After reading through the entire Record of Existence, I took a moment to gather my thoughts.

Acacius had a pretty scary collection of titles. I felt like I had a better understanding of how he’d tried to fight me in that ritual “dream,” but it only brought up more questions. From his behavior and the Record, it was obvious that he’d expected his title skills to work against me, but they hadn’t. The black knife, too, hadn’t responded to his command anymore once it was in my hands.

Why?

Half of the Record also consisted of empty black pages. Were they just reserved space for future titles? Or was there something I couldn’t see?

I was seriously entertaining the possibility that this was a dream after all, or that my consciousness had been uploaded to a simulation, or that this was a really long, weirdly drawn-out vision before my death. Wasn’t that slightly more plausible than the idea that I’d been summoned to another world?

For now, my thoughts felt clear and my sensations sharp, so it seemed best to treat this experience as real. But just in case, I spent some time trying various things to see if it was possible to somehow go back to my world. After all, despite everything, there were still things I didn’t want to leave behind.

…

After a half hour of embarrassing attempts, I decided to call it a day.

I roughly understood the situation, and things wouldn’t improve just by staying in this empty room. It was time to investigate the world outside.

The silver door lacked any kind of handle, knob, sensor, or mechanism that I could detect. There was only a small slot around eye level, which similarly lacked any leverage to open. So after a moment of thought, I tried knocking on the door.

An older man’s voice came cautiously from the other side.

“Young master?”

It was an unfamiliar language, but it was as if I’d learned it all the same.

“…Graves.”

The name slipped from my mouth without my conscious input.

Were these remnant instincts from Acacius’ soul?

“I’ve finished,” I said.

“Understood. Then, I will begin opening the door now.”

Things went quiet. I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination, but the temperature seemed to change, and I felt a brief tingling on my skin.

I heard clicking as three locks were undone, one after another. Heavy bolts scraped the metal as they were dragged aside. Finally, the slot slid aside to reveal a dignified old man looking back at me.

“As discussed before,” he said, “please forgive this humble one’s audacious request and show me your World Proof.”

Given that the “Devouring Exchange” had the power to let me completely take Acacius’ place, it seemed reasonable to assume that the World Proof was a method to verify that I was the real “Acacius Duval.” Could I conclude that it was rarely possible to imitate a World Proof entirely?

Uh-whew. If I had any other World Proof, I would have been caught right away.

I held out my hand and muttered, “[Caller of What Must Be True.]”

[Honest Man’s Deception.]

A sharp black knife appeared in my grasp. When I angled it for Graves’ inspection, a hidden pattern surfaced in the light, like a many-eyed demon grinning wickedly out from the blade. Shit. This Acacius guy was pretty cool, huh?

Graves nodded seriously and affixed a golden monocle to his right eye. “Young master, I will confirm the name.”

I nodded indifferently. “Go ahead.”

Okay. If my World Proof couldn’t hold up under his inspection, he was close enough I could reach through the slot, grab him, and hold the knife to his throat. Perfect for negotiations. I would just need to be quick.

But Graves only looked at my World Proof for a moment before he relaxed and smiled. “It seems it really is you,” he said joyfully. “My most heartfelt congratulations for your success.”

I relaxed my grip on my World Proof, too, and dismissed it with a thought. “Just open the door. I’m tired.”

“Yes.”

If there were any discrepancies between Acacius’ behavior and mine, hopefully this excuse would hold up long enough for me to inspect his room and house for hints.

Graves slowly heaved the silver door open. He was taller than me and dressed in a Western-style butler’s suit, and his salt-and-pepper long gray hair was slicked back in a neat ponytail. When I stepped out into the open, he bowed and led me silently down a stone corridor to a main hall.

The air was cold but dry. Flameless lights were nestled in alcoves along the walls, and every now and then I saw corridors leading to metal doors, like the room where I had been in. Then, going up a flight of stairs, we passed through a hallway full of even more locked rooms.

In what appeared to be a combined living room and kitchen, Graves pulled a silken black cloth from his pocket and tied it around his eyes. There was a crescent moon embroidered in the center.

“Young master,” he prompted. “Your artifact.”

Did I have one too?

I searched Acacius’ coat pockets and quickly found my own cloth. It had a black circle ringed in white light around the edges, like a symbolic new moon, or a solar eclipse. Following Graves’ lead, I carefully tied it on.

