“You have…a rare skill,” Tia rasped.
She’d noticed me using “Miasma Vision.”
“You saw it…until he…gives up…”
They were planning to keep removing this curse, huh? I put a finger to her lips.
“I understand. Let me help.”
Between the girls on Paradise Island and Hayato, I’d gotten pretty good at handling curses.
I showed her the glove with the Holy Circuit embroidered on the back. There was mithril thread soaked in blue sewn into it, and it should look pretty powerful.
“Blue light…a sacred treasure?”
Nothing that fancy.
“Relax.”
Not answering her question, I began peeling away the curse afflicting her.
I had the “Remove Curse” skill, so it came right off. I also had “Reverse Curse,” so I sent this all back to the caster. Cursing people really was digging your own grave. Arisa would probably pull that old line about only cursing people if you’re prepared to get cursed right back.
Tia’s breathing evened out a bit.
“I feel better—that treasure is something else.”
She was speaking normally now. She turned onto her side, reaching for the water, so I helped her up and held the glass to her lips.
Just a bit more—hngg?
It was so thin, I’d almost overlooked it, but there was a line of a curse running down her back.
“Pardon me—,” I said, getting onto the bed and adjusting my grip on her.
“Huh? What?”
I ignored her blush, inspecting the line of the curse on her back.
Holding her like this gave me a clear view.
That’s the one.
I made scissors with my fingers and snipped that curse line.
“Wow, my whole body feels light!”
The instant I snipped that line, the miasma ravaging her was banished by my spirit light.
“Okay, then— …… Divine Destroy Curse Shin’i Juso Juurin.”
Still in my arms, Tia started chanting, and eliminated the rest of the curse.
She was the Great Sorceress—that was one heckuva spell.
“Crap—Roro!”
She’d spotted some of the remnants shooting toward Roro.
Not on my watch.
I grabbed the remnants by the tail (if that’s the word) and yanked them back, rolling them up in my hands like a dumpling, then extinguishing them with a “Sacredblade” on my palm.
Trying to curse Roro, what a dickwad.
“That…was absurd,” Tia said, laughing.
“All thanks to this glove!”
I felt like she knew better, but I stuck to that story.
“Lady Tia!”
The head apprentice came in through the lace. Roro with her.
“Lady Tia?”
“S-Satou?!”
Mm?
They were both acting odd.
Like Tia and I had planned it, we both followed their gaze—and realized our positions.
Since I’d used both hands to ball up the curse headed Roro’s way, that had left Tia completely trapped between my arms.
“Er, he wasn’t—,” Tia spluttered.
Getting into bed with her looked bad, but I’d just been healing her, so no need to fuss about it. Spluttering just made it look like we had something to hide.
But it was awfully cute how Roro puffed out her cheeks.
“Lady Tia, the curse?”
“Banished. Between your efforts and Satou’s, we got rid of it. Thank you,” she said, looking grave and bowing her head to me and her apprentice.
“Rimi, bring the crow cage. I want to prep a familiar.”
Her head apprentice scrambled off through the curtains.
“You mean—?”
“Yes.” She nodded, pulling a Hero’s Rest nutritional supplement out of her Item Box and knocking it back. “This ain’t over yet.”
With that, miasma—no, curse tentacles—sprouted at her feet, reaching for both Tia and Roro.
Blue light flashing on my glove, I got rid of them all.
“Satou?” Roro gasped. She couldn’t see curses or miasma, so my actions must have looked rather bizarre.
“Well done. Keep that up a bit longer, please.”
She followed the supplement with a Magic Recovery potion.
“I brought the crows!” her apprentice came back with a huge cage. The crows inside were no ordinary birds—those were monsters. Five of them.
“Help with the familiar ritual.”
“As the Great Sorceress commands.”
At the end of a long chant, they cast Engage Familiar, and the crows were now contracted to Tia.
“I’m afraid I’ve got a tough job for you. Feel free to resent me for it.”
KWZAAA!
They all spread their wings, cawing triumphantly, as if insisting they could handle it.
Tia put on a Crown of Thorns just like Roro’s and cast an enchantment on it that upped her curse resistance.
“Satou, that should be enough.”
I stopped banishing curses, and the much feebler tentacles hesitated a moment, then went after the familiars.
KWZAAA!
They tried to bind one of the crows, but each time it cawed, the tentacles were forced away—and another one pecked at it, dispersing it.
I made to help, but they seemed quite proud and cawed at me for it.
“Their species resists curses innately. I doubt they’ll buy us all that much time, but while they are, we can come up with a plan.”
She said if we moved too far from the crows, they couldn’t fight the curse, so we had our briefing in her bedroom. Roro wasn’t the culprit’s target—only Tia—so she was free to roam a bit farther.
Rimi included, her apprentices had been casting that ritual without rest or sleep, so she ordered them all to take a nap.
“Tia, can I call my party in?”
I’d relayed updates via Tactical Talk, but they were likely on the edge of their seats.
“Yes, go ahead.”
“Thank you. Roro, would you mind calling them?”
“Sure thing!”
While she was out of the room, I asked the question she couldn’t hear.
“Tia, why is this curse going after her?”
“Must I say that?”
“Please do.”
To keep Roro safe.
“She’s…my descendent.”
“Descendant…not great-granddaughter or niece?”
Tia smiled, nodding.
She was well over three hundred—a staggering figure for humanfolk—so this wasn’t out of the question. Rama—master of the Tower of Wisdom—had been a similar age.
“I’m not sure how many generations, but I can tell we’re blood. She’s the only relative I have left.”
Just Roro? Was Lulu—? But then I realized their link was Watari, who’d been Hero before the Hero before this age’s Hero. The woman he’d hooked up with in the fortress city had likely been Tia’s descendant.
Beside the point.
“And it’s going after your family?”
One of those cross-generational curses? Until your last living heir?
“That’s some grudge…”
“That’s not why. There’s an artifact only my blood can inherit. Pretty sure that’s what they’re after here.”
“Any risk of them targeting it directly?”
“None. As long as me or my family exist, no one can touch it.”
That seemed slightly too good to be true.
“Where’s Fen got to?”
“He’s underground. Guarding the…key location that supports the city.”
She was obfuscating her words a bit.
Fenrir must be in the black space beneath the tower. That likely housed either a City Core or a False Core like the Ivy Manor had.
Or perhaps what Fen guarded was the very treasure Tia was talking about.
“Does he need any help?”
“There’s no shortage of magic there, so Fen’s got it covered. It’s close to the vein, so anyone other than Fen might get hit with curse waves.”
Aha, so there were good reasons to send him in.
Mm?
“If you’re close to the veins, you’ll wind up cursed?”
“In this case, yes—since the curse is being transmitted through them.”
“Through the underground veins? Is that possible?”
If that was true, I could be in trouble—I was controlling a lot of magic sources and City Cores.
Then again, if someone tried to curse me, I could just send it back to them.
“Not ordinarily. I think the dungeonmaster is helping this culprit.”
Come to think of it, they’d jammed this city into the Jungle Labyrinth, so if the dungeonmaster wanted to take control of the city, then they might well try and force the issue.