Waking up after being knocked unconscious by a soup ladle, wielded by a Succubus Queen, no less, is an experience that requires a certain level of mental adjustment. In any other life, that would be the punchline of a bad joke. In mine, it was just a Tuesday. Most people under a succubus spell drift into a magical slumber, but I get a blunt instrument to the skull. Still, I was breathing. Most victims of a succubus end up as cold statistics in the morning news or, worse, husks forgotten by time.
I blinked, my vision slowly stitching together the familiar patterns of the bedroom ceiling. Judging by the lingering scent of yesterday's fried potatoes, I was still in my temporary sanctuary. Surprisingly, my head didn't throb. It seemed the physical trauma was a small price to pay for the detox Airi had performed.
The most striking sensation, however, was the lightness. It felt as if someone had scrubbed my brain clean of years of accumulated filth. The mental static, that oily, suffocating psychic fog Count Rezanov's mentalist had forced upon me, was gone. Evaporated. Not a single trace of his manipulation remained.
I closed my eyes, sinking my consciousness deep into my own magical core. I felt it pulsing steadily in my chest, radiating a pure, golden warmth. It was clean. My core had been busy, devouring every last drop of the mentalist's purple energy like a starving predator. Yet, I had managed to snatch a few crumbs of that energy before it was fully digested. A growing body shouldn't just consume junk food, but I had specific plans for those remnants of psychic power.
"Well, is my little patriot finally awake?" Airi's voice was as silky as ever, though laced with a sharp edge of mockery.
She stood by the bed, arms crossed over her chest. Her silk nightgown left little to the imagination, accentuating a form that had driven kings to madness. Her pale face showed no sign of yesterday's frantic worry, only a teasing smirk.
"I'm not even mad," I muttered, stretching lazily and basking in my newfound mental clarity. "I have to hand it to that noble's lapdog, he knew his way around a mind. I almost believed in my undying love for Irkutsk. Truly professional work. Is the slate clean?"
"To the last atom, my Lord," she replied with a theatrical bow, a gesture so graceful it couldn't be anything but a performance. "Your mind is a pristine garden once more. But next time, perhaps a little heads up through our spiritual link? I do worry, you know."
"What would be the fun in that?" I waved her off. "You would have hit me the moment you smelled another man's influence on me anyway. I just saved us both the time. Now, to business. Rezanov wants us out of the city. I'm certain his vultures are already perched at the airport, waiting for our flight to Irkutsk. Let them wait. We're heading elsewhere."
I paused, visualizing the map of the Russian Empire in my mind. "We're going to Novosibirsk."
"Novosibirsk?" Airi arched an eyebrow, a rare flicker of genuine surprise in her eyes. "The heart of the dimensional rifts? The Gateway City? What are we looking for in that graveyard, Master?"
"In a place where portals open more often than bakery doors, opportunity is everywhere,"
I explained. "The high nobles are too busy with their civil squabbles. Meanwhile, the free monster hunters there will take anyone with a shred of talent. The city is crawling with monsters that the authorities can't keep up with. It's the perfect playground for a Tamer looking to get back into the Great Game."
"Novosibirsk," she mused, tasting the word. "Risky. But logical. It's the only place you can regain your former standing in record time. Your strength lies in spiritual pacts, after all. The fusion of souls. And in the Gateway City, you won't just find demons. The Primal Forests and the Dead Deserts are within reach."
Her loyalty was as predictable as it was satisfying. There was no hesitation, only a devotion that bordered on fanatical. For thousands of years in the pits of Hell, we had been two halves of a whole. Down there, we were lovers. Here, bound by the social roles of mother and son and the limitations of my adolescent body, the bed remained divided. But the bond was unbreakable.
The planning was interrupted by a knock. It wasn't a friend, it was one of Rezanov's newest acquisitions. The man who stepped in was thin, wearing a suit that was expensive but smelled of cheap cologne and practiced insincerity. He radiated a fake sympathy so thick it was nauseating.
"Kristina Anatolyevna, Evgeny Andreevich," he said, his smile never reaching his eyes as they wandered over Airi's form. "You may call me Mikhail Arkadyevich. The Count is deeply saddened by the tragedy that has befallen your family. He wishes to help you leave these painful memories behind as quickly as possible. As you know, the Rezanov family is legendary for its generosity."
He slid a folder across the table, a contract for our apartment. He clearly expected a grieving widow to sign without looking, just to get the cash and run.
"But, this is our home!" Airi cried, her voice trembling with a grief so convincing I almost applauded. "We can't just..."
"Oh, please, Kristina Anatolyevna," Mikhail purred. "I promise the house will be in good hands. And to show our goodwill..." He stepped aside to make a frantic call to the Count's office. When he returned, the offer had doubled. "The Count has authorized double the market value. Consider it a gift for your transition to Irkutsk."
I saw Airi play the hesitating mother perfectly, so I stepped in to close the deal.
"Mom," I whispered, sounding as pathetic and broken as a schoolboy should. "The Prince, he's being so kind. Maybe it's for the best. I've wanted to go to Irkutsk anyway. We can start over."
Airi nodded slowly, wiping a fake tear. "We agree," she said, her voice suddenly firm. "But we want the down payment. Now. In cash and transfer."
Mikhail's smile faltered, but he complied. Within the hour, we were significantly wealthier, and Count Rezanov was the proud owner of a soon to be vacant apartment, convinced he had outsmarted a couple of rubes.
