Azazel sat motionless at the table, the letter still open before him, its words echoing louder than the silence that filled the room.
A key.
He slowly turned to the shelf, eyes narrowing. The inkpot had always been there. Old. Dried out. Cracked.
Still, he reached for it.
Inside, half-sunken in old black residue, was a small iron key, cold and oddly sharp in his fingers. He blinked.
"…You weren't joking," he muttered.
He turned the key over in his palm. It felt heavier than it should have—like it carried the weight of the truth.
For a moment, Azazel just stood there, stunned.
Then the memories came. This past year. The old man's strange disappearances. His endless "business trips." The times he came home late, bruised or sweating, with no explanation. He never talked about it or changed topics.
Now, looking back, Azazel could also find it suspicious that grandpa personally trained him since the very childhood.
Sword drills. Horse riding. Firearms. Hunting. Tracking. And a couple of private tutors!
He even received education in medicine!
At the time, Azazel had rolled his eyes. "You want me to be your assassin, grandpa?" he'd once joked.
But now it all made a sick kind of sense.
None of it had been for appearances. Not to "fit the image" of their aristocratic merchant family as old man once said. Not even to defend against burglars or rivals.
He was being prepared.
And that realization rattled something deep.
He took a shaky breath.
Had he really known the old man at all?
He'd called him "grandpa," lived with him for years. But how much of that was a mask? A lie crafted to protect him—or a lie built on fear?
Azazel shook his head.
"No. He still made me breakfast. Still tucked the blanket around me when I fell asleep on the floor. Still slapped me upside the head when I cursed too loud."
But… demons?
He still couldn't believe it. He had spent his youth in a church-run orphanage, hearing priests preach of sin and angels. He'd hated it. Hated them. Hated the holy oil and sour wine and sermons spoken at him, not to him.
It was why he named himself Azazel.
A spit in the face to God. A dare to be punished.
And now?
Now demons were real?
He crouched down on the floor, still holding the key.
Ten minutes passed.
Ten long, stupid, crawling minutes of tapping and pressing every inch of the wooden boards, moving furniture, swearing under his breath.
Just as frustration crept up his spine and he was about to punch the damn floor—one board shifted under his weight.
Click.
Azazel froze.
He pressed again.
The plank wobbled.
He knelt and pried at it with his fingers, then a knife. Finally, the board came up—and underneath it, he saw a small metal panel with a hidden lock.
The key slid in perfectly.
With a click, the panel lifted.
A stairwell descended into blackness.
Azazel stood for a second, just staring. Then he grabbed the oil lamp from the wall, lit it, and took a breath.
"…You better not be messing with me, old man."
And he stepped down into the dark.