Chapter 7
“Look at all this dust… Cough, cough!”
The moment she opened the door to the underground workshop, a musty smell assaulted Sue’s senses. The workshop was a mess of unorganized books and materials, and dust had settled everywhere, as if it hadn’t been cleaned in ages.
Sue covered her mouth and nose with one hand and slowly stepped inside. With each step, she kicked aside neglected documents and flasks, feeling a surge of disgust.
*No wonder they’re declining.*
Perhaps it was because of their bloodline, which was steadily losing its magical power. No one in the current Byron family was devoted to magic. But everything in this workshop was the biggest reason why the Byron family, with no power or achievements to their name, had been able to enter the capital.
The Byron family’s underground workshop was filled with materials on curse magic that the Byron family had researched and developed over the years. However, there was no one left in the Byron family who could utilize the countless formulas stored here. That included Sue, but she had no choice but to come here.
*If the curse was cast by the Byron family, then the counter-curse must also be here.*
According to Eren Byron, the current head of the Byron family, the powerful binding curse placed on Sue was a formula created by the Byron family. However, she had never been told who, when, or how it was cast.
Sue began to examine the materials in front of her, one by one. While the arcane script was difficult to decipher, she could generally understand the content. The Byron family’s curse magic was uniquely distinctive compared to other types of curse magic, so there were quite a few scripts that only the Byron family could read.
“Miss… Are you looking for something?”
Nine, who had followed Sue down to the underground workshop, asked hesitantly from near the door.
“Yes, Ten, Nine. I need your help.”
Sue answered immediately without looking up. The quick-witted Ten peeked at the materials in Sue’s hand and spoke.
“Should we look for materials related to counter-curses?”
Sue nodded, and Nine tilted her head in confusion.
“Counter-curses…? But we don’t know much about magic formulas… Let alone the secret magic of the Byron family.”
“Just sort out anything you can understand. Like materials that mention two snakes… I’ll take care of the rest.”
Unlike Nine, who remained rooted to the spot with a troubled expression, Ten nodded silently.
*Counter-curses? Could it be… she’s trying to break the curse on her own body?*
However, the person with the strongest doubts about this situation was none other than Ten.
Sue Byron was under a powerful curse that bound her mind and actions to someone else. The two snakes etched on her body were proof of that.
Ten had been shocked when she first saw them on Sue’s body. But what shocked her even more was Sue Byron herself. She took the curse on her body for granted. Even though it was a curse that symbolized her connection to the Lopetrefer grand duke family, Sue had never once felt wronged by her situation.
Ten had once seriously considered whether it was even okay for her to work in this house, but now, more than ten years had passed since then.
And now, she was looking for a counter-curse?
*Why?*
She couldn’t understand, but Ten obeyed her master’s orders. She knew better than anyone that it was the best way to survive under Sue Byron.
Thus, Sue and the maids spent more than half a day locked away in the underground workshop.
“…Sigh.”
After finishing their search of the fifth bookshelf, Sue slumped to the floor and let out a deep sigh.
Sue’s entire body was covered in dust.
*It’s not here.*
She didn’t know how many hundreds of books they had gone through. But they hadn’t found any information about ‘two snakes’ in any of them.
They had come across the term ‘binding curse’ a few times, but whenever they did, the most important part – the method of breaking the binding curse – was missing.
And this wasn’t just limited to binding curses. As if the latter parts had been deliberately cut out, most of the materials lacked information about counter-curses.
A question suddenly crossed Sue’s mind.
Would a family that had only ever cursed others have even bothered to create counter-curses for those curses?
*No way…*
Having come to this conclusion, the answer came quickly.
*Should I give up…?*
It was difficult enough to fully understand the materials in the workshop in the first place.
‘Sue’, who lacked the power to perform powerful curse magic, had barely studied the secret magic of the Byron family.
There was no need for illegal curse magic in nurturing virtuous and dignified nobles, so even the academy only taught the bare minimum about curse magic.
It was a mistake to try and decipher all the materials in this place with ‘Sue’s’ shallow knowledge, even if it was urgent.
Officially, the Lopetrefer family was in an alliance with the Byron family, but in reality, they treated the Byron family like a thorn in their side.
The way they treated the next head of the Byron family and the clear difference in their treatment compared to the Vava marquis family were proof enough.
But it was understandable.
They had brought the Byron family, a provincial noble family, to the capital to make use of them in the underworld, but there was no one left who could use that useful magic. From the Lopetrefer family’s perspective, it was as if they had been scammed.
