“My head… it hurts!”

  William Charle opened his eyes to a cramped, airless basement. The electric light above flickered a harsh yellow—bright one moment, dim the next.

  Tall wooden racks surrounded him, crammed with casks of wine.

  “This is… the bar’s cellar? Why am I down here?”

  William’s expression went blank. He tried to raise a hand to his forehead—only to realize he was bound to a high-backed chair, unable to move.

  “Help!”

  He shouted once. No answer came.

  “Wait… Balkin—Balkin!”

  Fragments from before he blacked out surfaced. After the bar closed, he’d just finished mopping the floor when Balkin smiled and handed him a beer “to quench his thirst”…

  “Why would Balkin drug the drink? Why would he knock me out?”

  The more William thought, the colder his blood felt.

  If he were merely an ordinary man, he might have dismissed it—poor as he was, there was little worth coveting. But he knew a little of mystic lore. In rituals, living people were an all-too-common kind of material.

  “Balkin… he wouldn’t be some secret dark-arts worshipper too, would he?”

  “Is he going to sacrifice me?” William’s teeth began to chatter.

  The little mystic power he had offered no help in a situation like this.

  Just as William was terrifying himself with his own imagination, the cellar door creaked open.

  Javon walked in, unhurried.

  “Elvander, sir…”

  Seeing someone he hadn’t expected left William briefly at a loss.

  But the instant he saw the book in Javon’s hand—De Occulta Fundamenta—he screamed and thrashed against the ropes like a madman.

  “What are you doing?! That’s mine—mine! Give it back!”

  “Volatile.” Javon smiled as he closed the grimoire he’d retrieved from William’s lodgings. Calmly, he said, “Is that the aftereffect of opening your First Sephiroth? Don’t try to solve everything with violence like some barbarian. Still—your handling of Harris wasn’t bad. You didn’t leave many traces.”

  William’s face turned deathly pale. His lips trembled as he tried to deny it.

  “Elvander, sir, you must be mistaken. I didn’t… I didn’t kill anyone…”

  “Lying is wrong. And you’ve hidden things from me, so you need to be punished.”

  Javon smiled and slid a strangely shaped dagger down William’s collar, pressing the metal to his skin—forcing him into intimate contact with The Weeping Blade. Then he rolled his shoulders and flexed his hands, knuckles cracking sharply.

  Just a few punches? I can endure that…

  William felt something strange in his body, but he still let out a relieved breath and braced himself to grit it out.

  The next second, Javon stepped in and slapped him across the face.

  Tears burst from William’s eyes instantly.

  “Mom—! It hurts!”

  William swore he was a man. A real one. He absolutely should not be crying from a single slap.

  But that slap…

  It hurt too much.

  It was as though his face had been torn open—like a red-hot iron spike had been driven straight through his nostril into his skull. The pain was so violent it blurred his thoughts; he nearly blacked out from sheer agony.

  Used properly, The Weeping Blade’s drawback makes a fine interrogation tool. Worthy of its name—man or woman, they touch it and they’ll cry.

  Satisfied, Javon backhanded William again.

  “Tell me. Did you kill anyone?”

  “I confess! Stop—stop! Please, I’m begging you—have mercy!”

  William’s face was a mess of snot and tears. He wailed the words at the top of his lungs.

  He only wanted the pain to end.

  “Good.” Javon nodded. “Now I’ll ask one question, and you’ll answer one. If you can’t answer, I hit you.”

  Javon’s smile remained. “Your name?”

  “William! William Charle!”

  Thud!

  Javon drove a fist into William’s stomach. It felt as if his organs had been twisted into a knot.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “I swear—by my mother’s name—I swear it’s true!”

  “Good. You’ve learned the rules.”

  Javon smiled faintly and continued, firing question after question—how old William was when he wet the bed, who his first love was, and even more humiliating private details.

  Questions like these shattered a person’s mental defenses, and when the defenses broke, secrets followed.

  “Why did you come to Wynchester?”

  “To… to decipher that book… to gain mystic power…”

  “What do you think about your parents’ deaths? Do you know anything hidden behind them?”

  “…”

  So William came to Wynchester mainly to chase the mystic. He doesn’t truly know more about his family’s strange decline. Maybe his subconscious sensed danger and chose flight.

  Javon idly spun a gold coin between his fingers, smiling.

  “One last question. Were you going to use spells against me?”

  “No…”

  William answered with vacant eyes.

  Clink!

  Javon flicked the coin. Seeing the result, he nodded.

  “Looks like that madman judged too harshly. For now, you haven’t formed that thought.”

  Of course, once William went deeper into the mystic and his Sephiroth climbed again—what he might become then was another matter.

  “Congratulations. You chose correctly.”

  Javon took back The Weeping Blade, sliced through William’s ropes, and tossed the book to him.

  William curled on the floor—and the excruciating pain vanished in an instant.

  He rose in shock, touched his face, and found the beating hadn’t even left a real injury. Not even a minor one.

  “I thought I was made of iron.” He stared ahead in disbelief. “But I couldn’t take even that and I confessed everything.”

  He fell into deep doubt about himself.

  “No… it’s the dagger!”

  William was at least a Beyond One. Understanding slammed into him. His eyes locked onto the blade in Javon’s hand, fear plain on his face.

  “An arcane item… Boss, you’re a Beyond One too?”

  “More than that.” Javon shrugged. “Hunter’s Bar is one of the Black Queen District entrances. You’ve worked here this long and still didn’t notice.”

  Javon tilted his head. “Now you have two choices. First—take your book and get out. Second—stay and keep working.”

  William’s first instinct was to bolt. Then he froze, frowning.

  “The second option is clearly suspicious. Why are you giving me a choice?”

