We went down the stairs into darkness so deep that even Yuki's light spell barely helped. With every step, the air got colder, and I could feel old magic pressing down on us. My magic. The kind you use when you want something hidden for good.
"The magical density is increasing," Yuki observed, her voice echoing off the stone walls. "Whatever's down here, it's powerful."
"Stay close," Ren ordered, his sword drawn and ready. "Kaito-san, are you sure about this?"
No. Not even a little bit.
"Absolutely," I lied.
The stairs led to a bigger room, and my stomach dropped. I remembered this place. The wine racks were still there, covered in dust and cobwebs, the bottles long gone to vinegar. But that wasn't what scared me.
There was a door.
A door that shouldn't be visible.
I'd hidden it behind seven layers of illusion magic, each tied to my own magical signature. If it was visible now, that meant my magic had faded over the centuries, or something else was happening.
"Look!" Hiro pointed. "There's another passage!"
Or maybe the dungeon itself was showing us things it was supposed to keep hidden.
The door was made of dark wood, carved with runes that still glowed faintly red—warning runes. The kind that said "turn back now or face consequences" in twelve different dead languages.
"Those markings," Yuki breathed, moving closer. "I've never seen anything like them. They're not in any script I know."
That's because I'd invented half oThat's because I made up half of those runes myself, just to keep people away. creepy glowing warnings," I suggested hopefully.
"The Founder wouldn't have left warnings unless there was something important beyond them," Ren said, because of course he did. "This must be the inner sanctum."
Inner sanctum. Sure. Let's call the Inner Sanctum.
Suppose you want to call my old study that, go ahead. frame, her rogue's instincts on full alert. "No traps that I can see. But the magic here…" She glanced at me. "You feel it too, don't you?"
"Feel what?" I asked, playing dumb.
"The power. It's like standing next to a sleeping dragon."
That was an uncomfortably accurate way to put it.
"The door isn't locked," Hiro said, reaching for the handle.
"Wait—" I started, but he'd already pushed it open.
The door opened quietly, showing a room beyond. Yuki's light spell grew brighter, lighting up everything inside, and I felt eight hundred years of hiding start to fall apart.
It was exactly as I'd left it.
The chamber was circular, carved from solid stone. Bookshelves lined the walls, filled with tomes and scrolls that somehow hadn't decayed. A large desk sat in the center, covered in papers and notes. Alchemical equipment cluttered one corner—beakers, burners, crystalline apparatus for magical experiments. And on the walls, diagrams and formulas written in my own handwriting, preserved by the same magic that had kept everything else intact.
"By the gods," Yuki whispered, stepping inside like she was entering a temple. "This is… this is a Founder-era workshop. An actual workshop. She was right, but she didn't know the most important part: the Founder she was talking about was standing right behind her, sweating nervously.
"Look at these notes!" She rushed to the desk, her eyes wide with academic fervor. "These are original research documents! The handwriting, the ink—this is authentic!"
Ren moved to examine the weapons rack, where I'd left several prototype swords I'd been working on. "These blades… the craftsmanship is incredible."
"The magical theory alone," Yuki continued, picking up one of my journals. "This is revolutionary! This person was centuries ahead of their time!"
That person was me. Literally me.
"We should probably not touch anything," I said weakly. "Ancient curses, booby traps, that sort of thing."
"The preservation magic is still active," Yuki said, running her hand along the desk. "Whoever worked here wanted this knowledge protected. Saved." She looked up at me, her eyes shining. "Don't you see what this means? This could be the Founder's own research!"
"Or a student," I said quickly. "Probably a student. The Founder had lots of students."
"The complexity of these formulas suggests a master-level practitioner," Yuki argued, flipping through the journal. "And look—there are dates! This entry is from…" She paused, calculating. "Eight hundred and thirty-seven years ago."
My chest tightened. That would have been right around when Valdris was studying with me.
"Yuki," I said carefully, "maybe we should—"
"There's another name mentioned here," she continued, squinting at the faded ink. "Someone called… V? The writer refers to them as 'my most promising student' and 'too ambitious for his own good.'"
Oh no.
"Fascinating," Sora said dryly. "Ancient academic drama."
