Mozo's tiny apartment cost just twenty copper pennies a week to rent. Two hundred pennies—ten full weeks, nearly half a year of rent.
As for a hundred gold pounds… he didn't even want to calculate it.
Just thinking about it felt unreal, like another dream layered over the ones he already lived through.
And there were still four hundred more yet to come.
At this point, Mozo was fairly certain he had already stepped into the realm of life's winners.
Across from him, Audrey was worrying about how to gather the remaining payment as quickly as possible—but even so, she felt she had come out ahead.
Five hundred gold pounds was a fortune, yes, but compared to the potential losses she might suffer fumbling around blindly on her own, it was a bargain.
Take the puppeteer she had mentioned—he would have gladly taken four to six hundred gold pounds, only to shrug afterward and say the curse was too strong to transfer.
Even though Mozo had already stated that puppeteers couldn't transfer curses from others at all.
That was something Audrey herself had suspected before, but without proof. Now, hearing it from him, her confidence in his knowledge only deepened.
But how did he know so much about mysticism? Was he part of some hidden organization? Or affiliated with the authorities?
No… probably not the latter. In her experience, official supernatural agents were anything but gentlemanly.
Among independent practitioners like Audrey, the official ones were widely believed to be greedy, lecherous parasites—an exaggerated view, perhaps, but one shaped by class divide all the same.
Perhaps feeling that he had taken too much advantage of her—or perhaps wanting to further confirm the reality of his dream-world memories—Mozo suppressed his excitement and spoke again, more seriously this time:
"Miss Hepburn, there may be one more option. We could try it right now. The chances aren't high, but I can guarantee there won't be any side effects, even if it fails."
Audrey, already inclined to trust him, lit up immediately.
"What is it?"
Then, almost reflexively, she grimaced—another solution meant another increase in payment.
Mozo chose his words carefully.
"You're part of the mystic world. You should know that some bloodlines possess… rather unusual abilities."
Audrey's eyes sparkled. I knew it—he's definitely not ordinary!
So what was his background? A descendant of some lost empire? A fallen noble line? Surely not a holy or angelic lineage… those were too rare. A lost imperial bloodline seemed most likely.
What a pity. If he were part of a currently recognized noble house, he would've been the perfect match.
Even now, Audrey hadn't given up on her plan to marry into nobility.
As a commoner, her chances were slim—but as a supernatural being, with her beauty and her preserved virginity, the leap wasn't impossible. Every year, after all, there were nobles who claimed to marry for "love."
Through her own channels, Audrey knew the truth: those women were rarely ordinary. They were like her—practitioners. Though, admittedly, most of them were stronger and more advanced.
"Yes, I know. So… are you saying you're one of them?"
Mozo shook his head slightly.
"I can't go into details. But my lineage may have a way of nullifying certain concepts—curses, imprints, things like that. The problem is, it hasn't been proven consistently. My family hasn't had many successful cases."
As he spoke, he kept a close eye on her reaction.
Her eyes were shining brighter by the second. She believed him. Completely.
Good.
"In any case," he continued, "that's why I didn't mention it earlier—the success rate is low. But if you're willing, I can try."
Audrey nodded quickly.
"Of course. What do I need to do?"
"It's simple. Just… let me place a drop of my blood on the imprint."
"…What?"
She froze. Even with her limited knowledge, letting someone drip blood onto a slave mark sounded extremely dangerous.
But then again… she had heard of certain bloodlines capable of breaking curses. And Mozo didn't seem like someone driven by lust or ulterior motives.
After a long moment of hesitation, she asked carefully:
"Does it have to be directly on the mark?"
She remembered a story—Saint John dissolving a demonic curse by dripping his blood into a river, allowing the faithful to drink from it. If that worked, then perhaps direct contact wasn't necessary.
And that was her bottom line—absolutely not directly on the mark.
Mozo thought for a moment, then nodded.
"That should be fine."
In countless dreamlike lives, he had once been the great saint John Connor—builder of one of the three most legendary temples in existence, a man who saved an entire cursed city with a single drop of blood.
If even a fragment of that power carried over… this kind of imprint should be trivial.
Still, he didn't hold high expectations. He had tried things like this before—many times—and failed every single time.
But today… something had already worked once. So why not try again?
Relieved, Audrey agreed immediately.
"In that case, I accept. And if it fails, I'll add another hundred gold pounds—though it may take two months to pay in full."
Mozo nodded, found a pin, bent it slightly, and pricked his fingertip.
Both of them held their breath as he let a single drop fall onto her forehead.
The moment it touched her skin, Audrey felt a surge of heat spread through her body—but it lasted only an instant.
The next second, a cool, soothing sensation washed over her entirely.
And more than that—
The Sequence Nine potion she had only recently taken… had fully stabilized.
No—more than that. It had been completely digested.
She could now advance to Sequence Eight.
"…It worked?"
She looked up at him, searching for confirmation.
Mozo smiled and nodded.
"It did. And better than expected."
Then, unexpectedly, he bowed to her with genuine solemnity.
"Thank you, Miss Hepburn. You don't need to pay the additional five hundred. You've helped prove something invaluable about my lineage. That means more to me than money. We're even."
Audrey was overwhelmed by the sudden turn of fortune. She didn't even know how to respond.
What she didn't see—
Was the cold sweat covering Mozo's face as he bowed.
The slave mark on her body hadn't been removed.
It had been strengthened.
From this moment on… Audrey Hepburn had become his personal servant.
I'm sorry, Miss Hepburn, he thought silently. I swear I'll never force you to do anything against your will.