Dimensional Descent

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Leonel entered what he assumed was Mistress Oliidark’s office. However, despite seeing the older woman there, he didn’t say a word, simply standing silently.

He met her gaze and he even seemed to be quite relaxed. The coldness in his eyes had been replaced by a dull indifference, but his mind was constantly working at faster and faster speeds. He took in everything, sorted them, and then filed them away for a later date.

Mistress Oliidark seemed to realize that Leonel had no intention of respectfully greeting her like most would, but the result only made her chuckle.

“The more stubborn you are, the more difficult this will be for you. It’s really that simple, a smart boy like you should be able to understand this.”

Leonel didn’t respond at all, his eyes meeting Mistress Oliidark’s without a word.

He wasn’t a fool. In fact, if he fell in line so easily, rather than appreciating it, Mistress Oliidark would keep him even further away. Someone that couldn’t control their own emotions was far less of a threat than someone who could change their face on a dime.

Any talent of Leonel’s caliber would have their own pride. If he could so easily ignore it the moment a juicy piece of meat was dangled before his face, then he wouldn’t be worth much to begin with.

Mistress Oliidark wanted him to both abandon his family name. And, to add insult to injury, she even said that the ultimate reward would be marrying her daughter.

Setting aside the fact that Leonel had Aina and that that braindead girl would drive him to an early death, what kind of man would want to marry into his wife’s family? To become a live-in son-in-law? And that was supposed to be the ultimate reward?

Plus, even if Leonel was so shallow as to go after Athrae for nothing more than her beauty, could she even compare to Aina? She was still several points below his girlfriend, so Mistress Oliidark was far too arrogant to believe that her granddaughter was really so enticing.

At that moment, Mistress Oliidark pulled out a document that seemed to be made of thick hide and unfurled it. On it, there were many words, a lot of which Leonel had already begun to understand now. He had about a 40% grasp of reading this language. He would probably need an extra two or three days to grasp it fully.

That time frame could be made faster if he gained access to a library or a dense amount of text. But, he somehow doubted that he would get such an opportunity any time soon.

“Sign it.”

Leonel’s eyes narrowed.

Signing something he couldn’t fully understand? Absolutely not.

There didn’t seem to be any binding Force Arts on it, but Leonel still knew too little about this world to make a perfect judgment just yet. He felt that he was sensitive enough to pick up on such things, but he also had no idea what sort of abilities someone as powerful as this old woman might have. Plus, he didn’t know what her Ability Index was either, and the abilities of this world seemed far different from the ones he had gotten used to, so he was currently in no man’s land.

For all he knew, she could bind him for life with this signature.

However, after thinking to this point, Leonel calmed. If that was what this signature was for, then what would have been the point of the tattoo on his back? It made little sense to do both if one was so binding.

Secondly, this might be an opportunity.

Leonel remained unmoving, he didn’t even glance at the outstretched pen.

As time passed in silence, Mistress Oliidark’s light smile became colder and colder. This Leonel was truly testing her patience.

“It seems that if I don’t teach you a lesson, you’ll believe that you’re truly unbendable, hm?”

The pen flew forward with a flick of Mistress Oliidark’s fingers, a pressure exuding from it that made it impossible for Leonel to move. However, even with this being the case, Leonel never had the intention of moving in the first place.

He stared at the flying pen. The moment it entered the current six inch range of his Starry Spirit Domain, he had already pinpointed exactly where it would land and exactly how much damage it could do.

Without even hesitating, he used Dream Sense, cutting off the nerves in the area from sending any signals to his mind.

The pen seemed to be aimed right for his throat, but it veered away at the last moment, piercing right through his collarbone and splitting the bone in two.

Mistress Oliidark had expected Leonel to show a hint of when the pen aimed for his throat, and then fall in pain once his bone broke. However, he didn’t even flinch. His gaze never left her eyes, staring her down as though he wanted to see if she would actually dare.

The pen snapped back, ripping out of Leonel’s collarbone and back into Mistress Oliidark’s hand. Blood dripped from the end, a pitter-patter sound echoing through the room as it fell onto the parchment paper.

“If you want me to sign anything,” Leonel started coldy, “then there had better be guarantees. I’m not going to sign away my name and my dignity just so that you can string me along for a few decades until I’ve run out of use to you. If that’s your plan you might as well try and kill me now.”

“Try?” Mistress Oliidark’s cold smile turned into a deeper sneer. “Do you think you can even breathe if I don’t allow you to?”

The files in the room rustled, a pressure the likes of which caused the room to shake. The force threatened to bring Leonel to his knees, but his gaze only continued to flicker with a hidden violet.

“Yes, you can try.”

Leonel’s voice didn’t waver, his coldness matching Mistress Oliidark beat for beat. 

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