6. Unique Magic (3)
"Yan, would you mind giving us a moment?"
Luna clearly intended to banish Yan, who had come to visit me first. I didn't know the reason, but I figured it had something to do with needing to talk about my unique magic. Yan gave a small nod and quietly slipped out of my room.
"Sirius, this is all your fault."
Sweeping her silver hair back behind her neck, Luna perched herself on the edge of my bed, right beside me. The pale nape of her neck drifted into my field of view.
"What are you talking about?"
"Lick."
She held out her finger and said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. I was dumbfounded. Seriously? She'd pulled that stunt once already and left me bedridden for a week — there was no way I'd do it again.
...Except I did.
My body betrayed my will entirely and obediently took her finger into my mouth. Last time, all I'd tasted was the faint brine of blood, but this time, the soft scent of her skin rose to meet me.
What is this? It's terrifying.
"Mmnh...!"
Contrary to my own reaction, Luna flushed red, letting out strange little sounds. If she kept this up in a grown man's room, I couldn't be held responsible for anything.
So there I was, licking her finger for about a minute, until she finally told me to stop — and only then did I release her hand from my mouth.
"Luna. What exactly did you do to me?"
I asked, deadly serious. If it had been hypnosis magic, or some spell that forced objects to move against their nature, I might not have been able to resist it, but at least I should have been able to sense it. Whatever this was, it had an entirely different texture.
"How did my blood taste?"
Asking how it tasted — that's just gross and unsettling.
"Disgusting. I'm human. I don't have a hobby of drinking blood."
"Then shall we do it again today?"
Luna drew a small knife from her pocket and pressed its point into her fingertip. Drops of vivid red blood beaded up against her pale skin. Watching her cut herself over and over, a stray thought crossed my mind — was something troubling her?
And then, staring at that bead of blood, I was suddenly wracked by an unbearable thirst.
I want it. I want it so badly. The blood welling at her fingertip looked to me like an oasis in the middle of a desert.
Without asking her permission, I snatched her hand and brought it to my lips. It was sweeter than any drink I'd ever had. Sweet beyond sweetness — and I could feel power surging through my whole body. It felt as if I could pour out the highest-tier spells one after another and still have strength left over. Lost in some kind of trance, I savored her finger until my senses finally came back to me.
"Your impressions?"
Luna crossed her legs and looked down at me with a haughty expression.
"Tell me right now. What did you do to me?"
There was no doubt she'd pulled some kind of scheme.
"The same thing you did to me."
"What...?"
"I gave back to you, exactly what you gave to me."
It didn't make sense. I swore I had never done anything to Luna. I could only stare at her, my face still a question mark.
"Sirius. You made me yours, so I made you mine. That's all there is to it."
"Explain properly. I have no idea what you mean."
"Your unique magic did this to me... you started it first... it's not my fault. It's all... all... your responsibility!"
She pressed both hands to her face, twisting it as if she couldn't control her own emotions. Then, as if recovering her composure, she returned to her usual self. She took a long, deep breath and met my eyes — and I could see her crimson gaze was filled with resolve.
"I like you."
...Huh?
"I said I like you. Sirius."
Out of nowhere? Why? Why? Head buried, she twisted her hair around her fingers as she spoke, twisting and squirming with embarrassment. It was far too serious a mood to be some cheap prank.
"Your unique magic... it's Emotional Amplification."
Emotional Amplification. So it meant an ability that made emotions impossible to control, then? It was leagues rarer than even beginner wind magic, but honestly, hearing it, I still wasn't thrilled. I'd been hoping for some monstrous, broken cheat of a spell, after all.
Only now did I begin to vaguely understand what my master had meant — that it could prove useful, depending on how it was used. If that truly was the power of my unique magic, then it could forcibly make possible things that had been impossible before. Perhaps it even meant I could influence another person's thoughts and opinions, driving them to judgments that defied their own reason.
As I listened to Luna and pieced things together in my own head, one question blossomed. Why had Luna been unable to hold back and confess to me? Amplification magnified pre-existing emotions — negative or positive alike — far beyond their natural bounds. Which meant that...
"Luna... don't tell me..."
