It has now been more than two weeks since I have been imprisoned.

I have barely had any sleep in these two weeks. I have barely been fed too. And yesterday, my last ray of hope of getting rescued was shattered when I saw Father’s head rolling on the cell’s pavement.

However, it’s not like this situation is desperate. First of all, Wahnsinn has become a lot more noticeable since yesterday’s shock. Despite knowing that he’s only a split personality, I have come to accept his existence. I find it funny that although he is in my head, I can only hear his thoughts through my own mouth.

We talked during hours after Orth and the Elf left yesterday. He told me a few things. That he had been storing Mana ever since he “awoke” inside of me.

Ever since the first day of the torture, I had lost control over the left side of my body. This is where Wahnsinn apparently “resided”.

He also said that I could order him as I wished… such a convenient split personality.

In other words, this means I now have a way to escape via his Magic.

However, there are a few drawbacks to using Wahnsinn. First of all, because of my rotten left side, where I have lost the use of my 5 senses, he can neither feel Cindril nor can he see anything. He claimed that he lived in a world of shadows and that the only thing he could feel was my presence. However, he had access to my memories, which allowed him to get some kind of awareness of my environment.

Since he couldn’t feel Cindril, all he could do was using Creative Magic. However, it was hard for him to imagine something he had never seen in reality and therefore the only type of Magic he could create was Shadow Magic. Having access to my memories wasn’t enough to provide him with the accuracy that he needed to cast other types of Magic.

I knew from habitude that I had a few hours left before Jerius came to clean my excrements.

We (Wahnsinn and I) decided to train before that.

It was time to break out.

***

As expected, Jerius came roughly 3 hours later. He entered the cell as usual and started cleaning the faeces around me. Since both of my arms were bound by metal handcuffs attached to the wall, I supposedly couldn’t move. That’s why he was being so careless as to not look at us while doing his dirty job.

“Orth has decided that you would be executed tomorrow. He said he has grown bored of torturing you.”

“…”

“The Emperor allowed the public execution. You’ll be burnt alive at 13:00 tomorrow in the central place.”

“…”

“Nothing to answer ? Well I guess that’s to be expected, after what you’ve endured. Well, if it was up to me though, I would have kept torturing you a bit more. Trash like you doesn’t deserve a quick painless death.”

“Hehehe…”

“Oh and by the way. Orth has sent troops to your village. Don’t think the rest of your family won’t be executed too. I’m sure traitor’s blood runs in your veins.”

“Ha, ha, ha, ha.”

“What’s so funny, you piece of scum !?”

“Ha, ha, ha… Sorry. I would be hateful too if I was stuck with a shitty job like yours, ha. Let me relieve you from this humiliation.”

“Wha-!?”

The next instant, his head rolled on the ground and hit Father’s like a boules ball. Surprise was the emotion frozen on his lifeless face while his headless body fell miserably on the ground.

Oh, we were still attached. We had just used a simple Creative Magic spell that I had invented with Wahnsinn.

The fact that Wahnsinn had access to my memories made things easier. The Magic he used was just a variant of『Wind Cut』using Shadow as its element. In other words, it was a crescent-like black spell that we called 『Shadow Cut』.

At first, I was doubtful about whether shadow could actually do any damage but Wahnsinn claimed that it could cut through anything, which made it even stronger than my original wind spells. I couldn’t understand the logic behind it, but seeing the result on Jerius was enough to convince me.

Since we shared the same body, Wahnsinn and I also shared the same Mana capacity. However, I couldn’t cast Shadow Magic myself as long as I didn’t understand it first, which is why I ordered Wahnsinn to do it instead.

For some reasons,『Shadow Cut』consumed only as much Mana as『Wind Cut』, which is weird considering that it didn’t require Cindril to work… Shadow Magic is still full of mysteries, isn’t it ?

But that only means that I can abuse it as much as I need without needing to worry too much about my total Mana consumption.

I ordered Wahnsinn to cut the chains that were still binding me. I fell on the ground and an intense pain ran through my left leg. The burnt skin was in direct contact with the ground and I could barely bear the pain.

