Chapter 10, Episode 18: Mountain Path Construction

“Everyone ready? Then let’s get to work! Safety first!” I announced. My goblins snorted enthusiastically in reply.

On the morning of the third day of my testing ground inspection, I deployed the entire roster of goblins in my Dimension Home to the flat stretch of woods on the eastern slope of the mountain where we were planning to work. Armed with metal slimes and iron slimes in the form of axes and saws, the goblins rolled out to clear this area.

I had already scoped out the area that needed clearing the day before, taking care of the underbrush and testing out this method of felling trees. I didn’t anticipate them hitting any roadblocks, but if something were to go awry, I’d know right away through the Taming magic. They even had a designated break area.

“Shall we get started?” I asked. Us humans were going to build out a mountain path that would double as a firebreak. Rosenberg was holed up in the cottage to read through the documents on lost magic, but everyone else had joined the construction team today.

The path would slope up the safe eastern side of the mountain from the foothills to the cottage. The mountain sloped down from northwest to southeast, and the cottage was built slightly above mid-slope towards the southern side of the mountain. Because of this, we planned to build the path so it would resemble a sideways S on the map, connecting to the travel road that came up to the bottom of the mountain. In order to make it easier to maintain the woods and the firebreak, as well as transport materials on the path by carriage or wagon, the path was going to be long and gradual. It was going to cross the entire width of the mountain, too, so the path would also look like it was splitting the eastern slope in half once we were done.

“Let’s begin, as we planned,” I said, and the group agreed enthusiastically.

We began work a short distance from the cottage. All of the preparations had been made yesterday, allowing us to get right into work. “We’ll start with the side of the path that faces down the mountain,” I explained.

Commanding a soil slime, I manipulated the earth with slime magic. Digging up waves of dirt, the slime began knocking down every tree in the designated area. Despite the loud impact of timber landing, the soil slime was safely merged into the ground and working at a distance far enough from us that there was no chance of any trees falling in our direction.

The adventurer team would move aside any trees that were in our way, to be collected later and used for something—lumber, firewood, or perhaps for beds to grow mushrooms on. I dug up the soil for our path, compacted it, and set up a space for a retaining wall.

Rocks and pebbles on the ground were left where they were. I sent out a huge rock slime that ate those rocks and created an L-shaped wall connected to the foundation of the path. Each wall—about a meter tall and one and a half meters wide—only took the slime twenty seconds to create. It would have taken human machinery so much longer.

“Our first one is set up,” I said.

“I’m on it!” Miya volunteered, and jumped into the gap between the wall and the ground.

We’d be backfilling the gap later, but for now, I’d asked my team to set up burlap sacks over the drainage holes in the wall to prevent any mud from leaking out.

While the sacks were being placed, I moved on to digging up the next section of the path. Each wall wouldn’t be buried too deep, but chaining them throughout the road would protect it from mudslides and double as a curb.

“It is astonishing how quickly this goes... Even though I expected it thanks to yesterday’s trial run,” Eleonora exclaimed as she kept record of our progress.

“It still feels like cutting corners,” I admitted. Because I was using tools that weren’t available on Earth—like slimes and magic—to simplify the construction process, there was a chance that cracks would show down the road. Of course, if that ever did happen, I’d figure out the flaw and rebuild the path without it. This mountain was our testing ground, after all. Constructing the mountain path was just another experiment—one to utilize slimes in large-scale construction.

We worked on the mountain path for a while like that until Hudom stopped me. “Oh, hold on a minute.” He pointed to the grove of trees ahead of the path. “We’re almost at the baobark grove.”

“That’s the tree that stores water, right?” I asked.

“That’s the one,” Hudom confirmed. “I’d expect the ground to hold more moisture too.”

The kind of digging we were doing today shouldn’t hit an aquifer or anything, but uprooting all these trees would loosen the ground. I slowed our work a little, being careful not to cause a landslide. “Come to think of it, I didn’t get a good look at the baobark yesterday,” I said.

“We had to prioritize scoping out today’s construction sites. And I was the one who collected baobark branches to use as rods... Why don’t I show you right now?” Hudom jogged over to a baobark tree and hacked off a branch with the hatchet he carried on his belt. He returned and handed me a branch that was decently thick and heavy. “When it’s freshly cut, it’s still waterlogged. If you leave it out, it’ll dry pretty quickly. Like this—Exudation.” With that casual incantation, Hudom’s magical energy enveloped the branch and water flowed out of its cross section as forcefully as a faucet. There was enough water to have washed my hands with it, had I anticipated it coming out.

“I sped up the dehydration process with magic, but I didn’t add any water—that all came from the branch,” Hudom explained.

“It’s a lot more than I had anticipated... And I’m just as curious about your spell,” I said.

“It expels any water in plant material. I can’t say it’s a common spell, but it comes in handy more often than you think. For example, I would use it to find water while I was traveling, and my old man would drain water from lumber to make it easier to handle. My mother and little sister used it to dry fruits and flowers. It’s not efficient for mass-producing dry goods, though, since you have to spend magical energy.”

The spell was fascinating. The only plant-based magic I regularly used was Grow, which helped my plants grow faster.

Then, I heard the dried branch crack in Hudom’s hand. “Oh,” he sighed.

“Are you okay? Did you get any splinters?” I asked.

“No, no. These trees break so easily once they’re dry that you’d rarely get any splinters.” Hudom handed me one of the broken halves...and sure enough, it crumbled in my hand. Not only that, but the branch had shrunk in width to about a third of what it had been when it was filled with water.

I inspected a fragment, and I could see how much of it was hollow like a dry sponge, showing where the water was stored. Another look at the standing baobark tree, and I could see that it looked round like a balloon.

“Dried baobark feels rougher, but not like it would splinter,” I said.

“Right? There’s no poison either. It doesn’t make for good lumber, but it’s safe,” Hudom supplied.

A wood this brittle and dry wouldn’t work for construction or sculpting, and probably wouldn’t even work as firewood—if it didn’t crumble on the way to the fire, it would surely burn up in seconds, which wasn’t good for making a bonfire last. I wouldn’t write it off entirely until I tried it, but the baobark’s prospects as fire fuel didn’t look promising.

“Say, Hudom, does the entire baobark tree turn brittle when it’s dried? Trunk and all?” I asked.

“I’ve never tried drying a whole tree, but I’d expect it to. Anything you have in mind?”

“I might be able to use it for my hexes,” I said.

Specifically, I was thinking of making incense. There were various ways to make it in various parts of the world, but the main ingredient of Japanese incense used for funerals and other Buddhist ceremonies was powdered tabu—a Japanese bay tree. If I could powder the fragile baobark and mix it with aromatics and grains, I could mass-produce incense, which could make magical offerings and cleansing of souls more accessible.

“Let’s collect the baobark later and set them all aside for that purpose,” I said.

“It’s not like it’s useful for anything else,” Hudom agreed.

“If those trees can be of use to your magic, Master Takebayashi, you could set aside a dedicated area to cultivate them in,” Sebas suggested.

Good idea. While I’m at it, I could build a distillery for the goblins. Sake is especially useful as an offering to lost souls... It seems like my list is growing.

Returning to our top priority at the moment—building the mountain path—we continued setting up the foundation blocks. After three hours’ work, including a few short breaks, we were halfway done.

“Thank you, everyone. That concludes the portion I had scheduled for this morning, so let’s take a short break and return to the cottage,” I announced. We could probably finish the whole path today if we worked nonstop, but we weren’t in that much of a hurry. As such, we began leisurely setting up our lunch.