The moment I spoke to her in a tone of sudden realization, she looked like a lamb cornered before a wolf. Faintly reddened cheeks, and an expression begging me — please, don't say it. In the still silence, the sound of her swallowing rang out, disproportionately loud. My heart was pounding like mad. The sight of her — so unlike anything I'd ever seen from her before — looked impossibly cute.
"Sirius."
She called my name softly.
Someone who'd been the eternal underdog in our relationship, I found myself drunk, if only for a moment, on the feeling of finally being the one in the position of power. Luna likes me... the daughter of the Demon King, the most beautiful woman in the world, likes me... I could hardly keep the laughter from bubbling out of me. Maybe I was drunk on my own emotions a little too much — because I failed to properly register what she'd just said.
"Sirius... kneel."
At those words, I was driven to my knees on the floor, as though a crushing gravity had seized hold of me. Oh, right. That. This irresistible command. What was this now?
Luna looked down at me with a satisfied smile.
"Luna... I think your explanation is still a bit lacking... ha... haha..."
Still kneeling, I asked my question with the awkward smile of a man caught red-handed.
"Sirius, thanks to your unique magic, I think I'm about to lose my mind."
She stroked my hair, laughing softly.
"I want to touch you like this."
Her hand slid down from my head, tracing along my chest.
"I want to hold your hand."
She lifted my dutifully folded hands and clasped them in her own.
"I feel like I want to pour every drop of this overflowing love straight into you."
She pulled me to my feet and caressed my face. Every time she initiated that kind of skinship, my unaccustomed body flinched and trembled. The last time I'd had any contact with a girl, after all, had been Seria — a lifetime ago.
"So I've been thinking. What to do. How to make you look at me too."
She traced her lips with her index finger. I couldn't tear my eyes from her bewitching figure — and I had no choice but to hang on her next words.
Just what on earth had she done to me...?!
"My unique magic. I cast it on you. You cast yours on me first, after all."
My master's one-line review, as I remembered it, had definitely said something like you can't change what runs in the blood. I'd assumed my power resembled the Demon King's unique magic, or something on par with it — and she cast that on me?
"Sirius. From the day you drank my blood, you became my first familiar."
In other words, I had become her slave. To be fair, it wasn't unheard of for high-ranking demons to take humans or other races as familiars — not common, but not rare either. But if it was done through unique magic, then surely its effect went far beyond a simple master-servant bond.
Still, when I thought about it — making someone your slave before confessing your love? Was that really the right order of operations?
When my face crumpled, she hastened to explain.
"You cast unique magic on me without my consent, too. This is mutual fault."
I had no idea... I didn't know it was that... And judging by the look of her, she'd known exactly what she was doing, which made it all the more infuriating. But she wasn't wrong, either. Struggling to look composed, I pressed her for answers.
"So. What exactly do you want from me? You've made me your familiar — now what?"
The truth was, I'd do just about anything Luna asked. She wasn't the type to order me to do something depraved, and whatever complaints I might raise, the two of us had always gotten along well enough.
"Sirius. Any changes in your body lately? Anything at all?"
Right. That strange power I'd felt coursing through me before she entered the room. Maryeok. That, too, had to be tied to her unique magic.
"...I can use maryeok now. Is that part of your magic too?"
"What do you think is the greatest difference between humans and demons?"
The greatest difference between humans and demons. That would have to be...
Whether one could wield maryeok or not. It hit me like a slap across the head. Which meant that right now, to everyone else's eyes, I was...
"Welcome to being a demon, Sirius."
She showed me the most beautiful smile she could manage.
I had never once thought I wanted to be human forever. Of course not — no matter what I did, humans were humans, and demons were demons. I'd never imagined that boundary could shift. And there was a far bigger problem than that. Because as of this moment, I...
I had become an enemy of the Hero.
Yuwol — I, too, was now counted among the demons that Seria was fated to exterminate.
My thoughts in shambles, I stammered uselessly before finally landing on the same question as before.
"Why...? Why would you do this to me...?"
Luna drew close to my side, took my face in both her hands, and pressed her forehead against mine.
"You're not going anywhere, Sirius. I will never let that Hero girl take you from me."
Somehow, I had the distinct feeling that my plans had just been thoroughly derailed.