Outside the window, the darkness of the new moon smothered the night.

Though invisible from within the room, shrouded by thick silk curtains, outside, only the stars would be casting an eerie, bewitching glow across the moonless sky.

The new moon—the time when witches were infused with their greatest vitality.

And the man cursed by a witch to writhe in unimaginable agony through the entirety of that very same night…… was currently here. In Isaac’s room.

Sure enough, the man was in such horrific pain that he couldn’t even manage a proper groan. Unable to move, his body was wracked with violent, sporadic tremors. A reddish cold sweat, mixed with blood, seeped through his pores, and bluish veins bulged grotesquely across his rigid body. Even breathing seemed to be an impossible struggle; the gasps that occasionally tore from his lips were harsh and desperate, as if he were being strangled.

Faced with a scene so horrifying that just looking at it made it hard to breathe—Isaac, who had been completely paralyzed in shock, only snapped back to his senses when the grip of the Prince’s hand clamped around his arm tightened.

“Urgh……”

His face contorting in pain from a grip strong enough to shatter bone, Isaac finally woke up. He whipped his head toward the massive, pitch-black beast standing proudly right behind them.

“WHAT IS THIS?!”

When Isaac yelled the question, the beast – which had been looking incredibly smug and triumphant – made a face that clearly said, ‘What kind of ridiculous question is that?’

「The fairest beauty in all the land.」

“WHEN DID I EVER TELL YOU TO BRING HIM?!”

「But he is the most beautiful person in the kingdom.」

“——.”

Isaac was speechless. His throat closing up, he gaped like a fish out of water before stealing a terrified glance at the Prince.

The fairest beauty in all the land.

Honestly…… it might not actually be wrong. No, to be perfectly blunt, it would be difficult to find a face more flawless than his. In fact, it was utterly absurd that Isaac hadn’t thought of him when making a wish for the most beautiful person.

But.

Even so.

“You ungrateful piece of shit, repaying kindness with betrayal, even steaming and eating you all, it wouldn’t be enough……”

Screaming in a single, terrified breath, his face completely drained of color, Isaac scrambled to stand up and back away. But he was too late.

*Craaack.*

The hand Isaac was just about to shake off gripped his forearm even tighter, and then crushed it.

The sickening sound of bone giving way echoed in the room, followed immediately by a blinding, dizzying wave of agony. Isaac froze mid-step, unable to move away.

It didn’t feel completely snapped in two…… but it was definitely broken.

As cold sweat broke out and drenched the back of Isaac’s neck, the man clutching his arm slowly lifted his head and raised his upper body, moving with the sluggish inevitability of something rising from the grave.

Their eyes met. Half-lidded, clouded, and swirling with absolute madness. The Prince’s piercing blue eyes.

“There is no way this is a dream…… This agony never lets me sleep for even a moment……”

The Prince whispered, looking at Isaac but speaking as if to himself.

Unexpectedly, his voice – though it sounded like it was scraping the very bottom of hell – was quiet and composed. It was far more lucid than his crazed, swirling eyes. That alone proved the Prince was maintaining a sliver of sanity despite the horrific torment ravaging his body. Which somehow made him even more terrifying.

As Isaac subconsciously flinched and tried to shrink back, the Prince’s grip tightened further. His unfocused, hazy eyes slowly scanned Isaac from head to toe.

“But there is no way an ordinary beast could storm my palace and drag me here. Nor is there any way an ordinary human could command such a beast…… Which means, you must be——.”

*Crrrk,* *crrr-crack.* The bones in Isaac’s arm screamed.

Pale and trembling from the pain, Isaac couldn’t even blink as he stared at the Prince. The Prince rose slowly like a snake and leaned in until their noses were mere inches apart. From that terrifyingly close distance, the Prince smiled a crooked, twisted smile.

“A witch.”

*Snap,*

The horrifying, vividly sharp sensation of a bone completely snapping in half.

An unimaginable wave of agony crashed over him. Isaac didn’t even realize he had screamed. No, before he could even register the sound of his own voice, the Prince lunged with the speed of a striking viper, pinning Isaac to the floor and straddling his chest.