Surprisingly, it didn’t block my vision. But the world looked strange with it on, stripped of color and drenched in shadow. When Graves opened the building’s entrance, I saw outside only a yawning darkness. A single tenuous path drew a pale line out into the void.

I followed Graves out onto the path. The watery light undulated under me like a soft foam. Maybe if I stood in place too long, I’d fall right through it to whatever lay below. I glanced back; the building turned out to be a Gothic black and silver structure, its detailed outlined in shadows cast by the watchful moon overhead. There were no stars.

I raised my hand to the blindfold, curious if this space would look the same without it, but Graves hastily stopped me.

“Young master, I don’t know if you forgot, but do not take that off, no matter what, while we are traveling the moon paths.”

I dropped my hand. “Right.”

He led me along the path, and in the places where it grew too faint to see, he would shine a wrought-iron lantern ahead until it became visible again. I felt like there were strange shapes moving in the shadow whispering to me, but Graves told me not to pay attention to them.

Perhaps to distract me from those mysteries, he started chatting to me about other things.

“You may be feeling confused or sluggish after the Void Calling Ritual,” he said. “Don’t worry; memory and identity confusion is common in the immediate aftermath. It should stabilize within a few days.”

Why was he using a different name for the Devouring Exchange? “Is that so?”

“Yes. Of course, you may find yourself feeling and acting differently than the person you were before. Don’t be too alarmed. Such is the price of power.”

It was nice to know I could get away with acting out of character to some degree.

“However, having passed the ceremony, you will most certainly have gained great things,” Graves said encouragingly. “You are one step closer to being acknowledged as the official heir of the house. Didn’t I tell you before? You’re doing just fine. You could’ve conducted the ritual outside the safe house and had no problems at all.”

If Acacius took so many precautions, how come he still got his soul snatched away by me?

The stuff that he was involved in sure seemed dangerous. Should I find a way to fake my death and run away? It couldn’t hurt.

I picked up a few more things from Graves as he talked, mostly about things for me to be mindful of in the next few days.

First, the ritual was a customary coming-of-age ceremony for the main line of the Duval family. In the past, a lot of people went mad or were possessed by demons that wreaked havoc before they could be contained and killed. This apparently was a consequence of insufficient strength of the soul to confront the “trials” of the ritual. Still, greater rewards came with greater trials, and most people didn’t emerge from the ritual entirely unscathed — hence the common disturbance and loss of identity and memory. I really had to question why this family was so determined to keep this custom around if that was the case.

Second, the expectations on Acacius were high. The greater the ability he received, the more powerful his soul must have been, and the more authority and respect he would gain. Graves tactfully skirted around the question of what Acacius had obtained, but I could read between the lines. If I wanted to secure my status in the family, I would have to prove what power I had obtained.

My World Proof would probably prove plenty, but it’d throw a lot of questions on my own identity, plus I didn’t really want to publicize the fact that I could impersonate anyone I came across. That seemed like a really good way to get a lot of blame thrown my way. What else should I show, then? I didn’t think my knife skills were up to par.

Third, the Duval family was rich.

The Duval family was rich.

Important things should be said three times. The Duval family was rich.

I’d figured as much from his fancy coat, the safe house, and this butler-like guy escorting me. But it really started sinking in when Graves unlocked a silver doorway at the end of the path and led us out into the courtyard of a large, luxurious mansion with a sprawling garden, surrounded by forest outside its walls. I followed Graves’ lead and took the blindfold off, noting that the silver doorway disappeared from sight as I did so, before trailing Graves through the ostentatiously carved front doors.

We stepped into a giant foyer with a glittering chandelier, marble tiles, and polished columns framing intricate reliefs on the walls.

I didn’t have much time to examine what they were depicting before I sensed movement at the top of the spiraling stairs. I looked up and met eyes with a teenage girl in a refined dress. Her pink hair was pulled back into a thick pair of braided pigtails. Her sharp golden eyes glared out from underneath her bangs.

An uncomfortable mix of inferiority, guilt, and pity rose up in me.

“Cynara,” my mouth said.

Cynara curled her lips. “Acacius. I see you made it back in one piece.”

I raised an eyebrow. “To your disappointment?”

“Why would I ever be disappointed by my brother’s survival?”

There was a thorny barb in her words that I didn’t understand. But still, wasn’t the joke on her?

“Indeed, young miss,” Graves said, deliberately and pleasantly obtuse. “Your brother’s successful completion of the Void Calling Ritual is great news for all of us. I’m sure we can look forward to good news from him in a few days.”

