Alphonse closed the bathing chamber door behind him. Stood in the corridor. Let the air cool the heat on his skin.
'She's almost ready,' he thought. 'Just a bit more and she'll be mine.'
He severed the connection. The thread dissolved.
The library swallowed him.
He locked the door. Crossed the familiar carpet to his reading chair.
He stared at the vaulted ceiling for a long moment.
Quests:
Obtain Your First Slave [Complete]
Covet What Belongs to Others [Complete]
The Greatest Sin [Active] — What is the greatest sin?
Reward: [Level Up]
Alphonse stared at the third quest. The one that had been sitting in his log since the beginning.
'What is the greatest sin?'
He'd been turning it over for days. Murder? He'd done that.
Theft? Manipulation? Betrayal?
He'd stolen Madeleine's virginity from Lucius. He'd manipulated Sophie into giving herself to him. He'd betrayed every expectation of filial loyalty by systematically seducing his own mother.
Nothing.
A thought occurred to him.
'Making my mother cum on my fingers,' he thought, directing the question inward, toward the presence he sometimes felt lurking at the edges of his consciousness. 'Wasn't that the greatest sin?'
| Nope. |
The word appeared in amber text, floating beside the quest notification.
Alphonse's eyebrow rose.
"You only answer when you feel like it?" he murmured aloud.
| Correct! |
"Tsk." He leaned back in the chair. Ran a hand through his hair. "Cheap bastard."
The amber text pulsed once, as if laughing, then faded.
"At least give me that reward you mentioned," he said to the empty room. "After the fight. The bandits. You said you'd wait until next time."
Silence stretched for five seconds. Ten.
| Let me see... |
A pause.
| Right. You killed a lot of people. |
Another pause. Longer this time.
| Hmm... |
| Fine. But it will be less interesting than a skill. |
| What can I give you? |
Two new notifications materialized. They floated side by side in the blue glow, waiting to be opened. But before Alphonse could reach for either of them, a final amber message appeared beneath.
| Keep going. |
The words lingered for a moment, then dissolved.
"You know I want to save my family and my territory," Alphonse said quietly, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. "Doesn't that bother a demon?"
The amber text returned.
| No. Quite the opposite. |
A pause.
| To do that, you'll need to commit several delightful sins. |
| Keep at it. |
"Hmm." Alphonse nodded.
The notifications stopped. The amber glow faded entirely, leaving only the two unopened rewards floating patiently in his field of vision.
He reached for the first.
[ New Affinity ]
Arcane Affinity
Hell and the Arcane are very close. You already possess a natural ease with mana. Your reservoir dwarfs that of any common [Mage], and your control exceeds what this body's age should allow. But until now, your understanding of the Arcane has been instinctive.
This affinity bridges that gap. Magical theory, runic structures, enchantment logic, the fundamental architecture of how mana interacts with the physical world.
You will learn faster. Understand deeper. See patterns that others miss.
Alphonse read the description twice.
Arcane Affinity didn't grant him new spells or combat abilities. It granted comprehension. The ability to reverse-engineer magical objects, understand enchantment matrices, grasp the theoretical underpinnings of magic that most practitioners spent decades studying.
'Money,' he thought immediately. 'One of the things I need to prepare for war is money. And perhaps this will help.'
[ New Status Information ]
Delightful Sins (00/10)
Others need to kill monsters or save princesses to gain experience. That's not your case. You need to commit delightful sins.
Each sin will grant you points. Once you accumulate the required points, you will level up.
What constitutes a "delightful" sin is left to your discretion. The Hidden One will judge.
Alphonse stared at the text for a long time.
"He... it... that thing is really from hell," he confirmed aloud.
Every other [Profession] in the empire leveled through conventional means. [Swordsmen] fought. [Mages] studied and cast. [Blacksmiths] forged. [Healers] healed. The experience system was tied to the core function of the profession, rewarding practice and mastery.
His [Profession] rewarded sin.
The Hidden One had designed a progression system that required its vessel to transgress. To cross lines.
"Screw it," Alphonse said to the empty library.
In the days that followed, Alphonse lived in the library.
He slept among the books, his head pillowed on open treatises, his dreams filled with runic matrices and mana flow diagrams. He ate when Sophie brought him food, which she did with increasing concern.
"You look like a corpse," she told him on the third day. "A corpse who fell into an ink pot."
"Thank you, Sophie."
"Your hair is disgusting."
"I appreciate your support."
"When was the last time you bathed?"
"What day is it?"
"Tuesday."
"Then the answer is not Tuesday."
She threw a bread roll at his head. He caught it without looking up from the page.
But the library was only part of his routine.
But the library wasn't his only project.
Every night, after the household had gone dark and the last servant had retired to the extension houses, Alphonse descended from the third floor.
