142.

Without clear intent, Johannes tried to flee aimlessly. It was impossible. He didn’t know where that slender body of the young lady, unfamiliar with hardship, found such strength. Ah, ah, ah. Between Johannes’ lips, which were shuddering centered on the wrist pinned under his mother’s grip, something that was neither tears nor screams flowed wildly. It was a more pitiful sight than a beast caught in a trap.

“Wait, m-mother… Wait…”

His free arm flapped wildly like a flag in a storm. After pushing and hitting the innocent table bang! bang!, it finally bent unnaturally and went over to the opposite shoulder as if embracing his own body. It was in the direction where the young lady stood, but Johannes’ fingertips couldn’t even reach the hem of her sleeve.

Ah. Ah. Ah. Even as he twisted his waist like a snake, over and over, as if about to break and die, even as he stretched out his arm with the intention of striking down the enemy who set the trap, he couldn’t reach. Yes, that woman. She was no longer his mother or kin, just a hunter trying to slaughter him.

The dagger continued to strike down. The young lady struck persistently. She peeled away mercilessly. Until the ligaments and muscles of the boy’s wrist were severed. Cutting through the bone, until the still-thin wrist was completely severed. Thoroughly and ruthlessly. The blade was too small to kill a person in one strike.

“Stop… P-please. I beg… Ah!”

Johannes began to plead.

Of course, there was no answer. Johannes could only watch with his own eyes the sight of his arm being amputated. Again, ah. Ah. Ah. Hot blood clung to the repeatedly striking blade of the dagger, splattering into the air, in all directions.

For some, it would have been a scene from hell.

It was a dark and bloody scene that seemed to have been printed like a frenzied woodcut depicting the state of ‘shock’. The shock couldn’t even lead to pain. In the end, Johannes couldn’t even hear the sound of his own screams. Just the sensation of the ground collapsing beneath his feet. No other thoughts came to mind. Suddenly, his body….

Slipped.

He fell backward, kneeling. Without any resistance. Johannes’ eyelids, lying on the floor like a rag, opened as if about to tear. There, on the table. The ‘thing’ that had been his hand, which had fixed his entire body to the table, was crawling like an insect. Soon, even the cross-section of the severed wrist came into Johannes’ view. Only then did he realize. That he….

Had been cut in two. Ah.

Johannes fell sideways with a deep groan.

“I knew I would look like this…”

The young lady, who had withdrawn her knife and stepped back at some point, muttered while catching her breath. She picked up a silk cloth that had been placed near the basin and wiped the blood-soaked blade. It was a lazy and indifferent gesture, as if she had just finished a meal, in front of Johannes who was curled up under the table, constantly moaning. Only her gaze….

Was fixed on the hand on the table. Her pupils, diluted as if dissolved in water, were so dark they seemed about to absorb Johannes’ hand. That. It was the face of someone who had witnessed a terribly marvelous truth with their own eyes.

“Ah. Ah…”

The young lady’s sigh was longer than Johannes’, as if she were about to die.

“It’s an even more horrific sight than what I heard about when I was young….”

The young lady did not take her eyes off Johannes’ hand.

Johannes, who had fallen face down on his knees, couldn’t even listen to the young lady’s voice. He only shook his shoulders frantically as some strange sensation attacked him amidst the clear pain. A friction as if something was being pulled out along the blood vessels from his heart. It was making his entire body squirm.

That sensation led to his wrist, which was gushing blood. He retched violently, without warning, with a jerk of his shoulder. He couldn’t even fully raise his upper body. Fumbling, fumbling, supporting his face planted on the floor with his forehead, he looked down at his stomach, which he had clutched with his hands. It was a glance he had unconsciously cast due to the sensation of something pouring from his severed wrist. But there, ah….

Between the exposed white bones, something like bundles of red threads were flowing down. One by one, all the threads that were wriggling alive, looking more like bundles of red roundworms, flowed down to the floor and slowly stretched towards the table.

Johannes jumped up with a scream. The dark red skein that had poured from the cross-section of his wrist jumped up at the same time, undulating. And only then did Johannes see the sight of threads of exactly the same shape wriggling and stretching towards him from his hand on the table.

As if trying to reattach.

Johannes’ face contorted. The tear stains that had flowed down frantically without his knowledge were mixed with cold sweat and blood, leaving no trace. Hell. He wept silently. This is hell, he thought. This place? No. Immortal regeneration is hell. Reunification against God’s will is hell. Where evil lives and breathes….

“Devil. Ah, devil….”

The inside of my flesh.

Hell.

“Can you see clearly now what you are?”

The young lady’s eyes, asking this, were also wet with blood and sweat as if standing in hell. So pitifully.

***

The common rabble say our Ducomeng family is cursed.

They say we’re an unfortunate family that uses devils at the risk of divine punishment, but without gain. Yes, though no one has declared it to us, it may truly be a curse as the situation of giving a bushel and receiving a peck repeats itself for generations.

Thinking carefully, those vicious rumors seem to be true. The unfortunate history of our family is clear as day, and you too… there’s something… somewhere.

Different.

To begin with, I’ve never heard even a rumor of a devil of your size, accompanied by a guardian like yours, among the devils we mortals have used. We have no way of knowing what that being is, who clings to the coffin like a ghost and acts on your behalf.

In this situation, sometimes I suspect that you are merely a ‘host’, and that being is the true ‘curse’. Even if this is a wrong guess, it’s certain that you are no ordinary devil. Perhaps a devil who cursed, or hated, our family for unknown reasons…. Maybe your consciousness wasn’t completely decomposed despite all the efforts of our ancestors.