“Good news from third best?” Cynara said scornfully.

Wow, so much vitriol.

Graves just smiled. “All of Master’s children have their unique strengths.”

“So what is his? The tenacity of a cockroach?”

“Young master’s cunning and foresight is exceptional in many ways.”

“And what about you?” I said, not looking away from her.

Graves answered for Cynara as well. “Young miss excels in all academic subjects and has a good grasp of politics.”

I nodded. “Oh, so she’s that smart. Isn’t that nice? The Duval family has another genius in the house.”

I meant it as a sarcastic jab and a probe all at once, but I didn’t anticipate her flinch, or the dark expression that crossed her face.

“Keep laughing while you can,” she hissed. “One day, you’ll get the death you deserve.”

She turned on her heel and stormed away.

Graves put a hand on my arm. “Don’t take her words to heart,” he said. “Focus on your duties, and there will be nothing that can tear you down.”

I was getting the sense that this family wasn’t big on unconditional support.

When Graves finally took me to Acacius’ room and left, though, I temporarily shelved those thoughts.

Because Acacius had it really good.

He had a tranquilly decorated bedroom with a huge four-poster canopy bed, a giant collection of books, an attached study, and private bathroom. I would’ve killed for something this good back in my old world.

The bathroom had a large drop-in tub the size of a small pond, and it even had three shower heads that could be adjusted for angle, size, temperature, and pressure.

It was the most blissful shower I’d had the luxury of taking in a long time.

Dangerous soul-devouring rituals, weird shadow dimensions, a hostile family with strange undercurrents… Who cared about that! Wasn’t Acacius’ life actually really great?

Okay, I decided. My last-ditch plan would no longer be faking my death and running away. Instead, I would steal the riches and light a fire to hide evidence before faking my death and running away.

I just needed to be mindful of a few details while I was here.

I looked at myself in the mirror, at the pink acacia flowers tattooed over my heart, and the thin golden chains that encircled them. The symbols of Acacius’ other titles were scattered all over my skin.

The biggest problem, even now, was the black knife on the inside of my left forearm. Anyone who had seen [Caller of What Must Be True] would recognize it instantly, and then they might ask why Acacius’ World Proof had transformed into a normal title, and then I’d have to do something about them. And if things got violent, well. Wouldn’t that just be so sad?

It looked like I wouldn’t be wearing anything short-sleeved in the near future. Fortunately, from what I’d seen, Acacius’ wardrobe consisted almost exclusively of long-sleeved shirts.

The second big problem was my complete ignorance of my surroundings. I could get a lot of answers simply by implying that I’d lost my memories in the ritual, but given the lack of a loving family atmosphere so far, handing them the opportunity to manipulate my understanding of the world around me felt like a bad idea. No way I was trusting them with that. I would be better off faking my composure until I figured things out.

I changed into Acacius’ silk pajamas and spent some time luxuriating in his giant bed with its stupidly high thread count sheets before focusing again. I needed to search for personal affects and other items that could tell me about Acacius’ past, his personality, and how I should act like him.

I went to the attached study and looked around.

Large bookshelves lined the room from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall. There was an ornate desk and chair on a fancy rug in the middle, as well as a bright chandelier and two standing lamps. A floor-to-ceiling window opened up on a balcony to overlook a garden and courtyard below.

Acacius was pretty scholarly, huh; that “dream” we’d met in had taken place in a library, too.

I dug out a stack of notebooks from his desk, marveling at how I could read and understand this language I’d never studied before. This language system was different from the markings on that golden book, though. Maybe Acacius was a polyglot? I also picked out some books on geography, history, and ritual magic for personal reference.

A false bottom in his desk concealed personal journals. They were partly written in an archaic form of Korean, which was weird, and then they were written in a cipher, which I couldn’t decode. I hadn’t exactly paid attention to my language studies, so I was surprised I could still smoothly read the plain-language stuff. It must’ve been from Acacius’ knowledge. It would’ve been nice if that jerk had left me enough knowledge to decode the cipher, too.

At the beginning of one of Acacius’ personal journals was a note, also in that weirdly archaic Korean.

If you are reading this, something has gone very wrong.

I hope you will carry out my last will. Otherwise, a terrible calamity will fall upon Iyiria. I swear this on my name as a Duval. Hopefully, you understand what that means.

First and most important, you must kill Luka Reviance within five years, no matter what. But if you can’t, stay far away from him and pray for the best.

