“Manus, aqua me tege; naturae cede.” Aurelius muttered, stepping out of the waves that had invaded the sacred places in his wet feet.

  However, as the water pulled itself out of the fabric, Aurelius remembered a rather inconvenient fact that was written as a footnote in the grimoire that he had learned the spell from.

  As an incredibly simple basic spell, ‘Water Repulsion’ did not remove… impurities with the water…

  As expected, as Aurelius drained the water in his shoes back into the ocean, he found that his socks and shoes were now full of white crystals of salt that rubbed aggressively against his feet like some sort of medieval torture device.

  “Haa…” Aurelius sighed, taking off his crusty, powdered socks to crush them into the mouth of his shoes. He would have to walk barefoot until he could find freshwater to clean off the salt from his footwear.

  The hems of his trousers were not too much of an issue, given that it wasn’t actively abrasing against his skin, so it would stay on, albeit rolled up to his calves in order to cool off in the tropical weather.

  He also took his coat off, and tied its arms around his neck like a cloak and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, unbuttoning two buttons to give himself the casual look of an unmarried 30 year old sailor.

  He didn’t mind simply ditching the coat. After all, his things would reset with the rest of the world within a matter of a few weeks.

  However, the moral resistance of littering in such a beautiful place, and the fact that the dry clothing item had the potential to be used as tinder for fire made him feel reluctant to simply abandon it for now. One could call it an accountant’s risk-averse decision.

  “Contractor, you may stop ignoring me.” Pultris seduced haughtily, desperately calling out for Aurelius’s attention.

  “Pft, I don’t need to reply to your ancient nonsense. And in the end, you’re just suggesting that I make a deal with you. And to be perfectly honest, I’d rather kill myself.” Aurelius replied blandly, rolling his eyes at the mere suggestion.

  “May I remind you that you are stranded?” Pultris responded, pointing out a very ‘insightful’ and ‘unobvious’ fact.

  With an exasperated look, Aurelius looked around comically, squinting beyond the horizon to see if he could see a coastline from where he was.

  The island was relatively large for the fact that it was literally in the middle of nowhere, and he could identify it as a sort of large atoll with a dense coral structure around its waist.

  The island was around 7 acres, and had a ticket of foliage in its interior with crystal clear waters surrounding it.

  “Uhhuh, I'll give it a couple weeks before the geezer or the muscle-woman comes to pick me up. I’m not stranded. More like… on temporary and involuntary leave.” Aureliuf scoffed.

  However, even as he rebutted Pultris, he was still a little depressed about his situation.

  He would have to survive on his own for the next few weeks, hunting and scavenging for food, and avoiding any potential monsters in the area.

  On top of that, Aurelius had a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Tona didn’t choose this particular island for its natural beauty…

  “...You may be right in the fact that you are not quite fully stranded in the physical sense.” Pultris started, making Aurelius sigh in exasperation.

  What was this out-of-time, ill-mannered Djinn aiming to do now?

  “But the fact remains that you are stranded mentally. With me.” Pultris declared ominously…

  “Don’t you fucking-” Aurelius perke up with alarm.

  “Fool, I will be reciting the ENTIRETY of the Magic Commission’s first edition handbook at FULL volume.” Pultris declared, sending a horrifying amount of resonance against Aurelius’s poor, poor skull.

  “I’m going to make you SUFFER when I get back PULTRIS!” Aurelius screamed, raising his voice to a shrill shriek against a backdrop of a horrendous din that had started reciting the terms of Rodric’s Charter.

  “Oh sure, continue to threaten the great angel of wind, Pultris the Corrupt. Let’s see where your complaints take us in your next ‘loop’, hmm?” Pultris chuckled, making Aurelius narrow his eyes in unbearable irritation.

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  While Pultris was always shut off during discussions of the time loop, this was not the first time over the 26 loops that the djinn had become aware of Aurelius’s… condition via contextual clues.

  However, Pultris was rather restrained in all of those times, given his inability to act out too badly while Aurelius was under the direct protection of Sage Yeltz’s presence.

  “You insufferable SHIT for brains! What do you think will happen in the next loop!” Aurelius cried out, wobbling on his feet as he tried to orient himself as the onslaught of horrendous bureaucratic madness flooded his brain at full awful volume.

  “That is the problem of the next iteration of me. I’ll merely suffer from the consequences here for a couple weeks at most, and I will avoid the karmic justice you wish upon THIS iteration.” Pultris sang, becoming some sort of hedonist philosopher with his words.

  Aurelius was at a complete loss for words.

  While he expected nothing from the egomaniacal, creepy, murdering piece of garbage, Pultris truly had the worst kind of personality he could think of.

