Suddenly, there was a deafening boom.

Oedipus had thrown the full weight of her body against the dark case, and the two hands she was using for leverage pulled it straight out of the compartment beneath the table.

Merka failed to stop himself in time and went flying with Oedipus, dragging the dark case along with them.

“Ah!”

With Oedipus’s cry of alarm, the black pentagonal table seemed to trigger some kind of mechanism and broke apart on the spot.

The materials packed tightly inside the table were instantly exposed to the air and scattered across the floor.

“Hey, you…”

Merka could only watch as Oedipus, still refusing to let go, suddenly arched her body and fell straight backward.

Her little feet flailed nonstop as she retreated again and again, until she slammed headfirst into the wall behind her. The dark case slipped from her hands, scattering the letters inside all over the floor.

A crisp crack rang out as the back of Oedipus’s head struck the wall.

A violent pain spread from the crown of her head through her entire body. She couldn't help but drop into a kneeling sit, clutching her head with both hands as she groaned in agony.

“Waaah, my head hurts so badly… I didn't hit it hard enough to make myself stupid, did I?”

“If the baby turns out stupid too, this young lady won't be able to take responsibility for it～～”

Oedipus got to her feet, shaking her head woozily. Her body swayed unsteadily, her vision was blurry, and it even seemed as though countless little stars were sparkling in her eyes.

“Ouch!”

At last, Oedipus stumbled and fell to the floor.

Merka flushed with embarrassment and quickly picked up all the envelopes from the floor before Oedipus could recover, tucking them away on himself.

“Just look at the mess you've made…”

“That was a perfectly good table of Prometheus’s, and you just…”

Pretending nothing had happened, Merka slipped the letters into his clothing pocket while calmly walking toward the disassembled table. He looked at the materials that had spilled out of the large black pentagonal table.

He casually picked up one of the books and began flipping through it.

As his fingers brushed over the cover, he read the title aloud.

“{The Ultimate Illusion Curse Project}…?”

“On the Application and Practice of {The Ultimate Illusion Curse Project}.”

“……Why are all these materials about the Curseborn?”

The name sounded grand and imposing, but when Merka opened it, he found that it was filled entirely with research on the Curseborn.

And that book wasn't an exception. Every piece of material in the entire table concerned the Curseborn.

The more Merka read, the more shocked and suspicious he became. He couldn't understand what the penniless and powerless Curseborn were worth researching at all…

They had neither the powerful physiques of ordinary Acadians nor brains as clever as those of ordinary Acadians.

So what value did they actually have? What made them worth a laboratory going to such lengths… putting so much painstaking effort into building such a vast research facility for them…?

“Hmm?”

When Merka reached the final page, he found a small, square lozenge tucked between the pages, something like a mint.

It was tiny and green, like a tender leaf brimming with the freshness of spring.

“…What's this…?”

Merka looked toward the top of the page, where a line of tiny print explained the lozenge.

(To prevent hallucinations from affecting your work and ensure the authenticity of the materials, staff revising the documents should keep this hallucination-breaking lozenge in their mouths for five seconds while working. Once you can smell the scent of mugwort, return the lozenge to its original place.)

Merka hesitated inwardly for a moment, then picked up the lozenge and put it in his mouth.

In an instant, the entire world changed.

Merka was suddenly overcome by an inexplicable sense of comfort.

It felt as though he had been standing his entire life, and in the instant he put the lozenge in his mouth, he finally sat down.

A faint itch rose from deep within his eye sockets.

A faint intuition suddenly stirred in his heart.

He could sense that if he cast healing magic on his eyes right now, they would be healed.