Sassel walked over to her. Jeanne was leaning against the wall, her hands resting on her knees. The posture was rather masculine, fitting for what he had said earlier—'I thought you inquisitors were all genderless'. He picked up the black cat, casually placed it on Jeanne's shoulder, and then asked her:
"Do you have any food left in your bundle?"
"Enough, for now," Jeanne said, taking the black cat who called herself Viola off her shoulder and cradling it in her arms. She continued, as if explaining, "As long as the path to take care of the master of the house isn't too far, it's enough."
The cat rested in her arms and nuzzled its head against her bare right arm. It seemed Viola had almost grown accustomed to living as a cat. The surrounding silence was suffocating. Jeanne glanced out of the corner of her eye toward the end of the corridor, idly scratching the cat under its chin. Her pale golden pupils, shimmering under the effect of the spell, looked surprisingly serene and mysterious, completely different from her usual temperament.
Then, the inquisitor untied the curtain bundle and handed him a slice of cured meat. The food was already a bit cold and tainted with the dust and sweat from Jeanne's hands, but at least it still had flavor. For Sassel, who had spent a long time in the army, cured meat was at least easier to stomach than military rations.
"Black sorcerer, I recall you saying before you fell asleep that you only needed to consume a little bit of soul to satisfy your basic needs. Are you going to tell me now that was just a joke?" Jeanne asked, looking up at him.
"Just a craving after waking up," he said, telling the simple truth.
"...If we weren't in a dark god's labyrinth right now, and if half of this food wasn't technically yours, I would have you flogged," Jeanne cursed, her tone sharp. She didn't, however, make any move to take the food back, merely pressing her fingers firmly into her brow. "And another thing—are all you black sorcerers this undisciplined?"
"I haven't been in the army for over a hundred years," Sassel said, leaning against the wall and shaking his head. He'd long forgotten any discipline from those days; only the fields of corpses remained clear in his memory.
Jeanne pondered this for a moment, then asked:
"You fought in the war between the Romans and the Moon-Nest during the Year of the Shattered Moon?"
"Strictly speaking, it was the war between the federation of eleven free cities, backed by mage guilds, and the Empire," Sassel nodded, not denying her question. He spoke as if he'd found someone to confide in. "In terms of human nations alone, Caesar was only a few cities away from completely unifying the continent of Gynaeceps. But then those mages made a pact with Anomander Recda, the Dark Elf lord of the Moon-Nest, and the seven Dark Elf mage legions were incorporated into the Crimson Guard Army. In the end... our Second Legion was lost in the Black Dog Forest, the Third Legion was annihilated before the tundra of Cas with almost no survivors, and the Fifth and Sixth Legions, along with Mock Fortress, became what is now the Pale Gorge."
Jeanne recalled her half-baked history knowledge—the history knowledge from her Church lessons—and asked him, "I heard that your Caesar at the time once contacted the Insectoids of the Cloud Mist Forest, trying to form an alliance with them?"
Sassel thought for a long moment, then answered her.
"According to the Senate's records, there was such a report. After all, the Insectoids' non-magical warfare technology is quite advanced. Caesar at the time considered that the Insectoids had a blood feud with the lord of the Moon-Nest, so he sought an alliance with them, but the Insectoids ultimately refused. I haven't looked through the records from the Year of the Shattered Moon in detail, so I don't know the specific reasons."
At this, the black sorcerer shrugged and continued his assessment in an emotionless tone. "In the end, Caesar signed a treaty with the lord of the Moon-Nest and the mage representatives of the eleven cities, and the Year of the Shattered Moon came to a close. To this day, the Moon-Nest is still floating up there in the sky, and the giant crows are still flying all over the skies above Cas."
"Black sorcerer, do you think your Empress—that she could start another war?" Jeanne asked him.
"Who knows," he shook his head. "I certainly don't." His tone was sharp, his lips pressed into a thin, pale line. "When Nero first took the throne, I thought she was a rather interesting Empress. After the success of her coup in the sixth year, I thought Nero was a madwoman. Many Caesars in history have expressed dissatisfaction with the Senate, but she was the only one who successfully sent all those powerful figures into the Colosseum."
"Thanks to the intervention of the Shadow Temple," Sassel said with a sneer. "Maybe Her Majesty the Empress is even thinking of living for ten thousand years. The gods of this world are always in flux. It wouldn't be surprising if Nero wanted to get in on the action... By the way, do you have any more food? I'm hungry again."
