Hansel’s Enchanted Fairytale: Fill Me Up With Magic! - Chapter 66
“Alright, Princess, let me explain from the beginning. This is something only mages would know.
Even younger mages these days don’t know about it. Margaret Arsinoe, the head of the Arsinoe family, made a pact with the other family heads, they agreed to exile the master of the forest here and bury the truth of it forever.
Three hundred years ago, I became indebted to the first Herodt when he saved my life and became his servant.
The first Herodt created the spell of killing with a name. Arsinoe invented spell to seal it, and together they decided to dominate the magical world like twin peaks of power.
The problem was, the first Herodt didn’t pass on the method to his descendants. He thought it was too dangerous.
So his descendants decided to dismantle him.
They rendered the first Herodt unable to function, left in a vegetative state as they extracted massive amounts of his magical power—his soul, you could say. The only way to transfer that was by infusing it into someone else reduced to an empty shell. Naturally, the younger, the better.
At first, they bought orphans in bulk, but the experiments kept failing. That’s when they hit on the idea of producing as many offspring as possible within their family. They started using handmaids as surrogates and repeated the process until they succeeded.
The children who survived became the family heads. They inherited Herodt’s power but not his memories. Maybe something instinctive remained, as they always seemed to yearn for this forest.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—the ability to kill by naming wasn’t passed down genetically.
But then a new handmaid discovered the truth and fled to this forest. To avoid being caught, she disguised herself as a girl and raised the child here.
I… I convinced her she had misunderstood and brought her back.
I had no choice. I am Herodt’s servant. I can’t disobey the commands of his descendants.
There are only three ways for me to be free, Herodt’s line must vanish from this world entirely, they must release me, or I must die.
The descendants made the new family head kill that woman personally. The strange thing is, the new head had inherited the original Herodt’s power most fully. They could even use the curse of naming.
That was the day Herodt’s family met its doom.
The new head killed his own mother—the woman I deceived into returning to the family.
That’s the crime I committed against the master of the forest.
***
“Out of worry, I’d sometimes sneak a look, but he seemed to be doing alright. Though every time he noticed me, he tried to kill me… Are you crying?”
Hansel sat curled on the rock, biting her lip as tightly as she could. The werewolf leaned closer, perhaps to check her face, but she turned her head sharply away.
“Who said I was crying?”
Her trembling voice betrayed the tears soaking it. Hansel clutched the hem of her skirt tightly, her fingers trembling.
Her chest felt as though it were collapsing inward, the pain throbbing. No matter how hard she tried to swallow the lump in her throat, it rose again, burning hot.
What kind of life is this? she thought. A life no one wanted—not the one who started it, not the woman who bore a child, not the child who was born.
It felt like finding a missing piece of a puzzle. Dante’s strange choice of words suddenly fell into place in her mind.
—The woman who gave birth to me was like you, an ordinary person.
—My father turned her into a mage.
How could anyone do that?
The thought struck her as naive even as it formed. Of course, humans could do such things. Mages, especially, were the sort to do anything for the sake of their bloodline.
Magical power was everything to a mage’s family. How it was obtained, and by whom, didn’t matter. Power sustained their status, and that was all that mattered.
Hansel knew the weight of that all too well. She’d lived her entire life as the eldest daughter of the Arsinoe family.
Poor Dante.
Caught up in her own thoughts, she barely noticed the werewolf edging closer. She wiped her tears and cast him a sidelong glance.
“You’re pitiful too, you know.”
The werewolf blinked in confusion, pointing to himself.
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“But I’m a bad guy. What’s there to pity about me?”
“I know what an oath like that entails. For three hundred years, you had to go along with what they did to your friend, even though it wasn’t your choice. You’ve ended up killing people too… and now you’re probably going to die as well…”
That helplessness of the weak, unable to resist—it was a feeling Hansel knew all too well, one that made her blood boil with rage.
The werewolf stared at her in silence, his lips pressed into a firm line. Hansel, busy wiping her endlessly welling tears, didn’t notice his expression.
With her shoulders slumping in exhaustion, she muttered softly,
“So that’s why… the master of the forest hates mages so much.”
If I were him, I’d feel the same way. I’d probably shudder at the very mention of magic.
Dante might never forgive her, and now Hansel could understand why.
But then… does that mean Dante will be alone forever?
The werewolf murmured quietly,
“It’s not like there’s no way to break the curse.”
Hansel’s eyes widened instantly.
“What is it?”
The werewolf’s gaze narrowed, his sly smile returning.
Hansel scowled instinctively.
This fox-like wolf!
