Hearing my encouragement, Ark’s usual bright demeanor stiffened up. Gark’s eyebrows twitched spasmodically, and the local crime syndicate stared at me, the blood drained from their faces. Isabella, Ewe, and the rest of Ark’s party looked similar. It was just a light warning, but they were showing such exaggerated reactions. I didn’t know what to do.
An uncomfortable silence overtook us. Gark tried to break the tension with slow, forceful words.
“Th-This operation has been planned out in minute detail. The curse has weakened while it’s been sealed off, and we’re moving under the assumption it’s a powerful one. Not to mention the priests of today are also much greater than those of the past.”
That’s perfect. There’s almost no way this can go wrong. A bit more devil’s advocacy and we’ll be even more perfect.
“But the world’s full of surprises,” I said.
I was met with silence. I took a brief break from the hard-boiled life and tried to cover myself.
“Ha ha ha, I-I’m kidding. Just making a joke.”
The powerful looks I was getting forced me to surrender. I might have been used to receiving hostility, and Gark was one thing, but I couldn’t endure it from Ark. Gark opened his mouth and was about to take a step towards me, but stopped when we heard a baffled shout.
“Brother?! Why are you here? Oh. D-Don’t tell me. Are you going to be part of this?”
“H-Hey there...”
I turned and saw Lucia entering the church. She jogged up to us, her gaze growing suspicious as she got close, her overall expression just as grave as Ark and the branch manager’s. I hadn’t realized she was going to be here.
This is an aside, but Lucia only called me brother when she was flustered. With her rebellious phase, she was reluctant to call me brother and opted to call me leader as much as she could. But sometimes she would fall into old habits.
Now, I take it something’s got you panicking?
Behind Lucia was a small crowd of faces I recognized. It was the members of Starlight, as well as some other Magi from First Steps. With graceful movements, the leader of Starlight, Lapis, stepped forward, her handsome brow furrowed.
“Hmph. If the Thousand Tricks is coming to the forefront, should I assume this is no benign curse we’re dealing with?”
“Human weakling! I’ve heard all about what you’ve been up to! Sir! Damnit, the Supreme Warrior Festival just ended, yet I hear you’re already causing all sorts of shit!”
The moment I entered her vision, Kris started going at me. In a diversion from the norm, she was accompanied by the other members of her party, and they were all giving her exasperated looks. I felt like it was my lucky day, getting to see so many pretty Noble Spirits gathered in one place. The only ones I was really acquainted with were Kris and Lapis.
“It’s not often you guys help with jobs like this,” I said.
Noble Spirits all tended to live by their own rules. They weren’t concerned with authority and weren’t bound by the same restraints as humans. Lapis flared her nostrils when she heard my remark. I envied her ability to make even the most casual movements picturesque.
“Curses are our domain,” she said. “The curses of humans are child’s play compared to ours. When Lucia asked for our assistance, I could hardly deny her.”
“C’mon, human weakling, don’t tell me you don’t know the legend of the Cursed Crimson Spiritstone!”
“My instructor asked for my help,” Lucia added. “She’s got her hands more than full dealing with the aftermath of the Black World Tree, so I ended up here. I certainly didn’t expect to run into you here.”
I see, I see. Lucia dragged them along.
Lapis and her party were being awfully agreeable. Not that they were ever bad people, but I was willing to bet that showing their skills to the church would help them fit into human society.
“Ahh, the legend of the Spiritstone, the cursed one. Yeah, that. Yeah...”
“If you don’t know, don’t try to protect your weird sense of pride! Sir!”
Y’know, there are some things we’re better off not knowing.
In a melancholic voice, Lapis blew away our dumb little exchange.
“To regain the Spiritstone is something we’ve yearned for many seasons. It’s one of the reasons we left the forest. We thought it possible this uproar over a curse might be related to our search, but it appears not. The Spiritstone is not something that can be sealed away by human hands.”
It occurred to me that Eliza had once mentioned that her wanderings were in part because she was searching for something. Perhaps she was also looking for the Spiritstone.
Lucia cleared her throat. It seemed she had calmed down a bit. “The point is, leader, please do not interfere.”
