The Sorcerer's Handbook

"I really don't know how to treat the living," Harvey said, cutting Ashe off before he could continue.

In a flash, Lys slipped behind Harvey's chair. "Fine. Let's just say what you said is true, that you've suddenly struck gold with women. What exactly is it that you want to study?"

"I want to know why I have that kind of luck," Ashe replied.

"And then?"

Ashe paused, thinking it over. "And then? Well... keep the momentum going, I suppose. And try to find Lys a stepmother as soon as possible?"

Harvey spread his hands wide. "Exactly. You don't need to know the why. Just enjoy this hard-won happiness. Besides, once we leave Vanmura, the poison in your body should be cured anyway..."

"Harvey, your Alice isn't around to protect you. I'd suggest you think about the safety of your own butt before you speak."

After a brief bout of chaotic scuffling, the three of them finally settled back down. Harvey cleared his throat, steering the conversation back on track. "Let's move on. Ashe, you mentioned that Annan has been hitting on you a lot lately?"

The word hitting felt a bit clunky in this context, but Ashe nodded regardless. "That's right."

"I think it might be a signal," Harvey mused.

"A signal of what?"

"Dissatisfaction. What have you actually been doing these past few days?"

Ashe scratched his head, looking puzzled. "Nothing out of the ordinary. I just play games, eat, and work on my command skills. When I have a spare moment, I practice my marksmanship with Lys and Pankey. I really haven't done anything wrong."

Lys nodded in confirmation. She'd practically forced Ashe into training with Pankey, knowing his promises tended to evaporate instantly. He might have forgotten his word, but Lys had been keeping careful track of every broken vow.

"That's exactly the problem," Harvey said. "It's because you haven't done anything."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Annan says she doesn't have any performance requirements for you, but deep down, she expects you to take the initiative. She wants you to pursue romance and claw your way onto that second ranking. It's like me. I don't place requirements on corpses, but I still hope they'll have the courtesy to die on their own and turn into undead creatures."

Ashe groaned. "I get it! The Lady says she's giving me a break, but she actually expects me to work overtime for free!"

The corporate slave and the necromancer arrived at the same conclusion despite their vastly different metaphors. Annan was a classic tsundere.

Ashe then turned his gaze toward Lys. "And now, your turn. Tell me. What did you actually do with the substitute?"

Lys's eyes flickered shiftily. "Nothing much. I just had him act as a model... anyway, I have a question of my own. Can being in a relationship really change someone's personality? I've met a few older girls recently. Some were serious or scheming, some were cold, and others were somehow even more airheaded than me. But after they started dating, every single one of them became gentle. They spend all their time spacing out or giggling to themselves. Is love really that powerful?"

"Ah, that's a great question. Unfortunately, I'm the wrong person to ask," Ashe said, his face a mask of practiced indifference.

"It can," Harvey answered, chewing on a piece of cake while simultaneously dangling a cigarette from his lips. "For example, because of a certain person, I've recently started trying to quit smoking."

Ashe: (°ー°〃)

Lys: Σ(っ°Д°;)っ

Seeing their expressions of pure shock, Harvey looked genuinely puzzled. "Is it really that surprising?"

Ashe said slowly, "It's just that, in my mind, you're the type of guy who would ask for one last cigarette on his deathbed, fail to light it no matter how hard he tried, and then die filled with nothing but bitter regret."

Lys nodded repeatedly in agreement.

"Assigning death scripts is a necromancer's job," Harvey said. "Ashe, you actually have some talent for the craft. Why not join me? You could become a lackey under the Haagen Dazz name."

Ashe waved the suggestion away dismissively. "I'll pass. So, where did you meet this woman anyway? In a graveyard?"

Harvey shook his head. "Not a graveyard. I simply followed Annan's instructions and looked for a date within a dream. I didn't go in with high expectations, after all, there are far too few people in reality who match my taste. But..."

He turned to look out the window, avoiding the gaze of the father-daughter duo. "I met a girl who looks remarkably like Narbel."

Ashe's memory wasn't the sharpest. He only vaguely recognized the name. But given the context and the shift in the room's atmosphere, he gathered this was a woman the necromancer held dear.

