By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 14 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8, Episode 25: A Master Class in Curses, and the Departure

It was darker outside the tower than when we had gone in. Nightfall was still hours away, but thick clouds had rolled in, warning us of imminent rain through their scent and moisture in the air. We returned to the building we’d spent the previous night in to discuss our game plan.

It didn’t take long for us to agree on spending another night before returning to civilization the next morning. The weather was one factor, but we’d spent more time than expected in the Starving Gallows. Besides, my curse—if I was still cursed—wasn’t presenting any symptoms. After a series of battles, we decided to get some good rest for the next day. If the rain happened to let up, I was told, there was a way to get back sooner.

Of course, there was nothing to do with the sudden free time I found myself with; it was too early to cook dinner. White the rest of us were chatting away, Sebas poured tea for us, turning our casual discussion into a leisurely afternoon tea.

Before long, rain began drumming the ground in a steady crescendo until it was a formidable downpour.

Good thing I returned the goblins and slimes back to the Dimension Home. 

“How do you feel, Ryoma?” Reinbach asked.

“Let me see... I don’t feel like there’s anything wrong, but I’m recovering magical energy very quickly. I’d spent a lot of it in the tower, but I can feel that I’ve already recovered about ninety percent of it.”

“That could be because this place is rich in magical energy,” Remily pointed out. “When you recover magical energy, you’re taking it in from nature, through breathing and eating. In places that pool more magical energy, you recover more of it. Cursed energy can get in the way of that, but it’s normal if you’re recovering faster now. Even though a larger pool of magical energy poses its own dangers like more Undead and stronger monsters, a lot of mages use these places to train or experiment.”

The faster they could replenish their depleted magical energy, the faster they could get back to training.

Maybe I should set up a base somewhere where I could come and train magic... Well, I’ll be in the Sea of Trees of Syrus soon enough. If it looks like I can pull it off, I’ll build one there. 

“If we can attribute my faster recovery to our location, I should be fine. That’s pretty much the only difference I’ve noticed in myself,” I said.

“Years ago, when I’d been injured on a mission, I had someone put a curse on me that numbed my sense of pain. Curses are generally harmful to their targets, but there are situations where they can provide a benefit. Maybe this is one of them,” said Sever.

“It’s possible,” Remily conceded. “But I haven’t heard of any curse that helps recover your magical energy.”

“If all curses are harmful, and this curse recovers magical energy, would it mean that replenishing magical energy could be harmful? Overmagick comes to mind. Do you think that could be what the curse is going for?” If that was the case, spending bursts of magical energy could confirm it.

“I wouldn’t,” Remily warned. “That could be a possibility, but there’s no need to risk making your condition worse just to rule it out. As long as you feel fine, the safest option is to save your magical energy and to rest well.”

Reinbach grunted his agreement. “It would be best for you to sit back until we can get you to a specialist. We can handle the night watch on our own.”

Just as I was about to accept their kind offer, it struck me. The horrible consequence of this curse...

“Master Ryoma? Are you feeling all right?”

“I just realized... If I am to reserve my magical energy, then I can’t...”

“Train or experiment with magic?” Sever finished for me. “You probably shouldn’t.”

“You tend to get carried away,” Reinbach added.

“I was afraid of that...” I admitted. It certainly was a curse if I couldn’t use any magic when I had free time in a location that helped me recover faster!

“So that’s your concern. I can imagine your pain, seeing how you enjoy the process of training in magic itself,” said Reinbach.

“When the Young Miss asked you for advice, I remember how you suggested she play with magic,” Sebas recalled.

“Who knew being too studious could be a problem?” Sever asked. “These past few days, you’ve been toying with spells nonstop.”

A dash of exasperation crossed the smiles of the men. Yes, I’d tried out a bunch of things, but that only gave me a longer list of things I had to try out and discover.

When I said as much, Remily began chuckling. “You don’t have to be so uptight about it. Spending some magical energy won’t hurt. Just not enough to wear you out. Abstaining from things you enjoy can be harmful too. Stress fuels curses. Not to mention that it’s not healthy,” Remily said.

“Really?! Oh, what a relief.”

“Really. Just to be safe, though, only practice your magic while I’m watching. Like Reinbach said, you tend to have tunnel vision,” Remily said.

