"You aren't cursed..."
The words echoed in Taylor's mind, a surprising revelation that left him momentarily speechless.
"Uh... come again?" he stammered, struggling to process Father Deus's unexpected diagnosis.
"Like I said, you aren't cursed, young man," Father Deus reiterated, rising from his seat and gently grasping Taylor's chin, inspecting him closely. "Except for the obvious lack of sleep you have, I see no problems inside of you."
Taylor blinked in disbelief as Father Deus reaffirmed his assessment. Despite recounting the events of the past three days in painstaking detail, from his nightmarish dreams to the ominous messages he had received, the priest regarded him with a skeptical gaze.
Taylor had hoped that Father Deus would offer clarity and guidance, but instead, he felt as though his concerns were being dismissed. Even the mention of his unsettling encounters with his own reflection seemed to fall on deaf ears.
Frustration gnawed at Taylor's insides as he struggled to reconcile Father Deus's diagnosis with his own experiences. Had he been mistaken all along? Was there truly nothing wrong with him, despite the overwhelming sense of dread that had plagued him for days?
As doubt crept into his mind, Taylor couldn't help but wonder if he was losing his grip on reality. But deep down, a nagging feeling persisted—a gut instinct that told him there was more to his situation than met the eye.
"Are you sure, Father Deus...? Then what about the nightmares that keep reoccurring?" Taylor's voice rose with urgency as he grabbed the priest's shoulders, struggling to maintain his composure despite the growing turmoil within him.
The weight of his relentless nightmares had become unbearable, compounded by the constant throbbing of headaches that plagued him day and night.
And the thought of any harm befalling his young miss in these recurring dreams only added to his distress.
Father Deus sighed, gently removing Taylor's hands from his shoulders before pushing back his own chair with a heavy sigh.
"As I said, you aren't cursed, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything wrong with you," he explained, his tone grave with concern.
Confusion clouded Taylor's features as he watched the priest carefully. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice tinged with a mixture of frustration and apprehension. If he wasn't cursed, then what could possibly be causing his torment?
"Young man, do you know what a curse is?" Father Deus inquired solemnly as he approached his desk, reaching underneath it to retrieve a small, wrapped-up piece of paper. Taylor shook his head in response, admitting his ignorance.
Though he understood the basics of curses as malevolent phenomena caused by demons, his knowledge on the subject was limited at best.
Slowly, Father Deus walked in front of Taylor and took a seat, his movements deliberate as he attempted to smooth out the crumpled piece of paper before handing it to him.
Taylor observed the red marks scrawled across the paper before it suddenly ignited in black flames, disintegrating before his eyes.
In an instant, darkness enveloped him, robbing him of his sight and plunging him into a state of disorientation.
"What's going on?" Taylor's voice trembled with surprise as he struggled to make sense of his surroundings in the darkness.
"Calm down," Father Deus's soothing voice reached him, a comforting presence in the void.
Though Taylor couldn't see, he could feel the priest's gentle touch on his hands, grounding him in the moment.
"Curses, like what the general public knows, are unknown malevolent phenomena that lead to a number of strange and unknowable phenomena," Father Deus explained, his words cutting through the darkness.
"They often result in the demise of a cursed being or place... In other words, they pave the way to a prewritten death—a powerful and dark form of magic that strikes fear into the hearts of men."
I listened intently as Father Deus continued to speak, his words a beacon of hope in the darkness that had enveloped me. "Although it is true that curses are unknown phenomena that happen without warning, they are not without their consequences and traces," he explained, his voice steady and reassuring.
"Curses are much simpler than one might think, Sir Taylor," Father Deus continued, his tone becoming more confident. "Fixing it and even curing it is quite simple."
As he spoke, I felt warmth spreading into my arms, a comforting sensation that eased the tension in my muscles.
Before I knew it, my sight returned, the darkness lifting like a veil, revealing Father Deus standing before me, his gaze unwavering as he held my gaze.