"This is more than drama," Yuki insisted. "This is history! Real, documented history from the Age of Founders!" She moved deeper into the chamber, toward the back wall. "And there's more here. Look—a sealed cabinet!"
Every part of me wanted to stop her, but I couldn't do it without giving away how I knew what was inside that cabinet.
The cabinet was made of black crystal, covered in more warning runes. These were even more explicit: "DO NOT OPEN" in fifteen languages, plus a few creative threats I'd added while drunk.
"The seals on this are incredible," Yuki said, studying them. "Multiple layers of binding magic, each one reinforcing the others. Whatever's inside must be extremely valuable."
Or it was extremely dangerous.
"Yuki," Ren said cautiously, "maybe Kaito-san is right. We shouldn't—"
"I can dispel these," Yuki said confidently. "The magic is old. Powerful, yes, but old. I've studied seal-breaking techniques from the Royal Academy."
"Those techniques won't work on—" I stopped myself. "I mean, they might not work on something this ancient."
"Only one way to find out," Yuki said, raising her staff.
I watched in horror as she began to unravel the seals. She was good—better than I'd expected. Her technique was flawless, her magical control precise. Under different circumstances, I might have been impressed.
Right now, I was trying to figure out if I could reach her in time to stop her from opening the cabinet.
Not fast enough, apparently.
The final seal broke with a sound like shattering glass, and the cabinet doors swung open.
Inside, resting on a velvet cushion, was the crystal.
It was about the size of a fist, perfectly round, and so black it seemed to swallow light. Dark purple energy moved inside it like smoke, and just looking at it made my skin crawl. I'd only felt that way a few times in my long life—the sense that something was deeply wrong with the world.
"What is that?" Hiro whispered.
"Nothing good," I said. "Everyone, step back. Now."
But Yuki was already reaching for it, her academic curiosity overriding her common sense.
"The magical signature is unlike anything I've ever—"
"DON'T TOUCH IT!" I lunged forward, but I was too late.
Her fingers closed around the crystal.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then the world exploded into darkness.
Black energy erupted from the crystal, engulfing Yuki in a maelstrom of dark power. She screamed—not in pain, but in shock—as the magic poured into her. The crystal flared, binding itself to her hand and sinking into her skin, as if it were becoming part of her.
"YUKI!" Ren shouted, rushing forward.
"Don't!" I grabbed his arm, holding him back with more strength than a normal bartender should have. "Don't touch her! The binding process—if you interrupt it, it could kill her!"
The dark energy swirled faster, forming a vortex around Yuki. Her eyes snapped open, and they were glowing—not the warm brown they'd been before, but a deep, luminous purple—the same color as the crystal.
Power radiated from her in waves. Real power. The kind that made the air itself tremble.
"What's happening to her?!" Hiro demanded.
I knew exactly what was happening. The crystal was doing what Valdris and I had designed it to do—amplifying magical power by a factor of ten. We'd created it as an experiment, a way to boost a mage's capabilities beyond their natural limits.
We'd also discovered it was cursed.
The amplification came with a price: an insatiable hunger for more power, and a corruption that turned the user's magic dark and twisted. We'd sealed it away after Valdris had nearly bonded with it himself. I'd stopped him at the last second, and we'd both agreed it was too dangerous ever to use.
And now Yuki had it, almost like it was a piece of jewelry.
The vortex of dark energy began to subside, pulling back into Yuki's body. She stood there, breathing hard, her hand still clutching the crystal—except it wasn't separate from her anymore. It had merged with her palm, visible just beneath the skin, pulsing with dark light.
"Yuki?" Ren said carefully. "Are you okay?"
She looked up at him, and I saw the exact moment the corruption took hold. Her expression shifted from shock to wonder to something darker. Hunger.
"I'm…" She raised her hand, and dark energy crackled around her fingers. "I'm incredible."
She thrust her hand forward, and a bolt of dark magic shot out, striking the far wall. The stone exploded, leaving a crater three feet deep.
We all just stared at her.
"That was…" Yuki looked at her hand, her eyes wide. "That was a basic force bolt. I barely put any power into it."
