagination? Did such a person really exist in real life?!”

Hell, she was beginning to think that all this is just a pointlessly elaborate urban legend!

Sandy’s eyes were soft. “That person did exist, Joanna. I have never known him personally, but he was mentioned several times in many of my master’s old, written records. Master Ivy never spoke of him in front of me, but her writings made it sound like she knew him well. There was no name in the records, just a single letter.”

“R.”

R?! R— what? What did Ivy mean by that? Was it a coded letter? A nickname? A part of that person’s real name?

Joe felt as if the answer was too close yet too far. Again. This was becoming somewhat of an unlucky running gag in her life as a villainess. Why did she have to be so damn hopeful all the time?!

“W-What else did your Master say about this legendary R?” Joe tried weakly. She had a feeling that she’d used up her quota of questions, but no way was she reminding Sandy of that matter! “Anything about whisking people away from different worlds using their power of Void?”

Sandy closed her eyes in contemplation. “Nothing of that sort. In fact, I do not even know the background of that fellow. All I know is that whenever I tried to bring up the matter, master got this strange, puckered up look on her face—as if she was being physically being assaulted by needles. I did not like that look. On her rare good mood days, she’d tell me some trivial stuff out of the blue— that he was a cheerful guy, that he tended to be a little mischievous, that he was cute like a little porcupine once you managed to get past the bristling thorns.”

Lady Joanna wolf-whistled like a delinquent. “Oooh! Sounds like an old flame!”

“—And that he did not deserve the fate that befell him and ended up taking his life.”

A thick, foreboding silence enveloped the room. ‘Unstable.’ Joe remembered the previous words. ‘Unstable and dangerous to boot.’ None of that sounded like something you’d use to describe a person who was apparently ‘cheerful’ and ‘cute’ and ‘a little mischievous’. Every piece of information was either flimsy or downright fishy.

The girl rubbed her temples tiredly.

“Alright. I get it— that this person had one hell of a shady past and some tragic consequences. But that does not tell me how his powers of Void are supposed to be oh-so-dangerous.” Joe licked her lips. “Last I checked, neither you nor anyone has seen this fellow using his powers for real. How can call it dangerous and unstable if you haven’t even witnessed the effects of Void in person?!”

The Witch of the West clammed up at the question, but another unexpected voice piped up in her place.

“I believe that Sandy has indeed seen the aftereffects of the Void in person.” Nero’s somber words cut the silence like a knife. “And I do believe that you have been told plenty about these effects as well.”

Huh?! Joe whirled around at the man, her face a picture of bewilderment. When did she ever hear of such a thing?! She had only learnt of the existence of Void merely ten minutes ago!

Nero twisted his lips into a wry smile at her gaping expression. “My Lady Joanna, do you not remember what I told you about the Devil’s Dew?”

The Devil’s Dew?!

Ah, the girl did remember. She remembered all of Nero’s vague warnings to a tee. They were peppered everywhere around the kingdom— these Devil’s Dews, from wild grass fields to the woods to the valleys and the mountains. These small pockets of magical spots dragged down unsuspecting travelers into distorted spaces, and no one but the bubblebirds could possibly determine the location of one.

‘These are places with distorted planes, nonsensical dimensions, and paths which shouldn’t exist in this world.’ Nero had told her back then. ‘Length and distance and speed do not matter, your sense of direction doesn’t matter, nothing that could save you, ever matters in those places.’

Those words had sounded like some garbled nonsense, but the ominous warnings had stayed firmly engraved in her mind.

‘What kind of insane magic could lead to the formation of something like a Devil’s Dew?’ Joe had wondered. The answer now clicked back into her brain like the long lost piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

That was the magic of manipulating the space— the magic of Void!

“B-But— I thought—” Joe found herself blubbering. Her head was spinning, trying uselessly to connect all the previous dots of information. “I thought you said that there were small pockets of Devil’s Dew all over the kingdom! I thought that it was something of a natural phenomenon in this world!”

A dangerous chill crawled up her spine. Those bottomless pits that plagued the length and breadth of Triciella— are you telling me that all of that was man-made?!

“What kind of mage would unleash their Void magic to alter the landscape of an entire kingdom?! What kind of person was capable of that?!”

Sandy leaned back into her chair with a sigh. “Why, the Devil of course.”

WHAT?!

Nervous laughter bubbled up in her throat. Oh, she was going mad alright! Joe gripped her own head and unceremoniously smashed it against the table. The cups jumped violently, and so did Nero. Sandy merely quirked an eyebrow, and then let out something between a laugh and an amused snort.

Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait-wait!

Wait a damn second!

Rewind, dammit!

“The dev—” How did Sandy know about the Devil?! It was Joe’s turn to panic. How much did the witch know?! Did she know about the angel as well? “Eh wh-wh-what are you talking about, miss Sandy? W-What Devil?”

That wrinkled face was now looking entirely unamused. “Oh, still pretending not to know? How uncute.” Sandy rested her chin on the palm and turned those feral grey eyes on the panicking girl. “You need not hide that one, Joanna. Yes, it was none other than the Devil who caused that. Why else do think we call them the Devil’s Dew, hmm?”

The said ‘uncute’ girl was trying to look everywhere but the interrogating witch. Oh, how the tables had turned. “H-how do know the Devil anyway?”

How do you know that I know the Devil, dammit?!

“You have a terrible poker face, y’know?” Sandy tried to make a crook grin. It came out like a threatening smile, and Joe shrank back even further. “Your expressions says it all. I do not doubt that you have met the Devil inside your head. And judging by what Nero had told me about your one-sided, rather surprising fight with the bandits, you seem to have been influenced by the Devil’s bloodlust as well. I know the feeling, for I have experienced it as well.”