Well, yeah, you don’t need to tell me that. And I don’t recall ever trying to interfere.
I noted the resplendent cast we had for this operation. You could tell the church was determined not to fail. And just as this thought crossed my mind, I heard yet another baffled shout.
“K-Krai Andrey?! What are you doing here? I didn’t ask you to be here!”
Followed by a large group of knights and attracting stares from the clergy was a man with whom I had found myself involved a lot lately. He looked like he had seen a ghost. The knights behind him wore polished, unified armor, which had a sense of orderliness different from the pure style of the church.
“Ah. Franz. Yoohoo.”
Oops. I accidentally called out to him with the casual manner I used over the Sounding Stone.
Franz marched right up to me, grabbed my collar, and began shaking me back and forth. “And what could explain yet another appearance by you?! What the hell is happening?! Any guesses?! Is the prophecy referring to a curse?! Spit it out already!”
My eyes felt like they might start spinning. Shaking attacks were one of the few dangers Safety Rings didn’t protect against.
I guess he didn’t care for the “yoohoo” if he was reacting so strongly to it. He told me to come, now he was griping that I was here. What did these people think I was?
For some reason, nobody came to save me from Franz’s jostling. I didn’t expect much from Ark, but even Lucia and Kris, people who helped me fairly often, were just looking at me with exasperation.
Uh-oh. I don’t feel good. I feel faint.
“Captain Franz, the conference is about to begin.”
“Tsk. Thousand Tricks, we’ll have a long talk later! About this, and the Devil Sword, and the academy!”
When he let me go, I stumbled and nearly fell, but stayed upright by grabbing onto Lucia’s outthrust staff. All this when I had just come here to do a little spectating.
“Does Franz have something against me?”
“You brought it on yourself. Sir. I’m pretty sure you’re responsible for the majority of his gray hairs!”
I wasn’t sure what to say. The Noble not-weakling prodded my shoulder, while Lucia looked at me accusingly.
I’ll have you know I’m Lucia’s brother! And Ansem’s best friend! And both Liz’s and Luke’s best friend! Y’know, maybe it’s only natural that I draw so much attention.
“Now, we’re going too,” Gark said, scratching his head. “The church is leading this operation.”
“Take caaare,” I said.
“You’re coming with us!”
I had a few thoughts of my own regarding that, considering everyone had just been asking why I was here. But I didn’t see what other options I had. If I didn’t go to the meeting, I could be in danger should anything happen.
“Fine, but I’m not gonna say anything.”
“Just c’mon!”
The church in the imperial capital had been rebuilt to accommodate Ansem’s size. The hall being used for a conference room had a ceiling high enough for him to easily fit in and came with a special seat just for him. It was proof that his strength and accomplishments hadn’t gone unnoticed.
It didn’t relate to his work as a hunter, so I didn’t know much about it, but apparently, he had done some excellent work in an incident involving someone connected to the upper echelons of the church. Ansem didn’t talk about himself much, so when I saw what a name he was making for himself, I became proud, relieved, and encouraged to try my best. Except I wouldn’t do that last one.
The conference quietly began. I got the impression that the plan to purify Marin’s Lament was a logical one based on hard numbers. Curses were born from strong feelings. The power of a curse could be influenced by circumstance and the caster’s capabilities, which made them liable to defy expectations. That power was also known to degrade with time.
The Church of the Radiant Spirit’s sealing techniques were developed with the intention of purifying a curse once it had been weakened. Their plan involved gauging the strength of Marin’s Lament based on the destruction it had caused in the past, consulting the records of numerous other curses to estimate Marin’s current power, and finally hitting it with a force stronger than that estimation.
By all counts, they had gathered more than sufficient firepower to overwhelm Marin if it remained in peak condition. There was a detailed explanation of the techniques involved, which all went over my head, but I wasn’t going to complain about that.
I had my doubts when I first heard that the church planned to release a curse and purify it in response to the prophecy, but now I understood why the empire was so willing to permit it. When you added Ark, Lucia, the members of Starlight, and more, failure seemed impossible. Heck, I wasn’t sure you could get a better team if you tried. You could call Luke, but curses probably weren’t something that could be cut.