Chapter XVII

When next I came to, my head was resting on something soft, and I had a clear unobstructed view of the moody grey London sky. It looked as though it would start raining again at a moment's notice. My throat felt dry, like I hadn't had anything to drink the whole day and a quick mental once-over revealed that my magic circuits felt somewhat... singed. I didn't know that was even a possibility.

But, well, it stood to reason. I'd deciphered a domain expansion, rewritten it in terms of magecraft, then reversed that into another spell all in the span of seconds with a daemon raining down hell all the way... heh, hell. At the same time, it also made me feel somewhat inadequate. That 'thing', Gabriel, was influencing a whole part of the world. I'd burnt myself out to the point of passing out isolating what it did to a singular creature.

My thoughts were interrupted when a certain someone obstructed my view. Or rather, a certain someone's head. Yvette beamed down at me, and I felt her hands on either side of my head. One of her eyes was marred by dried blood that spilled down to her cheek, it also had a shattered ruby inside it... or rather, crumbling bits and pieces of it.

Honestly, I felt pretty bad. That was my fault. Yvette had entertained my whims and gotten pretty roughed up for it.

"How are you feeling, Hal~?" If she was shaken, she didn't let it show and... I supposed she deserved the closeness of a nickname after putting her neck on the line like that. "Or hey, ya feeling old?"

Old?

She seemed to notice the confusion on my face.

"You didn't expect it to not try something right? That'd be stupid. I'm pretty sure if you were a bit slower with what you did, it'd have made you an old man... I think. Or a skeleton, maybe? Hey, now that I think about it... That seems more its style~!"

The time dilation thing?

My eyes widened. I shot up and ran over to a puddle by the road.

"You should thank me for dragging you outside." She put her hands on her hips and puffed out her nonexistent chest, still sitting on the pavement. "And, for the lap pillow too! You cold, cold man~! Is this how our marriage is going to be like? What would the children think?"

I ignored her antics, staring at my reflection instead. My hair was longer, down to my neck, and I had something of a beard too... Geh... I raised my hand to look at them and saw that my nails had grown out of proportion and that Henry's brokie coat was even more shabbier than before. Boil it down and I could confidently declare I looked like a homeless man that may or may not be a crackhead.

But, I didn't look like I'd aged all that much.

Yvette giggled again. "I didn't think boys were so... attentive about these things."

"Bitch don't hate me cause I'm beautiful." I quipped back thoughtlessly, running a hand through my hair. I could do something with this, maybe tie it half up in a manbun and go full pre-JJK Hitler era Geto or something... without those zesty looking earrings of course. I put a hand on my chin and earnestly considered the thought. 

Done with deliberations, I decided, "He just made me look more fabulous."

"You would have looked about as fabulous as Pachery if that thing was smart enough to realise you could actually do something to it." Yvette snorted into her hand. Evidently, it was some inside joke. So... I killed it and shot the corpse.

"What's a Pachery?"

"Aww~!" She threw her hands up in protest with a big pout, "It's not funny if you start breaking it down! ...It's the mummy in the Louvre. The one in Paris."

"Sorry, I have a life outside looking at dead people all day."

"Just say you don't have the money. Hm!"

Mechanically, I turned my neck to eyeball the nutjob who'd just called me broke. She realised her great folly when I raised a clenched fist and started flailing her hands about in apology. Unfortunately for her, her fate was set in stone now.

"Ah wait no! My eye's damaged! Please! Mercy!"

I was forced to halt my righteous quest (responding to insults with violence like a manbaby) when the rusted iron doors of the mansion beside us creaked. That was when I realised we hadn't actually managed to accomplish anything.

All I'd done was force Gabriel back inside momentarily. Just enough that we were able to get out with damage beyond... what we'd already suffered. Another truth also became glaringly apparent. We couldn't do shit to it even if we wanted to.

"You're not thinking about going back in, are you?" Yvette asked faintly.

If I was some shonen mc then I'd probably spout some shit about not wanting it to hurt anyone else and attempt suicide via archangel but... I wasn't.

"Ah hell nah."

It was time to cut my losses and tackle something more my league. The chances of finding said thing were dubious however, since this was supposed to be a simple haunting or a security system gone haywire type deal that ended with me facing something that invoked a miracle from GABRIEL of all things.

Yvette let out a relieved sigh. With a loud cough, she cleared her throat and pointed a finger at me.

"You're out of my league if you have those kind of spells. I'm gonna find out whose bastard you are one day, though."

Bastard?

...Wut?

Something told me that wasn't meant as an insult but instead that she very well thought I was the bastard child of some noble magus... That wasn't really out of the question either what with old boy Henry's father being gone for milk.

"You know what? I'm not going to try to be your wife anymore."

I should have been relieved but I felt... insulted? I quickly pushed that part down and settled on relief. It meant I wouldn't have to worry about waking up with missing organs anymore. Then, she said something so utterly out of left field that even I was left reeling.

This girl was hell bent on giving me Gojo levels of narcissi-... self-confidence with the shit she so casually spouted.

"I'm going to be your concubine!" Yvette declared with complete confidence, a finger pointed at my chest and a hand on her hips. She looked so proud of herself too. I opened my mouth to retort but she shamelessly cut me off. "Unless you can pay me back for the ruby? Wait no, I insisted on coming along. Forget I said that. Doesn't matter. The whole Clock Tower will know of your feelings for me by tomorrow~!"

With a triumphant laugh, the crazy girl bolted off.

I could do nothing except plop down on the roadside, put my head in my hands, and let out a loud groan.

"Damn magi wackos."

Why was she so insistent to begin with? The eyes? She couldn't have been sure about what they did... until now, at least. Now, she'd definitely gleaned something important considering the subject of her family's obsessive research. Then, had she been messing around? Was she still messing around?

Why did I need to think about all this political stuff?

Man... I just wanted to have cool spells, fight awesome battles and fuck some bitc-

I didn't even get to finish my thoughts before a sedan came barrelling down the road. It did a braking drift and stopped right in front of me. The door flung open and the driver was of course... Yvette.

"Get in! Get in! I saw someone from the Church heading over! We need to be out of here yesterday!"

The semi-open conflict between the Catholic Church and the Mage's Association was no secret. It was a brutal and bloody affair that was supposedly on hold after both sides incurred massive damages last time but no one really believed that bullshit cover up.

I wordlessly jumped into the car, and my 'concubine' floored it like a madwoman. Honestly, all she needed was a chainsaw and she'd click all the right buttons.

As we drove past empty fields and weird passers-by, I couldn't help but ask.

"How much is the ruby going to set you back?"

"A couple hundred." She answered without pulling her eyes from the road. "Maybe a little over eight considering I'd have to convert the ruby too."

"A couple hundred what?"

"...You already know~"

That was some crazy-ass mone-

"I'm just going to steal one of Luviagelita's dresses." She shrugged casually. "You could probably buy a small town with that."

"Excuse me... one... dress?"

"Mm-hm. Mmhm. That gorilla has verrry expensive tastes."

...Hadn't I burnt one of her dresses?

...

...

...

"Damn."

-

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