Hey there, dxwynser the author here. I decided to pick up the pace a bit because 2 or 3 weeks later I will be veeery busy.

I've been asking for people in the chat and have decided to make around 2k words each chapter from now onwards(if I can).

As usual, I hope you guys can help me, as this one is really quick editing so I'm not really sure about the grammar problem and such. Feel free to comment or point my mistakes be it grammar or something that doesn't feels right on it. (Don't forget, I also open for ideas suggestion)

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“Thank you! I will repair my store with this material.”

The young man thanked them after he got the material from Shou.

“Ah well, it’s not that hard…”

“Oh right, I have prepared the compensation for you. Please wait a bit.”

The young man rushed back to his shop to take something. Soon after, he came out holding two pair of gloves.

“This is my best item! I have pride in it.”

“…”

Shou could only fell silent. As for Mao…

“Oh that looks pretty nice.”

She wore it without any hesitation. And she seems to be quite fond of it.

“Um… this is…”

“Ah this gloves? It’s magically induced gloves, it lets you control magic better.”

“Ah I see…” ‘well it is probably useful but…’ “Er… how do I say it…” ‘these gloves…’ Shou thinking about how to describe his feelings. “THIS THING REEKS OF DAMN IT!!!”

Shou feels like wanting to throw the gloves to the ground.

Yes, it is a black colored fingerless glove that usually worn by people who have a certain . And Shou himself, was once a victim of such certain , this is the reason why he reluctantly accept the gift. Even just by looking at the design of the gloves is making his old wound aches.

“As a bonus, you can also ask me for anything for free. I’m confident that I have pretty vast knowledge!”

The young man puffed out his chest as if to brag out.

“Ah really? That’s convenient. Let’s see what to ask..? Oh right, what about those dragon? We are trying to follow them but we lose track of them midway. Do you know where they’re going?”

“A~ if it’s about that. NOPE! I don’t know!”

Silence...

“ARE YOU MOCKING ME!!” Shou grasp the young man head’s with his arms. “After bragging about asking you anything you don’t even know the answer!”

“This is stupid.” Mao held her face on her palm.

“B-But I said to ask anything not that I said I will certainly know the answer! I said that I have pretty vast knowledge not that I know everything! I give! I give!”

Shou slowly release the young man from his grip.

“I-I’m saved… hah… hah…”

“Useless guy… Let’s go Mao.”

“Ah wait please wait~. Ahem~. I may not know about the dragon, but I’m sure to know about magic items.”

Looking at the guy sharply, Shou sighed and takes out something.

“Then do you have any info about this thing?”

Shou takes out the black Rubik’s cube and show it to the young man.

“AH! T-This is…”

“So you do know. What is this thing actually?”

“Would you give me a little time? I can use this thing to upgrade your glove if you want. Ah but, unfortunately, with one cube only one glove can be upgraded.”

“Is… that so?” ‘I have a feeling that the glove will become more outrageous but…’ “Oh well, okay.”

“Just upgrade yours, Shou. It’s not like I need better equipment.”

“Then please wait expectantly.”

The young man rushed to inside his shop again.

“I’m more worried about the appearance though…”

Around 10 minutes the young man rushed outside while holding the black colored fingerless gloves. He gives the glove to Shou with a refreshing smile.

“Here!”

“This is why…”

Shou looks grieving when he saw the glove. The design is not really that differed but there’s a little addition to it. Red glowing lines branched and remerged just like an electronics circuit plate.

“I guess I just have to accept it huh?”

Shou seems to be given up already, he was going to wore it on his left hand but…

“W-what?”

He stopped, looking at the back palm of his left hand. Some kind of symbol is engraved on there.

“Hey magic shop keeper(refer to the young man), do you know what is this?”

Shou gives out his left hand to the young man.

“Ah I see so that’s how it is. This is a seal of contracted soul.”

“? That reminds me, that kid also said something about contracted soul. What is this exactly?”

“It’s a prove that you’ve contracted with some soul.”

“But I don’t remember doing something involving some kind of soul… or maybe it’s that white lump of light before?”

“So you don’t know about your huh? Alright then, come inside the shop, I’ll help you.”

“It’s almost 1 hour since we are here though, and we wants to hurry... but oh well. I’m also curious about this thing.”