“You met the frigging Devil as well?!” Joe sputtered, at the same that Lady Joanna screamed. “Joe! Y-You had an old man living inside your head?!”

The villainess actually gagged, as if the thought that she had been sharing quarters with some ancient, shrewd old man was somehow more important than the fact that the old man was the Devil himself.

“And what was that other thing?!” Joe heard Lady Joanna gasp. “B-Bandits? What was that about? What else did I miss?!”

‘A lot of things, my Lady’ Joe wanted to say. But her own mind was reeling right now. Somehow, things had become even more complicated than they were before, something that the girl didn’t think was even possible at this stage.

Sandy crossed her arms over the chest, her face as infuriatingly calm as ever. “I did meet the Devil. Right after a few days when I first landed in this fantastical world. To be honest, I didn’t even know that it was the Devil back then. It was only when Master Ivy had learnt of my sudden bloodlust and an unnatural increase in my fighting prowess, that she theorized it might be the Devil after all. The Devil himself had been a martial arts prodigy, it seems. It is just a hypothesis, but I think that the Devil takes possession of the body for a brief moment of time whenever an outsider lands into Triciella. And that possession is hardly merciful. You understand, don’t you?”

“And the hell does she know about it?!” The villainess hollered in frustration. She looked ready to tear off her hair from their roots. “Everyone’s so serious and annoying and cryptic! Will someone tell me exactly what happened back then?!”

But Joe wasn’t listening to her.

Her mind had gone back to that gruesome battlefield of Grimm Canyon, cloaked in the shadows of night. A string of memories followed unwittingly. The sounds of weapons clashing, limbs tearing and the screams of bloodthirsty bandits bouncing off the canyon. She remembered the slithering shadows, the scent of thick smoke and bile and blood and death. She remembered the terrifying, terrifying shot of adrenaline coursing through her veins. And the one voice that had gripped her mind like a vice and drowned out everything else.

That voice had pumped an impossible strength into her feeble muscles and turned her into a killing machine. The voice had been controlling her body like a broken puppet and coaxing her to relish that mindless slaughter.

The voice of the Devil that had ordered her to kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Ki—

“Unstable” Joe felt the words thick on her tongue. “Unpredictable and dangerous.”

Sandy was watching her intently like a hawk. “So you do understand. Good. It is not quite easy to fathom the true extent of the Devil’s madness unless you have experienced it yourself. It was the Devil himself that brought upon the plague of the Devil’s Dew. It was the Devil’s Void magic that had forever altered the landscape of Triciella.”

Joe felt absolutely sick to her stomach.

“Why— why would he do such a thing?” She could not help but remember the first time she’d talked with the Devil. He had called himself her guardian or something. He had seemed civil enough, back then. A little grumpy and annoying, maybe, but civil enough. His brashness and honest bluntness had been comforting in a strange sort of way.

Joe had no idea that the guy was off his fucking rockers.

“Well, why not?” Sandy examined her nails. “The Devil is exactly not a merciful saint, y’know?”

‘They do not have very high standards for basic morals here, do they?’ The girl thought wryly.

So preoccupied she was in her own musings that she had failed to notice the giant lumbering shadow that hovered above them from the trees. A beat later, the creature flapped its wings and landed in the courtyard with a thundering crash. Joe jumped at the sound like a spring, and then promptly toppled over backwards, chair and all.

She saw stars swimming in her vision. Dear God, will there be a concussion added to the list of disasters before the damn trip ends?

“My Lady!” It seemed that Nero had still not been able to completely discard his bodyguard persona. He crouched forward and quickly helped the confused girl to her feet.

“What happened Nero?” Joe rasped weakly. She turned towards the front door of the cottage, looking for the source of the crash. “I thought I heard something like a—”

But the words died on her lips. For the source of the crash stood right there, in the open courtyard, snorting and growling and raking its blood-red eyes over the three human occupants of the cottage.

It was the same giant hybrid lion-bird that had crossed her path back when Joe had lost her way in the forest of Sandora. The creature grunted and bared its fangs at the group, as if it couldn’t believe that these humans had the audacity to trespass in its turf.

Joe looked ready to pass out on the floor.

“Oh, what’s this? You’re back?” Sandy stood up and ambled towards the door. ‘Don’t go near that!’ Joe tried to say, but the only sounds that came out were unintelligible whimpers. The Witch of the West crossed the threshold and smiled up at the two-headed creature, as if she were merely greeting a neighbour next door.

“I have guests over, so don’t make a ruckus. Oh, and how many times do I need to tell you not to crash in my front yard?” Sandy had a hand on her hips.

The lion-bird hybrid grunted again, but this time it was softer. It didn’t quite seem like it wanted to immediately gobble up any one of them, but Joe was still wary, and frankly a little bewildered. Okay, a lot bewildered. Neither the witch nor the creature looked like they were— ahem, food and predator respectively, even though Joe was almost this close to shitting in her pants. Again.

The girl turned to Nero. “What am I missing?”

Sandy actually laughed.

“You have met each other, haven’t you?” Her eyes were crinkling with unabashed amusement. “You must have met, since it was this little fellow who had found you first and informed us of your whereabouts in the forest.”

Joe paled considerably. Little fellow?

“No need to look like a constipated cat, Joanna. He doesn’t bite.” As if to prove her point, Sandy reached out a wrinkled hand and petted the lion-bird on its side. The creature blinked once, twice, before bending its head to nuzzle against the witch affectionately.

“This is my most trusted companion, Basil.”