Chapter 4: Madness

  Shade opened his eyes and saw an unfamiliar ceiling. As he sat up, he felt pain surge through his body.

  Holding back a scream, he looked down and noticed that he sat on a bed with white sheets.

  He looked around while in pain and saw two people looking at him to his side. They had swords and were ready to draw them out of their sheath when they noticed Shade. Shade noticed a small table with playing cards and snacks.

  Shade’s thoughts were muddy… Were they playing cards while watching me sleep? Should I thank them or be creeped out.

  Though his throat was dry, Shade tried his best to speak. As he opened his mouth, the two people opposite him in the room drew their swords.

  Surprised and scared, Shade jumped back in fright and then screamed out in pain… Why does my body hurt this bad?

  After witnessing his reaction, the two swordsmen looked at each other and then let out a sigh of relief.

  They sheathed their swords, one picked up a can of water and approached Shade.

  “Mr. Magician, was it? You may call me Specter. I am one of the mystics belonging to the Silver Moon. That over there is Ms. Snow.”

  After recovering from the pain, Shade looked at the blond and rather handsome man in front of him named Specter. Specter handed over a can of water with an amicable smile.

  Shade started to drink the water straight out of the can with fervour. Ms. Snow walked up and handed Shade some biscuits, cheese, and slices of preserved sausage.

  “Mr. Specter, go report to the captain. I’ll explain things to

  Mr. Magician”

  “Alright, be careful though, Ms. Snow.”

  Ms. Snow nodded to Mr. Specter as he walked out. Snow had wavy brown hair and a rather refined appearance. Her white shirt with frills was made of good material.

  Because of his background, Shade thought that the frills on

  Ms. Snow’s shirt was a waste of material… If only I had that much money.

  “Greetings, Mr. Magician. I understand that the captain, Mr. Rouge, didn’t explain anything to you. Honestly! Without any explanation, he practically forced you to become a mystic which nearly caused your death!”

  Ms. Snow started scorning her superior behind his back to a new employee… At least someone isn’t crazy. Wait, aren’t I crazy as well, I mean, I didn’t run the moment I noticed that something was off. I should had run when Ms. Silver jumped into the water and didn’t resurface.

  Shade started questioning his sanity. Ms. Snow continued explaining with a gentle tone of voice.

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  “Let’s start from our current location. This detective agency is a front for the mystics following the teachings of the goddess of the silver moon.

  A mystic is a person that commands power within the mystical realm. As followers to a god, we follow her commandments and in return, she give us her protection and aid.

  Her origin is unknown, but her personality is one of if not the most amicable gods in existence.

  While questioning the origins of one’s god is blasphemy, we believe that she was once a human that gained godhood through the mystical world like many other gods and even demons.

  Our goddess has only three commandments to follow. First, protect humanity. Second, refrain from becoming a demon. Third and last, refrain from killing fellow humans.”

  Ms. Snow waited for a moment, giving Shade a chance to absorb all of the information.

  She looked at the young man in front of her and noticed that he was probably younger than her. She decided to be kind to the new employee.

  “To best follow our goddess’s commandments, all mystics that follow her are private detectives. We often cooperate with the police and churches. We even patrol the streets.

  Except from common crimes like the one you helped with, we search for rumours about hauntings and mystical creatures, then we’ll investigate and most of the time handle the source of the phenomenon.”

  Shade ate the biscuits, cheese, and sausage like a hungry wolf. He was already hungry because he stayed out as to not eat dinner when he came home.

  This leaves more for the other residents of the orphanage, and now, he had just woken up from sleeping for God knows how long.

  “I’ll focus on explaining about mystics now. As I mentioned before, a mystic is someone that commands power in the mystical realm. They gain power by making contracts with spirits and or demons.

  The more spirits or demons contracted, the stronger the mystic becomes. The entities known as demons and spirits are different by nature.

  Not because one is evil and one is good, but because of where the entity lives and what type of characteristics they have.

  A characteristic is a power that the entity is born with. Each spirit and demon are born with only one characteristic, but through cannibalism, they can absorb the characteristic of other entity and make it their own.

  Which means that the number of characteristics is what decides the strength of a mystic. And that is all that you get out of me for the time being, I think the captain wants to speak to you.”

  Mr. Rouge stepped into the room. He looked at Shade then at Snow. With a nod, Ms. Snow understood that Mr. Rouge was about to do something and decided to stand behind him.

  “Well then kid. It seems that Ms. Snow here has told you most of what you need to know. However, she hasn’t told you the most important thing about us mystics.”

  Mr. Rouge touched his styled brown beard and eyed Shade. He took out a glass vial and hid the content before continuing.

  “Making a contract with a spirit or demon is no different from eating them. In the eyes of the spirits and demons there is no difference, but here is the problem. The entities are still alive!

  While these entities have no real intelligence in their pure form, they still have instincts and desires.

  When these beings fuse and become one entity, these instincts and desires or madness as we call it, become part of the entity as well.

  As an example, look at this!”

  Mr. Rouge opened the vial and poured out the content on the floor. It was a bright red liquid that had an aroma reminiscent of iron. Shade started salivating as he felt his body become tense.

  He jumped out of the bed and tried to lick up the bright red liquid. However, before his body hit the ground, Mr. Rouge kicked him as hard as he could and sent Shade flying into the wall.

  Wind enveloped Shade and pushed him to the wall. Unable to move, Shade watched as the blood on the floor suddenly started to flow upwards and then back into the vial.

  “Blood thirst. I guess the goddess wasn’t kidding.”

  Mr. Rouge started laughing whole heartedly as he turned to Ms. Snow with a smile.

  “Ms. Snow, keep him there until he passes out.”