Once the patrolling butcher had shuffled away, Sassel directed his summoned creature to drain the energy from the other fresh corpses while he answered Jeanne's questions. The inquisitor had too many, and an impatient expression formed on his face by the brazier's light.
He drummed his trembling right fingers, studying the girl before him not with appreciation, but with cold assessment. The Burner was strung up to the ceiling like a hunter's trophy. The orange glow from the fire illuminated her bruised limbs and her body, which swayed gently as if moved by soft waves.
If my observations are correct, she knows a great deal about the Outer Gods' pacts. But why would an inquisitor know about such things?
Sassel watched her expression. "Are you done confirming?" he asked.
"I'm done. I've asked about every trap I can think of. All that's left," Jeanne said, her face a mask of undisguised revulsion, "is my disgust at this fucking surreal reality of having to make a pact with a black sorcerer." Her eyes narrowed, and Sassel could clearly see a flicker of murderous insanity within them. "For fuck's sake, can someone pour a bucket of cold water over my head? This is awful. So awful. I can't suppress the urge to burn this damned parchment to ash. I'm honestly going mad."
"Hush—be quiet," he flashed a mocking smile in the darkness. "You're already incredibly lucky to have met a savior like me before being fed to the dungeon hounds."
Her expression mirrored the black sorcerer's in a bizarre moment of synchronicity. "What disgusting luck. If I weren't the main character in this farce, I'd probably die laughing at the sheer absurdity of it all."
Fine. Arguing with this woman is a bottomless pit. He shook his head and commanded the black mass to emerge from its dark corner. It crawled up the wall to the ceiling and moved toward the shackles binding Jeanne's arms. The cell floor was now covered only in black ash—the remains of what had been fresh corpses just minutes before. The mossy walls, once damp and grim, now gave off a dry, putrid smell, like a long-neglected attic where a single footstep could kick up a cloud of dust.
He then saw Jeanne glaring at him, her eyes burning with a fanatical faith, as if a white-hot flame blazed within them. "Don't let that spawn of a dark god near me, or I swear I'll take you down with me."
Dragging me to hell is the only power you have left.
Sassel rolled his eyes impatiently, the drumming of his fingers growing louder. "Why are you so much trouble? Do you need your mommy to come kiss and hug you before you'll come down?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing—why are your terms so fucking complicated?" Jeanne ran her tongue over her dry, cracked lips. "Wouldn't it be easier to just do as I say? You dark god worshippers are all the same, aren't you—you see a pretty girl and you can't think straight. Only the holy flame can bring you the kind of pain that makes you regret being born into this world."
"First of all, I'm not a dark god worshipper."
A longsword materialized in Sassel's right hand—a blade of burning black and red, sparks dancing along its edge as if it had just been pulled from a blacksmith's forge. "Secondly, what gives you the gall to call yourself a beautiful maiden? You're an illiterate village bumpkin." With that, he thrust the sword at the manacles binding Jeanne and, with a sharp twist, added, "And lastly, the reward for 'doing as you say' would be getting sold to the Church as a death row prisoner, wouldn't it? I've never been of the opinion that you Burners possess any emotion that could be mistaken for gratitude."
SNAP! The shackle broke. The sound was sharp and clear in the silence.
Sassel took a step back, watching without a shred of compassion as she fell to the ground like a sack of shit, kicking up a cloud of black ash half a leg high.
He watched Jeanne push herself up, leaning slowly against the wall. From the inquisitor's movements, it was clear she could barely move normally, let alone kill monsters and heretics.
"Tch, that hurts like a bitch..." She sat up, blinking at the firelight. For a fleeting moment, her expression held a trace of a lively young girl. "Can you provide some healing? I can't commune with my Lord's power down here."
"The lower dungeon labyrinth does indeed make it difficult to access the channels of the Temple of Light. Does that mean... you're basically useless down here?"
"Even without my boons, I could snap your neck with one hand, heretic," Jeanne glared at him, the word 'useless' clearly enraging her. "Inquisitors don't make a living with spells. The bodies of heretics I've beheaded with my sword could fill a city."
The black ash slowly settled. The flames danced, flickering as if winking slyly. Sassel's gaze swept over her waist, then to the dark corners of the room.
After a full scan, he frowned. "So where is your sword? Did you feed it to the dungeon hounds?"
