“The well has been tainted by demons!”
Priest Thomas’s voice rang through the temple, bouncing off the high stone walls. Murmurs rippled through the gathered villagers.
“And what, pray tell, do you intend to do with that accursed water?” he demanded.
Edward folded his arms, meeting the priest’s glare with infuriating calm. “I thought it might be useful to irrigate the fields. According to my calculations, it’s the nearest source to the farmland.”
He left the real reason unsaid.
“Lies!” Thomas thundered. “You’re plotting some foul experiment again, aren’t you?”
It was clear enough—he meant to block any attempt to access the well.
“After everything that’s happened, you still haven’t learned? It’s disgraceful!”
Edward’s patience, already worn thin, began to fray.
And then—
“That’s right!” someone shouted.
“Enough is enough!”
“It’s because of you, my lord, that the estate’s in such ruin!”
“Your black magic has brought the wrath of Theos upon us!”
The priest’s scolding seemed to embolden them. The crowd, already simmering, began to boil over.
Their accusations were enough to get them flogged under normal circumstances, but fear had given way to fury, and they had nothing left to lose.
What utter nonsense… Edward thought. Black magic had nothing to do with the drought. But in this backwater, the farmers had never had proper schooling. Their thinking was… simple.
That wretched priest’s been stirring them up.
The drought had dragged on for over a decade, driving people half-mad. All it took was someone offering a neat explanation for them to latch onto it. And what better scapegoat than the lord’s son with a taste for forbidden magic?
Edward gave a wry smile. Now he understood the hostility he’d felt on his way here. To these people, it was obvious: the gods punished bad rulers with disaster. A comforting little superstition for the ignorant.
“Repent!” someone cried.
“Take responsibility!”
“This is all your fault!”
Edward had come with nothing but a sword at his hip, no guards in sight. The crowd teetered on the edge of becoming a mob—and Thomas wasn’t lifting a finger to stop them. His expression was stern, but his lips curled ever so slightly.
“I’m sorry,” Edward said.
Silence dropped over the temple like a stone into a pond. Not one soul had expected the young lord to apologize.
“I’ve failed to understand your hardship,” he continued, his voice firm. “I truly am sorry.”
The sincerity—or at least the convincing performance of it—left the simple farmers floundering.
“From this day on, I mean to change. Priest Thomas—”
“Yes?” The priest’s brow twitched.
“I wish to drink the holy water.”
“H–holy water?” Thomas stammered, taken off guard.
As I thought.
Whatever it was, Edward suspected its base was mana water—and it didn’t take a genius to guess where they’d drawn it from. Thomas knew full well that Edward suffered from mana reflux. A single swallow of mana-rich water could trigger it—and if that happened here, the priest would find himself in a very awkward position.
“I want to cleanse my body of the evil energy it has accumulated,” Edward said. “Surely Theos’s holy water can do that?”
The villagers began murmuring again, and Edward turned toward them.
“I swear never to touch black magic again. I’ll burn every last book. But first, I’ll purify this corrupted body with the priest’s holy water.”
“That’s what we want!” someone called.
“Hear, hear!”
The shouts gathered strength.
“Priest Thomas,” Edward said, fixing him with a look.
“Yes?”
“Please give me the holy water.”
“You… you cannot,” Thomas said at last.
“Why not?”
“Your body is already tainted with evil energy. The holy water would be too much for you to endure.”
A passable excuse—but still exactly the opening Edward had planned for.
“If I don’t cleanse this body, the drought will never end. I’m willing to give my life for the people who suffer because of me.”
That silenced more than the priest. The villagers, too, looked uneasy. The thought of their lord’s son dying for them had an unsettling weight to it.
“I won’t live long anyway, not with my health,” Edward pressed. “Let me at least use what’s left to help. Every healthy man ought to live properly, shouldn’t he?”
Thomas’s eyes darted like trapped insects, his mind scrambling for an escape.
“No,” he said sharply.
“There’s no need to go that far,” a villager chimed in, and others echoed him. They had lashed out in anger, but now the idea of Edward dying for them struck too close to home.
“No,” Edward said, his tone unyielding. “I’ll drink it and end this drought. Priest—please.”
Thomas hesitated. Then, as if struck by inspiration, he said, “What if… you drank just a little? Too much at once might harm you.”
Edward understood the ploy—just enough to avoid triggering the reflux.
“Yes! That’s a sensible idea!”
“Look after your health, my lord!”
“Think of the estate!”
The villagers rallied to the suggestion.
“Very well,” Edward said at last, smiling in a way that made Thomas look suddenly nervous.
—
Edward had tasted holy water in his previous life—real holy water, blessed by the gods themselves, the kind that could snatch a dying man back from the brink of death.
The so-called holy water given by the Griffith priest, however, was nothing more than ordinary mana water.
