2026-07-05 02:49:51The dormitory wall clock struck midnight. The only source of light in the cramped room came from a cheap tallow candle melting on a wooden desk. On his bed, Toby snored with an irregular rhythm, occasionally smacking his lips as if dreaming of meat pies.
Aster sat hunched over his desk, squinting at the pile of "treasures" he had scavenged from the scrap bin behind the Crafting workshop that afternoon: a rusted iron spoon, a broken wall clock spring, and a scrap of lead sheeting from a potion wrapper.
"I need five gold coins," Aster whispered to himself, his voice barely audible over Toby’s snoring. "And all I’ve got to work with is trash that even sewer rats wouldn't touch."
His plan was simple, logical, and grounded. He was going to make nail clippers. In the magical world of Aethelgard, nobles and highranking mages were obsessed with hygiene and appearance, yet they always used wind or water magic to trim their nails, which often led to minor accidents like clipped fingertips. Mechanical nail clippers with precision springs were rare items considered "exotic grooming tools" from across the sea. If he could craft a dozen highquality ones, he could sell them to the nobles’ personal servants on the black market for five silver coins each. One hundred silver coins equaled one gold coin. He only needed two days.
Using small pliers and an iron file, Aster began to work. He cut the rusted spoon, bent it, and fitted the clock spring in the middle. His fingers were scraped and bleeding from the sharp lead edges, but he didn't care. He sharpened the cutting blades with a whetstone until he was sure they were keen enough to trim a dragon’s toenails.
After two hours of work, with sweat dripping onto the desk, a miniature pair of nail clippers lay before him. The shape was slightly crooked, the color a mottled mix of rust and shiny lead, and at a glance, it looked more like a miniature torture device than a grooming tool.
"Done," Aster breathed, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Physically, it works. But aesthetically, it’s a disaster. No noble’s servant is going to touch this thing."
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and called upon the entity that had been hiding in his consciousness since yesterday.
"System. Activate Crafting module. Evaluate and improve the aesthetics of this item."
Instantly, the temperature around the desk dropped sharply. A pale blue semitransparent screen appeared, flickering wildly with earpiercing static.
[Crafting Module Activated.]
[Scanning Materials... Rusted Iron (Quality: F), Broken Clock Spring (Quality: F), Scrap Lead (Quality: F).]
[Scanning User Intent: Aesthetic Nail Clippers for Sale.]
[World Law rejects conversion of waste materials into aesthetic items. Failure probability: 100%.]
Aster gritted his teeth. "I didn't ask you to turn it into gold! Just clean up the rust so it’s sellable!"
[Error... Error... Connection to World Magic Server severed.]
[World Law detects anomaly. Attempting to block crafting process...]
[Activating Emergency Concealment Protocol. Searching for loopholes in Causality Law...]
[Absolute Compensation Implanted.]
[Concept Imparted: Absolute Severance of Karma and Bonds.]
[Item Created: FateSevering Nail Clippers (???).]
A dim golden light flickered once on the desk and vanished.
Aster stared at the clippers in front of him. They looked the same. Still crooked, still rusty, still looking like a tetanus hazard. There were no dragon carvings, no holy aura emanating from them.
"You gave me a godtier concept, but you couldn't even scrub off the rust?" Aster muttered in frustration, picking up the clippers cautiously. The object felt incredibly light, but as he gripped it, he felt a strange sensation in his fingertips. It was as if the clippers weren't cutting the air, but the very space where the air resided.
He needed to test their sharpness. Aster grabbed a thick copper wire from his desk drawer. He clamped the blades onto the wire and pressed the lever.
Klik.
There was no sound of copper being forced to break. The thick wire simply parted, without offering the slightest resistance. However, what made Aster’s hair stand on end wasn't the cut wire. The shadow of the copper wire reflected on the wall by the candlelight... was also cut. The shadow had split in two, even though the original object remained joined at the bottom.
Aster swallowed hard, putting the wire down with trembling hands. "Okay. These aren't nail clippers. This is a physical anomaly. I have to be extremely careful."
He prepared to wrap the clippers in thick cloth. But as he moved his left hand, the sleeve of his uniform slid back, revealing his left wrist.
There, a bloodred tattoo in the shape of a circular chain pulsated softly, radiating a stinging heat.