How are the goblins doing? I wondered. If they were making steady progress, some of them could join our work.

“Something to drink?”

“Thank you.”

Watching Sebas hand out canteens, I used Taming magic to check in on the goblins. From what I could tell, it was mostly smooth sailing. The goblins had split up into teams to tackle four tasks: felling trees, trimming branches, hauling trunks, and carrying branches. The larger and stronger hobgoblins handled the felling and trunk-hauling while the weaker goblins stuck to trimming and carrying the branches. Then, there were eight goblins—the ones I’d tamed first, giving them the most seniority—supervising all four teams.

They weren’t as efficient as us, but there was great strength in numbers. Several mounds of logs and branches dotted the clearing. I was planning to eventually use the land the goblins were working in now as farmland, but it was going to serve as our lumberyard in the meantime—a place to put all of the trees we were cutting down in these initial phases of construction. If they carried on like this after lunch, they’d clear enough space by sunset.

Chapter 10, Episode 19: Lost Magic, Summarized

After having another hearty lunch, we enjoyed our afternoon tea for a while. Since Rosenberg had joined us for lunch, I decided to ask him about his thoughts on the lost magic documents he had read that morning.

“I understand most of its content,” Rosenberg said. “It is a very different game than its modern-day counterpart...which isn’t that surprising.”

“Right... Its theory seemed rather simple,” I said.

“Is this magic difficult?” Eleonora asked.

The others looked interested in our conversation, and there probably would come a time when I’d ask them to help me with a lost magic project, so I decided to clue them in. “Not necessarily difficult. It uses magical energy in a way that’s completely different from how I’ve used it before. Most magic today uses energy found within the spellcaster themself. Apparently, ancient magic instead sourced its power from nature—outside of the spellcaster’s body. It was almost more like mixing magical potions, if that makes sense. For example, fast-acting potions are crafted with a careful balance of medicinal properties and magical energy. That seems similar to what’s described in the document. What do you think?”

“It describes a hex used on space itself, so the spell and the space around the warlock would be the mortar and pestle, by your comparison,” Rosenberg supplied.

And the ingredient wasn’t herbs but light. The lost curse-breaking spell I’d found involved letting natural light into a preprepared ritual chamber, then casting a hex on that light. It used the Light magical energy found in nature to break a curse.

“You make it sound so easy,” Hudom said.

“It really would be, if I didn’t have to use magical energy found in nature,” I agreed. “None of the descriptions are particularly complex or difficult to visualize. The documents also contained some illustrations of rituals performed in the past. Apparently, they were performed rather casually, during some sort of opportunity for people to congregate—like a tea party or festival—while under a full moon. Taking part in these rituals was as routine as attending church.”

“Oh. So they didn’t have to pay a lot of money for those rituals?” Mizelia asked.

“Nobles would pay a decent sum to the warlock, but commoners paid little to nothing for their services.”

“Why wait for a full moon? Couldn’t they have used sunlight during the day?” Cilia asked.

“Rituals could be performed with sunlight, but there was a risk of damaging people or property in the process when the light was too bright. A minor sunburn might not have been an issue, but this could lead to pain and injury in some cases. On the other hand, moonlight is softened by the dark of night—Dark magical energy. Accordingly, rituals performed under moonlight were safer for this reason,” I explained. Answering questions like this was a good way to review the information I’d learned, and I wanted to address any questions now since I’d be asking for their help in future experiments.

When I first hired them, I had all the adventurers sign an NDA along with their contracts. I trusted them with or without it, but I wanted to set up that safeguard just because I was officially on the job as the duke’s engineer.

“Lord Rosenberg. When and how should we conduct our experiments?” I asked.

“The documents only recommend a cloudless night with a full moon to maximize the effect of the ritual. If our sole goal is to achieve some result from a ritual, all we need is a bit of moonlight—we should be able to start tonight. We would need an open space outside. The cursed ground to the west comes to mind, but the lingering cursed energy in the soil might interfere with the ritual in some way. It would not be a suitable testing ground.”

Then, the lumberyard the goblins were currently setting up sounded like a good fit. There was no cursed energy, and there were no trees to block the moonlight.

When I suggested that idea, Rosenberg smiled and nodded. “Then let us experiment in the lumberyard.”

“Master Takebayashi. Why don’t you expedite the setup of the lumberyard in that case?” Eleonora suggested. “Now that you have assigned more uses to it, its construction should be prioritized.”

She was right. If we were only going to use the lumberyard for its original purpose, I could have continued to let the goblins handle its setup. Since we were going to start using it that night as a testing ground, though, it would behoove me to clear as much of it as possible and level out the ground. “That makes sense. Let’s plan to test out the lost magic tonight. After lunch, we’ll clear up the lumberyard as much as possible to prepare for that. Any objections?” I asked the group.

Cilia timidly raised her hand. “Not an objection, but if you’re going to clear out the lumberyard, wouldn’t it be more efficient for us to take on other jobs? Going into the uncharted west side of the mountain, for example. We won’t contribute much by helping the goblins with hauling lumber and setting up burlaps.”

“I second that,” Mizelia chimed in. “We’ll do whatever you tell us to do, but we’re not gonna be as productive as that many goblins, and we can’t communicate with them, which will make it hard to work together. It’d probably be a pain to try and direct both us and them at the same time.”

Another solid point. Even though giving directions to the adventurers and goblins at the same time wouldn’t be too difficult, the adventurers wouldn’t contribute much—the goblins were really good at tackling simple tasks with their overwhelming numbers. As Cilia suggested, it would be much more beneficial to have the adventurers research the west side to better deal with the cursed energy of the mountain.

“Ryoma. Most of the cursed energy has been cleansed as of yesterday. If we cast some protection on them before sending them out, they shouldn’t be affected by the trace amount of cursed energy that has leaked out of the ground overnight,” Rosenberg said.

“Great! Then I will ask you all to go research the west side this afternoon,” I said, amending our schedule. “It looks like the goblins are taking their lunch too. We’ll give them some more time before heading to work,” I said, seeing that the goblins were napping or having some tea to rest after their productive morning. I would let them get their rest before showing up and spurring them back to work.

***

That afternoon, Rosenberg and I resumed the clearing of the lumberyard while the adventurers went exploring on the west side of the mountain.

First, I decided to cut down the trees that were still standing with slime magic.

“You make quick work of them,” Rosenberg remarked. “And clean work at that.”

Cutting down the trees in the same direction felt as satisfying as knocking down a huge row of dominoes. I kept working while I explained how the slime magic worked to Rosenberg, since he hadn’t been able to see it in action that morning.

Once all the trees I wanted to fell were down, the clearing seemed a lot more spacious than it was—a little larger than a baseball stadium. It was common in Japan to describe the size of a large area by calculating how many Tokyo Dome stadiums could fit in said area, but that analogy never gave me a clear idea of how large the area really was. I decided to perform a proper survey of the area at a later date.

“Okay. I’m counting on you guys!” I said to the goblin team. Now that I’d taken care of felling the trees with slime magic, they could all focus on hauling the trees away. I even took away the dirt around each stump they left from this morning’s felling, so I had them drag those to one pile as well. Once the stumps were removed, I would refill those holes with slime magic and level the ground...but it would take the goblins some time to carry them all away.

In the meantime, I decided to dig a well. I picked a spot in the center of the clearing. When I scouted out the baobark groves with Hudom, I had a water slime search for aquifers and pick out spots best suited for a well.

Boosting his strength with magic, Hudom moved some fallen trees out of the way for us. “How’s that look?”

“Perfect. Thank you,” I answered, looking at the open space where we could dig a well. Just as I’d done that morning, I brought out a huge rock slime and a soil slime.

