CHAPTER 119: ESCAPE METHOD

I shrugged weakly.

At that moment, I felt something touch the barrier from the outside.

I turned my head.

"They... have returned."

Yuna looked toward the light forming on the other side. "Seems like it."

I started chanting again to lower the barrier.

"Wait," Yuna said. "If you remove it, won’t the Cursed Spirit be able to teleport again?"

I pointed at the chains holding it down. "No. Those stop teleportation too. I couldn’t make them normally, but I used its own blood to form them."

Yuna nodded slowly. "That’s... where did you learn that Spell?"

"Shadow Class taught me."

She looked at me dubiously.

I put the mask back on and released the seal.

The barrier shimmered and faded.

A moment later, the rest of the team appeared.

Zephan was leading, with Calliope, Mira, Ellyn, and the children behind her.

They froze the moment they saw the Cursed Spirit chained to the ground.

"...You defeated it?" Zephan asked, his eyes wide.

I nodded. "Told you I’d take care of it."

For a moment, no one spoke.

Even Mira, who usually had something sharp to say, was silent.

The Cursed Spirit roared weakly, pulling against the chains, but it couldn’t move.

The runes burned brighter, sealing its power completely.

Calliope’s eyes softened. She looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t.

Ellyn knelt beside me, inspecting my condition. "You look awful."

"It could’ve been worse," I said, then turned to Calliope. "How is Lars?"

"I’ve healed him as much as I could. His condition is stable now, and he should be waking up soon. Though he can’t fight," she said.

I nodded.

Zephan chuckled softly. "I didn’t think you’d actually survive."

"Can’t let you have my bank account. I still have too much money to spend," I replied.

Mira crossed her arms, glaring at Zephan.

"He almost died fighting that thing while you ran."

Zephan shrugged. "And he’s alive. That means what I did worked for the best."

Mira clicked her tongue and turned away. "Unbelievable."

"Alright. We can have the reunion outside. Let’s just leave this domain," Ellyn interjected.

"Before we go, I’ll explain how this escape plan works," Zephan said.

He brought out the notes written by Mira and placed them on the ground.

"There are clues here. Read carefully."

He read the lines one by one.

[It’s impossible to escape this place! It’s impossible! All of us failed!]

[The $%@ Institution was built on @#’s support.]

[The Institution is impossible to !$@!$ from.]

[I wish I never knew about this place. Maybe then we could escape.]

[When @14@ were #41231 on us we were dream$^^%.]

Zephan tapped the paper twice.

"Focus on these two lines," he said.

[It’s impossible to escape this place! It’s impossible! All of us failed!]

[I wish I never knew about this place. Maybe then we could escape.]

He looked up at us.

"The first line says it’s impossible to escape. That probably means there’s no normal door or path out of here.

"The second one says they wished they never knew about this place. That’s the key," he said.

Mira frowned. "What do you mean?"

Zephan smiled slightly. "Before we entered this cursed domain, what did we do? We erased the memories of the people who were going to be dragged into this domain. Because they no longer knew about this Cursed Spirit, they were never caught inside."

Ellyn blinked. "So, you’re saying if we erase all our memories related to this Cursed Spirit and its domain, we’ll get thrown out of it?"

"Exactly," Zephan said with a nod.

He looked at us. "This is what I think. If anyone thinks I’m wrong, raise your objections now."

I narrowed my eyes.

It sounded too simple.

If escaping was this easy, why didn’t anyone from House Daelthorn figure it out in my last life?

The likely reason was the Rank.

Back then, the Cursed Spirit had already reached Rank 4.

Right now, it was only Rank 3.

Maybe that’s why the escape method was simple.

The Cursed Spirit I had chained started to thrash violently as Zephan revealed the escape method.

The air shook, and I had to tighten my grip on the spell binding it.

Sweat ran down my forehead as I strengthened the seal.

Zephan took out his Exorcist ID card.

It was blue, with a golden design around the edges.

A small barcode sat in the corner beside his photo and name.

It also showed his rank, his hidden clan, and which major clan that hidden clan belonged to.

He raised it in his hand and said, "I’ll erase our memories. But don’t worry, we can recover them later once we’re out of the domain. It’s pretty easy."

Still, everyone was nervous.

They had no way of knowing if Zephan’s deduction was correct.

We would get the answer only when it was used.

"We’re lucky. I refreshed my card’s charges just a day before we came here. If I hadn’t, we’d really be in trouble right now," Zephan chuckled, trying to lighten the mood,

He wasn’t wrong.

Calliope had already used up all the Memory Alter charges on her own ID to erase the memories of humans who were about to be dragged into this cursed domain.

Lars was unconscious, and only he could use his own Exorcist ID.

Mira and Ellyn had applied for Exorcist IDs. They never needed one until now since they were from States.

However, the Exorcist IDs they got were faulty with only two or three charges of Memory magic.

This was likely intentional since the Exorcist Union didn’t like Exorcists from States, as none of them had joined Exorcist Union since they lived in States that had no major Hidden Clan.

The children didn’t have Exorcists IDs at all.

They weren’t exorcists.

That meant Zephan was the only one who could perform the memory wipe.

He looked at each of us and asked, "Alright then, who wants to go out first?"

Mira had a frown.

I could guess what she was thinking.

"I am staying behind," I suddenly said.

Everyone turned to me.

Their expressions were quite a sight to see.

"What do you mean by that?" Zephan asked.

My reason was pretty simple.

I still had to exorcist this Cursed Spirit.

Of course, saying that would make everyone look at me as if I was a lunatic.

This was the first exploration of this Cursed Spirit, and I was saying I could exorcise this? When there was no data gathered about this Cursed Spirit?

So, I gave the excused I had prepared, "I’m going to rescue Selene."