Sitting atop Isaac, who was thrashing and shuddering from the pain of his broken arm, the Prince grabbed a fistful of Isaac’s hair and yanked his head back. With his broken arm pinned brutally beneath the Prince’s knee, Isaac gasped for air, looking up at the Prince with tear-blurred eyes.

‘Please be a dream. Please, please let me wake up right now.’

But unfortunately, the pain was far too real, forcing Isaac to accept that he was trapped in a reality far more surreal than any nightmare.

“That makes…… no…… sen—”

Struggling to force the broken words out from his stiff tongue, Isaac was cut off as the Prince’s massive hand clamped down around his throat. His airway was crushed.

“A witch summoned me…,..? When you should be digging a hole to the center of the earth to hide so much as a single hair from my sight…..?”

The Prince let out a disbelieving laugh. The hand crushing Isaac’s throat tightened. Isaac could feel death approaching rapidly. Whether from asphyxiation or a snapped neck, it didn’t matter.

“I will tear every piece of flesh from your body, strip by strip, and rip out your tendons. I will crush your bones into powder and kill you. ——Though even that won’t amount to a hundredth of the agony I endure every new moon.”

Whispering through gritted teeth, as if that fact alone enraged him more than anything else, the Prince glared down at him. Even now, beads of red, blood-tinged sweat were forming on the Prince’s forehead and neck, dripping down onto Isaac. He was still experiencing that horrifying, bone-deep torment in real time.

As Isaac’s vision began to darken from the lack of oxygen, he was suddenly violently yanked back to reality by a searing, burning pain tearing into his neck.

The Prince was biting him. Exactly as he had promised, it felt as though he were trying to tear a chunk of flesh right out of Isaac’s throat. The heavy stench of blood flooded the air.

Death.

The absolute terror of death crashed over him.

Every time the Prince’s jaw clamped down, a fiery agony bloomed alongside the metallic smell of blood. As his consciousness began to fade, Isaac went limp, exactly like a deer having its throat torn out by a predator.

At that moment, with his head thrown back, Isaac’s eyes landed on the center of the room. There, sitting proudly and looking down at him, were the three massive black beasts. ‘Right. How could I forget about them?’

Come to think of it, Isaac hadn’t made his third wish yet. He still had a chance. Hope suddenly welling up inside him, Isaac locked eyes with the beast and managed to squeeze out a raspy, desperate whisper.

“H-Help…… me……”

「You aren’t holding the flint, are you?」

The beast’s response was infuriatingly nonchalant.

Isaac stared at the beast blankly. A second later, he realized that in his rush to check on the collapsed ‘beauty,’ he had left the flint and steel sitting on the dining table.

Isaac could only roll his eyes. The flint was resting at the far edge of the table. It was only a few steps away, but with the Prince’s hand crushing his throat, it might as well have been a thousand miles. Isaac whispered again, practically begging:

“But…… you lent it to me…… I already struck it…… so please, help……”

「Regardless, you aren’t holding it right now.」

Responding with the same breezy tone, the beast began to lick its front paw and groom itself, as if to say, ‘Not my problem.’ Isaac, staring desperately at the beast, was so utterly flabbergasted by the indifferent, apathetic behavior of these three big-eyed monsters that he couldn’t even breathe. A second later, a blinding fury washed over him, and he ground his teeth.

‘A person is dying right in front of your eyes, and you motherfuckers, who dragged the source of this disaster in here to begin with, are just ignoring it?!……. Even if I die, I need to kill those miserable bastards first! This isn’t fair!’

Desperately repeating that single thought in his fading mind, Isaac looked at the flint resting peacefully on the table through blurry eyes. With no strength left to resist, he could do nothing but wait for death to take him. 