When it came to well-digging without the help of heavy machinery, methods like the Kazusa-bori (a traditional Japanese well-digging method that used the force of springy bamboo) came to mind. My plan, once again, was to take full advantage of my slimes and their abilities.

First, I showed the huge rock slime where I wanted to put the well, and had it extend a cylindrical appendage under itself.

“The location is good,” I said. Making sure that we were lined up to the spot correctly, I had the soil slime soften the ground under the huge rock slime so it could push its cylindrical body farther into the ground. In the process, I had the huge rock slime ingest the dirt in its way and spit it out aboveground.

“As the duke’s butler, I have witnessed various public work projects,” Sebas said. “This method revolutionizes well-digging.”

Instead of the traditional method of digging a hole and then placing a pipe, I was taking away the soil from under the pipe so I could sink it farther into the ground. This was closer to the caisson method normally reserved for building massive underground structures. Sebas had a point that this was revolutionary—I was using a method concocted in a world full of heavy machinery.

“It looks like it won’t take longer than five more minutes,” Sebas added.

“Based on yesterday’s research, I found an aquifer about five meters underground,” I said. “The huge rock slime can extend itself up to thirty meters or so, and we could dig that far down, but I’m glad we don’t have to.”

The reason aquifers were more easily found in baobark groves was probably that baobark trees grew more easily when an aquifer was near the surface. Even looking at the dirt that was being brought up now, I could see that it was very moist and claylike. After a while, I noticed that the soil was becoming wetter. I shared my senses with the huge rock slime and saw that we had dug enough. I had it stop digging and hollow out the center of its cylindrical appendage to make it into a pipe. After putting in slits along the well walls to siphon water from the ground, I called the slimes back into the Dimension Home, asking the huge rock slime to detach itself from the well pipe portion of its body. Once it did, I just had to attach a hand pump I created earlier.

“When did you build that?” Sebas asked.

“Last night. Don’t worry, I didn’t give up any sleep over it,” I said.

As someone who had read plenty of isekai novels before living out the real deal, I obviously knew the structure and construction method of a hand pump. With the help of alchemy, it had really taken me no time at all to throw it together. Even if I had to make some adjustments to the pump after setting it up, I wouldn’t feel bad because I’d barely spent any time making it. A hand pump itself wasn’t a new invention to this world—my guess was that a previous traveler from Earth had popularized it—so building one myself didn’t shock the others too badly.

“Now I’ll test it out,” I announced.

Using water magic to prime the pump, I started cranking it. With every metallic creak of the handle, I felt the pressure build. The creaking soon turned to burbling, and muddy water poured out of the pump’s spigot. “Okay. It works.”

The handle of the pump felt a little stiff, but I hadn’t really used anything like this since I was a child on Earth. Water flowed out of it without issue, so it must have been normal to feel a little weight against the crank. So was the mud in the water, I assumed. It should gradually clear up if we let the water flow out. If it didn’t, I’d attach a filter slime to the spigot to catch any mud.

I set up a container to catch the muddy water with a mud slime to drink it so it wouldn’t overflow.

Then it occurred to me to dress up the well a little bit. Right now, it was just a lone well with a hand pump sticking out. Someone could be working in this area and easily run into it. Making the well more noticeable would prevent such an accident.

I asked the huge rock slime to cover the ground around the well with doughnut-shaped pavers until there was a paved circle a meter and a half wide with the well at its center. Furthermore, I enclosed the well with a simple gazebo with arched openings in each direction. Finally, I built a water basin to catch the water coming out of the pump.

“How does that look?” I asked, pointing at the ground.

“There is nothing more I could possibly think of to add,” Sebas said.

“The well looks great,” Hudom agreed. “But what do you want to do with all this dirt? I’ll clear it for you, if you like?”

“Oh, you can leave it,” I said. “It won’t get in the way of hauling lumber, and I’ll feed it to my soil slimes and mud slimes later.” Some of them particularly liked clay, so I’d save some for them. In fact, I could dig up more soil until they evolved. I assumed they would evolve into clay slimes, but I had to record my hypothesis and their actual results against my expected ones.

Judging by the mud pile, though, the soil here retained even more moisture than I’d thought. I’d have to conduct boring surveys at other locations to confirm, but we might have to perform additional construction to drain the extra water from the soil, or else we’d need to make this place into paddies instead of farmland.

We were rapidly clearing up the flatlands of the mountain. By nightfall, our clearing was ready to test out the moonlight ritual.

Chapter 10, Episode 20: Final Touches of Cleansing

That night, the sky was clear and full of stars, although the moon wasn’t full. Now that we’d cleared the place of trees, there was nothing blocking the moonlight and starlight on this patch of flat land.

On a spot in the clearing, I’d prepared a table with a metal container—a reflective one I’d had an iron slime create for me. It was shaped like a traditional jelly mold: a bowl with a raised bottom. On the raised portion of the bowl, I’d place the cursed object—today, that was a ring I had borrowed from Rosenberg—and pour purified water around it. Back in the day, when those documents were written, they amplified the moonlight with a metal mirror and the reflective surface of the water. Since it was our first attempt, I conducted the experiment exactly as described...

“But no results,” I grumbled.

“Hmm. It doesn’t seem entirely ineffective...” Rosenberg mused.

Despite repeating the ritual several times, there was barely any progress towards breaking the ring’s curse. “The curse on the ring is an easy one?” I asked.

“It is our first attempt,” Rosenberg confirmed. “Just to verify the ritual’s effect, I gave you an object of level 1 difficulty according to the standards set by the Cassiels.”

“That’s what I thought... By the way, what are the guidelines for those...curse-breaking difficulty levels? I remember that my curse was level 7, which was the highest.”

“I suppose I never explained. There are eight levels of curses, marked by how difficult it is to break them, ranging from level 0 to 7. That being said, level 0 means that there is no curse or the curse will fall off with time. Unless it is a matter of life or death, there is no need to break a level 0 curse. On the other hand, level 7 curses are an extreme rarity and are generally considered unbreakable. Levels 0 and 7 are not worth concerning yourself with.”

Then, Rosenberg went on to explain levels 1 through 6, which could be summarized as follows:

Level 1: Won’t fall off on its own, but weak enough that a half-baked technique could break it.

Level 2: Can be broken as long as a curse-breaking technique is properly performed. Breaking a level 2 curse was one of the last tests of a warlock-in-training.

Level 3: Breaking a level 3 curse was the mark of a full-fledged warlock who could make a living with their craft.

Level 4: Has to be dealt with by a seasoned warlock who specializes in curse-breaking.

Level 5: Only the best of the best can break one of these.

Level 6: Extremely difficult for a warlock to break—often requiring multiple experts working together.

“Different curses of the same difficulty level can be more or less challenging to break, and a precise measurement requires a dedicated magical solution,” Rosenberg explained.

“You mean like the one you used on my blood before?”

“Precisely. We determine the curse’s difficulty level by looking at what color the solution changes into.”

Like a water pH test. That process was familiar to me, at least.

The problem was that the ritual was a total flop—even against a curse of the lowest difficulty level—despite what should have been optimal conditions. According to the documents, what we had now was enough moonlight to see some results. When I shared a slime’s vision, I could verify that there was natural magical energy where I’d activated my hex, and the magical energy was surrounding the cursed ring and purifying it...

“But I’m not using the magical energy efficiently,” I realized.

“I would be remiss not to point out that hexes are an art that warlocks master slowly, and your progress so far has been exceptional. Perhaps the technique itself is meant to weaken the curse over time. Let us not be hasty. We should continue to perform the ritual and observe its results,” Rosenberg said.

