Shall froze, then doubted his own ears even more.

The Sorceress grew impatient and urged, “Just say whether you will or won’t.”

Her posture screamed like she was pushing a decent man into sin.

This time Shall was sure he hadn’t misheard. Which was exactly why it felt absurd.

So he shook his head.

“No. I’ll spend the night outside. Of course, if possible…”

He lowered his head, stopped meeting her eyes, and focused on the glow in his hands.

“If possible, please help me find an axe. Rope would be even better.”

Only suffocating silence answered him.

Spring rain at night was shockingly cold, and eerily still. Shall could almost hear his own heartbeat.

He felt the Sorceress was angry.

He didn’t know why. She didn’t look very mad. He just felt it.

Looks like I’ll suffer later, he thought helplessly.

But life rarely follows your script. He thought he’d suffer for angering her. Yet what happened was the opposite—

The Sorceress didn’t blow up. She just let out a calm “Oh.”

“If you don’t want to, don’t,” she said. “I’m not the one freezing.”

She turned and walked back inside.

Shall finally let out a breath.

He noticed she’d forgotten to close the door. He moved to remind her.

Then several things whooshed out through the doorway, whipping straight at his face.

Good thing Shall was quick. He caught each one without fuss.

An axe, two coils of rope, a big sheet of canvas, and a box of large nails.

He was thrilled. He tried to thank her by reflex. As before, the door slammed shut before he could speak.

So the Champion stood there like a human shelving unit. A hammer in his left hand, nails in his right pocket, ropes slung over his shoulder, canvas on his back.

Fine rain had started drifting down.

He knew he couldn’t wait. If he did, the rain would come down hard. That’d be trouble.

He hesitated, then bowed to her door.

“Thank you,” he said. “And… good night.”

As expected, there was no reply.

He’d predicted that already. He didn’t linger. He hurried off with the tools she’d lent him, heading for his battlefield. He had to throw up a rain shelter before the skies opened.

The night was long. He figured he had enough time.

…

Time felt tight.

On the other side, that was what Lyselle thought.

She shut the door, rid of the annoying Champion at last. She went straight from the entry to her bed and toppled face-first like a corpse.

The bed was soft. Falling like that didn’t hurt at all.

Lyselle reached out, used a death grip, and yanked the nearby pillow over. She hugged it tight.

She shifted from facedown to lying on her side.

She hugged the soft pillow to her chest, trapped it between her legs, then started grinding her teeth.

She suddenly wanted to punch herself. Twice.

Goddammit, why?

Why did she have to be stupid and slip those two sneaky clauses into that pact? She’d smashed her own foot with the rock she lifted. Shall hadn’t even triggered it. She had.

Why had she asked Shall if he wanted to spend the night at her place?

Because she’d just gotten jealous—of herself.

She actually thought the Priestess she’d been pretending to be was nothing special. Not worth Shall’s devotion.

She started finding Shall pitiful. Worthy of sympathy. She even wanted to tell him the best way to end a relationship is to start a brand-new one.

And who would that brand-new relationship be with?

Her.

She actually started wanting to date Shall.

“While a servant is with their master, they’ll blurt out their true feelings. Over time they’ll develop fondness, even infatuation. Once separated, they sober up at once.”

She didn’t know why Shall wasn’t affected. But the Master Servant Pact was already affecting her.

Every feeling she’d had for Shall just now, every flicker of emotion, came from the pact.

If today she could irrationally get jealous of herself because of it, what about tomorrow? What about after?

She didn’t dare imagine what she’d become.

Her scalp tingled.

Master↑ Servant↓ Pact↑, damn you.

She clenched her teeth and thought:

I’ll hack you apart and mince you. I’ll kill you a thousand times. It still won’t be enough.

Under its sway, she hadn’t felt anything off. Now, away from Shall, the pull faded, and she wanted to rewind time and strangle the version of herself who flirted with Shall and gulped down vinegar.

Cut it out. Cut it off.

This wasn’t a small problem anymore. Keep this up and, before the pact was broken, she’d be pregnant with Shall’s child.