Second, I have attached certain fail-safes to my name. Therefore, please keep using the name of Acacius Duval as much as you can. Do not let it be forgotten. This way there is still a chance.

Last, I hope you will look after my little sister. If you can’t escape the disaster, at the very least, help her escape this continent. And don’t let her inherit the Duval name.

That is all.

He dated the letter, but didn’t sign his name. What date was it, actually? I’d have to find a discreet way to ask.

Anyways, if I carried out this will within three years, I could probably free myself from the death sentence Acacius had gifted me. Looking after someone’s sister and using their name wasn’t hard. The only thing I was stuck on was this Luka guy.

To be honest, aside from the lifespan issue, there was no good reason to kill him. Why should I accept Acacius’ claims at face value? Despite his calculations, he hadn’t been able to predict his own death. If I killed Luka, it would have to be because I felt the reasoning was sufficient, and right now, I knew nothing.

I couldn’t dismiss his wishes altogether, though. There was a logic behind Acacius’ actions. I just needed to figure out what it was.

I spent the next few days quietly in Acacius’ room, going through his personal journals first to memorize his linguistic habits and personality tics. He wasn’t overly formal, but he spoke more eruditely than my typical casual speech; his attitude towards others was minimally polite, but not necessarily respectful; and he seemed to dislike being noticeably emotive. Judging from his vague descriptions about his “progress,” he was secretive, controlling, and under quite a bit of stress.

So it didn’t seem like too difficult a role to play.

Next, I reviewed the books I’d selected.

I learned about the geography of this world, Kosmonymia, which helped me understand I was in a country known as the Principality of Iyiria, located at the eastern end of the continent. I absorbed more about the general common sense of technology and magic in the world; there was electricity and industrialization, but they lacked some quotidian technologies of my world, and there was a lot of magic mixed in as well. The different systems of technology and power were apparently enabled through the use of something called “frames,” such as the electromagnetic frame or the aura force frame.

I couldn’t find a book that dumbed it down enough for me to understand how that worked, though. Maybe that knowledge was considered too basic in this world.

I also started going through Acacius’ notes on the Devouring Exchange, which was slow and speculative work.

Interestingly enough, the Duvals as a whole seemed ignorant of the fact that the Devouring Exchange granted new powers by killing and absorbing an entity that matched their specifications. To them, the fight was just an illustory trial conjured by the ritual.

Perhaps they’d been blinded by the words of the spirit they’d allegedly won the trial from, who’d described the process as such: “Nothing can be gained without paying a price. Prove yourself better than what you aspire to be.”

And when asked about what happened to those who failed the trial, the spirit had replied, “It’s only natural for an empty vessel to be taken by others.”

Shortly after that had been the first case of possession via ritual, who’d eaten dozens of people like a hungry beast before he was caught and killed.

Of course, not every person who’d been possessed was killed. Some of them escaped after being found out, the most notorious case being a sister-in-law who’d systematically murdered other women in the family until she was forced to flee. No one had been able to find her afterwards.

Anyways, that was why anyone whose World Proof changed after the ritual was killed.

Scary. I had better make sure no one found me out.

Even if the Duvals generally were unaware of the ritual’s true nature, Acacius specifically must have known that he was facing a real entity — otherwise he wouldn’t have used [Caller] to give me a title. But were his personal relationships really so bad that he’d rather gamble on making me carry out his last will, instead of entrusting it to someone he knew?

I also spent some time exploring the manor to keep an eye on the people’s movements. The servants’ actions were thankfully predictable, but it was weird that Cynara was sneaking out at night to swing her sword around in the garden. What was that all about?

During this period, a tiny paper crocodile sailed through the window of my room to land on the desk before turning into a card. When I flipped it over, there was a message.

Congratulations on your successful coming-of-age ritual! Why didn’t you tell me the news? - Z

P.S. I’m progressing with the plan, but no concrete results yet. When are you going to tell me what you want with Luka?

I couldn’t figure out how to send a response, so I tried to burn the card in the fireplace, but it turned back into a crocodile and snapped at me angrily before soaring away.

Oh well. There wasn’t anything I could do about it now. If it was really important, the sender would find me eventually.

On the second day, in the evening, I heard a commotion outside, enough for the noise to reach upstairs through the closed doors of the bedroom. Then came a rapid knocking.

“Young master, come quickly. The Duke has returned.”

I came out and followed a smiling Graves down the hall, to the stairs.

Crash.

