"I'm just a familiar, assigned to monitor outsiders and maintain awareness of this house," the black cat said, its voice that of a child—neither male nor female. "But if you want to ask what my master truly is… I don't know. I really don't know what my master is."
Jeanne gave the cat in her hand a cold, up-and-down look, then let out a sneer. She completely ignored what it had said and turned to Cesar instead.
"Black sorcerer, do you have any mind-control spells prepared?"
"I can't guarantee success," Cesar replied, "but I can try."
"Good." The Inquisitor nodded.
She gripped the cat's head with her fingers and lifted it up. The creature had no choice—it locked eyes with Cesar. The wide, eerie corridor was deathly silent. The windows on both sides were covered with burgundy curtains, allowing no light through. Only a few blue-tinged candles flickered, like ghostly eyes in the dark. If it weren't for the cat's pupils slowly dilating and losing awareness, Jeanne might've assumed no spell had been cast at all.
"The mechanism is… different from what we normally use," she observed, surprisingly without any criticism.
"Of course it's different from the brute-force mental magic your people use to torture prisoners," Cesar retorted. "This is one of our soulcraft spells. It doesn't always work well on all species, but it's simple, safe, and easy to use and construct."
"Start with how you got here," the black sorcerer said, taking the cat from Jeanne's hand. Its pupils were dull and unfocused, like someone's eyes forced open while still in a dream.
"A long time ago," the cat replied—but now in a completely different voice: that of a young girl, "I was just going home to weave fishing nets. My father and I—"
The unexpected turn of events caught him off guard.
"...Wait," Jeanne interrupted. "Tell me where your home is."
"I live in a small fishing village near Caen, honorable knight," said the girl's voice.
"'Honorable knight'?"
"A fictional questioner," Cesar explained. "Drawn from the role she respects most in her heart. The spell exploits many of the weaknesses in the human psyche."
Jeanne shot him a glance—she looked like she had a few things to say about the spell, but in the end, she kept silent.
"Caen is very close to the Holy City... Around June last year, the Third Company of the Roman Ninth Cavalry passed through there. One hundred thirty-five soldiers and a hundred fifty-four warhorses," the Inquisitor said in a low voice. "All died in the wasteland. Most believed it was the work of a fugitive black sorcerer, but your Empress—Nero Claudius—claimed it was a diplomatic incident and demanded a full investigation of the Church members in that area."
"Sounds like you were involved in the investigation?"
"Yes," Jeanne replied. "I was sent to the scene. All the soldiers' corpses were torn to pieces—limbs and organs scattered everywhere. And not just that: the residents of three nearby fishing villages were also slaughtered. Over four hundred civilians dead. Many bodies were too mutilated to count—some had even been eaten by something. We couldn't determine the exact number." She spoke without any trace of emotion. "It was summer. The sight—and the stench—made several of my newly appointed knights and priests vomit on the spot."
"Is this related to our current situation?" Cesar asked. Like Jeanne, he had little patience for matters that didn't directly concern him.
"At the time, we searched every wooden hut in those fishing villages. Some were empty—no bodies inside." Jeanne cast a glance at the cat in his hand. "According to the investigation, one of those empty homes belonged to a man and a young girl."
"Interesting intel," Cesar commented with a faint smile. "But not very helpful for us right now."
"The Church suspected a fugitive black sorcerer was trying to provoke conflict between us and the Romans," Jeanne said coldly, giving him a sidelong glance. "But your Empress seemed more than happy to see that happen."
"Which makes sense. Christianity came from another continent, while we've lived here for centuries."
That comment seemed to jab at Jeanne. A hint of mockery crossed her face. "I have no interest in discussing that with you."
Cesar shrugged. Neither do I, he thought.
"So," he said, turning back to the cat—or rather, her. "How did you end up in this place?"
"A few people in black robes... they brought many deformed monsters. Some died, and some were thrown into this place. My father and I followed that gray bird into this house..." the girl's voice said calmly. "Then we got lost inside. My father led me to a kitchen. Someone invisible asked my father for me—said they wanted to cook me—but my father refused. So that person chopped him into pieces and boiled him in a pot. Glug-glug, glug-glug. I was supposed to go into the pot too, but after my father was fully cooked, the master of the house let me go... and turned me into what I am now."
"…This spell," Jeanne said after taking a slow breath of the slightly warmed air, meeting the black sorcerer's gaze, "is unexpectedly revolting."
"Only by recounting one's past with the detached perspective of a rational observer can one avoid the misleading effects of emotion and language," Cesar replied flatly.
She snorted in response, which oddly satisfied the black sorcerer.
"What exactly is your master?" the Inquisitor asked.
"I don't know what it is, but it always stays at the top floor of the house—it never leaves," the cat said. "My only task is to guide intruders. Other than that, I just wander around within the limits of where I'm allowed to go… and eat in the kitchen."
"I've got a question. Do you know if anything other than humans has ever fallen into this place? Like livestock, fish, or—"
"Is eating the only thing you think about?"
"Shut up, black sorcerer. I've been starving for ages," Jeanne snapped, shooting him a glare of disgust. "I hate eating humans—but if you're willing to chop off your own head, I'd gratefully gnaw it down to the bones."
"A while ago," the cat continued, "I saw a white creature with three joints in each of its legs and arms fall into here. A few black-robed figures followed behind it... they seemed to be enslaved. That thing just walked through the streets, and then, monsters from dozens of houses went berserk, charging out and slaughtering each other. Those black-robed ones committed suicide. It nearly got to us too... but then it suddenly vanished, and no one knows where it went."
"Demonbound…" Jeanne's brow twitched slightly—she seemed to recall something unpleasant.
"Even a backward peasant like you knows what a Demonbound is?"
"Shut it," Jeanne snapped again, then lowered her head to meet the cat's eyes. "Forget about the Demonbound for now. Just tell me—do you have any edible creatures in here?"
"There are some animals being raised in the back kitchen and in the garden…"
"Then take us there."
"But there are guards along the way," the cat warned.
"The guards won't detect us," Cesar said expressionlessly, glancing at the cat. "I sensed the floor shift when you walked across it from over thirty meters away. The only reason you can see us is because I gave you a backdoor into the spell—not because your senses are sharp enough to pierce through my magic."
"How long will your spell on this thing last?" Jeanne asked.
"Long enough for it to walk through the entire house."
Cesar tossed the black cat to the ground and ordered it to lead the way.
Jeanne said nothing more. She simply followed behind the cat, stepping on stains invisible to the human eye, disappearing into the distance.
After the two of them left, the corridor remained deathly silent.
Except—within one of the flickering blue flames along the wall, an eye quietly opened.
It was a pale green eye. It blinked once—softly—
And then vanished without a trace.