Became the Unjust Contract Slave of the Archamage’s Book

Binaeril’s body hung limply in Inyakan’s arms, his life slipping away with every passing second. Panicking, Inyakan tried to stem the flow of blood pouring from Binaeril’s chest with his hands.

“Fool! What are you doing? You’ll only infect the wound!” Priya scolded him sharply.

“Then what should I do?” Inyakan snapped back, his voice full of desperation.

“Just put him down, for starters!” Priya instructed, her voice tinged with urgency.

Inyakan, handling Binaeril as delicately as if he were made of glass, gently laid him on the white snow. 

“The bleeding won’t stop! What do we do? How do we stop it?” Inyakan’s frantic words drew the attention of everyone around them.

“He’s lost too much blood already.”

“Looks like it’s too late.”

“Shouldn’t we at least try to stop the bleeding?”

“With what?”

Each person threw in a suggestion, but none seemed helpful.

“Quiet, all of you!” Priya shouted, silencing the group.

“Mage woman, do something!”

“Shut up! I’m trying to concentrate,” Priya snapped back, her mind racing for a solution.

‘First, I need to stop the wound from bleeding,’ Priya thought, taking a deep breath.

Her smoke-like magic began to spread, seeping into the wound on Binaeril’s chest. But nothing seemed to change. The blood continued to flow, staining her mist red. The spell that should have sealed the wound had no effect.

Inyakan’s breathing grew more frantic as he watched Priya struggle. She tried the spell again, but with the same result.

‘Why isn’t it working?… Oh!’ 

It finally dawned on Priya what was wrong. She realized that the wound was infused with residual magic—Starfall’s dark energy. In her haste, she had failed to notice it sooner.

Just as a wound inflicted by a monster could leave behind a miasma that slowed healing, Binaeril’s injury was similarly afflicted, though on a much more severe scale. 

Understanding the problem, Priya focused on extracting Starfall’s dark energy from the wound. But it was no use. Starfall’s black magic countered her every attempt, continuing to erode Binaeril’s body, siphoning away his life force with every passing moment.

“It’s no good. There’s nothing I can do,” Priya finally admitted, her voice heavy with frustration.

“What do you mean, nothing? You idiot!” Inyakan’s frustration boiled over into anger.

“Who are you calling an idiot?”

“You acted like you could fix this, and now you’re saying there’s no way? So what, are we just supposed to watch him die right in front of us?”

“I’m telling you, there’s nothing more *I* can do,” Priya retorted, her mind racing for alternatives.

Her eyes fell on a worn book that had fallen near where Binaeril had crashed. The Book of Truth, Veritas. Picking it up, she shouted, “I know you can hear me! I know you’re listening!”

The others looked on with puzzled expressions as Priya shouted at the old book in her hands. However, she was too focused on saving Binaeril to care.

“Hey, Book of Truth! You can fix this, can’t you? You can deal with the remnants of Starfall’s power, right? Answer me! Come on, say something!”

But whether Veritas, the Book of Truth, understood Priya’s desperation or not, it remained silent, like any ordinary inanimate object. Growing more frustrated, Priya aggressively funneled her magic into the book, hoping to provoke a reaction.

“…What’s going on?”

But even this elicited no response. In her hands, the book was nothing more than an old, worn tome.

“What are you trying to do?” Inyakan asked, his confusion evident. Despite having traveled with Binaeril for some time, he knew little about the Book of Truth.

“This damned book… It’s useless when it’s actually needed!” Priya cursed under her breath. The one time she desperately needed its help, it refused to respond.

“What do we do now?” Inyakan asked, his voice tinged with worry.

“Are you really asking me?” Priya shot back. If Inyakan had any idea what to do, he would have already acted on it. With her own abilities unable to heal Binaeril’s wounds and Veritas unresponsive, only one option remained.

“Inyakan, where’s the carriage we came in?” she asked urgently.

“It should be back at the Empire’s castle. Why?”

“We need to get there, now.”

Only one option remained, even though it wasn’t one Priya was particularly thrilled about. But she couldn’t let her personal feelings dictate her actions—not when Binaeril’s life hung in the balance.

“We have to get to Elfenbine immediately. It’s the only place that might be able to heal Binaeril now.”

Priya knew she had to take Binaeril to her sister, the Tower Lord of Elfenbine. The magic carriage was unfamiliar to her, but she had observed Binaeril operating it before, so she quickly figured out the controls. Pushing it to its maximum speed, she raced towards the heart of the continent, to the tower of Elfenbine.

Upon arriving at Elfenbine, Priya wasted no time and demanded an immediate audience with the Tower Lord. As she argued with the staff who questioned her identity, Elfenbine herself appeared.

“It’s been a while, sister.”

“Indeed, it has,” Priya replied, the exchange cold and formal, reflecting the distant relationship between the nymph sisters. But their personal issues would have to wait. Elfenbine promptly took action to help Binaeril.

While Inyakan was left in the care of Dean Yulio, the two sisters ascended to the Tower Lord’s chamber.

“What did you do?” Priya asked, marveling at the sight before her.

Binaeril, who had been on the brink of death, now lay peacefully as if in a deep, restful sleep. Looking at him, Priya was struck by how much he resembled Yunnaeril. The contrast between his current peaceful state and the ghastly, near-death condition he had been in during their journey was stark. Binaeril was encased in a crystalline, milky-white ice, which seemed to radiate an otherworldly calm.

Priya, though knowledgeable in magic, found herself once again awed by her sister’s abilities, which always seemed to defy conventional understanding.

