Thomas Prest: A Simple Magician

When Tom arrived home in the evening from the Sitri Manor, he was so mentally exhausted at all the revelations that he instantly fell asleep.

Devil-kind's sense of values seemed like Issei's wet dream.

No wonder Sona Sitri allowed the perverted trio to act out in the school if that's the kind of mindset she was raised with.

No wonder Rias Gremory was totally fine and not disgusted at all with Issei's harem dream, even going as far as supporting it while placing herself as his 'main' girl. After all, she saw the exact same thing at home from her own mother and father.

No wonder Zeoticus Gremory did not see any problem with putting Riser and Rias together despite Riser's reputation and behavior. Riser, with his desire to have one of 'every kind of girl' in his peerage to satisfy his collector spirit, was apparently quite a mild case among their kind.

To be honest, the facts were right in front of Tom all the time. He just had to look at and analyze the situation with Diodora Astaroth. The man's peerage was made of former holy women who were abused and raped to submission.

It is nice to pretend nobody noticed a thing but that is simply not possible at all.

The boy's parents, his brother who was a Satan, the other servants of the Astaroth Family... There was a massive number of people who interacted with the boy and definitely saw his peerage and their state. Diodora was an Heir to a Pillar Family. He could not just hide himself and his peerage in his room.

So... of course, the people around him noticed and knew what he was doing. But as long as he was not caught in the action, nobody cared.

Putting the label of a villain on Diodora would be an obvious solution but... for the first time, Tom wondered if it was really a correct assumption.

According to human common sense and moral compass, Devils were inherently evil creatures. Even though most of them became more mild-mannered and their society became less savage after the demise of the original Satans, that didn't mean their nature changed.

Tom would not paint them all with one brush and be like those Church fanatics who wanted their eradication for the kicks and giggles.

Heck, Tom can't say he wouldn't want to marry a devil female like Lady Sitri. Something about a woman who loved to indulge in her lust was appealing to his human male nature, especially when Lady Sitri was from what Sarael told Tom, a completely faithful wife to a fault.

They had a system of all things in place for their special bedroom activities. The only males that could have their way with her were those Sarael brought to their bed and the only females Sarael could screw other than her were those she brought to their bedroom. It was in a way a very skewed way to show mutual respect for each other.

Still... as a pitiful human with a limited lifespan, Tom decided to stop thinking about things that caused him an inner conflict and focus on something that calmed his mind. Like his research.

While the first request of Tom was for Sarael to let him inspect a Queen Evil Piece, his second request was something that made the old devil stop in his tracks.

Tom requested for Sarael to give him one of the old contracts the devilkind used before even the Great War. The kind of contracts that allowed devils to take a person's soul in exchange for a service.

Sarael was reluctant at first and curiously suspicious about what Tom would need such a thing for but in the end, Tom managed to play it off as an idle curiosity of his. Sarael definitely didn't fully buy that but he fulfilled the request and that was what really mattered to Tom.

Fortunately, Sarael had a few of these contracts stashed away, and parting with one was not a big deal for him. Once again, the old devil clearly thought Tom was foolish for wasting a request for something so... simple, but it suited him well.

Just like that, the two requests Tom had for attending the dinner were used up.

Unlike the Queen Piece, Tom didn't have to inspect the old contract parchment instantly. It belonged to him so he would take his leisure and do his probing and prodding away from Sarael's eyes, and over a long period of time.

After all, his Sacred Gear, Vision, was his only cheat in this situation and as Tom quickly understood, many things, even those that seemed very mundane, had their secrets. Secrets, Tom could easily peek into and use for his own growth.

A contract that can take away someone's soul and use it to strengthen the devil who offered it. Tom had no idea what he would discover in it but he couldn't help but be hopeful.

...

Months slowly passed and Tom was once again diligently playing the part of a shut-in, leaving his laboratory only when necessary.

He didn't really mind that kind of lifestyle as he was immersed in his recent findings.

The Old Contract of the devils was a crafty piece of magic. It took Tom weeks of screening it with Vision from every angle he could think of to get his understanding of the item. It took so long because Tom was a lot more careful with his screening than when he looked into the Evil Piece and honestly? He didn't mind that it took so long. He would rather not experience that kind of pain again.

The only reason the contract worked at all was that it was based on the concept of 'Exchange' and Devils had roots in this very concept. In short, it was a useless item for humans since they could not innately 'connect' to this concept and therefore, could not initiate the contract on their own.

Unlike what Tom initially thought, these devil contracts were very different from the magical contracts the magicians used.

Months of effort... and the only result Tom had to show for it was an idea that everybody knew was possible but nobody used it because of how improbable getting into such a situation was.

Basically, Tom found out that he could fully benefit from the contract in the same way devils do... for example, through it, he could potentially get a soul of a devil that would then strengthen him... but for that, he would need to trick a devil to actually agree and initiate such a deal on his own.

As an initiator of the deal, a devil had complete knowledge of what was being offered and what desire he was supposed to fulfill. They knew the reward and cost by default. That's why it was so tricky to trick a devil.

It was simply not gonna happen under normal circumstances. Especially when devils stopped using this old contract altogether in the modern age. In fact, it was even outlawed.

To be honest, devils had no idea what treasure trove for their race the contract was. They were so focused on its function to take souls and empower them through that, that they completely missed its true value.

The concept of Exchange did not necessarily have to be used for souls. Yes, it was powerful enough to deal even with that but...

What if they instead of souls set up the price to be a bloodline, beneficial traits, talent, magical power, etc? Wouldn't that propel the devil race to the top?

Naturally, Tom decided to never share this secret with the devils. He was a human and he didn't need to have that kind of trouble. He would gladly let them forget about this extremely powerful magical item that could make their race the strongest, and silently watch them use new, much weaker, contracts that didn't have this kind of function.

And while this endeavor turned out to be a miss... not that Tom was giving up on it just yet... the knowledge he gained from the Queen Evil Piece proved useful in Tom's newest research venture.

After all... who wouldn't want to have a companion that would be unable to betray him?