“Are you acquainted with Instructor Noel?”
“Just a bit. I had the chance to meet her around one decade ago. She had just been a regular War Maiden at the time, and I was the head of the Magician’s Association. I believe it was during the Cordobalt Catastrophe when she and I chanced upon each other.”
Brianna shivered at the mention of the Cordobalt Catastrophe, which had been a catastrophic event where a rogue pureblood vampire named Cordobalt Venswick teamed up with a rogue magician to create a large-scale magic circle that consumed an entire city. Instructor Noel had been one of the people sent to stop Cordobalt. She did in the end, but more than a third of the population had been wiped out before she could finish her job.
Before she could ask Lucretia any more questions, they arrived in front of a door. Lucretia opened the door and walked in. Brianna followed her.
What lay beyond the door was a room much like the one she’d woken up in but with different furnishings. However, what grabbed her attention was not the expensive furniture. It was the figure lying on the bed.
“Anthony!”
She raced over to the bed and stopped. Her heart leapt into her throat and her knees turned weak when she saw the man lying there, his eyes closed, face pale and gaunt, and body completely inert. She leaned down and tried to touch him, to see if he was really there, but Lucretia slapped her hand away.
“Don’t.” The Time Witch gave Brianna a mild glare. “At present, I have stopped Anthony’s time, putting him in a form of suspended animation. However, this kind of magic is incredibly delicate. If you touch him, your mana could infect the tapestries of magic I’ve woven around his body to keep him like this.”
Brianna jerked her hand back. She looked at Anthony, and then at Lucretia.
“Why have you stopped his time?” she asked, feeling something unsettling drop into the pit of her stomach. She had a bad feeling about this.
The woman’s next words made those feelings increase a thousand fold.
“Because Anthony is currently dying and there is no longer anything I can do to save him,” she said with a dim look in her eyes.
Chapter 6
“What… what do you mean?”
Brianna was stunned. Lucretia couldn’t save Anthony? Surely there was something she could do? She was the Time Witch, a magician of such outstanding power that even the Vampire Lords and Beast King would not fight her unless they had no choice. Her powers over time were incomparable!
Lucretia smiled as if she knew what Brianna was thinking.
“I may have powers over time, but there are rules I must follow regarding such a temporal law like time.” She glanced at Anthony and bit her lip, causing Brianna to also glance at the pale-faced man who currently looked even weaker than usual. “For the past year, I have been turning back Anthony’s time over and over again to restore what little mana he has inside of his body. However, incubus, like succubus, have an incredibly strong magical resistance. You know of a demon’s magical resistance, yes?”
“It’s a demon’s ability to resist outside magical interference that influences the mind and body,” Brianna answered.
“A textbook answer, but you’re only scratching the surface.” Lucretia sighed as she walked over to the bed and placed her hand on Anthony’s forehead. It was an oddly intimate gesture that took Brianna aback and made her wonder about the relationship these two had. “Demons are born with an innate ability to resist any and all forms of magic. Of course, this includes magical attacks like spells, seals, and even natural phenomena like mana storms. Incubus are no different in this regard. However, incubus are also inherently special.”
“How so?” asked Brianna.
“Because their magical resistance toward a specific type of magic seems to increase every time you use it on them,” Lucretia answered, finally looking away from Anthony to stare at her. “I have been reversing Anthony’s time for the past year, and in that year, my ability to help him has slowly dwindled. Anthony himself doesn’t seem to realize it, but the amount of mana he has now is only about a third of what it was when I first began helping him. I suspect I would only be able to reverse his time two or three more times before his body became completely resistant to it.”
Brianna sucked in a breath. She had no idea such a thing was even possible, but if Lucretia was saying it, then it must be true, which of course meant this woman really couldn’t help him.
Biting her lower lip, Brianna glanced at the frail figure on the bed. A sharp pain entered her chest. She rubbed it, but this feeling would not go away no matter how much she tried to massage it out, for it wasn’t something she felt on the outside. This was no physical wound.
“So there is… nothing we can do?” Brianna whispered as she felt her eyes sting. She blinked once as a tear fell down her pale cheeks. Reaching up, she wiped at her eyes, then stared at the water on her fingers. Shock coursed through her. Ever since she’d been picked up by Custodes Daemonium, she could not remember crying even once.
“There is nothing I can,” Lucretia admitted. “However, there is something that you can do.”
“Something I can do?”
Brianna’s eyes widened as she heard this. She glanced at Anthony and remembered what happened during their battle against that vampire, how he had used his own body to save her from the impact of falling from several hundred feet. He had protected her even though she had been trying to kill him.
She closed her eyes and struggled to make a decision, to choose between saving this man and just letting him die. Custodes Daemonium had ordered his death. If she did nothing, he would die and she would accomplish her mission.
But doing so would hurt. It would really, really hurt.
It was only now, at this juncture, that she truly understood what kind of impact Anthony had left on her. She had spent the past week with Anthony, living next to him, seeing him everyday, going out with him and experiencing things she never had before coming to Academy Island. The time she had spent with him had been so much fun. More than that, however, Brianna had come to understand what kind of person Anthony was.
