Chapter 3 The Magic Seal and the Blood-Stained Contract
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
The courtyard of the Grimlock estate lay in a heavy, stifling silence. The cold air, sharp as a winter morning, bit into my skin.
At the center stood my father, Gaius, radiating authority. To his left and right, Leon—my brother—and I locked gazes.
Behind my brother, ten magic-imbued slave soldiers stood in a row, draped in pitch-black robes like shadows. On their chests, eerie black Slave crests carved with my brother’s mana pulsed clearly, leaving their faces blank and unreadable.
The enemy consisted of eleven.
Against them, I stood entirely alone.
My only weapon was a plain sword hanging at my waist.
It had been my partner in sword training since childhood, but I was facing a squad of magic users. A single blade was hardly enough to turn the tide.
The distance between us was about twenty meters.
For such a vast courtyard, this was considered close quarters. Even so, those “twenty meters” felt impossibly vast right now.
It was a distance overwhelmingly advantageous to magic users; before I could even enter sword range, a barrage of multi-colored magic would turn me into a pincushion.
”…huff.”
I exhaled quietly, standing with a look of cool distance. The cold air filling my lungs brought a sliver of calm.
Having spent the night with Lilia had briefly dulled my fear of death, but standing here, the cold reality struck me once again.
The pit of my stomach burned with an acidic churning.
”Are we really going through with this until one of us dies? There is no need for brothers to kill each other.” I asked, my voice steady.
Before the duel commenced, I sought confirmation from my father.
This was, after all—
Merely a “procedural confirmation.”
I asked with an air of indifference, ensuring it could never be mistaken for “begging for my life.” Yet, hidden beneath those words might have been a faint echo of me pleading for his help.
My father’s reply was cold as ice.
”You, who have stained the Grimlock name with mud, what more do you have to say? A zero-mana failure is unnecessary in this house. Leon, do it.” Gaius commanded sharply.
My father’s disdainful gaze pierced right through me.
It was a blank look, the same one he would give to a worthless pebble. It reminded me once again that in this world, mana is everything.
Following my father’s words, my brother opened his mouth.
His voice dripped with uncontrollable arrogance.
”To think a zero-mana dropout could stand before me with such a straight face. Your very existence is an insult to the Grimlock name. Just disappear already.” Leon sneered.
A twisted sense of pleasure played across my brother’s face.
”…I have never liked you. Just because. —Haha! To be able to kill you here today, I am in a wonderful mood!” he added, his voice dripping with hate.
(Come to think of it, in the game world, the younger brother Xenos had more mana and was more talented than Leon; that was why he had been forced from the throne of heir.)
Such game knowledge flickered in the corner of my mind.
Perhaps that was why Leon despised me more than necessary.
”Now, start!” Gaius barked.
With my father’s command, the duel began.
That voice was the signal that caused the strained air to explode instantly.
My brother’s slave soldiers began weaving their magic in unison.
Their hands began to glow with faint light, low, groaning chants filled the air, and the atmosphere trembled. The mana in their palms condensed into various colors, turning into dazzling blocks of light.
Roaring fireballs, sharp water spears, wind blades that could carve through bone, dull, heavy earthen chunks….
And then, they were unleashed at me all at once, like a storm.
”…Hmph.”
I did not move an inch from where I stood.
—I simply expanded the range of my “ability.”
The roar of the incoming magic, the heat, the cold, and the razor-sharp wind pressed in.
Attack magic with enough power to reduce a human to dust—
No, wait, this is actually kind of scary….
I was trembling on the inside at the sheer force of the incoming magic.
However, before the magic could reach me, it all faded without a sound, as if blocked by a transparent wall.
The fireballs became mere heat; the water spears turned into droplets; the wind blades became nothing but a breeze; and the earthen chunks crumbled into dust, raining down around me. Leon looked on in stunned silence, as if he had just witnessed a hallucination.
”As I thought…”
I glanced at it with a look of calm, as if to say, “as expected.”
The range I had expanded my ability to—
Within a radius of two meters, every supernatural force dissolves.
It seemed my power was something of that nature.
A power of mana nullification.
I named this the Magic Seal1. That must have been how I erased Lilia’s Slave crest last night as well.
