By Zephyria 
The area beneath his eyes, marked by despair and helplessness, twitched slightly. It was a tremor so minute that even Leonardo himself might not have noticed it. Lifting his head over Nero’s shoulder, he tightened his grip, curling his hand into a fist.
“…Who?”
The lips that had been screaming while he tore at his hair now asked in a locked voice. It was an eerie sound.
It was impossible to tell if he was paralyzed with fear, or if he wanted to seize the opponent and beat them senseless. Or perhaps it was both. However, the bloodshot whites of his eyes were menacing enough to make it immediately obvious that his aura had shifted.
The child, who had been quietly facing him, released their hands from behind their back and answered.
“There is one more person involved in the curse. Other than the one who placed it.”
The child’s gaze landed on Leonardo’s neck, which was wrapped in a piece of cotton cloth. Fortunately, it wasn’t a major wound, but the skin around the black leash was mottled and red, as if it had been burned.
Leonardo, the object of that pitying gaze, raised an eyebrow. He didn’t understand what she meant. Nero, who had the same thought, adjusted his hold on him and asked instead.
“What do you mean? One more person? And if that’s true, why are you only saying it now? It would have been better if you’d told us earlier.”
There were thorns in his tone. It was a situation where he was snapping at the person helping them, but the child, understanding the circumstances, answered calmly.
“I needed time to calculate. I had been thinking it was strange all along. The residual thought protecting that fellow was in the process of guiding the consciousness. Normally, evil residual thoughts should have been purified or annihilated, detaching quickly. But that didn’t happen earlier.”
The point of the problem the child was describing was this:
“The residual thought remained bound and clashed with the divine power.”
The residual thought, writhing in pain, did not detach but struggled while held by the choker. Unable to go anywhere, they screamed their evil energy like a shriek, fueling anxiety and unrest even while Leonardo was receiving the protection. The child explained that this had pushed Leonardo to the edge, manipulating him so that he could not make rational judgments.
“Why did it stay bound?”
“Likely because that thing around your neck imprisoned it and wouldn’t let go,” the child answered bluntly to Leonardo’s question.
At that, Leonardo suddenly recalled that for the past three years, he had suffered from exceptionally severe PTSD and nightmares. The frequency was even higher than when he was in the military. If so, was even that the instigation of the residual thought held by this leash?
He didn’t know if it was true, but synthesizing the child’s words so far, the black choker fastened around his neck was not only a medium for the curse but a vessel without an exit, made by tightly compressing residual thoughts. An ominous object that attracted residual thoughts, imprisoned them, and eventually became composed of the residual thoughts themselves.
When it attempted to break during the ritual, the choker emitted waves to the outside to protect the existence of the vessel; such a phenomenon could be viewed as the choker possessing a will to be loyal to its master.
And here, the ‘master’ was not Leonardo.
“Do you know the one who cast the curse on that fellow? Curses inherently possess a strange power that connects the caster and the victim. You may have heard that if one casts a curse rashly, they themselves may suffer the consequences.”
Nero instinctively shifted his eyes toward Taylor and Finder.
Finder remained silent, and Taylor shook her head. It was a sign to pretend not to know, even if they did.
However, the child, perhaps not asking because they expected an answer, continued speaking.
“A relationship entwined by a curse is far more intimate and dangerous than a binding or contract created by magic. But that is why the effect is so certain. That is why some are willing to risk their own lives to curse another.”
“…….”
“However, a curse that utilizes a residual thought grown on obsession is bound to restrain the object of that obsession, and simultaneously restrain the one standing on the opposite side.”
A chilly wind occasionally blew, following the clear rhythm of the child’s voice.
“Because the heart that curses spreads through the chest like a tumor, binding the caster within the shackles of that residual thought without them even realizing it. There is a reason people say that extreme obsession is, paradoxically, love. In the end, the trajectories of two people’s fates revolve around the curse like opposite poles.”
Obsession is love? Leonardo, feeling goosebumps at a statement that sounded like something a certain person he knew would say, asked demandingly.
“Stop talking nonsense. So, who is the other person involved in the curse? Are you saying that person interfered with the ritual? How do you know?”
“That person likely served as the scapegoat for the one who cast the curse. They are like a scarecrow set up to divert the danger that the person on the opposite side of you would have to endure with their own body.”
Leonardo’s brow furrowed. A scarecrow? Did that person not have plenty of such beings?
Just then, Taylor, who had approached behind the child, leaned down and asked.
“Are you saying that scarecrow noticed? That the Captain was trying to break the curse?”
Taylor placed her hands on the child’s shoulders and looked down. The child, looking up, met her gaze with a face as pale as a ghost through the gaps in her flowing hair.
