Her trembling lips moved several times, but she couldn’t give a proper answer. The statement was true. If the curse was not only lifted but all those memories were excised, Alois could continue his life without any wounds, forgetting the pain of betrayal by his family, the loneliness of people leaving him, and all the long years spent in solitude. It might have been the best possible condition.

But both Olivia and the old man already knew why she couldn’t readily answer. If those memories disappeared, it meant all memories of their meeting would also be erased. Olivia silently gripped Alois’s clothes tightly.

“As I first said, returning him as he was……”

“Please lift Lord Alois’s curse.”

“You’re choosing to erase his memories? Even if it means he no longer needs you?”

“Yes.”

No matter how many times she thought about it, there was only one answer she could choose. As if hearing her response, Alois’s fingers twitched, brushing against the back of her hand. Alois, barely opening his eyes halfway, looked at Olivia desperately.

“Ah, uh……”

His rough voice appealed something to her. Though the sound wasn’t complete, Olivia knew what choice he would make. And that it would differ from hers. Olivia firmly held Alois’s hand and looked back at the old man.

“There’s no going back on this.”

His captured fingers squirmed, rejecting Olivia’s choice, but she simply smiled at Alois as if telling him not to worry.

“He doesn’t seem to want your choice right now?”

“He wouldn’t. He’s told me many times that I could freely hold his leash. But what I want is for Lord Alois to live freely and happily like other ordinary people.”

“You wish only for that human’s happiness rather than being loved by him? Is that what you call love?”

“You asked if we would have fallen in love without the curse? I believe we would. Even if we hadn’t met that way, or even if Lord Alois loses his memories now, if we start over from the beginning, I’m certain we’ll fall in love with each other again. So it’s alright.”

“What makes you so confident? Hearts change at any time.”

Perhaps that was true. Being human herself, she knew how meaningless it was to attach the word “eternal” to feelings. But what allowed her to willingly make such a reckless choice was her conviction in her own love and her trust in Alois, nurtured by the love she had received from him.

Olivia had a vague belief.

A belief that even if Alois lost his memories, he would love her again and again. A trust that even if not immediately, someday, the future Alois would surely love her.

“……I see. So that’s what it was.”

The old man, who had been silently watching Olivia, slowly turned his head. His eyes, blankly staring into space, were filled with deep regret. Soon, the old man’s expression contorted as if about to collapse.

“Ours wasn’t love.”

Despite his physical body no longer remaining, his lingering attachment and obsession prevented him from leaving this land. The reality he had desperately tried to deny now lay before the old man’s eyes, inescapable. Faced with an undeniable, almost visible love, the old man had to admit that all his past attachments were futile.

“Both the one who decided to betray me as soon as he discovered my heat cycle, and I who wanted to ruin everything with the most terrible and painful curse because he betrayed me…… In the end, neither of us truly loved each other.”

Olivia stared wide-eyed at the old man who appeared unburdened despite his deep regret. The owner of the voice faintly appeared over his physical form.

“I must have been unconsciously obsessed. Justifying that my love wasn’t wrong, that all humans would be the same. Perhaps I wanted constant confirmation that he didn’t love me not because of who I was, but simply because of human instinct……”

Perhaps watching everyone fear and hate humans who went berserk during their heat cycles due to the curse, he wanted to believe that what was wrong wasn’t their love but humans themselves. Because no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t understand why that person had betrayed him.

“Even this might have been misguided obsession. The conclusion was actually simple. Neither I nor he loved each other enough.”

With a bitter smile, the old man approached Olivia. He quietly observed Alois’s hand desperately clutching at her clothes, unable to properly move his body, at the mention that he might forget her.

“Love is truly interesting. Both he who chooses to remember you over lifting the curse he so resented, and you who would have him forget all your shared memories to free him from his curse.”

“Huh? My body?”

“I should stop clinging to something that doesn’t even exist. If I remain bound here, those who left this place will be even sadder. Ah, I can finally hear that voice a little.”

