Adam stared blankly at Ether.
A tyrant.
A regressor.
A princess.
A tyrant princess.
And including her confession that she was the one who'd given him the grimoire, it was practically the same as declaring, I'm the mastermind.
There are three kinds of people in the world.
Women, men.
And villains.
Even a woman, if she was a mastermind, was simply a villain.
Adam threw himself at Ether, who was in the middle of excitedly telling the truth, and moved to subdue her.
"Kyaah!"
Ether looked up blankly at Adam, who'd climbed on top of her.
"Wh-why are you doing this all of a sudden?"
"This is all because of you, you mastermind."
"Mastermind? Me? I helped you get all the way to the Palace?"
"You're no ordinary shameless villain. You turn someone into a living bomb and then tell them to be grateful you got them a job? You want to try living like this too?"
"N-no. W-well, of course I wouldn't want that, but......."
Adam pinned Ether down and pressed on her throat without mercy.
"Kuh!"
"What are you going to do now, you damn bitch? If you're not a mastermind, can you take responsibility for me for the rest of your life?"
Things flowed in a direction completely different from what she'd expected.
Writhing in pain with her eyes squeezed shut, Ether soon shouted loudly.
"I-I came here to take responsibility, I'm telling you!"
Prying off Adam's hand from her throat, Ether spoke.
"I know how to break the curse! I'm a regressor, so I know your future too! I gave you the grimoire to help you!"
"......!"
"If I'd really meant to hurt you, I wouldn't have fought Aicolman in the first place!"
True, if she'd meant to kill him, she could easily have done it.
"Please, listen to me. I'm really on your side!"
"......"
Adam listened to her while still keeping Ether pinned.
***
What is the most rational path to peace?
Over a long time, Ether had looked back on her life.
Many questions and answers embroidered her mind.
What was the cause?
Why was I, of all people, the one kidnapped?
Because the resistance was the force of evil?
Because the order backing them was the true mastermind?
The result of questioning and answering herself.
Ether found the main culprit who'd broken the peace.
It was none other than herself in the mirror.
She, a paper tiger of a woman who held power yet was a pushover in every way, had broken the peace.
About an hour later.
Adam nodded at her logic.
Ether's argument summed up like this.
Humans naturally prefer picking up a sword to picking up a pen.
Because it's the easier path.
When a weak ruler sits on the throne, it's human nature for citizens to take up swords rather than talk to resolve their grievances.
Only when the ruler is strong do citizens carefully consider how to win their just rights.
It was the same principle as bumping shoulders with someone on the street, looking up to find a heavily tattooed gangster, and somehow feeling the Buddha within you open his eyes.
To put it crudely, force could be seen as the primary braking system that activated reason.
So the gist of Ether's argument was that those in power must be strong, and that even without an army, if she herself became strong, the possibility of being kidnapped would vanish from the start.
It was already a familiar theory, so Adam obediently nodded.
The fact that every single blow on either side was lethal, so both had no choice but to be humble, brought nuclear deterrence to mind.
"In a word, Lady Ether, you want nukes."
"What's a nuke?"
"Sorry. What I mean is, you need overwhelming force so that the people who once broke through even the Palace's cordon won't dare come at you, right?"
Ether nodded, satisfied.
"Exactly."
"And the material you need for that force is me?"
"Yes! So my request is that you become my Right-Hand."
Having sorted it all out, Adam spoke calmly.
"Well, then I'll do it."
"Sorry?"
It was an instant answer that flustered even the one who'd asked.
But it couldn't be helped.
If he refused, he couldn't escape the curse, and on top of that, the other party was a princess.
He might manage to negotiate with a slave market owner or even a duke, but with the Empire's princess, well.
"I don't have a choice, do I? Do as you like."
"Why wouldn't you have a choice? Even if you refuse, I can teach you how to resolve the curse as much as you like."
Adam looked up at Ether.
In the sunlight shining through the archive window, her blond hair gleamed.
"Do you mean that?"
"Of course. Giving you the grimoire was a kindness to begin with, but it was purely something I did on my own. Honestly, my nature is rotten, so I took the life of that Achilles or whoever lightly, but you're precious to me."
Precious?
He thought, so even this person can have someone precious.
At the same time, all the prejudices and opinions he'd heard about the Third Princess Ether collided chaotically.
The tyrannical side people talked about.
The side that had tried to kill Achilles.
And the side that showed him pure goodwill.
After the many sides of her collided, Adam opened his mouth.
"Lady Ether, what happens to me in the future? Did I resolve the curse?"
"You did."
"What kind of person was I?"
"You can tell just from the fact that I kept you as my Right-Hand even before I regressed."
"So I was that capable in the future? Oho, that's nice."
"Hehehe."
Ether laughed, covering her mouth.
"Adam, by nature I'm selfish and rather short-sighted."