This was the "Blood Debt Contract." The original Aster, in his desperation to pay the academy entrance f*e, had borrowed money from a loan shark in the underground city and signed this magical contract. Every month, this contract siphoned off onetenth of his mana and vitality as interest. If he failed to pay the principal within three months, his soul would be forcibly extracted. In the original novel, the original Aster died of exhaustion before the coff*espill incident in the cafeteria even happened.
"Hot..." Aster hissed, clutching his wrist. The chain tattoo began to glow brighter, signaling that midnight was the hour the contract drained his vitality. Aster could feel his body weakening, his breath hitching.
In a sudden surge of panic and pain, Aster reflexively looked for something to scratch the heat on his wrist. His right hand, still holding the nail clippers, accidentally pinched the dead skin near the chain tattoo.
Klik.
The soft sound of the clipping echoed in the quiet room.
Aster froze. His eyes widened in horror as he stared at his wrist. He hadn't cut his dead skin. The blades, with terrifying precision, had nipped and cut through the red chain tattoo itself.
No blood spilled. Instead, the chain tattoo—which should have been indestructible by highlevel magic—suddenly cracked. A sound like shattering glass echoed in Aster’s head. In a split second, the red chain disintegrated into particles of red light and evaporated into the air, leaving behind clean, pale skin.
The heat and weakness gripping his body vanished instantly. His blood flow felt smooth, and his lungs filled with fresh air he hadn't tasted in a long time.
The contract wasn't just canceled. The very concept that Aster "owed a debt" to that loan shark had been erased from the causality of the universe.
Aster stared at the rusted nail clippers in his right hand with infinite dread. "You... you just cut a highlevel soul contract with a tool meant for toenails?"
He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The object in his hand could sever contracts, sever curses, or perhaps even sever marriage vows and blood ties if he wasn't careful. This was a forbidden item that could have the entire Royal Magic Tower hunting him to the ends of the earth.
With very slow and careful movements, Aster grabbed ten layers of thick canvas, wrapped the clippers, and tied them with leather cord until they resembled a brick. He shoved the bundle into his backpack. He still had to sell them on the black market. This thing was too dangerous to keep in the dorm, and he still needed money to buy the Cracked Stone by tomorrow night.
But before he could blow out the candle, the system screen in his head flashed a blinding bloodred again.
[Warning: Causality Anomaly Detected.]
[The 'Vespera' Blood Contract has been forcibly severed from the Client side.]
[Creditor entity suffering soul backlash. They are tracking the contractseverance coordinates.]
[Arrival time: 30 seconds.]
Aster nearly jumped out of his chair. Backlash?! Tracking his location?!
Just as he grabbed his black cloak and ran toward the window, a loud explosion rocked their wooden dorm door.
BOOM!
The thick oak door shattered into splinters, ripping the hinges from the stone wall. Dust and wood debris scattered into the room. Toby woke up with a muffled scream, falling out of bed and hiding under his blankets.
In the shattered doorway stood a man in a black suit with a deathly pale face and fresh blood dripping from his nose. Behind him, three large thugs with dense mana auras stood ready, daggers drawn.
The man in the suit stared into the messy room, his eyes scanning with a murderous gaze mixed with confusion, as the contract on his soul had just vanished for no reason.
"Find him," the man hissed, his voice rasping like a knife against a whetstone. "Aster Vale has stolen something that isn't his. Bring him to Vespera—alive."
Aster, who was already perched on the secondstory windowsill with his backpack containing the "FateSevering Nail Clippers" on his back, looked at the thugs with a stiff smile.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," Aster said in extremely polite, formal language, just before dropping himself into the darkness of the night. "I'm not accepting visitors."