Within the water-colored eyes that contrasted with the shaded face, a savage determination floated—a will that would not let things slide if something went wrong.
Because the person standing on the opposite side of the curse would not stay still if they found out this fact.
However, the child did not budge an inch, parting the hair that hung like a screen to answer.
“Do you think my ritual is that sloppy? No one knows about the ritual. However, they would have noticed that a change occurred in the curse. Since the scarecrow likely has the same shackle around their neck as the one around this fellow’s neck, they would have felt the binding weaken.”
“They have the same thing on?”
Leonardo asked back in a tone of pure surprise. To think there was someone else in this world living with the same pain as he.
He had seen nobles wearing them as accessories or those with perverse tastes fastening them on their possessions, but he had never seen anyone under a curse of the exact same form as his own.
So, if those words were true, he wanted to meet that scarecrow immediately. He wanted to seek a way together to escape the cycle of binding and reclaim true freedom. Whether while walking, sleeping, or socializing with people—he wanted to imagine together the day they could escape this unpleasant oppression that suddenly surged and tightened from his neck to his ankles.
However, the child’s following statement cut his budding hope short.
“Yes. The scarecrow must be in a close relationship with the one who cast the curse. They must be bound by loyalty and faithfulness in a way that cannot be explained as simply being close. Otherwise, it would be impossible to shoulder another’s curse with one’s own body. Tsk, tsk, you’re entangled in a very troublesome curse.”
It was a disappointing conclusion. In short, the scarecrow was on the side of the one who cast the curse. There was a high possibility they were a dull yet loyal subordinate, capable of enduring the danger of the curse by sacrificing their own body. If so, there was no way they would help Leonardo.
“What on earth did you do to catch the eye of such a person?”
At the child’s word mixed with pity, the strength in Leonardo’s hand, which was gripping Nero’s collar, increased significantly.
“If I had known it was this kind of curse—!”
Faint blood seeped through the skin where a piece of cloth had been tied as a temporary measure. It was because he had slashed the wasteland of the ground with his fist, unable to contain the anger toward himself.
Leonardo, about to let out a shout, bit his lip hard. He felt acutely that he was in no position to do so.
Soon after, closing his eyes tightly against a wave of dizziness, he leaned his forehead against Nero’s shoulder again.
“Captain, are you okay? Ah, that old hag, seriously!”
Nero shifted his body as if soothing a young child, comforting his sky-like Captain. In the silent forest, unresolved emotions remained unpleasantly, crawling beneath their feet.
To Leonardo’s ears, the sound of those things burrowing into the ground like insects and the sound of sap dripping like tears from the tree bark sounded incredibly loud. His nerves were in an extremely sensitive state. Conversely, Nero’s voice sounded muffled; only the body heat spreading across his chest let him perceive that his comrade was by his side.
The child shook their head, looking at Leonardo, who was exhausted by his own emotions.
“Do not be angry. It puts a strain on your body. And it’s not that there is only bad news for you.”
Just then, a strange presence cutting through the firmament flew over the forest. Finder, who had been leaning against a tree with his arms crossed, slowly raised his eyes and lifted his gun. He closed one eye to look through the scope, then tilted his head in one direction.
“…Footprints?”
At the same time, Taylor also looked up and stared at the sky. It was because dark shadows passed overhead, casting a gloom. But there wasn’t just one or two such shadows. As her hair, thrown back by the tilt of her neck, flowed behind her following the brightness of the objects passing at full speed, the child’s vision gradually cleared.
“I see the hunt is over. It took longer than I thought,” the child murmured.
Countless wingbeats were flying in a flock across the sky. They were so fast that white trajectories remained in the clear sky, as if clouds were trailing behind them.
It was as if shooting stars were falling in broad daylight. Sparkling diagonal lines swarmed endlessly, pushing through the brush and landing on the ground. Thump, thump—the vibration of the earth occurred sequentially from all directions.
Wary of this, Leonardo narrowed his gold eyes. Before he knew it, a massive wing, spread wide, approached as if to cover his vision. The shadow that cast itself right in front of them in an instant stepped its heavy foot before Leonardo and Nero.
Boom—!
A fierce gust of wind swept through, and the roar of a beast echoed. Tree branches shook violently. Deep footprints were stamped into the ground. Finder, who had been gripping the barrel of his gun, recalled the notebook stuffed in his chest rig. The large outline he had sketched amidst the fog overlapped.
Then, the child, gently pushing Taylor’s hand aside, approached the white, glossy beast. As the child placed a palm on its skin with familiarity, the giant beast lowered its body and sat before her.
“The conversation will be long, so let us go home. This fellow will take us.”