The figure overlapping the old man’s body began to slowly crumble from the feet up. As did the lingering thought residing in the old man. Olivia instinctively knew this was his last remaining power. He looked at Olivia with a powerless smile. Though the bright gleam in his eyes from before was gone, somehow his gaze felt warm.

“The memory thing was just me being petty, so don’t worry.”

“What?”

“The bet is already over, and the curse has already been lifted. Strictly speaking, I wasn’t the one who placed the curse, but the former masters of this place, so the method of lifting it should follow their rules.”

They were the ones who loved him enough to grant his wish despite breaking taboos. Now feeling their hearts that he had been too blind to understand then, the old man felt regretful yet relieved at how foolish he had been.

<That’s not love. I hope you find real love.>

Recalling the final words of that concerned voice, the old man smiled again.

From the beginning, the key to lifting the curse wasn’t with him. Being able to truly love each other even after seeing the monstrous form…. The path to lifting the curse had always been open to them.

“Thank you for cutting off my foolish obsession, child.”

A strong wind blew from somewhere, and the cave shook violently as if it might collapse at any moment. Olivia tightly embraced Alois, who had collapsed unable to support himself.

* * *

Olivia regained consciousness a full week after the tremendous noise and vibration had engulfed them that day. Alois’s face, which she met as soon as she opened her eyes, was so painfully etched in her heart that she would never forget it. The mixture of despair, joy, relief, and sorrow made her eyes sting as she just woke up.

Alois, who had stayed by her bedside for days without leaving, had struggled through thousands of moments of despair and hope while facing her unconscious form each day. If the price for lifting the curse was her absence, he couldn’t care less about the curse itself…… Only when he embraced Olivia, who had hurriedly awakened, could he finally breathe properly.

“What exactly happened?”

The intense lovemaking in the cave, no, could it even be called lovemaking? Every time Alois saw Olivia with not a single part of her body unharmed from the struggle with the beast, he had to endure pain as if a knife was piercing his heart. While feeding her thin soup in place of her still unable to move her arms properly, Alois put down the bowl with a short sigh at her question asked with a clear expression.

“I don’t know exactly either. When I woke up, we were outside the cave, and the cave entrance connecting to the village had completely collapsed and was blocked.”

“What about the old man?”

“It seems that old man wasn’t a living being from the start.”

“What do you mean……”

“When I asked the villagers again later, they all said the old man who lived in that house had died years ago. No one remembered him properly.”

It felt like being under a spell. Surely when they first came to the village, everyone knew the old man, but how could all memories of him change overnight? While organizing her thoughts with a confused expression, Olivia recalled the lingering thought that had resided in the old man and thought that perhaps all these phenomena might be his power.

“What about Lord Alois’s curse?”

This was the most important issue. Though she had heard the curse would be lifted, she hadn’t confirmed it directly. Alois nodded with a mysterious expression and opened his mouth.

“The curse is gone. I no longer feel the force that controlled me at will, as if everything has returned to the old days.”

Though they couldn’t undo the empress’s betrayal that had already happened, and the painful past remained as it was, now they could look forward to the future together. Time, which had stopped with the curse, would now flow at the same pace as Olivia’s, completely restoring the life of Alois that she had so dreamed of.

“Thank goodness, I’m truly so relieved!”

She felt like crying. Olivia threw herself into Alois’s arms, leading her uncomfortable body. After safely placing the bowl on the bedside table, Alois firmly embraced her.

“Really! I’m really so relieved and happy!”

Olivia’s eyes shone brilliantly as she looked up at him lovingly. To Alois, Olivia was an absolute existence that could not be compared to or replaced by anything.

‘Please don’t let go of my leash.’

Though she would never know, even with the curse gone, Alois remained bound to her. It was not any form of coercion but voluntary submission and greed. The desire to monopolize her love completely for life.

Alois said nothing, feeling Olivia trapped in his arms, finally calming the anxiety in his heart that had worried about losing her.

The curse that had been the beginning of their relationship finally disappeared, and now only the name of love bound them together as one. This was undoubtedly a scene from the “and they lived happily ever after” that adorns the final chapter of every story.

Now only happiness remained ahead, or so Olivia believed.