Moros was a daimon of fate in ancient Greek mythology, a god of misfortune. His very existence symbolized destruction and death.
As for Pandora's Box, it was even more significant. According to legend, it was a box into which the gods had sealed all the disasters, diseases, and misfortunes of the human world.
Before Pandora's Box was opened, there were no terrifying calamities, no toilsome labor, and no tormenting diseases among mankind.
But once it was opened, all kinds of disasters spread across the earth, the sky, and the seas. Diseases spread among humans day and night, ravaging them silently. Fevers ran rampant across the land, and the god of death raced wildly through the world.
With these two combined, let alone placing a curse on a mere teaching position, even cursing the entire magical world would not be impossible.
"If you want to form a contract with me, what do you hope to obtain from me?" Rhys asked curiously.
Moros fell silent for a moment, then told Rhys that it desired freedom.
Rhys: "…"
"The moment you stated your name and the name of the box, you should have understood that I would not agree to your request."
"Another one who knows the legends of Greek mythology…"
"Another?" Rhys caught the detail in the box's words.
"Quite a few people have heard of my story," Moros explained, resolving Rhys's confusion. It told him that before he found it, it had already passed through the hands of several people. Every one of them had been extremely wary upon hearing its name.
"But they never stop to think—everything inside the box has already escaped. Only the most beautiful thing, 'Hope,' remains. My name may sound terrifying, but everything is arranged by [Fate]. The misfortune I bring is merely tribulation that is destined to occur. We're not actually as frightening as we sound." The voice in the box was filled with grievance.
Rhys raised an eyebrow. What this fellow said actually made some sense. He glanced down at Helga. She was still unconscious, clearly not yet recovered from the immense strain earlier.
"Then how am I supposed to open you?" Rhys shook the box in his hand.
"You're actually willing to help open me???" The voice inside the box sounded utterly incredulous. Clearly, none of its previous owners had ever entertained such an idea, not even as a formality.
"Why not give it a try?" Rhys didn't fear Moros that much. He believed what the box said was most likely true.
The disasters contained within the box had already been released. As for whether "Hope" truly remained at the bottom, that didn't matter—he had no intention of opening the box within the bounds of Hogwarts anyway.
Besides, believing the box wasn't lying didn't mean he intended to open it.
"How interesting. You're the first person I've met who is willing to open the box for me. But unfortunately, even I don't know how to open this box."
Moros's words left Rhys speechless.
It took him a short while to recover from the shock Moros had just given him.
"So after forming a contract with you, I would have to help you find a way to open the box, and then open it?"
"Mhm."
"Then how did your previous owners choose?"
This time, it was Moros who fell silent.
After a while, it answered reluctantly, "They either formed a contract with me and then disappeared without a trace, or they simply made a transaction with me."
"pfft—cough, cough..." Rhys immediately understood. So the box had been taken advantage of all along. Even when facing wizards who formed contracts with it, it had no means of counteracting them.
Judging from Moros's condition, Rhys felt it was more like a being being punished inside Pandora's Box.
"You can't lie, can you?" Rhys analyzed the box's previous responses and arrived at a rather surprising conclusion.
The box: "…"
"Forget it. Can you tell me about the other Olympian gods? They've been gone for a long time."
Throughout history, three generations of gods had emerged across Europe and the Mediterranean. The first were the ancient Egyptian gods who ushered in the age of magic; they ultimately perished in internal strife and madness.
The second were the Greek gods, whose disappearance was highly mysterious—some said it was related to Rome and war.
In any case, by the time Rhys and the others were born, it was already the era of the Norse gods. And Rhys and the other three were precisely the reason the third—and final—generation of gods vanished.
But Moros inside the box didn't know why the Olympian gods had disappeared either.
He had previously offended Zeus and suffered divine punishment from the King of the Gods, being sealed within Pandora's Box and kept from seeing the light of day. By the time the first outsider found him, the Olympian gods had already vanished without a trace.
"I see…" Rhys pondered for a moment. "Then how did the previous wizards make deals with you?"
"They would state their demands, I would propose a corresponding price, and then we would bargain back and forth until both sides reached an agreement."
Rhys raised an eyebrow. "Your last deal—was it someone asking you to place a curse on a position?"
"Yes," Moros replied without hesitation. "That person originally wanted to curse an individual, but couldn't afford the price. Then he settled for less and tried to curse the position of Headmaster of Hogwarts, but still couldn't afford it. In the end, after a long discussion, he placed a curse on a position called Defense Against the Dark Arts. I've never seen someone like that before."
Even Moros couldn't help but mock Voldemort for being so poor.
"What did he use to trade with you?"
A trace of anger entered Moros's voice. "I asked him for beautiful memories related to [Love], but that man deceived me—there was no concept of [Love] in his heart at all! So I placed many limitations on his curse, greatly narrowing the concept of 'Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.'"
"So the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor only needs to change its name to avoid the curse?" Rhys couldn't help but feel amused at the thought.
"Of course!"
"Then renaming this course would work as well?"
"Yes~" The voice inside the box became cheerful.
Rhys thought for a moment and felt that simply renaming Defense Against the Dark Arts would be the most practical solution—perhaps calling it Magical Defense would be better?
Did students only need to guard against dark magic? Couldn't white magic spells injure or cripple people as well?
"Then what if I want to directly make a wish to remove the curse?"
Moros paused for a moment, then after what seemed like some calculation, told Rhys that he would only need to pay a portion of his own memory.
"My memory? I'm afraid you'd be too scared to even talk to me after seeing it," Rhys said with a smile.
"I am, after all, a daimon of fate. What scene have I not witnessed?" Moros replied confidently.
"Alright." Rhys casually selected a fragment of memory from the time of the divine wars.
____
12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI