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Several hours had passed since the disaster with the cursed man. Once I’d brought everyone affected by the incident, now curse-free, to the church and left them in the healers’ care, I headed out of town, discussing the situation with the goddesses all the while. I returned to my home, which I’d left protected by a barrier, and there I practiced my spellcraft, making sure to take intermittent breaks.
The most efficient way to understand curses was to actually create them myself, Cult had informed me, so I spent the entire afternoon practicing them. But nearing the end of my practice session, I could hear panicked cries from outside the barrier.
The voices sounded like men, and they seemed to be calling for me. While the barrier physically blocked intruders from entering, it allowed free passage of sound. Even if I could, I had no intention of making the barrier soundproof—it’d be a problem if someone came looking for me and I couldn’t hear them.
Setting aside my training for the moment, I hurried toward the voices. I threaded through the trees until I reached the edge of the barrier, where I saw several knights. They shouted when they saw me.
“Master Hisui! Please, help us! His lord the marquis and Lady Rose are both in terrible danger!” They were awfully panicked—something very serious must’ve happened.
“Calm down, everyone! What happened?”
“A curse! The marquis and his daughter have been cursed!”
“What?!”
Come to think of it, Rose had mentioned she would be going shopping with Armeria and Cosmos today, with Claus and the guards as her retinue. They must’ve gotten cursed when they went out.
As far as I could tell, they hadn’t been anywhere near the eastern quarter, where I’d been. That area of town was a residential district anyway; they would have gone to the west or south quarters to go shopping. That meant a carrier of the curse, or someone who had barely escaped the rampaging man in the east quarter, had come into contact with Rose and the others.
Rose was kind, so if she encountered someone injured, she wouldn’t have abandoned them to their fate. I could actually see both Rose and Claus ending up cursed that way.
“How are they doing?” I asked.
“They seem to be groaning in pain, but their lives don’t seem to be in any danger. Still... While Lord Lycoris may be able to endure the pain, Lady Rose is only a child...” The knight trailed off, his concern clear in his voice.
“Things might take a turn for the worse, then, if we don’t do something about it.”
“That’s right. The marquis ordered us to find you immediately, then fell unconscious directly afterward. Please, return to the manor with us!”
“All right. I’m not entirely certain I can cure both at the same time with the amount of energy I have remaining, but I’ll give it a shot.”
“Thank you so much!” The knights all deeply bowed at once. Seeing them bend low in earnest supplication made Claus’s natural nobility and charisma hit home—his men were all desperately trying to seek help for him.
Leaving the barrier, I ran at the forefront of the knights. As we traveled back to town, I took the opportunity to ask about Armeria and Cosmos. “By the way, are my sisters okay?”
“If you mean Miss Armeria and Miss Cosmos, then they’re unharmed thanks to Lord Lycoris’s timely intervention. He let us know the curse was transmissible beforehand.”
“That’s good...” I sighed. That was a silver lining in all this mess. I was relieved that neither of my sisters were suffering. It was reassuring to think that no one else would get cursed now—
Wait a minute.
“Um, how did Claus and Rose manage to get back to the estate?” As the knights had been telling me what happened, I did think that detail was strange. If Claus and Rose had collapsed from the curse, then someone had to have carried them back to the manor. Wouldn’t the curse have spread to anyone who helped them?
There’s always some truth behind a bad premonition, and my suspicions were validated when a knight answered, frowning in displeasure. “Several knights were cursed as well, but they managed to bring Lord Lycoris and Lady Rose back to the manor despite their ailment.”
“They’re a shining example of knighthood,” I said.
“Indeed. I’m quite proud of my men.” Judging by that comment, I realized I must have been speaking to the captain of the knights. Now that I looked more closely, I was pretty sure I’d seen him during the dragon-slaying incident. He looked pretty strong, so it was easy to remember him.
“I’ll help the knights who worked so hard to save Lord Lycoris too. I can’t abandon them either.”
“Really?! But I thought you said you were lacking godcraft energy...”
