“Aya!”
It was a voice that burst forth uncontrollably due to a sudden pain.
Pyris, being a spirit, accepted the pain as a type of stimulus.
However, that was merely an issue of Pyris’s thorough perception; the way the body experiences pain was not significantly different from that of an ordinary child.
“…Hmm?”
Pyris tilted her head and frowned at this new stimulus.
She was clearly eating a delicious snack, so why was this unpleasant sensation interrupting her?
Pyris still did not understand that her tooth was in trouble.
Diana, seeing Pyris’s frowning face, asked.
“Is the snack not delicious?”
Although it was highly unlikely, Diana quickly shoved a cookie into her mouth, thinking that the cookie might have gone bad (in truth, she wasn’t sure if cookies could go bad; she always devoured them before they had a chance to spoil).
Fortunately, the cookie was still very delicious.
Then, what on earth was causing Pyris to frown?
It was such a sweet and tasty snack.
Diana munched on the cookie, tilting her head in confusion.
“It’s tasty!”
“……”
Watching that, Pyris soon brushed off her strangeness and put another cookie in her mouth.
This time, she hoped not to feel that strange stimulus.
But of course, a rotten tooth doesn’t heal on its own.
-Zap!
A tingling sensation, as if something were racing along her teeth, startled Pyris, and she pulled her hand away.
The cookie fell to the floor and crumbled.
Pyris letting go of her food was an astonishing sight that no one who knew her could believe.
And that “someone who knew” Diana was extremely surprised, her eyes wide open.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?”
Diana found it very hard to believe that Pyris was in any sort of pain.
“It hurts.”
“Where?”
“My, my tooth hurts…”
“What?”
Pyris muttered, on the verge of tears.
It was very frustrating that something like this was preventing her from enjoying her tasty treat.
Diana was quite flustered by Pyris’s tears.
Upon checking Pyris’s symptoms, Diana immediately thought of a ‘dentist.’
Without a doubt, it must be a cavity.
However, if that were the case, she couldn’t be of much help to Pyris.
Being only eight years old, she had no skills to heal someone else’s teeth.
And she certainly wasn’t an adult who could take Pyris by the hand and guide her to the dentist right away.
In that case, the only solution for this little girl was to call her brother.
With that thought in mind, Diana quickly picked up the phone and entered her brother’s number before Pyris’s crying grew louder.
Since they often contacted each other when something happened, it was a very swift process.
“……”
However, Diana hesitated to call her brother.
The reason was that she didn’t feel very justified in doing so.
If he found out that she had snuck out cookies, he would surely scold her, and then she might be forbidden from eating any snacks for a while.
“Ugh….”
“……”
But then again, she couldn’t just ignore her friend’s pain.
Diana looked back and forth between the partially eaten cookies and the crying Pyris, then seemed to make a decision as she picked up the phone.
Suddenly, she remembered something Meruru had said.
“Truth-telling is also a form of courage.”
Right now, Diana was gathering her courage.
——
Meanwhile, Luke was admiring the house where Yerna and Dayton lived.
“Oh, what a wonderful house.”
“Right?”
The house was quite satisfactory in appearance.
A two-story rural house with a small garden.
Including the second floor, it had a total of five rooms and was spacious, in addition to having a neat exterior.
It seemed like sunlight would shine through the windows, and the location was in the suburbs, close to the forest, making the mana refreshing and ideal for hiding things here and there.
Moreover, it turned out to be much cheaper than he had originally thought, so the conditions were truly excellent.
“How much was this house again?”
“Hehe, it was only about 50 million Gil. Surprising, right?”
“Oh, really? That is certainly surprising.”
“It hasn’t been on the market for long! We were lucky.”
“I see.”
Luke nodded and looked around the house more.
Overall, it was a place he liked very much.
However, it also had some issues.
-Tap, tap.
Luke lightly knocked on the wall of the mansion and looked up at the ceiling.
While the wallpaper and paint were freshly applied, it didn’t feel like a newly built structure.
The building style itself did not fit current trends, and when he tapped the wall, the vibrations felt different from those of a new house.