"No."
"Are you kidding me? You just said half of this was mine!"
"I can tell how much food is needed to sustain a person for a day's activity, let alone a mage like you. Did you think I was out here camping with you?" Jeanne shot him a look, a cold smile on her face.
"I just explained all that history to you, and you don't have a shred of gratitude? Even bards singing on the street get coppers thrown at them."
"After we return to the Holy City," her eyebrows raised slightly, "I can give you a small raise. Not too much, of course."
"Thank you for the raise—is that what I'm supposed to say?"
"Your tone should be more respectful. Address me as Lady Jeanne," Jeanne said calmly. "Of course, I hold out no hope for that at present."
"If there isn't enough food..."
Just then, Viola poked her head out from the inquisitor's arms. It lowered its voice cautiously and said, "I know a few more paths that lead to the garden."
Although he wanted to retort 'and there will be no hope in the future, either', Sassel couldn't be bothered to engage with Jeanne anymore. He sat back down and, after a moment of silence, said to the cat, "That won't be necessary. Just take us directly to the top floor to find your master. We'll deal with the food situation after that." He paused, organizing his thoughts, then added a reminder. "Besides that, until your master is completely dead, the mind-control and binding spells on you will need to be maintained at all times. I hope you can understand."
Considering that neither of the two people present were known for prioritizing compassion, it could only nod in agreement.
Jeanne watched as the black sorcerer lay back down on the floor.
"Black sorcerer, what is the meaning of this?"
"I'm going back to sleep. Can you not stare at me like a mine foreman whipping a slave? The concealment and warding spells I cast before I slept won't be interrupted for now."
"Are your habits always like this?" Jeanne said with a hint of mockery.
The black sorcerer yawned. He didn't turn over, just lay there like a corpse. "Well, what do you expect? That I act like a traditional black sorcerer from a folktale, kidnapping ignorant village girls and children and then cackling at them like a drunk? Or that I go out of my way to massacre a poor country village like a traditional cultist, just to collect a few pathetic civilian souls? Please. I had a normal life before the Senate was destroyed in the coup."
"..."
Jeanne didn't say anything more, just closed her eyes with a look of displeasure. She had wanted to accuse him of being too undisciplined and lazy, but the black sorcerer didn't seem to understand. After that, she pressed her fingers hard into her brow, used the cat in her arms as a pillow, and lay down on the floor to sleep as well.
The dream came.
They stood on a sealed, narrow corridor. It was cramped, grim, its outlines somewhat blurry. The corridor was collapsing in on them from both the front and back, the floor constantly falling into a bottomless black abyss, as if the corridor were suspended in the sky. The rate of collapse was just dozens of times slower than normal time, slow enough to be nauseating. And on both sides of the corridor were countless, endless doors. Each door was engraved with a different, bizarre pattern—patterns with no logic, no symbolism, and no specific shape, like the doodles of a madman.
Jeanne's expression was extremely dark. Her appearance in the dream wasn't much different from reality, though her clothes and armor were intact. She stood in the center of the corridor, her jet-black half-plate, unidentifiable headpiece, and the short cape pinned to her shoulder dividing the corridor in two like a grim banner. Her pale golden hair fell past her waist, and her presence was breathtakingly oppressive.
"...Don't tell me this labyrinth is related to dreams. Adventuring in Ghost Town Number One when I'm awake, and then having to adventure in Ghost Town Number Two when I'm asleep. Is this some kind of joke?"
She turned her head—and met the black sorcerer's gaze—a gaze from which no emotion could be read.
"Also, who are you?" she asked.
"This is my soul, Miss Inquisitor," Sassel smiled at the inquisitor with an indifferent expression, though the smile was somehow ferocious. "Our sect of black sorcerers relies on the demonization of the soul to resist the corrosion of the gods from beyond. After we reincarnate, our physical bodies also skew toward demonization. The higher the degree of demonization, the wider the door we can open."
As Jeanne could see, his long tongue was forked. His body was covered in dark red scales, his black hair had a blood-red sheen, and his vertical pupils were pale gold. From his tailbone hung a sharp, carapace-like tail about the length of his leg. His facial features, however, were surprisingly not much different from his physical body's.
"You should be thankful the Church started accepting demons two hundred years ago instead of trying to exterminate them," Jeanne said, sizing up the half-demon before her who could barely be called human. She didn't seem disgusted, just shook her head. "...I have another question. The last time you slept in here, did you also see that inexplicable doll?"