‘Mom. Mom, it looks like I won’t be able to keep my promise. But it wasn’t my fault, so please don’t be mad at me. I really did try to live bravely and happily until now……’

Isaac, letting all the tension leave his body, vividly felt the excruciating pain of his broken arm and the fiery agony of his throat still being chewed on. If he was going to die anyway, he just wanted it to happen quickly so the pain would stop. ‘Come on, Death. Just take me. Take me~’

But after surrendering to the pain and waiting for the end, he realized something strange. He endured, and endured, and endured, but he wasn’t losing consciousness, so he opened his eyes again.

‘It hurts so much I want to die, so why aren’t I dying…..?’ As his trembling lips parted, Isaac suddenly realized the Prince was no longer chewing on his neck. But the Prince hadn’t moved his mouth away. He was…… sucking his blood!

*Gulp, gulp,* Hearing the distinct sound of the Prince greedily swallowing his blood from right against his ear, Isaac’s eyes snapped open in sheer shock. When he did, he locked eyes with the beasts, whose eyes were still vastly larger than his own.

「It definitely looks like he’s getting his blood sucked right now, doesn’t it?」

「Yeah. He’s really guzzling it down.」

「Well, he is half-witch…… His blood should still have some sort of effect.」

「Looks like this guy just became a living painkiller.」

‘SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTHS, YOU ROTTEN CATS!!’

He wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs, but the words only echoed inside his head. As his mind grew hazy, he suddenly remembered what the cats had said earlier.

“If they drink the fresh blood of a witch, they can be temporarily freed from the curse for a single night!”

Which meant……

Isaac cast a blurry glance down at the Prince. Because the Prince’s face was buried in his neck, Isaac couldn’t see his expression, but he could see his neck and shoulders. The bloody cold sweat had stopped seeping through his skin. The agonizing, violent tremors racking his body had ceased. Even the rigid tension in his shoulders had completely relaxed.

‘Please, please be a dream…… Dammit, it really doesn’t feel like a dream.’

The sensation of blood being drained from his neck was still incredibly vivid. Feeling like he was going to pass out, Isaac actively wished that he would. The only silver lining was that if his blood kept being drained like this, he would probably pass out from blood loss soon.

But unfortunately——

“A painkiller……”

The Prince suddenly stopped drinking. Murmuring the word against Isaac’s skin, he lifted his head. Unlike a few moments ago, when they had been clouded with madness and agony, the Prince’s piercing blue eyes were now perfectly clear and lucid as they looked down at Isaac.

“The blood is effective…..?”

Isaac’s heart plummeted to his stomach. He didn’t want to know what those narrowing blue eyes were thinking. He really, truly didn’t want to know.

Looking down at Isaac, who immediately played dead and went completely limp, the Prince shifted his gaze to his own body. As if marveling at the fact that the horrific agony had vanished without a trace, he slowly tested his limbs. A faint expression, something incredibly close to a smile, flickered across his face. It was a look of pure, euphoric relief.

The Prince stood up from Isaac’s chest and comfortably seated himself in the plush armchair. Sweeping a cold, calculating gaze over the luxurious room, his eyes eventually landed on the beasts. Even when faced with three massive, towering monsters, he showed absolutely no fear or intimidation. He opened his mouth.

“You beasts seem to know something. Answer me. Does the blood of a witch cure the pain?”

「Rather than saying it cures the pain, it’s more accurate to say it nullifies the curse.」

“Aha…… The blood of a witch nullifies the witch’s curse. I wish I had known this sooner. Very well. Then if I kill this rat right now and drink every last drop of his blood, I can finally bid farewell to this wretched curse forever.”

The Prince immediately stood up and grabbed Isaac by the collar, hoisting him into the air. While simultaneously shocked by the terrifying, monstrous strength required to effortlessly lift a full-grown man with one hand, Isaac felt a bizarre mix of sorrow, terror, and absolute relief that death was finally coming for him.

But once again—

「Not exactly. It only works for a single night. The effect only lasts for the exact day the fresh blood is consumed.」

「If it were me, I’d keep him alive and just suck his blood every single new moon.」

The cats loudly whispered to each other, making sure they were perfectly audible. After hearing this, the Prince, who had been just about to snap Isaac’s neck, stopped.

And Isaac made a vow. ‘I swear to the gods, if I survive this, I am going to drown those miserable cats in a bucket of water.’