Anthony was a caring person who worked hard, treated others with respect, and didn’t seek power for powers sake. He could have built a harem and become incomparably strong, so strong he could probably take over Academy Island, but he didn’t. He lived a quiet life as a college student. His only real desire was to bring his brother out of a coma.
Brianna admired Anthony. She respected him. What’s more, even just thinking about him made her heart flutter and her chest feel warm. He invoked feelings in her that she did not understand. She had been hoping to explore those feelings until the order to kill him had come…
“What… can I do to save him?” Brianna finally asked, turning her gaze to Lucretia.
The infamous Time Witch smiled, but she didn’t answer right away.
“Tell me, how do you feel about Anthony?”
“How do I feel?” Brianna scrunched up her face. “I think he is a great person. I… while I was ordered to kill him, I would much rather see him live. He does not deserve to die.”
“That’s the kind of answer I would expect from that old hag’s disciple.” Lucretia sighed and shook her head as though Brianna had said something annoying. “Let me try this in a way even someone dense like you can understand: Do you love Anthony?”
While Brianna initially felt insulted at being called dense, her expression, which had been narrowed in anger, suddenly froze as if someone had cast an ice spell on her. Yet even though her face was frozen, her blood flow was not. Heat rushed to her cheeks.
“W-what kind of question is that?!” She looked away.
“A very important question.” Lucretia answered, the frills of her sleeves rustling as she crossed her arms. “Anthony is an incubus. You understand what that is, right? While there are many differences between incubus and succubus, their powers, at least, are quite similar. An incubus’s power comes from the harem of women who become
bound to him—his bondmates. They are not just the source of his power. Without having several bondmates to constantly provide him with mana, he will eventually die.”
It was well-documented knowledge that succubus formed harems, bonding with men in a symbiotic relationship. In exchange for giving a succubus a constant supply of mana through sex, the bondmate also received outstanding benefits like eternal youth, the ability to use one of the succubus’s powers, and great sex—or so Brianna had been told. She wasn’t so sure about that last one.
An incubus was supposedly the male version of a succubus. All the documents and texts regarding this elusive creature pointed toward this being true. In every historical text regarding them, the incubus who created a Magic Catastrophe on the level that exceeded an S-rank classification always had a harem of powerful women by his side. The last time an incubus showed up was about 500 years ago, and it had resulted in the incubus and three women laying waste to the entire Custodes Daemonium organization. It had required every member of their organization overwhelming this group with sheer numbers, tiring them out by constantly battling day and night for an entire month, just to kill them.
Brianna had read up on this for her mission, but she hadn’t really thought about what that would mean for her.
“So you… want me to have sex with Anthony?” Brianna asked hesitantly, her cheeks burning like an inferno. “You are asking me to become his bondmate?”
“If you want to save him, that is the only way.” Lucretia shrugged. “Of course, you can choose not to. No one can force this on you.”
Brianna felt like she was at a crossroads in her life. On one side was the life she knew, the comfortable life where she was a member of Custodes Daemonium. In this life, she didn’t have to think about anything, about right or wrong, about what she had and what she lacked. She just had to follow her orders to the best of her abilities.
On the other side was a life as Anthony’s bondmate, a world of uncertainty, a world she didn’t understand and even somewhat feared, but also a world where she would get to stay by Anthony’s side and explore these feelings she had for him. It might be hard. No, it would definitely be hard. Yet when she pictured herself ten years from now, the images she imagined invoked a pleasant feeling within her chest.
She took a deep breath and came to a decision.
“I’ll do it,” Brianna said, her eyes hardening in determination even as her cheeks grew increasingly hotter. “Just tell me what I need to do.”
When Lucretia heard her answer, the infamous Time Witch, a woman so great she was given the same threat classification as this world’s most powerful demons, someone even her instructed respected and feared, gave the first genuine smile Brianna had seen from her since this meeting began.
When Anthony felt his consciousness return, he was a little surprised. He’d honestly not been expecting to wake up at all.
His surprise fled moments later when exhaustion hit him. He’d never felt this tired before in his entire life. It was like all of his life essence had been drained out of his body.
He opened his eyes and found himself in a room that was actually vaguely familiar. It looked like one of Professor Incanscino’s rooms. As he turned his head to study where he was, the face of Brianna appeared before his eyes.
“You’re awake,” Brianna murmured with a voice he’d never heard from her before. It was… odd. He couldn’t place it, but there was a lot of emotion in her voice. “Thank God. I don’t know what I would have done if you had died.”
Anthony wanted to ask her if that was something someone who had tried to kill him should say, but something told him now was not the time.
“What… happened?” he asked instead.
“We were rescued by Lucretia Incanscino,” Brianna explained. “I believe she found us buried underneath the rubble of that building we fell through. She’s the one who healed us after bringing us to her home.”
Anthony would have nodded at her words, but he was far too exhausted, his body like lead and his mind sluggish as though he was wading through quicksand. Now that he was thinking about it, he couldn’t remember a single time where he ever felt this awful before. Even after he and Brianna met for the first time, he hadn’t been in this bad of shape.