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Chapter 145: Back to the Shop
Nine o'clock at night.The bell above the door of Vale Junk Shop rang. Ting.The sound was small, rusty, and slightly out of tune. But to Aster Vale, it was the most beautiful sound in the world. A sound that meant he was home. A sound that meant the workday was over. And most importantly, a sound that meant it was time to count his money.Aster stepped inside, closed the wooden door with creaking hinges, and locked the double latch. He did not turn on the main light right away. Moonlight filtering through the front window was enough to guide him to the rocking chair behind the counter. The chair creaked in protest as he sank his tired body onto its thin cushion.From inside his woven rattan bag, he pulled out a notebook, a pen, and a broken mechanical calculator with a snapped indicator needle. Then, he began taking out bags of coins.Clink. Clink. Clink.The sound of gold hitting the wooden counter was tonight's symphony. Aster lined up the piles of coins, sorted them by income sour
Chapter 144: Two Different Paths
The corridor connecting Floor One to the surface was still intact. The stone steps creaked under the footsteps of Helena and Kael—two figures who should have never walked side by side. The Grand Inquisitor of the Church of Sacred Light. The General of the Valdris War Faction. Two institutions that had stood on opposite sides for two hundred years.Behind them, four royal knights escorted them. Not escorting them as prisoners. Escorting them as... witnesses. As people who did not know what to do about two individuals who had just stopped being themselves.Sunlight poured in from above. Real sunlight. Not crystal light. Not the glow of moss. Not mirror reflections. Sunlight that was warm, honest, and reflected nothing other than itself.Helena stopped at the dungeon gate.The black stone arch towered before her—ancient symbols eroded by three hundred years, security seals that were now dark, a surface no longer glowing. The gate looked old. Tired. Like someone who had stood for too long
Chapter 143: From Cult to Community
Malachar did not walk like a Grand Priest. There was no cape billowing without wind. No eyes burning with the fire of conviction. No voice sounding like dry bones scraping together inside a cave.He walked like an old man who had just woken up from a forty-year sleep, realizing that all his dreams belonged to someone else.His steps were short. Hesitant. His old shoes touched the mirror floor without confidence—without direction. Where should he go? What should he do? Who was he, if not the Grand Priest of the Abyss Remnant Cult? Who was he, if not a hunter of God? Who was he, if not anything at all?The Cracked Mirror still lay on the floor. Its cracked surface now reflected the ordinary light of the Maze—a light that showed no souls, no truth, nothing other than the surface. But Malachar did not need to look at the mirror anymore. He had already seen it. And what he saw was still burning behind his eyes.A former bishop. Alone. Fired. Without friends. Talking to walls.Not a Grand P
Chapter 142: Toby, the Unwanted "Prophet"
He found a gap between two cracked mirrors—a narrow two-meter space hidden behind the reflection of light. There, far from the battle, far from the screams, far from poison daggers, mana nets, and giant fists slamming into the floor, Toby did the only thing he could do while the world was collapsing around him.He cooked.The Kerosene Stove burned with a small blue flame. Its bent chimney puffed out thin steam that smelled like chicken broth mixed with damp moss and a hint of ozone from the dungeon air. Inside the dented pot he brought from the shop, dungeon water boiled—water he scraped from the leaks along the Maze walls, water no sane person with an appetite would ever drink.Toby stirred the soup with a wooden spoon he had chewed on in three places. A greasy apron was tied around his neck—an apron he found in a supply sack when they first entered the dungeon. It was way too big for him, but enough to keep his fur safe from splatters.This was not the thick, black, asphalt-smelling
Chapter 141: Aster Faces the Three Leaders
Reinforcements arrived in four minutes and thirty seconds.A platoon of Aethelgard royal knights—forty men in silver armor with golden lion crests on their chests—entered Floor Four in a two-column formation. Their captain, a woman with a scar on her temple and eyes that had seen too much to ever be shocked by anything, swept her gaze across the Maze.And even she stopped.Twenty Valdris shadow soldiers sat on the floor. Weapons lay beside them. Masks unfastened. Empty eyes. Not fighting back. No need to bind them—they weren't even trying to stand up.Twelve cult followers knelt on the other side of the Maze. Their red eyes blinked with a confusion never before seen on the face of any cultist. Some were crying. Some were staring at their own hands. Some just stayed quiet.Kael's five guards lay near the shattered mirror wall. Unmoving. Breathing, but unmoving.And in the middle of it all, three people sat in front of a small cracked mirror. Crying.The platoon captain swallowed hard.
Chapter 140: The Last Line of Defense
The effect of the Rusty Shop Bell pulled everyone to a single point. The effect of the Dusting Broom erased intent from everyone within a ten-meter radius. But not everyone was within that radius. And not all intent could be erased.Kael's five personal guards stood at the edge of the Maze. They felt the pull of the bell. They felt the broom's erasing effect. But they were veterans of three border campaigns—their souls had been forged too hard, too many times, for the outer layer of their intent to be wiped away by a single sweep of a broom.And four of Malachar's followers—four of the twelve who had been brainwashed too deeply, for too long, for the chains on their souls to be loosened by a single wave of cleansing—stood up. Their red eyes glowed. Ritual knives were drawn.Nine figures moved. Not toward the mirror. Not toward the three crying leaders. Toward Aster.Toward the old man crouching on the moss, his back to the world, pressing the buttons of a broken calculator.Kaelen mov
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