The Curse Contract

The lord looked pleased, yet a flicker of puzzlement crossed his face.

This would have fallen within the range of what he'd expected — the question was designed to screw them over and settle a score, after all. But it would also be a little different. The contract acted to uncover the truth. The question he'd anticipated wouldn't have involved the family heirloom.

"The contract only distinguishes truth from falsehood. If you truly believe it, it might judge your words as true — but making the contract accept something as truth based on nothing but spite is exceedingly difficult. Without evidence, no matter how strong your feelings, it will not readily acknowledge your claim. Do you still wish to ask that question?"

The lord was doing me a favor. He knew my feelings had been wounded, but a wrong answer to such a question could bring a curse down on my head. It was a simple, one-time curse — but I'd still be bald until my hair grew back.

"I should be fine. I'm not giving this answer out of mere emotion."

"...What? You're saying you have evidence?"

The lord's expression grew urgent.

"Yes. Not long ago, I saw a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ring bearing your lordship's seal in Johann's pouch."

"Th-that's absurd!"

"Silence!"

Johann shouted as if the claim were impossible, but the lord's roar left him no choice but to shut his mouth.

The lord looked at me and spoke in a rush.

"Is that true?"

"I still have one question remaining. Is there a more certain method than this? I only happened to see it recently, and I kept my mouth shut because I didn't think anyone would believe me. But now that the opportunity has presented itself, I see no reason to stay silent."

It was a flimsy excuse, but the lord seemed to flinch slightly at the words no one would have believed me.

He wasted no time. He used the contract's question at once.

"I will answer. I believe the one who stole the Mellid family heirloom is Johann. My grounds are as follows. First: not long ago, I saw a ring engraved with the Mellid family seal in a pouch Johann uses. Second: he deliberately set out to frame me as the culprit, and using the subspace he appears to have learned of in the process, he tried to create a situation in which it would not be strange if the heirloom could not be found in a short time. Third: in the course of that, he fabricated an absurd falsehood and even attempted to deceive your lordship. There is no such thing as the Inventory Clan, and I have been able to use a subspace for less than a month. Does that suffice as an answer?"

The more I spoke, the more the urgency drained from the lord's face. By the time I finished, his expression had gone perfectly blank — unreadable. He quietly asked me a follow-up.

"The Inventory Clan... doesn't exist?"

"That's right. It doesn't. I've never even heard of such a clan. We were caught up in a certain trial. We completed it, and as a reward we received a subspace called an Inventory. When the trial ended, we were forcibly transported to an unknown location — and that was when we first met Johann."

The lord sank into thought.

The Inventory Clan. If they'd simply wanted to paint us as ordinary thieves, there would have been no need to fabricate a clan in the middle of the story. The problem was that this clan had been invented as grounds to claim we were spies for another lord.

According to Johann's version, the Inventory Clan had been destroyed by someone, we'd barely escaped, and we'd sought refuge with the lord. And yet, despite all that, we were supposedly a spy ring already commissioned by another noble, looking to sell out House Mellid. Chronologically, that would go: the clan is destroyed, we flee, we seek refuge with another noble, then we enter Mellid Castle under the pretense of coincidence — already in their employ.

In other words, the Inventory Clan was information used to frame us as spies. So if that was a lie from the start? It didn't just end with oh, so they're not spies. They had openly deceived the lord. They had deliberately conspired to do so. And I had even stated that I'd seen an artifact bearing the family seal on Johann. A reinvestigation was the baseline — and they were already looking at a charge of insulting the nobility.

I'd dragged Johann, Kim Insil, and Park Nam-young all in together and thoroughly screwed them over.

The lord realized he had been thoroughly insulted, and at last that blank expression began to crack. Even so, he slipped in one more question, right on the edge.

"Is there truly no way to inspect the interior of a subspace?"

The contract trembled. This was practically a fourth question. Even if I didn't answer, it would begin judging the truth on its own. But I answered quickly, before the contract could react.

"There isn't."

Not at the moment, anyway. The intent behind the question seemed to be the possibility that those three had deliberately hidden the lord's sword inside an Inventory.

At that moment, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the contract began to judge the truth.

A short while later, the contract released no curse at all, slowly returning to an ordinary scrap of paper.

Every word I had spoken had been judged true.

And in that instant, the lord's blank mask finally shattered. His face flushed crimson, and he roared like the very incarnation of wrath.

"Jules! Gillaham!"

"Yes, my lord!"

"Sir Gillaham! Present!"

The old butler, and a man who appeared to be the knight commander.

"Yes! We receive your command!"

The old butler immediately ordered soldiers to surround Johann, Kim Insil, and Park Nam-young, and the knights stepped in to bind them all and begin escorting them away.

"It's not me! I'm innocent! My lord, please believe me!"

"We didn't steal anything!"

"Johann! Johann put us up to it! We don't know anything!"

Johann, Kim Insil, and Park Nam-young all protested their innocence — and Park Nam-young was already confessing that Johann had put them up to it.

But there was no chance the enraged lord would listen.

The lord first declared us innocent, and the party threw their arms around each other, sharing in the joy of the verdict.

