chapter 57

“I felt it the first time I saw you. You have a strange air about you.”

“Is that because I am a lone adventurer?”

“Yes, well, but you bought a slave, eh?”

Ancelotti, who had been talking, made a strange sound as if he had spit in his lungs.

“Why, why, why, why is the number still zero?”

“What?”

The numbers on my neck.

Come to think of it; I removed the contract with Ouka to restore my status.

I don’t know why he cares about that.

“It’s none of your business.”

He chuckles.

“Ha! That’s why you’re a pretentious bastard who makes the mistake of being alone.”

The man puts his hands over his face and raises his voice.

I don’t know what’s bothering him, but he’s freaky.

“I don’t want to hear any more crap.”

I take out a dagger from the item box.

Although I’m prepared in a fighting stance, considering the level difference, this is not an opponent I can defeat. It’s a good idea to run away, but I don’t think we can outrun that amount of skills.

Aren’t we stuck……?

“Why are you in here?”

“Oh? Me? That is, of course, to be the boss here. I’d have to say you don’t have enough brains to be able to guess that.”

It’s an annoying thing to say at every turn, but I’m getting into the conversation. If we don’t come up with a plan now, we don’t have a chance.

“There was a Skullhead on the ground. I thought it came out of this dungeon.”

“You’re not wrong. I raised that Skullhead goblin myself.”

“You raised……?”

The man smiles again as if he’s been waiting for my reaction.

“There were many goblins in this dungeon. But I locked them all in this room and made them fight. They killed and ate each other, and the goblins that survived were the finished product. It’s the art of creating great monsters in a short period.”

It’s like insect poison.

Now I know the devastation in this room and why that Skullhead was at a high level.

It was all the work of the demon in front of me.

“So,”

The man continues.

“What happened to the Skullhead Goblins?”

“……I took it down a long time ago.”

“I see……So, then–the curse is complete.”

The blue eyes shifted their gaze from me.

I knew at once that he was looking at Ouka.

I quickly turn around to see her – but she’s not there.

At the same time, her cherry-red hair passes by my side.

“Ouka?”

I followed Ouka as she walked away with my eyes and stopped in front of Ancelotti.

When Ouka turns to me, I poke my forehead.

My – forehead?

I try to touch it with my fingertips.

Something sharp touches it. Blood flows to the palm of my hand.

In my head – is there a dagger stuck in it?

The girl was a slave.

That man sold her.

The girl had no memories.

The girl was a fox.

A demon fox feared for its evil eyes.

TL Note: Youkai is used to describe many supernatural creatures in Japan, demons being one of them. From now I’ll use demon instead of youkai.

Well, then, Ouka was– from the beginning.

The words in my brain become the pieces, and I try to fit them into the puzzle.

Something is completed.

“I’m sorry, master.”

Ouka’s smile was ugly and vile, which did not match her face.