"Curses are just mere timed spells that cause a person or place to suffer slowly," he explained, his words ringing with clarity.
"Although the church branded it as a demon's doing, in truth, curses are just spells. And just like any spell, they can be traced back from its caster as well as be reversed cast, and disrupted. Ultimately, destroying them once you understand how they function. A simple disruption from its mana is all it takes to cure one from it."
"To summarize what I'm saying, curses are nothing more than timed spells, and just like spells, they always leave a trace, whether it be mana attached to you or a rune... Yet I can't find one in you, Sir Taylor," Father Deus spoke in a dimmed tone.
Taylor almost chuckled in annoyance at the priest's words. If it wasn't a curse afflicting him, then what was he supposed to make of the demonic face he had seen that morning?
What about the relentless nightmares that plagued his sleep, each one more haunting than the last? And what about the unsettling connection he felt to Sophia, despite her absence from his life?
Despite sharing every detail with Father Deus, it seemed as though his concerns were falling on deaf ears.
As anger threatened to consume him, Taylor clenched his fists tightly, his nails digging into his palms.
He couldn't let himself succumb to rage, not now. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down, pushing aside the swirling emotions that threatened to overwhelm him.
Gathering his thoughts, Taylor realized that he couldn't afford to dwell on what he couldn't control. Whether it was a curse or something else entirely, he needed to find a solution.
'In the end, did I come here for nothing?' Taylor muttered to himself, frustration simmering beneath the surface.
Tsk... He clicked his tongue in annoyance, unable to shake the feeling of disappointment that gnawed at him.
Father Deus looked at him with a hint of surprise and nervousness in his eyes, as if he could sense Taylor's boiling distress.
Taylor could see that the priest was struggling to find the right words, his hesitation only adding to his irritation.
He opened his mouth to speak, his voice tinged with nervousness. "Although I may not know what you're experiencing right now, I have a couple of guesses," he began tentatively.
Taylor couldn't help but wonder why Father Deus was suddenly acting so scared. Was his expression really that intimidating?
"Go... on," Taylor said, trying to keep his tone as gentle as possible, but Father Deus seemed to be growing increasingly uneasy.
"If you aren't cursed, there could only be one of two reasons for your unrelenting nightmares," Father Deus continued, his voice faltering slightly.
"One is that you're sick... not in the physical sense, but rather mentally. Your job as a butler may have taken a toll on your very young mind—"
He coughed abruptly, and Taylor shot him a look that could have frozen water. Was the priest suggesting that Taylor was sick because of his profession? It seemed absurd to him. After clearing his throat, Father Deus hesitantly continued, "The other possibility is that you have a mystery..."
The moment Father Deus mentioned the possibility of a mystery, Taylor's eyes widened in surprise.
A mystery? Was he suggesting that what Taylor was experiencing right now was some kind of blessing in disguise?
The notion almost caused Taylor to chuckle aloud at the priest's guess.
Mysteries were phenomena quite literally opposite to curses; they were blessings that granted individuals supernatural abilities or skills, the origins and mechanisms of which remained unknown.
Prince Hansel, his young miss's fiancé, was one such person, possessing the mystery of Haste that allowed him to move and run faster than ordinary individuals.
Mysteries were inherently beneficial, granting their bearers an advantage that set them apart from the norm.
And yet here Father Deus was, suggesting that Taylor's nightmares were somehow a "fucking mystery?"
How could he possibly see any benefit in such torment?
There was nothing positive about Taylor's dreams, especially when they involved the death of his beloved young miss.
It was absurd to even consider that there could be any silver lining to such horrifying visions.
Fueled by anger and frustration, Taylor stood up abruptly, his emotions boiling over.
But his outburst was cut short when Father Deus suddenly collapsed with a resounding thump. Shocked.
Taylor rushed to the priest's side, his concern overriding his anger as he took in the sight of Father Deus bleeding from his nose and ears.
"Father?" Taylor's voice wavered with surprise and worry as he attempted to rouse the fallen priest.
