"Co on, I already said it; I’m sorry..."
I stood before pouting Grayfia, who, to be honest, looked way too cute for soone supposedly furious with . Her silver hair frad her face like a snowstorm frozen mid-surge, her lips faintly puffed out, eyes narrowed—not in genuine anger, but in that dangerous, quiet, ’you’re going to regret teasing ’ way.
I had this terrible, sinful urge to pinch her cheek... and, admittedly, other cheeks too. But given the very fresh mory of her freezing an entire squad of demonic scouts into sparkling ice sculptures, I decided not to tempt fate.
She was mad because of my "bullying" during the bath earlier. In my defence, I was just making conversation. In hers... okay, maybe I had made a comnt or two about how she still looked exactly like I rembered—skin flawless, curves carved by divine geotry, etc.—and maybe I had been a little too casual about letting my gaze wander.
Which I "humbly" insist was for scientific observation.
Anyway.
"Alright, alright if you didn’t fix that cute pout of yours, then I am not responsible for whatever happens next~"
I wiggled my hands mid-air like a professional pervert might—palms flexing, fingers curling in slow, threatening arcs, as though I were about to cast the forbidden spell of Cheek-Pinch no Jutsu.
Grayfia’s eyes narrowed further. Not in fear. Not even in true annoyance. No—this was the calm, asured narrowing of a woman who had iced the skulls of Hell’s assassins without blinking. The kind of narrowing that said, You touch , and I’ll put your soul in the freezer until the heat death of the universe.
"You are walking a thin line, my Prince," she said, voice like snow sliding down a mountain just before the avalanche.
Her tone might have been soft, but the air temperature dropped a good five degrees, and I swear my breath ca out in a faint puff of frost. The mansion’s enchanted wards shivered in their sockets, sensing the shift in mana density.
The Lucifer System’s interface—normally dormant unless summoned—gave a faint flicker in the back of my mind, like a cat lifting its head from a nap to watch a potential disaster unfold. [Warning: Environntal Mana Density increasing. Potential Threat Level: Lethal if provoked.]
...Yeah. No cheek pinching today.
I lowered my hands, putting on my most innocent smile. "Alright, alright, I surrender. The mighty Silver-Haired Queen wins yet again."
"Hmph." She turned away, but not before I caught the faintest twitch of her lips, betraying that she’d enjoyed the exchange more than she’d admit.
"Jeez, who is the master here? How I miss my cutie Fia when I used to boss her around without fearing instant cryogenic death," I finished under my breath.
Grayfia’s ears twitched, and for a heartbeat, I thought she’d heard . But instead, she gave a soft, imperious "Hmph" and began walking towards the door after giving a look that scread, ’Follow , stupid master.’
I followed.
Because of course I did.
The corridor beyond was a cathedral of shadow and silver, the gothic architecture of the mansion unfolding like sothing carved out of midnight. Moonlight bled in through tall, arched windows, but the glass wasn’t quite glass—it shimred faintly, runes swimming just beneath the surface like bioluminescent plankton. The light they cast was sterile, clean, almost surgical, illuminating the fine details of the black marble flooring and the silver filigree running along the walls.
The air was heavy with that faint mineral-cold scent unique to high-tier wards—mana-laced frost, distilled ozone, and the faint tang of sothing older. Older than this mansion. Older than .
Grayfia’s steps were soundless, but sohow each one seed to press into the world itself, like the building bowed slightly just from her passing. Her aura was still faintly present, enough to keep the temperature hovering at the edge of "I can see my breath" territory.
We walked past alcoves displaying old relics—curved blades that humd faintly when my gaze lingered too long, tattered banners depicting war scenes I didn’t recognize, a blackened crown missing two of its spires. Each item radiated history, but not the proud, museum kind. This was history soaked in betrayal and sealed away because it couldn’t be trusted not to wake up and kill soone.
I reached out toward a glass case holding what looked like a chalice carved from bone—
A sharp crack of displaced air warned a split second before Grayfia’s voice ca, low and controlled.
"Do not touch that."
Her eyes flicked toward the chalice just once before returning forward.
"Why not?" I asked, already knowing the answer but fishing for the story.
"Because that cup once drank the blood of a god," she said simply. "It rembers the taste."
I decided I was fine with keeping my soul where it was.
We passed another relic—this one a massive sword, split cleanly down the middle as though so impossible force had simply decided "no" and ended it mid-swing. The plaque beneath it read in an ancient script I didn’t fully recognize, but the System unhelpfully translated it to:
[Item Classified: Do Not Approach.]
Which was incredibly reassuring.
"But gods, huh?"
Actually, Original Dominic wasn’t well-versed in the world he lived in; he only knew about the hell realm and that too only the basics, and honestly, what do you expect from a kid whose mother crumbled into demon sleep right after his birth, while his father was killed when he turned seven? And on top of that, he got sealed for a millennium when he turned nine.
So, hence I, who inherit his mories, have almost no knowledge about the real state of this crazy, layered dumpster fire of a world.
