“Well, it’s this compass I carry….. I found it in the mansion’s storage, and after touching it, my body started feeling strange. Like when we walked by the sea…..”

That object, though appearing ordinary on the surface, was actually a very, very strange item.

The woman’s eyes were turning red in real-time as she spoke. When she continued to describe her symptoms and added that they were getting progressively worse, tears finally fell.

Up to that point, it was as Johan had expected. However….

“Then I got so angry that I demanded to know what the compass wanted… and that’s when I started seeing grandfather too.”

The sniffling voice continued with an interesting and new development. Above all, it was a story worth noting, given that she and the thought-form could communicate to some degree.

‘What the thought-form wants….’

Isn’t that usually the owner’s misfortune? Ah, perhaps it knew that ghost was her family member? If so, that made sense. Displaying a family member who had become residue in this world would be quite malicious harassment. Indeed, May showed quite a distressed expression whenever she saw that thing taking her grandfather’s form.

‘Malicious.’

Just as Johan reached that conclusion, May hurriedly added.

“Ah, grandfather is my actual grandfather who said he left this house to me…..”

She seemed to have misinterpreted his momentary silence. But she eventually trailed off ambiguously. Probably because she was at a loss for how to explain the ghost’s existence.

Johan casually asked the woman who was fidgeting with her hands.

“The ghost on the first floor?”

She blinked at him stupidly before looking at him with a startled expression.

“…Jo, Johan, you could see grandfather too?”

To her gaze that seemed to ask why he hadn’t mentioned it until now, Johan shrugged his shoulders.

“You seemed like you didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Still, you could have told me……”

“I wasn’t trying to hide it deliberately. It’s just that I’ve seen such things since I was young. Things that some people don’t easily believe in.”

“Ah…..”

“So I understood why you wanted to keep it hidden. Besides, this mansion already has loud rumors, and it would be foolish to confirm those rumors to an employee you just managed to hire.”

In truth, in Johan’s case, he simply found it bothersome to explain everything in detail. He continued speaking while looking into her black eyes. His face was full of understanding for her situation.

“Let me share one of my secrets too—actually, my father is someone who eliminates such things. …Things like ghosts.”

And not just his father. His grandfather, great-grandfather, and ancestors he had never met had all done the same for generations. That legacy continued with Johan, who bore the fate of eliminating malevolent things.

He had originally entered the mansion for that purpose…. He watched the woman while maintaining his partial disguise. As if sharing their secrets, he deliberately sent her a gentle look.

“I see…..”

The woman who had been fidgeting with her hands mumbled softly. She seemed somewhat happy. It must be the joy of having someone understand and empathize with what she had been keeping to herself all this time. Most thought-form owners he had met showed similar reactions.

And Johan was particularly skilled at sweet-talking them to get what he wanted. While he often acted recklessly without thinking things through, it meant he could act however needed when necessary.

“I had guessed the reason for my lady’s poor health condition. Because I’ve heard of similar cases.”

“So… that’s why you pretended not to know……”

“I thought you would hide it if I showed I knew from the start.”

And she really did hide it. May also seemed to recall that she had done exactly that, and briefly flustered. After some time of stammering and choosing her words, she asked Johan a question.

“…Then perhaps, do you also know how to eliminate them, Johan? …Things like ghosts.”

Her trembling black eyes looked up at him intently.

Just then, the clouds cleared, and the dawn moonlight pouring through the second-floor window fell over her head. Her hair, darker than her eyes, absorbed that light and shone even more serenely.

Johan stared at those colors for a moment without answering her question.

“……”

Just as the Sun God’s symbolic color was gold, it suddenly occurred to him that his goddess also had her symbolic color. Though it had become meaningless to a goddess who couldn’t even maintain a single temple…. That’s why he had forgotten about it.

The colors possessed by the woman under the full moon reminded him of what he had been forgetting all along.

‘…Now I can’t even mock those priests of the Sun God who attached meaning to mere colors.’

After all, he was starting to like her black color even more. Johan smirked and unconsciously reached for her hair. Under his hand, it flowed softly, looking like black water. Like the color of the river said to lie beneath the crossing to the underworld that the goddess presided over.

The coincidence that had aligned seemed to be giving him another signal. Surely the woman before him was destined to meet him from the beginning. Johan answered her with his eyes curved in a rare smile.

“Yes. I do.”

“Th-then…. The one I have……”

“If you want, I’ll eliminate it for you.”

The man saying this smiled quite benevolently. Then, just as he had done moments ago, it was clearly visible that the woman’s eyes were taking note of his colors. May, like most citizens of the Empire, often sought the Sun God when troubled, so she would likely be drawn to his golden color.

Johan lowered himself to meet her eye level, while still loosely holding her black hair, and slowly kissed it. Her rounded eyes were right before him. Every time she blinked in surprise, tears that had already pooled fell.

‘This is trouble.’

He wanted to lick her tear-stained eyes and cheeks as he pleased. No, not just her eyes—he wanted to trace everywhere that gave off that fragrant scent with his lips to his heart’s content. Johan let out a hollow laugh at the s*xual desire he had never felt before, but he didn’t deny it.

That day when May reached out to him. While it certainly started as help, partway through he could no longer claim such altruistic reasons alone. Her awkward gestures stimulated lust rather than altruism.

Especially at the moment when the woman who had been busy hiding herself gave up and showed her honesty. Johan truly began to covet the position of that old man who was her previous master.

Thinking about how she would call his name for nearly everything, just as she had searched for ‘Aiden,’ brought him an odd satisfaction. For a man who lived life based on interest, such signals were never good.

…At least not for the other party.

He looked at the woman with upturned lips and lowered eyes that were quite seductive, yet gentle. And as soon as their gazes met again, he whispered intimately.

“If you want, I’d like to keep helping you in other ways too.”

“…Pardon?”

“I don’t know how you felt, but I enjoyed it. …To the point where I was a bit hurt when you avoided me.”

An exclamation mark appeared belatedly on the woman’s face as she processed his words. Her pale skin quickly turned a ruddy red.

‘Ah, what to do.’

Johan unconsciously lamented upon seeing this. He could feel the pretense he had been maintaining to some degree before her fading in real-time.

The man, who was used to doing as he pleased, observed his own short patience. And soon thought that if it finally snapped, there was nothing to be done about it. Instead of a diligent servant, being a lover who shared pillow talk wouldn’t be bad either.

Eventually, the hand holding her hair moved. As the subtle touch traced her red earlobe while brushing aside her hair, the air between them instantly grew heavy.

“……”

And naturally, as their gazes intertwined…

“Ah……”

The woman who had been sitting quickly rose and fled.