*It’s probably out of the Lopetrefer family’s mercy that they’ve even kept the Byron family alive until now.*
Even if the Byron family handed over all their research materials to the Lopetrefer family, it would still cost a lot of time and money to analyze the formulas. It would be far more efficient for the Lopetrefer family to conduct their own research.
*Was it even the Byron family who cast the curse in the first place?*
Sue’s father, Eren Byron, had said that the Byron family had used curse magic. But was the current Byron family even capable of performing such advanced magic?
*…No, that can’t be right.*
Logically, it was impossible. What if the two snakes weren’t even a curse created by the Byron family in the first place?
*…Don’t tell me, it was the Lopetrefer family?*
It wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.
*But if that’s true, it’ll be even harder to break the curse.*
It was a hypothesis she had been trying to avoid as much as possible.
“Miss, Master and Madam have returned.”
Just as Sue was starting to feel overwhelmed by the seemingly endless task, Laura peeked into the workshop and announced the return of the Byron viscount and his wife. Sue looked up at Laura with dull eyes.
“Laura, please greet them on my beh-… No.”
She had thought there was no need to see her parents. Sue came to her senses slightly and corrected herself in a hoarse voice.
“I’ll be up soon.”
After tidying up her dust-covered clothes, Sue went up to the drawing room on the third floor.
“Sue, what brings you to the main residence?”
The viscount and his wife, having been informed of Sue’s arrival, were already waiting for her in the drawing room.
Eren, the current Viscount Byron, stroked his protruding belly.
“It’s been a while, Father, Mother.”
At her daughter’s perfunctory greeting, Eren snorted. His greasy mustache quivered with the force of his breath.
Eren, like Sue, had deep red hair, but it looked a bit awkward, as if he were wearing a wig.
Sitting across from Eren was a woman in a red velvet dress. The slender woman, gracefully holding a teacup, was Sue’s mother, Cheryl Byron.
She glanced at Sue as she entered the drawing room and simply muttered, “Look at the state of you,” before returning to her tea.
Just as in ‘Sue’s’ memories, there seemed to be no affection between parent and child. They didn’t even live together. Eren and Cheryl had never once worried about Sue after she left home. If anything, they were more preoccupied with the valuables Sue had stolen from the safe and the whereabouts of Cheryl’s treasures.
The reason why the Byron couple let Sue do as she pleased, despite her reckless behavior, was simply because their interests aligned.
The shared interest of maintaining their alliance with the Lopetrefer family and living as Skias.
“So, I hear you spent all day in the underground workshop. What business do you have there?”
Eren asked suspiciously. But he couldn’t even fathom the idea that his daughter had gone to the workshop to find a way to break the binding curse. Knowing this, Sue contemplated for a moment.
“Hmm… Father.”
Sue averted her eyes and twirled a strand of her hair.
Since things had come to this, it would be easier to just ask.
“Do you know how to break the curse of the two snakes?”
“Wh-what…!”
It was a blunt question. As expected, the composure vanished from Eren and Cheryl’s faces in an instant. Sue stared at her pale-faced parents and continued.
“The two snakes, I mean. Do you know how to break the binding curse on me?”
The two snakes. Since she was young, this topic had been treated as taboo.
Eren and Cheryl were the only people Sue could speak to so directly. Not because they were her parents.
Even if they were an undesirable pair, they were still family. No matter how much Sue acted out, they wouldn’t betray her by telling anyone that ‘Sue Byron was thinking of betraying the Lopetrefer family’, would they?
“Y-you! You crazy girl!”
“You, you, you! How dare you say such a thing!”
Chaos erupted in the drawing room.
“What kind of nonsense are you spouting?!”
Eren slammed his fist on the table and roared. Then, as if he had suddenly remembered something, he pointed at Sue with a horrified expression.
“D-don’t tell me, you’ve been looking for a counter-curse in the underground workshop all this time?!”
“Yes, that’s right. So, if you know anything, please tell me.”
When Sue answered shamelessly, Eren, whose face had turned as red as his hair, let out another roar.
“Do you think I would know?! Why are you suddenly saying such a thing?!”
“…”
Sue bit her lip.
It was a reaction she had expected, but what bothered her was something else.
“…Do you really not know how to break the curse?”
“Yes! I don’t know! And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you!”
Eren’s answer, ‘I don’t know,’ somehow didn’t sound like something he had blurted out in a moment of panic.
Could it be that he really didn’t know anything about the curse?
If he was the foolish father of a foolish Sue, then Eren must also be a foolish man.