“Alright,” Colin said tiredly. His adrenaline rush was just beginning to wane and now was left with cold, hard resolve. This Fey woman attacked him, helped to hold a teenage girl, and was going to take her back to their realm. She would get no sympathy for him unless the young woman in front of him stated her case well. “Why should I?”

Darielle looked apprehensive as she tried not to look at him. Her right arm was wrapped around her front while the left dangled to the side, looking as if she was trying to hold herself without being obvious. It was probably a subconscious reaction to the situation she found herself in, but Colin had little compassion since she inserted herself into their conflict.

“Lady Noitra is the Heir to the House of Mer. If she dies, there will be an inquiry that will lead to stronger Fey warriors seeking you out. I- I think it would be better for everyone if you talked this out,” Darielle said, her nervousness keeping her voice low, but clear.

What little Colin knew about the Fey as a species was very clear. They HAD to tell the truth, they HAD to keep their promises, and they ALWAYS held onto their grudges. There were several stories in the history book he’d read on his trip to BriarThorn that described how people were screwed by the Fey’s nature.

“I think we can at least talk about it, IF the Lady here promises to not attack me while we talk or for a short period after the talk is over. Say one hour?” Colin said, grinning like a vicious fox while he spoke down to her.

A growl escaped the woman under Colin’s knee as she struggled under Colin’s weight. After long seconds, she let out a hiss and answered, “I promise.”

Seeing the loophole, Colin added, “you promise… what?”

Struggling even harder, forcing the Antagonist to lean harder onto her back, edging the Mythic Xiphos’ blade directly against her neck. Even with that direct threat of the blade against her throat, she seemed to not even care. Until in a loud huff, she growled, “fine! I promise to not do you or yours any harm while we talk or for one hour after we part.”

A promise has been made with a Fey. This Promise is binding.

Colin removed his weight from the Fey’s back and took several steps away from her in a hurry. Just because everything he’d read said that Fey could not break a promise, didn’t mean it was absolutely true. Prudence in the face of someone who hated him was smart, and he was sure she must. He just killed her brother after all.

Speaking of which.

You have killed Forrem Mer and have gained 457 EXP. You now have 3675 /9115 until level 11. Your Aligned Strike Skill is now level 3. Damage per Alignment Rank has increased from 12 to 14. Your Consume Skill is now Level 2. The MP cost of all this skills uses have marginally decreased. The Bonuses received from consuming something have become a bit more predictable. Your Frost Shaping subskill is now level 4. You can now create slightly more intricate shapes. You can now shape 28 fluid ounces of water at one time. Due to the subskill leveling, Water Magic Manipulation has leveled as well is now level 4.

Colin internally cheered at the level-ups. The fact that he was one level away from creating water spells was especially great. He was going to have to play with that skill some more to get the level he wanted so badly. Consume had come in handy, and he was not expecting the skill to react to spells too. He was going to have to try this out more to see how it reacts.

The fact that Aligned Strike leveled up now was a little annoying. He’d used it a lot in Zagan’s Besieged Fortress, and there had been no level up there. He quickly rationalized that maybe it leveled slower if used against suboptimal opponents. If that was the case, then Colin wanted to fight against weak angels or priests soon. He needed those levels, baby!

Noitra’s shout brought him back to his senses. “How the fuck did you do that?”

Colin grinned snidely at her, his tone innocent, “what are you talking about?”

“How did you kill Forrem? How did you throw that shackle spell at me? How did you survive that Vortex of blades spell? How the fuck did you pull all that off? You can’t be higher than level 15,” she stated, assured of that fact.

“A warrior is much like a magician,” Colin quipped instantly. “They should never reveal their secrets. That is my funny way of saying fuck you, and I don’t have to tell you shit.”

“L-Lady Noitra,” Darielle said, stepping closer to her. “This isn’t helping u-us.”

The Fey turned to face Darielle, face gone from pissed to cold, “us? There is no ‘us’. Now there is only me, and whatever deal I can scavenge with that insufferable Prince since Forrem and this human destroyed a part of his home! Not to mention, that this piece of human garbage, this thief,” she said as if the word tasted foul in her mouth. “Probably signed the damned thing already. We know he opened it, he already owns-”

Noitra paused in her short and angry rant, a thought suddenly occurring to her. She turned her head slowly to look at Colin.

When the Fey lady had started yelling at Darielle, Colin almost immediately got an idea that he knew would piss her off. He quickly opened his Dimensional bag and withdrew one of his newest acquisitions, the Prince’s silver fountain pen, and the Contract of Ownership. He promptly signed it, reminding himself to write DevilWalker instead of his birth name, before Noitra noticed.