  “Because I want to use you.” Javon smiled like a devil. “As bait.”

  “Bait?” William echoed, confused.

  “Haven’t you noticed?” Javon said evenly. “Your family is a Beyond family. It comes from an ancient line.”

  Javon looked at William’s eyes—tinted faintly with violet now—and smiled.

  “Your branch is nearly extinct. That wasn’t natural. You’ve been hunted by a dark force. Don’t tell me you’ve never sensed it. Think about your parents’ deaths. Do you really believe it was a simple accident?”

  “Dark force…” William’s eyes reddened. His voice came out as a low growl. “Who are they?”

  “I have a rough guess.” Javon spoke as though it were a trivial matter. “So I’ll keep you here. They’ll come sooner or later. You’ll be my bait.”

  Javon did not bother hiding his intent. Then his tone sharpened.

  “And that’s also because you didn’t harbor stupid thoughts earlier. If you had, I’d have made you a corpse in the River Dorsom.”

  He isn’t threatening me. He really would do it.

  William shuddered under Javon’s cold stare.

  “Now tell me.” Javon asked. “Will you keep running—like a rat in a gutter—or will you stand up and fight?”

  Don’t make it sound like an opera. I’m not some prince of vengeance.

  William mocked inwardly, but his clenched fists betrayed him.

  “I choose… to stay.”

  If his parents had truly been killed by a dark force, then he had to avenge them. Alone, he was too weak. But right beside him was someone he could leverage.

  It was the best possible choice.

  “A wise choice.” Javon nodded. “Now go rest. Tomorrow morning, you’re working overtime.”

  “Tomorrow? Morning?”

  William hesitated. “I have classes. No—Boss, I’ll be here.”

  “Good.” Javon’s mouth curled. “Don’t think founding some third-rate organization or sect means you get to stop working.”

  The next morning.

  Hunter’s Bar.

  William Charle—dark circles under his eyes—pushed open the bar’s door with a wary expression.

  “Elvander, sir… I’m here.”

  “Mmm.” Javon was reading the newspaper at the table, not even looking up. “Go make me a cup of coffee.”

  This is a bar. A bar!

  William seethed inwardly, but he obediently went behind the counter and found brand-new coffee-brewing equipment waiting there.

  “I think it’s a waste for the bar to operate only at night.” Javon spoke as if discussing the weather. “We can use the daytime too—turn it into a café. What do you think?”

  If you don’t hire new staff, you’re just squeezing the old ones. I want a raise.

  William kept the complaints in his head. On his face, he forced a smile.

  “A brilliant plan. Genius-level creativity, Boss.”

  “Your performance is a bit theatrical.”

  Javon glanced at him over the rim of the cup.

  William’s expression fell.

  He didn’t dare leave. He didn’t dare fidget. He stood there like a server, watching as Javon finished his coffee at a leisurely pace.

  Then Javon’s voice reached him again.

  “Have you heard of coffee divination?”

  “I… I’ve heard of divination and prophecy,” William said carefully. “But not coffee divination. And divination is usually the privilege of high-tier Forged Light or Veil. I follow the road that pursues knowledge and wisdom.”

  “The form doesn’t matter.” Javon flipped the cup. “What matters is our purity of spirit—our rank. If your spirit is pure enough, and the borrowed influence and rank are high enough, Tower is perfectly suited to divination too.”

  As he spoke, Javon placed a white bone-china saucer over the cup.

  “Shake it. Hold the question in your mind. Then invert it again.”

  He lifted the cup and examined the coffee grounds’ patterns on the saucer.

  “Finally, interpret the shapes and symbols the residue forms. That is coffee divination.”

  “Beyond Ones with high enough intuition can always gain some kind of hint. But interpretation is the key. Otherwise you might receive the correct hint and still draw the wrong conclusion. That’s why you need deep mystic knowledge.”

  “Most symbols can be interpreted broadly. The simplest is a circle—affirmation, success. A triangle—failure, negation…”

  “And if the target is complex, you need more. An eye symbol means dangerous scrutiny. A blank rectangle means wealth. A serpent means death…”

  Javon set the saucer down firmly.

  “Interpret it.”

  William stared at the branching stain pattern, face full of disbelief.

  “I… I think I see a symbol that represents lightning. I can’t interpret it. Boss, what are you divining?”

  “I looked into your family line.” Javon sighed. “I’m divining the source of your bloodline. I already had a rough suspicion. This was the final confirmation.”

  In his heart, Javon was nearly certain now: William was a descendant of Shaya’s branch.

  Compared to Ginny’s descendants, Shaya’s line had lived far more miserably. Lilia at least had the Green Banyan Council.

  William’s side… had likely been hunted down to a single survivor.

  “Boss, you said my family is a bloodline branch from an ancient house.” William couldn’t hold back his curiosity. “Which house?”

  “Of course.” Javon smiled. “The founder of the Fabri Dynasty, inheritor of ancient mystic legacy, the surname made great by the Verdant Forest Count—Sothos.”

  Javon’s smile widened.

  “You are a descendant of House Sothos.”

  “The Sothos family…” William breathed, awed. “The name you can’t avoid in any serious mystic study. Then who is my enemy?”

  Javon answered silently:

  Another Sothos. Sean’s descendants.

  Out loud, he only said, “You don’t need to know yet. Now get back to work.”

  “Yes—yes!” William snapped upright, reflexive.

  He had the vague sense that his boss treated him well, even taught him a method of divination.

  And yet…

  He was still terrified.

  The cellar had left a shadow in his bones.

  “B-Boss,” William asked cautiously, “and Isabet… what should I do?”

  “I don’t care how you preach,” Javon said coolly. “But keep a lower profile from now on. If you draw the Bureau of Occult Affairs to your doorstep, you know what happens.”