I looked over the banister.

A black-haired young man with long metal earrings and a dark coat fell to the floor, pinned to the marble by a golden sword like the victim of a trophy hunt. Blood pooled under him as he coughed and seized weakly, pale hands clenched tight as a snakebite on his own black sword.

Standing above him was an older man with rosy hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He stepped on the young man’s weapon and let go of the golden sword, straightening to look at me with predatory golden eyes.

“Acacius. My son,” he greeted. “A bug crawled into the trap you made, but it nearly managed to escape.”

“I see,” I said after a moment. “I’ll endeavor to do better than that in the future.”

His eyes crinkled. “Even against your cherished classmate?”

I looked at the young man on the floor. Despite his wounds, he still glared back at me fiercely. Under all the blood, beneath his long eyelashes, his slitted red eyes practically glowed with demonic fury. How scary. He scrabbled to pull the sword out of himself somehow, only for Acacius’ father to place a foot on his neck and force him back down.

“Did we have that kind of relationship?” I said.

“Acacius Duval,” the young man spit. “I swear, when I escape, I will kill you.”

Although I couldn’t say for certain that Acacius was in the wrong, I had to wonder what the hell the Duval family had been up to.

The Duke smiled. “In light of your contributions and your touching relationship, why don’t you decide what to do with him?”

I didn’t need this kind of consideration, though…

“It must have been difficult for him to come this far to visit us,” I said after a moment. “Wouldn’t it be rude of me not to receive a guest?”

My reading of the Duke’s personality proved correct. He looked amused at my proposal and beckoned for a nearby servant.

“Clean up our guest and send him up to Acacius’ room,” he said. “Take care not to let him escape.”

That meant they would try to keep him alive until then, right?

“Will you be staying for dinner?” Graves asked.

“No. There is still clean-up to be done. Graves, you come with me.” The Duke glanced at me again. “Acacius, take responsibility for the estate. If we do not return before the Academy’s school year begins, arrange everything for yourself and your sister on your own.”

“Understood,” I said, and wondered who the hell I could dump the responsibilities on if I didn’t know anyone or anything here. Actually, what did an heir even do? So far I’d been free to idle in my room without contributing a thing, but could it be that… I actually had a job?

That would be just terrible. I’d better hurry to slack off at this Academy as soon as I could.

The Duke pulled the sword out of the young man’s back in a spray of blood, kicking him away. He was caught and bound by the servants quickly, dragged away somewhere I couldn’t see. His sword lay gleaming and forgotten in the pool of his blood.

Graves tied his black blindfold on. With a cut of the Duke’s sword, a black rift tore open the air, and Graves stepped through and disappeared.

Just before the Duke entered the rift, he turned back back and looked me in the eye.

“Congratulations on completing the ceremony. I’m expecting great things from you.”

Then he, too, stepped into the void and disappeared.

I went down the stairs and picked up the young man’s sword, because it seemed like a shame to just leave a perfectly good weapon like that.

Cynara emerged from the upstairs hallways in a white night dress, silent and ethereal as a ghost. “Back to your rotten hobbies, brother?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“What do you think? You’re like a carrion crow, picking up what the dead leave behind.” She put a hand to her mouth. “Wait… You might be worse. At least crows will recognize friends and family. But you treat people as if their relationships with you could be cut off at any time; might as well calculate the benefits in advance, right?”

Acacius sounded like a real piece of work. Just like the rest of his family.

“He’s not dead yet.”

“Please. With those wounds? I guess you just brought him to your room to decide how exactly he’d die.”

“Your impression of me is so unpleasant. If you’re not careful, you might hurt my feelings.”

Cynara’s mouth twisted. “Don’t say such disgusting things.”

“You see? If I was more sensitive, my heart might just break.”

“Hah. Everyone who thought you might change for the better after the ritual was an idiot. Your personality is as ugly as ever.”

She flicked her hair contemptuously and walked away. I guess that was her winning strategy for when she wanted to get the last word.

All of Acacius’ problems were starting to give me a headache. Judging by the family’s calm reactions, this kind of incident didn’t seem to be a one-time thing, but I just wanted to study the Devouring Exchange’s summoning mechanisms in peace. What was I supposed to do if more people showed up wanting me dead?

With a sigh, I flicked the blood off the sword and headed back to my room to wait for my “guest” to be delivered to me.

One thing was for sure: living peacefully wasn’t easy, no matter what world you were in.

Chapter 1 Chapter 3