The Ring of Bondage - Chapter 3.8

II.

Wrapped in a soft silk blanket, Leticia pondered. What exactly was love? Since she had no proper examples, she had no choice but to think back to the contracts where someone had wished for love. Even those were not contracts she had concluded herself, so she had only encountered them in theory.

In any case, among those countless contracts, some were satisfied simply by having the other person held in their arms and smiling brightly at them, while others wanted to sleep with the other person endlessly.

They all spoke of love, but what they truly wanted varied wildly. Of course, no matter what they wanted, demons would mix in wordplay and insist their love had been fulfilled, then collect their souls.

“Mikhail Becker.”

Curled up, Leticia mumbled. A ridiculous sound came from her half-hoarse throat.

“It seems I love you after all.”

“Why do you think that?”

A voice tinged with laughter circled around her ear. He was lying on his side beside Leticia, playing with her hair.

“Because I want to have s*x with you all day.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

He answered with an irritating smile. What she had realized over the past few days, while staying by his side and sleeping with him at all hours, was that he had an incredibly annoying personality. No matter what she said, Mikhail would answer with nonsense while smirking just like this. What was even more irritating was that his answers were true to some degree.

“No, what I mean is, this is love.”

Over the past few days, the number of times Leticia had told him she loved him was greater than the number of times she had called his name. Each time, Mikhail dismissed her confession with, ‘Liar’. Their conversations always flowed as if his name were ‘I love you’, and her name were ‘Liar’—as if they were simply calling each other’s names. Of course, his answer this time was the same as ever.

“Then what exactly is ‘love’ in your mind?”

“You’re trying to get the work done too easily, Leticia. You should at least think that much through yourself.”

Mikhail’s ease must have come from his certainty that there was no way she would love him. But there was a small flaw in that certainty. As long as Leticia herself believed that her feelings were love, she would be able to collect his soul. The problem was that it was difficult.

Just as Leticia was about to burst out in irritation from the frustration welling up inside her, she suddenly smelled a familiar stench. It was the smell coming from the censers carried by the priests. When she sat up and looked around, sure enough, the window was slightly open.

“Close the window.”

Even if her reaction to the censer’s smoke changed Mikhail’s mind, it couldn’t erase his signature from the contract, but that was one thing, and the unpleasantness of the smell was another.

Without complaint, Mikhail sat up, closed the window, and asked,

“You must not like the scent?”

“As if I could. Whenever humans smell that, they all throw the contract aside and run outside, so I still haven’t landed a single proper contract.”

“Then am I your first job?”

“Something like that. Though it’s hard to call this a proper contract either.”

Leticia pouted. In the end, that smell was the problem. If not for that, she would already have built up results she could be proud of, and she wouldn’t be suffering like this after being caught by a black-hearted theology student like Mikhail. It was at least fortunate that the suffering was satisfying in its own way.

“Why exactly do humans like that kind of smell? I’ve never smelled such a stench before. Is that fragrant to humans?”

“As if. It’s not as though human noses wallow in pigsties.”

That was an unexpected answer. She had expected him to spout nonsense about how it was a scent that let them feel the presence of God or something. Toward Leticia, who turned to him with a doubtful expression, Mikhail continued.

“That’s the scent made by burning an addictive herb. They mix in a few other things too, but the important part is that people who smell that smoke once will keep longing for that scent.”

“The temple is using d***s?”

“That’s right. Now the people around here will follow along whenever they smell that scent, even if the one in front of them is a beast with its jaws wide open.”