“You’re right. I’ll leave this set up to monitor progress over time, and prepare another one.”

We continued experimenting late into the night without much to show for it.

***

The next day, I decided to spend the morning practicing hexes in the hopes of better performing the lost magic at night. As a sort of review for what I’d learned so far, I went to purify the cursed land once again.

“You have nothing to worry about when it comes to purification,” Rosenberg said. “Let us add the finishing touches.”

“Next up should be the spell to repel cursed energy.”

“Precisely. Although you have now purified all of the cursed energy that had pooled in this place, more will seep out of the ground with time. The final step of purification is to contain said cursed energy until you can return to the cursed land, preventing it from spreading any farther. Your predecessor’s spell is still active here, but it must be reapplied before the effect lapses. How long you can make the containment effect last determines how often you will need to revisit each location. Since this will be your first time, we will work on extending its duration little by little.”

“Sounds good.”

“Now, when it comes to casting this spell, the key is the conduit—a target for casting the hex. Your predecessor used those marks.” Rosenberg’s gaze led me to the cryptic symbol on the trees. “You can cast the spell without a conduit, but utilizing one that aids your visualization boosts the effectiveness and duration of the spell. Normally, an apprentice would aid their master and handle their master’s conduit to practice the process. For you, Ryoma, I think you should choose a conduit that matches the image of your spell.”

“What would be a good conduit for containing cursed energy...” I muttered.

“No need to overthink it. You already use smoke as a conduit for your purification. This is the same concept. The best conduits for hexes are ones that naturally come to mind when you think of achieving your purpose, or simply the first thing that comes to mind. There are times when warlocks use conduits that seem unrelated to the spell they are casting, but that is usually for an ulterior purpose, like preventing the spell from overloading or concealing a trade secret from competing warlocks. There is no need to get into that now, so try using anything that feels right to you.”

I had something in mind. From my Item Box, I took out a spool of black-and-yellow caution tape. I’d made it just in case I’d have to rope off an area of the mountain, but I hadn’t imagined using it like this. I’d faithfully re-created the durable caution tape from Earth—a tool I was very familiar with from my days of working construction sites.

Back in Japan, ropes could have ritualistic significance, like marking off a divine realm within Shinto shrines. Not to mention, the Japanese word for “territory” literally meant “roped off.” I couldn’t think of a better conduit.

I told Rosenberg that I’d be using the caution rope and got to work. I steadied my breathing and concentrated, recalling how it felt to shut myself in the woods.

“Isolation!” I cast the hex on the rope in my hand. Compared to when I used the pebble last time, I could clearly sense the magical energy seeping into the rope like roots taking hold deep into the earth. In fact, I could sense the hex I just cast from within the rope...and it felt more stable than previous attempts. “This feels very different from before,” I told Rosenberg.

“Because the conduit matches how you imagine the spell. That should last for a substantial time. However...”

“However?”

Rosenberg held up his right hand to the rope. Minuscule magical energy flowed from his fingers and wrapped around the rope. He nodded. “The hex is successful. However, in addition to containing cursed energy, it also has an effect to repel humans and animals.”

“Repel humans and animals? Why did that happen?” I asked.

“When you cast the hex, you must have imagined something that made you long for solitude. You were too effective at casting this hex and added additional effects. This is a rare phenomenon, but not unheard of.”

Come to think of it, that made sense. Maybe the human-repelling came from my past urge for hermitting, and the animal-repelling from the idea of roping off a territory. Both effects were conducive to our objective here, but I’d have to be careful about adding unintended effects to my hexes.

“In any case, the hex was a success. With how quickly you pick things up, I am sure you will get used to controlling the spell. Remember how it felt, and continue to practice. The same principles may get you closer to successfully casting the lost magic. Let us continue experimenting with methods and conduits that make sense to you. In addition to conduits, you can also use wands and magical items to assist you in the spellcasting. Any method that works is a good one.”

“Got it. I appreciate your continued tutelage.”

“Excuse me. May I ask a question?” Sebas asked from where he’d been watching us work from a distance. He must have waited for our conversation to pause. It was a rare occasion for Sebas to speak up like this—he normally stood back as if to stay out of our way unless one of us talked to him.

“Of course,” Rosenberg encouraged.

“Master Rosenberg. How much of an area does that rope affect? And how does it affect its surroundings?” Sebas asked.

“From what I can tell, it does not affect too wide of an area. As long as you do not reach for the rope and touch it, you could walk alongside it and be completely unaffected, even without a protective spell like the one we have on. Even if the hex were to affect you, there is no intent to harm imbued in it. You would feel like you didn’t want to get any closer, which is not dangerous by any means. It ‘separates’ more than ‘repels,’” Rosenberg explained.

“Oh...? Then, could that hex be used even when Master Ryoma is not present?”

“It could, as long as someone else was there who could handle the hex on the rope. You could make sure one of the workers on the team was able to cast a protective spell or distribute gear treated with protective magic,” said Rosenberg.

For whatever reason, Sebas was greatly interested in the hexed caution rope. I must have been giving him a curious look, because Sebas offered an apology and an explanation.

According to Sebas, construction projects were booming all over Jamil’s fiefdom. Reinhart had informed me of plans to build a new village, and I knew the plans to build another city next to Gimul were well underway. Sebas was confident that there would be demand for my caution rope at these construction sites.

“Development projects are prone to danger: bandits, monsters, wild animals... I thought this kind of rope could help keep the workers safe. Besides, setting up a perimeter of rope is much faster and easier than building motes or fences. And these won’t only be useful for development projects. By setting it up around farmland and keeping animals out, for example, it could increase produce yield. There are plenty of areas that should be kept off-limits to unauthorized personnel. There are countless applications for this.”

“It could replace a simple wall, at least to keep people out. Against wild animals, it would work like an electric fence... Not only does it have the potential for varied applications, the demand for it is particularly high right now,” I confirmed.

“Master Rosenberg just guaranteed its effectiveness, so there is no doubt of that. Unless you object, Master Ryoma, I would like to notify the duke of your invention posthaste.”

Hearing this, I turned to Eleonora, who had been keeping record of our progress as usual. She nodded reassuringly—she was going to handle this too. “Then I’ll ask Eleonora to write up a report. But we haven’t seen it in action yet. Let’s put it to use here and experiment with it,” I said.

“Master Takebayashi, I believe including the prospect of mass production in the report will expedite future discussions,” Eleonora suggested.

“Oh... Well, I have enough caution tape to go around the cursed land we have here. If the barrier being somewhat less effective isn’t an issue, I feel like I could hex any old rope.”

“You could tailor your process depending on its use,” Rosenberg suggested. “Focusing on one target and keeping your magical energy contained will make the hex more effective. That could double as training to control your hexes.”

I liked that idea, and I had plenty of magical energy to play with. I almost wanted to rope off the entire mountain to keep people out, but I definitely didn’t have enough rope for that.

“Then I shall buy some in the nearest town. If there are no special requirements for the rope, I should be able to acquire a decent length of it anywhere,” Sebas offered.

“That would be great. How much would I—”

“The duke will front the cost. That should smooth things out.”

“Right... The sellers will probably be more eager to accommodate a big purchase out of the blue. Okay. Please give me an invoice for it later. And, since we’re still experimenting, I don’t want to inconvenience any of the sellers if buying too much of their inventory would do so.”

“Understood. I will return shortly.” Sebas bowed elegantly and disappeared with the use of Space magic.