The Prince, staring intently at Isaac for a long moment, shifted his gaze back to the beasts.

“What exactly are you things? Are you part of the witch’s breed as well?”

「No. We’re just ordinary tigers.」

「Exactly, exactly. If you’re looking for a witch, the one you’re holding by the neck right now is the witch.」

「Technically he’s a witch’s spawn, but he’s definitely closer to a witch than a human. The witch’s blood in his veins is stronger than the human’s.」

Listening to the cats cheerfully throwing him under the bus, Isaac felt like he was going to cry. If he could only speak properly, he would have screamed: ‘THEY’RE LYING! THEY’RE THE ONES WHO ARE HIGH-BORN PUREBLOOD WITCHES!’ Infuriated by his inability to speak, Isaac simply gasped and wheezed for air.

The Prince looked at the wheezing Isaac with narrowed, calculating eyes. Then, as if tossing away a piece of trash, he let go, and Isaac crumpled to the floor.

“Then I will ask you. You, witch’s spawn. Why did you summon me?”

Isaac couldn’t speak. The bite wound wasn’t terribly deep, as the flow of blood was already slowing to a trickle, but his throat was so bone-dry that no sound would come out.

Perhaps noticing this, the Prince clicked his tongue sharply and grabbed a water pitcher from the table, dumping it directly onto Isaac’s face. Isaac, coughing and spluttering from the sudden deluge, managed to swallow a few mouthfuls of water.

“Speak.”

The Prince planted his foot squarely on Isaac’s broken arm and pressed down without a shred of hesitation. Writhing in agony, Isaac forced the words out in broken, raspy gasps.

“I didn’t, mean to, summon you…… Something, there was, a mistake—”

「WHY?! YOU SAID TO BRING THE FAIREST BEAUTY IN ALL THE LAND! I BROUGHT THE ABSOLUTE BEST! I DO NOT MAKE MISTAKES!」

Before Isaac could even finish his sentence, the third cat shouted indignantly.

‘…… Ah…… you little bastards……’ He didn’t even have the energy to curse them anymore. Completely physically and mentally exhausted, Isaac slumped back against the floor.

“Aha…… a beauty.”

Nodding as if everything suddenly made perfect sense, the Prince looked down at Isaac with an expression that clearly said, ‘Someone like you?’ As if reevaluating his newly unburdened, pristine physical condition, the Prince took a deep breath, slowly rolled his shoulders, and let out what almost looked like a faint, hazy chuckle. He turned back to Isaac.

“It is a tragedy for you, but an absolute blessing for me. I am taking you back to my palace. I will lock you in the dungeon and drink your blood every new moon.”

Isaac plunged into despair. The cats’ prediction of him becoming a ‘living painkiller’ was becoming reality. For the rest of his life. Locked in a dungeon, no less.

But then——

「You can’t do that. Today’s magic is only valid for tonight,」 a cat suddenly interjected.

「His wishes are only valid on the night of the new moon. As soon as dawn breaks, everything returns to exactly how it was.」

「Naturally, that includes the beauty. He will return to wherever he was before, in the exact same condition he was in when he arrived here.」

Isaac perked up. For the first time all night, these cats had actually spouted something useful—a glimmer of hope.

The Prince furrowed his brow slightly. Giving the cats, and then Isaac, a cold, calculating look, he walked over to the window. Faint light was already beginning to seep through the heavy curtains. It seemed dawn was not far off.

Then everything goes back to normal.

The Prince, the extravagant feast, everything would vanish, and this horrifying, bizarre nightmare would finally be over.

A tiny spark of hope flickered in Isaac’s chest, where he had been lying as still as a corpse, but it fizzled out just as quickly.

There’s no way things will resolve that easily. Who do you think this man is? It’s Kyan. Prince Kyan. He was a monster wearing human skin who could single-handedly obliterate a battalion of beasts if he was in a bad mood. If things didn’t go his way, he was the kind of man who would simply slaughter everyone in this room without a second thought.

