Of course, none of that truth mattered to Iberis.

The dragon’s heir let her eyes flash.

“Stop dancing around it and speak plainly. What else do you know about the witch?”

The ice spreading and freezing the surroundings with a faint hiss from the force of her power went unnoticed by her.

“Where she fled. The nature of the curse.”

Rage. Hatred.

The roar of a beast furious to its very core at the leash called a curse, which had forced its way into a life that should finally have been free, continued.

“Spit out everything you know!”

She snarled at the wavering eyes right before her.

“What do you know, and how did you predict this moment? Don’t tell me you helped the Grand Witch escape. Did you help her plant the curse too? Just as you were betraying the witch and saving me, did you deceive me again with honeyed words and take the witch’s side?”

“N, no!”

The man who had been swallowing Iberis’s fury without complaint the whole time cried out as though struck by lightning.

“I only felt the energy that had spread through the imperial palace! So I thought that after you held on and held on, you would come to me, since I know curses better than anyone. That is all. Please forgive me, Your Majesty. Please be fond of me, Your Majesty. Please, all I need is you, only your attention!”

The desperation and force of it was such that even Iberis, raging as though she had lost her reason, faltered.

Ha. The emperor let out a sharp, hollow laugh and flung the hand gripping his collar wide.

The sight of him crashing face-first to the floor was thoroughly ugly. Thud. She stamped her foot, and an ominous sound spread from the floor as the ice that had stretched across it cracked apart.

“How dare you raise your voice before me.”

This rage was nothing else.

Because this man had been where it all started.

Because he had been the origin of everything!

“You, who set the witch in motion?”

It was not as though Iberis had been able to run the witch through the moment she returned to the imperial palace, awakened. There was one hidden episode in that process.

The witch had already been gravely wounded. And by none other than the lover she had treasured above all else, the large-framed Black Mage who had followed her like a shadow.

‘You’ve finally come? I, I was waiting! H, here. I’ll offer you the witch, the witch, right here.’

That had been Theodore.

The face of the madman who had greeted Iberis with rapturous joy was vivid in her memory.

But she had not been able to welcome it without reservation, because Iberis remembered clearly.

‘It was me. Your Highness.’

‘What?’

‘I was the beginning of it…… So please, hate only me. All right?’

She remembered exactly when the witch’s hatred had truly begun.

Because of the man before her, who had proudly recounted when it had all started.

“I want to kill you.”

In that moment she felt as though something had pierced her to the lungs. A strong sense of deja vu came over her at this exchange.

Wasn’t that what Lionel said.

The thought of Lionel, who must have raged with these same emotions, made the strength leave her fingertips for a moment. Had he felt this way too.

The fury that had gathered at the corners of her eyes blurred. When he had learned he would have to spend nights with the ruler who had caused his younger sister’s death, had he felt this nauseating sensation?

And yet Iberis had brought up the old, youthful feelings that still lingered in that man and used them to taunt him and unsettle him.

At that very moment.

The traitor dared to seize her wrist.

“Don’t, Your Majesty.”

At the same time, clang. Sirak’s sword swung toward him.

Had Iberis not raised one hand in a signal to stop, it would have been a disaster. And yet this lunatic, gripping Iberis’s wrist tightly, the veins in his neck standing out, spoke.

“What did you say?”

“……Look only at me.”

“Ha.”

“No other men, they, they can’t. Look only at me, think only of me. Hate only me. Only me!”

As though he had guessed she had just been thinking of another man, those red eyes gleaming with madness were truly those of someone who had lost their mind.

“Look only at me, please! If, if you don’t, I can’t cooperate. I won’t do it.”

Well, well. A crooked smile rose in her.

She had barely held back the urge to kill him in preparation for unforeseen circumstances. And also so that he could not escape through death but would be forced to live on and suffer to the very end.

But she had not expected this.

She should have just killed him outright.

She whispered with barely contained irritation.

“Theodore. Yes, you’re right. I was caught in that witch’s scheme and fell under a curse. I tried every means available and nothing worked, so I staked everything on the Oracle.”

