Chapter 128 : Chapter 128

Chapter 128 - Blessing and Curse

The departure from Eclipse was smooth.

Yesterday, he had promised to go with the young ladies to their maternal family’s land.

The two spent the night at Eclipse and, as if they hadn’t slept at all, woke up at the crack of dawn and came running.

“Youngest. Let’s go.”

“Were you bitten by a vampire somewhere? The sun hasn’t even risen yet.”

The Youngest Son, who, as a noble of the night, didn’t need much sleep, was fine, but the two had sunken eyes.

Yet, I wondered why they had kicked off their blankets and run all the way here.

“The ghost ship. I want to try riding it.”

Since the last time, the sisters hadn’t been able to take their eyes off the Ashen Queen.

Whenever he took out the giant ghost ship from the ring and it became visible, their gazes were fixed this way.

“Did you even lose sleep over that?”

“Actually, it was Melaine who was really looking forward to it, more than me. When I asked if she wanted to go now, she was really happy.”

“…!”

The younger sister flinched, startled.

Her head, which had turned sharply towards her sister on her back, didn't know what to do with her fidgeting mouth.

A look full of embarrassment and reproach was shot at her, but to the older sister, it was just cute.

“Sorry. But who was it that kept staying up and talking to me?”

“The younger big sister starting a conversation first. That’s surprising.”

“She’s a huge chatterbox.”

Shake, shake, shake─

The Third Daughter shook her head vehemently, but no one believed her.

“Since it’s come to this, let’s leave early. We seem to have a long way to go anyway.”

“Okay. We’ll show you the way.”

“I’ll send you up to the top. I’ll just grab a few things and follow you right up.”

“Do that.”

Drrrrrrrrr─

The floor where the young ladies were standing rose straight up like an elevator.

When the youngest was no longer visible, hidden by the other outer walls and ceiling, the Third Daughter gazed at her older sister.

She knew the reason.

“That’s right. If we go now, we’ll arrive in the middle of the ritual.”

Whisper, whisper.

“So you’re asking if he’ll be cursed?”

Nod.

“Probably. Of course, it’s unlikely, but he could also be blessed. We became a cripple and blind from the curse, but the youngest might be different, right?”

She had already fought with the youngest twice.

The first time was close to a joke, but the second time was close to being serious.

Even though they didn’t use their family sorcery, they fought while revealing each other’s hidden cards.

However, she was never certain that they had shown all their cards.

“The youngest probably has more hidden things besides Exploding Bone.”

In fact, it didn’t make sense for him to have learned Exploding Bone, said to be the most dangerous of the Bone Sorcery, at that age.

However, the fact that an impossible thing happened once meant there was a possibility it could happen a second time.

“All the enemies who fought the youngest so far have died. We’re alive, of course, but I think I know why they died.”

The moment you think you’ve won, a chill is felt from behind.

It is the coldness of a blade and the chill felt while spilling blood.

Trying to poke a weakness was a ploy to make you step on a trap under your feet.

“Jamie might be right. The youngest is not ordinary.”

However, being extraordinary was not enough to escape the curse.

“If he receives the curse, he’ll be like us. So let’s protect the youngest for life.”

Nod.

“If he can’t bear the curse and dies, he was fated to die anyway, so we don’t have to care.”

Clank─

The final ceiling of the Dark Moon Grand Castle opened.

As the highest point in Eclipse, the view below was panoramic.

The same went for the black sun that was just beginning to rise beyond the castle walls.

Looking at the dim sunset, the Third Daughter once again looked at her older sister.

“What will you do if he receives a blessing?”

Pfft.

She couldn’t hold it back and burst out laughing.

“That won’t happen.”

Receiving a blessing from the ritual?

It was a case she couldn’t even imagine.

In the first place, the only person who received a blessing from that ritual was one person: the first family head of their maternal family.

“But if, just if, something like that happens….”

Unlike her legs, the Second Daughter’s perfectly fine shoulders just shrugged slightly.

“The position of Family Head was never ours to begin with.”

***

As the Forest Witch had predicted, the place they were going was perilous.

The problem was that when going to a perilous place, the journey itself is usually also perilous.

“…Is this really the right direction?”

“Yes. This is actually a relatively easy way to go.”

The young ladies’ maternal family was located on the ocean bordering the east.