Well, even if it was an old house, it was built sturdily, so living here wouldn’t be a problem; still, the issue wasn’t the building’s durability.
The fact that it was old, and that things imbued with care tended to have magic, applied to the mansion as well.
Which meant it was very likely to have received curses or blessings.
Indeed.
At this point, everyone could probably guess that this house was actually cursed.
The curiosity about why it could be bought so cheaply was thus resolved.
‘It seems like a powerful resentment is embedded throughout the house.’
It was highly likely that the person who sold this house didn’t even realize this fact.
The stronger the curse, the more secretive it becomes, to the point where no one can notice it.
The existence of a curse must always be hidden in order to exert its effectiveness.
People who live in this house likely quickly felt drained, lethargic, and depressed as part of their everyday lives.
In severe cases, they might harm themselves or even consider ending their lives.
Moreover, such a strong resentment wouldn’t easily disappear, even with renovations to the mansion.
It was like a kind of malignant inventory.
So naturally, it was bound to come cheaply.
However, Luke had no intention of whispering to Yerna not to buy the house or cursing the person who sold it.
Because if he did, and she said, ‘A curse? How creepy! Let’s look for another house,’ Luke would be in trouble.
The fact that such strong resentment was lodged in here meant that, conversely, it could be assumed that the house would yield a certain magical effect, right?
That actually presented a benefit to Luke.
‘Maybe… this could work.’
In reality, it wasn’t easy for a mage to remove an evil spirit that dwells somewhere.
Because, unlike typical evil spirit-type monsters like ghosts or banshees, cursed resentments were treated as a kind of enchantment, and the way to deal with that was solely through dark magic.
And dark magic is a form of magic cast at the expense of one’s or another’s value, namely life; since Luke’s life could not hold any value, he could not wield great dark magic.
At best, he could use blood to manifest spirits in the form of magic.
But that didn’t mean there were no methods at all.
Enchantment, after all, has limitations to how much can be imbued in a single object, and if overlapping enchantments are pushed to that limit, the evil spirit has no choice but to ease its grasp from the medium.
Of course, the enraged evil spirit might come to attack seeing its home lost, but at that point, it would already be in a state where it could be easily wiped out in the mage’s domain.
It was a brutish method requiring enormous mana manipulation and magical design, but it was the most certain way.
In the first place, the goal was to enchant up to the limit total, so it would become two birds with one stone.
Luke’s heart raced at the thought of creating a splendid work already.
As Yerna watched that, she smiled and patted Luke on the head.
“How is it? Do you like it?”
“Yeah, I really got a great deal.”
Luke nodded.
Indeed, such a house would probably be hard to find anywhere else.
Again, it was a house that truly appealed to Luke’s heart.
Soon, Yerna and Dayton began discussing how to arrange the furniture and how to use the rooms.
In the meantime, Luke subtly interjected.
“Yerna, then I’ll take a look around the second floor. Can I make that my room?”
“Would you? Looks like you really like the second floor?”
“Yeah, it’s definitely my favorite.”
The second floor had a stronger presence of the spirit.
With that, Luke began heading up to the second floor, accompanied by Yerna and Dayton to gather various estimates.
‘Alright, then let’s slowly start planning from now on.’
Thus, Luke crossed his arms, smiling as he looked up at the ceiling of the building, and both Dayton and Yerna exchanged glances as they observed him.
“It looks like Luke is already contemplating how to decorate his room.”
“Yeah, it seems like he really likes it a lot.”
“Doesn’t it feel like a good purchase?”
“Right. It’s a nice house.”
But at that moment.
-Ring, ring, ring…
A phone vibrated in Dayton’s pocket.
“What’s this?”
When he took out the phone to check, the caller was none other than Diana.
What on earth could this be about that she called so suddenly?
Curious, Dayton answered the call.
“Hello? Diana? What’s going on? I’m just checking out the house and will be back soon.”
A brief silence followed Diana’s chatter from the other end of the line.
And it was of course Dayton who broke that silence.
“What? Pyris?”
Startled by Dayton’s shock, both Yerna and Luke opened their mouths simultaneously.
“What’s going on?”
“What happened?”
