Ch.133Cause

Charlotte carefully wrapped the boy, who was continuously vomiting black blood as if expelling his entire insides, with magic and returned to the palace.

Serena watched the scene, her blue eyes gleaming ferociously. Yet, understanding the gravity of the situation, she did nothing beyond glaring.

The moment they arrived at the palace, the boy was placed in the center of a room on the top floor, with multiple layers of magic circles laid around him to restrict any movement.

Not satisfied with that alone, Charlotte even employed a space-distorting defensive magic that she had previously only kept as theoretical knowledge, surrounding the entire room. It was an action akin to taking out insurance.

Although she had never properly used this magic due to its inherent contradictions, in the current situation, it posed no problem.

When dealing with minor threats that allowed enough time to recite the lengthy incantations required for magic, there was no need to activate defensive magic of this caliber.

Conversely, when facing something powerful enough to necessitate such defensive magic, there was never enough time to secure the lengthy incantations for the spell.

But now, such contradictions didn’t matter. Charlotte wasn’t trying to fight that something.

The boy’s body constantly convulsed. Black tears flowed like a downpour from between his half-open eyelids, and black blood continuously spewed from his mouth.

It was the same liquid that flowed through the bodies of the black blood demons—the very creatures the boy had so desperately begged her to kill on sight.

Beside the boy, who was repeatedly covered in black blood and then cleaned, was Serena. Kneeling on the floor, her gaze fixed on her lord as if nailed there.

Except for certain specific movements she showed briefly, Serena remained completely motionless. Anyone unfamiliar with the situation would surely have thought time had frozen.

Her golden ponytail only fluttered when the boy’s severed limbs regenerated to their original state.

It was to cut off the arms and legs that had reattached themselves.

The cycle repeated: severing the regenerated arms and legs, then kneeling and waiting endlessly for the cut parts to reattach.

At first, she had only cut off his legs, but when the legless boy tried to crawl somewhere using his arms, she had no choice but to sever his arms as well.

Even now, the boy’s torso was wriggling like a fish pulled out of water, trying to escape the magic circle.

But Charlotte was certain that the boy had not completely lost consciousness.

This was a conclusion she reached after directly observing that it took just over 10 seconds for the boy’s severed limbs to recover.

Without any external intervention or particular will from the boy, the time it took for his super-regeneration ability to restore his body was around 3 seconds.

If he tried to delay the recovery as much as possible, that time extended to almost 10 seconds. So naturally, she could only think that he still possessed his will.

And that meant that the boy was somehow resisting the curse despite his terrible condition.

‘What on earth is that woman?’ Charlotte inwardly sighed.

No matter how she thought about it, the cause of the boy’s terrible state was that girl Charlotte had encountered.

She guessed that the word “master” had acted as some kind of trigger. Things had started to go wrong right after hearing that word, eventually leading to this situation.

As a result, she hadn’t received an answer about what relationship that woman had with her husband. The boy was in no condition to answer questions.

So Charlotte didn’t take issue with the boy’s attitude.

Of course, immediately after encountering the boy, she had been blind with rage, but now that some time had passed, she had internally come to some understanding.

At first, she had simply thought he was hiding a new woman. That was why Charlotte had exploded in anger and immediately cut off his head.

Now it was after she had detected that something was going wrong. So, she was more inclined to think that there must have been some circumstances.

‘However, I have not completely forgiven you, my lord. You will have to answer this question someday.’

Of course, she had no intention of letting it slide. Whenever that might be, she planned to question him thoroughly. Just not at this moment.

Charlotte conjured a magic circle in her hand and began to analyze whatever was affecting the boy’s body.

She knew of several spells that activated through specific words or thoughts. Whatever was consuming the boy’s body was clearly a type of such magic.

Her mind worked ceaselessly. She gathered every tiny clue and recalled all knowledge that might have even the slightest connection.

First, the black blood her husband kept vomiting had almost exactly the same composition as the blood of the black blood demons they had been fighting.