—This duel is my win.
…Probably.
”What is wrong, brother? Keep shooting. —I am still perfectly fine, am I not?” I taunted casually.
On the inside, I was deeply anxious about just how far this ability would hold up.
I had not fully grasped the details of this ability yet, either.
But I could not afford to flinch here.
That thought must have manifested as a mocking sneer that slightly colored my voice.
It acted as a provocation.
My brother’s eyes widened in shock.
His face was twisted with fear and confusion.
But he showed no intention of pulling out of the duel. Stubborn, and enraged that I—whom he had looked down upon—was now mocking him, he continued his assault.
”Wh—… G-gah! Damn it! Once more! Keep shooting!” Leon shouted, his voice cracking.
Falling for my provocation, my brother ordered the slaves to attack again with bloodshot eyes.
”Kill him, no matter what!!”
The slave soldiers rebuilt their magic and released it toward me. The roar and the flash filled the courtyard. Yet, I nullified every last bit of it.
Fireballs, water spears, wind blades, earth…
No magic was effective in the face of my Magic Seal.
The fatigue began to show heavily on the faces of the slave soldiers.
They were firing magic by drawing on the mana supplied by their master, my brother.
But the supply of mana was not infinite.
And the magic they were using was high-level.
The longer they fired, the more the consumption rate ballooned to an absurd level.
Eventually, the soldiers’ mana ran dry.
The light of mana faded from their bodies, and they collapsed one after another like puppets with their strings cut. The dull thud of bodies hitting the ground echoed all around.
Ten slave soldiers were rendered unable to fight in the blink of an eye.
”Im-impossible…! Why!? Why is the magic not working!?” Leon stammered.
My brother stared at me with an expression of total disbelief.
His voice trembled with despair.
I began to walk toward him slowly.
One step, then another.
The sound of my footsteps rang out harshly and loudly in the now-silent courtyard.
Frightened, my brother continued to fire magic with trembling hands as a desperate, final struggle.
But that magic, too, faded upon contact with my Magic Seal.
Eventually, his own mana was completely exhausted.
Having run out of mana, my brother slumped to the ground as if his legs had given out. His face was pale, drained of blood, and twisted in terror.
I reached for the sword at my waist.
The clink of the blade leaving the scabbard rang out unnaturally loud, slicing through the tense atmosphere of the scene.
A dull light reflected off the steel.
”H-hiii…! W-wait! Xenos! Stop! Only my life… please, just spare my life!” Leon begged, his voice high and thin.
My brother began to plead for his life, letting out a pathetic cry.
The arrogant man who had been berating me and shooting me cold glares moments ago was gone. There was only a pathetic, laughable man afraid of death.
My heart did not waver in the slightest at that sight.
—I would show no mercy.
”This duel would not end until one of us died. You are the one who said that, are you not?” I said, my tone ice-cold.
I swung my sword up.
The tip of the blade shimmered, reflecting the light of the sky.
My father took a step forward, panicked, trying to stop me.
”Xenos! Stop! Stop it right now!!” Gaius bellowed.
My father’s voice echoed through the courtyard.
But it was already too late.
I swung the raised sword down without a moment’s hesitation.
With the dull sound of flesh being cut, fresh blood sprayed into the air. The blood splatter created a dark-red stain on the stone pavement of the courtyard, as if someone had spilled a bucket of paint.
My brother’s head rolled onto the ground with a thud.
The duel was over.
But this event did not end there.
Immediately following the tragedy—
As if invited by the blood, the space suddenly warped, and a pitch-black crack ran through it.
Then, from within that crack, a man appeared.
He was wrapped in a pitch-black robe, his face hidden deeply by a hood, but the skin visible in the gaps was white, as if polished porcelain.
Though a beautiful humanoid form—
He gave off a strange atmosphere, clearly different from that of a human.
He was a being not of this world, one who manipulated teleportation magic and special space-warping abilities.
—This guy is a Demon.
”In accordance with the contract, I shall serve you, the victor of this duel, my lord.” The Demon stated, bowing with deep respect.
The man knelt on one knee and bowed his head respectfully.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
I could not hide my surprise at his appearance.
The hand gripping my sword trembled slightly.
”You are…” I whispered, bewildered.
