Satou here. Trouble always arrives when you least expect it. The day before a report is due, the deadline on your project—perhaps there’s a gremlin lurking behind your computer, waiting for the perfect moment.
“Roro!”
Return brought us to the backyard of the Hero’s Rest, and Lulu burst into the shop, worried sick.
“Wait, Lulu, she’s not here.”
Roro was at the Great Sorceress’s Tower.
We headed there at top speed.
I scoped out my map on the go, and it looked like there was a curse on Tia, and Roro was caught up in that. I had Arisa fire up Tactical Talk and shared that info. Didn’t want to shout it out loud on the go and have anyone else hear the bad news.
“Master, Clairvoyance was canceled out.”
“Same.”
We’d both tried to get a better look with Space Magic, but interference prevented it.
I could probably have forced the issue, but doing so felt like it would break something, and I didn’t want to risk it. Situationally speaking, it was likely a barrier built into the curse on Tia.
“Master,” Liza said, hissing.
The guards on the Great Sorceress’s Tower saw us running in and braced themselves.
“Halt!”
“This is the Tower of the Great Sorceress Arcatia herself!”
Diligent wolf and bearfolk guards stopped us at the gate.
“We’re the light dragon adventurer party, Pendragon! Knights of the Great Sorceress!”
The beast girls aside, we were all in our regular clothes, so I held the adventurer badge and knight’s emblem aloft.
They hadn’t remembered our faces but remembered the parade—intimidated, they waved us on through.
“This way!”
Relying on my map info, we raced to the tower top.
Several people called out to us, but we brushed past them.
“Satou, miasma.”
Mia was right—the miasma levels here were off the charts.
Not bad enough to immediately affect our health, but linger long and you’d definitely get sick.
This was likely caused by the same thing that led to Tia’s curse.
“And magiiiic?”
“It’s splashing at us, sir!”
“Yes, Pochi, I sense massive mana waves, I report.”
“Something huge—I imagine they’re using Ritual Magic. From what master told us, I’m assuming—”
Trying to remove the curse on Tia.
“Roro’s with them, right? Is she okay?” Lulu sounded anxious.
I was worried myself, but I doubted Tia would do her harm.
“She’s not a new host for the curse, right?”
“Absolutely not,” I said immediately. “This is Tia we’re talking about—she’s likely brought Roro here to protect her.”
I wasn’t sure exactly why, though.
“Master,” Liza warned, up at the head of the pack.
The doors before us were open, and the Great Sorceress’s star apprentice, Rimi, came bursting out.
“Wait! We cannot let you go farther.”
She blocked the passage with a Practical Magic spell Wall. Tia and Roro were both behind the doors she’d come out of.
“We received a help request from Tia herself,” I said, borrowing some help from my “Fabrication” skill.
“From Tia?” She almost bought it but shook her head, glaring at me. “Don’t lie to me! She’s in no state to call anyone here now!”
A tough challenge. I brought in “Negotiation” and “Persuasion” to back up “Fabrication.”
“No, not ‘now.’ She sent word the instant the curse took hold.”
With that lie, I held up the Knight of the Great Sorceress emblem.
“Tia—no, the Great Sorceress—put a spell in this emblem for just this eventuality.”
Naturally, she’d done no such thing.
“She called you with that? What for?”
What for? What for…? Right!
“Naturally, to break the curse.”
I had a glove prepared in Storage. I took it out (via my pocket) and put it on.
This was an upgraded version of the glove I’d used when freeing the hero of his curse in Parion Province; there was a magic circle on the back that glowed with the blue light of the holy. While the previous one had just been for show, this time I had actually stitched a Holy Stone circuit into the fabric—it was a legit Magic Item.
I could do the same thing barehanded, but this helped convince people and minimized the time I had to spend on excuses.
Making the glove glow blue, I shot the apprentice my best urgent face.
“On my title as Knight of the Great Sorceress, I demand to be let through.”
We glared at each other a moment longer, then she folded.
“……Fine, but only you! The rest of you sit in that waiting room.”
She waved me along.
“This way. Move quickly—don’t disturb the barrier.”
As I looked closely, the floor outside the door had a barrier employing thorns to ward off evil.
I entered the room, taking care not to shatter any defenses. There was a large canopied bed within, and Roro was seated on a chair to one side, looking concerned.
Whew.
Roro herself appeared unaffected.
The map had told me as much, but seeing it with my own eyes was far more reassuring. Roro was wearing the same kind of robe the Sorceress’s apprentices wore, and had a Crown of Thorns on her head—likely to protect her from the curse and the miasma.
“Master, how’s it looking?” Arisa said, via Tactical Talk.
Once we were in the tower, there was no more interference.
I told them Roro was safe and sound and took in the rest of the room.
A bedroom with western-style furnishings, a ward centered on the bed, a complex web of magic circles on the floor around it—clearly designed to get rid of the curse.
The apprentices were standing in a circle around that, chanting—like we’d expected, a curse-breaking ritual.
“The ritual is underway. When you approach the sorceress, do not step on the circle or tools.”
“I’m clear to approach?”
“Go ahead. This won’t end with a single spell.”
I’d assumed she’d keep me waiting till the ritual ended, but I was waved straight over to Tia’s side.
I guess technically Roro was also inside the magic circle.
“Satou!” she said, spotting me, then clapped her hands over her lips, lowering her voice. “The Gr—! Tia! Tia’s in big trouble.”
She started to call Tia the Great Sorceress and quickly rephrased, so clearly she’d learned who Tia really was.
“I know. I’ve got this.”
I waved her back in her chair and pushed through the lace curtains around the bed.
That’s a lot of miasma.
There were several censer-shaped magic tools on the bed, absorbing the miasma, but it was still every bit as thick as in the heart of the labyrinth.
And the source of it was Tia herself. She was writhing in agony as it poured out of her.
Hoping to reduce the miasma however I could, I stopped suppressing my spirit light, then put my hand on her brow, the stone in the glove giving off that holy glow.
This seemed to help—Tia’s eyes had been screwed up in pain, but now they fluttered open.
“Welcome, my knight,” she managed, forcing a smile. “So you never…told Roro?”
About you being the Great Sorceress?
It was clearly a big secret, and it wasn’t like keeping it did Roro any harm.
“No need to talk. Move your index finger for yes, and your thumb for no,” I said, taking her hand. “Is the culprit the one you mentioned before?”
Her index finger moved. Yes.
“Are they after Roro?”
Her thumb moved. No.
“Any effective countermeasures?”
Both fingers moved—a yes and a no. In other words, they had ideas, but weren’t sure how effective they’d be.
““…… Remove Curse Juso Jokyo.””
As we spoke, the apprentices finished casting the spell.
I had “Miasma Vision” on, and I saw the tenfold to twentyfold layers of curse on her shatter one after another.
Hmm, maybe they wouldn’t need me.
For a moment, I was nonplussed, but a moment later, the miasma flowing out of her restored the curse like a rewound video, and she was once again surrounded by layers of the thing.