Still, Harvey's calm reaction to the graveyard joke unsettled Ashe more than a witty retort would have. The fact that Harvey didn't even care to refute the idea only deepened Ashe's dread. Necromancers were like nested mystery boxes of strange fetishes. Every layer you opened only pushed the boundaries of a sorcerer's nature further into the abyss.

"It's not that I'm in love with the girl in the dream. In fact, I wouldn't even say I had feelings for Narbel. We were just colleagues. I was the controller who created the corpses, and she was the courier who transported them. We rarely spoke. The last thing we ever discussed was what kind of lividity would look most beautiful on her body."

No wonder Harvey has no hope for his romantic prospects, Ashe thought.

It was unlikely any living being, male and female alike, could keep up with a mind like that.

"She said she liked blue roses, and I agreed. Since the human body can't naturally produce that shade of violet-blue, I placed a Poison Class Miracle on her. It was designed to trigger upon death, forcing toxins to react with her hemoglobin to produce a vivid, violet-blue bloom across her skin."

Ashe felt a profound awe for the sheer biodiversity of this world's madness. At the same time, it strangely rekindled his hope in true love. If even Harvey could find a connection, nothing was impossible.

Harvey suddenly smiled. "Unfortunately, I never saw her corpse. Those Blood Saint researchers work with terrifying speed. The day after she died, they had already spirited her body away to some unknown institute. I couldn't find her, no matter how hard I tried."

Within the necromancer's laughter lurked twisted, corrosive emotions that consisted of anger, resentment, and fear. They churned together into a pitch-black desire for destruction, half of it aimed at the throat of the world, and the other half at his own heart.

Lys seemed to sense that surge of malice. Forgetting the risk of another scolding from Ashe, she quietly pressed closer to him, trembling.

Ashe wasn't particularly surprised by Harvey's mental state. Harvey's coffin had never been intended for Alice. Writing death scripts was simply what necromancers did, and Harvey had been drafting his own for a very long time.

"Oh," Ashe said simply.

Harvey shot him a sharp glance. "After everything I just told you, you're going to brush me off with a single 'oh'?"

"Oh—oh, oh—oh, oh, oh, oh—"

Hearing Ashe's lead, Lys joined in. The man and the child dragged out the syllable in a rhythmic 1-2-4 cadence for over ten seconds. At the sound, even Harvey, whose face was usually as stiff as a cadaver's, couldn't stop his lips from twitching. He had secretly hoped Ashe might take the bait and discuss the nuances of lividity patterns with him, but that hope was clearly dying a quick death.

"Stop oh-ing," Harvey grumbled. "I was intentionally cultivating negative emotions to fuel my next casting. You two just oh-ed them all away. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to accumulate pure negativity in a place like Vanmura?"

Ashe ignored the complaint. "Let's go back to the girl you met in the dream. Did you actually fall in love with her?"

"How could that possibly be—"

Harvey cut himself off mid-sentence, his gaze suddenly locking onto Ashe's face.

Ashe blinked, unsettled. "What? What is it?"

Harvey said slowly, "Nothing. I just realized she looks a bit like you."

Ashe pulled Lys into a protective hug as they both began to tremble. "Harvey, don't do that. That's terrifying."

The comment had been merely a passing thought. Harvey shrugged. "Regardless, I didn't fall in love with her. A necromancer's love is 'etched into the bone and carved into the heart,' literally. It's just..."

"Just what?"

Harvey swallowed the last puff of his cigarette. "Treat it as a dream. In that dream, she asked me to quit smoking, so I'm going to try."

The atmosphere grew heavy with the weight of his words. Sensing the shift, Ashe steered the conversation toward safer ground. "Then, the final topic. Why is there a cake appearing in my room every single day?"

Lys looked up at him, puzzled. "Daddy, aren't you happy about that? I'd love to wake up to cake every morning!"

"But neither of you gets any. It's only for me. Of course I'd find it strange!"

Ashe rested his chin on his hand, deep in thought. "It feels like a prelude to something dangerous. Like a colorful, sugary murder notice."

"By the time the second ranking is published, we'll likely be leaving anyway," Harvey pointed out. "Why worry about it now?"

Ashe considered this. "In that case, you two should come help me eat the cake every morning."

"Why?"

"I can't finish it by myself."

"If you can't finish it, just leave it," Harvey said with another shrug.

