BID Chapter 35

Startled, I hastily backed away and explained.

“I was just checking for any sigils. Don’t get me wrong.”

Zachary’s gaze, fixed intently on me, felt almost like an accusation, but I stood my ground. I might have been a bit embarrassed to meet his eyes directly, though…

‘It’s strange. I checked everything.’

Despite my thorough search, the mystery only deepened. It felt like I might have missed something.

In such cases, it’s better to take a step back and observe from a distance. After moving away, I took in Zachary’s entire figure. He just stood there, silently watching me. My eyes soon settled on his neck.

Zachary had bled, and a lot. Enough to thoroughly soak his clothes.

The bandage wrapped around his neck, presumably inscribed with magical words, should have been the same. Even though the bandage was a dark navy color, it should have been stained dark red with blood, considering how much he bled.

It didn’t make sense that his clothes were drenched in blood, but the bandage around his neck remained untouched.

‘But why?’

Now, as I looked at Zachary’s neck, the bandage appeared completely unscathed.

Wondering if I had seen it wrong, I even checked the clothes he had taken off, but they were still damp with blood. The same was true for my bedspread. The chaos from earlier was not a dream, as evidenced by the copious amounts of bright red blood, almost as if someone had been killed on it.

‘Come to think of it, why didn’t I think of unwrapping the bandage?’

The most peculiar aspect was the bandage itself. Naturally, the most suspicious element on Zachary’s body should have been the bandages inscribed with magical words.

But strangely enough, I hadn’t thought to unwrap the bandage. It was as if I had naturally perceived it as part of Zachary’s skin…

“Perceived naturally?”

I suddenly lifted my head.

What if there was a force at play that either prevented me from questioning what I saw or made me overly suspicious, thereby distorting my perception?

“Spell.”

…Scratch, scratch.

Just then, a scraping sound caught my attention. It might have been there all along, but only now, with my correct perception of the bandage, did I notice it.

The sound was similar to a pen scribbling on paper or something being licked. I didn’t need to search for the source of this odd sound. It was clear. It was undoubtedly coming from the bandage wrapped around Zachary’s body.

The bandage was wrapped around his limbs and neck. However, the eerie, spine-tingling noise seemed to emanate particularly from the area around his neck.

Scratch, scratch, scratch-scratch-scratch.

The sound grew louder. The source of the strange, ear-grating noise was indeed the bandage wrapped around Zachary’s neck. I slowly reached out my hand.

‘I’m scared.’

If my mother hadn’t remarried into this bizarre family, I wouldn’t have found myself in such a situation. Watching horror movies, I always criticized characters who inevitably opened doors they shouldn’t, never imagining I’d do something similar.

Swallowing hard, I cautiously started to unravel the bandage with my fingertips. As the bandage around his neck loosened and Zachary’s skin was exposed, I gasped.

I felt like something within the bandage met my eyes, even though it clearly had no eyes. Startled, I stumbled backward, causing the partially unwound bandage to unravel further, hanging loosely around Zachary’s neck.

There, on Zachary’s neck, were the sigils I had been desperately searching for.

The caster of the spell, the Duke of Serpentine, must have decided to enforce the spell more strongly on Zachary, particularly rebellious and of royal blood. Hence, he chose to inscribe sigils on the neck and limbs, despite the risk of visibility. Casting spells on these areas, where the effect is most pronounced, doubles their potency.

But it wasn’t just that which shocked me.

‘What is that?’

On the inner side of the bandage, where it touched his skin, there were mouths. Wide-open mouths were gnawing at the sigils etched on Zachary’s skin. A black tongue grotesquely lapped up the blood oozing from the split wounds. And there wasn’t just one mouth.

On humid, rainy days, when digging near the roots of garden plants, you sometimes find clusters of snails tangled together so tightly it’s hard to discern where one begins and another ends. The scene before me was eerily similar. Like snails with their sticky, moist tongues, a mass of them writhed and clung to Zachary’s neck.

“Th-this…”

The horrific sight rendered my mind blank.

What do I do now?

I feel like I’m going to faint.

As I removed the bandage, the mouths inside, which had been greedily savoring Zachary’s flesh and blood, stretched their tongues trying desperately to continue licking his neck. Their instinct-driven, repulsive appearance sent shivers down my spine.

‘Disgusting.’

I shook my head, hoping it was a nightmare, but the reality didn’t change. Zachary must have been aware of these horrific things clinging to his neck.

‘What are those things? I’ve never heard or seen anything like this.’

A lingering question then came to mind.

Zachary’s background as a scion of the Holy Empire wasn’t something to be taken lightly. Although he might have been ordinary before his awakening, the awakening inevitably changes a person.

‘His origin is different.’

Even before awakening, his innate divine energy would have been flowing in his body, which could have made it somewhat easier for him to resist the effects of these spells. I had also witnessed firsthand that the brainwashing spells didn’t work effectively on him when I secretly visited him.

But now, the intensity of the spell activation seemed extremely high. Normally, the older the spell, the weaker it becomes as it adapts to the body, turning dark red. However, the sigils on Zachary’s neck looked as if they were freshly inscribed… still bright red.

‘…Could it be?’

My mouth fell open.

‘Are they intentionally preventing the sigils from healing?’

Once sigils heal, the effect of the curse diminishes significantly. That’s why even servants completely under the spell periodically undergo ‘re-education.’

Time is the only weakness of a spell. This was evident even in Erhan’s case. He had several sigils inscribed on his body, and they had been repeatedly reapplied.

But where would there be room for reapplication on Zachary? Being of imperial descent with innate divine energy, he could have shattered the spell anytime as its potency weakened over time. In fact, in the original story, Zachary did awaken his powers and annihilated our family.

‘Did the Duke really not know that the spell’s effectiveness could diminish so quickly?’

That’s impossible. He was too meticulous for that.

‘Is this even real…?’

Would things have been different if I had read the original story more carefully?

Until now, I had no idea what these bandages were. Bandages with teeth and tongues that chew flesh and lap up blood were unheard of. But it was clear what their purpose was.

They were designed to continually inflict wounds on the skin marked with sigils, preventing any healing. Thus keeping the sigils from turning black, and the spell’s effects from diminishing…

“Ah!”

Startled by a sudden sharp pain, I jumped up and looked at my finger. The end of the bandage I had been holding had transformed into a mouth and bit my finger as if to make me let go. As I released it in a panic, the elongated bandage started to move as if it were alive.

It coiled around Zachary’s body like a snake, then naturally wrapped around his neck, returning to its original state as if it had never been undone.

“……Insane.”

I could only stare, dumbfounded, at the entire scene unfolding before me.

The room, smeared with blood, harbored a bizarre bandage wrapped around the impending disaster.

And there I was, attending to this impending calamity…

Pale-faced, Zachary approached me naturally. He knelt down and gently grasped my hand. His touch was warm and tender. I watched him in confusion, not understanding why he was doing this. Zachary began to wrap my finger with a cloth.

I had no idea where he got the cloth from, but the sharp sting I felt as he touched it to the wound made me wince. I reflexively pulled my hand away from him and widened my eyes.

‘It’s turned purple.’

The mouth inside that bandage. It had barely bitten me, yet the tip of my finger was bruised, as if hit by something. Blood even dripped from the bitten area, suggesting it had drawn blood in that brief moment. The pain was surprisingly intense for such a small bite.

“How can you…”

How could he bear having such a thing around his neck?

It was disgusting, horrifying, and made my skin crawl. I felt overwhelmed by the entire situation, but my course of action was clear.

The first thing to do was to get rid of that bandage.