The first time, he knocked. Quietly. Three soft raps against the oak.
The door opened a crack.
"Alphonse? It's past midnight. You should be —"
"You should be sleeping too." He pushed the door gently. Stepped inside. Closed it behind him. Turned the lock.
Isabelle's gaze dropped to the lock. Then rose to his face.
"I'm busy," she said. Her voice was clipped. The Baroness, asserting herself.
"Sit on the sofa, Mom."
"Alphonse, I don't have time for —"
"Now."
Isabelle's mouth opened. A protest formed. She could see it, the shape of the words, the indignation of a woman who commanded a territory being ordered around by her son.
But her legs were already moving.
She crossed the room. Sat on the sofa. A heavy, padded piece of furniture that occupied the corner between the bookshelf and the fireplace.
"This is ridiculous," she murmured, even as she settled into the cushions. "I have work to —"
Alphonse sat beside her. He took her hand and guided it to his lap, intertwining their fingers.
"Five minutes," he said. "Then I'll let you go back to your papers."
Through the [Mind Connection] he'd established the moment he entered the room, he felt her resistance crumble.
"Five minutes," she repeated.
He didn't respond. He shifted position, stretching out along the sofa, and laid his head in her lap.
Isabelle stiffened. She looked down at the dark hair resting against her thighs, at her son's face turned upward, eyes closed.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Resting."
"On my lap?"
"Best pillow in the barony."
A silence. Then, so quietly he almost missed it, a soft exhale that might have been a laugh.
Her free hand came up. Her fingers threaded through his dark hair, combing it back from his forehead.
Alphonse let the moment stretch.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Neither moved.
When he judged the moment right — when her guard had dropped, when her body had relaxed into the sofa, his hand rose.
His fingers found the front of her dress. The top button. He unfastened it without looking. Then the second. The third.
Isabelle's hand in his hair stilled.
"Al..."
He didn't answer. His fingers continued their work, parting the fabric until the opening was wide enough for his hand to slip inside.
Her breast filled his palm.
"Al, we can't —"
His mouth found the exposed skin above the loosened neckline. He pressed his lips to the swell of her breast and held them there.
"Hmm..." The sound escaped her before she could catch it.
The massive mound settled against his face, warm and heavy, the dusky nipple inches from his lips.
He took it in his mouth.
"Nnnh —"
Isabelle's fingers curled in his hair. Her head fell back against the sofa. Her eyes closed.
Alphonse suckled. The way a nursing infant would, if that infant possessed thirty-three years of experience and a strategic understanding of exactly how much pressure to apply and where.
His tongue traced the areola in wide circles before narrowing to the nipple itself. He flicked the stiffened bud with the tip of his tongue, then drew it between his lips and pulled. Gentle suction, increasing gradually, until Isabelle's breath caught and her hips shifted on the cushion.
"This isn't..." she tried. The words dissolved into a low moan.
He released the nipple with a soft, wet pop. Moved to the other breast. Freed it with the same practiced ease and applied the same treatment.
For fifteen minutes, he nursed from his mother's chest. Alternating between breasts, varying the rhythm, mixing soft licks with harder sucks that drew the heavy flesh deep into his mouth. He didn't touch her anywhere else. Didn't reach between her legs. Didn't escalate beyond the breasts.
That was the point.
Each session gave her slightly more than the last. Each time, she yielded slightly faster. The resistance was eroding.
When he finally released her and sat up, Isabelle's face was flushed. Her nipples were swollen and glistening with his saliva, standing erect in the lamplight.
He buttoned her dress. Smoothed the fabric. Kissed her forehead.
"Back to work, Mom."
He was gone before she could speak.
Other nights, it was the bath.
He'd appear in the doorway just as she was settling into the heated water.
"Room for one more?"
"Alphonse, you can't just —"
"I'm already undressed."
He'd step into the basin beside her. The water would rise. Their bodies would settle into the warmth, side by side, shoulder to shoulder.
Sometimes, the massage stayed clinical. He'd work her shoulders, her back, her arms, maintaining the fiction of therapeutic purpose while she melted under his hands.
Other times, he went further.
His hands would find her breasts beneath the water.
Isabelle had stopped objecting to the breast massage by the third session. Her body had overruled her mind. The moment his palms settled over her chest, her breathing changed. Her eyelids fluttered. A soft, involuntary moan would press through her clenched teeth.
And sometimes his hand would travel lower.
Below the water. Past her navel. Through the neat triangle of golden hair.
"No, baby," she'd whisper. "Please. Not again. I can't —"
His fingers would find her clit.
"Mama is going to —"
"I know."
Her protests grew weaker with each session. The first night, she'd grabbed his wrist and tried to pull his hand away. The second night, her hand found his wrist but didn't pull. The third night, her hand stayed in her own lap.
