"How much will you charge me for that information?" I asked.
"Not much. Nothing you can't afford. In fact… you might be the one person who is incapable of not affording it," he replied.
"I see… what is it that you want?"
I took a sip of my tea.
The atmosphere was quiet.
The café was quiet.
It felt as though this place existed separately from the madness consuming the world outside. As if reality itself had drawn a boundary around it.
In a world gone insane, this pocket of sanity was the truly unnatural thing.
"I simply want you to kill someone for me," Noir said. "That's all. Sign a contract with me—a soul bond—and the information will be yours."
His expression was the most serious I had seen since meeting him.
It was obvious he valued his business deals above everything else.
"I cannot sign a soul bond unless you tell me who it is I am supposed to kill."
I took another sip of my tea.
It tasted… morbid.
"You can't…?" he repeated, tilting his head.
Then his eyes widened in realization. "Why, of course you can't. You already signed it, sir. You cannot sign the same contract twice."
"What do you mean? I didn't sign anything. We never made a contract."
My tea had gone warm.
"…We haven't?" He paused, looking around the café slowly. "Well… if we haven't signed anything… how did we end up here?"
"Here…?"
I looked around.
The world began to spin.
Dizziness crept into my mind like fog.
Here.
Where… is here?
What was I drinking?
Who… am I?
—
My bedroom ceiling greeted me.
As I sat up, I saw him sitting beside my bed.
"Good morning," Noir said cheerfully. "Or perhaps good night, considering the moon is the one greeting us."
"What the hell just happened?" I asked.
Confusion clung to my thoughts like wet cloth.
The world was spinning, yet perfectly still.
My memories insisted something had occurred… yet nothing felt altered.
It was as if I had not experienced those moments—
and yet I was the one who had awakened afterward.
"You and I made a soul bond," Noir said casually, standing up. "You will kill a specific person for me, and I will tell you how to enter the castle. That is all that happened."
"Hey, wait—where are you going? You still haven't told me who I have to kil—"
Before I could finish, he vanished.
On the table lay a note.
Black paper.
Black ink.
It described the path into the castle.
"I see…"
Complicated was one way to describe it.
Almost nothing made sense.
The only clear instruction written was:
Find the Authority of the Prince and present it to the guards at the gate.
How the hell was I supposed to find that?
The Authority of the Prince? I didn't even know what that meant.
Yet this was my only lead.
The only path forward.
Anything was better than nothing.
The previous line mentioned an open field where flowers grew in abundance.
The keyword being grew.
Only one place came to mind.
The newly constructed graveyard for those who had died from madness.
It had been built on an open field once covered in flowers.
"What would a prince be doing in a graveyard?" I muttered to myself.
I stood up and grabbed my dagger.
As I stepped outside my house, something shifted.
Something deep within my soul.
A subtle pull—like an invisible thread tightening.
I paused for a moment.
Then continued walking.
Onward.
Toward the graveyard.