The Sorcerer's Handbook

Chapter 160: Iger and Amy

To Iger's right sat a large cardboard box stuffed with more than twenty packs of tissues, likely purchased during a clearance sale. A box heater rested on top, piled amid unused furniture and miscellaneous items. To his left stood a tightly shut door.

This was the storage room. It was also where he had been living for the past five days.

The space was cramped, dark, and cluttered. His stomach growled right on time, like an alarm, telling him it was already six in the evening and that Amy should be back soon to feed him.

Thinking back on the past few days, Iger could not help but sigh. He had achieved his goal and survived the relentless pursuit of the Heresy Court, but the method he had chosen was, to put it mildly, unconventional. Over those days, Amy had treated him like a dog. An actual dog.

Iger reached up and tugged at the collar around his neck, a sharp flicker of irony rising in his chest. He had painstakingly removed the chip embedded in the back of his neck to claim his freedom. Now, in pursuit of that same freedom, he had willingly fastened a real collar around his throat.

As for why Amy Lexas, a hunter from the Heresy Court, had chosen to shelter him, the answer dated back three years, to when Iger had worked part-time at a mud cafe.

Much like formally employed ogres painting in oil after work, male veelas often took part-time jobs at mud cafes. Iger, however, was an exception. To him, honest labor was far too slow a way to make a living. Deception paid better and faster.

So when he did agree to work there, it meant only one thing. The cafe offered him the perfect environment for his schemes.

Lust and Gambling Apocalypse was exactly that kind of place. On the surface, it was both a mud cafe and a teahouse. Its name sounded like a casino, and in part, it was. The difference lay in its rules. The true stake was not money, but time.

Customers could freely choose a dealer to challenge. Each side put up sixty minutes. If the customer won all sixty minutes from the dealer, they gained complete control over the dealer's time for an hour and could demand anything within reason. If the dealer won, the situation reversed, and the customer would submit to the dealer's control for sixty minutes instead.

Win or lose, the dealer would still serve the customer. After all, the chips were bought with real money, and any cafe that failed to respect its customers would not survive for long.

In essence, it was a gambling cafe combined with a teahouse, but it far outperformed similar establishments. Gambling was the purest catalyst of human impulse. Winners left exhilarated, losers endured strict control, and the desire to reclaim losses drove them back again and again. Repeat customers were abundant.

Iger's reason for working there was simple. He wanted to exploit the mechanism that gave him command over others for sixty minutes.

He targeted wealthy women, lured them into challenges, and ensured victory. Once he claimed their sixty minutes, he brought them into private rooms and used that authority to make them swear oaths such as "Treat me well for life" or "I will give you my most treasured possessions."

Believing it to be nothing more than a dealer's eccentric whim, the wealthy women agreed without hesitation. What they did not realize was that Iger had bound their vows with the Contract spirit, turning their casually spoken oaths into absolute compliance. They couldn't even report to the local authorities, as doing so would violate the oath "I will treat you well for life."

As a result, many of these women were stripped of their entire fortunes. Even then, Iger still refused any sexual favors, making his actions all the more unethical.

Occasionally, wealthy men approached him as well. Iger accepted them all. He even made them swear to reserve all their sexual desire for him, effectively curing them of their susceptibility to temptation.

Just like that, by taking money without seeking pleasure, Iger's part-time work had redistributed wealth with remarkable efficiency, sometimes even more effectively than his main job. But smooth sailing was a stranger to a fraudster's life, and one night, Iger met Amy.

Thanks to his extraordinary win rate, he quickly earned the title of Gambling King at the cafe. Not everyone was drawn to him for his appearance; some came simply to test their gambling skills, and Amy was one of them.

When Amy entered, she made no effort to hide her Moonshadow heritage. Iger had no desire to provoke someone of such privileged lineage, yet Amy singled him out and challenged him. With no one else willing to face a Moonshadow in his stead, Iger had no choice but to accept.

Amy was skilled, but Iger had more than gambling prowess on his side. As a fraudster, he understood human nature, and that insight was his true secret to winning every match. When he defeated Amy without difficulty, he had already decided not to make a move against her. Instead, he would simply continue his part-time work at the cafe and consider himself "bitten by a dog[1]."

But Amy refused to give up. She insisted on continuing to gamble and even purchased additional chips. Multiple purchases were permitted, and to encourage spending, the rules stated that if a customer bought N

times the chips, the dealer had to provide N times the service, regardless of win or loss. Before the second round began, Iger asked on a whim, "If I win, can I make a wish that lasts 120 minutes?"

"No problem," Amy replied, and with those words, the contract was sealed.

Unlike ordinary contracts, Iger imposed strict limits, specifying it as a single wish with a duration of 120 minutes. The more clearly a contract defined its restrictions, the stronger its effect became. Iger had taken into consideration that Amy was a Moonshadow and that his usual oppressor contracts might not be enough.

When Amy had lost three hundred minutes, the situation grew complicated. She appeared to receive an urgent message and abruptly left the cafe. Iger soon discovered that Amy was a Bloodrage Hunter. He immediately realized that the wish he held was a rare treasure.

Since then, Amy frequently returned to gamble with him, employing a variety of tools and strategies. Occasionally, she won, but for the most part, Iger remained in control. The contract's time limit accumulated over multiple rounds, eventually totaling nine thousand minutes.

Just as Iger was considering how to maximize the benefits of his wish, the Heresy Court arrived at the café to capture him. That was why Amy kept challenging him without ever triggering the "gambling settlement" phase. High-level Bloodrage Hunters often presented themselves as prey to lure fraudsters in.

Caught off guard, Iger had no time to alter his memories. When the memory specialist examined him, all of his fraud cases were exposed, thus beginning his "vacation" in Shattered Lake Prison.

Despite his capture, Iger's contract with Amy remained valid. The Virtual World stood as its enduring witness. After escaping, he went straight to Amy's door and exacted his revenge on the woman in pajamas.

"I command you to assist me in escaping the Blood Moon Kingdom," he said.

It was a single wish, yet it encompassed three demands. Amy was to provide Iger with safe lodging and food, keep his whereabouts hidden, and gather intelligence on his behalf. She fulfilled every one of them.

And so, Iger remained in the cramped storage room, waiting each day for Amy to return and feed him. He could not claim she had violated the contract. She merely fulfilled his demands in the most humiliating ways possible.

Click.

The sound of a key in the lock signaled Amy's return.

1. In other words, Iger chose to endure the slight quietly, chalking it up as bad luck rather than escalating the situation. ☜