If You're Being Held Hostage, Wiggle the Carrot! - Chapter 90
Louis firmly held Ruby’s hand and closed his eyes, feeling the warmth. It was said that there were spirits who could touch the bodies of the living.
However, he had never experienced it during his hundred years. He wanted to tell his descendants about the cursed dolls somehow, and he tried many ways.
‘I always passed through them, only to realize that I was dead, and I cried out at the top of my lungs to let them know, but there was no one to hear me.’
“…Spirits can sometimes touch things when they become filled with lust.”
‘Haha, so I should have just become a lustful spirit then.’
Louis laughed pleasantly and leaned down to take her hand in his, and he kissed the back of her linked hand respectfully.
“Uh… you can’t become a lustful spirit just because you want to. Mostly, it’s those who died without ever being able to do it that become lustful spirits…”
Ruby blurted out in embarrassment at the sudden kiss on the hand. It was nothing, but it felt strangely wrong.
‘What weren’t they able to do?’
“Asking when you already know is a bit of a mean move, you know?”
‘Haha…’
“If you were so desperate to communicate with your descendants, you should have appeared in their dreams or something. If an ancestor earnestly asked, the wolf tribe would never refuse, I think.”
Every wolf she encountered had been remarkably loyal. While the depth of their loyalty might vary, it was a noticeable trait shared amongst all of them.
‘I couldn’t do that either.’
“You’re quite untalented as a spirit.”
‘Haha, you’re right.’
“I actually have thought your ghost might have been able to move on by now since you’ve achieved what you wanted.”
Certainly, Louis’s initial request was to find the cursed doll.
‘You’re mistaken.’
“What?”
‘I said I wanted to rekindle the Black Flame. To be honest, it doesn’t matter whether it involved the Serpent Tribe in the past. Bringing back the black flame is what matters.’
True to his word, the past didn’t matter. Even if his descendants’ misconceptions of him were cleared up, it wouldn’t bring Louis back from the dead.
“That’s right. We don’t know if removing the curse doll will bring the Black Flame though.”
‘That’s why I have a test I wanted to try.’
“What is it?”
‘I want to catch you like I did yesterday.’
“What does that have to do with this?” Ruby grumbled at the unreasonable request. “Are you telling me to fall again? I’m still a living person, you know—I could die.”
Ruby firmly rejected the proposal, and Louis looked at her with a gaze that seemed to be longing for something. Although it felt like there was a memory within reach, it was elusive, and he couldn’t recall it.
‘You can stay seated like this.’
He took her hand, stood up, and suddenly pulled her towards him.
“Ow.” The recoil sent Ruby tumbling forward. “That hurt…”
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
Louis apologized, his voice filled with embarrassment. He tried to catch her as she fell, but unlike earlier, she just walked right through him.
“It’s okay, I’m not really hurt.”
‘…Did I overreach?’
Hearing Louis’s downcast voice, Ruby felt a little bad for teasing him just a moment ago.
So she tried to cheer him up with her cheerful voice. “It’s okay not to do well from the beginning. Of course, there are people who are good from the start, but anyway, let’s try it again.”
He stared at her as she extended the hand he missed moments ago. A sense of unfamiliar longing stirred in his chest.
At that moment, a face flashed briefly above Ruby’s and then disappeared. Louis stared at her, wide-eyed and dazed, and muttered.
‘Agatha…’