Ashe shook his head firmly. "No. I have a powerful feeling that if I don't finish that cake, something truly terrible will happen."

"Why do you have so many premonitions lately..."

***

After finishing the cake, the trio went their separate ways. Lys departed, clutching the substitute like a prized doll. Harvey retreated to his room to continue "dressing up" Alice. Ashe, meanwhile, threw on his black robe and returned to the game to resume his prison-like grind.

He couldn't clear the dungeon; he simply kept getting beaten, forced to spend his entire day inside just to sharpen his skills. It felt no different from being locked up. In fact, he suspected Shattered Lake Prison likely offered better living conditions than this relentless dungeon grinding. There was a famous saying across the Gospel: "Avoid the Sovereign Blade-Carp at all costs, for only ruin follows in its shadow."

On the passenger lift heading up to the game floor, Ashe ran into the person he least wanted to see, Quinna.

She was still in her standard Red Hats uniform, and her tall figure made her stand out among the crowd. Her expression remained icy, her gaze stern. Even in a packed lift, she commanded what little attention the distracted citizens could spare. Seeing her, Ashe couldn't help but marvel at how Vanmura's social system ignored hierarchy. In his previous life, someone like him wouldn't even dare share an elevator with the CEO, yet here, ordinary family members rode casually alongside their leader.

In the Senheiser Family District, Quinna was practically a dictator. Aside from the Red Hats under her direct command, every department followed the Gospel Kingdom system, but Quinna held the power to oversee any branch and appoint or dismiss anyone at will. The only thing that tempered her absolute power was that she didn't act on personal whims, governing instead according to the guidance of the Gospel.

Even if she didn't wield literal power over life and death, in Senheiser, Quinna was the woman who held the sky in one hand.

Yet, after these past few days, Ashe realized the family members didn't seem to fear her, nor did they show much reverence. They treated her as just another member of the community. Even Annan had dared to act tough in front of her. Perhaps it wasn't just because she was Quinna's daughter, but because of a sense of equality forged in childhood. In this city, material desires had withered away, and with them, the weight of social standing. No one worshipped the powerful, and no one looked down on the maids. The leader and the servant were simply two people fulfilling their roles.

So don't be afraid, Ashe told himself. You're just an ordinary member, too. Just pretend she doesn't exist.

He shrank into the corner of the lift, eyes glued to the floor buttons. You can't see me, you can't see me...

It was as if she could hear his thoughts. She squeezed through the crowd and stopped directly behind him, her tall shadow draping over his back. Ashe stared at the tip of his nose and focused inward, barely daring to breathe for fear of alerting the "monster" at his heels.

The doors opened again, and more members pushed in, filling the remaining space. Someone jostled Quinna, pressing her body against Ashe's. He jolted. Turning his head, he met her cold, noble golden eyes.

Ashe desperately wished he knew a shrinking spell. He tried to pull away from the Sacred Realm sorcerer's gaze, but it was rush hour, and the lift was at capacity. Even as he tried to flatten himself into two dimensions, he couldn't avoid brushing against her. He could even feel her breath against the fabric of his hood.

The agonizing ride finally ended at the dining level. As the crowd filed out, Ashe let out a long sigh of relief. But suddenly, Quinna tapped his shoulder.

"Your mouth," she said expressionlessly.

Ashe froze, his hand flying to the right corner of his lips. Quinna shook her head, reached out, and wiped a smear of cream from the left corner of his mouth instead.

"Th... thanks?"

Quinna gave a curt nod and strode briskly out of the lift, leaving a bewildered Ashe in her wake.

Their interaction drew no eyes. In this city, the Beauty Mist satisfied every desire, including curiosity. No one cared for gossip unless it was shocking enough to surpass the pleasure of the Mist itself.

However, Lucy, hidden in the crowd, had been watching them both. Memories of the "secrets" Ashe had shared with her resurfaced. Seeing them together now, a sense of curiosity she hadn't felt in a decade began to pound wildly in her chest. She got off on the same floor and trailed behind Quinna.

Moments later, she witnessed a shocking sight. The Leader actually put her cream-stained finger into her own mouth!

Over the last few days, Lucy had begun to suspect that Ashe and Iger were tricking her. She had even considered reporting them. But at this moment, every doubt vanished. Everything they said was true!