Casting a hex wasn’t an arduous process, and I could probably cast it on a bunch of rope at once. If I had to guess, the biggest hurdle for mass production was going to be the acquisition of rope rather than any toll it would take on me.

What was the spell Rosenberg used to access the details of my hex, anyway? He’d used it on me before, and I assumed it was similar to the Neutral spells Investigate or Appraisal, but I was still curious. I’d have to ask him the next time he was teaching me curse-breaking.

Meanwhile, we began running the rope through the trees around the perimeter of the cursed land.

Chapter 10, Episode 21: Gold Mine

After lunch, during the afternoon tea that had now become a daily routine, we exchanged progress reports with the scouting team.

“That’s why the old butler isn’t around,” Jeff said.

“Yes, and I wanted to ask you... Do you know anyone from the slums who can twist rope? If you do, I’d love to hire them, and preferably a team of children through you, to have rope twisted in bulk. I could always buy rope like we’re doing today, but considering how much of it I may need in the future, and the fact that there are other people who might need rope, it’s going to be much easier to make it in-house,” I explained.

“We’d probably get a decent crew if I hit up the guys that came from farm towns. Don’t expect too much from the kids, though. They could probably twist rope if we teach them, but it’ll take some time until they can produce their fair share each day.” Jeff added that ropes were mostly made by farmers during their downtime or over winter. Although the craft wasn’t exclusive to farming communities, hay was harder to come by in the city, where people were more focused on their own jobs anyway.

“Wouldn’t it be faster to get your goblins to do it?” Jeff suggested.

“I could ask the goblins, and they could use the stem of the grainspear grass to do it. But the goblins are taking care of the slimes for me, and I’d rather have them assisting with my research whenever possible...mostly to keep my research confidential.”

“You could say the goblins are great secret-keepers. I doubt any of them would try to sell any trade secrets—not that they would find a buyer if they could. On the other hand, there is nothing to hide about the process of twisting rope. After seeing Sebas react the way he did, I think it is prudent to give what could be a massive contract to a group of human workers,” Eleonora said.

That settled it. I’d hire a team to twist rope for me. Jeff’s suggestion gave me another idea, though. “What if I asked them to make this?” I took something from my Item Box to show him.

“A thin stick and a small cone? What are those?” he asked.

“Something I intend to use for my hexes. They’re called incense.”

“I remember that’s what you wanted the baobark trees for. You made some already?” Hudom asked.

I’d made these samples last night with some of the baobark branches I’d collected during our construction projects.

“I mixed crushed baobark with powdered aromatics and water, shaped them, and let them dry. I used magic to dry these out, but they should come out the same when dried naturally.”

“Sounds easier than twisting rope. Kids who can’t even pick up litter could make those. Kind of like playing with clay, if you don’t mind the comparison,” Jeff said.

“Pretty similar, when you do it all by hand,” I agreed. It had felt like playing with clay last night when I was trying to find the right amount of water to use. The process would be streamlined as the crew grew accustomed to it. Using dedicated molds and tools could boost efficiency and quality assurance. “They would have to be careful not to inhale wood dust while they work, so I’d like to hire someone to monitor that side of things.”

“You’d need some muscle to crush the lumber, right? We’ll hire a few guys to do that and keep an eye on the kids. As long as the work isn’t too complicated, it won’t be hard to get a team together. How do you use those things anyway?” Jeff asked.

“You just light them. Let me show you. I haven’t actually used them yet.”

Seeing that the others were interested in seeing the incense in action, I placed the cone-shaped incense on an empty dish and lit a fire with magic. I waved my hand to put out the flame. Smoke danced for a moment before turning into a thin strand that stretched to the ceiling, filling the room with a distinct scent. Smoke’s flowing smoothly. So far, so good.

“It smells...familiar.”

“Not to me, but it’s relaxing, somehow.”

“Like the smell of a deep forest...and spices?”

“I know! It smells like the drink Ryoma gave me the other day!”

The four beastkin offered the impressions they received from their keen senses of smell. I doubted that I could have picked up that much if I didn’t know what I’d put in it.

“I put in some heatwood bark for the smell,” I explained.

“Huh... Is this what the Sea of Trees smells like?”

“Imagine this smell mixed with rain and other vegetation. Like Miya said, the liquor from the Sea of Trees smells very similar to this.” Because the liquor was made and kept in heatwood barrels, it carried the same notes. The unique smell came from one of the chemicals the heatwood trees contained to protect themselves from pests and diseases. It was possible that some people might be allergic to the scent, but it was completely harmless to other creatures.

While I’d used bug repellent I made from midnight dew, those who stayed in the Sea of Trees for a while all used repellent extracted from heatwood. Even the monsters of the forest—like the raptors I encountered so frequently—scratched out sap from heatwood trees. Fresh gouges on heatwood trees were said to mark raptor mating season.

“The sap on the bark mainly keeps bugs away. Pests immune to the repellent are met with the more deadly sap under the bark. I was told that older trees have more concentrated toxin in them. The bark I used in the incense came from a tree I felled in my home village, about four or five decades old. In addition to the scent, the incense should also work as an insecticide.”

I noticed that while the five adventurers were nodding along to my explanation and enjoying the scent, the three nobles looked a little stiff.

“Master Takebayashi, these incenses would be considered...highly valuable,” said Sebas.

“Fifty-year-old heatwood trees only grow deep in the Sea of Trees. Thinking about how much work it would take to haul the tree out—not to mention the danger of it—I couldn’t even guess at how much one of those should cost,” Hudom added.

“Utilizing materials from a familiar place can be beneficial for hexing. This is certainly a tool only you could concoct, Ryoma. No one else would think of harvesting that kind of material themself,” Rosenberg said.

It had crossed my mind to sell this kind of incense like a citronella candle, but it was starting to sound like it would be considered a luxury item...even though my overheads were nonexistent, and heatwood wasn’t difficult to source since a single branch weighed as much as a few dozen of the trees I’d see in a city.

“No one else could claim that, Master Takebayashi. It won’t be an issue while you keep this incense for personal use, but I believe there would need to be careful consideration before putting them on the market,” Sebas said.

“Understood. I’ll definitely seek your advice if I decide that’s what I’d like to do. I can always substitute something else for the heatwood too. For now, I’m just experimenting with it.” Speaking of the market... I turned to Rosenberg. “As for the rope I hexed, about how much should I price it at, if I were to sell it? Even if it’s just a ballpark figure.”

“Value for objects like that vary, depending on the prowess of the warlock and the effect of the hex... A rope with the hex you demonstrated would easily sell for ten times the cost of the materials.”

Did I hear him right?

“Some warlocks require expensive tools and materials, as well as a long time to create a single cursed object. Commissioned objects like that are naturally expensive, in part to protect the warlock’s livelihood. Ten times the cost of ordinary rope would be a bargain for a cursed object,” he explained.

“Clients don’t want to haggle and bruise their reputation either. Most of them are loaded nobles,” Hudom supplied.

That all made sense, but I was still caught up with the fact that a single incantation from me could make a spool of rope ten times as valuable... This feels more like alchemy than Alchemy.

“When you put it that way... Ten times the cost it is. I’m sure there are other factors to consider, so I’ll leave the details to Eleonora,” I said, deciding to wholly delegate the process rather than stick my nose in halfway.

“Understood.”

“How is the west side?” I asked the scouting team.

“Almost done. It’s been taking us a little longer to navigate the steep inclines, but we should finish this afternoon.”

“Perhaps because of the cursed energy, we found less life overall compared to the east side. That means no dangerous animals as well, so you could say it’s safe.”

“Other than that, there were these weird trees.”