"I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. The circumstances left me little choice, but it seems I've made a mistake against the castle's benefactors."

"Not at all. You had no other choice. Thanks to your lordship's bold and wise decision, we were able to prove our innocence. I'm truly grateful."

"You've been through a great deal. Rest for now — I'll have a fine room prepared for you."

"You have my thanks."

The lord said he had urgent business and immediately left.

Fair enough. He'd ordered them to report immediately, but this was a lead on the lost family heirloom. It was far too important a matter to sit around waiting for a report.

We were shown to a guest chamber. Compared to the soldiers' barracks we'd been staying in until now, it was a staggering change.

Once we arrived at the room, Nam Eun-ju asked,

"But we'll be going to the next floor in just a day, right? If we end up somewhere else, like on the second floor..."

"Then we split. We can't travel with people like that."

"She's right, Eun-ju. Absolutely not. With bodies in that condition, could they even survive the next floor?"

Joo Ha-yeon and Na-yeon spoke in turn, and Na Seoyun nodded vigorously in fierce agreement.

"You've worked so hard, Shin-hoo. Thanks to you, we managed to clear our names."

Half of it wasn't even a false charge.

We'd raided the warehouse, after all. We just hadn't stolen the heirloom.

"We got lucky. A Curse Contract... so things like that exist."

I spoke as if I were hearing of it for the first time.

"It was almost like a lie detector. A rather high-performance one, at that."

"Right? Well, it saved us, so I can't complain. I just wish they'd used it sooner."

"Well, there are probably various conditions involved. Looking at it after it was used up, it seemed to be single-use."

"Oh, was it?"

She apparently hadn't been in any state of mind to notice that.

With our innocence proven, we spent the day resting thoroughly.

Over the course of that single day, the castle was turned completely upside down.

The two artifacts I had hidden were discovered in Johann's room, and with convenient timing, antiques were found inside an animal that had been slaughtered that afternoon.

Johann was caught dead to rights. Park Nam-young and Kim Insil were subjected to all manner of torture, threatened into producing everything they had hidden inside their subspaces.

Even funnier was how quickly Johann's schemes against us started coming to light. The fact that he had taken money to send us as mercenaries to a dangerous location on the third floor, and his plan to kill us on the fourth floor, were both exposed. Some Zeh had apparently been left over — it was found in Johann's room.

It also came out that Johann had recruited them by promising to heal a ruined knee and a ruined arm — and that he himself had been the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cause. I had suspected as much, but now it was confirmed. I wondered how Kim Insil and Park Nam-young felt about that.

At last, the seventh day arrived.

We were transported to the seventh floor.

With a familiar sensation, we were moved to the seventh floor.

This floor had a high chance of being more dangerous than it had been in the first cycle.

Just in case, I quickly checked the trial that appeared.

Fortunately, nothing had changed from the first cycle. I wondered what Kim Insil and Park Nam-young would think, looking at that reward. If they'd had that potion when they were injured, there wouldn't have been any lingering aftereffects.

In the past, at this point, I had lost all hope and been waiting my turn for the next round of torture.

One of the reasons I'd had insufficient stats in the first cycle despite possessing high-grade potential was the torture I'd received here. It hadn't left aftereffects as severe as Park Nam-young's or Kim Insil's, but being tortured in this place had cost me a considerable portion of my stats.

If my skill combination hadn't been decent, the upper ranks would have been out of the question. If it hadn't been for the aftereffects I picked up here, I might have scraped into the first string even after being used as a sucker.

I'd always regretted it, but this time was different. Far from any losses, my current stats were in a league of their own thanks to the absurd privilege of Inheritance.

But I had no intention of being satisfied with that. I was going to climb higher — higher still — kill the Giants, and get my family back.

In that sense, this seventh floor had a decent chance of becoming an opportunity.

Unlike the first cycle, we hadn't been easily framed as the culprits, and we'd even achieved the feat of being declared innocent. The extra income from raiding the warehouse, and the revenge, were bonuses.

But in the process, there had been a massive culprit hunt in the form of a full investigation.

The problem was that this had gone on for five full days. As a result, despite the information we'd given him on the fourth floor, the lord's defenses were significantly weaker than they had been in the first cycle.

Of course, with the castle in a crisis, they would have prepared some defenses. But during a massive manhunt like a full investigation, had those defenses actually been functioning properly?

The moment we arrived on the seventh floor, I felt the need to confirm it.

Even after moving to the seventh floor, we were still in the guest chamber, and the remaining four members of the party all came to find me.

"This mission is a bit better. A month of being treated as honored guests... If we hadn't been able to prove our innocence... just imagining it is terrifying."

"Don't let your guard down. There's no way the trial will be that straightforward."

The party agreed with me, but they still seemed a little too relaxed.

I spoke more firmly.

"You saw it on the fourth floor. I believe that's connected to this trial."

The fourth floor's trial. Reconnaissance.

The enormous numbers of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠goblins we'd seen then came to mind.

I laid out the worst-case assumption for the party.

Annihilation.

At my prediction of a total wipe, shock seized every face in the party.