“Well...” I had nothing.

“Having something you can be so passionate about is beneficial to both your mind and soul. Oh, and I did promise to teach you anti-curse magic. Let’s get started after tea.”

“Thank you, Miss Remily! After today, I feel like I need to be prepared to deal with curses.”

“You do? I’ll teach you Despell, which is a Light spell, and Curse Block, which is a Dark spell.”

“That would be great.”

After finishing our tea and small talk, we moved to a corner of the building that now served as our camp to begin practicing.

“First, I’ll have you experience a tangible curse.” Remily picked up a stone and incanted, “Illness.” A hint of dark and sinister magical energy seemed to be enveloping the stone. “Hold it in your hand,” she commanded. “You can toss it if you feel uncomfortable.”

I obliged, and instantly felt feverish. As soon as I let go of the stone, I felt myself cool back down.

“There are several categories of curses. The one I hexed that rock with was a curse of ailment. When you’re cursed with it, or hold an item cursed with it, you experience symptoms as if you were sick. The severity of the symptoms all depend on the imagination and skill of its caster.”

“Got it. It seems more intuitive now that I’ve experienced it,” I admitted.

“For your first time, I made sure to cast a curse minor enough and easy to grasp. Now that you’ve felt what it’s like, let’s practice Despell.”

She went on to describe Despell, which used Light magical energy to envelop and soak the target, canceling out the Dark magical energy that powered the curse. It was important to keep in mind that the magical energy used for this curse had properties closer to cursed energy, even though it came from natural and internal magical energy. That distinction allowed for the effective removal of the magical energy used in the curse. With enough skill, Remily explained, this spell could remove a curse from a Dark magic crystal while leaving the energy of the crystal itself intact.

Despell proved to be somewhat more difficult than other spells I’d learned; I was only able to cast it successfully on the ninth try. Just barely, as I focused on the stone Remily had cursed, I felt the same sensation of Despell I’d felt when Remily cast it on me in the Starving Gallows.

“For the record, casting any semblance of it on your ninth try is a great start. With practice, it’ll become more effective. You of all people won’t slack off just because you’re not being supervised... Now that you can cast it, at least, let’s move on to Curse Block,” Remily said, and began to teach me the Dark magic that would protect me from curses.

This one involved coating myself with a layer of Dark magical energy that would protect me from curses. I cast it without an incantation, and it worked on the first try. By my third, I was really getting the hang of it. Like I was remembering, rather than learning anew. Personally, it felt much easier to learn Curse Block than Despell. So easy, in fact, that I grew nervous if I was doing it right. So, I asked Remily to test the strength of my Curse Block with her own curse.

“Yep, you’ve learned Curse Block, now. I’m sure it helped that you were used to casting without incantations, but I also think you have a better inclination for Dark magical energy than Light. Otherwise, I doubt you could have done it on your first try... I bet you still have plenty of magical energy left too. Do you want to try the curses themselves?” Remily asked.

“Yes, please.”

In order to deal with a problem, I’d have to learn more about the problem. Going through that cursing in the beginning already felt beneficial, so I was sure that being able to cast curses myself was only going to help these spells click with me.

“Let’s try the Illness curse I showed you. Hopefully, you’ll never have to use it, but this one can cause different symptoms depending on what you imagine during casting, and it can be used in combat or to capture an enemy.”

“You need to start by deciding what symptoms you want to manifest,” Remily’s explanation began. “Once you do, focus on what that symptom looks like on a person. For an ailment curse, the first step might be to model a symptom after a real illness, like a fever or lethargy. Up to this point, the process is similar to other spells. The next step, though, separates curses from other Dark spells—and it’s the most important part. When converting your internal magical energy to Dark magical energy, you need to imbue it with negative emotions.”

“Negative emotions were the cause of Undead monsters too,” I noted. “Are curses and Undead rooted in the same process?”

“Exactly. Occasionally, when someone passes away, their keepsakes, or house, or even someone who the dead had a grudge against can end up being cursed. With the right conditions, even someone who has never been trained in spellcasting could trigger a curse. In a way, curses are the easiest form of magic. To go on a little tangent, curses far predate the elemental magic that makes up the bulk of the spells we use today. They have been around since the dawn of human history. They are the oldest form of magic, born out of the intelligence and emotions that separate us from other living beings.”