Shou follows the young man go to inside the shop, while feeling a little lonely, Mao also follows the other and come in.

Inside the shop, the interior was decorated like witch doctor or shaman workshop. A small table with some accessories like bangle and necklace, a colorful liquid substance, a candle forming a circle with drawings inside the circle, animal skull hanged on a stick, a bookshelf filled with magic books, and many other things.

“This really looks like a magic shop… and it looks elite-class…”

“Of course, I only sell high-grade item and gives top-class services.”

“Except for the appearance outside, that’s it.”

“How rude! Didn’t your parents teach you to not judge the book by the cover?!”

Mao took one of the books from the shelf. She seems to be interested with the magic book that the young man had.

“… probably from now on I should.”

Mao looks at the young man with a scornful eyes while shows what she is reading. The book she grabbed was a green hard cover book with as its title. Well the content was different though. A picture of seductive posing girls with voluptuous body wearing outrageous clothes, not to mention some of them not even wearing any and just wore accessories to barely covering their ‘certain parts’.

“WAAAAH! I-if you want to read m-magic books read the ones in the front! The ones I put on the b-back is off-limit! I-it's fo-forbidden book!”

Flustered his hidden found by Mao, the young man quickly take the book from Mao and hide it inside his drawer.

‘Ah, this guy is still naive. To hide it in the back of bookshelf…’

“Ahem, can we please move on?”

Regaining his composure, the young man tries to act as if the incident never happened.

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Candles, red paint, animal’s blood, and some other unknown ornaments. The red paint is painted on the floor painted resembles witches or wizards magic formation yet there are subtle differences. The candles are lit, put on the edges of the magic formation. Animal’s blood used to write something on the formation and draws some tribal tattoos on Shou’s face. Meanwhile the other ornaments are put surrounding on a certain formation. As for Shou himself, he is sitting, or rather meditating right on the center of everything. Mao stands behind the shop keeper, spectating the ritual.

“Are you ready? Right now, I’ll let you communicate with the spirit okay?”

Shou aren’t answering, he’s not moving nor talking. Just stay focused is all he needs to do. Doing anything else might break his concentration that’s why he didn’t answer.

“Yep, you seemed to be ready, here I go.”

The shop keeper splashed water surrounding Shou. The water he splashed fall, directly to the floor erasing some of the formations. Once, twice, thrice, he keeps repeating it few times. When he stopped, the formation wasn’t washed away, but creating new formation.

“Bring out your left hand.”

Following the shop keeper instruction, Shou slowly lifted up his left hand showing the back of his palm. On his hand, a symbol of proof of contract can be seen. The symbol on his left hand matched with the newly formed formation on the floor.

The floor glowed. His symbol also glowed. Following it, his left hand also begins to glow. Slowly, his entire body glows.

The shop keeper drops a drop of magic water to Shou.

His body began to glow even brighter. Mao put her hand over their own eyes to block the light from Shou. Right after the water drops on him, he glows just light a flash grenade. And just like flash grenade, he gives of a white flash in an instant and also stop in that instant.

When Mao recovers from the blinding flash, Shou already fell down on the floor limply.

“SHOU!” Mao rushed to his body. Supporting Shou’s body, Mao glared at the shop keeper. “What did you do?!”

“I’m not doing anything dangerous. This is how it should be. Right now, he should be communicating with the soul he's contracted with.”

Still glaring at the shop keeper, Mao turned her face away.

“If you lie… I won’t forgive you. That goes for you too Shou… if you didn’t come back… I’ll make you regret it…”

-Shou’s Perspectives-

White…

What is this? I can’t see anything except white. I can’t distinguish which is up or down, where am I? At the very least, I know this is not because if it is, I would be surrounded with darkness.

‘At least, we met. Master.’

I turned around, following the source of the voice. At last, now I’m seeing something other than ‘white’. Well, she does wear a white dress though.

A human? Non-human? Demon? Or angel? I don’t know. In my eyes, the one I see in front of me is a young girl with appearance around the age of 17.

Black colored hair tied in ponytail on her left side of head. The hair is not very long nor short, yet still reaches her shoulder. Refreshing blue eyes different from Mao’s. Doll-like face that looks delicate yet filled with resolve and grace. If there’s a wing behind her, I might just believe that she is an angel.

“Who are you?”

I asked to her, not letting my guard down. Probably because of the influence of a certain story, I won’t just easily believe that angels are harmless. Thus, I didn’t let my guard down to anyone, be it angels or delicate looking girl.

“My name is .”

“Myste..?”

“Yes, and I am your contracted soul, master.”

“HUH?!”

I was confused. Because of both the word and . I mean, who would imagine himself to enslave such a girl?

“Contracted soul???”

“The prove is the symbol on your left hand. That is the prove that you are my master. That symbol is my contract.”

That girl, Myste, puts her hand on her chest. The center of her chest glows, I could see the same symbol as the one on my hand.

“I see, so this symbol is the proof of contract. By the way, I still don’t know what does a means.”

“It means that you created a pact with a wandering soul like me. The souls will find their new home within the , and the will be lent some power from the souls they contracted with.”

I wonder what game does this come from. I don’t remember such content in this game. And why does that shop keeper knows about this? Oh well whatever.

“So? What kind of power do you have to lend it to me?”

“Ah first, give me your left hand.”

Myste takes my left hand and slowly pull it to the center of her chest, overlapping both mine and her symbols. Of course as a boy I got a bit flustered there. But when the symbols overlap each other, I could feel a wind burst out from there.

“W-what?!”

For about 5 seconds, the wind began to calm down and stop.

“With this contract is complete.”

Myste smiles at me.

“It’s about time you go back. Oh by the way, my power is absorbing magic power and also I could stole magic power.”

Hmm? Stole magic power? Why does tha?

“AH!”

I screamed in surprise after realizing the true identity of my .

“You are that lump of light?!”

“See you on the other side! Master!”

Smiling mischievously, Myste waves at me. Right on that moment, I lost my consciousness. Or rather, I regained my consciousness.

-***-

Shou woke up, finding himself fell asleep on Mao’s thigh. Realizing his position, Shou become flustered.

“T-This…!!!”

But on contrary, Mao welcomes him with a gentle smile.

“Welcome back.”

Seeing the rare gentle and composed Mao, Shou stopped rioting, but his face still red.

Suddenly his left hand glows.

‘We meet again, master!’

A voice came out from his hand, more specifically, the symbol on his left hand.

“Ah! M-Myste?!”

The shop keeper then closes himself to Shou and Mao.

“Seems like you have completed the contract.”

“Umm ah, yeah.”

Still sitting down, Shou looked up to face the shop keeper.

‘Master, you should wear the glove.’

“Huh? Oh right, do you mean this glove?”

Shou takes the -esque glove from his pocket. Honestly, Shou feels like his old wound reopen just by looking at the glove.

‘If you wore the glove, I could support you better!’

‘I have to wear it..?’ Shou already felt like he’s going to open a dark history.

Shou reluctantly wore it.

‘Let’s test it out!’

Shou’s left hand glows violently.

“AH-HEY!”

‘Aim it master!!’

Reflexively Shou aimed his hand outside.

The brightness of the glow then reached it peak as if competing with the sun. A ball of light is formed in front of his left hand. When the ball reach the size of a tennis ball, it then burst forward like an energy wave a certain perverted turtle hermit use.

Dumbstruck, everyone could only fell silent seeing what happening in front of their eyes.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!”

The one who broke the silence is Shou. Probably from the shock of Myste doing something outrageous causing him releasing energy wave like a laser from his left hand.

‘I was mimicking a certain perverted turtle hermit’s energy wave.’

“That’s what I was thinking but how dare you said it out loud! Don’t say such a thing so nonchalantly damn it!”

What’s more, the power is not something anyone could just laugh off at. The direction Shou released it, everything was blown away. The damage created by the energy wave totally blown away the far away buildings. Seeing a building fall down wasn’t something to joke about.

“This is just ridiculous.”

Shou scratch the back of his head.

“AH!!! MY SHOP!!!”

Shook off from the trance, the shop keeper realize the window Shou aimed at has become a big hole.

“Not good… We-well, see you later!”

Shou quickly takes Mao hand and run away from the shop.

‘Ahaha! Master sure is interesting one!’

“It’s your fault damn you!”

Retorting to Myste mischievous behavior, Shou keeps running as fast as he can.

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