Lewd King's Bucket List-Chapter 77: Houses of Horror

Despair could enter memories simply by looking at someone or something.

In those memories he could play as he wished, crushing, altering, and manipulating them to his liking.

However, there was also the condition that the person must have a destroyed will for Despair to enter, and he could only enter their ’bad’ memories.

Someone like Ixion was nearly immune.

In any case...

Through grasping and injecting Aether into one of the metal rods, Despair could theoretically draw another person into a memory.

A memory of a time of complete loss in that host’s life, when their mind had experienced the most pain and suffering imaginable, mental or physical.

’How did Hope not realize his brother was wicked with an ability like that...? Who knows?!’

The condition to be drawn into one of these memories alongside him was simply the need for a physical body and Despair to allow it.

’Not only is his hiding space invite-only, but he could be in any one of them!’

If Despair had already broken someone’s will, distance meant nothing. For him, one memory could lead to another like doors in a hallway. However, anyone within a memory when the vessel was destroyed would be trapped there forever unless Despair pulled them out.

’It’s a trap. But only a trap if I choose to enter.’

If he entered, Despair could exit and destroy the vessel’s tether, and Ixion would be stuck in that memory forever.

If he didn’t enter, Despair was free to evade him indefinitely.

’I see.’

Despair wasn’t expecting his little secret to remain hidden at all.

While Ixion could trust Despair would never harm him or trap him, since he was ’the key,’ if Despair had truly recreated ’the key’ in Dia, then Ixion wasn’t safe to enter.

’Assuming it wasn’t a bluff.’

Ixion wished he had a body at the moment to smash the deplorable room in front of him to bits.

’Vexing, vexing, vexing!’

Ixion had to either call Despair’s bluff or ignore the heinous bastard.

As for Dia’s situation, Ixion understood it now. At least in part.

She’d been clean because dirt and grime don’t exactly transfer from the memory space, but she’d had dirt under her fingernails because she had to climb out of the pit. And that outfit was the one she’d been wearing before entering a memory.

Still, her escape itself made no sense. Unless...

’Is there a way for one to escape a memory?’

Furthermore...

’Is there a way to enter and exit without Despair’s invitation?’

That would change a lot. But it would also be nonsensical, seeing as it would require using Despair’s ability, and Despair wasn’t using some natural law to hop around memories. It was one of his Traits.

Exiting the house of horrors, Ixion began to float around the streets of Catatran, loosely investigating every street.

’As I thought...’

When his quick investigation ended, he found thirteen different houses, including the original one, all absent of souls. Each also had a sentry wandering outside, probably one of Despair’s minions.

’None of them in the slums either...’

Probably to evade squatters, though Despair likely had his own methods of keeping people out of his houses.

Entering each, one by one, Ixion found the same sight. Dead bodies strewn from the ceilings above and brains in a pit below.

’Disgusting.’

Ixion wished he could present this travesty to the world and ask them: ’Is this your hero?’

But alas, it could not be done.

Now that Ixion knew what he knew, and the two options before him, he had a choice to make...

Or he had to invent a third option. Which seemed far more necessary.

’Think, Ixion. Think!’

Ixion floated in slow circles above the original house he’d spotted.

’Wait...’

Despair never really explained his ability to Ixion or Hope. He also never went around openly enthralling people.

’However, the people he has hexed...’

What if their connection with Despair allowed them to use his abilities? Giving them access to enter and exit memories as they pleased?

’After all, why would Despair need to fully limit someone under his control?’

Assuming he even possessed such an ability.

But if Despair were able to grant passage through his domain, like handing out keys, it would explain how Dia escaped.

Either she possessed the ability as well, or one of the enthralled snapped out of Despair’s control and helped her.

’Like that would happen...’

With too many unknowns, Ixion could not reach a conclusion. But the theories he formed were significant.

In fact, his theory also offered a possible way to enter and exit uninvited.

Through controlling a thrall.

Still, such an option, if possible, wasn’t without risk.

If Despair could give someone free access, he could also take it away. The moment a thrall started acting suspicious, Despair, who was always watching, would notice.

The safest option for Ixion to infiltrate successfully and undetected was to hitch a ride inside a thrall.

’I’d have to nestle inside one and pray they travel to the memory landscape.’

Either drawn by Despair or moving on their own, if such a thing were possible.

Unfortunately, Ixion didn’t have the luxury to wait endlessly and get lucky.

He would only resort to such a tactic if the enthralled did not have their own access.

Until then, Ixion would begin studying Despair’s minions’ habits until he could mimic one perfectly.

Learning all he could, Ixion snapped back to his main body in the palace and rubbed his head. It didn’t hurt. The Soul Sickness was minor, seeing as he used no Aether. But those atrocious sights weren’t easily scrubbed from the mind.

Sights more horrifying than the front lines.

Ixion grumbled as he stared up at the top of the bed canopy.

"Despair..."

’Why? Why do I have to help you?’

It was the job that the Wanderer of Fate had given him.

But if aiding Despair was the path to salvation...

’Perhaps the world doesn’t deserve it.’