The invasion wasn't a single event to be prepared for, but rather a cycle. Something was repeatedly and deliberately arresting the technological development of this world. Human historical records were completely unreliable and filled with fantastical stories, as if the waters had been deliberately muddled.

The elves, however, would remember. And there was reason to believe they were, at the very least, complicit in this.

On the other hand, the "Goddess of Light" was trying to use her forces, the Temple of Light, to oppose these invasions. Perhaps I was biased because the first thing her priestesses did was try to enslave me, but I didn't think it was out of the goodness of her heart.

It seemed there was a struggle of sorts between two superior powers over this planet's resources.

The Goddess of Light, for whatever reason, apparently prioritized stopping her opponent from taking the world over taking it for herself. But enough about that.

What mattered was that the bad relationship between the Temple of Light and the elves had more to it than the usual prejudices.

The queen was waiting for me to speak.

"The current state of my body should be due to actions taken against me by the Goddess of Light. I was not aware of it before coming here, but I have no doubt she wants to see two of her problems solve each other," I started.

"You think highly of yourself. Why should we not subdue you by force and scour your mind until we understand how to disarm your information disseminating contraptions? I doubt the Goddess cares enough about a single, arrogant, human mage to bother framing someone like this."

For the curious, I had set up some formations to spread the details of the body-stealing ritual. They would activate if a specific pattern was not used to disarm them before a certain time. Loraine had seen me do it.

This is why the elves were not currently trying to kill me instantly before I could do anything. The queen had temporarily lost her head after thinking I killed her son. If there was a chance I wasn't necessarily an enemy, it would be better to resolve this peacefully.

I met the queen's gaze. She was testing me. If she had already decided to do as she was saying, she would've commanded her guards to continue attacking instead of talking like this.

"I don't think that'll be as easy as you think? At the very least, you won't be able to catch me alive. We both have much to lose by turning against each other. I am not a random mage; the Goddess wanted me specifically to fulfill a certain role. I can prove that I wasn't involved in your son's death."

So I told them about how the Temple of Light brought me here, tried to enslave me, and hunted me across the continent. I told them that the temple replaced me with another hero and he came to try to kill me. There were a lot of relevant things I left out, but what I did tell them was all true.

I gave them specific details they could investigate: dates, descriptions of priests involved, etc. Although elves typically did not leave their kingdom, they had to have some sort of external information network.

I would have preferred to not even tell them I was related to the Temple of Light, but it had been a fairly bad situation.

Truth magic would help, but given that I was a suspected expert black mage, it wouldn't be enough to convince them. The key here was that I had a rock solid alibi: I wasn't on this world when the queen's son had died.

There was a type of magic that linked souls to indicators. It was prohibitively expensive, so it was normally only used by royalty among humans. It was useful for them because no matter where the person linked to the indicator was, it would glow as long as they were alive. It was important for things such as hostage situations, but also good for pinpointing time of death.

I didn't know much about the particulars of what happened to the queen's son because elves deliberately kept their history private. If my previous thoughts were right, the queen's son would have been killed before I arrived on the planet, perhaps long before.

Fortunately, I was right about that. It took some time and was contingent on additional future external validation but I managed to convince the queen. I was now someone she could consider dealing with. She obviously still didn't trust me at all, of course.

Finally, we got down to the reason I came here.

I wanted information. I had already inadvertently found out much more than when I started. It wasn't enough. There were things I wanted to confirm, and I was also interested in the unique magic used by elves.

The elves, for their part, seemed to have information that they were strictly unable to share with outsiders. It might have been part of the same pact I suspected they made with the invaders where they voluntarily kept their technological development limited; they refused to talk about this, so it was just a guess.

There were, however, things it would be relatively okay for them to let me study and learn. Letting me stay was still a major violation of their traditions, so it would be considered the lesser of two evils.

We drew up a contract.

Essentially, I would be allowed to stay to research within certain limits and in return, I would never spread the method for the ritual under any circumstances. There were clauses to protect me and the agreement would be considered invalid if it was determined that I had lied about my origin. It was fairly thorough.

I got the queen's magically-enforced guarantee, to the extent that I was satisfied, that she would uphold her end of the bargain.

"Surely, we've given you enough now. Isn't it time you give us the method to disable your contraptions?" The queen asked.

I pulled a piece of parchment out of a pocket sewn inside my shirt and tossed it to her.

"It's on here."

She looked confused, and so did Loraine.

"You had it in physical form this entire time? If we killed you, we would have found it on your body anyway."

I shrugged.

"I didn't think you'd manage to kill me, but if you did, I don't think it would be right for a huge number of unrelated people to die."

"So... It was a trick, then? You were never going to try to start a war in the first place?"

Loraine sounded a bit conflicted. She had been staring at me with hatred this entire time, but the hate seemed to fade a bit and now she just looked angry.

That was the intended effect, of course. I had never wanted this to end in mass slaughter of innocents; vengeance was fine, but however you look at it, releasing the method for the ritual would have been incredibly unethical.

But I was basically advertising this because I wanted to lessen their hatred somewhat. Otherwise, it would be more difficult for me to stay comfortably.

I started to walk out of the throne room and Loraine followed me.

Loraine wasn't sure how to feel. She had spent the entire journey to her home absolutely loathing the mage. She had trusted him and treated him as a friend and he had revealed himself to be as evil as one can get. He was willing to commit genocide over an inconvenience.

But that had been just another lie.

It was a fact that he had manipulated, used and betrayed her, yet she could no longer wholeheartedly despise him. After all, he had saved her twice. Something compelled her to follow him outside.

He noticed and allowed her to lead him somewhere more private.

She didn't know what she wanted to say, but before she knew it, she was already questioning him angrily.

"Did you ever really see me as a friend or was that all also part of your tricks?"

"It wasn't. I genuinely enjoyed your company," he responded calmly.

"What you did to me was horrible."

"You're fine, aren't you? You're even doing better than before we met."

"You used the lives of everyone I cared about and the threat of genocide to force me to break the laws I held sacred. I would have rather died than let an enemy into the heart of my home, but you forced me to knowingly do that after I trusted you with my life."

He seemed to think about this for a second, then nodded indifferently.

"I guess you're right. That is horrible."

"How could you do that to someone you cared about?"

Loraine wasn't sure what sort of response she was looking for. Maybe she wanted him to say he didn't have a choice for some reason, or even that he didn't actually care about her that much.

But what he said was worse.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Even if I like you, there are some things you need to do yourself. I don't see why I should be responsible for protecting your emotional well-being from your own weaknesses."

Loraine had thought that vision turning red was a metaphor.

Apparently, it was a real physiological phenomenon, because it happened to her then.

Everything turned the colour of blood and without thinking, she swung her hand to strike the mage's face.

Before it made contact, her wrist was caught in an iron grip. For the first time, she saw bloodlust in the mage's eyes.

She knew he wasn't stupid enough to try to kill her here, but her breath still caught in her chest. Despite herself, for a moment, she was afraid.

But then the bloodlust faded into the usual calmness and her arm was released.

"Ah, I probably should have let that hit. Would it make you feel better? You can try it again. I won't stop you."

His offer was probably sincere, but she could also tell that it wouldn't affect him in any meaningful way. It probably wouldn't even hurt. She would only be disgracing herself; he would merely think of it as her being weak and irrational.

And a part of her still didn't want to hit him in the first place. She forcefully kept herself calm.

"Don't you feel bad at all?" She asked.

"No, I don't," the mage replied. But before Loraine could call him something along the lines of a heartless piece of human garbage, he said something she never expected to hear in that moment.

"Can you forgive me?"