The words 'slave seal' that Arvin had just mentioned instantly made Kaydan both shocked and curious. He had always thought that he was the only unfortunate human in this entire country who had to bear such an absolute curse.
The reality that there was someone else who possessed a slave seal like him, and had now successfully broken free, sparked a sliver of new hope in his chest.
"Is... is one of your spouses a former slave?" he asked to make sure, his voice trembling slightly with immense curiosity.
"Yes, he is a former slave." Arvin answered quickly and without the slightest pause. His eyes radiated gentleness as he remembered Arion. "He is now completely free from that slave seal and has become my ninth spouse."
Hearing that confirmation, Kaydan fell silent once more. His mind spun, trying to process all the information and the offer that seemed far too good to be true. It was as if he wanted to steady his heart again, weighing whether he was truly ready to surrender the rest of his life to the foreign youth who was currently hovering over his body.
Seeing Kaydan fall silent as if he were carefully thinking everything through, Arvin did not want to push him any further. He began to pull away, rising from the hidden romance target's body, then stepped down and stood calmly beside the bed.
"Just think about it slowly, Kaydan." Arvin said in a relaxed tone while straightening his slightly wrinkled clothes. "I will not force you to make a decision right now. For the time being, just take off all your clothes and let me remove that slave seal from your body first."
Kaydan widened his eyes. He truly never expected that he would not be forced to immediately accept the offer to become the tenth spouse. The handsome youth who had gone through the trouble of infiltrating the heavily guarded palace actually volunteered to remove the slave seal that bound his life, without any coercive conditions attached.
That selfless act instantly shattered the remaining traces of doubt in his heart.
Without thinking twice, Kaydan immediately got up and stood quietly at the edge of the bed. Then, one by one, he took off his clothes and dropped them to the floor, until he finally stood completely naked in front of Arvin without any sense of awkwardness.
Once his body was completely exposed, the youth with exotic brown skin turned his body, facing away from Arvin, and presenting the back area of his body.
Arvin's eyes were immediately drawn to that area. On the youth's hips, a black tattoo with intricate and cruel-looking carvings snaked its way up. The slave seal tattoo trailed quite far up, reaching the middle area of his back.
It turns out the carvings of the slave seal tattoo vary for each person, huh? Arvin murmured in awe inwardly, analyzing the magic pattern. Initially, I thought the tattoo's carving would be exactly the same. But as it turns out, the magic pattern of the tattoo on Arion's left thigh and the one on Kaydan's hip are vastly different.
After finishing his observation, Arvin raised his hand. "Alright, prepare yourself. I will freeze the back of your body first... and begin skinning you."
Hearing the word 'skinning' uttered so flatly, Kaydan instantly gasped in shock. His heart beat faster and his goosebumps rose in horror, imagining his skin being sliced off alive.
However, the youth closed his eyes, steeling his resolve, letting his body surrender and obeying every instruction without resistance for the sake of the promised freedom.
Crack!
Instantly, an extraordinarily piercing cold assaulted the back of Kaydan's body. The skin and the layers of flesh beneath it froze immediately, spreading all the way to the base of his neck.
Arvin froze him with extreme precision, leaving only a thin layer of the outer skin that he would later skin off.
To ensure the effectiveness of his ice magic anesthesia, Arvin tested the pain response on the youth's body. He pinched an area of skin near the tattoo quite hard using two of his fingers.
"How is it? Do you feel any pain when I pinched your skin just now?" Arvin asked to make sure.
Kaydan slowly shook his head without looking back. He truly felt no sensation at all, let alone pain when his skin was pinched. The back of his body felt completely numb.
"Alright, I will begin now." Arvin said calmly.
The blue-haired youth manifested an incredibly thin and sharp scalpel made purely of wind magic.
Slice! Slice!
With steady and measured movements, Arvin slowly began to cut and separate the layer of skin bearing the slave seal tattoo from the gray-haired youth's body.
As the skin began to detach from the back of Kaydan's body, it was not fresh red blood that was seen flowing. Instead, the severed area revealed a solid layer of ice that had frozen all the blood vessels and nerve tissues connected directly to his brain.
That ice manipulation automatically severed the pain response signals, ensuring that the youth would not feel the slightest bit of pain or stinging from the brain's natural response while the extreme skinning process was underway.
Like a highly skilled and experienced professional surgeon, Arvin continued to move his hand steadily, slicing the layer of skin on the youth's back slowly and methodically.
Not a single drop of blood fell to stain the bedroom floor. There were no screams of agony to shatter the silence of the bedchamber. Everything proceeded in absolute silence and careful calculation.
The wind magic scalpel was so sharp that its blade continued to glide smoothly downwards, tracing the curve of his back until it reached the youth's hip area, until finally, the layer of skin carved with the slave seal tattoo was completely separated from the body.
Once the piece of skin was perfectly detached in his hand, Arvin presented the neatly cut, frozen sheet of skin right in front of Kaydan's eyes.
The gray-haired youth was both shocked and amazed. His eyes widened in disbelief upon seeing that his own fairly wide sheet of skin had been completely detached, without him having to endure the slightest suffering or pain on the back of his body.
"I will store this frozen skin of yours in my dimensional space, and now, I will heal your back." Arvin said, explaining his next action.
Kaydan, who did not understand, could only nod obediently. He stared blankly as the cursed sheet of skin that had been his nightmare all this time suddenly vanished into nowhere.
Not wanting to waste time, Arvin reached out his hand toward the back of the still-naked youth's body. He concentrated mana in the palm of his right hand and activated his healing magic.
Crack!
The sound of cracking ice was heard loudly amidst the silence. The layer of ice freezing the wide and long incision on Kaydan's back shattered to pieces, dissolving into mana particles along with the cell tissues, nerves, fat layer, and brown skin that regenerated at an absurd speed.
Within seconds, all the gaping wounds completely vanished. The surface of the skin on the back of Kaydan's body returned to being perfectly flawless, as if nothing had ever happened.
There was no longer any slave seal tattoo engraved there.
"It's all done, Kaydan." Arvin whispered in a gentle and soothing tone, declaring the youth's absolute freedom. "Now, look at your back in that mirror."
Kaydan slowly stepped toward the medium-sized mirror standing in the corner of the room with feelings of tension and disbelief. He took a deep breath, steeling himself, and then turned his body around.
As he turned his head and his gaze met his reflection in the mirror, he stood frozen, utterly shocked yet simultaneously enveloped by an overwhelming wave of relief and immense happiness within him.
His back was flawless. Clean. Perfect.
There was no longer any disgusting black tattoo creeping across his skin. There was no longer any slave seal claiming him as an inanimate object belonging to the Victoriaz Kingdom.