Attempting to pull back the curtain, the Prince frowned as the fabric remained frozen in place, as immovable as a wall of solid iron. Behind him, the incredibly nosy, meddlesome cats happily chimed in unprompted.

「This room is currently a space expanded by magic, so it is completely isolated from the outside. You cannot look out. We are currently entirely separated from the space where reality’s time flows.」

“……”

The Prince took long, deliberate strides toward the cats. Then he reached out and grabbed the largest one, the one with tower-sized eyes, by the throat.

“Beasts of magic are a breed that deceives humans with lies. Swear upon the Moon River and answer me, beast. Are the words you are speaking right now a lie?”

The moment its throat was grabbed, the beast let out a harsh, metallic hiss “KYAKKK,” its massive eyes flashing. Every hair on its body stood on end, waving and rippling like black fire. The Prince’s hand turned a searing, glowing red, burning as if plunged into coals, but without so much as blinking, he coldly repeated: “Answer me.”

「You insolent, barbaric human! Who do you think you are dealing with?! We do not lie! Lying is the behavior of the lowly and vulgar! We are good, elegant beings who deal strictly in fair trade!」

The beast bared its fangs in fury. Watching the beast flick its crimson tongue with utter apathy, the Prince eventually let go of its throat.

As the Prince frowned slightly, falling deep into thought, Isaac stared blankly at the hand the Prince was casually massaging. The flesh was blistered and scorched, a gruesome sight, but the Prince didn’t even seem to register the pain, completely ignoring it.

“Your hand…… the first-aid kit is……”

Isaac wheezed, stuttering through his damaged, raspy throat. For a split second, the Prince looked at him as if to say, ‘What the hell is this idiot doing?’ Simultaneously, Isaac realized what a stupid thing he had just said. ‘Who the hell am I worrying about right now…..?’

Looking down at Isaac – who had immediately bowed his head and slumped back onto the floor – with deep disapproval, the Prince lowered his gaze and resumed his thoughts. Even as he did, he occasionally took deep breaths, clearly savoring the painless, perfect condition of his body. Eventually, he raised his head.

“I need this rat. I am taking him with me. Even if I have to kill you beasts to do it.”

The Prince spoke directly to the beasts, who simply rolled their massive eyes and tilted their heads.

「We told you, it doesn’t work that way. Whether we die or not, the condition of this magic from the very beginning was ‘one night with a fairest beauty.’ It was never ‘spending one night and returning together,’ nor was it ‘bringing a beautiful person to keep.’」

The Prince tore his piercing gaze away from the beasts and looked down at Isaac. Feeling the icy, glaring stare burning into him, Isaac went completely limp, thinking, ‘This is it. I’m dead.’

Knowing his personality, if the Prince realized he couldn’t get what he wanted, he would deem everything useless and slaughter every living thing in the room—Isaac and these damn cats included. The only reason there was even a flicker of hesitation on the Prince’s face was because of how thoroughly the witches had been hunted to near-extinction in the past. It was obvious he was calculating the risk: If I kill this one now, how long will it be until I find another witch painkiller?

“You. You look somewhat familiar…… What is your name?”

Staring intently at Isaac, the Prince suddenly asked. His body and mind completely shredded, Isaac could only manage to shift his eyes to look at him.

‘Right. He doesn’t remember me.’ It made sense. The palace was crawling with guards and servants, and this man had absolutely zero interest in other people. Whether this was fortunate or unfortunate, Isaac didn’t care anymore. ‘Whatever happens, happens.’ Faced with imminent death, Isaac felt a sudden surge of cynical spite.

“If I told you…… would you even believe me…..?”

“No matter what name I give you, how would you even know if it’s my real one?” That sullen, petulant mumble was Isaac’s final act of rebellion, a reckless display of bravado he never would have dared attempt under normal circumstances.

The Prince’s brow twitched upwards. Perhaps surprised that the rat actually had a bit of a temper, the Prince stared coldly at him before letting out an icy chuckle.

“You must wish to die an even more agonizing death.”

“I apologize. I have committed a sin worthy of death. Please, just kill me quickly and cleanly.”