An archipelago where large and small islands formed a group was this time’s destination.

The ghost ship, Ashen Queen, flew through the dark clouds with the violently crashing waves beneath its feet.

The problem was that it wasn’t just waves down there.

“If we had gotten a regular boat and crossed this Sea of Monsters, we would be in the middle of a fight right about now.”

“Probably.”

The young ladies’ maternal family was, as if it were natural, located in the waters of the Sea of Monsters.

Just as the sea is said to be the mother of life, it is a place full of all sorts of life.

What was in this sea were creatures that were unnaturally large among them.

“Oh my.”

Kwooooooo─

A whale the size of a mountain broke through the sea surface and opened its mouth all the way up here. It was as if an abyss of unknown depth had opened its maw.

“Trying to tear apart a ghost ship. They have quite an appetite.”

Pabababababang─

A cannonade was unleashed upon that misguided greed.

After tasting the attack from 50 cannons on each side, the monster whale also retreated.

Whether that happened or not.

The Third and Second Daughters moved as if flying within the ship.

The young ladies, being Spirit Sorcerers trained from the basics, moved freely inside.

It seemed they quickly got used to the feeling of becoming a part of the ship the moment they boarded.

“Can I try steering it once?”

“Are you bored?”

“Not me, but Melaine here wants to try.”

“…!”

Melaine, being betrayed multiple times today, patted her sister’s back.

Yet, she doesn’t deny it.

“I don’t mind.”

He handed over the helm of the ghost ship through his consciousness.

Although she didn’t actually hold or turn it, it was a strange experience for this large ship to move according to her will.

Just like that little sister who was more curious than she looked.

“And.”

As the younger sister, who had taken over steering the ghost ship, went off cheerfully, the older sister continued to speak.

“Melaine wasn’t the only reason.”

“What else is there?”

“It wasn’t me who suggested we come, nor did I set the departure schedule, but there is something I didn’t tell you.”

“Is some big monster going to appear?”

“That’s right, and also not right.”

The Second Daughter and the Youngest Son gazed at each other.

The bloodshot eyes felt a slight sense of pity in the eyes looking at him.

“When you wake up, a lot of things will have changed.”

“……”

Thud─

The one who first set foot in the archipelago’s waters collapsed.

Everyone who set foot here during this time did.

The young ladies had also heard that they had done so in their mother’s womb, and when they were born, they found they had lost their eyes and legs.

“Youngest, what will you lose?”

She lay down next to the collapsed youngest.

“What will be taken from you by it?”

She gently stroked the hair of the youngest who had collapsed as if asleep.

***

The ghost ship that had ventured into the archipelago’s waters during the ritual period.

The Silver Queen dropped anchor below the archipelago according to the will that held the helm.

The Third Daughter, now carrying the two of them, easily stepped on the anchor and reached the ground.

Specter, the largest island in the center of the archipelago, was not particularly nature-friendly.

It was close to a rocky island, and what was visible nearby were the corpses of giant monsters that had washed ashore and shipwrecks.

[Second Daughter-nim. Third Daughter-nim. You’ve really succeeded in coming this far. And during the ritual period, no less.]

“Yeah. We were lucky. It was a good thing the youngest wanted to go right away.”

The ghost butler, Whisper, looked at the Youngest Son quietly carried on the Third Daughter’s back.

[Will the Fifth Son-nim, who has lost something through the ritual, try to side with you, young ladies? In the first place, will he even be able to return alive?]

“Those are things we can’t know right now. Let’s go, Melaine.”

Nod.

She walked into the interior of Specter Island.

Green plants began to catch the eye little by little.

Even so, they were just gaunt trees, but a spiral pattern was painted on their exterior.

It was the symbol of the god worshipped by the tribe of the archipelago, the young ladies’ maternal family.

The further in they went, the more numerous and larger the symbol became.

In addition, what appeared was not just plants or symbols.

Swaaaaaa─

Saaaaak─

Ghosts that seemed to be made of clustered mist appeared from all over.

They smelled the scent of the living and showed instinctive hatred.

They wanted to quickly wound the souls of the living to satisfy their hunger.

[Step back.]

That unreachable greed was dealt with by a single gesture from the ghost butler.