The lack of animals made me somewhat concerned for the mountain’s ecosystem. At least it didn’t seem like it was on the brink of collapse or anything. Hudom explained that the “weird trees” Miya mentioned were called pugipogi—a tree filled with eyeball patterns that sounded like nightmare fuel for those with trypophobia.

“It may look creepy, but it’s not poisonous or anything... Oh, you can’t use it for firewood, though. It burns well, but with a whole lot of soot. Horrible stuff to fuel a stove with, especially indoors,” Hudom added.

“That leaves us with fewer options for utilizing the lumber cleared... But let’s tackle that another day. Please continue your scouting for the rest of the day,” I said.

That concluded our mutual debriefing. The adventurer team and Hudom returned to the west side while Eleonora and I took the goblins to continue setting up the mountain path, and Rosenberg went to explore ways to improve the lost magic.

A few hours later, we’d made it down to the foot of the mountain, having completed the retaining wall on one side of the path. After a short break, I planned to backtrack up the path and finish the walls on the other side...when I noticed Sebas walking down the mountain.

“Welcome back!” I greeted him.

“Thank you. You’ve made quite some progress here.”

“I think so too. After setting up retaining walls along the other side, we’ll cut down all the trees in the way and haul them out. The goblins have already started on that, and once I’m done paving the path, I can speed things up with Space magic. I expect the path to be usable after another day’s work. How did things go on your end?” I asked.

“Some are new stock, and some are old, and they range in quality, but I secured three hundred spools of fifty meters each, which would come to about fifteen kilometers in total length.”

That’s a lot of rope, I thought, as Sebas produced a letter from his Item Box—one addressed to me from Reinhart.

Sebas explained how he took the liberty of buying the ropes with the duke’s money. He went through the trouble of returning to the duke’s manor afterwards just to fill Reinhart in on the purchase.

“His Grace showed great interest in these ropes,” Sebas said.

I opened the letter and first noticed the very formal language that oozed nobility, from customary seasonal greetings to a lengthy thanks for my work, all sprinkled with poetic language. I read through the letter, raising an eyebrow at how differently the letter read from how Reinhart normally spoke to me.

“Sebas... This reads like he wants to buy the ropes I hex. Specifically, after I test them out here, he wants to roll them out in the development by Gimul,” I said.

“You read it correctly. That is also what I have been told in person,” Sebas clarified. Things were moving way too quickly.

“Master Takebayashi,” Eleonora cut in, “the king has announced the arrival of a monster age this year, which played no small part in motivating His Grace to seek out your ropes. Even though its applications are more limited, it would be far more cost-effective than magical items that set up barriers. That means we can protect more sites.”

“Exactly as Miss Eleonora said,” Sebas continued. “There have not been any sightings of monsters that warrant sending in high-ranking adventurers, but there are more and more reports of small, beast-like monsters and goblins—the kind that multiply fast. Just a handful of goblins can pose a threat to civilians, so a sighting of them would stall any construction work. Even the thought of monsters lurking around the corner could make workers nervous and less productive. His Grace hopes your ropes will help alleviate these concerns.”

The pieces were all coming together now. Sebas had been so interested in the project and went as far as buying up so much rope because he knew the conundrum Reinhart and his fiefdom were facing. I’d heard people bring up the monster age more than a few times now, which made me wonder if things were worse than I thought.

“Okay. I never planned on turning him down, so I’ll try my best not to disappoint him. Luckily, we’ve gotten to a good stopping point with the path... I’ll pick up the project tomorrow and spend the rest of the day hexing ropes,” I said.

If the adventurer team finished their scouting today, I could have them set up the rope around the mountain with Rosenberg tomorrow morning. The goblins and I could take care of the mountain path in the meantime.

And so, I hurried back to the cottage and began mass-producing the repelling rope.

Chapter 10, Episode 22: Half-Day Off and the Appreciation Party

The next day, since I’d placed the human-repelling hex the night before on the rope Sebas had bought us, I set out with the goblins to continue setting up the mountain path while I asked the adults to set up a perimeter of rope around the mountain and test its effectiveness.

The goblins were far behind me now, taking care of the trees I’d knocked down as my slimes and I continued along the path. Now that I’d gotten the hang of building and installing foundation pieces, I was taking a leisurely ride on the back of a huge scavenger slime until we reached the bottom of the mountain.

“We still have to clear the fallen trees, but now carriages can get through!” I announced. I still wanted to pave the path and trim around it, but there wasn’t enough time. This place was just a cast of Space magic away, so I’d set the other stuff on the back burner once we hauled the trees away. I was going to hole up here for a few months until my curse broke, which would give me plenty of time to work on the details.

“Hot today,” I breathed. Knocking down all the trees ahead of my course meant that there was nothing shading me from the sun, which was particularly relentless today. This heat was different from the sweltering kind in the Sea of Trees. It was the kind that scorched the skin. Just like that snowfall at the end of last year, this had to be an effect of replenishing the magical energy the gods had told me about.

“In this sunlight, the lost magic will burn the cursed object...or melt it before the curse breaks, depending on how long it sits out and what it’s made out of.”

I still had made no progress with my lost magic research. Not so much as a lead. Of course, I’d only spent two days on it—one of them cut short by my hexing the ropes last night—and Rosenberg had told me that this was going to take time, so that was that.

More importantly, I had to stay hydrated. Taking a water bottle from my Item Box, I reminded the goblins to stay hydrated too. That’s when I realized: We’d been working on the mountain for five days straight. Should I give us all a day off? If I were doing this alone, I wouldn’t have taken a day off because I was having too much fun practicing hexes. But there were plenty of people I’d roped into this project.

“Should I end work early today and serve some drinks tonight? Or take a day off tomorrow? Both?” I thought about it. “I’m going to need some advice.”

Before me, the boundary between the mountain and the travel road had already been marked with rope. The roping team had to be along that boundary, either to my left or right. Now that my task had come to a good stopping point, I wanted to check in on their progress and pitch my idea.

I ran with the help of enhancement magic for about five minutes or so until I found the team at the end of the rope—I’d won the coin flip.

Miya was the first to spot me. “Ryoma!”

“Hello, everyone. The path has reached the road, so I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Still working, as you can see. It won’t be much longer until we’ve used up the rope,” Miya answered.

“All fifteen kilometers of it? That was fast,” I remarked.

“Every adventurer worth their salt knows how to handle rope. Because we’ve been tying it onto trees, there was no need to use stakes. We’ve barely needed to carry much rope at all because Sebas placed the spools at regular intervals for us. Not to mention we’re splitting the work between the eight of us,” Mizelia said proudly.

“They have been a well-oiled machine,” Eleonora supplied. “We do not have enough rope to encircle the entire mountain, so we have prioritized areas close to the main road.”

Not having enough rope was neither a surprise nor a huge problem. Roping off the mountain wasn’t an urgent task, so we could fill in the other areas later.

Eleonora added that she would write up a report on their work and the effectiveness of the rope. Her reports were always easy to read, so I’d be looking forward to that.

After they briefed me on their progress, I took a quick poll about taking some time off, and the most popular option was to end the work early today.

“It’s just a week or so. No point in taking a day off. As long as we get food and time to sleep, I’d rather get the work done and rest up after payday,” Jeff said.

“Same here,” Welanna chimed in. “Most adventurers are like that. If we wanted steady pay and a schedule, we would have gotten a nine-to-five in the city.”

“For only a week, I agree. It might be a different story if we were on a long-term project,” Cilia said.