Isaac instantly groveled, bowing his head in pathetic surrender. The Prince, narrowing his eyes at the pathetic display, slowly nodded.

“However, you are right. As long as I cannot see outside, I cannot confirm where I am, and you can easily lie about who you are and where you live. Or, even if you tell the truth, the moment I vanish from this room, you could flee and hide somewhere else…… Yes, who you are does not matter. The only thing that matters is——.”

The Prince muttered as if to himself, then fell into thought. He rubbed his lips, his eyes narrowing as he licked the blood from his fingers. He looked exactly like a man admiring the most exquisite, intoxicating wine in the world. Seeing that gaze, a violent chill ran down Isaac’s spine, and he shivered.

“I will let you live, witch’s spawn.”

The Prince spoke. The unbelievable words didn’t register in Isaac’s brain immediately. He simply stared blankly and blurted, “…… Huh?”

“But you must swear an oath.”

Staring into Isaac’s wide, shocked eyes, the Prince attached his condition.

“You said your wishes are only valid on the night of the new moon. That is the exact and only reason I am letting you live. Swear upon the Moon River. Swear that every new moon, as soon as night falls, you will come to me.”

“——.”

“If you refuse, I will have to endure the agony for a while longer, but I will simply kill you here and now, and hunt down another witch to drink from. I have endured it my entire life; what is a little while longer?”

The Prince reached down and grabbed the collapsed Isaac by the throat. However, the grip was entirely different from before. It wasn’t to lift him up; it was a firm, threatening grip, perfectly positioned to snap his neck depending on his answer.

“What is your choice?”

The Prince asked quietly. Forcing his hazy, fading eyes wide open, Isaac stared into the Prince’s cold, dark blue eyes.

An oath upon the Moon River, where no lie could be spoken.

‘Will I live a miserable existence, being bled alive by the Prince every single new moon? Or will I choose a clean death right here, right now?’

This was the Prince’s final mercy, his only offer. If Isaac said no, he wouldn’t ask twice. The absolute, unwavering resolve in the grip steadily tightening around Isaac’s neck proved it.

Faced with death, Isaac’s deliberation did not last long.

“I swear…… upon the Moon River.”

A strangled, crushed voice eked out of his bone-dry throat.

“Every new moon, I will come, to find you.”

Simultaneously—*clack.* The distinct sensation of a lock snapping shut echoed in his heart.

Isaac had felt this sensation once before. When he parted ways with his mother, when he swore his first oath upon the Moon River. It was the moment an oath with no visible form, yet entirely unbreakable by his own will, firmly chained him.

There was only one way to break the oath. It would only dissolve when both parties agreed that the terms no longer needed to be fulfilled.

“Good.”

The Prince nodded. Acting exactly as if he had lost all interest in this place and everyone in it, the Prince turned his back on Isaac and looked at the beasts.

“My business here is finished. I am returning now. Now, beast, take me back to my palace.”

「But it’s not even dawn yet? His wish was for a single night with a beauty?」

“…… Do I still have business with you?”

The Prince threw a look of utter, mocking disbelief at Isaac. An expression that clearly said, ‘Someone like you, spending a night with a beauty?’ raked over Isaac from head to toe.

“With a face like yours, it must be something you couldn’t even dare dream of. Fine. I am in an exceptionally good mood today, so if you wish, I suppose I could make an exception and let you f——”

“No, thank you! My business is entirely finished! You should head back before it gets any later. —What are you doing?! Hurry up and escort him back! Now!”

Isaac quickly glared at the beasts, rushing them frantically. As the Prince snorted in amusement and turned around obediently, the beast with teacup-sized eyes hoisted him onto its back.

Grumbling about how ridiculous it was to be ordered to take him right back after just bringing him here, the beast headed for the window. Only then did the heavy curtains pull back, revealing the open window. However, the view outside was completely different from what Isaac usually saw; it was filled with nothing but an endless, pitch-black void.