“The oldest form of magic... I’m interested in history like that as well.”

“In that case, you should buy a book on the subject. The general history of magic is outlined in The Overview of Magical History published by the Magic Guild each year. There should be other books that focus on different time periods too. At that point, you’ll be in the domain of magical historians. Given how closed off the Magic Guild is, many of those books are off-limits to nonmembers, but I’m sure you can get your hands on them through the duke.”

That’s a brilliant idea. If I’m offered a reward for the grave slimes, I’ll ask him for books on magic. 

“Let’s get back on track,” Remily said. “The only unique part of casting basic curses is that aforementioned conversion of magical energy. Once you have decided on a symptom and properly convert magical energy, you can imagine the curse coating the target like Curse Block, or seeping into them like Despell, whichever you can imagine more easily... But before you try casting it, I need to go over a few things.” Her smile made way for a stern look.

Clearly, casting curses came with its own dangers. But that was true of any spell, and even any tool or technology. It was only dangerous if used incorrectly. To heed all the dangers Remily had to warn me about, I focused on her next words.

“If I’m being honest, I’ll know you’ll learn curses very quickly, Ryoma. As long as you don’t use them for evil, you can practice them, fight with them, and even experiment with them, save for a few curses that are illegal to use at all. Learning them will never be a waste. But do not get carried away with practicing curses! Because the process demands negative emotions from its caster, it can become overwhelming.”

Even to practice magic, I imagined it would be exhausting to keep dredging up specific memories of anger or disgruntlement. It didn’t seem like an appealing process in itself.

“It should go without saying that you should never push yourself to your limit, but even when you feel fine, give yourself plenty of breaks. During those breaks, do something that makes you happy. Many adult warlocks become overcome by negative emotions. If you were a normal child, I would have just taught you Curse Block. I’m only teaching you curses because I know you’re special. Not because you’re a child of the gods, but because I’ve seen that you are far more mature than a normal child your age.”

When she put it that way, I agreed that curses weren’t a suitable subject to teach children how to use. After that, Remily gave me a few examples of famous travesties caused by warlocks, along with more pointers to cast curses correctly and maintain my mental health. Then, I moved on to trying it myself.

“It worked, didn’t it...?” I asked, seeing that the stone we’d been using for practice was clearly emanating a sinister aura. I barely wanted to get near it, let alone touch it. In fact, I was itching to break the curse as soon as possible. While not as visceral as I’d felt during my encounter with the magic gem, it was still quite unpleasant.

“It definitely worked, no doubt about that. What illness did you think about? I doubt the curse would go so far as to kill anyone who touches the stone, but you made something a lot more dangerous than the curse that might be on you now,” Remily explained.

My inspiration for this curse had been a strand of influenza I had caught in my previous life. While I was healthy enough that my symptoms were mild, it had hit me right in the middle of the busy season. In hindsight, my immune system had probably been compromised by the stress from the recent promotion. Just as we were about to finish a project, the client requested a last-minute change of design, which our team lead had accepted without requesting an extension, just so he could get props from the client and upper management. That was when my whole team secretly fantasized about killing the team lead. Or at least, I had. Even a plea for an extension was met with comments like “It really shows how lazy you are if you can’t buckle down and finish the job on time.”

That conversation had been the last straw for our newbie. He called in sick the next day. It was tough being down a man at the eleventh hour, but there was nothing we could do if he was sick. To be honest, I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d faked it. He showed up after lunch, though, his bright-red face covered with a face mask and ice pack on his forehead. He even wore a down jacket over his suit, for crying out loud. There was no disputing how seriously ill he was. I asked him why he’d showed up when he’d already called in sick. Apparently, our team lead had demanded he show up. He went behind my back, when I was supposed to be the newbie’s direct supervisor, and called his personal cell. He ended up shouting and threatening all sorts of consequences if he didn’t show up.

