Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 110: Can People Change?
“Hey. This is my private chamber. Get out of here already.”
Ignoring Viscount Girard’s words, the beautiful girl continued forward without hesitation.
“Are there no soldiers here?! Anyone! Get this woman out of here!”
No soldiers responded.
Of course, that was because Viscount Girard himself had cast the curse of collapse.
Usually, even the caster couldn’t lift the curse.
That’s because curses are things that pass.
Once released, a curse, as a separate entity from the caster, continues to corrode the cursed individual.
Sol stopped in the middle of the room.
Several chains entwined around her shoulders and torso clattered to the ground.
“Don’t ignore Girard-sama’s words.”
One of the tutors supporting himself with his hands, stood up.
“Are you listening!?”
Still receiving no response from Sol, he approached, grabbed her arm along with her silver hair.
Immediately after, the tutor stiffened, as if frozen, unnaturally rigid.
“What are you doing? Let go—”
Just as Viscount Girard was about to command her—
“Gyuaaahhhhh!!!”
The tutor began to thrash around.
It was like the scream of a dying man.
The bizarre, ear-piercing scream jolted all three of them awake.
It was beyond ordinary.
Viscount Girard widened his eyes, staring fixedly at the girl’s face.
Her skin was like cold porcelain, devoid of any signs of life.
And then, the jewel-like eyes met Viscount Girard’s gaze.
In an instant, the burning magic power turned into a chill that ran down his spine.
Once before, he had been stared down by Mark, the commander of the Imperial Guard, during a top-grade ritual.
He felt the same shiver now as he did then.
“Huh.”
As if turning away from the unbearable reality, his eyes wandered.
“What… is this!?”
Wherever the drifting gaze landed, there was something silver.
On the walls, floor, and ceiling, there was something silver creeping around.
The source of that strange silver was beyond doubt.
—Hair.
When he returned his gaze to the girl in the black dress, the silver hair was writhing.
The girl’s hair was growing.
The silver hair that reached the floor crawled along it, spreading throughout the entire room.
Undoubtedly inhuman.
Convinced of this, Viscount Girard checked on the instructor who had fainted first.
He was still twitching like a dying fish, his movements like a fish struggling for life, with silver hair tangled around him.
But there seemed to be no visible wounds.
“Poison… No, a curse!”
Shouted Viscount Girard, convinced.
“Impose the Curse of Dark Blindness on me! Just the curse! Don’t hit me directly, understand!?”
Sextus and the tutor were bewildered.
“Even if you say that—”
“Get on with it!”
With a sense of urgency, Sextus immediately released a black crow from his right hand.
The crow flew overhead and scattered feathers, and Viscount Girard’s field of vision was immediately shrouded in darkness.
“Phew… I’m not cursed anymore.”
Viscount Girard and the Sextus have a reason for contracting with monsters that deal with curses.
Those who use curses know their terror better than anyone.
Therefore, they take countermeasures.
Those who are cursed will not be cursed any further.
Using poison to counteract poison.
Although there are exceptions like the curse of the Tower, known as “the price,” the spell for lifting curses is rare, and since it cannot be widely deployed, it was a practical countermeasure to cast a curse on oneself before being cursed.
“All that’s left is to ask Adelaide-sama for help and arranging for someone who can lift the curse—”
Relieved, as something touched his cheeks.
Ad
Soft and gentle, it felt like a gentle breeze.
—Hair… Calm down, it’s nothing.
Immediately after, light shone through the darkness that had covered his field of vision.
And one after another, the darkness was corroded by the silver light.
—Is this the forced overwrite of the curse!?
In an instant, the lost sight returned.
In other words, it meant that he had been cursed.
Viscount Girard, who cautiously surveyed the surroundings.
There was a dim sun.
The sun and moon overlapped due to the solar eclipse, and it seemed as if light and darkness were coexisting.
The girl’s voice could be heard from somewhere.
“Make the same choice as my master. Then you can leave.”
When the girl’s voice stopped abruptly, he woke up in a deep forest.
There was a sun covered by the moon in the sky, and it was as dark as night around.
“Where is this?”
Ad
As he raised his upper body, a male beast’s roar echoed through the forest.
“What’s that sound!? Someone answer!”
As Viscount Girard hurriedly got up, he noticed someone nearby.
A nobleman carrying an injured person, noblewoman, and frightened young twins, accompanied by a maid wearing a maid’s uniform.
“What… are you guys…!?”
The nobleman and woman were Viscount Girard’s parents.
His parents, who were supposed to have been assassinated many years ago.
“Father, mother!?”
Viscount Girard felt a sense of discomfort when he looked up at his parents.
A little later, he realized that his height had drastically shrunk.
His limbs were thin and short, his head seemed unnaturally enlarged, and he couldn’t move his body at all.
—Am I… turning back… into a child…?
He was probably about three or four years old.
“What’s… happening?”
Upon closer inspection, even the maid was someone he recognized. She was someone he had completely forgotten until now.
When he was a child, he had trapped her in the second layer as a prank, leaving her naked. Ultimately, she never returned to the first layer.
The young twins were also Kyrgyz people whom he had seen somewhere before. He couldn’t remember exactly where.
Amidst the confusion, something emerged from the darkness of the forest.
A grotesque monster with gray skin and a large hooked nose.
Ugly demonic features with fangs visible in its split mouth.
“Goblin!”
Viscount Girard fled without hesitation.
Realizing that there was nothing he, as a child, could do, he left his parents, the maid, and the Kyrgyz people behind.
