Chapter - 6 - The Birthday Party [2]

"To think that little kid who used to follow our backs has become this big... children really do grow up fast."

"I couldn't agree more."

Exchanging pleasantries with the old man before him, Marquis Courtner was having a great time. This old man, Count Hathaway, was his childhood friend from Renaissance Academy. Whatever it be the trainings they went through together, the battles they fought shoulder to shoulder or the funerals of their comrades they attended, they shared quite a lot of memories together.

"That reminds me of, I heard that your daughter was going to get engaged?"

"Haha- It's still not set but I'm planning on meeting with the boy soon."

Unlike Marquis Courtner, Count Hathaway only had a single daughter who was 23 years old. Normally, teens would try to marry as soon as possible but given her overprotective father, no boys had the guts to ask her out and if they did, they would break up with her in a single week.

Looking at his friend from the side, Marquis Courtner sighed tiredly. He remembered the old days when his old friend was soaked in blood of the battlefield but now, that barbaric guy was gone and all that stood there was a helicopter parent instead.

"Do your best to not scare the little guy like the last one."

That was all he could say as he shook his head. Seeing him like that, Count Hathaway patted his back as he raised the yellow liquor in his hand.

"Puhaha! You do I look like such person, geez!"

Sending a doubtful look to Count Hathaway, Marquis Courtner downed the pink liquor in his hand. A sound of laughter could be heard as someone walked towards them, looking at the person that was coming towards them, both of their eyes lit up.

"I thought you weren't going to show up for a second, Asher!"

It was a man with long golden hair and snow white skin. Even though he had pointed ears, his looks were slightly above average.

He was the half-elf half-human magic swordman, Asher Lamadieu. Unlike the other two, he came from a humble background. Because of his extraordinary ears and sensitive body that was unique to elves, he was captured and sold as a slave for most of his life. His last owner was an old man with no family members and diabetes. After he died from a heart attack, all his belongings were naturally left to Asher, the only person that was around him. Not wanting to be captured again, Asher quickly enrolled to military, one of the safest places. That's how he met with Marquis Courtner and Count Hathaway on a [Monster Wave} near the military base.

A small smile appeared on Asher's lips as he looked at the other two.

"Mind for another glass?"

[*]

While Marquis Courtner and his friends were drinking and swaying. Joshua was also watching Averie from a balcony.

Averie has already noticed Joshua's gaze on her multiple times which made her confused. In the end, while the person in front of her was singing his own praises, she took a look at Joshua. As their gazes intertwined, Joshua moved his lips.

'Blue blood'

Even though Joshua made no noise while saying that, Averie could clearly understand his words. Her eyes shook like an earthquake was happening. She opened her fan as quickly as possible to hide her face.

Looking at her, Joshua curled his index finger toward her.

"Oh my, it seems like the liquor was too heavy for me. If you excuse me, I'll take a breather for a second."

"Would you like us to escort you to the infirmary, miss?"

"No, there's no need to be so extreme. I will just go out for a bit."

Without wasting a second, Averie turned her back and headed to the balcony Joshua was in, entering through the half-drawn curtains as she closed them behind her.

"Who are you, you brat?"

Far from her demeanour from before which was that of a sweet young lady, she looked like a witch to Joshua's eyes.

"Hey hey, calm down. Attracting too much attention wouldn't be the smartest decision now would it?"

Keeping his calm in front of her, Joshua reminded her that even if the people inside couldn't hear them, there were people taking a walk near the fountain below.

The second Averie was going to fan herself, a chilly breeze hit her right on her neck, making her flinch involuntarily. Letting out a long breath as she covered the back of her neck, she looked at Joshua straight in the eyes without saying anything.

Joshua decided that it would be the best to give her some time so he followed her lead.

After a few more minutes of that chilly silence, Averie was the first one to speak up.

"What do you want?"

A sincere smile appeared on Joshua's face.

"Straight to the point, you really are on the ball."

"I hear such flattery on daily basis, kid. Now, tell me."

Shrugging his shoulders lightly, Joshua waved his hand.

This was one of the reasons he wanted to have Averie as his ally. Instead of wasting her time with empty questions such as 'Where did you learn that?', 'Who sent you?', 'How much do you know?', she wasn't someone to be sneezed at.

"To form an alliance?"

Thinking she heard wrong for a second, Averie waited for a couple of seconds.

"What alliance?"

"Just like it's name, I want us to have a mutual beneficial relationship. I'll give you what you want so you can also give me what I want."

Hearing the words coming out of the child's mouth Averie didn't know what to say fo a second. Even though what Joshua first said came as shocking, she thought she could deal with this easily. After all, Joshua looked like he was 12 at most, what could he ask for at most? A toy car?

...but an alliance? A mutual beneficial one at that? What could a 12-year old provide her in the first place?

