“Th…this story…? Wh-what…?”
Yeo Minha stutters back with a shaky voice. Her voice and eyes are still filled with moisture.
Well, would this woman know about the worries I’ve had all night? Considering our relationship, it feels like a natural reaction. In fact, in a way, it’s the direction I intended…
“I, I just… w-was rude with this…”
“Do you remember what happened yesterday?”
“Y-yesterday…? What the heck…”
The connection of thoughts happens in an instant. Yeo Minha’s pupils, which had been hazy before, expand greatly. Fear fills her eyes and expression.
Like someone who has lost their mind, she lunges at me. Just moments before, she was curled up and shaking in a corner of the empty dormitory living room. I couldn’t grasp the events leading up to this, but it’s clear that she had a terrifying experience.
“H-huh… haah…”
Yeo Minha clutches her chest and exhales roughly. She turns her head, frantically surveying her surroundings.
Yesterday, she truly looked like someone who had lost her mind; I even considered that she might not remember that time.
But with her reaction now, she seems to possess a clear awareness of her experiences and actions.
“It’s you… it’s you, isn’t it…?”
Finally, her gaze turns towards me.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t play dumb…! How could you come back right away…!”
It’s a fierce voice filled with desperation.
With her eyes focused now, it seems she is of sound mind this time.
But just like yesterday, her suspicion towards me remains strong; she is surely convinced of her instincts.
“…”
The glare she gives me flickers like a candle flame.
I hadn’t slept at all yesterday, losing myself in thoughts about this situation.
As I thought on the day I first used the blockade, I almost wanted to deny it outright.
If I pretend not to know, there’s nothing Yeo Minha can do about it. All she’d be able to do is throw vague clouds of questions, like she is now.
However, through yesterday’s experience, I learned one thing for sure.
There’s no need to play this blind man’s bluff right now.
“Then what?”
“…!”
Caught off guard by my confident response, Yeo Minha’s face turns pale with shock.
“I see you’re having some pretty intense nightmares. Even I, in the next room, struggled to cope. So I took some steps.”
“Wh-what steps…?”
“I don’t see why I should tell you that.”
“That’s nonsense… it’s impossible… What the heck…”
“You asked the question, and now you’re denying it? If so, then I don’t have much to say.”
I pretended to get up from my place. After finishing my sentence, I turned towards the door with a firm stride.
Maybe it’s because I’m wearing a mask, but I feel a bit more shameless than usual.
“I will take my leave now. You might have a bit of an uncomfortable night’s sleep tonight. Well then…”
“Wait, wait…!”
-Thud!
A desperate voice trying to grasp me, followed by the sound of something tumbling to the floor.
“…ugh… wait…”
It was a reaction that left me unable to turn around.
Seems she stumbled and is now sitting on the floor beside the bed.
Seeing her pitiful state makes a sigh escape me.
On one hand, I’m relieved she’s acting just like I imagined.
On the other, I feel a pang of pity due to her intense reaction…
“…”
Yeo Minha is still trembling on the ground. Her two eyes are filled with moisture and fear.
That fear is also the means I’m trying to use.
Ignoring the twinges of conscience, I moved towards Yeo Minha again.
“Please… don’t come near…”
Now that she’s caught in such a predicament, she begs me not to approach.
“Ugh…”
As I stepped closer, she was hiccuping, unable to dare even look up.
I crouched in front of her to match her eye level.
“Are you willing to have a conversation now?”
*
Hope and despair are the contradictions of the emotions Yeo Minha feels now.
Her hope lies in the fact that the alleviation of her mental pollution isn’t a temporary miracle, while despair is that the one holding the key to this solution is the perverted masked man who is threatening her.
The fact that he burst in the morning after such an experience couldn’t be coincidence.
First, he approached by positioning himself as a mentor, hid his true talents, and won a duel using that as leverage to intrude into the dorm, showcasing an unknown ability to let her experience a taste of paradise, only to retract it and push her back into the abyss.
The sequence of events clearly unfolded as he intended from start to finish.
The Jeokhwa family’s mental pollution has been an ongoing side effect throughout history; no matter how discreetly it was handled, it has now begun to spread, leading to rumors about the curse of the Spirit Master.
She, too, could not escape the curse. Instead, she had to endure even more terrible mental pollution proportional to her exceptional talent. Ever since her childhood, she had been tortured by nightmares and hallucinations.
But even for someone like Yeo Minha, who had suffered through years of pain, the last two nights had been a hell she never wanted to experience again.
The shadows and hallucinations appeared to be angrier than usual, pressing her harder. Yesterday, she faced the most dreadful hallucination and the depths of hellish scenes.
Had she endured just one more night of that torment, she truly would have lost her mind.
And in the frenzy that followed from that torturous nightmare, she ended up revealing her most disgraceful antics to him.
“Ah…”
Yeo Minha’s vision turns dark. Up until now, she could brush off this as another nightmare, but experiencing a tangible gossip and actually witnessing him is a whole different story.
The very fact that he is here threatening her so openly stems from such a judgment.
What leaves her even more powerless is the realization that despite guessing his intentions, there’s nothing she can do.
“Senior. Do you want to dream happy dreams again?”