A smile erupted on Colin’s face as she looked at him, horror written across her face as she saw the signature.

She stood there, the silence between the three of them stretching for long seconds as the realization of what Colin had done sunk in.

Then, Noitra blinked as nothing else happened. A joyous smile started to spread across her face as hope began to bloom. Maybe the contract didn’t work? After the contract was signed, an outward expression of it was supposed to occur on the signer’s body. But when nothing happened, the Fey woman started to believe that maybe it wasn’t going to work since he wasn’t the intended recipient. Perhaps he wasn’t strong enough for the contract to hold him. No matter what the reason, she was just ecstatic that-

The contract has been sealed between DevilWalker and house Mer for the Ownership of the Death Fey, Darielle. This contract shall now be sealed into the owned and Owner’s bodies and souls.

Colin swallowed, as that did not sound good.

A scream pierced the air as Darielle fell to her knees, moaning in pain as she grabbed her wrist. She was staring at it, gasping as she forced herself to breathe past the pain as a little bit of crimson started to leak past her fingers.

As he expected, his own wrist started to itch. This escalated in the span of a moment to irritation, pain, and then to skin cutting agony. He forced himself to keep his hand away from his wrist so he could watch as symbols started to write itself on his skin. Each symbol appeared in succession to the next, bleeding as soon as it finished carving into his skin.

Over the course of a minute, the contract’s effect had run its course, and the symbols became nigh invisible scars. No damage had been suffered, but the experience was unpleasant all the same.

You now own the Death Fey, Darielle. The Ward of House Mer has been owned by them since a young age to keep her controlled until the household decided what to do. Now, her fate is in your hands.

Colin looked up from the prompt to the girl he now owned. It was not something he ever planned, but he figured it was better than keeping her with the household that considered her a thing to be bartered. But then he saw her face as she stared back at him. Scared was the primary emotion that he recognized, along with a half a dozen others. Including relief, uncertainty, calculation, curiosity, and even anxiety as she scooted away from Noitra.

“Do you even know what you signed?!” Noitra yelled. “Do you even know what you agreed to?!”

“Hey! What’s going on over here?!” A confident male voice yelled from a nearby street. Three men with leather and plate armor appeared at the mouth of the road; one drew his weapon as he saw the three of them. “Halt!”

Noitra looked between Colin, the guards coming their way, and the broken body of her fallen brother. The grip she had on her sword visibly tightened as she fought with the decision she was being forced to make. Teeth gritted together as she made the only obvious choice she had.

With a spat curse in a language Colin did not understand, she sprinted for her brother, grabbed the front of his shirt, and removed a small card-shaped plank from somewhere on her person. She broke the piece of wood with her teeth, and a pale blue light enveloped her brother’s body and herself. It enveloped them until they were nothing more than white-blue silhouettes, then they vanished in a blink of motion. Gone only a moment after she broke whatever that piece of wood is.

“DevilWalker, I suggest you scurry off yourself. City patrol is one thing, but you do not want to make the actual guards involved,” Nox informed him. “They are always worse.”

Colin nodded but paused to look at the unsure Darielle. She hadn’t moved from her spot in long moments, and the Guards were getting closer by the second.

Making a decision, Colin said out loud, “Nox, can you get her safely to the PLACE.”

“You sure? They won’t like that,” Nox stated. “Besides, you know the way this works.”

“Yes, I will owe you something. I got the money to get you everything I owe you, just go and keep her quiet. I’d rather not have them find out you guys are there until I can explain it. So just go, I can get away but not with her,” Colin explained.

“Alright, DevilWalker.”

As quick as he finished that statement, Nox left Colin’s shadow and appeared within the girls. He leaped out of it, like a shark out of water, grabbed onto the poor girl’s shoulders, and pulled her into her own shadow. Not a sound escaped the two as Colin saw Nox use one of his favorite skill’s from the Dusk Alchemist Class, Shadow Tunneling.

Seeing them leave, Colin turned for the nearest path away from the guards and started sprinting down it.

Unfortunately, one of the guards saw him just as he entered this street and shouted, “stop!” at the top of his lungs.

A few steps down the side street he’d chosen, he felt a heavy height settle upon his shoulders. Pushing him forward towards the ground, he had no time to react and try to throw off his aggressor. Instead, he opted to absorb the fall with his hands instead of his face.

Of course, he was pleasantly surprised when he landed, elbows first, on a couch. The ambient temperature around him felt warm and musty, smelling of dusty fabric and a mild amount of mildew. What he suspected was Nox stepped off him and groaned while walking away from Colin. He picked his head up and noticed the weird blue-black light that illuminated the room and grinned at Nox.

