The next day was the last day that we’d scheduled for the initial inspection of the testing ground, which was also the day for me to try maxing out a curse. Sebas had made it back to the cottage in the morning, so we had breakfast and went out together to the upper half of the grounds.
Once we arrived, I handed out the wish bracelets I’d asked Eleonora to make last night. She’d made a whole bunch already, so I was putting them to good use. “These are imbued with a spell that protects you from cursed energy. One should be sufficient, but if you put one on each wrist, you’ll have a backup.”
The bracelets were all-white—the color of undyed fiber slime strands—which made them look like miniature ropes. I’d also made white clasps in the shape of a lighting bolt, making these bracelets like a wearable shimenawa—a rope that designates the boundary of a Shinto shrine.
While we excitedly discussed the bracelets, I summoned the curse slime from the Dimension Home and wrapped it around my neck. With bracelets around my wrists and the rake I made last night in my hand, I asked everyone to give me five meters’ berth and encircle me. They looked ready.
“Here we go!” I announced. After a deep breath, I began drawing out the cursed energy. As soon as I gently imbued the rake with my magical energy and dragged it across the ground, cursed energy spewed out like I’d broken a fire hydrant—nothing like the black mist of cursed energy we saw the other day. The sheer amount and density of it froze me for a second, but I couldn’t afford not to keep moving. While I vacuumed up the burst of cursed energy with the magic gem, I was already pulling the rake to pull out the next geyser. As I continued raking and vacuuming, the outpouring of cursed energy began to outpace the magic gem’s intake, leaving excess cursed energy to fill the air around me. That much was expected, so I kept calm and continued my work.
Cursed energy was like poison—something that damaged living beings. I thought of the saying “Birds of a feather flock together.” In other words, like called to like. As I imagined tendrils of cursed energy calling others, I began to see a drastic change in the cursed energy around me. Instead of dissipating and drifting away, the excess cursed energy in the air gradually began to condense itself around me. From this point, I just had to amp up the power of my spell...which didn’t take much imagination.
“Hey, finish this task too—by tomorrow morning. It better be done by the first thing tomorrow when I check it!”
I’d gotten the hang of it during my venting session with Eleonora. The wellspring of the negative emotions warlocks had to leverage in their hexes was memories—past experiences and emotions associated with them.
My wellspring was the life I lived on Earth. Once I primed my mind with one memory, a flood of memories and negative emotions rushed up. Emotions like heavy, viscous oil bubbled furiously in my heart, like they always had. Until now, I’d tightly bottled up those emotions like it was second nature. That’s what adults did. Now, I just had to uncap the bottle and let the emotions boil over.
“Hey! If you’re going to turn in work, you better make sure it’s perfect the first time! Stupid mistakes like this show me you don’t take this job seriously! Fix it, and fix it now! If you have a problem with that, quit! I can replace you by Monday!”
“Our team lead’s throwing a tantrum at Ryoma again. The font size was half a point too small? That’s not even a mistake, especially when he never specified a font size to begin with.”
“Shut up if you don’t want to be up there with Ryoma.”
“Sorry. Ryoma was helping me with my work yesterday.”
“Wait, Ryoma was helping you with your task? He was helping with mine.”
“He’s fine. He always helps us out. He’s got the stamina for it.”
“Right. Ryoma will be fine.”
In this particular memory, my coworkers were having this out-of-touch conversation like the team lead berating me didn’t concern them in the slightest. Even though the font size thing was just an excuse for him to yell at me and not a mistake I’d made because of my added workload, their attitude while they watched me getting grief still rubbed me the wrong way. Come to think of it, they even berated me for missing tasks outside of my job description—like sales and customer service. Whenever I refused, they’d talk behind my back that I had handled it before and it would just be easier if I did it. When I heard them complaining about me in the break room like that, I felt so awkward. As much as I wanted to help them, I couldn’t take on every task like I was taking on a simple chore. It was even more frustrating that they didn’t seem to understand that.
Primed with that memory, another one bubbled up from the wellspring.
“I’m disappointed, Ryoma. I understand projects change hands, but you need to train your replacement properly. The new person from your office was crying that you wouldn’t tell him anything. I felt horrible for him, answering every question with ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I will find out and let you know.’ Frankly, we’re frustrated that we wasted time holding a meeting. I didn’t think you were the kind of person to be so petty as to not train your replacement.”
That one had been a phone call from a business partner, blaming me for the incompetence of someone else. Then, another memory came.
“Crap! I just broke the window of our classroom... Oh, well. Let’s say Ryoma did this. No one will think twice about it.”
“Sounds good to me. Why do the teachers hate him, anyway? The PE coach crashes out every time he sees him. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Probably because he’s doing something shady all the time. He puts on a good front in school, but he has to be causing trouble. Why would there be so many rumors about him if he wasn’t?”
“Huh... Whatever. I don’t really care what happens to him. It’s his fault he’s got a bad reputation. The least he can do is help us out.”
That was the time they blamed me for no reason in school.
“Can’t you do something about Ryoma, that new hire? He’s just a part-timer and he’s doing too much. It makes it look like we’re slacking off or something.”
“I get what you’re saying, and I agree...but he is a hard worker, and the manager likes him for some reason.”
“He’s creating a hostile work environment. He already has. I’m not the only one saying this either. Everyone says he’s annoying. As the trainer, you need to crack down on that.”
“Well... He’s kind of scary. Yeah, it sucks, but am I really going to tell him to not work as hard as he can? If he snaps and starts throwing punches, I can’t beat him. You know he brings out like five times as much product as anyone else when we roll them out.”
“Stop being a wuss. He’s just a high schooler! Fine... We’ll teach him a lesson ourselves.”
“W-Wait, what are you going to do?”
“We’re all going to sit him down and talk, that’s all. We’re going to tell him how disruptive he’s being. We’ve been getting yelled at more because of him. So what if we’re a little more...assertive?”
“Well, I guess it’s fine. I really don’t like him, so I won’t get in your way, but don’t get in trouble. If our location gets hit with a scandal, it’s going to hurt all of us.”
“Of course. We’re just going to drill some rules of the real world into an ignorant child. How dare he waltz in and brown-nose the manager a little and get recruited for a full-time position when we worked so hard to get the same full-time positions in this economy. How can we let that slide?”
That was when I’d overheard my coworkers discussing a sinister plot in the break room.
“Why? Do you really have to ask?”
“We’re going to need you to come down to the station with us?”
“We made eye contact! He was staring at me! Get on your knees and apologize right now!”
“Why are you even here?”
“Don’t you want to carry your weight once in a while?”
“What, you think you’re my teacher or something? Get real, dude. Of course, you might be too old to change your ways.”
“Ew... Just die already.”
“You know what you are? A rotten apple. The dirt under society’s boot. Remember that for the rest of your life. Through school, work, always.”
“Did you just complain? That’s why you’re useless. You always blame someone else for your problems.”
“Drop the attitude. We’re doing this for you.”
“No one wants you around.”
“The fact that you don’t get it tells me you’re really that bad.”
“Burning to death is supposed to be the most painful way to go. That’s how I hope you die.”
“It’s not the task you work on? You mean it was your fault for not taking initiative and stepping in to help!”
“Why can’t you just do it all yourself? Stop complaining and learn how to work in a team.”
“Teacher! I can’t be around Ryoma!”
“You’re an adult. Take responsibility for your actions.”
“That’s serial killer mentality.”
“Even if everyone else gets away with it, you never will.”
“It’s all your fault.”