As if melting into the darkness, the beast and the Prince vanished——

Left in a deafening, suffocating silence, Isaac stared blankly at the pitch-black window before collapsing onto his knees.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, staring blankly as if his soul had left his body.

It felt like an eternity had passed, yet simultaneously like only a few seconds. His mind a blank, white canvas, Isaac only snapped back to reality when the faint, scattered sound of whispering reached his ears.

「I think he sleeps with his eyes open. He’s been like this for a while.」

「Well, humans get sleepy when they’re warm and full. The room is warm, and he ate a massive feast. Of course he’s sleepy.」

「Aha. So that’s why he sent the beauty back so quickly. Because he was sleepy.」

“……”

Frozen exactly like a statue, Isaac slowly shifted his eyes. The beasts, who had shoved their faces right up to his to inspect him, leaped back in a panic, yelling, 「Kyack! You scared me!」

“You rotten…… ungrateful…… wretched little……”

Countless curses surged up to the very edge of his throat, but Isaac couldn’t decide which one to spit out first. Stuttering helplessly, overwhelmed by the sheer injustice and infuriating absurdity of it all, Isaac finally broke down and cried.

Bursting into a loud, miserable wail as he collapsed onto the floor, Isaac was met only with the rolling, unblinking stares of the beasts. They looked at him as if they had absolutely no idea why he was crying.

In fact, one of them – the very root of all evil, the one who had brought the Prince here and taken him back – wandered over, asking, 「Why are you crying? Does it hurt?」 It then began to meticulously lick Isaac’s wounds. Its rough, sandpaper-like tongue scraping against his torn flesh only made it hurt worse, causing Isaac to shriek.

“GAH! IT HURTS! GET OFF ME, STOP LICKING IT, YOU MISERABLE CAT!!”

「It hurts? It still hurts? Why does it hurt? You’re completely healed.」

“What do you mean, healed——!”

Isaac, thrashing and swatting blindly through his tears, suddenly choked on his words. He realized that the wounds on his body had vanished without a trace, as if they had been washed away. His broken arm was perfectly fine, and the gruesome bite mark the Prince had left on his neck was completely gone. Only a few small bruises and shallow scratches remained in the places the beast’s tongue hadn’t touched.

“……”

Issac stared blankly down at his own body, his mind short-circuited once again. He couldn’t tell what was a dream and what was reality anymore. ‘What on earth is this hellish nightmare…..?’

As Isaac sat slumped on the floor in a daze, the beasts chattered endlessly beside him.

「Hey, did you hear him earlier? He called us miserable cats, didn’t he?」

「He did. We graciously granted his wishes and healed his wounds, and he repays us with curses. We ought to bite that ungrateful brat’s head off and chew it to pieces……」

「Let it go. Since our hearts are as vast as the ocean, we shall forgive him. Besides, he’s going to end up locked in a dungeon getting his blood sucked dry soon anyway.」

「True. If he’s just wandering around the palace for work and accidentally bumps into the Prince, promises won’t matter. The Prince will throw him right into the dungeon.」

「Undoubtedly. No matter how large the royal palace is, if he keeps walking around inside it, he’s bound to run into him eventually.」

Isaac, who had been sitting like a soulless husk with tears streaming down his face, flinched.

His eyes landed on the flint, resting peacefully at the edge of the dining table. Remaining seated, Isaac slowly, stealthily shimmied backward on his rear end and snatched it up.

“You miserable cats……”

Isaac, clutching the steel in one hand and the flint in the other, glared at the beasts. Their ears immediately perked up, and they all stared back at him.

“Did you really think you could do this to me and get away with it? I still have one wish left, don’t I? And you said you’d grant any wish…… didn’t you?”

「W-What…… what do you desire?」

Perhaps unnerved by the murderous, terrifying glint in Isaac’s eyes, the last remaining beast – the one that hadn’t yet granted a wish – rolled its massive eyes nervously and asked.

“What I desire…… is for the three of you to be hung upside down inside a pepper grinder, violently sneezing and thrashing in agony for three days and three nights——”

「KKKYYYAAAHHHKKK————」

“——is what I would like to wish for, but……”

Isaac ground his teeth, watching the three beasts shudder violently, every hair on their bodies and tails puffing up in sheer terror. With trembling, anxious faces, they stared intently at Isaac’s mouth.