"Yuki," I said carefully, "listen to me. That crystal is—"
"Amazing," she breathed. "I can feel it. The power. It's like… like I've been walking around half-blind my whole life, and now I can finally see." She looked at me, and something was unsettling in her gaze. "Why would anyone seal this away? This is incredible!"
"Because it's cursed," I said flatly. "That crystal will corrupt you. It will make you crave more and more power until you lose yourself completely."
"You don't know that," Yuki said, but her voice had an edge to it now. Defensive. Possessive.
"I do know that," I said, and I had to be careful here. "The warnings on the cabinet—they weren't just for show. Whoever created that crystal sealed it away for a reason."
"Then we'll find a way to remove it," Ren said, moving to Yuki's side. "There has to be a way to break the binding."
There was. Two ways, actually.
One: I could break it myself, using the same magic I'd used to create it.
Two: Valdris could break it, since he'd helped design the curse.
Both options required revealing secrets I'd spent centuries keeping.
"The binding is complex," I said, which was the understatement of the millennium. "It would take someone with extensive knowledge of curse-breaking and ancient magic. Someone who understood exactly how the crystal was made."
"Then we'll find that someone," Ren said firmly. "We'll go to the Royal Academy, consult with the greatest mages in the kingdom. Whatever it takes."
Yuki wasn't listening. She was staring at her hand, watching the dark energy dance across her fingers. "Maybe… maybe I don't want it removed."
"What?" Hiro looked at her in shock.
"Think about it," Yuki said, her voice taking on a fervent quality. "With this power, we could defeat Valdris easily. We could save the kingdom. Isn't that worth a little risk?"
"A little risk?" I said incredulously. "That crystal will consume you!"
"You don't know that!" Yuki snapped, and dark energy flared around her. The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. "You're just a bartender! What do you know about magic?"
Her words hurt more than I expected. She was right; as far as she knew, I was just a bartender. I had no reason to tell her what to. Of course, I was also the one who made the thing that was now corrupting her, but I couldn't exactly say that out loud. that.
"We need to leave," Sora said quietly. She'd been silent this whole time, watching everything with calculating eyes. "Now. Before something else goes wrong."
"Agreed," Ren said, though he looked torn. "Yuki, we'll figure this out. But we need to get you somewhere safe first."
"I'm fine," Yuki insisted, but her hand was trembling. The crystal pulsed beneath her skin, and I could see the corruption spreading—thin, dark veins creeping up her wrist like roots.
We probably had about a week before it took her over completely.
Maybe less.
"Let's go," I said, turning toward the door. I needed to think. Needed to figure out how to fix this without revealing who I was.
As we filed out of the chamber, I glanced back at my old workshop. At the journals and notes and evidence of a life I'd tried to leave behind.
Eight hundred years of hiding, ruined because I was too drunk to seal a wine cellar the right way.
And now one of these kids was cursed with a weapon I'd created, bound by magic that only two people in the world could break.
One of those people was the Demon Lord they were trying to kill.
The other was me.
"Kaito-san," Sora said quietly as we climbed the stairs. "You knew what that crystal was. Before she touched it."
It wasn't a question.
"Lucky guess," I said.
"Right," Sora said, her tone making it clear she didn't believe me for a second. "Lucky."
We emerged from the dungeon into afternoon sunlight that felt too bright, too cheerful for what had just happened. Yuki stood apart from the group, staring at her corrupted hand with an expression that was equal parts fear and fascination.
Ren was trying to comfort her. Hiro was praying quietly.
And there I was, watching my past catch up to me, knowing the only way to fix this was to reveal secrets that would change everything.
I'd spent over a thousand years staying out of history.
It seemed like history had finally caught up to me.
"So," Sora said, still watching me with those too-clever eyes. "What do we do now?"
I looked at Yuki, at the dark energy crackling around her fingers, at the hunger growing in her eyes.
"Now," I said quietly, "we try to keep her alive long enough to break the curse."
"And how do we do that?"
I thought about Valdris, about the Demon Lord who was once my student. About the choice I was going to have to make.
"I'm working on it," I lied.
But the truth was, I only had two options.
Reveal myself and break the curse.
Or find Valdris and convince him to do it.
Either way, I have a quiet life as a bartender.
I really should have just stayed in bed.