So she had to go hard. No more waiting. At first light tomorrow she’d head to the White Tower and ask those Old Sages how to break this Master Servant Pact.

So at dawn, after a sleepless night, Lyselle shoved open her door with a stormy face.

As a Champion, Shall often faced assassination attempts. He slept light. The moment the door opened, his eyes snapped open. He shot Lyselle a wary look.

“What the hell are you looking at? Go back to sleep!”

Fresh out of deep sleep, his brain couldn’t process that much input. It overloaded on the spot.

Lyselle couldn’t be bothered. Her aggression was cranked so high that even a passing dog would catch a big arcane slap.

She ignored Shall, who hadn’t figured things out yet. She drew her Magic Wand, fed in coordinates from memory, and cast the Blink Spell.

A light breeze brushed past. Her figure thinned, then slowly faded.

The next second, she stood at the base of a pure white tower, who knew how far away.

It was bustling.

People blinked away in streams, and new visitors appeared from thin air.

Skin, gender, even race differed wildly. Yet everyone here shared the same purpose—

Knowledge.

For eternal truth. For the purpose of the universe. For how the world runs. For every question you can imagine.

Knowledge is the White Tower’s foundation.

No one knows how long the Pan Continent has existed, or how many races ruled it. Dynasties rise and fall. Seas turn to fields. The White Tower still stands where it should, unshaken.

Some say that here, in this wondrous White Tower, you can get the answer to every question. Lyselle always scoffed at that.

She never doubted the White Tower Alliance’s ability. She doubted the wallet of anyone making that claim.

Knowledge here is expensive. The rarer it is, the costlier. Maybe the White Tower can answer everything. But who can afford it?

“Knowledge is priceless.”

Those crafty Old Sages love to say that.

Expressionless, Lyselle stepped into the White Tower. She waved off the eager attendant who came to greet her. She went to the left-hand wall and counted from near to far to the ninety-ninth vase. She flipped it over and spoke the passphrase:

“As above, so below.”

She appeared in another space.

Still inside the White Tower. But the bustling crowd was gone. Only an Old Sage remained, dozing over her desk.

She seemed very old. Her hair was all white, hanging loose like Santa’s, kindly and careless. Sunlight flowed through the window and fell on her, giving her a soft halo.

A thick blanket covered her legs. Curled on it was a plump, round black cat. It sensed Lyselle arrive, but couldn’t be bothered. It cracked one eye at her, shut it, shifted into a comfier pose, and kept napping.

Cat and master alike radiated a drowsy aura that made you want to sleep.

It had no effect on Lyselle, who was in full ready-to-throw-down mode.

She pulled out her Magic Wand and rapped the desk, shattering their sweet dream.

“Quit sleeping, Old Sage. Up.”

The Old Sage woke.

Like every elder, she was slow to react and slow to move. Woken, she squinted at Lyselle. Then it hit her she’d forgotten her reading glasses. She fumbled to find the missing pair.

Luckily, she had a helpful cat.

The fat cat hopped onto the desk and stretched long. Its tail hooked the glasses lost among a heap of grimoires and set them by the Old Sage’s hand.

The Old Sage looked saved.

“Good thing I’ve got you, Zarathustra,” she muttered. “Otherwise this old thing wouldn’t know how to live.”

She put on the glasses and looked at Lyselle again.

Then she frowned.

“What’s this?” the Old Sage murmured. “Am I dead? How else am I seeing something that shouldn’t exist in this world?”

Lyselle’s temper flared hotter. She thumped the Magic Wand, bang, bang.

“You’re the one who shouldn’t exist. I’m not dead, Old Sage. If anyone dies, it’s you first.”

The Old Sage smiled.

“Can’t say for sure, my dear. My sweet student who hasn’t visited in ages and keeps wishing me dead… Because fate is fickle, it’s so charming, isn’t it?”

Lyselle didn’t want her dusty riddles. She cut straight in.

“Drop the crap. I’m here to call you out. Fess up. That Master Servant Pact spell prototype I swiped from you last time—was there something wrong with it?”

To be continued.