As Averie was thinking about the possibilities, her face started to convert slowly. Before she could turn him down, Joshua took the pouch that had only one of 〘Daphne's Tears〙 and threw it to her.

Catching the pouch, Averie was left confused for a second before gaping it open. The second she did so, she could feel a sweet and delicious scent hover in front of the tip of her nose. Even without one needing to say something, she could feel a sense of danger envelope her as she closed the pouch immediately.

"What do you think about it now?"

Unlike the way she looked at Joshua earlier like a lowlife, her eyes were filled with astonishment.

"What makes you think I wouldn't kill you and take this for myself?"

The second she collected her thoughts, she looked at Joshua warily.

As far as she knew, other than a few consumables and artifacts, most of dark-attributed items were gotten rid of by the light-attributed temples. Even though she only felt it for a second, she could easily tell that it was a precious one. One that could even help her get stronger by a bunch even!

She said those words only to test Joshua, anyways. Even though taking the fruit with her would help her greatly, that would only be momentary. If there was a way to procure more of it, this child in front of her was the answer.

"We both know that you won't do something so irrational if you don't want more of it."

Gulping loudly, Averie asked Joshua nervously.

"H-how much of this do you have?"

"Depending on how our relationship progresses. Ah, don't expect hundreds of it, of course."

Averie wasn't stupid enough to think such treasure could be a dime a dozen. Normal people couldn't feel it unless they ate it directly but as a dark-attributed person, she could clearly see that this fruit was filled with pure darkness!

Considering that she was around <C-> rank right now, just a single fruit would push her to the <C> rank without any problems! Of course, taking it regularly would decrease its effects but as long as she could become <A> rank, she could spread her wings freely!

"Did you know the situation I was in?"

"Uhm."

Without seeing a reason for him to lie, Joshua replied honestly, causing Averie's eyes to darken slightly.

Right now, Averie was on the verge of being discovered and the reason for that was simple.

The truth was, Averie wasn't a pure human.

Back in the old days, after learning that she wasn't proficient with any attributes after a long search, she decided to buy a book about black magic in a dark alley. Far from her experience with normal magic, she noticed that she was quite talented at it. Not so long after, she also noticed that her attribute was leaning towards the darkness, the one attribute that wasn't welcomed by the public.

Not wanting to scare her family, she practiced black magic day and night. However, the peace didn't last for long. Not only were marks starting to appear on her body, her mother walked in just as she was trying the magic circle she just read about! In a panic, she tried her best to disperse the magic but it counterattacked, shooting right onto her mother! Which in turn caused what looked like earthworms to be formed in her mother's abdomen as they started eating her flesh and organs.

Seeing the brusque scene, young Averie was frozen on the spot. Hearing the commotion, his father also came in only to be faced with hundreds of worms that attacked him at the same time.

By the time, Averie's legs have already lost strength and she fell. She was crying uncontrollably before she noticed that the worms were looking at her greedily. Freaking out, she reached towards the book and turned the pages in the hopes of resummoning them.

The moment one of those ugly and wriggly worms bounced at her, she gave up on finding it and read the page she was at.

Fortunately or unfortunately, it was a magic circuit to create a blood contract with a demon.

With the worms attacking her, her blood was spilled all over the small circuit, activating the contract.

As her mana wasn't enough for its maintenance, it started to suck her vitality. She could see the contract glow with an ominous red colour just as she was about to pass out from the pain and suffocation.

When she regained consciousness, starting from her waistline, her lower part was that of a spider's with two spinnerets on her back.

At first, she was completely freaked out because of the eight legs but only after her hazy vision was fixed did she notice that it was her own body.

Remembering the things that happened before her body took this shape, she looked around but she couldn't see a single earthworm. Even her parents' body were gone. What stood in their seat was a bloody mess that reached every corner in the room with some furnitures being highly damaged.

On an off-chance someone were to enter her room, she closed the door and drew the curtains again. It actually took her around 15 minutes to do that simple job because of her disoriented movements. Because of her changed body now, she had quite the trouble to balance her eight thin legs.

Opening the book, she searched for the page that had the same pattern as the mark that appeared on her angle of louis.

Only after reading the whole page for twelve times did she understand that she actually made a contract with a demon but had no way of knowing who that was unless they contacted her first due to her not having the mana pool to do so.

That's also one of the reasons why she wanted to get as strong as possible. To break out from this contract.

But the main reason lied somewhere else.

The problem was, after she figured out that she could just transform her lower part back to human, the first thing she did was to way a figure out how to solve this situation. Thanks to her body changing, she could feel that her mind was cooler than ever before which made it easier for her to accept her parents' death.

...As long as she didn't think back to those moments.

All she could come up with was masking the situation but a week later, she noticed that she could create some replicas with her silk in the spider form.

So that's what she chose to do.

Being an aristocrat, if a word were to get out about her family's death, she would be gotten rid of immediately for other household members to get their hands on their wealth.