"Right. I've been feeling that since the Recruitment Exam."
"......."
Ether pouted.
"You know I'm joking, right?"
"Ahem! What I want to say is that the Imperial Family are human too, so they don't always weigh profit and loss and keep only capable people close."
"Out of nowhere, what are you—"
"Do you know why I, who came back through time, ignored countless opportunities and elites and chose only you as my Right-Hand?"
"......."
"It's truly embarrassing to say, but it's because I can only exist if you exist."
Ether laid bare her true feelings.
Even by a regressor's standards, Adam's talent was far and away outstanding.
But that talent wasn't the innate ability to learn magic faster than others.
Adam's ability was adaptation and harmony.
Adam's mental fortitude, surviving as a slave with a grimoire's curse, could well be called a talent.
Ether was character-bankrupt.
For someone like her to keep her sanity, she needed Adam as her pillar of support.
Someone who could hold her up, talented and never falling.
Without Adam, with his outstanding resilience, it would be a repeat of her unstable past as a tyrant.
She couldn't do it alone.
No one else would do either.
Ether needed only Adam.
"To a third party, you'd have been just a talented Imperial soldier. But the true nature of the person I saw was someone who is loved."
"Loved?"
Ether spoke excitedly.
"Yes! You trained to be loved and to become exalted. Loving everyone and being loved by everyone is something even the Emperor can't do. It's probably a feat impossible even for a Transcendent."
"But at the very least! I love you, who aimed for that path. Ah, as a vassal and a friend, of course."
Ether's cheeks gradually flushed, and life came into her eyes.
"So, Adam, even if you cut ties with me, I'll help you! Because I love you!"
Ether's passionate confession finally came to an end.
The sunlight that had been hidden by clouds showed itself.
Children's voices could be heard in the Palace garden.
Ether, perched on the windowsill, blushed red.
"Ahaha, I talked a bit too much. I'm not usually like this, but I finally met someone I can relax around, so I got carried away."
"It's fine. That speech just now was very moving."
Embarrassed, Ether hurriedly got down from the window frame.
"Th-then let me briefly teach you how to resolve the curse right away! If there's anything you don't know, then again—"
"You're a fun person, Lady Ether."
Adam called Ether.
"Sorry?"
Cutting off Ether, who'd started talking fast, Adam spoke.
"I think being your Right-Hand might not be bad."
The Palace's half-underground archive.
In the ash-gray sky, the clouds cleared, and sunlight came in through the window.
***
For nobles, information meant survival.
Because if you carelessly associated with a treasonous family and were pressed with 'Don't you have a grudge against the Emperor too?', your family's safety would be at stake.
Just seeing the news of Achilles's defeat reach even the branch family within a week showed how fast the information network of this closed society was.
The conservatives of the branch family who heard the rumor immediately went looking for their sons.
"Son, summon Achilles right now, challenge him to a duel and take the seat of heir apparent."
"Father, forgive my presumption, but may I ask you one thing?"
"Permission granted."
"Did Achilles by any chance lose an arm on a mission?"
"No."
"If not that, then did a magic beast eat one of his legs?"
"No."
"Then why on earth are you putting me back in the sparring hall when I lost a month ago?"
"Achilles lost to the Third Princess."
"I have to go die fighting Achilles to the death again because of some bullshit rumor like that?"
"You never know, do you?"
He wanted to say, 'I'm the one risking my life, though?', but the branch family's son endured it for the sake of a smooth social life.
Achilles hated killing anyway.
Above all, as his father said, it might be a chance to turn his life around.
CLANG—!
But unfortunately, the chance to turn his life around didn't come.
"Damn, I'm no match for him after all!"
"Did you think you'd gotten stronger just because I lost?"
Sprawled on the ground, the branch family's son poured out a desperate wail.
"My father sent me after he heard the rumor. That since you lost to the Third Princess, I might win. But what total bullshit. The rumor even says some half-wit mage named Adam helped you, so I figured maybe I could too."
"Half-wit......?"
Achilles's eyebrow twitched.
"What's wrong? You didn't hear about Adam?"
Two rumors had spread through high society.
One was simply that Achilles had lost to the Third Princess.
The other was that a successful applicant named Adam, a former slave, had ruined the duel.
The branch family had pinned its hopes on the former, which was how it came to challenge him like this.
"I see, so Adam was a slave......."
Achilles nodded as he tended his rusted spear.
"The family is trying to make that Adam the culprit. Nobody's going to protect him anyway."
"How do they plan to make him the culprit?"
"They say they'll kidnap him and make him bow his head in front of the public, saying he helped deliberately to smear the family's face?"
"Is that what the whole branch family thinks?"
"No, just my father."
Achilles let out a sigh of relief.
It meant the whole family wasn't a pack of trash.
"Are you going to take part in that plan too?"
"If my father tells me to, I have to."
BANG!