Thomas had offered him only a token sip, citing “possible side effects,” but Edward’s tongue, well acquainted with mana water from endless campaigns in his past life, was not so easily fooled.
The only difference is the glow, he mused.
Indeed, the strange thing about the priest’s “holy water” was its light. That faint radiance was enough to make the villagers believe in its sanctity.
Paulo would know why…
Paulo, the Alchemist King, had been a member of the Death Squad—an unmatched master of herbs and reagents. More than a few comrades owed their lives to his concoctions.
And with the memory of Paulo’s expertise came the answer Edward had been reaching for: the name of a plant that glowed when it came into contact with mana-rich liquid.
The villagers called it Starwind.
Leaving the temple, Edward made straight for the village herbalist, a gruff man named Grix.
“Starwind?” the man echoed.
“Yes. Is it found around here?”
“It’s everywhere. Nasty little weed. What do you need it for?”
“A handful will do. I’ll pay.”
“No need. I wouldn’t take money for something so useless. Wait here.”
Moments later, Grix returned with a bundle of what looked like common weeds.
“This is Starwind?”
“See for yourself—the seeds look like tiny stars. When the wind blows, they float off everywhere, and once they stick to your clothes, good luck getting them off.”
“Appreciate it. And… forget we spoke today.”
Edward took the plant and headed back to the castle, seeking out Frederick.
“Forks, sir? Shall I set the table?”
“No, just the forks. Two will do.”
“…What for?”
“I’ll explain later. Don’t tell me you’ve sold them all?”
“Of course not.”
Frederick handed them over, still suspicious.
Edward used the pommel of his sword to snap off the tines until only one remained on each fork, creating two crude lockpicks.
Arsène would have been proud, he thought.
Arsène, the Great Thief, had been the only criminal among the Death Squad—distrusted for his past, yet unmatched in skill. His talents in infiltration and lockpicking had saved countless lives; it was thanks to him that they’d stolen the blueprints from the Demon King’s fortress, preventing a massacre.
Edward had inherited every ounce of his dexterity. With these makeshift picks, there wasn’t a lock in the keep he couldn’t open.
His eyes fell on a pile of alchemical equipment in the corner of the study—gear the old Edward had likely bought in an attempt to brew cures. Combined with Paulo’s knowledge, it would be more than enough to analyze the contents of the “holy water.”
—
Meanwhile, in the village, a man named Logan was fuming. A native of Griffith lands, he had been one of the first to call Edward the Black Mage Lord.
It hadn’t always been so. The villagers had once loved the young heir. They had prayed for him when word spread that he was gravely ill. Even when he grew irritable and withdrawn, they pitied him, believing his illness to be the cause.
But then came the experiments—the locked doors, the strange smells, the obsession with dangerous magic.
When a drought that had already lasted years began to ruin harvest after harvest, Logan’s bitterness festered. The final blow came when bandits kidnapped his younger brother, and the lord’s son showed no interest in the plight of his people.
Priest Thomas had given Logan the words he needed: that divine punishment fell upon the land because of someone’s wickedness. He never named Edward, but everyone knew.
And the holy water Thomas dispensed brought Logan a sense of cleansing and elation strong enough to make him sell possessions for another sip.
So when a cry went up—”The Black Mage Lord has opened the Demon’s Well!”—Logan ran to the square with the rest, heart pounding.
There was Edward, sitting casually on the well’s edge. The heavy lid, once locked tight, now lay open.
“That’s the Demon’s Well!”
“What are you doing?!”
“This will bring disaster!”
“You drank holy water and still haven’t repented?!”
The crowd roared.
“Is everyone here?” Edward asked mildly, standing and tossing a bucket into the depths.
“You’re about to see something.”
He hauled the bucket up and poured its contents into a large glass vessel. The liquid inside was as black as oil.
“It’s the water of demons!”
“We’re all going to die!”
“Fetch the priest!”
Logan stepped forward, sleeves rolled up. This had gone far enough.
But before he could reach him, a sword was at his throat. Blood trickled down before he even saw Edward move.
The square fell silent.
Edward had never been known for swordsmanship—his frail body had kept him from training. Yet in that moment, Logan’s instincts screamed that the slightest movement would cost him his head.
“I know you all hate me,” Edward said evenly. “And you can kill me if you like… but first, watch.”
Logan stumbled back, and Edward reached into his pocket, pulling out the Starwind and a single gold coin.
“Anyone know this plant? A gold piece for the right answer.”
A murmur ran through the villagers until someone called out, “Starwind.”
“Correct.” Edward tossed him the coin.
“Now look closely.”
He dropped the plant into the black water.
WHOOMPH—white flames leapt from the vessel.
“Demon fire!”
The villagers recoiled in terror, until the flames died down.
And then they gasped.
The black water had turned pure white, shimmering with a gentle glow.
“That’s… holy water,” someone breathed.
It was the very same light-blessed liquid they’d been paying the temple for.
Cliche Novel 