Shades of the New World

Evin gently sat her up and beckoned Rith to come over. Rith sighed and used the World of Life to relieve Bellaslayn's pain and assisted the girl in healing herself.

The pain from getting hit in three different vitals in the span of two seconds turned her body immobile and she was unable to muster up the strength to channel the World of Life and heal her battered body.

The audience dispersed soon after they confirmed that Bellaslayn was okay. The soldiers started discussing the fight, while the servants went on to perform their duties. Some female servants went to help Bellaslayn up and brought her to her room.

Bella's sisters commented a few spiteful words about their younger sister and left soon after. Evin wondered what the Earl's reaction would be to the hateful attitude his two other daughters had towards his youngest, but the man seemed to treat it as a joke.

Evin wondered how deeply did he fuck up Bella's life with that money. He knew that a huge amount of money in the wrong circles would be more of a burden instead of a blessing. He knew that Bella's family would pester her about it, maybe ask for a share when she grows up, but Evin was curious about how she'll deal with it.

Evin did not know why, but he got awfully interested in the girl after observing her for the day. It definitely wasn't love, since he knew exactly how he felt when he got a crush on someone, but there was something about Bella that drew him in with great force.

As Evin thought about such matters, Rith finished her task and went back to Evin. The group decided that it was time to finally get on with what they came here to do. There were a few events that happened before it, but the moment finally came closer.

Aran talked to the earl, and he agreed to bring the two boys to the Oath Stamp.

As the earl led the way, Evin asked Rith some questions.

"By the way, you seem to tell me much more information that you couldn't tell me before, why is that?"

"What do you think the Oath is?" Rith asked in return,

Evin was imagining something like the World Contract, something you had to sign on or something.

"Something like the World Contract? With some magical paper that you sign on and the Earl will stamp it with the Oath Stamp?"

"It's definitely not that. It's a living being with thoughts and its own judgement. The Oath inside me knew that you were going to receive the Oath today and learn about all the classified information that most mages know about. Since it's just a few hours away, it doesn't mind being a little lenient with me telling some information about them," Rith explained.

'What? Is it something like a parasite?' Evin wondered.

'And since it's able to judge people's situations to decide whether its host is allowed to do whatever they're doing, it must be pretty intelligent too'

"Well, you'll get to feel it very soon," Rith said.

The group finally reached a room with various security measures that were put in place. Evin did not know any of them, but he knew they were security measures because of how the Earl was interacting with them.

After a few seconds, he brought out a square metal box with a circular hole going through it. For some reason, the circular hole was made out of some flesh-like substance, giving Evin a nagging feeling that the metal box was a living being. Just as he thought that, the flesh-like matter twitched slightly.

'What the fuck was that?' Evin could not help but think.

The earl presented the box to Evin.

"Please put your hand through the hole and the Stamp will activate for you. It will hurt slightly, but don't be afraid. Please don't panic and don't try to remove your hand from the hole. Everything will be fine after a few seconds," he explained.

Evin thought of looking at Aran and Rith for confirmation, but he judged that the two would tell him if something was wrong.

'Maybe some assassins took care of them without me knowing it and they can't remind me?' Evin thought hopefully and looked at where Aran and Rith were waiting. Fortunately, or unfortunately, they were still there, observing the situation calmly.

With no more excuse to delay the inevitable, Evin warily put his hand through the hole. When his elbow was about to reach its mouth, the mouth closed up and held onto Evin's arms tightly. Evin could not see what was happening, but he could feel something wet slithering around his hands, feeling it with interest. Whatever the thing was, it seemed to have felt Evin up to its heart's content and continued on with its work. Evin felt tiny needles pierce through his skin and start injecting something into his body. Aside from the initial pain, Evin didn't feel anything else physically. But mentally, he was feeling very nervous.

Evin really, really wanted to take his hands off the thing, but felt like something very, very bad would happen if he did that. He gritted his teeth and hoped that it would be over soon.

Thankfully, just like the Earl said, the process was over and the box let go of his hand. Evin hurriedly took his hand away from the cursed thing and inspected his hands. Sure enough, he could see a few dozen needle punctures on it. He then inspected himself to see if the Oath's effects were taking place.

"The Oath's effects are going to take a bit to settle in. Perhaps in a few hours," Aran said, noticing Evin's reactions.

It was Arza's turn to take the Oath now. The boy took it much more calmly compared to Evin. No fidgeting, no looking at his father, no bullshit.

Evin felt a bit respectful towards Arza's fearlessness, but soon her realized that the boy just doesn't have any sense of disgust and fear, so his respect turned to concern for the child.

Their job done, it was time to leave the mansion and depart for the North. Evin asked if they could just teleport there with Rith's help, but Ssatsko explained that they have a bunch of places to check out on the way.

Before leaving, Evin spoke with the Earl and offhandedly told him to take care of Bellaslayn. He wanted to sound like he was interested in the girl, so the Earl spends some attention on her. Evin didn't want her to be bullied too hard, but knowing the Earl's personality, Evin figured that it might not be that helpful, anyway. Well, at least he tried. And he can't really do anything else to help her out.

Evin met Ssatsko at his house with Arza in tow. Arza's belongings were put inside Evin's storage necklace. Aran also gave the two of them two copies of a book named "Basics of Mages" written by some person named Unabach. Told them to check it out on the way, as the two will find life easier when they get to the North with such knowledge.

Right before they departed, Evin first felt the effects of the Oath, when he tried to randomly ask about the contents of the book in public. Something seemed to take hold of his mouth and forced him to stop whatever he tried to say. Ssatsko looked at him with a knowing smile.

"Feeling the effects of the Oath? Better get used to it soon," he commented.

Evin used the World of Life on his body and found a tentacle like being coiled around his heart. Most of its tentacles were divided in many smaller limblings headed upwards to his brain and were connected to some areas of it like the eyes, the ears and the mouth, while the rest were sent to his limbs.

Evin could guess that it shared his vision and hearing. He figured that it was also connected to his limbs to stop him from giving away information.

If it's like this with a normal Oath, then how exactly did Karan's Oath function? It even followed him to the afterlife. Evin could only think of one possibility, and it was related to souls.

The Easterners were known as half-spirits, so they may have found ways to attach Oaths to someone's soul. But such conjectures were useless for Evin to know about for now.

…