As the head of the demon ghost rolled to a stop at the tip of Rita’s shoe, the entire room once again fell into dead silence.
A few strands of moonlight slipped through the window, illuminating the thin layer of blood on the floor, allowing Rita to see the scene that made her feel a bit nauseous even more clearly.
The demon ghost was dead, the entire family of the ghoul girl was also dead, and she herself had rushed here in vain, all for nothing.
Well, not completely for nothing—at least she had managed to save two patrol officers, and, as a bonus, had learned from the demon ghost that some mysterious person seemed to have once done something to him.
Right now, Rita couldn’t make sense of everything even if she tried. She should just find someone to clean up this mess.
Rita sighed, bent down, and picked up the demon ghost’s head.
Having a piece of evidence would make things easier. As for the body, she had no desire to touch it herself.
She left the room, turned around the corner of the alley, and her heart suddenly tightened.
She saw the ghoul girl—who should have been locked up in jail—standing there, covered in wounds. Her eyes, faintly glowing blue because of her transformation, were staring straight at Rita.
What’s going on? Did she make another terrible mistake?
That couldn’t be right. With two patrol officers and the strength of the sigil she’d left behind, there was no way the girl should have been able to escape.
“Ugh… uh…”
The ghoul girl called out as she strode toward Rita.
Rita gripped her sword tightly, but the ghoul girl brushed past her without even touching her, continuing deeper into the alley, back toward her own home.
“Miss Rita!” The patrol officer finally caught up, rushing over. “What happened just now? Why did she run out?”
“Well… after you left, she kept desperately trying to break free. The things you left behind kept hurting her, and we just… couldn’t stand it anymore…” The patrol officer stammered.
Rita’s tone was tinged with anger. “So you just let her out?”
“We didn’t mean to… It’s just, she ran out, but she didn’t attack us. We followed behind her all the way and even saw the two people you rescued…”
Forget it! Whose fault it was that the ghoul girl escaped didn’t matter now. What mattered was how to solve the problem.
Rita left the patrol officers and followed the ghoul girl back into that house, the unpleasant stench of blood rushing into her nose once again.
The ghoul girl stepped into the room, as if staring at the tragic tableau unfolding before her eyes, a few broken, guttural growls issuing from her throat.
Rita subconsciously drew her sword out a little—if the girl made a move, she could easily sever her head.
But just as the patrol officer had said, the ghoul girl showed no signs of attacking anyone. She only walked over to her already dead father, knelt with a thud at his side, and reached out her already-elongated claws to touch the wound that had pierced his chest.
“Ahh… ahh…”
The ghoul girl wailed, crawling over to her mother’s corpse. Fresh blood soaked her long dress, making her look even more terrifying in the moonlight.
Rita said nothing, standing at the doorway, watching the ghoul girl’s every move, and let out the heaviest sigh she had given all night.
“She died?”
Cecilia asked.
“Probably.” Rita replied ambiguously. “After that, she never moved again. But to be safe, we still called the church and soldiers to come clean up.”
Cecilia’s hand, resting on the table, didn’t lift for a long time. After a while, she finally let out a soft breath.
“In other words, this matter ends here, doesn’t it?”
Rita’s gaze drifted past Cecilia, looking out at the bright daylight, then she nodded.
Cecilia lowered her long lashes, then gently shook her head. “Such a pity. With everyone dead, the truth of what happened may never be known.”
“No, not necessarily.” Rita said, opening her palm. A clear, crystalline shard was floating in her hand.
“What’s that?”
“It’s the last Soul Fragment of that ghoul girl. I picked it up. I can’t show Lady Cecilia directly, but I can tell Lady Cecilia the story within.”
The story wasn’t complicated. The girl moved into a new home with her family, but she discovered that in this mansion, there was a fifth presence besides her family of four.
She could feel hollow eyes staring at her, as if coveting something, making her uneasy. She had the vague feeling that once night fell, she would die.