The other two adventurers agreed that they were perfectly fine without a day off. Rosenberg’s schedule often depended on his clients and the state of his projects, so he was used to arranging his time off around the needs of the job. As for Eleonora, she was accustomed to working as I used to in Japan, claiming that she already had enough downtime, which I could sympathize with.

Some of them also said that they’d have nothing to do with a full day off in a cursed testing ground—touché. So, I decided to call it a day once they set up as much rope as we had prepared.

Hudom and Sebas, whom I’d been working with for a while now, had a different reaction to my suggestion.

“He brought up time off of his own volition...?” Hudom breathed.

“Mostly out of concern for his employees, I’m sure. Still, it was a shock to the system...” Sebas said.

Without even voting yea or nay on the idea of time off, they were blown away that I’d thought to ask... How much of a workaholic did they think I was? I decided that I didn’t want to know the answer.

“I’ll get back to the mountain path. Be careful not to get overheated,” I announced.

I went back the way I came and met back up with the goblins, who had been turning fallen trees into piles of logs. I just had to transport each pile to our lumberyard by Space magic. The work was made even easier by the stone slimes I had placed in the lumberyard. That allowed me to confirm the coordinates and status of the yard.

***

The goblins and I ended our work around the time that the rope-off team should have finished theirs. After asking a cleaner slime to get the sweat and grime off of me, I prepared the ingredients I needed and stepped into the kitchen I’d built in the cottage.

“Okay. Let’s get cooking.”

“Excuse me.” Just as I was about to begin cooking dinner, Eleonora stepped in. “This is today’s report.”

“Thank you. I’ll go through it later.” I took the stack of papers from her and noted its considerable weight. The report seemed way too detailed for something she could have written up in the short time since the team had returned, but here it was in my hand.

“Master Takebayashi, is there something wrong with it?” Eleonora asked.

“Oh, no. I was just impressed that you could write up such an in-depth report in the short time you had. I certainly couldn’t do it. What’s your secret?”

“It is not a secret. I use magic when I write.”

Magic? Is there a spell that works like a printer?

When I asked for more details, Eleonora said, “It is not anything special. I only use Kinesis.”

“The Neutral spell that moves objects?”

“That is correct. It allows me to write with multiple pens at once without straining the muscles in my hand,” Eleonora said matter-of-factly, and even demonstrated her Kinesis with a pair of cooking chopsticks on the counter. Without incantation, she controlled each chopstick independently, writing out words in the air. On top of doing this without incantation, she seemed to be utilizing parallel casting—the technique I saw Remily use before. Even more impressively, Eleonora’s magic wasn’t some kind of automated printing process. She still did all the writing by hand, so to speak.

“Outlining the contents and knowing the specific details I want to include and where to include them simplifies and expedites the process,” she explained.

“Oh... Before you write the paper, do you already imagine the completed version?”

“I suppose I do. Most of the report’s content is already decided when I take notes out in the field. Once I sit down, I make mental adjustments to my notes and write them all out with magic.”

“I see.” Eleonora was drafting, editing, and revising a report—the kind of workflow most people used a word processing program and printer to do on Earth—all in her mind. It’s like mental brute force... Eleonora’s brain is doing the heavy lifting, not the spell itself. “That requires a talent separate from magic, I think.”

“My magic teacher at the academy once told me the same thing—that this technique was not intuitive for most people.”

It was basically writing independent sentences with each hand and foot at the same time... I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it would be impossible for other people to learn, but it would probably take immense time and effort to learn. “That explains how you produce these so quickly. I’ll read through this report later and return some feedback,” I said.

“Understood.” Eleonora gave a nod, and her attention was snagged by something. “If I may ask a question out of curiosity, are those the ingredients for tonight’s dinner? I cannot help but notice the copious amount of spices.”

“Oh, yes. I know spices are not cheap here. I’m going to make us curry for dinner.” Japanese curry, to be specific. I’d been wanting to make this nostalgic dish since I had acquired various spices in the Sea of Trees. By this world’s standards, a dish that used this much spice must have seemed lavishly gourmet.

“I did not realize royal cuisine was in your repertoire.”

“Curry is considered royal cuisine?” I asked.

“Famously, it was a favorite of King Masaharu. Records show that he spent a fortune scouring the farthest corners of the kingdom for ingredients. It has since become a traditional dish among royals. Using an abundance of expensive spices is also an effective display of wealth, so the dish has become a staple at balls hosted by high-ranking nobles.”

I couldn’t blame Masaharu for wanting to taste a Japanese dish again, especially when he had the means to gather the chefs and ingredients. It hadn’t taken me long to crave curry once I got my hands on these spices. “The amount and ratio of spices are probably different from the royal recipe, but I’d like to serve this curry for dinner, nonetheless.”

“How exciting. May I stay and observe your cooking, if I will not be in the way?”

“Of course.”

And so, we began making our curry. First, I heated butter in a pan and mixed in flour—the base of the roux. Once the flour was all browned, I turned off the heat and mixed in my own blend of spices, instantly spreading a nose-tingling aroma through the kitchen. Cooking spices brought out their flavor, but too much heat could dissipate it. Once the roux had cooked down to a decent consistency, I set it aside in a bowl.

“Now I’ll cook the other ingredients,” I announced.

First, I caramelized onions in a big pot, then added garlic, ginger, and crushed tomatoes, then potatoes and carrots from the boiled-vegetable line of my instant meal packs before putting the curry paste back in. Leaving Eleonora to stir the pot that was now bubbling from the water in the vegetables, I diced and seasoned chicken before crisping them up in a frying pan and tossing them into the pot.

It’s high time for a taste—

“What is that smell?!” Miya shouted.

“Ah!” I yelped as I shook and accidentally poured the piping hot curry into my mouth. Luckily, I hadn’t set aside enough to burn my mouth, but it was shocking nonetheless.

I turned to the door and found the entire adventurer team crowded in the doorway. “What happened?”

“What happened? I found where that incredibly tantalizing smell is coming from!” Miya exclaimed.

“Sorry to barge in. But it smelled so good—maddening, even—that we had to come see.”

“Is that on the menu tonight?”

“Yes, we’re having curry tonight,” I answered.

Eleonora supplied that it was royal cuisine, skyrocketing the anticipation among the adventurers, way overhyping a normal curry made by an amateur.

“Ryoma, is that curry ready to eat?” Miya asked.

“Not even close. After letting it simmer for a while longer, I want to chill it with Ice magic and reheat it.”

Miya yowled. “Can’t we eat it as soon as it’s done simmering?”

“Curry tastes better after it sits overnight, apparently because the spices seep into the solid ingredients and let the flavors sink in. I’ll have rice, bread, and salad to go with it... You don’t have to look so devastated.”

“I can’t wait that long when the whole cottage smells like this!”

“That’s enough. I know you have a bottomless stomach, but Ryoma says he’ll serve it tonight. You can wait until then.”

“We’ll keep Miya on a leash and leave you to your cooking!”

Mizelia and Cilia expertly dragged Miya off by her arms, and the other two followed.

“Oh, I also wanted to have drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Do you all drink?” I asked.

“Now that’s a party. We’ll gladly take a drink.”

“Count me in. I’m not picky with my liquor, so get me anything you like.”

“You got it!” I said, planning to serve white liquor and sake from the goblin distillery and some highballs I made in the Sea of Trees. With all the liquor Glen had traded me, there was plenty of it to go around. Along with it, I had some sausages and salami from Sieg’s shop and loads of potatoes I could use to whip up some potato salad. “Do you drink, Eleonora? If not, I can prepare tea or fruit water. I’d never force you to drink, and I will stop anyone who would, so don’t hesitate to tell me.”