He dove into the dense forest, seeking refuge in its pitch-black depths.
But what awaited him after parting the undergrowth was a goblin with a hideous grin on its face.
The goblin swung the stone axe it held in its hand down toward his skull.
“Aaargh!”
With intense pain, consciousness faded.
He was dead. Without a doubt.
Once again, his vision was enveloped in silver light.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a deep forest.
It was the exact same scene as before.
And once again, a chilling roar echoed through the surroundings.
There were his injured father and mother, the maid, and filthy slaves.
“What… is this!?”
Immediately, a horde of goblins appeared.
He raised his right hand to release his gun monster, but nothing came out.
He felt absolutely no power from his spell.
Scanning the surroundings for anything useful, he noticed a single sword lying at his feet.
“A sword! A sword!”
He tried to pick up the sword, but his body was too small to lift it.
“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”
As he struggled to draw the sword from its sheath, he suddenly caught a whiff of a foul odor.
Turning to his side, he saw a goblin grinning widely, its mouth wide open.
And then, a rusty spear pierced his chest.
Ad
“Aaargh!”
With intense pain, consciousness faded.
Once again, he found himself enveloped in silver light when he opened his eyes, deep within the forest.
“What in the world… is happening?”
For the third time:
He hid behind his father’s back, but was dragged out and beaten to death with a wooden stick.
For the fourth time:
He used the twins as a shield, but was disemboweled with an axe and bled to death.
For the fifth time:
He was impaled from behind with a spear and died instantly.
And so it continued for the sixth, seventh, eighth times…
Being killed repeatedly in every imaginable way was his nightmare.
And then, the sixty-eighth time:
Viscount Girard ran frantically, swinging his arms and legs with all his might.
“Hah… hah… hah…!”
But with the legs of a three-year-old, he couldn’t escape. The goblin easily grabbed his ankle and hoisted him into the air.
The goblin then swung Viscount Girard around, playing with him.
“Nooooo!”
In the end, he slammed his head against a roadside stone, scattering brain matter, and died.
Once again, he opened his eyes to find himself in the deep forest.
“Hahaha… hahahaha…”
Viscount Girard began to laugh brokenly, drooling without resistance as the goblins continued to torment him.
“Gradually… getting better… reconstructing… your ego…”
Perhaps it was an auditory hallucination.
A girl’s voice seemed to come from nowhere.
“Ahh…”
The first time he heard it, he felt nothing but irritation. The second time, it was fear.
But now, he couldn’t help but feel it was like the compassion of a goddess.
A closed space.
Limited information.
A world filled with death and violence.
The denial of existence, repeated over and over.
Amidst all that, there was only one affirmation.
His consciousness was being eroded against his will.
Reflected in clinging eyes was a black sun.
“Haha… oh, what a beautiful… eclipse it is, hehe…”
That was the name of the one called Vincent-Wesite-Girard.
It seemed like a distant past now.
Although thoughts of the glory he once had briefly crossed his mind, they were quickly painted over in black.
“Hah… does it even matter… anymore?”
The laughter echoed, not just within the tower of the castle, but also within the hearts of the four individuals.
Viscount Girard laughed uproariously as the club smashed into his skull, causing his cranium to cave in. It was absurdly hilarious, so much so that he couldn’t contain himself.
Beside him, Sextus collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, devoid of all thought.
The two tutors, after laughing, began to weep copiously the next moment. Then, amidst their tears, they erupted into anger. And then, once again, they burst into laughter.
Observing the four of them like a puppeteer, Sol remarked.
“Humans are… interesting… each with their own… way of changing.”
Sol was twisted and distorted, a humanoid puppet possessing the memories of Lucius and Yoichi, but lacking human emotions.
Yet, despite that, Sol believed. Just like its master, Lucius.
People can change.
That’s why Sol cursed.
Out of pure goodwill, to turn the nobles into compassionate rulers who would care for their subjects.
A curse that would last until he could recreate the moment when Lucius resolved to become a fine baron on his way home from the appraisal ceremony. It was a curse that would lead him through infinite deaths, grasping something beyond the cycle of death, believing that people can change.
Perhaps upon awakening, they would overcome countless hardships and become humans who understood pain better than anyone else. Yes, humans who knew pain more intimately than anyone else.
They might awaken in five minutes. Or fifty years. Or perhaps they would continue to sleep until the end of their lives.
“Please… wake up soon.”
It was a powerful curse.
Connected to the Magic Stone of the Fairy King and linked to a special-grade false core, Sol’s curse was more than just an illusion or deception.
It forcibly separated the mind and body, imprisoning only the mind in a world of illusions.
Therefore, for the person affected, everything that happened was an undeniable reality.
Every experience, every emotion, every pain, every death. Everything.
Sol named it the “Endless Falsehood Realm.”
The curse, once cast after revealing the method of dispelling it to the person, couldn’t be undone even with the dispelling ritual.
The only way to dispel it was to help the young twins, the subjects of the realm, by fighting and defeating the goblins, using the sacred sword to eradicate them.
But Sol didn’t understand.
She didn’t understand the abnormality of Lucius’s obsession.
Nor did she understand that Lucius’s magic power far exceeded that of an ordinary person, making it easier for him to trigger the light of the sacred sword.
And she didn’t understand that normal humans don’t usually resort to fighting goblins to help others.
In the distant future, when the four in front of them might sacrifice themselves to help the Kyrgyz people,
who would they be at their core?
Sol, the emotionless cursed puppet, left words for the broken four and disappeared from the mansion.