“Anthony…” Brianna called out to him again, and Anthony blinked several times to focus on her face, which he only now noticed was filled with worry. She was biting her lip. “There is something I need to tell you. You are currently dying. You exhausted nearly all of your mana when we battled against that vampire. Lucretia healed your physical injuries, but apparently, you have built up such a strong magical resistance to her magic that she can no longer rewind time for you.”
Listening to everything she said, Anthony only felt a vague disappointment.
“Oh… so I’m dying. Well, that sucks.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, Anthony looked at Brianna as he spoke. “Hey, I’m sorry to ask this of you, but can you do me a favor? When I’m gone, I want you to ask the people from Custodes Daemonium if they can take Calvin in. I couldn’t save him, but maybe they can. Will you do that for me?”
Brianna’s eyes widened for a moment, a look of uncomprehending shock on her face, but then she narrowed her eyes.
“I won’t.”
Anthony felt a brief moment of irritation before his exhaustion swept it away. “But… why? I don’t think I’m asking for too much. Is it because I’m an incubus?”
“That’s not it.” Brianna’s long red hair wavered as she shook her head. “I’m not going to do it because you are not going to die. Lucretia told me there is a way I can save you.”
Even though Anthony felt awful, like his spirit was already slipping out of his body, he was at least smart enough to understand what she meant. He narrowed his eyes a little and shook his head.
“I can’t. I won’t.”
“Why not?” Brianna snapped, actually sounding angry at him. “Why won’t you bind me to you? I’m offering myself to you! I’m willing to become your bondmate! Or is it that you don’t think I’m good enough for you?”
“That’s not it at all,” Anthony muttered.
“Then why?! Don’t you want to wake your brother from his coma?! You can’t do that if you’re dead! If there is a chance to live, why won’t you take it?! What are you so afraid of?!”
Anthony’s hand twitched when Brianna mentioned him being afraid, but it wasn’t like he could deny her words. He closed his eyes. A vision of loveliness appeared in front of him, a woman with hair like midnight, eyes like cobalts, and an aristocratic face reminiscent of nobility that was filled with kindness and warmth. The vision faded, even as he reached out to grasp it, and he opened his eyes again to discover Brianna still staring at him.
“You’re right. I am afraid,” he admitted. “I’m afraid of losing these feelings I have. Incubus magically bind women to them. These women become the backbone of his entire existence. They don’t just provide an incubus with mana. If I bind a woman to me, I will be giving them my body and soul. I will be giving everything to them. I’m afraid that if I do that, if I give myself to another woman, my feelings for Lilith will disappear…”
It was something he had never admitted out loud, his greatest fear and the true reason he refused to bind any woman to him. His feelings for Lilith were something he held closely to his heart. Lilith had saved him and his brother, had given them a place to live, a purpose to live for. She had been his everything. He didn’t want to replace her. He didn’t want to forget these feelings because of his nature as an incubus.
“You are really loyal to Lilith, aren’t you?” Brianna asked with a strange look on her face, a mixture of admiration and pain. “I’m kind of jealous of her, to be honest. I wish I had someone who loved me that much. However, don’t you think you are doing Lilith a disservice by giving your life away like this? I don’t know what exactly happened, but she is the reason you became an incubus, right? She g
ave her life and powers to you. If you die right here, her sacrifice will have been in vain.”
Anthony blinked several times. Lilith’s sacrifice would be in vain if he died, wouldn’t it? He had never thought about it like that before, but it was true that she had given up her life and powers for his sake, turning him into an incubus at the cost of her own life. All this time he had shunned female contact because he didn’t want his feelings for Lilith to disappear, but dying like this when she sacrificed everything for his sake really would be dishonoring her memory.
“I guess… you do bring up a good point,” he muttered. “But I…”
“You’re worried,” Brianna said, offering him a small smile. “You’re not alone in that. I’m worried too, about becoming your bondmate, I mean. I’ve lived most of my life being trained by Custodes Daemonium to slay demons, and yet here I am about to let myself become bound to one. I’m terrified.”
“Speaking of, are you really sure about this?” he asked her. “I don’t think Custodes Daemonium will appreciate you going against their orders like this.”
Brianna’s eyes only wavered for a moment before hardening. It was as if someone had ignited a fire within her.
“I’ve already made my choice,” she stated with complete certainty. “I’ve decided that you don’t deserve to die, and that I… I wish to explore these feelings I have for you.”
Anthony sucked in a breath. “You have feelings for me?”
“I-I don’t know exactly what I feel,” Brianna admitted with a blush that made her seem way cuter than such a buxom woman had any right to be. “But I do feel something, and I want to explore what they are. I want to understand them.”
“I understand.” Anthony paused. “So… how should we do this? I’m afraid I can’t really move right now…”
“Right now, your body is extremely weak because you’ve depleted all your mana,” Brianna explained as she pulled the covers back, revealing inch after inch of his bare skin. It was only now that Anthony realized he was naked under these covers. “At present, you probably can’t move at all because of that. Um… I don’t have any experience with this sort of thing, but I do know the basics about procreation. And Lucretia gave me a few pointers.”
Incubus 1 Page 12