“I really hope you aren’t charging extra for this,” Colin said, climbing to his feet. Joints protested at the movement, but it was satisfying to feel them ache like this after a fight. It was weirdly life-affirming.

“Of course I am,” Nox grumbled. “It is a Heaven’s Damned pain to move more than one person, and I moved two, one after another in quick succession, and now I am now sore.”

“Well, what do you want for this tremendous effort on my behalf?” Colin asked, his voice as playfully magnanimous as possible.

Nox was rubbing his shoulder while he groaned at the soreness. He stopped for a moment, rolled his shoulders, and looked up at Colin, “I think what I want will be very hard for you DevilWalker. Are you sure you want to ask me that?”

Colin rolled his eyes, “yes. I’m sure.”

“Alright, then here’s my price, and I expect you to do it for me.” Nox pointed to the young Fey woman Darielle, was sitting in a corner with her knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them. She looked tiny in that empty corner, all drawn into herself and rocking slowly. “I want you to take very, very special care of this young woman there.”

Admittedly, Colin hadn’t put too much thought into this woman that he essentially stole from that bitch Noitra. He was initially just trying to piss her off, and that had worked like a charm. But now, he owned another living sentient humanoid, and he felt a little uncomfortable about that. This whole situation was so far out of his thought processes that Colin never even considered that he might own someone.

To be fair, he never expected to be stuck in a video game and made into the Antagonist either. So… Colin decided to roll with it. He knew he wouldn’t do anything with the girl. In fact, Colin would release her and give her a little of his Copper to set her up for a bit if he had his choice.

Raising an eyebrow to Nox, he asked, “why would you ask that? I doubt you would say that if she were any street urchin we picked up.”

“Of course not. What do you take me for, a human? No, it’s what she is,” Nox stated, a shark’s grin playing across his face. “Death Fey are known for many things, and let’s just say that weak and helpless is not one of them.”

A little confused, he asked, “what?”

“Why don’t you ask her? It’s not like she can’t hear you,” the Goblin said, gesturing towards the woman.

Nodding, Colin turned to face the young woman, “Darielle?”

The Death Fey’s face pulled up from her knees and looked up at him, “yes M-master?”

Immediately, Colin raised a hand, “No no no, let’s stop that right now. I am not your Master, I just signed a contract that I honestly signed to piss that woman off. Just call me Walker.”

“Walker? O-okay,” she said, uncertainty in her voice.

“Do you know if there is a way to undo this Contract and free you from my care?” Colin inquired, hoping for an easy solution to his current predicament. Namely that if McKenna ever found out that he owned a woman for any length of time, she might kill him. For real.

“I know it’s possible, but I do not know what it is. I just know that part of the contract states that I cannot go and find it on my own if given the opportunity,” she stated. Her voice speaking as if reciting something she’d been taught many times.

“Of course. Look for an easy fix, and none shall be found,” Colin groaned. “Alright Darielle, Ugh, is there a nickname I can call you. Darielle, while very nice, is a little fancy for normal talking.”

“Rielle,” she said, smiling at the shorter name.

“Rielle, thank you. Alright, next I would like to know what you can do,” Colin stated. “Now that I, and I really hope to not have to use this phrase again, own you, I’d like to know how to best use you.”

Rielle suddenly looked away from Colin, face a little flushed as she avoided looking him in the face, “I don’t have a class yet. Forrem’s family wanted me to be whatever I might need to be when the time came. They gave me some training in different weapons like swords, spears, bows, shields, and even whips. I can use shields along with light and medium armor, but I wasn’t very good with heavy armor.”

“Magic?” Colin asked, curious, and hopeful.

“Do you mean, do I have any?” she asked hesitantly. “N-no, I don’t have any magic manipulation skills. I do have a technique skill called Heavenly Blight. That and an ability called Child of the Outer Light.” She stopped, looking at Colin to see what his visible reaction would be to hearing those words.

The only expression he gave could be described as blank confusion.

“Rielle, you are going to have to spell those out for him. I have some ideas, but he’s an Outworlder and is there for-”

“Ignorant?” she piped in helpfully.

“I was thinking stupid,” Nox said, pulling some things out from his Jacket and putting them together in other containers. “But yours works too.”

“Oh, I see,” Rielle said, choosing her next words for a moment.

“I am not stupid, I’m new and have a working knowledge now,” Colin stated. Looking at the Goblin pointedly, he waited to see what kind of response he’d get and narrowed his eyes as Nox grinned.

