#097. The Weeping Woman (7)
Thud─ Thump─
Philip's hand patting the woman's back.
In rhythm with those intermittent beats resonating through the space, Ray felt as if his own heart was pounding in sync.
'Hot.'
A corner of his heart burned.
As if pressed by a flame of high fever.
When he touched his face at the sudden unfamiliar sensation, transparent liquid clung to his fingers.
……?
The confusion didn't last long.
He realized an emotion was spreading deep through his body and mind.
'This is...'
The texture of this emotion felt familiar yet refused to surface as vivid memory.
Thus, it took him a moment to identify it.
...It was sorrow.
A pain so great he'd turned his head away, forcibly ignoring it.
A second teardrop trailed down his cheek before falling to the floor.
'Why now...?'
Though the boy didn't realize it, the cause was clear.
Emotional contagion.
The feelings buried deep in his subconscious had resonated with Philip and Lady Lenia's sorrow, awakening.
「Shoooaaa──.」
The moment he confronted those denied emotions,
memories of the viaduct and golem erupted violently.
His mind throbbed.
His stomach churned and heaved.
The sorrow, revisited after time's passage, revealed its rawest form.
Tears fell.
He couldn't stop them anymore.
They overflowed his palms, impossible to contain.
As Ray drifted through the emotional currents,
the massive lump of sorrow within him crumbled to dust and scattered.
Ooooo──!
With a sound resembling weeping,
it dissipated in proportion to what its owner had endured.
But the changes didn't end there.
Oooong──!
The accelerated revolution of mana left burning pain around his heart as it perfectly formed a second Circle.
Thus, the second Circle was completed.
Far greater quantities of mana flooded in.
The rose-tinted mana dominating the flow resonated with lingering sorrow, emitting a piercing light.
What happened next occurred almost simultaneously:
the moment Philip and Lady Lenia collapsed exhausted into sleep,
and the moment Ray detected something in the rubble's shadows─
'Curiosa.'
Recognizing her identity, he channeled mana instantly.
Fwaa──!
Curiosa emerged from the shadows, lunging toward Philip and Lady Lenia.
Her dark flesh rippling─
That instant.
Kooong──!
Curiosa plummeted vertically, body flattened against the floor.
"Youuu damned brat...!"
The weakening element clinging to her body prevented proper movement.
When she strained to lift her head, Curiosa flinched.
Terrifyingly intense rage radiated from her opponent.
"Don't even think of touching them. Unless you want to die."
A voice dripping icy menace.
Curiosa's body shuddered violently.
'This magnitude of rage...!'
Having witnessed countless individuals, she could swear she'd never encountered such profound fury.
The kind that made flesh feel rotten just by proximity.
Shock and tremors racked her body.
The astonishing reality didn't end there.
The boy simultaneously emanated sorrow alongside rage—
an abyssal grief like staring into lightless depths without end.
His face showed something between anger and tears.
'What in hells...?'
She knew he could draw out emotions situationally.
But experiencing opposing attributes simultaneously at such intensity defied reason.
Extreme disorientation gripped her—how should she process this?
"Grk...!"
As Curiosa tried rising, the suddenly amplified weakening magic forced her back to her knees.
'First summoning magic, now weakening spells? Both using rare elements of extreme difficulty?'
What kind of Circle did he possess?
Containing both control and weakening elements?
Among all mages she'd met, none wielded such breadth of magic.
Moreover, the output was extraordinary.
'Last sector showed mere 1st Circle capability.'
She'd assumed mana limitations despite high spell perfection.
But this weakening magic's power couldn't possibly stem from 1st Circle mana.
"Can't break this now...! I'll kill you...!"
Grrrk!
2nd Circle? No—minimum 3rd.
This suggested one possibility:
"You...! You hid your true strength! How many Circles? Huh? 3rd? 4th? Answer me!"
"......"
Ray watched indifferently as Curiosa struggled against the weakening element.
He hadn't concealed his abilities intentionally.
Multiple factors converged: unused elements remaining in his Circle, emotional resonance amplifying power tenfold, and Curiosa's carelessness.
"No need for surprise. Your skills suffice for escape."
"Growing more curious...! Where were you born? What drives you? How have you lived...! It's maddening not knowing...!"
The instant Curiosa ground her teeth and unleashed all her Circles' mana—
Paf!