Even though lots of rumours have spread after a whole week, nobody could say anything after seeing them with their own eyes. The only downside was that Averie had to be around them constantly to control their mimics and stuff, just like a puppet.

She tried her luck with the AIs on the market which were the only logical solution she could come up with. Thanks to her luck, it seemed like she didn't make a contract with a nobody demon as her silk lasted for quite a bit but it wasn't like she could keep doing this forever. Now that she was already in the age when she could takeover the Viscounty, all she needed was to get stronger as fast as possible to protect herself.

So, Joshua was literally her life rope right now. There was just simply no way she could refuse it.

...Okay, maybe if the other person was a suspicious one but it was a child, a smart one at that.

"I see."

This was the only thing she could say after a long train of thoughts.

"How should I address you?"

"Just call me Joshua, its my real name. I'm not good at coming up with names randomly."

"Are you fine with that? I can still sell you out to those old punks inside to pressure you and find the treasure myself, you know."

"Ha-ha. Not a funny one, you are."

Seeing Joshua rolling his eyes as if he heard some rubbish, Averie felt an unfamiliar feeling she felt a long time ago.

"...So, tell me. What makes you trust me?"

"I don't trust you, Averie. I trust my judgement of you. Now, in for a deal?"

The second Joshua turned solemn, he sat down on the red coach on the side as he checked the time with the corner of his eyes.

[6th October 2203 // 22:38] [P.S. 10:38 PM]

'I don't have much time left. I need to hurry before the midnight or I won't make it in time.'

Feeling his insides start to burn with worry, he looked at Averie coolly. She had a simple smile on her face but it looked more realistic than the face she had inside the party.

"Sure thing, you little brat. But on the condition that you will call me 'big sister Averie' not 'Averie'. It sounds weird for a 12 year old kid to address me directly."

"I'm not 12, I'm already 15."

"That's what they always say."

"I'm serious!"

After arguing about Joshua's real age for a bit, Joshua noticed that this was the second time he ever got close to a person. After the realization, he felt a warmth that wasn't the same as the one when he created a fireball but a little bit different.

"Okay okay, big sis. Want to talk about the terms now?"

"Alright show me what you got."

Averie took a seat next to Joshua. Handing over a [Mana Contract] to him she took from her dimensional space, she watched as he wrote down bunch of clauses.

"What about you?"

"Hm?"

Joshua replied curtly as he was immersed in writing.

"You should also have a story, right? If you want us to really have this 'mutually beneficial' relationship, I need to know about you too, don't you think so?"

"Ahh..."

It was only then did Joshua realize that Averie knew nothing about him other than his name.

"Well, to cut it shortly, you are in my brother's birthday party right now."

"...You mean Aaron Courtner? Are you that second child?"

"Nope. I'm the third. It's normal not to know since I'm illegitimate."

"Ah... You are that child, poor you."

Even though her mouth said so, there was no particular emotion on Averie's face.

Both Averie and Joshua knew very well that 'pitying' someone was the same as declaring the other person as a weakling. Having grown up without the parental warmth they needed with one of them turning his birth mother to a tree and other killing them both, they felt a sense of connection between each other.

"It's finished. Check it out."

Reading the two pages long contract, Averie's eyes shot open.

"Isn't this too favorable for me?"

"Mhm. You can say that but I really need your help with these so don't think too deeply about it."

Hearing those words, Averie couldn't help but frown before thinking of something.

"Okay but you'll let me provide with some money and items you may need for now, alright? We can keep this contract till I become <A> rank and then we can renew the contract. Deal?"

"Sure."

They shook hands with a satisfied smile on both of their faces before signing the contract. As their contract's linkage was a [Mana Contract], unless one of them died or their mana core were to be destroyed -which resulted in the foster option in most cases anyways-, this contract would be valid. Even though they had to option of betraying each other, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages by a lot.

The second both signatures were on the contract written with their own blood, the contract glowed in a lime green colour before creating a copy of itself and shotting to their chests. With this, they could feel a link created between themselves.

As both got up from their seats, Joshua opened his mouth.

"Here."

He handed Averie another pouch that contained 4 more of those fruits. Averie was simply flabbergasted. She knew that Joshua would provide him with some but the amount was mind-blowing.

She felt like a villager meeting with the holy water for the first time when Joshua acted like it was only normal.

"Wait a second."

After that, Averie took out various types of items from her dimensional ring as she put them back in a maroon coloured bag.

"Here you go."

As he saw every item placed with his eyes, Joshua's eyes were sparkling like stars. He was now ready for his adventure!

"Then I'll be taking my leave now."

"Alright... Ah, let's exchange contacts before that."

Remembering a crucial part they forgot about, Averie handed her phone to Joshua.

After the exchange was done, Averie left through the door they entered while Joshua jumped from the terrace.

As he had done similar things to test his limits after he healed, his body landed to the ground smoothly.

"Finally, I'm getting the hell out of here."