….
As Father Deus looked at the young man standing before him, a twinge of sadness welled up within him.
Despite all the time Taylor had spent assisting them at the church, Father Deus felt incapable of returning the favor in kind.
While healing was the priests' primary skill, Father Deus couldn't shake the frustration of being unable to offer any assistance to Taylor in his time of need.
Summoning what reassurance he could muster, Father Deus attempted to offer some semblance of comfort to Taylor.
"Although I may not know what you're experiencing right now, I have a couple of guesses," he said, hoping his words would instill a sense of hope in the troubled young man.
But to his surprise, Taylor's reaction was not what he expected.
Instead of relief or gratitude, Taylor's smile sent a shiver down Father Deus's spine.
It was a smile that stretched unnaturally wide, reaching from ear to ear, and the intensity of the anger in Taylor's eyes made Father Deus feel as though he were staring into the eyes of a demon.
"Go... on," Taylor's voice cut through the air, but the fear that gripped Father Deus nearly paralyzed him. He hesitated, the memory of that sinister smile haunting his thoughts. But as he gathered his courage to speak, he glanced at Taylor once more and found himself staring into familiar, reassuring eyes.
"What was that?" Father Deus couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong.
He couldn't have seen it wrong, could he? But even as Taylor's watchful gaze waited for his answer, Father Deus pressed on, explaining that Taylor's nightmares may be attributed to a form of mental sickness.
However, the ridiculous expression on Taylor's face made Father Deus abandon such a suggestion.
Instead, he offered another possibility—one that was both likely and yet highly unlikely.
"The other possibility is that you have a mystery..." Father Deus proposed, drawing on the knowledge that mysterious phenomena often preceded the emergence of unique abilities.
Just like the young prince of the empire who suffered from unknown muscle cramps before manifesting his own mystery of Haste, there was a chance that Taylor's nightmares were the precursor to the birth of his own mystery.
Father Deus wasn't entirely certain, but it seemed more than plausible.
Taylor looked at him with a mixture of disbelief and incredulity, as if Father Deus's words were utterly foolish.
But Father Deus remained firm in his guess, using the divine arts to pray and scan Taylor's body once more, just to ensure that he wasn't cursed.
However, as he did so, a chill washed over Father Deus's body, and every hair on his skin stood on end.
His heart beat wildly, each thump echoing in his ears like a drumbeat of impending doom.
A sense of foreboding crept over Father Deus as he looked at Taylor again, only to be met with the sight of the smiling demon that had terrified him before.
Slowly, as he stared into those soulless eyes, the world around Father Deus began to change.
Everything turned red, suffused with an eerie glow that cast long, ominous shadows. His feet felt damp, and the air was thick with the foul stench of blood.
Corpses lay strewn about in a sea of crimson, their lifeless forms a grotesque tableau of death.
Crows circled overhead, their caws filling the air with a cacophony of sound.
Father Deus's stomach churned, bile rising in his throat as he recoiled from the horrific scene before him.
His body froze in terror as he looked up at the sky, where there was no sun, yet the heavens blazed with a bright red light, casting the world below in a sinister glow.
And then, from the depths of the crimson sky, a single eye fixed its gaze upon him.
Father Deus tried to scream, to flee from the nightmarish vision unfolding before him, but no words would come from his mouth.
"Why did you try to peek~?" a voice whispered from behind him, sending a shiver down Father Deus's spine.
He didn't need to turn around to know whose voice it was. And before he could react, a sword, dripping with blood and unknown horrors, pierced his heart from behind, sending searing pain lancing through his body.
As Father Deus slowly lost his strength, he collapsed onto the ground, the crimson tide of blood enveloping him.
His mind grew hazy as consciousness slipped away, leaving him in the grip of darkness.
On that fateful day, Father Deus succumbed to a heart attack, his life extinguished by the cruel hand of fate.
The only witness to the tragic scene was the young butler of House Kraus, who had tried his best to save the old priest, but to no avail.