  He was saying that consequences didn’t matter to him, given that it would only apply to a future version of himself, with the conviction that time was looping that he only guessed at through contextual clues.

  Hearing this kind of… time loop ‘nihilism’ from Pultris was ridiculous! Simultaneously, Aurelius kind of had to concede that Pultris had the ‘upper hand’ in the current… predicament.

  “FINE. We’ll make a deal!” Aurelius blurted, unable to partake in the horrendous noise that was clouding every part of his thoughts.

  “Excellent.” Pultris replied, immediately dropping his volume to an acceptable level.

  “State your terms, but do note that I will only be signing a time-limited contract with you.” Aurelius growled as he reminded himself to restrict Pultris’s control over volume back at the Tower.

  “Temporary?! Do you want me to act up again?” Pultris replied indignantly.

  “You cannot make a high level contract with me anyway. The kind of power that you have control over will simply disappear after this loop.” Aurelius declared, quoting Sage Yeltz’s reply to Mr. Tona from a few loops ago.

  In Mr. Tona’s pursuit of different torture methods to ‘level up’ Aurelius, the man had sought Sage Yeltz’s permission to let Aurelius form of temporary contracts with Pultris for sparring sessions.

  And much to Aurelius’s dismay, Sage Yeltz did allow for the method as long as the contract expired with a time limit.

  However, Mr. Tona used the method for a total of 2 sessions, before complaining about how many seals were placed on Pultris’s powers…

  “Hmm… Alright, then. We will make a contract expiring in 2 weeks.” Pultris relented, wisely not pushing his luck too much.

  If Pultris really decided to act up, Aurelius would likely have used his trigger word to genuinely kill himself, or messed with the tracking spell on him to force Sage Yeltz to come pick him up.

  “I know what you want, anyway. And 1 week is plenty.” Aurelius replied, scoffing at the sheer greed of Pultris.

  “Ah, so I must have demanded similar things in the other… loops, then.” Pultris said pleasantly, seemingly amused by the thought.

  “Yes, yes. You want me to allow you to take control of my body for short periods of time.” Aurelius replied nonchalantly, irritated by the amount of times that Pultris had suggested this in the past.

  “I can grant you the authority to take over my left hand for 1 hour each day, and I get to decide when the contract becomes active.”

  “Additionally, I want full-hearted cooperation as long as the contract is active, with violations of the terms meriting the activation of your 13th seal as punishment.” Aurelius concluded, clenching and unclenching his fists irritably.

  “2 hours?” Pultris suggested innocently.

  Aurelius wordlessly stopped in his tracks and started to meditate on the spot, searching for the tracking spell on him.

  “1 hour it is.” Pultris relented, a greasy business-like smile coming through perfectly through his voice.

  “Traitor, Vow breaker, Djinn of the Commission, Pultris…” Aurelius recited Pultris’s honorific name, the wind picking up into a small, tiny storm around his wet feet.

  “Temporary contract, condition 1, expiration…” He continued, listing out all of the terms and intricacies of the contract as best as he could.

  “I accept your terms, contractor.” Pultris said, the wind scattering in all directions at his words, as if repulsed by the sheer amount of grease that surrounded his slimy words.

  Aurelius growled suspiciously, and narrowed his eyes at the cheerful response. When he returned, he would probably get Sage Yeltz to check the status of the contract, and make sure that Pultris was not pulling some sort of deception again…

  However, Pultris’s next words sent his mind elsewhere.

  “Now, shall we check out that lovely little basement under that trapdoor inland?” Pultris declared smoothly.

  Aurelius immediately perked up, and became slightly irritated that Pultris didn’t mention this sooner.

  It seemed that his suspicions were about to be proven right after all…

  “Which way?” Aurelius asked.

  “Pick up that nicely sized seashell and put it against your ears. I shall guide you there, dear valuable contractor.” Pultris instructed.

  “How’s that going to help?” Aurelius complained, picking up the slightly undersized shell and holding it against his ear.

  “Just follow the sound.” Pultris declared playfully, sending a small tune echoing into Aurelius’s ears.

  With irritation, Aurelius turned his body 360 degrees, and found where the song inside the shell became loudest, and began to make his way into the forest of palm trees…

  And after a minute, they arrived at their destination.

  “Right under your feet.” Pultris said.

  Aurelius bent down, and wiped the sand away from the trapdoor’s wooden entrance.

  And much to his irritation, he found that his suspicions about Mr. Tona’s purpose in stranding him was actually very much founded.

  On its lovely wooden surface lay a delightful carving.

  The carving of a bloody pirate company logo.