Reunion

The pain of the curse didn’t fade as easily as I thought.

Persis, still feeling a tingling sensation as if he’d eaten poisonous mushrooms, lay still in bed, waiting for his condition to improve.

Kkieok.

Just then, the door opened without a sound.

But strangely enough, there wasn’t a single figure in front of the door.

Could it be that the tightly closed door opened in the wind?

But even the window wasn’t open, so there was no strong wind blowing from the opposite side.

Feeling a sense of unease, Persis drew up his magic power and focused his eyesight, and soon he saw something pale approaching him like a ghost.

“…Vermillian?”

“Yes, Father. It’s me.”

Fortunately, it wasn’t a grim reaper who had come to take him to the afterlife, but Vermillian, who had hidden himself with invisibility magic.

For now, it was absurd that he had to hide in the castle where he was born and raised like a night visitor, but it was an unavoidable situation.

Because there might be spies of those bastards hiding somewhere in this castle.

Perhaps a considerable number of the servants have already been co-opted by those bastards.

To prepare for the worst-case scenario, it was right to move as secretly as possible.

“Are you alright, Father?”

“It’s still a little tingly. But it’ll get better soon. More than that, weren’t you going back?”

In the first place, the reason Vermillian came here was to unravel the inside story entangled between the Drake family and the Eyes of Dawn.

At the same time, to find out his father’s true intentions.

Since he had finished both of those things, there was no reason to stay in this dangerous castle.

As he expressed his doubts, wondering if there was anything else, Vermillian continued.

“I’m planning to go back soon. But before that, there’s someone I want to introduce to you, Father.”

“An introduction. Looks like you’ve got a new lover.”

“How did you know?”

“As a father, how could I not know? You have the same look in your eyes as I did when I first met your mother.”

“Ah….”

Unfortunately, Vermillian’s mother’s health deteriorated rapidly after giving birth to her son, and she soon passed away.

But Persis still couldn’t let go of his feelings for her, and a faint regret was felt in his voice.

Feeling complicated by that fact, Vermillian continued.

“Yes, I actually met her recently through a connection. She saved my life, that was the trigger.”

“Saved your life…. You must be talking about what happened then.”

“That’s right. She rescued me when I was caught by those bastards and jumped into the river with the feeling of grabbing at straws.”

“Before being my son’s lover, she’s a very grateful benefactor. So, that person is here?”

Since he must have come hiding, it was only natural that Persis would hear about it for the first time.

However, he was a little puzzled as to why he was introducing his lover at this point.

Is he trying to do his last duty as a son before leaving the castle?

But even bringing that woman here would involve some risk.

“Yes. And actually, there’s another reason why I’m trying to introduce her to you, Father.”

“Another reason. What is it?”

“Maybe she can save Father from that stigma.”

“……!”

Persis wasn’t stupid enough not to know what Vermillian’s words meant.

While widening his eyes at the unexpected news, he showed a surprisingly skeptical attitude.

“…I don’t want to cause you unnecessary trouble. In the first place, this isn’t a curse that can be easily erased. If you brought her for that reason, don’t worry about this father and send her back quickly.”

Even he, a magician of considerable level, couldn’t dare to touch this spell.

If it was just a curse left by his father, he might have done something about it, but this curse contained the power of that woman he saw earlier.

And it was more alien and powerful than any power Persis had ever seen.

Just by glimpsing the faint fragment of power in the curse, Persis always faced despair and had to give up.

His son’s lover is going to fix such a curse.

He wasn’t looking down on her, whom he hadn’t even seen yet, but he thought it was an unnecessary effort.

“Father, please trust me just once. Would I bring her here to give you false hope?”

“…….”

But despite his roundabout refusal, Vermillian couldn’t back down.

It’s a piece of hope and a knife that I barely found at the end of despair.

Once I’ve drawn it, I felt like I had to swing it around to feel refreshed.

If he gave up early and turned his back, he would not be able to stand up if he heard the news that the cunning woman had changed her mind and killed his father.

Even if it caused a little trouble, even if it was a waste of time, he was going to try anything.

“…Okay, I understand. Then, without much expectation, bring her to see the face of my prospective daughter-in-law.”

“Yes!”

Persis, who glimpsed his son’s firm will, finally realized that he couldn’t be persuaded, and nodded with a bitter smile.

