~Chapter 9~
“D-Damien.”
The woman’s knife was blocked by Damien, who appeared out of nowhere.
His hand, usually pale, now had bluish veins bulging with fury.
“Damien, listen to me.”
Despite trembling, she still clutched the knife tightly.
“That woman’s just going to take all the good things from you and then throw you away.”
“So come back to me.”
But Damien’s eyes were cold as ice. Seeing them, the woman turned pale.
Before she could explain—
CRACK. Her wrist was twisted sharply.
“Damien, wait!”
A loud boom and a puff of white smoke obscured everything.
As the smoke cleared… I blinked in disbelief.
“Wait… kids?”
Two small children, crying hysterically, had taken the place of the attacker.
“Ruby, are you alright?”
Damien, maskless, checked me carefully. His purple eyes examined every scratch.
“You’re bleeding. Let me treat you.”
Even though I said I was fine, he insisted:
“Give me your arm. Even a minor wound can become infected.”
I quietly held out my arm.
“Thank you.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Those kids… who are they?”
“That’s their true form. They had been pretending to be an adult woman.”
“The cursed twins from the dungeon. The girl is Alice, the boy is Elliot.”
Alice shrieked:
“Don’t introduce us like that, you stupid sea cucumber Damien!”
“Yeah! You dummy!”
They hit his leg with tiny fists.
“That woman’s obviously after your money! We pretended to be your secret lover to scare her!”
“Yeah! But why did you hit us and not that witch?!”
Damien remained unfazed as he finished wrapping my wound.
Then Alice pointed at me.
“You! Just wait! You seduced our sweet, gullible Damien for money!”
“Alice is right! Damien’s rich but too dumb and shy to talk to girls—”
“That’s enough.”
Damien picked them both up.
“You two are banned from reading romance novels from now on.”
The kids flailed and wailed.
Damien turned to me calmly:
“I’ll take them back. Can you wait just a moment?”
“Sure.”
He was back almost instantly.
“So fast?”
“Because I was worried.”
“If they scared you, it must have been awful.”
He gently held my shoulder.
“Are you really okay?”
“It was scary.”
Damien paused.
“But I’m okay now.”
8.7 out of 10 on the scare scale, I thought.
“I see.”
“You’re incredible.”
He gently placed a hand on my head and patted it.
“Thank you for enduring that.”
“Truly.”
A faint smile graced his lips.
It was the first time I’d seen Damien smile.
It felt… really strange.
It was a twilight night, the sky tinged with pale indigo.
—“Grand Duke Maledictus. What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
A furious voice echoed from a glowing crystal orb.
—“I told you not to act until I had chosen another woman for you.”
“…”
Anyone else might have trembled just hearing that voice.
But the Grand Duke Maledictus didn’t so much as blink.
—“What, are you rebelling now that you’ve come of age? Answer me!”
The angry voice from the crystal orb roared.
The duke simply sighed.
“How could a Maledictus possibly defy Benedict?”
The system was simple: if a Maledictus accepted a curse, everyone bearing the name Benedict would benefit.
It was a system so fundamentally unfair, it only endured because no Maledictus dared to defy the Benedicts.
“You already know: Maledictus can’t use curses against the Benedicts.”
Challenging Benedict didn’t just mean challenging one man—it meant challenging the imperial family, and thus, the empire itself.
No matter how much wealth or military power one might gather, it would be nearly impossible to pull off such a feat.
—“Good, so you understand. Then why did you do it?”
The voice from the crystal sneered.
—“Why ignore the woman we selected and instead marry some nobody from a ruined noble house?”
Taking Rubiana Aristea as his wife had been entirely Damien’s own decision.
Because her rare ability was too valuable to lose.
And, unlike the women chosen by the imperial family, she had no ties to the throne—meaning she couldn’t be used to manipulate Damien.
“There wasn’t time. I had to secure her before someone else took her.”
Damien smoothly spun his excuse, giving a reply that would likely please the Benedicts.
“Rubiana Aristea holds a fear more immense than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
The orb that had been ready to argue fell silent.
“You should know what that means better than anyone in House Benedict.”
Curses feed on fear.
The more fear the cursed one absorbs, the more loyal it becomes to its master.
The more fear fed, the stronger the Maledictus becomes—and in turn, the more power the Benedicts can wield.
—“…Have you identified the source of her fear?”
But feeding fear to a curse came with a condition:
One had to identify the object of that fear.
“Not yet.”
In truth, Damien hadn’t even tried.
Why strengthen a curse only for House Benedict’s benefit?
He was, however, curious what could inspire such vast fear in her.
Though she’d adapted surprisingly well to the mansion, unlike others before her.
“Give it a little time. We’ve just started our married life.”
—“You need to find out quickly. Or else—”
Damien sensed the time had come to end the conversation.
“Oh dear. The curses are acting up again. I’ll take my leave.”
—“Wait! Damien—!”
Damien tossed the orb to the floor.
Crash.
Faint light leaked from the shattered fragments, then dimmed and vanished.
Soon, the shards crumbled into ash and disappeared.
Damien stared down at them, lost in thought.
“She really is a strange woman.”
When he mentioned curses, she trembled. At the wedding, she flinched like a frightened rabbit when he approached, bearing a curse.
And yet, she stayed in this ghost-like mansion without complaint.
She hadn’t been disturbed by the old mistress’s creepy portrait, or the eyeball marshmallows from Chef Martin, or even being threatened by the cursed twins.
“And she didn’t even flinch when she saw me.”
Lately, it had been difficult to control the curse.
It would sometimes spread grotesquely across half his face or extend its limbs.
Past women who’d seen that tried to flee, claiming they couldn’t live with a monster.
One such woman even broke her leg trying to escape over the mansion’s front gate. Since then, Damien left the gate open whenever a new bride arrived.
So naturally, he thought Rubiana would try to flee too.
“You looked… sad.”
Her soft words from the night before echoed in his ears.
She hadn’t tried to run. She’d seen his true face—and stayed.
She even ran to help him. And afterward, she returned to the mansion as if it were her home.
“Strange woman.”
He muttered quietly, rising to prepare for bed.
At that moment—
“Ugh…”
The anxiety he’d just managed to forget crept back in, tightening around his throat.