Light flashed—
When vision cleared, she'd reappeared far away, free of the weakening element.
"......"
Ray observed without surprise—he'd expected this.
No mere spell could bind a 4th Circle mage.
But making her wary was achievement enough.
Even now, she hesitated to act rashly while monitoring him closely.
'...In this state, I might fight evenly.'
The gap between 2nd Circle and 4th Circle remains overwhelming.
Yet now that anger and sorrow have been unleashed, perhaps that chasm could be narrowed.
The fury coiled in his body hissed through clenched teeth, whispering:
"Kill. The one before you. Now."
"Rip out their throat. Stop their breath."
"Ensure they never haunt your periphery again."
It mirrored that moment - when he'd fought Walter and channeled primal rage.
The difference lay in his preserved rationality, clinging to clarity amidst emotional turbulence.
He burned to fight.
His instincts screamed for violence.
But endangering Philip and Lady Lenia...
...was unacceptable.
Ray forcibly restrained his emotions, focusing on Curiosa.
"I knew you'd be prowling nearby. You must still have questions. But this sudden attack? What's your aim?"
"Aim?! AIM?! You think I'd tell you?!" Curiosa shrieked, its form shuddering.
The creature focused its assaults more on Lady Lenia than Philip, desperate to monopolize information.
The conclusion formed instantly:
"To block my information-sharing. No other motive comes to mind."
Curiosa's silence spoke volumes, its quivering black shroud mirroring volcanic emotions.
"You...would've been torn limb from limb already if you lacked what I seek."
"You crave emotion-control methods. If I gain insights through Lady Lenia, your bargaining power shrinks. My curiosity diminishes accordingly."
Ray's words struck true.
Curiosa's obsession with emotional manipulation bordered on religious fervor.
Any price seemed worth satiating that hunger - except the information-holder refused to pay.
Crack!
Last time, he'd been lured by promises of saving "the cake's strawberry" - preserving his greatest question.
Now facing the boy again, that deferred curiosity threatened to rupture its constraints.
Learn emotion control and I'll tear this damned brat apart.
No...perhaps not kill.
Watching brat and Doctor collide could prove...educational.
But teaching proper respect? That I'll allow.
The Doctor needs no intact limbs to remain fascinated.
"Withdraw. Harm Philip or Lady Lenia, and our information exchange ends permanently."
...But compliance seemed unlikely.
Their previous encounter proved Curiosa never gave freely - the exchange rate had been disastrously skewed.
"Cunning whelp."
"Thank you."
"What?"
"Niles said: Swearing mid-combat is supreme praise."
"...And who's Niles?"
Curiosa's bloodshot eyes shifted to Lady Lenia.
Should've killed her immediately rather than indulge dramatic pauses.
Regret always arrived too late.
"Have you...no further questions? More exchanges..."
The creature's pride bent beneath curiosity's curse.
"None. I've no desire to share more about myself."
"And henceforth - obstruct my investigations on Mercard or the Doctor, and the emotion-control secret dies with me."
Curiosa trembled violently as Ray turned to the unconscious pair.
Haaah...haaah...
Philip and Lenia lay entwined in exhausted slumber.
Philip's vessel overflowed with grief upon entering the estate...
Long-buried sorrow from maternal separation.
Confronting Lenia had unleashed those stagnant emotions, now largely purged through their catharsis.
His vessel shone clear as sunlit sky.
...Myself as well.
Niles and his siblings' deaths -
Putrefying grief similarly drained away.
But Lenia differed.
Though comforted by Philip, her emotional volume remained critical.
Why no reduction?
Click.
The necklace glinted in his hand.
Its scarlet aura still clung to her vessel.
Instinct screamed the truth - only destroying this pendant could free her emotions.
Without shattering it, her vessel would fracture within minutes.
Curiosa's excited shriek pierced the silence:
"That necklace! You itch to study it! But wait - smash it now or her mind breaks!"
"Why hesitate? I see it now! You're our kind - emotions chained until convenient! A calculating monster wearing human skin!"
The creature's glee grew with Ray's indecision.
"Choose the necklace! Broken minds still spill secrets! Walter conversed fine with his shattered vessel, remember?"
Not entirely false.
Click-clack.
Ray manipulated the pendant.
He made his choice.
Philip would understand.