Anyway, the fate of this insignificant body has long been left to the sky.

It wasn’t yesterday or today that he was rationalizing himself, saying that if he died early, he could meet his wife who had left first as soon as possible, so let’s just think of it as fortunate.

But in other words, since he’s already considered himself dead, he decided to struggle.

For his son, who is doing his best to save him somehow, not himself.

At the very least, as a father, he can’t show an unsightly side in front of his son, can he?

That was enough reason to rekindle the dying will to live.

＊＊＊

“Ah, I’m Anise Blanc. Nice to meet you. Duke Drake.”

The first meeting with her lover’s father, not someone else.

As Anise greeted him with a very frozen expression and even stuttered, a smile formed on Persis’s lips.

I can’t judge a person by their first impression, but I could definitely feel a unique, friendly atmosphere from her.

“So you’re Miss Blanc. I’m Persis Drake. I’m sorry to have my first meeting with my son’s precious lover in this state.”

“Ah, no. It was an unavoidable situation.”

In fact, Anise was also a little disappointed.

If possible, I wanted to meet Vermillian’s father in a slightly more proper situation, creating a plausible place, but the situation didn’t allow it.

But it was too urgent to distinguish between hot and cold rice.

That’s why Anise quickly finished her self-introduction and immediately approached Persis to check his condition.

Persis also wanted to have a chat with his son’s lover at their first meeting if possible, but realizing that he didn’t have time to do so, he immediately pulled up his top.

“…Anise, how is it? Can you fix it?”

“I don’t know. There’s definitely a tremendous power in it.”

“You can feel it.”

“Yeah, my mother and I both had a sense of being able to instinctively know a person’s condition. It looks much more serious than when I first met Rian.”

It’s much more serious than himself, who had a hole in his stomach and was on the verge of death.

How powerful does the curse have to be to make that possible?

Hearing those words, Vermillian bit his lip tightly, feeling a surge of regret.

“I’ll try it once. I don’t know if it’ll work….”

“Please. Anise.”

“Okay.”

It was the first time he had ever asked her for something, so Anise placed her hand on Persis’s shoulder with a determined mind.

“Ugh….”

Then, the unidentified alien power rising from the curse rushed at her fiercely as if to swallow her whole.

It was as if it had a will of its own.

A warning came from inside her head to take her hand off immediately, but she stubbornly placed her hand completely on the mark and closed her eyes tightly.

Uuung…!

At that moment, the golden light rising from Anise’s body began to fill the room.

‘To resist this.’

But even though quite a bit of time had passed since the light had risen, the pattern engraved on Persis’s shoulder showed no sign of disappearing.

Perhaps the purplish aura rising from above was resisting the miracle she was performing.

Even Anise was embarrassed because it was the first time she had experienced this phenomenon, but she poured out all her strength and concentrated her mind on one place, sweating profusely.

It was a fight between whether the curse would disappear or she would run out of strength first and collapse.

Seureureuk…..

Fortunately, her efforts were being rewarded, as the curse pattern gradually faded and the black aura began to dissipate little by little.

Persis didn’t know what was happening in his body, but Vermillian’s eyes, who was watching this scene from behind, were filled with brilliant hope.

If we continue like this a little more, we can save Father.

It was when Vermillian clenched his fists and cheered for Anise in his heart at the sight of a ray of light that was slowly beginning to appear.

“That cunning bitch dares to touch my work.”

“……!”

Vermillian’s head was violently tilted at the woman’s voice that suddenly came.

It was that woman he had seen before.

I don’t know her identity, her name, or anything else.

The woman who gave Vermillian the feeling of revenge for the first time in his heart.

“You…!”

“I knew you were alive. Vermillian Drake.”

Vermillian gnashed his teeth and showed blatant hostility, but the woman simply snorted and only smiled as if it was expected.

At that time, when a tense battle of nerves continued, as if one side’s neck would fly away immediately the moment one side let go of the tension.

Kwaang!

The wall of the room crumbled into powder, and two new figures appeared.

Among them, the man who clenched his fist as if to crush it, recognized the woman in front of him as soon as he saw her, and said boldly with a thick smile.

“You’ve been doing all sorts of tricks behind the scenes and finally showed up.”

It was none other than Kyle.