By the Grace of the Gods (LN) - Volume 16 - Chapter 15

Chapter 10, Episode 15: Advanced Applications of Cleansing Cursed Energy

The next morning, I brought up Eleonora’s suggestion with the rest of our party over breakfast.

“Miss Eleonora is spot-on when it comes to my instructional plans,” Rosenberg said. “You are very much ahead of schedule, so there won’t be a problem with you spending more time on infrastructure projects. I recommend it, in fact. It would make for a nice change of pace.”

“We’re all going to keep scouting out the mountain anyway. It’ll be easy to mark places that are easier to walk.”

“My only concerns are for you, Ryoma,” Hudom said.

“Right! You’re going to be busy, busy, busy!” Miya chimed in.

They all seemed enthusiastic to help, only hesitating for my sake.

“I’ll be fine,” I reassured them. “We mostly finished measuring the cursed energy yesterday. We’ll do a quick retest before cleansing, but I’ve been told we don’t need to be as thorough as we were yesterday. That was the most physically intensive task, and construction won’t be too arduous with the use of magic.”

I made a mental list of things I wanted to accomplish while we were here: study cursed energy cleansing; learn more about and possibly recreate the lost curse-breaking magic; explore methods of having Korumi interact with people outside of the village. The last two on that list were my bigger priorities, and I’d need to study hexes to accomplish that. Without a solid foundation of hexes, I wouldn’t be able to derive complex applications—even if I could, there could be flaws in my spells that I wouldn’t even catch until they were too late. That was why I’d asked Rosenberg to make the time for me. It might have seemed like I had a lot going on, but it all came back to me studying hexes. I wouldn’t be multitasking, but executing a series of tasks. Since half of the cleansing was done yesterday, I even had some extra time to play with. With Rosenberg recommending it, there was no downside to moving forwards with improving the mountain’s infrastructure. Not only did it make my life easier while I stayed here, if it also made me look better as the duke’s engineer and prevented future annoyances, I’d be killing three or four birds with one stone.

“You’ll all be helping me, and so will my familiars. I’m going to take shortcuts wherever I can,” I said.

“If it looks like Ryoma’s pushing himself too far, we can stop him,” Hudom pointed out to the group. That seemed to quell their concerns, so we moved on to discussing specific plans.

***

After breakfast, we went out to practice more cursed energy cleansing—advanced applications, this time. However, Rosenberg had requested over breakfast that we start with the method I’d devised in the City of Lost Souls.

While I was using my magic, I had the adventurer team stand back. This was because my method utilized smoke—just in case there was something wrong with my spell, and just in case the smoke drifted their way. Then I set up on the flat patch at the bottom of the landslide, read the wind, and began.

Because today’s objective was to cleanse the cursed energy, I initially thought about imagining the smoke as clouds of disinfectant...until I remembered that the root cause of the cursed energy was the abandoned mass-grave and the forsaken souls buried in it. I decided to start with the prayer after all. I’d be performing the same ritual anyway, so I figured I’d pray for their souls before cleansing the land itself.

First, I quietly built the fire and offered prayers for the souls as I put food and magical energy onto the flames. Keeping in mind what I’d learned the day before, I made sure to pay attention to the flow of cursed energy too.

As I repeated the same movement while I watched the state of magical energy, my mind began to clear the same way it used to when I’d run forms in martial arts. The sounds of the mountain and the smell of the smoke disappeared, allowing me to sense the current of cursed energy more clearly.

Even though I’d used this spell several times before, my new perspective allowed me to make a new observation. The smoke was absorbing the cursed energy, just like the wands did yesterday. Then, as the smoke dissipated to the wind, the cursed energy disappeared with it. Once the smoke was scattered, I didn’t feel the unpleasantness of the cursed energy anymore. I couldn’t explain how that worked, but I’d call it a win. With a clearer picture of the cleansing process through the smoke, I kept stoking the flames.

“Let’s stop it here,” Rosenberg said.

“Okay.” I stopped.

“You were concentrating very hard,” my tutor noted.

“Yes... How long has it been?” I asked.

“Almost an hour.”

Indeed, I’d been so focused that time flew by. I was drenched in sweat, and my throat was parched from standing in front of a fire for that long. By the time I’d realized that, though, Sebas had already brought over a canteen and a towel. I was spoiled.

“Let me give you my assessment while you rest,” Rosenberg said. “First of all, your cleansing was effective.”

“Really? That’s great to hear,” I said.

“If it hadn’t been, I would have stopped you much earlier. I have no notes. In fact, did you improve your spell while you were using it today? It seemed to me that it grew more and more effective as time went on.”

When I explained that it was because I’d tried to incorporate yesterday’s lesson, Rosenberg gave a chuckle. “It is impressive that you developed your own spell and elevated it in such a short time...but most of all that you’ve invented this when you had little to no knowledge of hexes. Now I don’t even need to instruct you on advanced applications.”

“You don’t?” I asked.

“No. Manipulating cursed energy to disperse to the point where it is too scattered to recondense, rather than collecting it, returns it to nature. This is the advanced method of cleansing cursed energy with hexes. The possibility had crossed my mind when you first told me about this...but I am still amazed to see you’ve jumped to this application. Just as Miss Kremis said, you have a talent for hexes,” Rosenberg said.

“Thank you. In hindsight, though, this was pretty precarious, wasn’t it?” If I had failed to disperse cursed energy just right, would I have spread it even further?