We moved like a well oiled machine. Junk was tossed, essentials like passports and magical permits were packed into two backpacks. I looked around the empty apartment one last time. No nostalgia. No regret. Just a faint, cold melancholy for a past that was finally being severed.
In the taxi to the airport, I watched Airi block Mikhail's number. I caught a glimpse of the messages he'd sent her, crude, entitled, and filthy. The man clearly didn't realize he'd been hitting on a creature that could flay him alive with a thought.
At the airport, I led the way to the ticket counter. "To Novosibirsk," I said. "Wait, Irkutsk. How could I forget?"
As the line moved, I closed my eyes. I summoned that tiny sliver of purple psychic energy I'd stolen from the core earlier. It was a mere speck, a grain of dust, but in the hands of a Master, it was a scalpel.
"Good afternoon," the gate agent said, her eyes dull with exhaustion. "Destination?"
"Novosibirsk," I said. But internally, I pushed that purple spark into her mind. I didn't have the power to rewrite her personality, but I could swap two labels.
Her face went blank for a micro second, a glitch in the human hardware. Then she blinked. "Irkutsk, then. One moment."
She spoke the word Irkutsk, but her fingers typed Novosibirsk. Her ears heard one thing, her hands did another. The perfect human error. Airi paid in cash, leaving no digital breadcrumbs.
As we walked toward the gate, I spotted them, Rezanov's watchers. They stood out like a sore thumb to anyone who knew what to look for, perfect posture, sharp eyes, and the aura of a predator in a vegetarian restaurant. As I walked past each one, I flicked the last of my stolen psychic energy into their fields.
I swapped the city names in their perception. From this moment on, every agent would swear on their life they saw us board a flight to Irkutsk. They would see the gate number for Irkutsk on the screen, even as the plane took us 1,500 miles away to the rifts.
Novosibirsk welcomed us with a biting wind and neon lights that struggled to pierce the heavy, grey clouds. It was a Gateway City. It felt wilder than St. Petersburg, more desperate, and infinitely more dangerous.
Airi, ever the practical one, found us a small studio apartment in a district that most would call slum adjacent. Here, portals opened more frequently than the police responded to calls. It was perfect.
"Novosibirsk," Airi whispered as she looked out the window at the flickering rifts in the distance. "A city of the condemned. They say people come here to die in the portals."
"Or to be reborn," I countered. "Here, we are ghosts. No Rezanov. No mentalists. Just us."
Airi quickly found work at a small hair salon across the street. With her beauty and charm, she could have been an executive, but the goal was to blend in. To listen to the gossip of the locals while I began my true task, finding my first combat familiar.
A familiar isn't a pet. It's a soul bond. And in Novosibirsk, the monsters were plentiful, but finding one with the potential to grow was the challenge. Most were just mindless beasts, driven by hunger. But I needed something more.
I spent my nights prowling the back alleys, tracking the faint scent of rifts. I found a weak anomaly in a trash strewn alleyway. I collapsed it with a snap of my fingers, a routine task for me, though a feat for most. But as I turned to leave, a different aura hit me.
The scent of fear. Primal, animalistic terror, mixed with the metallic tang of fresh blood.
I followed the trail into a narrow, filthy cul de sac. There, amidst the stench of rotting food, I found her. At first glance, she looked like a girl in a cat ear cosplay. But the blood dripping from her claws and the half eaten corpse at her feet told a different story.
She was a Nekomata, a low tier beast spirit. Her white fur was matted with filth and gore. Her right eye was a hollow socket, and a jagged wound ran down her side. She hissed at me, a pathetic, weak sound.
"Pitiful," I whispered.
To the world, she was a monster to be hunted. To the demons of Hell, she was trash. But I saw the hidden spark. Nekomata were the bottom of the food chain, yes, but they were adaptable. With my blood, with my power, she could become something terrifying.
I let my aura flare. Just a fraction, but it was enough. The air in the alley turned heavy, cold, and suffocating. The shadows seemed to lengthen, reaching for her.
"Kneel."
My voice didn't just carry sound, it carried the weight of the Abyss. The Nekomata's eyes widened. Her feline instincts recognized a peak predator, not a man, but something ancient that had ruled the fires of Hell.
She collapsed. The snarl died in her throat, replaced by a rhythmic trembling. She realized she wasn't looking at a meal, she was looking at her Master.
I reached down and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck. She was light, nearly skin and bone. She had been starving, driven to hunt the first human she saw. I dragged her back to the studio, threw her into the shower, and let the cold water wash away the filth of two worlds.
Once she was clean and smelling of wet cat instead of rotting meat, I sat her down.
"From this day, your name is Hanako," I said. I pricked my finger, a bead of golden red blood forming at the tip. "You have a choice. Return to the gutters and die, or drink, and serve."
The blood of the Prince of Hell was a drug. To a monster, it was the ultimate power source. Hanako's one good eye dilated. She crept forward, her tongue darting out to lick the drop from my skin.
The moment she tasted it, the bond snapped into place. I dove into her soul, carving my sigil, a hooded, horned figure, into her very essence. A thin, invisible thread of energy connected us. I felt her pain, her hunger, and her budding, fanatical loyalty. And in return, she felt my strength.
"Drink," I commanded. "And grow."
She began to purr, a deep, vibrating sound that shook the small room. The Lord of Pain had found his first soldier. The game had finally begun.