Perhaps guided by a mysterious force she couldn’t explain, she found a notebook in the mansion. It contained records about controlling demon ghosts.
Rather than “controlling,” it was more of a Contract. Relying on this Contract, she managed to control the demon ghost after sunset, stopping it from harming her family.
The demon ghost kept resisting, but thanks to the Contract, the girl was able to suppress it. However, the demon ghost also kept draining her life force.
As a result, the girl fell gravely ill and never managed to get out of bed again.
Originally, the girl should have run out of life force after about a week, yet no one knew how she managed to hold on for months.
Perhaps it was her will to protect her family? In the end, she held on, struggling, right up until the moment the family she wanted to protect killed her with their own hands.
A curse.
Even after the demon ghost’s power overflowed and she herself became a ghoul, her obsession still lingered.
Oh, and one more thing. Rita only discovered it after reading the memories in fragments.
What kept the demon ghost from harming others wasn’t the Contract, but a curse the girl placed on herself.
After hearing Rita’s account, Cecilia could only softly say two words.
“What a pity.”
“It really is a pity. But what concerns me more is something else.” Rita said gravely.
Seeing the question in Cecilia’s eyes, Rita continued, “Who could leave a notebook that allows an utterly powerless girl to use the power of a curse just from reading it, and even suppress a demon ghost for so long at the cost of her own life?”
To use life as the price sounded severe, but the demon ghost hadn’t taken long to slaughter the other three family members; Dorothy offered so much blood just to open a Portal and see Valphis for a moment.
Life is incomparably precious and irreplaceable to each person, but in a world where magic can quantify life, its value is far less than one might imagine.
“I do have someone in mind who might fit.” Cecilia said.
“Dorothy?” Rita immediately thought of the name.
“That’s right. If it really was something she left behind, it could have that effect.” Cecilia replied. “But right now, isn’t the most pressing matter not investigating this case?”
Rita nodded. “Indeed. The most important thing now is the examination, not uncovering the truth behind all this.”
Even if she wanted to investigate, the demon ghost and ghoul were dead, and whoever left the notebook had surely cleaned up the evidence and vanished without a trace. There was no real lead to follow.
That’s with Rita possessing the power of a succubus and being able to read part of the memories—otherwise, she wouldn’t have gotten any of this information at all.
Cecilia picked up on Rita’s words and interrupted her, “Enough of that. Rita, you used the power of the sigil again last night. Do you feel any discomfort?”
“No, none.” Rita shook her head side to side.
“Well, you were busy most of the night. Today, just take a good rest.”
That’s what she said, but Rita had nowhere to go.
Since that was the case, she decided to return to the scene from last night for another look.
Actually, in front of Cecilia, there was one thing Rita hadn’t mentioned.
The owner of that notebook might not be Dorothy.
Back in Solus City, Rita had personally dismantled one of Dorothy’s Dolls and obtained a Soul Fragment from it. She had forgotten about it after looking it over.
There wasn’t much to see—any Soul Fragment stuffed into a Doll would be utterly trivial, recording only a fragmented biography of Dorothy.
Becoming a Magus, conducting research, growing stronger, and then, suddenly, starting to study the use of demon powers, making unexpected progress—on and on.
That’s all.
It wasn’t until today, after seeing the ghoul girl’s memories, that Rita connected an insignificant detail in Dorothy’s memory to the thin notebook the girl found. The handwriting was blurry, but it looked extremely similar to a notebook Dorothy had found while searching for reference materials in her own memory.
But the matter was so trivial, if Rita hadn’t seen both sets of memories, she’d never have found the link.
Even if she told Cecilia, she probably couldn’t explain it clearly.
That didn’t matter—she could still investigate.
With that, Rita immediately set out on her journey.
But she hadn’t gone far when the face of the person walking toward her—stern and unyielding—clearly told her that her plans for the day were about to be ruined.