Did he really believe that as long as the contract wasn’t fulfilled, nothing would happen? Even though it was a contract with a demon? How foolish. There was no way such a lenient outcome awaited us. The demon had simply failed to accurately convey the true outcome should the contract go unfulfilled.
And it was unlikely the demon had ever promised to restore Beljeanne’s body and soul exactly as they were in life. If the promise was merely Beljeanne’s resurrection, it should have been fulfilled the moment Lily created the chimera. All the demon needed to do was to resurrect a body resembling hers.
Whether with the genetic engineering technology from my past life, or the captain’s wives in this life, cloning was feasible. As long as Beljeanne’s hair existed, it shouldn’t be impossible. But demons were despicable, cowardly, cunning creatures. Contracts with demons weren’t like contracts exchanged between companies in my past life; you had to spell out every detail or you’d get tripped up.
Really, though, the lesson was to avoid making contracts with troublesome entities altogether.
Besides, a demon wasn’t necessarily obligated to fulfill the contract. They could simply interfere with the magical power residing in the body using the demonic force they’d implanted, corrupting the soul until the person’s natural lifespan ended. When the body finally died, it left behind a soul ingredient twisted beyond recognition, reeking of decay—a delicacy of the highest order for demons. It was the spoils of a long-term battle, only available to demons who lived for ages.
“Okay, here...”
“Right. Then make sure this child hears just how joyfully I’m living now. Make him understand reality. Read that novel aloud clearly. By the way, a new edition with illustrations just came out recently. The title is The Turtle and the Tortoiseshell Whip Binding. That’s right. I made some revisions, but show him this rough sketch too.”
But there was no time to convey everything now. At least, not while Lily’s soul was on the verge of becoming so warped it couldn’t be freed from the demon’s core.
The captain’s wilted flower regained some of its freshness as I explained what I wanted. And when I pulled the rough sketch of bondage play from my bag and handed it over, the flower perked right back up.
“Yes... Yes! Ta-dah! Hyah-ha!” With a swift, almost invisible dash, Captain Dread entered the little library. Then, deftly using his dreadlocked branches to grab a new book, he began flipping through it, skillfully playing the shamisen all the while, and launched into a sung and read performance. Hidden behind the bookshelves, I could only judge by sound, but it was just like a Showa-era street kamishibai show.
As a mandrake, the captain excelled not only in earth magic but also in dark spells that affected the mind. Even in my past life there had been tales of people hearing a mandrake’s cry and suffering mental breakdowns, right? There were, weren’t there? I couldn’t say for sure since I didn’t have internet access here...
Either way, this shock therapy was bound to succeed, bringing great emotion and excitement to Lily’s heart.
“Wh-What indecency?! Lies, lies! The princess doing such a thing?! It’s all l-lies!” Lily’s shrieks spoke volumes of the captain’s mastery of mental magic. It seemed the captain was also replaying the search for Lily in his mind, burning novel illustrations directly into his eyes as he narrated the story.
“Though in real life, you’re head over heels for the illustrations, aren’t you? Especially this binding technique—it was Lavi’s brainchild...”
“S-Stop it! The princess will be hurt, defiled!” Suddenly, the pope noticed the captain’s wives on the other side of the ice starting to grin.
“The tortoiseshell-colored whip coiled around her body writhes and squirms like a turtle, digging in. It won’t come loose...” the captain continued.
I cast a soundproofing spell over the entire library. The captain’s emotionally charged narration and Lily’s screams were both abruptly muffled. The captain’s wives looked disappointed. I felt bad, but a child was sleeping.
The five alraunes’ red pupils glinted fiercely...
“Oh dear, off they go with a whoosh.”
I teleported outside the ice wall, closing my eyes, just as a whirlwind blew. Now the only ones remaining in this place were Dia, sleeping in the baby bed, my brother, who had completely lost his composure, the prince, and me.
“Oh... Princess...”
Was that faint, agonized auditory hallucination real? Or just my imagination? I’d cast soundproofing magic. Just my imagination, just my imagination.
More importantly, I glanced at the two transfer arrays. Both of those still connected to somewhere.
Borrowing Lag’s powerful water-attribute magic, I interfered with both transfer arrays. I sensed the moisture within every living being at the transfer destination distorting and evaporating into oblivion.
However, I left behind the one entity I sensed deep within the crimson-black magic circle—and the familiar magic power residing within it.
As for the chimeras that Dia and Miss Linda had sealed away behind a wall of frozen earth, I interfered with the magic circuits embedded within the frozen earth spheres they were sealed with, detonating them and destroying them.
I then deployed a search spell. I sought the body of the Beljeanne that Lily had created.
Beyond the rock wall I thought was a dead end, I found magic power similar to that of my past life. The pope had probably wanted to transplant my face and eyes there.
Lily’s symbol of regret and obsession was destroyed by my magic, the magic stone I’d stowed away in subspace, and Cas’s magic, which I used together to generate a fiery wind within the space.
After scanning the entire area with magic to confirm nothing else had been overlooked, I picked up Dia. Along with the two boys, who were still deeply asleep, I teleported to the large dining hall of the church where Linda and the others were.
Simultaneously, to ensure the underground could never be used again, I used Dia’s inherently potent earth magic to generate soil, applying pressure to solidify it. This would prevent ground subsidence, so no worries there.
Of course, I placed a protective barrier over everyone remaining underground to prevent them from being crushed for a while. Since it was based on an ice wall, they’d be safe until it completely melted.
Soon, the shock therapy would take effect on Lily, and he’d abandon his fixation on Beljeanne. He’d lose the core that drew and held the demonic power within his body—the excessive negative emotions like hatred and jealousy. Once that happened, the remaining impurities of demonic power within his body could be eliminated solely by the sacred beast Drogolena. Then the contract with the demon could be broken without any debt remaining.
Of course, only a sacred beast and its pact-bearer could do this. Since the core was formed from human emotions, magic manifested by human magical power could not erase the demonic power within. This similar yet different demonic power was extremely troublesome, which was why only a sacred beast that was similar yet distinct could counter it...
“Guh!” A sudden, searing pain made me let out a groan, my thoughts freezing. The oath had finally activated.
The familiar yet dreaded heat and agony distorted my vision, threatening to make me collapse. I was still holding Dia—to protect her from being hurt, I slammed my shoulder into the great hall’s door. A loud clang rang out, but I managed to steady myself just enough to avoid falling.
I slowly exhaled the breath that threatened to stop, enduring the pain.
This time, it seemed I’d truly violated the oath with the sacred beast who had bestowed my blessing-name. The silver sacred seal I’d seen at the end of my past-past life had appeared on the back of my hand.