“Yeah, you keep working on it,” Nox told him, chuckling.

Turning away from his infuriating companion, Colin faced Rielle, giving her the time she needed to choose her words.

“Do you know what a Death Fey is?” she asked a moment later.

Colin shook his head, and she sighed. This did not look like a conversation that she wanted to have, but she looked like she was going to anyway to help clear him of his ignorance. Her eyes looked away from him entirely as her voice became distant, detached from the words, “Death Fey are an abomination to the purity that all Feykind share. We are born of Fey and another species, making all Death Fey half-breeds. The rub here is that Fey are considered higher tier creatures and cannot physically mate with lower-tiered creatures like Elves or Humans. My Father was a Seraphim in the Heavenly Host, and my Mother was a HeartFire Fey, which made me a Death Fey since all pairing between Fey and non-Fey make Fey offspring. Death Fey are given an extra stigma since they refuse to just kill us since we are still considered Fey.”

Colin listened, disliking the Fey more and more with every sentence the young woman spoke. He’d observed how she held herself, how Noitra had treated her, and the contract that made her an item to be bartered with. She may not have been eligible for execution by her people. They treated her badly enough that Colin wouldn’t have been surprised if she wanted it, once or twice.

“The skill and ability I told you about,” She continued after a breath. “Are the reasons Death Fey are tolerated as things and not just cast out. They are the tangible gifts of my mixed bloodline, put in the world’s format. I’ve heard of Death Fey that have gotten up to five gifts from their lineage, while I only got two. Heavenly Blight creates a fire that only I am immune to. I can attach it to my weapons without harm, but anything else can catch fire with it as long as I have MP to keep it going. Child of the Outer Light isn’t clear in what it does. The description just says, ‘The Outer Light will never abandon its own.’ I don’t think it’s ever done anything helpful,” she said, before going quiet.

Colin absorbed this and understood the gist. A moment passed before he asked, “what do you want to do with yourself?”

The question made her face snap back to his, “what?”

“I am not in the habit of forcing people to do whatever I want. If we are going to stay together for a while, I want to hear what you want to do.”

Her eyes watered, and her face went right back down to her knees. Quiet sobs could be heard from within the cornered Fey, and Colin waited, unsure if he should be trying to calm her down or give her space. He knew McKenna well, but other women were a bit more unpredictable.

With a deep sniffle, Rielle pulled her head out of her knees and stood. Her golden-red eyes looking right into his as a small smile tugged at her mouth. “You actually care, don’t you?”

Before Colin could answer, she wiped her tearing eyes with the sleeve of her dress, and the smile was gone, just as quickly as it came. Returned was the downcast, saddened woman who’d accepted her lot in life. “I just want to be treated well, Walker.”

There was more to what she wanted than she said, but he wasn’t going to push her to tell him so early in their relationship. Instead, he extended a hand towards the woman, “that’s easy enough. Welcome to the team.”

Rielle looked between his face and the extended hand for long seconds before taking it gingerly in hers and gave it a single small pump before retreating back to her side.

“Alright then, do you have any questions for me? I won’t hold anything back since you wouldn’t tell anybody, right?” he asked, giving her a playfully evil grin.

She nodded quickly, “As long as you tell me its a secret, I cannot divulge it unless you say so, Mas- I-i mean Walker.”

“Good to know. Alright, I assume you have questions for me,” he stated, stepping away from her to give her a little room to breathe. Sometimes it was hard to talk if someone was that close to you.

“Y-yes, a few. Can I really ask anything?” she asked, her voice low and careful.

“Of course,” Colin told her in a very matter of fact way.

“Then I guess what I want to ask first is… what are you hoping to accomplish? In general, that is. Do you have a goal?” She asked.

“Wow, jump right to the big question, don’t you,” Colin said, amused by the choice. She started to protest her decision, but he cut her off, “I like it, it’s a good question. My goal in life is a little complicated, but the short version is that I want to go home. I cannot leave this world anymore, and I was told how I can do so. Shorter-term, I am working on getting stronger so that I can get some payback.”

“F-for what?”

“I was killed by some other Outworlders, a team that I joined briefly. I knew there were not good people, but I stayed with them because, well, my low wisdom at the time was clouding my judgment, or at least I think it was,” Colin shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now, except that I will pay them back in kind.”

“Oh, If I may ask, what do you plan to do with me?” she queried.

“Well, I was going to ask you what you wanted to do? You could stay at where ever we hole up next and learn a useful trade. You can go about your life and when I find a way to free us from this contract I will find you. Or you can come with me as I work to grow stronger,” Colin said, laying it all out.

