Chapter 9: The Half Grimoire

Later that Evening.

Nest eventually made it back to his manor. After a quick dinner, he argued with Hilda as to why he suddenly flew all the way to Reno. In truth, he really had no appropriate response to her barrage of questions, which only further worsened the situation. She acted like an overbearing mother with all of her concern, but Nest found some comfort in her worry.

Night had fallen and after things finally settled down, Nest retreated to his bedroom. He placed the weathered book on his bed and stared at it with scrutinizing eyes.

“So, what am I supposed to do with this thing?” After a while, he asked Niphilili. “I can’t exactly read French.”

“Stupid human, even with such a magical artifact before you, you are still so narrow-minded.” She shook her head and let out a sigh.

As expected, the first thing to come out of her tiny mouth was an insult, but at this point, Nest had gotten used to it. “Yes, yes, humans are stupid, angels are amazing. Can you just explain it already?” He exasperatedly spoke.

Although she seemed dissatisfied with Nest’s attitude, in the end, she said, “First you need to make a pact with the grimoire.”

“A pact?” Nest raised his brow.

The little angel nodded her head. “Make a pact. Although it is only a half-grimoire, it still has the same basic mechanics as a regular grimoire. Grimoires are special in that they are selective in their owners. In order to use it, you must first make a pact with it. This way, it will become rightfully yours and nobody else can snatch it away from you. The pact can only be broken upon death, either yours or the grimoire’s. Usually though, the user dies first.”

“So, anybody can just make a pact like this?”

She shook her head and sneered. “No, of course not. I already said it before, so pay more attention! Grimoires are very picky. They only choose the people that they like. Even if you are the world’s strongest magician, if a grimoire doesn’t like you, then that’s that.

“It is difficult to pinpoint the exact criteria that a grimoire uses to select its owner. A grimoire is like a person. They have their own quirks and ‘personalities’, and as such, they have their own dislikes and preferences. If this thing were a regular grimoire, then judging by how ugly and stupid you are, you would probably have less than a fraction of a chance of becoming its wielder.” She paused for a moment. “Ah, no offense.”

Just because you say no offense, doesn’t make what you said any less offensive. Nest did not know whether to laugh or to cry.

Ignorant of his inner thoughts, Niphilili continued. “Well, luckily for you, this grimoire’s soul did not form. It is like a person in a coma. Even if you forcibly claim ownership of it, nobody would stop you.”

“Right, lucky for me.” Nest sarcastically remarked, to which Niphilili responded by simply rolling her eyes.

He awkwardly coughed. “So, how do I make a pact?”

“Easy. You just need a drop of blood.”

“…”

He wasn’t surprised. In fact, Nest had a feeling that it would be something like that. The concept wasn’t foreign to him. He often saw similar developments in some books and movies. Whenever someone wants to bind a weapon or make a contract with a monster, it was always with a drop of blood.

Why couldn’t they pick something less painful? A fingerprint or a signature would have worked just fine.

In short, in order to proceed with any of this, he first needed to injure himself.

Understandably, Nest was hesitant. Was he really about to commit self-harm just because a visual and auditory hallucination was telling him to? If he were to describe his current situation to any sane, rational human being, then they would surely think the whole thing sounded insane… Then again, his current predicament was a lot tamer compared to the things he had already done. What was a drop of blood compared to a surprise flight to Reno, of all places?

After giving it some serious thought, he eventually complied. He had already come this far, stopping halfway would leave a bad aftertaste in his mouth.

Nest took a razor from his bathroom and nicked the tip of his finger. A single red bead slowly seeped out from the paper-thin opening on his skin.

“Mm.” Niphilili nodded in satisfaction. “Now you just drip the blood onto the cover of the book and you’re done. It really is a simple process.”

He followed the little angel’s instructions and dripped the blood onto the green cover of the grimoire.

Nest felt the change immediately. When the scarlet bead touched the cover, a cold shiver traveled down his spine. Rather than staining it, the book seemingly devoured the blood. At the same time, the color of the cover changed. After a few seconds, it was now this ugly shade of murky yellow.

“Good, you’ve done it. You are now officially an artifact holder.” Niphilili clapped her hands in delight.

Her words barely registered in his ears. Right now, his attention was completely concentrated on the book in front of him. He stared piercingly at its new cover. The faded letters that once spelled out “Petit Albert” danced amidst the murky yellow background. They morphed and shifted, moving around like animated snakes in a desert.

He hurriedly flipped through the book. To his utter surprise, the same thing was happening on all the other pages. The French words twisted and rearranged themselves. What was once a language completely foreign to him had suddenly transformed into something a whole lot more familiar.

The French had turned to English.

“Because you have formed a pact with the grimoire, naturally, all of its contents transformed into something you would be able to understand.” The angel conveniently explained. Seeing the genuine surprise on Nest’s face, Niphilili broke out into a smirk.

“Don’t be satisfied with just this though, the real fun has yet to begin.”

As the little angel spoke, something even more shocking occurred to the book. The words and letters continued to transform. They moved around, most disappearing from the pages while a scant few rearranged themselves to form completely new words. Of course, all the new words were written in English.

After a while, a shallow frown formed on his lips.

Nest continued to flip through the pages. To his utter dismay, he discovered that most of them were now blank! Just a few hours ago, this whole thing was chocked full of French, but now, there appeared to be less than a dozen pages with any actual content to them and this number was rapidly decreasing by the second.

By the time he finished searching through the entirety of the book, the number had dwindled down to just three.

“What happened?” Nest widened his eyes in shock.

“Most of the stuff in this thing was useless nonsense,” Niphilili explained. She crossed her arms and thought for a moment. “From the looks of it, this thing really is an incomplete grimoire. Even the most basic of grimoires contain at least seven spells within their repertoire. This thing only has three.”

“Spells? Like actual magic spells?”

“What other sort of spell would there be?” She rolled her eyes. “A grimoire’s most common use is as a conduit for magic. With a grimoire in hand, its owner can use stronger spells and recover their mana more efficiently. In this regard, it is somewhat similar to a magic staff or any basic enhancement type magical item. What sets a grimoire apart from the common item though are two things: sentience and its role as a compendium for magic spells.”

Niphilili suddenly moved forward. She rested her chin on the crown of Nest’s head and peered curiously at the book. “Let’s see… the first page is a spell for removing pain, the second page is a spell for restricting movement, and the third page is… oh! That’s interesting!”

“What is it?” Nest couldn’t help but ask. The other two spells inside the book didn’t really seem all that flashy or fantastical, but the third spell caught his interest. What sort of thing could surprise this pesky little angel?

“The third page is something that has no connection with the book’s original contents. It is an abnormality, probably created from the catalyst that first turned this book into a grimoire.”

“Oh? What sort of spell is it?”

Instead of answering him, Niphilili continued to stare fixedly at the third page. After a while, she vigorously nodded her head. “This is good, this is great. This spell is perfect! With this, you will surely be convinced.”

“What is it?” he asked again.

Niphilili still did not answer him. Instead, she hurriedly said, “This third page. Concentrate on the third page!”

Swept away by her forceful enthusiasm, Nest eventually complied. He flipped to the page and hesitated for a moment. He did not really know what to. After a while, he decided on just reading out loud the contents of the page.

The page wasn’t very long, just a single passage, written in a way similar to a poem. He carefully read each and every word. The longer he read, the weirder his expression turned. Although the words were clearly written with the phonetic alphabet, to his surprise, the words weren’t actually in English.

No, it was a lot harder to describe than just that. The words on the pages were in English, but the words coming out of his mouth weren’t. They were of some other language, one more ancient than the ones currently used by man.

After a little less than thirty seconds, he finally finished. Almost immediately, he felt something leaving his body. It pooled at the tip of his left index finger. A scalding heat pulsed out.

Nest’s knees buckled. He plopped down onto the soft mattress of his bed.

At first, he panicked. The sudden weakness had spread throughout his entire body. It was almost as if a piece of his soul had been forcibly yanked out from somewhere deep inside him.

He was only able to calm down after hearing the angel’s child-like voice.

“Quickly! Pick an object in your room!” She fiercely roared.

What? In his confusion, he wanted to retort, but he found that he lacked even the strength to move his mouth. At the same time, the scalding heat at the tip of his fingertips suddenly moved. It flowed into the grimoire. The book started to quiver. At first, it was only a slight movement, but it gradually increased.

Not even five seconds later and the book was shaking like an epileptic at a rave. Nest instinctively felt something wrong. The book, it creaked and groaned. There was a certain ache to its movements. The grimoire was on the brink of exploding.

“Point to an object! Pick something already! If you don’t, the grimoire really will break!”