By the fifth night, she was spreading her thighs before he reached the water.
Alphonse monitored her through the [Mind Connection]. Every thought. Every pulse of guilt, pleasure, shame, desire.
She was becoming dependent on the moments she spent with Alphonse. The late-night visits. The bath sessions.
Still, she wasn't ready for the next step.
"Not yet," Alphonse told himself, lying on the library couch in the small hours, staring at the vaulted ceiling. "Soon. She will be mine."
While Alphonse burrowed deeper into his books, Sophie trained.
The mansion's outer courtyard became her arena. Every morning at dawn, before the household stirred, she was there. Bare feet on stone. Hands extended. Mana flowing.
Master Gereon, the aging tutor who had supervised her magical education since her classification, watched from the covered walkway with his arms crossed and his expression unreadable.
"Again," he'd say.
Sophie would raise her hands. The air would shimmer. Water would gather coalescing into shapes that grew more complex with each session.
[Water Bolt]. A compressed projectile of liquid that hit the training dummy with enough force to punch through the straw and shatter the wooden support behind it.
[Water Shield]. A rotating disc of pressurized water that could deflect a sword stroke or absorb the kinetic energy of an arrow.
[Controlled Orb]. Her original achievement, now refined to the point where she could maintain four simultaneously, each one orbiting her body at different speeds and altitudes.
Some sessions went smoothly. Others didn't.
One morning, a miscalculated [Water Bolt] overcharged in her palm, the compressed liquid expanding too fast for the containment spell to hold. The resulting detonation blew a hole in the courtyard wall the size of a wagon wheel and sent Master Gereon diving behind a stone bench.
"My apologies!" Sophie called from the center of a puddle that hadn't existed three seconds ago.
Gereon rose from behind the bench. Brushed dust from his robes. His expression remained unreadable.
"Again," he said.
Another morning, Alphonse heard the explosion from the library. A deep, resonant THOOM that rattled the windows and sent three books tumbling from the shelf above his desk. He crossed to the window and looked down.
Sophie stood in the courtyard, drenched from head to toe, surrounded by a ring of shattered flagstones. Water dripped from every surface within a twenty-foot radius. The training dummy was gone. Not broken. Gone. Vaporized into a scatter of wet straw and splinters.
She looked up at the library window. Their eyes met.
She grinned.
Alphonse shook his head and returned to his books.
Six days after the fire at the garrison. Ten days after the Montefalco ball.
Alphonse woke to knocking.
Not the polite, measured knock of a servant with a breakfast tray. The rapid, insistent percussion of someone who had important news and limited patience.
"One moment. One moment," he called, peeling his face from the open book he'd been using as a pillow.
He staggered to the door. Opened it.
Sophie stood in the corridor.
"Hi! UAH —" He yawned so wide his jaw cracked. "Sophie. Is it breakfast already?"
"Yes, but not just that." Her eyes were bright. "The representative from the Imperial Academy has arrived. He's already waiting for us in the meeting room."
"Already?!"
Sleep evaporated. He slapped his face twice, hard enough to leave palm prints on both cheeks.
"Give me five minutes."
"You have three. Mother's already in there."
He closed the door. Crossed the library at a sprint. He splashed cold water on his face, scrubbed the ink from his cheek with a wet cloth, and attacked his hair with a comb that protested every stroke.
Clean trousers. A fitted shirt. He buttoned it as he descended the stairs, taking them two at a time.
The meeting room door was open.
Inside, Isabelle sat at the head of the table in her formal blue gown, her posture perfect, the Baroness mask firmly in place. Sophie occupied the chair to her right.
Across from them, in the guest chair, sat a man.
He was old. His face was a topographic map of wrinkles, each crease and furrow carved deep enough to cast its own shadow. A beard, white as fresh snow and long enough to pool in his lap. His eyes, however, were sharp.
He leaned on a wooden staff. The wood was dark, polished smooth by years of grip, and at its head, a crystalline orb pulsed with a faint blue light.
As Alphonse entered, the old man rose.
"Young sir Alphonse." His voice was reedy but warm. "A pleasure to meet you."
"The pleasure is mine, sir..." Alphonse extended his hand, letting the pause hang.
"Eldric." The old man's grip was surprisingly firm. "The Academy sent me to assist you and your sister with the next steps leading to your entrance examinations."
"Thank you very much, sir Eldric." Alphonse took the seat beside Sophie.
"Not at all, sir. Not at all." Eldric settled back into his chair with the careful precision of someone managing joints that had opinions about every movement. "It's simply a small favor the empire extends to the families of its distinguished [Sword Masters]. Your father, Baron von Hohenberg, is a war hero and an extremely valuable asset to the empire. Especially in the times we are living in."