“I-” she started, only to be interrupted when the door to the room they were in opened.

Henrietta stepped inside, a cavalry saber in her right hand with a scowl painted across her features. The weapon wasn’t raised, but that did very little to remove the menace she exuded with the standard looking weapon. She raised the weapon and froze as soon as she found Colin with an unknown girl.

Nox, as usual, had stashed himself in Colin’s shadow already.

“Walker? What are you doing here?” she said, lowering her blade and lessening her scowl a measure.

“The Fey from the Prince’s house showed up, had to make a run for it,” Colin said. Then, he started to explain everything except how he now owned Rielle. He doubted that would go over well and did not want to find out.

“Geez,” she let out after Colin finished. “That’s fairly impressive, Walker.”

“Forty-four HP left,” Colin restated. “Hurt like a bitch.”

“Are you sure they didn’t follow you?” she asked wearily.

“Unless they know how to travel through shadows, yes. We’re clear,” he said, assuring her.

“How in the world did you pull that off?” She asked, eyeing him.

“Magic item. All used up now,” Colin answered, hoping she didn’t have the Detect Falsehood skill.

Your deception Skill is now level 5. The chance for people to believe your lies as increased by a small margin, the chance for lies to bring unexpected results has increased by a small margin.

She seemed displeased for a moment before nodding, “I suppose all’s well that ends well. I take it that you came here because you had nowhere else to go?”

“Yeah, wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

“And her? Is she… trustworthy?” Henrietta asked, her gaze judging Rielle.

“Trust me, she’s cool,” Colin confirmed. “Right?”

Rielle, having finally being spoken to, spoke up and said, “yes, I’m… cool.”

The older woman closed her eyes at the uninspiring display before her, “Sure. Alright, Walker. You can stay here for the night, but I expect you to find another place to stay tomorrow. This is not a fucking hotel.”

“Of course, it isn’t. Hotels offer good service, and you haven’t even asked if we want a wake-up call in the morning,” Colin quipped. “Do you have some blankets that we can borrow?”

Her left eye twitched in annoyance, but she still nodded and turned to walk out the door.

“Has Daphne woken up yet?” Colin asked to her back.

“No, but we have introduced some debuff cleaners to her system, so I expect to have her wake up anytime,” Henrietta answered, calmer than seconds earlier. “Thanks again for getting her.”

Colin nodded, but she didn’t look back to see it. The woman walked out of the room, closing the door behind her as she went to get some blankets.

“Is Daphne that girl Lord Forrem and Lady Noitra had at the Prince’s house?” Rielle asked, gaze low and voice quiet.

“Yes, that was the reason we were there in the first place. Robbing him was a good bonus,” Colin said frankly. “I think it’s time we went to sleep. I’ve had an eventful night, and I want to start the day early. Rielle, the couch it’s yours, and I will not hear you argue with me. Got it?” he said, pointing a finger at her, daring her to do just that.

“But, you should get the couch. I’m used to the floor, and you need your rest more than me,” she protested.

“Your used to the- Oh, you’re getting the couch tonight and don’t argue with me, or I will use what power the contract gave me to make sure you take it,” Colin threatened. “Besides, I haven’t slept on the floor in a while, it will remind me how good I got it.”

Wisely, Rielle didn’t try to argue. Instead, she looked down at the floor and said, “thank you, Walker.”

“Don’t mention it. Oh, just tell me what you want to do in the morning. We do have plans to make, one way or another. Nox?” Colin called out.

“Yes?” Nox said within his shadow.

Reaching into his Dimensional bag, Colin grabbed the contract and dropped it onto his shadow. “Do you mind giving this a read and telling me what it says I can or can not do. Same thing with her. You mind?”

“Not at all, I was curious about that myself,” the contract slipped into Colin’s shadow. The vellum sank into the shadow as if it were liquid instead of stone.

“Oh, do not tell anyone that I own you. I dislike it myself, but other people knowing might get bad quickly, okay?” Colin asked, confirming that she understood.

“Yes Walker.” she said, her phrasing similar to how she probably would have said ‘yes Master’.

Colin rolled his eyes. Something told him that this was going to go one of two ways. Either she was going to be useful, or she was going to be a hindrance. One way or another, he knew one thing that was going to happen for a fact.

McKenna was going to kill him. If he was in-game when he saw her again, it would most likely be literally. Out of game… she might still kill him, but it was only might.

Out of everything he could say about McKenna, he could not say that she thought hard before acting. Judgment and impulse were her things, and jealousy overrode half of that faster than he could say, ‘this isn’t what it looks like.’