A little over three years had passed.
Yes, three years.
Three years in this world, which worked out to roughly three and a half years by Earth's reckoning.
I was still sticking close to
Master?
Master is Master.
That's the only way I can address him.
Because of the curse.
It happened about a year ago, I think.
Master suddenly showed up with a deck of cards.
Cards.
The building blocks of a card game I knew all too well from my previous life.
Not that I'd ever actually played cards with anyone — I was a loner, remember?
This world didn't have playing cards.
Entertainment in general was pretty scarce, actually.
Between the constant wars with the Demon race and people struggling just to put food on the table, nobody had time for games.
And yet Master produced a deck of cards out of thin air.
When I asked where he got them, his answer was "from D's place."
Whether D was a place name or what, I had no idea.
When Master was sober, he wouldn't tell you even the bare minimum, so there was a lot I never understood.
In the end, no matter how much I pressed, he wouldn't say — so to this day, I have no clue where those cards came from.
If they'd been ordinary cards, I wouldn't have been all that surprised.
Sure, playing cards didn't exist in this world, which was a bit odd, but it was entirely possible Master had made them himself or commissioned someone to craft them.
Ordinary cards? Not impossible to make.
But these were no ordinary cards.
And I had no idea — which is exactly why I agreed to Master's proposal to play Old Maid.
Old Maid.
There was a reason I picked that particular game out of all the card games in the world.
It was basically the only card game I knew the rules to.
Can you blame me?
I'd never played cards in my previous life!
I never had anyone to play with!
My bad!?
So Old Maid it was — the one game I actually understood.
Melozophis, naturally, didn't know the rules of cards either, and used that as grounds to refuse every other suggestion.
Melozophis kept bowing and apologizing, "I'm sorry, I don't know the rules," but sorry, neither did I.
"It's fine. Old Maid is simple — you'll pick it up in no time."
The look Ariel gave me when I said that — like she was gazing at something pitiful — is seared into my brain and won't leave.
She knew. She totally knew.
Please, stop looking at me like that.
And so the Old Maid tournament began.
The problem was that just playing wasn't fun enough, so an additional rule was proposed.
The first-place winner could issue a command to the person who came in last.
Like King's Game, basically.
Not that I'd ever played King's Game either.
I agreed to it.
Why? Why did I agree?
If I'd known what was coming, I would've punched my past self to stop her.
For the record, Master apparently possessed a ridiculous ability called the Evil Eye, but he was banned from using it to prevent cheating.
Thanks to that, he had to keep his normally closed eye open for once, which was more than a little creepy.
Apparently he usually kept that eye shut and used clairvoyance to see instead.
I learned this not from Master himself, but from Ariel.
Round one.
First place: Ariel.
Last place: Melozophis.
This result was partly because Melozophis still hadn't fully grasped the rules, but mostly because he just had terrible luck.
The Joker stayed in his hand from the very first draw to the very last.
And just like that, the round was over.
The command Ariel issued was for the next round: "Do your best in an invisible chair."
The instant those words left her lips, a sinister pulse shot out of the cards and struck Melozophis.
And Melozophis was forced into an invisible chair position.
"Shiro, what is this?"
"Cursed cards."
"How come a curse like this exists?"
"Who knows?"
"Um, how do I break the curse?"
"You can't."
"Huh?"
"You can't."
"Whaaat?"
"You can't."
"Oi!?! What am I supposed to do?! Melozophis stays like this forever!?"
"It wears off once the next round ends."
"Oh! Right!"
And so, round two commenced — to save Melozophis.
First place: Master.
Last place: Melozophis.
Unlike the first round, this loss was entirely his own fault.
Maybe the painful stance had dulled his judgment, or maybe he just wasn't used to cards yet — but Melozophis forgot to play cards from his hand even though he had a matching pair ready to go.
That's what cost him the game.
But the moment the round ended, Melozophis was freed from the invisible chair.
"Mel, strip until the next round is over."
Just when I thought it was finally over, those shocking words were uttered.
Along with another sinister pulse from the cards.
Melozophis's clothes came off.
All of them.
"Oooh!"
"Screaming!"
Melozophis, standing there completely naked in a dazed stupor with his mouth flapping open, Ariel's inexplicably delighted voice, my perfectly normal shriek, and Master's smug grin.
Something was off — and then I realized.
He'd been drinking!
This man was drunk!
Since this meant Melozophis would remain permanently naked thanks to the curse, round three was played to protect his honor.
The results: first place, Master.
Last place, me.
Me.
You can probably guess by now, can't you?
Why I call him Master.
"From now on, you will address me as Master."
Yes.
That's what happened.
And now I can only call Master "Master."
Not just out loud — in my heart, too.
How insanely powerful was this curse?
Ariel examined me and diagnosed it, but the only conclusion she reached was that it was unbreakable.
Incidentally, the next day, when Master sobered up and came to his senses, he had the nerve to look at me like I was talking nonsense!
You're the one who told me to call you that!