~Chapter 120~
“What…?”
I stared at Damien, confused.
Suddenly, Damien jumped up from his seat and ran toward me.
Crash!
He moved so quickly that his chair fell over and almost broke. But Damien didn’t care. He grabbed my hand tightly and said,
“I think I found a way to make the soul contract!”
My eyes grew wide.
‘But I thought the only way to get rid of the Devourer was to give up my life…’
I wondered if Damien didn’t know this, or if he had found a different way.
“Um, Damien. I know a way too…”
“You mean giving your life to the Devourer, right?”
Even though he hadn’t slept at all and had dark circles under his eyes, his eyes still shone like jewels.
“We can’t use that method.”
His grip on my hands grew even tighter, like he would never let go.
“I thought of another way.”
He had stayed up all night to find a new way to complete the soul contract.
“Would you like to sit down?”
I led Damien to sit on the sofa in the middle of the library. I sat next to him and began,
“Tell me the way you thought of, Damien.”
“Remember what the ghost butterfly said? That curses clash with each other.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“That’s true, but the phrase is missing something.”
Suddenly, a thought flashed in my mind.
“Does it mean not all curses clash, only certain ones?”
“Yes.”
Damien handed me the materials he found.
“Different types of curses do clash, but the same type does not.”
He put his hand gently on his chest and explained,
“Since I have curses inside me, part of my soul is cursed. If all curses clashed, I shouldn’t be able to do a soul contract either.”
Just as Damien said, if all curses clashed, then none of the Maledictus family could have made a soul contract.
But they always did, as long as they met the conditions.
“That means some curses don’t clash. The curses in my soul and the soul contract curse made by Maledictus do not clash.”
Damien drew a diagram to show me.
“Each curse inside me keeps its own personality, but they are all under my control. So, they all have a bit of my power in them.”
“So, the soul contract—if the curse has Maledictus power, it won’t get pushed out!”
“That’s right.”
Unlike yesterday, when I couldn’t think of any ideas, now I could see a clue.
“So we need to make the Devourer absorb Maledictus power, right?”
“Probably.”
Damien nodded.
“That would be the best way, but first, I think we should try a trick.”
“A trick?”
“Even if the Devourer doesn’t actually have Maledictus power inside—”
He drew another circle around the Devourer in a different color, like putting a barrier.
“We just have to make it look like it does.”
His idea made sense.
If it’s impossible to make the Devourer have Maledictus power, we can at least make it seem like it.
If the soul contract judges the curse as the same kind, it should work.
“But is there a way to do that?”
I thought carefully.
Could I really cover myself with Maledictus power?
‘Just touching each other isn’t enough, or the ghost butterfly wouldn’t have told us to find another way.’
So just physical contact wasn’t enough.
‘Damien’s curses used to be separate beings, but—’
Those curses became influenced by Maledictus power after something happened.
Suddenly, I remembered something.
“Damien, is subjugation the answer?”
Damien always subjugated any curses he needed to control.
Once he did, he could sense their location and was deeply connected with them.
“That’s the solution I thought of, too.”
“I see.”
“I can’t promise it will work 100%, but I think it’s worth trying.”
I agreed with Damien.
I couldn’t be sure, but it was worth a shot.
“There are two problems, though. First, is it okay for you to be subjugated, Ruby?”
“I’m fine.”
We’d already completed the second stage of the soul contract, so we were deeply connected anyway.
We could sense each other’s location, health, and strong emotions.
Being subjugated wouldn’t change that.
Hearing my answer, Damien nodded and added,
“Because we’re already doing the soul contract, I promise there won’t be any big changes from this. I guarantee it.”
“So, what’s the other problem?”
Damien wrote “Ruby is okay” with his pen and then stopped.
“I don’t think you’ll have any side effects, but we don’t know if subjugation, which only worked on curses, will work on you.”
Damien didn’t want me to suffer any side effects, or he wouldn’t have suggested it.
“Right. We’ve only tried it on curses, never a human…”
This was something we could only know by trying.
I gently tugged on Damien’s sleeve.
He looked at me with his deep, amethyst eyes.
“Well, how about we just try it?”
I met his eyes and said,
“I’m okay with tonight.”
Damien looked a little surprised, then made up his mind and nodded.
“Alright.”
So we got ready to try subjugation that very night.
Just like the saying “Strike while the iron is hot,” Damien got everything ready for subjugation that night.
“It might feel uncomfortable. I already prepared a bath for you.”
“It’s okay.”
I sat on the sofa in Damien’s office, facing him.
“Do I just stay like this?”
“Yes.”
Damien slowly removed his hand from his right eye.
His eye, which was shining purple, slowly turned pitch black.
Then, a huge, writhing curse extended from his eye.
If normal people saw this, they would probably scream.
Just the thought of being swallowed by that thing would make most people faint.
‘I wonder what it feels like inside.’
Would it be wet, like the outside?
I remembered when we subjugated John, the newlywed curse. He came out in the same condition as before.
So even if I got swallowed, it shouldn’t hurt.
“Ruby, are you ready?”
“Yes.”
I watched the black curse slowly come toward me.
“I’m a little curious. I’ve never been swallowed by a curse before.”
I tried to make a joke to relax, and Damien smiled softly.
“I’ll do it gently so it won’t hurt.”
And then, the huge curse opened its mouth toward me.