“Yes. That’s why this is an advanced application, not intended for beginners to attempt. It’s meant only to be practiced under a master’s supervision, and only after thorough practice of manipulating cursed energy with the basic method. So, I was ready to stop you if your spell was showing any adverse effects.” Rosenberg added that he wasn’t too worried after my record in the City of Lost Souls. Apparently, Remily’s word as a former royal sorcerer carried weight even in departments that she wasn’t necessarily an expert in. “Of course, I did not compromise my judgment, even after Miss Kremis’s reassurance. Now that we can skip instruction on advanced applications, I’d like to—”

“Excuse me,” Eleonora cut in. “If the cleansing spell is operating properly, can we have them start on their scouting?”

“Oh, that’s right. Lord Rosenberg?” I asked.

“Yes. Now that the safety of your spell has been verified, that would be more time-efficient.”

So, we had the adventurer team and Hudom head out scouting.

Once we saw them off, we resumed our lesson on hexes.

“Now that we’ve established that you can cleanse cursed energy without issue, let’s learn about curses. They’ll be needed for the next step: processing after cleansing,” Rosenberg said.

“I’m guessing this has something to do with the symbols on the trees,” I said. Those symbols enabled the hex that kept the cursed energy within its confined area to last for so long.

“Exactly. I think you learn better through practice than lecture, so I’ll keep this brief. When casting a curse, it is paramount to keep your target and purpose clear, precise, and limited. You may think that is true for all magic, but when it comes to curses, this is what prevents the spell from going rogue.” Rosenberg followed this up with an anecdote often repeated among warlocks for its many lessons.

Once there was a greedy and cruel noble who didn’t hesitate to abuse his power and the law for personal gain. In the shadows of his riches was the suffering of his people, who begrudged their lord for it. One day, a body was found in that noble’s carriage. The victim had been cursed to death, as investigation uncovered, by a vagrant—the son of a merchant who used to have dealings with the corrupt noble. His parents had their business destroyed and were saddled with debt, leading them to poverty, starvation, and early death. When the noble’s carriage passed him on the street, the merchant’s son instinctively released the years-long grudge in the form of a curse. The fact that he’d killed someone with emotions alone would serve as a cautionary tale, but there was another twist to the story. The body found dead in the carriage did not belong to the corrupt noble.

“It belonged to another merchant who had taken over his father’s position. This new merchant had gotten into the noble’s good graces by means of bribery, and had rented the noble’s carriage on that day when his own broke down,” Rosenberg said.

“The one who unleashed the curse mistook the merchant for the noble?” I asked.

“Indeed. Emotions are a wild stallion. Ride them well, and they can take you to new possibilities. Curses can be more versatile and powerful than other forms of magic. On the other hand, they’re easier to lose control of and can cause more damage when they do. Once the damage is done, it will be too late,” Rosenberg said.

“It reminds me of the damage rumors and false information can cause. There’s a sort of danger that comes from reckless malice: a sort of unpredictability... I can’t really explain it.” As someone who’d lived in a society entangled in the internet and social media, it felt too close to home.

“Oh, that wasn’t very brief, was it?” Rosenberg said. “Once again, you must always make your target and intentions clear when casting a curse. Like the curse of the merchant’s son who killed someone he didn’t intend to, a curse without a clear target and intentions can harm people indiscriminately and even the caster themself.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Very well. A common way to define the target of a curse is to place a marker. In our story, the noble’s crest on the carriage became the marker for the curse,” Rosenberg explained.

“That makes sense. And those marks on the trees were those markers?”

“You can make use of anything that is visually recognizable, whether it be a family crest or a unique geometric design. A marker can also be a specific item or decoration. If the target is human, it could be their name, likeness, or part of their body.”

That last example reminded me of a traditional curse well-known in Japan that involved weaving a strand of the target’s hair into a straw doll and nailing it to a tree. I asked Rosenberg if that sounded like the same concept, claiming I’d read about this type of curse long ago.

“Most likely,” he answered. “It makes sense for the marker to be human-shaped. Understanding how a curse is delivered can make it easier to defend against. Also, hexes are not always malicious, and the same curse can be used for good or evil. A sleeping curse can be used to treat insomnia, just as it can be used to render an enemy unconscious. Please keep that in mind.”

Rosenberg concluded his lecture, and we moved on to practice. First, he requested that I show him a curse I’d used before, bearing his lecture in mind. The only curse I could currently use was the curse of Influenza that Remily had taught me in the City of Lost Souls. Just like I did before, I picked up a pebble and cursed it. And just like that time, it began emitting an eerie aura.

“More powerful than expected, but it is a successful curse,” Rosenberg said. “It looks like you won’t need to practice the basics of casting curses... At this rate, you should be able to cast an effective and long-lasting one that contains cursed energy.” That commenced our practice. “Just as you imagined an illness from your own experience in the curse you just used, this will be easier if you can leverage a negative emotion aligned with the intent of the curse.”

“My target is that pebble, and my intention is to contain cursed energy... To bar, to pack in, to disrupt...” I contemplated a few choices and decided to try an intention of keeping away or staying out. My life as a hermit in the forest felt like that. I recalled how I felt when I was tired of dealing with other people and let it swell in my heart before casting the curse. “Isolation.” It was difficult to see the cursed energy since I’d just cleansed it from this area, but I could faintly see the cursed pebble repelling it. “How did I do?”

“So well that I am running out of things to teach you.”

Another success at first try. Apparently, I really did have a knack for hexes.