Soon, the team lead returned from his leisurely lunch, only to spot the newbie and try to chew him out. While the team lead and I butted heads about whether the new kid was faking it, his symptoms grew worse. Finally, I instructed the second-youngest team member to take him to the hospital and then have him go home... A few hours later, I was informed that he was sick with influenza. In the short amount of time the newbie had spent in the office, the influenza then spread itself to the rest of the team, myself included.

I thought delaying the project would be inevitable, but the team lead still refused. Not only that, but he blamed me for not managing the team when it was my responsibility. Therefore, missing the deadline as a result of that would be my fault too. It was also my fault, apparently, that he had to call the sick kid to work to cover for my inexperience as a leader. Since I spat in the face of his kindness, he’d said, I had to finish the project by the original deadline by any means necessary...all over the phone, so he could keep himself safe. Then, he hung up. If he had told me that in person, I might actually have killed him.

In the end, I kept working on the project until the rest of the team returned, and we managed to finish on time. When the team lead used that against us, saying, “See! You finished on time. You just have to stop slacking off all the time!” I wanted to kill him all over again. If I had any strength left after finishing that project...I might have become a murderer.

“Come back to us, Ryoma,” Remily said, breaking my reverie.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Long story short, I tried using the pain and anger I felt when I was made to work for five days straight with close to no sleep while I was suffering from symptoms like a high fever, chills, fatigue, joint pain, sore muscles, inflamed sinuses, sore throat, hardness of breathing...”

“That’s dark...” Remily couldn’t find anything else to say to me, it seemed. She simply broke the curse on the rock, calling it a day. I had successfully cast a curse, after all.

Just to be safe, we reassessed my physical condition. She asked me if anything had changed after casting magic and curses, but no symptoms had appeared, as far as I could tell. Without anything else to do, we returned to our small talk... But I could sense that the adults were watching me with even more concern than they usually did.

***

At daybreak the next day, I woke up feeling extra refreshed from going to bed early. Other than that, I didn’t feel any different. No sign of any curse symptoms. Enjoying the beautiful day, sunny and clear, I prepared for the next leg of our journey.

An hour later... I was flying.

“This is just...incredible!” I shouted.

“If you keep talking you’ll bite your tongue!” Reinbach called back from where he flew in front of Sebas, whom I was following.

Just going straight felt like riding a roller coaster, so I believed that I might bite my tongue, but I couldn’t help yelling in excitement. Who wouldn’t, when they were riding a dragon for the first time?!

With nothing left for us in the City of Lost Souls, we decided to make our return via the fastest transportation method available. Like hailing a cab, Reinbach summoned a dragon. 

This dragon—an ignis dragon, covered with bronze scales all over—measured about twenty meters long, with plenty of space to accommodate the five of us with seating and restraints. Still, according to Reinbach, this was a young and smaller one. That, I wasn’t ready to believe. Everything about the dragon was...incredible. So much so that I’d lost some of my vocabulary.

Combined with its enormous size and ability for flight, the dragon came with scales as hard as shields and armor-piercing talons and fangs. Just one would be a devastating threat if I had to fight it. It was considered A rank on a ranking of monsters organized by their danger level. Some dragons, in certain situations, were considered the highest S rank.

When this one roared in my direction shortly after it was summoned, my heart went up my throat. Reinbach soothed the dragon after that, and although I was nervous during takeoff, the dragon was flying steadily now. Because its back was so vast, I felt safe riding in one of the seats on it, feeling its warmth through its scales. I’d daresay that it was more comfortable than an ordinary wagon.

Now that I’d calmed down a bit, I took in the clear view of the horizon. This was my first time flying in this world. Sure, I’d flown on a few airplanes on Earth, but this was completely different. Unlike those flying metal tubes, I felt much safer. Even the wind that ripped past us felt refreshing.

The City of Lost Souls shrank into the distance as we passed over the canyons that looked like a labyrinth from above. Even the rocky mountains looked beautiful from here.

Soon, the dragon began gradually banking to the right. In the direction we had been heading in, I could spot Teresa in the distance. Even though Reinbach’s familiar even wore equipment marked with his crest, a dragon was a dragon. Reinbach seemed careful not to plunge the entire town into panic.

Considering that we were flying over the land we’d spent days traversing in mere minutes, we were going at a great pace. It was a perfect cruising speed to enjoy the view.

And I was going to make the most of flying on a dragon’s back.