Chapter 23
Eluna’s lips curved into a soft arc.
‘So, has your answer to my confession changed?’
The man who always hid his expressions swallowed nervously, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly.
“No. I have something to ask you.”
Calix, who had braced himself completely, faltered at the sudden halt and opened his mouth hesitantly.
“……What is it?”
Eluna’s face stiffened.
“What did the Demon King do to you?”
Calix, trembling with fear that Eluna might retract her confession, was rendered speechless at her piercing question.
“You’d better not think about lying. Before I burn up my own life force.”
At the threat of her staking her very life, Calix’s heart lurched, and he obediently spoke.
“Right before being sealed, he cursed me.”
‘On the day your blood runs deepest, you shall become nothing more than a beast.’
Hearing the contents of the curse, Eluna fell into deep thought, which made Calix speak in a hurry.
“It doesn’t seem to be a curse that must be broken right away. I’m looking for a way to undo it.”
So please, don’t burn your life away.
Calix was terrified that Eluna might try to break the curse with her own life force.
“I’ll have to send a letter to the Emperor.”
After speaking calmly at the end of her contemplation, Eluna suddenly stood up.
Then she slipped off the shawl that had been loosely draped over her negligee.
“Saintess!”
Calix squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head, shouting. But his panic didn’t end there.
“Calix.”
Eluna sat gently on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“……!”
Calix stiffened, hands hovering awkwardly in the air, unsure what to do, afraid to touch her.
But it was no use. Eluna pulled his neck closer, pressing herself against him.
“Saintess, please……!”
At his desperate plea, Eluna cupped his face, forcing him to look at her.
“Look at me, Calix.”
His earlobes burned red, and though nothing had happened yet, his eyes were already consumed with desire.
“Just once, be honest. If you say you don’t want this, I’ll step back, and I’ll never approach you again. But if you don’t hate it……”
Her lips hovered dangerously close.
His heart felt like it would burst. He was barely clinging to reason, suppressing the urge to tear her apart in his arms—until.
“Hug me.”
Snap—his reason broke.
The moment Eluna finished speaking, Calix devoured her lips.
With impatient hands, he tore at her negligee, leaving his marks all over her.
After countless rounds of feverish passion, Eluna awoke in his embrace.
Calix, thinking she was asleep, had been kissing her softly for a while before finally drifting off.
Though drained, Eluna forced herself up and sat at the desk to write letters.
The first was to the Emperor, informing him of Calix’s curse and asking for help. She added that no matter how much he was her friend, proposing marriage for political reasons was utter madness, and he should be grateful she hadn’t cut ties with him.
Unlike the swiftly written first letter, the second was not so easy.
『To Calix,
The Demon King’s seal is unstable. If it isn’t purified, he will awaken again.
This is something only I can do.
So I cannot erase the curse you received.
Instead, I will take half of it.
We defeated the Demon King together—it isn’t fair that you alone should bear the curse.』
Eluna frowned, caught in hesitation.
What words would hurt him less? How could she convey her heart?
After one glance at the peacefully sleeping Calix, she adjusted her grip on the quill.
『I’m sorry.
I harbored selfish, cruel feelings though I cannot take responsibility for them.
Hate me. And resent me.
One moment of desire is enough. With a single kiss from you, I am already fulfilled.
I hope you will come to hate me.』
Eluna folded the letter and sealed it with wax.
She did not write the words “I love you.”
Because to write them would mean admitting she didn’t want to leave, that she wished to ignore her duty of purifying the Demon King, that she didn’t care if people died—
That she only wanted to be with him.
She feared leaving such an ugly desire behind for him.
After addressing the envelopes, Eluna approached Calix.
She kissed him one last time, imprinting his face in her memory as if to never forget, even in her final moments.
“I will remember, and I will bear the pain.”
So you must forget me, and live happily.
That dawn, the First Saint Eluna disappeared—alongside the sword of Hero Calix, which had sealed the Demon King.
Arteph gazed quietly at the sleeping Shasha.
His little kitten, who had declared so resolutely that she would read the myths of Azdel Church, had barely read at all before dozing off.
The reason Charlize—Shasha—wanted to read the myths was obvious. She probably thought she’d been cursed by black magic into becoming an animal.
And indeed, that guess might be correct.
In Arteph’s case, it was due to the curse passed down his family line. But as far as he knew, Charlize’s family carried no such curse.
Still, he doubted it was black magic.
If it were, there would be no reason for it to align with his own curse cycle.
A powerful intuition told him it was somehow tied to his own curse.
Regardless, he had to consider all possibilities, so he was investigating black magic anyway.
The assassin who had infiltrated his mansion last time had been afflicted with black magic, which gave him official grounds to conduct research.
Though, truthfully, if it was for Charlize’s sake, he didn’t care about official permission.
“Mya……”
Shasha’s tiny sleep-talk pulled him out of his thoughts.
Smiling faintly, he poked her soft paw pads, then his expression darkened.
‘To think I took out my frustrations on someone this small and fragile.’
Pathetic.
When Shasha had run away, her knight Alcot had followed and witnessed her transformation back into a human.
Since then, Arteph had received constant reports on her, including what had happened at the Crown Prince’s palace.
He ground his teeth, jaw tight.
To think that the Crown Prince, who claimed to love Charlize so much, had shown such violence toward her.
‘If only I had known sooner…….’
Knock knock.
“Your Grace. Dinner is ready.”
As Arteph sank deeper into dark thoughts of how to deal with the Crown Prince, a servant’s knock came at the study door.
He glanced at Shasha, who was still lost in dreamland, now twitching and flailing in her sleep.
‘So unbearably adorable I could go mad.’
Suppressing his smile, Arteph cleared his throat and answered in a low voice.
“Ahem, I’ll come down in thirty minutes.”
So complicated. So damn complicated.
While Arteph went to bathe, I sat on the bed with arms crossed, deep in thought.
After dinner, when Arteph said he had more work in the study, I’d followed him there.
Thinking I’d had a strange dream.
But when I finished reading the rest of Saint Eluna’s story, I was utterly shocked.
Because it matched my dream.
More precisely, the major events were the same.
‘My dream was like a private account of what happened then.’
Though it made no sense, I couldn’t shake the budding suspicion.
That I might be the reincarnation of Saint Eluna, who had absorbed Calix’s curse.
That the reason I turn into a cat is because I inherited part of that curse.
I have no divine power—but in the dream, Eluna had exhausted all of hers.
‘Ha…… this is absurd.’
My head throbbed.
‘Maybe turning into a cat has made me start imagining nonsense.’
To find out what was happening to me, I needed to verify the dream. Was it really just a dream—or a memory of the past?
‘To do that…….’
The fastest way was to discover whether the Redmond Duchy truly carried a curse.
I glanced toward the bathroom. Just then, the door opened, steam billowing out.
‘……!’
Arteph emerged—and I promptly buried my face in the bed.
‘Why, why is he coming out shirtless……!’
He usually came out wearing a robe, but this time, he appeared with only trousers on.