“…… By any chance, could I use this wish…… to nullify an oath sworn upon the Moon River…..?”

「No.」

To Isaac’s desperate, pleading question, the answer returned far too firmly and heartlessly. “Figures,” Isaac muttered, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

“Then…… could you erase what happened tonight from the Prince’s memory?”

「We can do that, but what good would it do? You still have to go to the Prince every new moon. When you magically pop up in front of an amnesiac Prince, how are you going to explain yourself?」

‘I’d be lucky if I didn’t get killed before I could even start explaining.’

As the normally idiotic, useless beast pointed out the glaring flaw in his plan with unexpected sharpness, Isaac plunged back into despair, clutching his head in his hands.

His last shred of hope was gone. Unless everything that happened tonight turned out to be a dream, Isaac’s life was officially ruined forever. If that was the case, he had to use this single, final wish to secure whatever meager peace he could.

“Then my wish is……”

He didn’t have time to think long. He had to decide before the sun came up.

‘Think carefully.’ Even if Isaac’s life had been utterly derailed, he still had to eat and survive, which meant the moment the sun rose, he had to go to work. To the palace. Where that man was lurking. Where they could cross paths at any given moment.

“Make it so the Prince cannot remember my face from tonight.”

At the very least, he needed to be able to live and work safely during the day until the next new moon arrived. Given his current nightmarish situation, Isaac still had to try and live as peacefully and happily as possible.

The beast nodded willingly. And then……. absolutely nothing happened. There were no visible changes, but for a split second, the beast’s massive, glossy eyes seemed to widen before narrowing into a sharp slit.

「Your wish has been granted.」

The tension drained completely from Isaac’s shoulders. The flint slipped from his limp hand, hitting the floor and rolling away until it stopped. Staring blankly at the stone, Isaac muttered suddenly, as if talking to himself:

“Can this flint only be used on the new moon…?”

「Yes.」

“What kind of garbage treasure is this…..? It even comes with a time limit……”

As Isaac mumbled under his breath, all three beasts instantly flared up in indignation, yowling furiously.

「Do you have any idea how magnificent this treasure is?! The only reason it’s like this is because, without the tinderbox, it cannot even unleash a fraction of its true power!」

“The tinderbox……”

「Yes. That is why you must bring us the tinderbox. If you do, this magic flint can become complete.」

「If the magic flint becomes complete, it becomes an unparalleled treasure. It can even…… turn a half-witch into a pureblood witch.」

The moment he heard the beast whisper those words like a guarded secret, Isaac flinched, his body giving a faint jerk. As Isaac stared at the beast with a look of pure, unadulterated disbelief, the beast continued quietly.

「Yes, you can become a pureblood witch too. And if you do, you can board the moon-sliver boat and cross over to the Land of the New Moon.」

“—”

Isaac stared at the beast as if trying to bore a hole through it. Looking back and forth between the three beasts with wide, trembling eyes, Isaac saw them all nod in unison.

「There is half a year left. Exactly half a year until the moon-sliver boat, which only comes once every seven years, returns to this land. If you board it, you can see Kali—your mother—again.」

「Furthermore, if you cross over to a place that is not part of the human world, the Moon River cannot follow you there. The oath you swore in this land will become completely null and void the moment you cross over.」

「You can be free.」

The beasts whispered. As if utterly bewitched, Isaac could only sit there, staring blankly at them.

Until dawn broke and the sun began to rise.

The morning light pierced through the pitch-black window, illuminating the room. The extravagant feast, the luxurious furniture, the beautiful carpets—everything vanished. Isaac was left sitting entirely alone in his rickety, run-down room. And sitting quietly in front of him were three small, pitch-black cats.

The three cats, staring up at him with their impossibly large eyes, let out a thin, soft *meow.*

——Bring us the tinderbox.

——Our treasure.

Isaac sat there, staring back at them for a long, long time……