Alphonse nodded.
The Academy is invoking my father's name as justification for expedited processing. They're buying goodwill with a house they think will matter when the war arrives.
Useful. Let them buy.
"Ah!" Eldric stroked his beard with one gnarled hand. "Where was I? I seem to have gotten ahead of myself. Old habits."
"You were about to tell us about the upcoming class schedule," Sophie offered helpfully.
"Right. Right, of course." He cleared his throat. "It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone in this room that the empire is gearing up for war."
"Current intelligence estimates place the resumption of major hostilities at approximately three to four years from now," Eldric continued, his tone shifting from grandfatherly to clinical. "The southern kingdoms have been consolidating their forces along the frontier. The Imperial War Council has issued formal advisories to every major house."
Alphonse caught the flicker on his mother's face.
She knew the real timeline was shorter. Eighteen months, not three years.
"Because of this," Eldric continued, "the Academy has revised its admissions schedule. Substantially. Instead of the standard two intake classes per year, there will be six."
Sophie leaned forward. "Six?"
"One class every two months. The empire needs trained officers, mages, and strategists at a rate that the traditional schedule cannot supply." Eldric reached into the leather satchel beside his chair and produced a folded document bearing the Academy's seal. "Which is why I had to travel to Hohenberg with such haste. The next examination won't be in three months, as your mother's letters assumed. It will be in two weeks."
"Two weeks?!" Sophie and Alphonse spoke simultaneously.
"Precisely."
The siblings exchanged a glance
"Then we need to depart for the capital by next week," Alphonse said, already calculating travel time, rest stops, contingencies.
"Yes," Isabelle confirmed.
Her voice was steady. The Baroness was in full control. But beneath the composure, Alphonse didn't need [Mind Connection] to read what her face told him.
She'd been counting on months.
Now those months had been reduced to days.
"Additionally," Eldric said, producing a second document and a quill of his own, "I need to register you both for the examination. The Academy's administration requires advance notice of which course and specialization each applicant intends to pursue."
"What are the courses again?" Sophie asked, though the question was performative. Both siblings had researched extensively.
Eldric held up three fingers. "The Academy offers three primary courses of study. First: Swordmastery. Combat training at the highest level. Tactical formations, weapon proficiency, physical conditioning, battlefield command. This is the most popular course and the most competitive. The empire's front-line officers are drawn almost exclusively from its graduates."
One finger lowered.
"Second: Arcane. Magical theory and practical application. Elemental specializations, enchantment studies, mana optimization, advanced spell development. Graduates serve as war mages, court advisors, researchers, and healers."
Another finger.
"Third: Strategy and Management. The least glamorous, but arguably the most essential. Logistics, supply chain management, territorial governance, intelligence analysis, diplomatic theory. This course produces the administrators and planners who keep armies fed, equipped, and pointed in the right direction."
He folded his hands over the document.
"Within each course, students select a specialization. This determines your access to advanced instructors, specialized libraries, laboratory facilities, and practical training modules. The range of available specializations is extensive. Everything from Blacksmithing to War Magic. From Animal Husbandry to Runic Engineering."
Sophie straightened in her chair.
"I've already decided," she said. "I plan to take Arcane, with a specialization in Healing Magic."
Eldric's bushy eyebrows rose by a fraction. "Healing Magic. An excellent choice for a [Water Mage]. The empire's need for battlefield healers is... acute." He began writing on the registration document. "Your [Water Magic] classification gives you a natural foundation. The Healing specialization will build on that, teaching you to direct mana toward tissue repair, pain suppression, toxin neutralization, and in advanced stages, limb regeneration."
Sophie nodded. The excitement on her face was tempered by the seriousness of what Eldric had said.
Eldric finished writing. He gripped the bottom edge of the parchment and tore it cleanly along a perforated line. The moment the separated piece left the main document, it shimmered. The ink glowed faintly. Then the paper folded itself, compressed into a point of blue-white light, and vanished.
Sophie blinked. "Where did it go?"
"Directly to the Academy's registrar," Eldric said, setting the remaining document flat. "Transportation enchantment. Embedded in the parchment at the time of manufacture. Only works for light, inorganic objects — paper, small crystals, that sort of thing. Heavier items require dedicated transportation circles, which are considerably more expensive."
Alphonse studied the spot where the paper had disappeared. Transportation magic. Even in its most limited form, it was extraordinarily rare and prohibitively costly. The fact that the Academy issued registration documents embedded with single-use transportation enchantments spoke to the institution's resources. Or its urgency.
Eldric turned to Alphonse.
"And you, young sir?"
Alphonse held the old man's gaze.
"I've also made my decision," he said. "I will take Strategy and Management, with a specialization in Artificer."