It was fortunate that Charlotte and Serena were the ones beside him; if it had been anyone else, they would have died the moment that blood was spewed, and it wouldn’t have been strange at all.

However, the two types of blood weren’t perfectly identical, though she hadn’t yet discovered exactly what the difference was. That would require more time.

‘I cannot rule out the possibility that the woman who dared to call my husband her master created the black blood demons.’

The fog was gradually lifting. The tightly knotted threads in Charlotte’s mind were slowly unraveling. It felt like her eyes were opening.

She constructed a scenario.

In the past, long before Charlotte was born, something had happened between the boy and that woman who deserved to die, and that incident had given birth to black magic and the black blood demons.

The boy, naturally knowing the background of these black blood demons, had asked for them to be killed on sight with extreme caution, and he himself had tried to forget the girl.

But because that cursed woman had reappeared in the world, some specific trigger had reactivated the magic cast on the boy’s body, leading to the current situation.

It was a scenario without obvious flaws, but it was also difficult to fully affirm.

The evidence was too weak. Except for one thing—that there had been some kind of relationship between her husband and that damned woman—everything else was merely Charlotte’s conjecture.

If the royal magician corps had presented such reasoning as an achievement, Charlotte would have judged it not even worth verifying and blown their heads off on the spot.

Putting that aside in a corner of her mind, she tried to think of another scenario.

More precisely, she was trying to.

A pair of sapphires reflecting the blue sea looked at the door of the room, and ruby eyes soaked in blood detected the disturbance in the detection magic almost simultaneously.

“It seems there is one more.”

“It’s that woman.”

Their voices overlapped.

“I have noticed it as well, so be quiet and stay still, Royal First Knight Commander. It is an order from your lord.”

“You’re the one who should stay put in a corner. Don’t interfere with me unnecessarily.”

With those words, Serena rose to her feet. Before doing so, she loyally dismembered her lord, who had finished regenerating and was trying to crawl somewhere again.

Charlotte’s eyes narrowed with anger.

According to the disturbance she felt, Serena’s words were not wrong. From the moment that woman burst into the room, what Charlotte could do would be extremely limited.

Of course, that didn’t stop her blood from boiling. Her teeth gritted.

The defensive magic spread throughout the entire palace disappeared at once. Immediately after, with a tremendous boom, the castle gate exploded, and the entire palace shook.

Serena created a Wind Shear in her right hand. She couldn’t infuse it with mana, but fortunately, it seemed she could still manifest the Wind Shear itself.

The sound of impacts grew closer. Serena gripped the perfectly transparent Wind Shear, devoid of mana, with both hands.

A voice was heard from beyond the door.

“This little lamb dares to approach her god.”

With a crunch, the adamantium door crumpled like paper and twisted in all directions. The hinges supporting the door were on the verge of being torn off.

A fist suddenly protruded through the adamantium, which was easily over 10cm thick. It was a monstrous strength that didn’t match the delicate appearance at all.

The fist withdrew briefly, then slender fingers grasped the edge. And then, tearing the adamantium with sheer force, they began to widen the gap.

Through the widening gap, yellow eyes were visible. Just like Charlotte and Serena often did, they were amber eyes filled with killing intent.

The hole in the door grew larger and larger until it finally expanded enough for a person to pass through. It rendered meaningless the fact that the door was made of adamantium.

A woman in a nun’s habit stepped into the room.

Brown hair that reached down to her chest swayed near her lower bust. Her well-ripened peach-colored skin was slightly flushed.

With each step, her enormous breasts, too large to be described as simply “big,” swayed enticingly in an artistic form.

Though it was a simple black nun’s habit without any decoration, it only served to accentuate her absurdly large chest.

The waist of the habit was deeply cut down to just above the hips, and below it was a white garter belt that half-covered her thighs.

Between the garter belt and the habit, her thighs, flushed the same color as her face, were clearly visible.

From that small mouth, hatred was spat out as if chewed.

“What have you done to my god?”

It was Christine.