……

Answer me, Johannes. What was your initial purpose? Who is he, Kretzman? Is he perhaps a pawn you’ve tied up?

……

Why do you look at me with such tired eyes? Shouldn’t you save your sister, whom you were so concerned about? I showed you the truth that even you had forgotten, causing this commotion, believing in your sincere gaze, but you still have no memory? Do you remember the last wish I begged for when I called forth that man Kretzman, your guardian-like being? Do you remember what I begged at his feet?

……

You pitiful devil… My kind, fake son.

You’re very faithfully distorting my last wish even without any memory….

……

Human affairs are unpredictable even a step ahead….

Yes, perhaps my child will truly want you and open the door herself, spreading her legs. However, that child’s feelings won’t even be the minimum condition for a comfortable future. Even your current sincerity.

Whether you want it or not, the moment my daughter becomes entangled with you, she won’t be able to avoid ending up like me. The history of our family, which has been unfortunate without a single exception, proves this. No. Perhaps she might fall into an even worse situation than me. No. She certainly will, I’m sure. Yes, she’ll be more unfortunate than me…. I can clearly see the hardships that child will face. And….

Ah, you devil.

Whatever your current sincerity might be, I now believe without a doubt that your initial purpose was the shameful downfall of our family. I won’t turn a blind eye to the fact that you are the devil who has transformed into a stud horse in this generation to decorate the climax of that downfall. You’ll surely use my daughter’s womb to breed your vermin offspring in the name of the Ducomeng bloodline.

Will what my daughter gives birth to even resemble a human?

Ah, why ask? You’ll do it anyway. Even if my daughter’s reputation is stained with incest. Even if she has no desire to receive you and writhes in pain and fear, screaming. Even if she runs far away looking for a place your feet can’t reach, you’ll find her and embrace her regardless.

Conceiving the Ducomeng bloodline to succeed the Duke Gustavus title in the most painful way for us Ducomengs to fall. And for even that successor to meet a miserable death. That must be the purpose and only will of your power that has reached its end. So if you truly care for my daughter’s well-being, if your kind eyes now are sincere….

Die.

Whether you bite your tongue or throw yourself into fire, use any means necessary.

Find a way to die before getting entangled in the chain of curses. Don’t think about fleeing half-heartedly, find a way to end yourself somehow. Only if you die completely without touching my hand, without your true form being discovered, can my and my daughter’s safety be guaranteed. Do you understand? The day you die will be the day I escape from the duke’s clutches, and the day my daughter can come out of the inner chambers….

……

Ah, come to think of it, perhaps you might not know….

How you immortal devils could seek death in this world. I’ll kindly tell you now. Perhaps you can use this as a guide to find a means to end yourself….

Listen well.

Originally, a devil’s body should disappear the moment its power is exhausted. The moment when even the last remaining part is used to fulfill a mortal’s wish is when a sealed devil vanishes. Since the dawn of mortality, you devils have barely disappeared in such an unnatural way.

But I have no more wishes to ask of you. I can’t push my daughter’s back towards the curse with just one wing left. Knowing what fate she would suffer. That’s the problem we face….

……

No, that’s not right. To say I have no wishes. What human greed has a bottom?

What I lack is courage.

I have no more courage.

Perhaps it would be fine to end it with me, carrying all the remaining curses on my back. If I just entrust my life to your power, a disaster several times greater than the trouble relieved will befall a person, so one needs the ability to endure it. As a pathetic mother who can’t muster the courage to die even after going insane with fear several times, I’m just sorry for my daughter.

I… have long pondered. Why does only our family suffer such ordeals every time we use a devil? Perhaps it’s because our family is cursed, as the common people mutter….

I find it unfair, I say.

Unfair, and so unfair, that I lose my mind.

I go insane with pity and sorrow for myself.

Why…. Why must I, an innocent, inherit the sins of my ancestors like a legacy and atone for them with this hardship? Why must I take a man who knows neither blood nor tears as a husband, why must I give birth to a black-wrinkled monster as a child from this womb, why must I lose my son, why, why…. Why must I see even my only daughter fall as a sacrifice to a creature like you? What is my sin? What on earth are you? Hm?

Hm?

Answer me, devil.

What was so unfair? You, a devil who is merely a piece of flesh without even a soul, unable to reach God’s will, was it so painful and unfair to have your limbs torn a bit by the hands of our family in the past? To the extent that you can’t even close your eyes without seeing the end of this bloodline? I… I.

I can’t understand at all….

The young lady stopped tidying Johannes’ clothes and bit her lip. It looked like she was trying to swallow her resentment to suppress it. A trembling silence. Even her dry shoulders shook finely for a very long time. Then she returned to her usual empty well-like expression.

She straightened up the dazed Johannes and rang a bell to call a maid. She carelessly explained to the startled maid who entered the bedroom that it was a trace of praying for her son’s fortune using sheep’s blood as a sacrifice. The maid clearly didn’t believe it.

But, look. Weren’t both the young lady and the heir standing there perfectly fine without a single scratch? Even the half-believing maid had no choice but to nod in agreement. The maid, unable to hide her trembling steps, escorted her young master out of the duke and duchess’s bedroom.

Griselda, who had been waiting in the child’s room, received Johannes. She was the one who washed the blood-covered Johannes and changed his clothes. Griselda didn’t ask anything. There was no word of comfort. However, on that day, she left an uncharacteristic night greeting to Johannes, who was lying in bed, wishing him sweet dreams.

And she left.