“I’ve frozen Binaeril’s time.”

“What?!” Priya choked on her tea, coughing in surprise. The very idea seemed impossible.

‘Is something like that even possible?’.

“This is only a temporary measure,” Elfenbine said. “The real healing will take time.”

“Can you actually heal him?” Priya asked, her tone carrying both hope and doubt.

Elfenbine nodded. “Yes, I can.”

“Impressive. I couldn’t do anything,” Priya admitted, a hint of frustration in her voice.

“It’s not impressive. You just didn’t know the right method,” Elfenbine replied.

An awkward silence fell between them. Despite being sisters, the three nymph siblings—Priya, Elfenbine, and their youngest sister—were far from close. Born of the same mother, Terra, they were more like strangers, each living their own life. Their immense magical talents, almost demonic in nature, had kept them apart, each one isolated in their own world.

Nymphs are born as adults and immediately begin their independent lives. Priya and Elfenbine had no shared memories or experiences, nothing to bond them together.

For a moment, Priya considered leaving, thinking that perhaps there was no reason to stay. But she couldn’t leave without knowing how Elfenbine planned to heal Binaeril’s wounds.

“Do you know how he got these wounds?” Priya asked. “And you know that Binaeril has a Fragment?”

Elfenbine’s expression didn’t change. “I’m aware.”

“And you know that the one he’s fighting is his brother? The one known as Yunnaeril, the Sword of the Order?”

Priya couldn’t believe it. “Then why didn’t you help him at all?”

Elfenbine sighed softly. “I did help him, in my own way.”

“How? By sitting in this narrow tower, detached from everything, as if you were already dead?”

“I can’t afford to want more than I already have,” Elfenbine replied cryptically.

“What does that even mean?” Priya asked, her frustration mounting.

“I can’t intervene,” Elfenbine explained. “I can’t turn their two-way battle into a three-way conflict.”

Priya frowned, not understanding at all. “What are you talking about?”

“Exactly what I said,” Elfenbine responded calmly. Her head tilted slightly, revealing a glimpse of her pale skin beneath her veil.

“The conflict between the Dalheim brothers isn’t just their own. It’s a fight between the Fragments that chose them as their contractors.”

“You mean those monstrous artifacts are fighting each other, trying to kill each other?” Priya asked, incredulous.

“They were born to do that.”

“What are these Fragments, anyway? Do you know what they really are?”

“Fragments are the remnants of Dekypleio,” Elfenbine explained.

Their mother, Terra, gave birth to her children over decades, with significant age gaps between them. Priya and her younger sister Kaya were born years apart, and Elfenbine had lived twice as long as Priya. Elfenbine had even been in contact with great mages who were now forgotten by history.

“Remnants of Dekypleio,” Priya repeated, but the explanation didn’t satisfy her. It seemed to answer everything for Elfenbine, but for Priya, it only raised more questions.

She glanced at Binaeril, who lay encased in what looked like crystalline ice, and asked again, “What does that have to do with you?”

Elfenbine didn’t answer immediately, and the silence stretched on, filled only by the soft crackling of magic in the air.

Meanwhile, Binaeril stirred slightly in his frozen state, groaning inwardly. His entire body ached as if it had been thoroughly beaten.

Binaeril wanted to move, but not even a finger would budge.

‘Ugh…’

He couldn’t even make a sound. His eyelids felt as though they were being pressed down, refusing to open. Desperate to understand his condition, he called out to Veritas, the Book of Truth, but was met with only eerie silence. He called again, but still, there was no response. This was strange—Veritas might usually ignore Binaeril’s words, but it had never been completely silent like this.

‘What’s going on?’

He waited for what felt like an eternity, until finally, he heard a distant voice, faint and unclear. At first, he thought it was Veritas responding, but as he focused, he realized the voice was different. The tone, the atmosphere it conveyed—it was entirely unlike Veritas.

His eyes stung, even though they were closed, as if someone was watching him intently. With his eyes shut, his other senses seemed to sharpen.

-You’re close… very close…

-Kill each other. Which one of you will become my vessel? Not much time left now…

‘…Who is this?’

The voice was unpleasant, sending a chill down his spine. He could feel it scrutinizing him from head to toe, observing him for what felt like an eternity. It muttered incomprehensible things before gradually fading away, just as it had come. Binaeril wanted to ask who it was, but his lips felt frozen, immobile.

‘How long am I going to stay like this?’

-You were waiting for me?

Just as the restlessness began to gnaw at him, a familiar voice returned.

-Such a mess. You can’t even handle a little wound like this.

‘What wound are you talking about?’

-The one left by Starfall. It’s killing you.

‘Killing me? I don’t feel anything.’

-Elfenbine did something to you.

‘The Tower Lord?’

-Yes. No one else could deal with Starfall’s power. She could have, but she chose not to.

‘What do you mean by that?’

-Doesn’t matter. I found out a few things while you were asleep.

Why Veritas was mentioning discoveries without the intention to share them, Binaeril couldn’t understand.

-Anyway, it’s fine. You’ll know soon enough. The time isn’t far off.

Binaeril stopped asking questions. He had his own methods of finding out the truth.

-It’s time to wake up, Binaeril.

He felt a twitch in his fingers. His heavy eyelids fluttered. The sensations in his ears, eyes, and nose returned, slowly at first, then all at once, overwhelming him with clarity. The first thing he noticed as his senses returned was the feeling under him.

‘Ugh. This is… hard.’

The first sensation he felt was the rough, solid texture beneath him.