This man was one of the hidden characters.
An additional scenario that appears after clearing the game once: the war against the Demon forces.
The one who appears to kick off that scenario was this man.
Why, then, was he here, now?
Acknowledging my victory and submitting to me?
I looked down at the demon before me, still gripping my blood-stained sword.
My mind was in chaos at the unexpected development.
But at the same time, a faint excitement began to sprout in the depths of my frozen heart.
A zero-mana final boss.
A declaration of death.
And now, the Magic Seal and a contract with a teleporting demon.
It seemed my reincarnated life had begun to roll in an outrageous direction.
—
Summary:
Xenos engages his arrogant brother Leon and a squad of slave soldiers in a life-or-death duel within the courtyard of the Grimlock estate. Using his hidden ability to nullify magic, he systematically eliminates the enemy’s offensive power and executes his brother. The sudden appearance of a powerful Demon immediately following the kill sets a new, ominous trajectory for Xenos’s reincarnated life.
—
Trivia:
- Xenos named his ability “Magic Seal” (魔封印).
- The slave soldiers are powered by mana supplied directly from their master, Leon.
- Xenos is aware of the original game script, which dictates that he was originally more talented than Leon.
- The Demon appears due to a “contract” linked to the victor of the duel.
—
Translation Notes:
Notes:
• Grimlock – The military noble family to which Xenos and Gaius (his father) belongs.
• Gaius – A Margrave of the Grimlock house who is stern, demanding, and burdened by the political weight of his noble status. He is disappointed in his son and leads a secretive rebellion against the royal family. A stern and authoritative patriarch of the Grimlock family who values mana above all else. He is cold and disdainful toward those lacking magical talent. The Margrave of the Grimlock family. He is stern, authoritative, and physically imposing, with a hard mouth and an icy demeanor when dealing with his family members.
• Leon – The deceased eldest son and heir of the Grimlock house, killed by Xenos. The elder son and heir of the Grimlock family. He is portrayed as possessing the strongest magical power in the house and exhibits a cold, icy gaze toward his younger brother. The heir to the Grimlock household and the next Margrave. He is a formidable dark sorcerer renowned in the game as the strongest in the Empire. The older brother of Xenos who possesses magical talent and harbors deep resentment and arrogance. He leads a squad of magic-imbued slave soldiers.
• Lilia – A maid serving the Grimlock house who possesses a bountiful, well-proportioned physique. She is a Slave crested with an intricate, jet-black tattoo on her chest, though she shows a quiet and firm resolve. A maid with absolute loyalty and deep affection for Xenos. She bears a mysterious new magic crest on her abdomen, marking her as his exclusive slave. A person with whom the protagonist spent the previous night; she is associated with a Slave crest that was erased. A servant whose slave contract was mysteriously nullified by Xenos.
• Xenos – A reincarnated individual with zero magic power who has taken the role of a final boss. He is cunning, pragmatic, and currently surviving in a hostile noble environment by utilizing a mysterious ability called Magic Seal. A reincarnated protagonist who possesses the ability to neutralize magic with a internal seal. He is lean and physically unassuming, acting as the second son of the Grimlock family while secretly plotting to control the war. A second son of the Grimlock family with shoulder-length hair. He is a reincarnated individual from modern Japan who realizes he is the final boss of a game he previously played. He currently possesses zero magical power and faces exile. A young man who has retained the memories of his past life. He finds himself in a desperate situation as a villain with no magic, sentenced to a duel he cannot win. He is driven by a primal instinct for survival and possesses an unknown, abnormal ability. The younger brother and protagonist who lacks mana but possesses a hidden ability called Magic Seal. He is a reincarnated individual with knowledge of the original game script.
• Yui – An Earth-born Sage alongside Sato, Ibuki’s wife is a composed yet sharp-witted woman who fiercely protects her husband and aids his Knight Order circle in info-war strategy. Vital for political legitimacy, she deeply resents humanity and Dole, assertively teasing Yamada and lecturing Senior. Excluded during the princesses’ visit, she later playfully interrogates Ibuki in their bedroom.
• Demon – A mysterious, high-status being who appears after the duel, appearing as a beautiful, pale humanoid with teleportation abilities.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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