“It’s wonderful that our lessons are going smoothly. I did not expect you to face practically no challenges in practice so far.” Rosenberg let out a chuckle, both impressed and unsure of how to proceed as my tutor.
To be honest, I felt the same way. Even though hexes were just another form of magic, they clicked more than others. Eleonora and I had discussed last night that I was learning things quickly, but this was on another level.
“Not to doubt your talent, but have you studied hexes before?” Rosenberg asked.
“My introduction to it was when Miss Remily Kremis gave me pointers after I was cursed for doing something ignorant and reckless,” I answered. Actually, I hadn’t had much time to study magic in general, like Eleonora was saying. Maybe I had an advantage after spending a few decades being exposed to works of fantasy fiction in my previous life. “I grew up reading my grandmother’s books. Some of them featured...stories with hexes in them, which could explain my predisposition for it.”
“Hm... What sort of hexes?”
The first to come to mind was the straw-doll curse. Other famous examples I could think of were kodoku and inugami, which were dangerous methods. Kodoku involved placing a colony of venomous creatures in some kind of container and waiting until they killed each other and only one was left. The surviving specimen would be used to poison the target. Inugami involved burying a dog alive up to its neck and placing a bowl of food just out of reach. Just before the dog would starve to death, it would be brought out of the ground, only to be decapitated as it reached for the food. The spirit of the dead dog would be used to kill the target. There were several variations to all of these methods, and some of what I knew about them could have been fiction. Still, I felt like these were all examples of dangerous curses.
I explained all this very loosely...and watched Rosenberg’s face grow ever more grave. “Are these curses I shouldn’t know about?” I asked.
“No, knowledge of them alone is not a problem. Those kinds of curses were not uncommon long ago, and through studying hexes intensively, one is expected to hear of them at some point. However, those curses—ones that are cast with sacrifice, torture, or killing of living beings—are now considered forbidden. Never use them,” Rosenberg warned, and explained why they became forbidden. Sacrifices were basically substitutes for magic crystals. Magical energy coursed through the veins of every living being, so these ritual killings were done for a warlock to boost their own magical energy with that of the sacrifice. Torture was inflicted upon the sacrifice in order to convert their magical energy. Just like using a magic crystal that matched the element of the spell it was meant to power, torturing the sacrifice until it was filled with negative emotion made their magical energy better suited for hexes.
“Now the story of the merchant’s son isn’t too surprising,” I said.
“Warlocks had often lost control of curses cast this way, which is why they are forbidden now. Still, there are those who succumb to the temptation of great power, and some warlocks harm themselves physically or emotionally to heighten their negative emotions and power as part of their practice,” Rosenberg said.
Casting a sacrificial curse left a lot of evidence behind in the form of records of acquiring the sacrifice, and in the aftermath of the ritual itself. Warlock or no, casting one against another person was a crime that could lead to an arrest. However, no law forbade warlocks from harming themselves. By gradually accelerating those self-mutilations, it wasn’t difficult for them to accept it as part of their training. Furthermore, it was difficult to tell if a warlock’s trauma—physical or emotional—was self-inflicted. These reasons were why self-harm was very much discouraged among warlocks, but not outright forbidden.
“Self-harm isn’t good, of course, but it’s also impossible to live a life without ever experiencing hardships... Regardless, attempting to amplify one’s negative emotions through pain is a dangerous affair. If you ever meet a warlock who invites you to partake in such methods, I hope you never take them up on it,” Rosenberg said.
“I won’t. What does a normal warlock’s training look like?” I asked.
“Meditation and introspection, mostly. For example, when I feel a negative emotion like anger, I face it. What am I angry about? Why am I angry about that? What can I do about it? And so forth.”
It was like therapy—or more accurately—self-care. Maybe because of his particular example, which reminded me of an anger management seminar I’d been forced to attend when I was an office worker. “I’m not sure if it’s the exact same thing, but I remember being forced to do something like that. I’m also familiar with meditation in the context of martial arts.”
“I see. Regulating emotions and taking care of our mentality is a skill everyone needs, after all. Some warlocks offer courses for nonwarlocks as well. Perhaps you have been trained in hexes, Ryoma, without even realizing it,” Rosenberg said, apparently happy with that explanation.
It surprised me to learn that some warlocks specialized in counseling and self-care. I supposed it made sense to have a wealth of knowledge about healing emotional scars when many warlocks suffered them as a by-product of their craft of handling negative emotions.
“Which brings us back to your training,” Rosenberg said. “Now you have learned the curse to be used after cleansing cursed energy. Luckily, I did prepare for you to practice curse breaking.” He gestured behind me.
I turned and spotted Sebas at some distance, standing by a table and set of chairs, producing box after box from his Space magic. There were far more boxes today than there were yesterday, all varying in sizes.
When I took my seat at the table, Rosenberg lifted the lid off the largest box, showing how it was packed full of smaller boxes. “Each of these boxes contains a cursed object,” he said.
“In all of them? There have to be at least fifty of them right there,” I said.