[This place is still full of lowly ghosts. The number is still so large that it’s hard to tell if this is the soul dimension or the human world.]

“It was a place I didn’t want to come to.”

She glanced up at the sky.

What looked like clouds had tens of thousands of hollow eyes attached to them.

They were all ghosts, and the rain that fell from them was a little sticky.

It wasn't rain but the fluid left by miscellaneous ghosts, so one’s brow would naturally furrow.

Whisper opened his umbrella to protect the young ladies from the dirty by-products.

The reason she didn’t want to come here was not just because of this ghost rain.

“It’s been a while, my unfinished daughters.”

“…Mother.”

“……”

The Third Daughter’s steps stopped.

“You left to follow Millesdusk without a word, and you returned without a word. How shameless.”

The mother stood between the tribe’s village and the young ladies and spoke.

The village behind her was just as she remembered.

It was full of structures for the god, with no regard for individual lives.

“To turn your back on the god after gaining strength with his help. Is that even permissible?”

“…Our strength wasn’t given by the god. It was never just given. You should be able to tell just by looking at my legs.”

“There are plenty of people in the outside world who can’t achieve it even with the effort of offering their legs.”

The sisters’ mother had skin pale with numerous tribal tattoos.

She smoked a strong cigar and gestured with her chin.

“What is that you’re carrying on your back?”

“It’s my youngest brother. He said there’s something he wants to cultivate on the island’s land.”

“Right. Those who offer their own bodies to the god receive a part of the blessed land. I don’t care how you use that land, but.”

The state of the one on her back was strange.

“If you wanted to let him use the land, you should have come when it wasn’t the ritual period.”

The corner of her mouth holding the cigar rose in a creepy way.

“Or was this your scheme? To kill him without lifting a finger through the ritual?”

“Dante will return alive. Though he might lose something.”

“That’s the same thing.”

The great sorceress of the Gu'an tribe on Specter Island, Faye, flicked her finger.

“Come in. If you’ve come to participate in the ritual, your youngest is also a tribesman.”

The Third Daughter crossed the threshold of the village, carrying the two of them.

During the ritual period, the tribal village becomes as quiet as a mouse.

This is because all the tribespeople, divided into ritual participants, conductors, and assistants, climb that rocky mountain.

The ritual is conducted at the summit of the rocky mountain, and according to Faye, the god descends during that time.

The god tastes some of the offerings laid out for the ritual and bestows power upon individuals and prosperity upon the tribe.

The island at the time of the god’s descent becomes entirely a sacred territory, and the Youngest Son had stepped into that domain.

“A direct-line sibling of Millesdusk. And the other half of his bloodline seems unbelievably precious too. The god will enjoy this ritual.”

At the repeated mention of the word 'god', her eyes naturally turned to the side.

It wasn’t just the side.

The opposite side was the same, and other sides too; wooden carvings personifying the god were scattered around.

Basically, the form of a muscular man.

However, his skin was covered in scales, he had four arms, and horns like a deer.

It was the god of the archipelago that the currently unconscious youngest might be seeing.

Kuuung─!

A loud noise occurred.

From the direction of the rocky mountain where the ritual was taking place.

“…What was that.”

Faye, her expression twisted fiercely, flew into the air in full spiritual form.

They could have followed her, but the young ladies couldn’t.

“That damn Young Master… making me do such troublesome things.”

A stirring on the Third Daughter’s back.

It was the sound of a body that was unconscious and should have remained unconscious, waking up.

“Youngest… is that you?”

“No. It’s you, you pea-sized human.”

“P-pea-sized…”

The magic sword, out in the mortal world after a very long time, looked around at the not-so-bright world.

“What a truly unpleasant place this is.”

“You. What’s your identity?”

The ghost sisters saw through him in an instant.

He was definitely the youngest, but the content was different. That soul was different.

“Name… hmm.”

Instead of answering, he threw off his coat and rolled up both his sleeves.

He swept all his bangs back to get the bothersome things out of the way.

From the runes drawn in a circle on his left arm, the three colors of light fluoresced.

“It is Enad. I have nothing to reveal other than the name this guy gave me.”

His index finger was pointing at himself, the owner of the body.

“Now. I’ve answered, so it’s your turn.”

His index finger came down and pointed at the young ladies.

“Where is this blessed land.”

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