“I have an idea. Don’t worry,” I said, glancing to my side. There, about twenty meters away, was Fouré watching over me. Seeing my look, she must’ve realized my intention, because she flipped me a thumbs-up. Leave it to me, she seemed to be saying.
“Thank you so much, Master Hisui! Thank you!”
The knight I presumed to be the commander was holding back tears as he ran. His palpable relief was entirely understandable. I decided not to talk to him, since that would be terribly tactless, and instead I just smiled quietly as we ran onward.
We ran through the streets all the way to the Lycoris estate without resting even once. Though the city gates should have been long closed by now, they were reopened on the knights’ authority to allow us passage—they must have done the same thing when they’d headed out to find me in the first place. We passed into town through the south gates with far less trouble than I expected, then hurried through the crowd.
Shouting for people to make way, the knights easily parted the onlookers, and we arrived at the mansion in record time. I dashed to Claus’s room on the first floor and entered in such a rush that I forgot to knock.
“Lord Lycoris!” I shouted. Stepping into the room, I saw Claus lying on his bed, his eyes closed.
“That black mist coming from his body...it must be the curse.”
Just as the knights had informed me, Claus had indeed been cursed. The spellcraft energy coalescing on him wasn’t as concentrated as it had been on the rampaging man from earlier—in fact, it was closer to the density I’d observed on the man’s victims. The curse should weaken just from contact with godcraft energies, which would make breaking it a simple affair.
“I’m going to begin breaking the curse now. Don’t touch Lord Lycoris under any circumstances.”
“As you say!” acknowledged the knight captain, who then turned to his men. “You knights there! Keep watch outside the room.”
“Understood, sir!”
Following my instructions, the knights scrambled to follow their orders without disturbing Claus. Now, only the captain and two of his knights remained in the room—everyone else besides the guards posted outside Claus’s chambers had been directed to Rose’s room. With the three knights watching, I approached Claus and touched his arm.
“Fouré, I’m counting on you,” I whispered. As I spoke, I released all of the remaining godcraft energy that’d been flowing through my body. A bright golden light illuminated the room like a flash.
“Ngh! Aaagh!” Struck by my power, the curse sent pain coursing through Claus, its host, to warn of danger. Though Claus remained unconscious, he began to thrash about on his bed. The knights behind us began to panic.
“M-Master Hisui! Is his lordship all right?”
“Don’t worry. When curses are being broken, they cause pain to the host’s body. Once the curse is gone, the pain should stop.”
“Are you absolutely certain?”
“Yes. While it’s painful now, there shouldn’t be any residual effects...” I trailed off, before muttering a quiet “I think.”
“Master Hisui!” None of the people for whom I’d broken the curse had suffered any apparent side effects afterward, so things would probably be fine. But even though I was pretty certain, I couldn’t bring myself to say it was one hundred percent a fact. Unfortunately, that only seemed to fan the flames of the knights’ anxiety.
Since no further discussion was necessary, I decided to focus on the task at hand and silently continued channeling godcraft energy into Claus. After five minutes of this, Claus’s complexion finally returned to normal; his face was no longer the ashen gray of a dying man.
The light’s intensity slowly faded until it had finally disappeared entirely. The knights opened their eyes to see Claus’s peaceful face, and one of them spoke, voice trembling.
“Oh! Lord Lycoris looks much better!”
“The curse has been lifted. Lord Lycoris should awaken soon, so until then, please guard him. The barrier is still active outside, but we don’t know what the criminal who cast the curse in the first place might do.”
“We’ll do as you say! Thank you, Master Hisui!” All three knights bowed to me in turn. They were so thankful, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they got to their knees and grovelled. Their loyalty to Claus was incredible.
“Not at all. Anyway, I’m going to help Rose now. Should anyone other than me come here, to Lord Lycoris’s chambers, be sure to turn them away.”
“We’ll do so.”
Bidding farewell to the knights who were carrying out my orders, I left and headed to Rose’s room.