And I was quickly learning that "Hell Realm" was just one particularly loud, stab-happy neighbourhood in a city the size of a multiverse.
"Right, I have to start your education as soon as possible," Grayfia said, as if she were announcing I’d be receiving a long-overdue inoculation against stupidity.
I raised an eyebrow. "Education, huh? And here I thought I already graduated from the School of ’If it’s glowing, don’t touch it.’"
She didn’t even spare a glance. "That school’s alumni tend to die before their second lesson."
Fair point.
"Past this is the whole wing consisting library, which houses knowledge from every plane you’ve ever heard of... and a few you’ll wish you hadn’t," Grayfia finished.
The double doors ahead were so tall they almost disappeared into shadow, each carved with an intricate scene that seed to move if I didn’t look directly at it—wars in skies that weren’t skies, seas that held cities instead of water, beasts that might have been gods or gods that might have been beasts.
When Grayfia pushed the doors open, the sound wasn’t wood on hinges—it was more like the sigh of a very old thing reluctantly waking up.
The library wasn’t a room. It was a world unto itself.
Shelves stretched not just to the ceiling but beyond it, vanishing into clouds that swirled under a false sky painted in shifting constellations. The sll hit first: parchnt, ink, and the faint burn of ozone that ca from wards so dense they could probably survive the end of ti.
Bridges of black stone connected the shelves at impossible angles, so hanging vertically as if gravity had given up trying to dictate terms here. Books floated lazily through the air, their covers opening and closing like breathing creatures. Others slumbered in chains of silver and salt, faintly twitching, as if aware and resentful of their captivity.
My System gave a faint pulse of text:
[Notice: Area contains knowledge tagged as ’Apocalyptic-Class.’ Recomnd: Controlled exposure.]
...Yeah, the System was acting like this place was radioactive, and honestly, I believed it.
Grayfia moved through it like she owned it—probably because she did. She stopped by a lectern carved from what looked suspiciously like a single piece of obsidian and flicked her fingers. A stack of books, each thicker than my arm, glided down from the upper shelves and landed neatly before her without a whisper of sound.
"These," she said, "are your prirs."
I looked at them, then at her. "Those are prirs? I was expecting, you know... pamphlets. A brochure. Maybe a beginner’s guide with pictures."
"You will read them all," she replied, tone flat, "or at least enough to stop walking blindly into the jaws of things that consider Hell a snack aisle."
I tried to peek at a title, but the letters slithered away like they were embarrassed to be caught in my gaze.
"Okay, but can we start small? Like... How screwed up is this world on a scale of one to ten?"
Grayfia actually paused, considering. "On that scale... perhaps twelve. Thirteen, if you insist on provoking it."
..forting.
"Here starts with this~" She dropped a thick tomb out of nowhere onto my arms.
The weight of the to hit my arms like a collapsing star.It wasn’t just heavy in the physical sense—though, yes, it was the size of a gravestone—it had a presence. Like the book was aware I was holding it and was silently judging for being unworthy.
Its cover was so kind of dark, iridescent hide. The surface shifted with the light, sotis looking like black glass, other tis like overlapping scales. Runes slithered across it in no particular order, never repeating the sa pattern twice. They didn’t glow. Instead, they absorbed light—pulling in the faint illumination of the library like a black hole with good taste in calligraphy.
The air around it seed thicker. My fingers tingled where they made contact, a faint static hum running along the bones in my wrists. My System stirred again—
[Warning: Object classified as Cognitive Hazard. Suggest: Resist direct reading until ntal safeguards are in place.]
Great. So my howork could literally eat my thoughts.
"This," Grayfia said, brushing invisible dust from the cover, "Dummies’ version of the introduction of Cartography of the True Realms."
Dummies, as in this case, apparently ant "for those barely clever enough to breathe without written instructions." Which, by Grayfia’s standards, ant .
She watched as I tried to balance the to without collapsing into the floorboards. "You will begin with the section on Outer Layer instability," she said, like that was a perfectly casual opening topic and not the academic equivalent of teaching a toddler to swim by throwing them into the middle of the Mariana Trench.
"Outer Layer instability? Sounds like sothing a building inspector would fine you for."
Her expression didn’t change, but her eyes told a whole story—mostly about my inevitable, self-inflicted demise if I kept talking.
"Each realm," she began, "is built upon a Layer. Layers are not physical. They are... fraworks. Think of them as the bones reality wraps its flesh around. When a Layer destabilizes, the flesh collapses inward and begins to rot."
"...So basically cosmic gangrene."
"Adequate taphor." She gestured at the book. "Hell is rely one Layer, Dominic. Your birthright is tied to another—one most thought devoured long before you were born."
That pulled up short. "Wait. Which Layer are we talking about?"
Grayfia’s gaze cut sideways, silver irises glinting under the library’s strange constellations. "The Morningstar Domain. Your ancestor’s realm."
Lucifer Morningstat, huh~
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