“…uuh.”
The white, chilling mask presses down on her once more. Yeo Minha can only nod slightly in fear.
“I, too, loathe seeing my dear senior suffer.”
He pours out worn-out phrases that seem devoid of genuine emotion.
“So I have a proposal. If you accept a few simple conditions, I’ll continue to help you maintain your mental peace.”
“Ah…”
Yeo Minha’s vision dims. The ‘simple conditions’ he speaks of are essentially shackles around her neck.
Yet, there’s nothing she can do but weakly nod.
“First. I, Yoo Jin-hyun, will do my utmost to help Yeo Minha regain her peace of mind.”
This is merely a repeat of what he just said, serving as the foundational premise for his proposal.
“Second. Yeo Minha must keep the fact that Yoo Jin-hyun possesses such means a secret from anyone.”
“…”
From his perspective, this is an extremely reasonable and valid condition. Despite the vast wealth acquired through exclusive Stardust mining, mental pollution has been a long-unresolved issue throughout history.
Even Yeo Minha, who has experienced his power for just three days, is dying from curiosity about it. But if this fact leaks, he’ll face threats beyond mere annoyances.
“Third. In return for help, Yeo Minha shall obey any orders given by Yoo Jin-hyun without exception.”
But the moment he lays out the third condition, Yeo Minha’s mind drifts far away from rationale.
“W-what…?”
A reflexive question escapes Yeo Minha’s lips. Her hands tremble as if struck by frost.
“Additionally, a contract will be written to formalize these conditions.”
Ignoring her question, he pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket. It’s easy for Yeo Minha to recognize it. A special paper mixed with Stardust sensitivity stone powder used for writing and preserving contracts between wizards.
It was densely packed with writing. What he recited was only a notification of some important points from the already prepared contract.
“You… you…”
Tears well up in her eyes. The tremors in her hands spread throughout her body. Reflexively, her arms hug her shoulders.
He’s not feeling “bad” at all, with thoughts of putting a leash around her neck and treating her like a plaything in his mind.
Despite her blurred vision from tears, Yeo Minha tries her hardest to glare at the masked figure beyond.
This was her last shred of pride.
Absolute obedience from the successor of the Jeokhwa family is not something easily uttered. It’s a matter that involves not only personal circumstances but also the family’s prestige. The carrot he offers is as sweet as honey, but if it brings misfortune to her family, it would be better to die.
“Hah…”
Seeing Yeo Minha in such a state, the mask unintentionally exudes a sigh filled with concern. Even such a small action makes her body tremble in embarrassment.
However, the next moment, his completely unexpected words obliterate Yeo Minha’s last pride.
“And one more thing. I, Yoo Jin-hyun, will not inflict any mental or physical harm on Yeo Minha, and I will protect her from any danger.”
“W-what…?”
“Is this sufficient?”
Leaving bewildered Yeo Minha behind, he hastily jots down a line on the contract. Then he pulls out some sort of seal.
“This is an item entrusted to me by the Heukryeon family’s successor. With this seal, my actions will be guaranteed by the Heukryeon family and hold legal binding power. This means not only you but also I am bound to uphold the contract.”
As he speaks, he presses the seal against the paper. Soon, a burning smell fills the air, and fine light begins to seep out from the area where the seal touches.
A moment later, he takes the seal off the contract, leaving a complex, irreversible pattern still there.
“I believe you’ve gained the qualifications of a successor now. Sign the seal.”
“Why are you doing this to me…?”
His behavior sways between two extremes, leaving her completely baffled. Yeo Minha asks weakly, but the only response she gets is a stiff, monotonous voice.
“As I said before, I’m doing this to help you.”
“So why…”
“Because you have value to use. To me and to my benefactor.”
“What does that mean…”
“Enough. Sign it. Quickly.”
“…ugh.”
At his abrupt, forceful tone, Yeo Minha instinctively lowers her gaze.
Now she has neither the strength nor the will to refuse his demands.
Even her last shred of pride crumbles under the last condition he puts forth.
With feeble hands, she seeks the seal and brings it to the bottom of the contract, infusing it with energy.
Soon, the same burning smell and light emerge again, and another seal is imprinted on the contract.
Yeo Minha offers the contract to the masked figure with trembling hands. He flicks the paper with his fingers and easily separates two identical layers of the contract, returning one back to Yeo Minha.
“It seems like we’re all wrapped up. I apologize for intruding since morning. I look forward to working well together, senior.”
Bowing his head politely as if he is a courteous individual, he instantly turns and leaves Yeo Minha’s bedroom.
As the tension dissipates, Yeo Minha finally four some questions swirling in her mind.
The cause of the throbbing pain in her lower abdomen, and how she ended up awakening in the bedroom when she was clearly in the living room.
“…ugh.”
The elusive answer her faint memory supplies is singular. The last thing she saw before blacking out was the punch he drove into her abdomen.
A flush of shame spreads across her face, and tears drip steadily to the floor. The shawl draped over her shoulders becomes an utterly useless article.
Staring blankly at the door he exited, she lets her head drop back down again.
She was already a bug caught in a web, a powerless sacrificial lamb.
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