She could see Sirak’s surprise at her suddenly beginning to speak the truth.

Iberis curved one side of her lips and told the Black Mage, who had snapped to sharp attention, a great deal.

“So having heard all of that, what solution do you think the great Oracle arrived at?”

“That, that would be.”

“Why are you smiling?”

She dug her nails into his cheek and yanked his face toward her roughly, and Theodore, who let himself be pulled without resistance, exhaled sharply.

That small contact. Even in the grip of pressure that felt like it would tear his skin, he was flushing with what looked like ecstasy. He was truly out of his mind.

Iberis’s cold gaze finally landed on what was fully, tautly *rect, monstrous in size to match his large frame.

“I, I think I understand. The most certain method is an exchange of s, saliva, and mixing the vessel of energy inside the body.”

She watched him in silence, and those mad eyes blinked rapidly.

“To undo the curse, you set the power of a special blood as the pillar at the core, lay down the sturdiest energy as the foundation, fill the surroundings with black mana similar to the curse, and then protect the mind with the presence of one who can sustain the emotions.”

The mage rattled off the theory and grinned. He deliberately shuffled closer on his knees.

Iberis looked on in silence at his approach, her manner suggesting she was about to kick him away, and he took that as encouragement and closed the distance further.

“That’s, that’s right, isn’t it?”

At last Theodore’s knee touched Iberis’s skin. The mage shuddered once with a sound of revulsion, then placed his own hand over the white hand gripping his face. He held it tight.

“It’s right, isn’t it, Your Majesty.”

“What is right?”

“That you are tolerating me like this.”

He murmured with certainty, his voice thick with clinging obsession.

“What is needed to break the curse is s*xual contact.”

He didn’t even stutter at times like this, which made it all the more unpleasant.

“The, the member of the one needed for breaking the curse must be put inside Your Majesty and thr*st and spend…… We must writhe together like beasts!”

Jealousy surged in those red eyes. The Black Mage, who had deduced that others besides himself would be needed, opened those vicious eyes with an expression of irritation and barely contained resentment.

It was so absurd and outrageous that Iberis released the cheek she had been holding and slapped him hard enough to snap his head around.

Not a crack but a thud rang out.

Yet as though it didn’t hurt at all, Theodore turned his head back with a smile and seized Iberis’s hand. This time too, the emperor did not refuse.

“S, see, it’s right, isn’t it?”

“……”

The smile curving his eyes was not as docile as usual. It was the gaze of a cunning creature who had waited and waited and was now confirming that the opportunity had finally fallen to him.

“You finally need me!”

What dripped and fell was thick desire and craving. The true feelings of one who dared stand before the emperor and wish to hold her.

“Your Majesty, can I h, hold you?”

* * *

Theodore had known from birth that he was not normal. His parents were ordinary humans, but he was different.

Without anyone teaching him, he could move the mana in the air the way others breathed. He could read and write ancient languages he had never learned, the languages of other races.

He could recite countless curses and spells, and destructive incantations no longer in use, the way one recalls memories stored in the soul.

His emotional makeup was also unlike that of an ordinary human. He cried when he should have laughed, and laughed when he should have cried.

Joy and rage surfaced without context, and his emotions were barren beyond measure. He did not know how to pity others, could not understand people. He did not know love.

The young mage who could kill livestock en masse with a single softly murmured spell naturally reached for the black magic that drew him in.

‘I, I’m sorry. But you……’

‘You’re too different from us.’

His ordinary parents, unable to cope with a child who frightened them, abandoned him at a mage tower.

Of all places, it was an illegal mage tower operating without imperial sanction. Those who had forsaken human decency, who did not hesitate to deal with cursed witches on occasion.

Theodore’s teacher had been the same.

‘Where did this lucky find come tumbling in from?’

‘That one will never die! Look at the power flowing in that blood!’

‘A fine opportunity to experiment with the remaining ancient spells.’

The mad mages had wanted to experiment on human bodies but had their limits, so they occasionally bought gifted children for large sums and carried out their experiments.