"..."
Jeanne didn't answer, her expression simply hardening with annoyance.
Good, I get it. If I hadn't happened to reincarnate into this body, you'd either be dog food for the dungeon hounds or raw material for my spells.
"Sign this paper with your blood," he approached Jeanne, squatting in front of her and holding out the ancient, shadowy parchment. "Then, I'll provide you with healing and a weapon."
"...I told you, I can't read," she stared at Sassel, her gaze like needles.
Besides being illiterate, she probably has an instinctive revulsion to a heretic's evil pact.
"Well, that's good news," he said with veiled sarcasm. "Don't tell me you can't even write your own name?"
"Ugh, what's the problem? You're so annoying. Are you a buzzing fly?" She rolled her eyes impatiently. "Does rooting out a heretic's nest require literacy? Does sentencing a heretic to the interrogation chair require literacy? Does burning followers of a dark god require literacy?"
"Fine. I'll write it for you."
He said it under his breath, glancing toward the cell door. The pattering footsteps echoed in the darkness again—this time, a multitude of small, sharp sounds, like finger bones tapping on a drum of human skin. The sound was terrifyingly dense. He could imagine countless giant arthropods crawling through the corridor. Then, the tapping faded away.
After a moment, Sassel took the girl's wounded, bony right hand and guided it to the parchment. It felt like gripping a ragged cloth.
"What is this? Why am I holding hands with a heretic? Am I some orphanage matron? Are you lacking a mother's love, or just a girlfriend? If I were your mother, I would have handed you over to the Inquisition to be burned myself," Jeanne frowned in discomfort.
"I don't want to hold a Burner's hand either," he ignored the inquisitor's weak resistance. "The souls wailing on your hands outnumber the reagents I've consumed for my spells."
Sassel raised his sword and made a small cut on her index finger. He noticed Jeanne didn't even blink. Clearly, a wound like this was as natural to her as breathing.
Jeanne lowered her head and began to study the heretic's pact. Beside her hand, she saw several strange letters branded onto the parchment, glowing with a blood-red light in the fire.
At that moment, a deep echo resounded in Sassel's mind—a sound no human could possibly make. He felt an invisible, bone-chilling cold rush toward him, like countless dull, worn knives scraping against his body.
He knew perfectly well that the Burner before him heard the same thing.
"Accept it," Sassel said in a low voice.
He saw her head bow lower, likely trying to suppress the overwhelming wave of disgust—disgust for the dark god whispering in her mind.
"Can you fucking hurry up?"
She seemed to make one last effort, giving an extremely reluctant nod of agreement.
In that instant, Sassel saw himself become a crow. A blood-red moon rose through the fog, and countless rotten fingers sprouted from the earth like weeds. On a hillside of white limestone, a colossal humanoid silhouette crouched at the edge of a cliff, surrounded by thousands of malformed monstrosities that spun around it like the black, decaying leaves of late autumn in the wind. He saw the dancing, profane spirits—their massive bodies as black as coal—sometimes crawling sluggishly, sometimes sprinting madly, sometimes churning together like dough, only to violently scatter again...
Elongated ghouls played a sickening melody on flutes made of living bone, their ends connected to writhing, fat, white masses. Flayed sufferers beat a rhythm-less tattoo on drums made of their own skin, their spines bursting from their gory flesh, their own cheeks and limbs hanging from the tips like banners, swaying in the cold wind...
There was no beginning, no end.
A projection of an Outer God...
The vision shattered. He looked down. As their eyes met, he saw extreme bewilderment in the Burner's eyes. He also noticed her fingers pressed against the ground—the finger she had snapped herself. The pain from that act had cut short what Sassel was seeing—and what she was seeing as well.
Sassel paid her no more mind. He retracted the parchment and stabbed a jet-black longsword into the ground before her.
"...I've been defiled."
"A dark god wouldn't bother defiling an illiterate village girl," Sassel said, unmoved. "You really think highly of yourself."
"I mean my faith has been defiled."
"Your great Lord will forgive you, Burner," Sassel said without even raising his eyes. "Also, my magic is extremely limited right now, which means the magic I can spare for healing is also extremely limited. If you dare to self-harm again, I'll break all your limbs, stuff you in a sack, and carry you out on my back."