Chapter 41 - Volume 2 (2/2)

「A curse?」

「Yes. Didn’t you realize it yourself?」

It was hard to say yes to that right in front of Edi. But I realized too late that hesitating was a confirmation in itself. His gaze hurt. His face looked as if he wanted to ask 「Why didn’t you say anything?」　once again.　The princess let out an exasperated sigh.

「Agedilus, could you stop with that menacing look?」

「It’s not like I’m trying to be menacing…」

「Even if you don’t mean to, it looks like that from here. It’s because you’re like that that Filmina couldn’t say anything. Has that oh-so-clever brain of yours still not figured that out yet?」

As expected, the princess was merciless. She laughed scornfully at Edi, who had been robbed of words. Then she turned back to face me.

「To put it simply, this curse is like a flower seed.」

「A seed?」

「Right. It’s like if the seed of some magical being’s curse were planted in the foundation of your soul. That parasitic seed spreads its roots deep into your soul, and then starts to invade the host itself. How exactly it invades depends on the curse, but in your case, it has been intruding on your dreams.」

The princess’s amber eyes were looking straight at me. Depending on the light, they appeared golden. Looking into those eyes, it didn’t feel like they were looking at my exterior. I got the feeling that they were staring deep into my inner self, and it made me anxious.

「The real nefarious part of this kind of curse is the fact that from the outside, it’s hard to sense that it’s a curse. For a normal curse, the caster has to keep a connection to the host basically the entire time. In that case, there will be an unknown presence following the host around, and any competent magician would, sooner or later, notice this. But this curse is different. Previously I referred to it as a seed, right? Once planted, the seed can grow, apart from its caster. Because it is attached to the host’s soul, there isn’t a trace of a second party. It really is an ingenious curse. That’s probably the reason that Edi didn’t notice until you collapsed.」

It’s still pathetic that he couldn’t though, is what her smile said.

「Well, once you notice it, it’s a fairly simple curse. It really is pretty clever though. With my light magic, I think I could forcibly remove it. Against dark magic, I’m more suitable than him of course. He knows that, that’s one of the reasons he brought you to me.」

The grimoires had said that the dark magic that borrowed the power of demons and the light magic that borrowed its power from the gods were two sides of the same coin.

In other words, if you needed to fight dark magic, light magic was what you wanted. For lifting a curse, there was probably no one more qualified than the goddesses’ shrine maiden princess.

But having said that, suddenly teleporting into the princess’s home was beyond unreasonable. At my bemused expression, the princess showed me a quick smile, but then she became serious again and continued.

「However, there is a risk involved in lifting the curse. The seed has rooted itself deeper than you think.」

「Is that so?」

「It’s buried deep enough that this man couldn’t notice it. If we remove it clumsily, we could damage your soul.」

She made it easy to understand, but I wasn’t terribly grateful for that explanation.

「Then, what should we do?」

Edi, who had been silent until then, finally spoke. The princess’s beautiful face scowled.

「Obviously, we ought to catch the caster and make him remove the curse himself.　But getting him to do that might be a bit troublesome.」

「Oh, I know.」 He muttered. Then he smiled.

「I’ve got it. Leave it to me.」

This man’s beauty, and the various beautiful expressions that he made, by now I should be used to them. But this one made me speechless. That violent smile gave me chills. I felt the temperature of the room drop suddenly.

「Agedilus? What are you scheming?」

「I won’t do anything bad, so don’t worry. I’m just going to make use of a little cheat, is all.」

At that somewhat disturbing statement, I kept silent, and the princess simply raised one eyebrow and asked,

「Just to make sure, this won’t cause any harm to Filmina, right?」

「Of course it won’t.」

「Well then, I guess that’s okay. By the decree of your princess, I entrust this matter to you.」

At the princess’s words, Edi put his right hand over the left side of his chest and bowed. Seeing that figure, I thought, 「Don’t fix things that aren’t broken.」 Some pieces of wisdom are timeless.

For some reason, even as the victim, I wanted the culprit to appreciate this sight too. Then, in my mind to the culprit I still had yet to see, I gave a gesture of gratitude for bestowing upon me this holy scene.