The urgency in her voice spurred him on. He fought through the feeling of weakness and moved his index finger. It was barely a twitch, but nevertheless, he had done it. Nest pointed towards his bed. To be more specific, he pointed towards the king-sized bedsheets.

The energy stored within the book suddenly gushed out. At the same time it left the grimoire, Nest felt strength returning to his body.

As he quickly recollected himself, he angrily asked, “What the hell was that?!”

“Magic.” Niphilili simply responded. She turned towards him. “Congratulations. You just used your first spell.”

“I…” Nest sat there in stunned silence.

Before he could react, the little angel continued, “Since you live in such a poor environment, it is only natural that you had such a reaction. Your body was practically depleted of all of its energy. You were only able to recover so quickly because of the grimoire. It shared what little energy it had stored up with your body. You might feel a little bit weak for a few days, but the numbness from before shouldn’t happen again.”

“…”

“Don’t lose focus now. You still have your spell to worry about.”

“What?”

Just as the words left his mouth, the bed sheets underneath him suddenly started moving. They wriggled around like a thousand earthworms dancing in the ground. Nest hurriedly jumped out of his bed.

The sheets began floating. For a moment, they hovered in the air, before they suddenly came together to form a ball of wriggling cloth. Nest’s bedsheets were not made from any ordinary fiber. They were weaved together from bamboo, something specifically designed to fight against body fluid retention.

The circular ball was about the same size as a basketball. As the seconds ticked by, the ball grew increasingly smaller and smaller. Eventually, it had been reduced to the size of a tennis ball. At the same time, it had drifted away from its original circular shape. Now, it was shaped into something resembling a person.

Two stubby arms, two stubby legs, a stout torso, and a circular head; it was a cloth shaped humanoid. At first glance, it very much looked like an ordinary stuffed toy. With the exception of its simplistic design, it could pass for something sold at a cheap carnival.

After a while, it suddenly plopped back to the bed.

“…”

For a moment, nothing, then one of its arms twitched. Nest watched in fascination as the plushy-like object picked itself up and suddenly started moving. It walked on the bed. At first, it was clumsy, similar to a newborn deer, but as time passed, it quickly grew accustomed to its new body.

Soon, the thing was jumping up and down all across the room. What surprised Nest the most was its speed. The thing was fast, faster than even a starved mouse. What’s more, he had a feeling that this was not its fastest speed.

Eventually, the thing turned its featureless face over towards him. It jumped up and crawled its way into the palm of his hands.

Nest gingerly touched it. Even though it was made completely of fabric, because of how it had been condensed, the thing felt surprisingly solid and somewhat heavy.

“What is this?” He asked the angel.

“Animation magic.”

“Animation magic?”

Niphilili nodded. “That’s right. It is a rare art form. It is somewhat surprising that there is something in this world that can produce such a spell, especially considering the current era.”

“Huh… I’m guessing this sort of thing is something rather amazing?”

“Hmm… it is so-so.” Contrary to his expectations, the angel seemed rather indifferent. “It is only surprising because this thing is something usually reserved for non-human creatures, or those with a particular profession. Overall, it is a magic that lacks any real offensive capabilities.”

“…” As Niphilili continued to explain, Nest watched in fascination as it playfully jumped up and down on the palm of his hand.

“Is it going to stay like this forever or will it turn back?” Nest asked as he watched the little thing dangle from his index finger.

“This sort of spell seems to be the permanent kind. Look back at the book.”

He did just that. To his surprise, the third page disappeared. Now, there were only two spells left within the grimoire.

“This thing can be considered an inanimate familiar,” Niphilili said. “It is now tied to the grimoire. Should the grimoire die, this thing will also die. If the familiar dies, then the grimoire will be fine. There might even be a possibility of the third page returning.

“I should have probably explained it to you better, but no harm. Although it might have been better to create a familiar out of a sturdier material, like steel or diamonds. If you really want to, we can destroy this thing and see if you really can start over… hey!” Niphilili’s arrogant face suddenly twitched. “You, dirty human! Are you even listening anymore!?”

“…”

Nest poked the little thing’s belly. It squirmed around in his touch.

“… I think I’ll name you Plushy.” He muttered out with a small grin on his face.

“You…”

Just as Niphilili was about to explode into an indignant tirade, a sudden knock echoed through the bedroom.

Without pause, the door swung open and a certain black-haired maid stepped into the room.