At the same time as the answer, Achilles's spear stabbed into the ground right beside the branch scion's cheek.
A small hole formed in the floor, as if it had pierced a boulder.
"A-Achilles?"
Bright red blood trickled down the branch son's cheek.
"Listen carefully. I'm the one who lost. Adam is my benefactor who saved me. That's the truth, so don't speak carelessly about Adam."
The branch son nodded at high speed.
Seeing the answer, Achilles pulled the spear out of the ground and spoke.
"Though I lost to the princess, I am not ashamed, since she is of the Emperor's blood."
Achilles left without looking back, leaving the branch family's son behind.
The son watched Achilles disappear over the horizon.
'What the hell is this Adam that he acts like that?'
The sound of his receding footsteps rang on the ground.
Stomp, stomp.
'What vigorous steps.'
The branch son marveled at his steps all over again.
But the footsteps were closer to angry stamping than confidence.
'Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.'
In truth, he'd only been bluffing and acting cool in front of his cousin; he hadn't been able to sleep on the day he lost.
Because of the branch son, he'd remembered that day again, so tonight's sleep was a lost cause.
***
While Achilles was away on family business, Adam thought about the Right-Hand contract he'd made with Ether.
Is this really enough?
He'd gotten excited and agreed to be her Right-Hand on the spot, but did a verbal contract mean anything?
Adam's view was that without a means of binding each other, it was highly likely to become a relationship where he was jerked around at Ether's whim.
A contract.
In that instant, a word struck Adam's mind.
Contracts are possible between grimoires and people?
Then.......
Having hit on a brilliant idea, Adam ran straight to the archive.
Then he searched every book related to 'contracts.'
Fwip!
Fwip!
About half a day later, he found a book with the contents he wanted.
『Procedures and Protocols for Forming Soul Contracts』
His idea that if grimoires and humans could form contracts, there was no reason people couldn't do it with each other, hit the mark.
Adam copied the magic circle written in the book exactly.
The contract was completed by drawing a hexagram in the center of the magic circle and writing the terms needed for the contract around it.
'Are all magic circle contract terms this creepy?'
Having finished the contract, Adam reviewed its terms again.
The material was the contractors' blood.
A surveillance-type contract spell in which each party's blood reacted to any act of betraying the other.
If either broke the contract, the mana would seek out that party and curse them until they died.
It was a contract that chilled his blood even after he'd finished writing it.
If she's really confident, she'd agree to a contract like this, right?
If she refuses, I'll refuse being her Right-Hand too.
Adam, whose ability to take action was remarkable if nothing else, took the contract and climbed the Palace tower.
One floor.
Then another.
The higher he climbed, the tighter the security got, but to Adam, with Ether backing him, the guards were just scarecrows.
With a careful knock, he knocked on Ether's door.
"Oh my, what brings you here so early?"
Adam showed Ether the contract.
Ether smiled brightly and let Adam into her room.
"You want to make a contract with me?"
"It'd be nice to just end it with 'From today, we're friends!', but when there's a difference in status, we need a formal contract through magic so that neither of us can run away."
"Neither of us can run away. That has a nice ring to it."
Hm? Isn't that a creepy ring?
He felt a slight sense of unease, but he casually took a contract dagger out of his coat.
It was a dagger honed sharp enough to draw blood in one go.
"Draw blood with the dagger, and use it to make the contract."
"Okay!"
Ether snatched the dagger right away, like a predator spotting prey.
And without the slightest hesitation.
"Wait a minute. That's not how you draw blood—"
Slash.
"......."
She cut herself so roughly that Ether's bright red blood splattered onto Adam's cheek.
It was enough bleeding to soak the carpet.
'What did I just see?'
In that moment, Ether pressed her palm print firmly onto the contract and completed it.
"This is enough, right? Let's make the contract quickly!"
Half the papyrus was soaked in blood, making it a grotesque work of art.
Is it right to go through with this contract?
Adam reconsidered his judgment.
Come to think of it, even when she'd seen the contract, Ether hadn't been tense at all.
If anything, it had been closer to 'Ahh, why didn't I think of this!'
Doubting whether this was really the right judgment, Adam suddenly turned his head.
"Lady Ether, did you prepare the black robes right before the exam to gain my trust?"
"No. I brought them because if we covered our faces with robes, my identity wouldn't be found out, and I thought you wouldn't get involved in Palace politics either."
"So it was for my sake."
Ether tilted her head and asked back.
"No? It was for my sake, though?"
A smile spread across Adam's lips.
"Why? Is that the wrong answer?"
"No. It's a good answer."
He liked capable people.
But even better than that were honest people.
He wet his thumb with blood and pressed it firmly onto the soaked contract.
Then the contract rippled with blue light in midair and scattered.
With this, the entire contract was complete.
He had become the Right-Hand of the Tyrant Third Princess.