During one of the torture sessions, Orth had explained that he was using a Master level Fire Magic spell that let the victim feel the burn forever unless it was cured by Elf’s healing Magic.

However, I remembered what Jerius had said. Orth was going to attack Mother and Hell… my only remaining family. I had to protect them.

Breaking out on its own wouldn’t be too difficult with this new Shadow Magic but I would surely be hunted by the guards and going back to Aldenaf without a mount before the soldiers seemed even more unrealistic.

“Ha… I killed him… That’s all good but what now ?”

“Leave it to me, Zwölf.”

“Wahnsinn ? What do you mean ?”

“Shadow Magic has an unlimited number of uses… here, let me show you.”

My left side moved on its own. Wahnsinn raised our left arm and almost immediately a pitch black string of Magic came out of our left hand and spilled on the ground. Little by little, a big puddle of black substance formed on the ground. Once Wahnsinn was satisfied with its size, he dropped our left arm and the substance started moving towards us. It tangled all around our left side and slowly covered the burnt skin.

Soon enough, my entire left body was covered with the black substance and not a single bit of burnt skin could be seen anymore (as far as I could tell).

“W-What did you do ?”

“I used a kind of self-enchantment. I call it『Shadow Skin』. It has… many uses. One of them is to allow me to interact better with our environment.”

“What do you mean by that ?”

“Trust me, this spell will protect you better than any armor. Besides that, it allows me to cast spells way more easily than with only half of your body. Well, you’ll understand once you see it.”

Following that, our left arm that was now covered with Shadow Magic extended and turned itself into a blade.

“I can shape any part of our body covered with『Shadow Skin』into whatever I want. I can even cast spells. For instance, that allows me to fire backwards, if needed. By the way, I will endure the burden of the self-enchantment for you so don’t worry about any recoil. If possible, we should let this spell activated passively at all times.”

“Wow, pretty useful indeed. Then use it to cut Jerius into pieces.”

“Sure thing.”

“And… can you make a bag out of shadow ?”

“No… items would just fall through it. However, I can do something better.”

Wahnsinn instructed me on what to do. Doing as I was told, I gouged Jerius’ eyes out of his head. Wahnsinn covered them with the same black substance. Then I used a simple enchantment that I was able to cast despite my dangerously low reserve of Mana :『Levitation』. Just like its name suggests, it allows items to float as long as they are in contact with Wind Cindril (which is pretty much everywhere).

What we were left with were two small floating black spheres.

“The left one will be called『Entrance』and the right one will be『Exit』.”

“Huh ?”

“Watch.”

The eye called『Entrance』expanded upon Wahnsinn’s wish and turned into a big dark sphere twice the size of my head. Then it approached the pieces of Jerius’ corpse and swallowed them. At last,『Entrance』reverted back to its original size.

“What just happened ?”

“In addition to your『Levitation』enchantment, I also enchanted the two eyes with『Shadow Skin』. What I did then was using『Shadow Skin』to eat the pieces and send them to another dimension : the shadow dimension that surrounds my consciousness. I call it “Void”. Anything that is sent to Void can be retrieved using anything enchanted with『Shadow Skin』.『Exit』comes in handy for teleporting you.”

“I can teleport too ?”

“Yes. As long as you keep a beacon in this world that is tagged with 『Shadow Skin』, you can move freely between Void and this world.”

“I think I understand.”

“Be careful however, because Void is essentially a dimension that contains nothing. That includes air for you to breathe. If you stay there for more than a few seconds, you’ll die from asphyxiation.”

“Understood. And since I can move『Exit』freely thanks to the levitation spell, I can basically teleport wherever『Exit』is.”

“Either that or I can create another shadow tag. But『Exit』is obviously the faster method.”

“Nice… now I can finally break free !”

We turned towards the wall of my cell and used『Shadow Cut』on it to cut our way through it.

After a few seconds, I finally got blinded by the sunlight for the first time in two weeks.