“I can drink wine. I am not sure about other varieties of liquor—I have never tried them. And it has been some time since I last drank, so I think I will abstain from any hard liquor.”

“Got it. I have some wine stored, so I’ll serve that too. Take it as slow as you like, and switch to tea or water anytime.” I was being really careful with my words because it felt like she would force herself to drink if I encouraged her to. Bosses forcing their subordinates to drink had been a real problem in Japan, and I wasn’t going to be a part of it now.

With some more small talk, Eleonora and I continued preparing for the festivities. I never would have thought that I’d ever enjoy preparing a party like this. What a difference it made when I enjoyed my company.

Chapter 10, Episode 23: Aperitif

“I’m so full...”

After dinner, the dining hall was filled with adults looking well-fed and satisfied. I’d enjoyed the curry myself, after going without it for so long, but the others had become entranced—like machines with the sole purpose of lifting their spoons to their mouths. We had eaten in complete silence, reminding me of the time I had crab in Fatoma. All in all, my efforts and spices were put to good use.

“This curry is incredible. I could eat this forever.”

“Dessert was wonderful too.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said. For dessert, I had served soy milk ice cream I had made with Ice magic—vanilla flavored. Vanilla beans were another plant I could harvest in the Sea of Trees. It took another step before the vanilla beans were edible, but at least I could get as much as I wanted whenever I went to Korumi. In fact, keeping a stock of fresh milk was more difficult at the moment. I’d substituted soy milk this time around, but I was tempted to keep milk cow monsters as livestock in my Dimension Home alongside the clever chickens.

“It’s the perfect touch of cold to quell the tongue and body heated from the curry. And then there’s the refreshing sweetness and rich aroma. It’s difficult to describe this perfect bliss.”

Sebas gave me a glowing review, which boosted my confidence knowing that he’d made a hobby out of reviewing food. I’d test out the cow milk version soon.

“Would anyone like a drink?” I suggested. I’d planned to offer them along with the food, but the curry had demanded all of their attention. Should I save the drinks for another time?

“Great food and drinks? You’re too good to us, Ryoma. I’ll have a little pour,” Welanna said.

“Me too. I’ll take whatever you got,” Jeff chimed in, followed by the others who showed interest in the alcohol.

Now the real party was about to begin...in a sipping kind of way. They were all full from the curry. Since I didn’t expect them to drink all that much, I decided to serve us all a common wine. Even though the goblins made mean white liquor and sake, those were foreign to these parts. If this were a full-on drinking party, I would have recommended a variety of drinks. For today, it felt more appropriate to serve the wine they were all familiar with. I passed out the wine with a small side of hors d’oeuvres.

“Cheers!” I called.

“Cheers!” the others answered and began sipping their wine. I couldn’t help but notice that Eleonora froze up after one sip. I watched her closely and saw that she was staring at her glass wide-eyed. Did it hit her the wrong way after not drinking for a while?

“Eleonora. Is everything okay?” I asked.

“I was just a little surprised. I did not realize how delicious wine could be.”

Good. It didn’t sound like it was too strong or tasted off to her. “I’m glad you like it. I don’t know much about wine, so I bought these blindly.”

“It is really delicious, although I cannot deny the possibility that I was never exposed to quality wine before. It is very easy to drink, without any bitter or harsh taste.”

“Some wines are bitter and harsh, I assume.”

“As I mentioned before, my family home stands next to a mine. Because of high demand from the miners, alcohol was imported from other fiefdoms for cheap. Drinkable water, on the other hand, was harder to come by. Most people drank wine instead of water. Of course, it would be folly to even compare that miners’ wine to yours,” Eleonora said.

Even on Earth, I’d heard that in some regions or during certain time periods in history, people drank low-proof alcohol. I didn’t realize Eleonora had come from an area with such a tradition.

“That’s where you had wine,” I said.

“At first, I was watering down weak wine with pure water I produced with magic. I was drinking it regularly for as long as I can remember. I was given more and more wine in my water as I grew up. The first time I drank pure water was when I left my fiefdom to enter the academy in the capital. At first, it felt strange that there were drinks undiluted by wine.” Eleonora seemed to have shed some of her stiffness. That was a good sign, and as a former member of the Japanese workforce, it’d be nice if we could have a little heart-to-heart over a drink. Eleonora seemed to really enjoy the wine, savoring each sip. It didn’t take long for her to drain her first glass of wine.

“Would you like another pour?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Looks like you can handle your wine. How about some cheese?” Welanna offered a plate of smoked cheese.

“Yes, please.” Eleonora took the cheese.

“I’m glad you’re getting along with the adventurers,” I said.

“I agree,” Eleonora said.

“You didn’t need to worry about that. Although... If I’m being honest, I thought you were going to be a bit of a square at first. But once we got to talk, I realized you weren’t baggy or anything. Anytime you’ve told me to do something, you always had a good reason,” Welanna said.

“All four nobles here are very good people. I’ve worked for a few nobles before, and the bad ones can be really nasty,” Miya said.

I’d assumed some nobles were real jerks. Hearing half the girls’ opinions, I was curious to hear what Cilia and Mizelia would add.

“In my experience, many of them acted with entitlement—of course, nobles aren’t the only ones to act that way.”

“Our party’s all-women, and we’re all at a decent rank. A lot of quests we get from nobles are to guard their daughters.”

“Unlike emergency monster hunting or herb harvesting, bodyguard duty means spending more time with the client. Guarding nobles is not my kind of gig by a long shot.”

My heart goes out to you... The only nobles I’d come into contact with so far were the Jamils; Count Porco Fatoma; Sever, the former captain of the Knight’s Order; and Remily, the former royal sorcerer. I always knew I’d had a real stroke of luck because all of them had been so nice.

“I understand how adventurers can feel annoyed when working for nobles. Even I notice how many nobles are downright discourteous,” Eleonora said.

“That’s right. You’ve told me stories before,” I said.

“My former husband was the model of a rotten noble, squandering away his father’s name and fortune. Whenever something did not go his way, he used to shout at the staff. There was so little of him on the inside, that there is no more I can say about him...except that he was uselessly bloated on the outside.”

Choked laughter threatened to break out all over the room. Eleonora definitely hadn’t meant it as a joke, but it had snuck up on us because the conversation had shifted to a serious tone. The silence that came after reminded me of a certain TV special in Japan where contestants got paddled for laughing.

“Th-That must have been a rocky marriage. Here, have another pour.”

“Thank you. I detested interacting with him, but I did not need to do much of that. Our marriage was arranged solely for the benefit of our houses. He had taken a mistress before we were married, so I was left alone in the guest house of the estate.”

“What? Noble marriages are supposed to bring families together, right? He got away with treating you that way?”

“If this had been an ordinary marriage, Jeff, you would be right. However, my marriage to him had been a scheme to control my house and our gold mines. My role in this marriage was closer to that of a hostage—no one expected me to act or be treated as a wife. There was little my family could do when they were far less powerful than his family. Never for a moment did I want his affection, so a marriage only in name was just fine by me,” Eleonora said flippantly, the alcohol boldening her tongue.

“If you have to marry someone you don’t like, I can see how it makes sense not to interact with him,” Miya said.

“That does make sense. Is that why you joined your fiefdom’s militia?” I asked. “I heard you used to lead a unit.”

“Yes. There was no life at the estate beyond the confines of the guest house, and my role as hostage was apparently served whether I was dead or alive... When my former husband ordered me to help the militia when they were short on men, on account of a monster horde, I stayed at the militia and never looked back. Of course, the unit I led was the disciplinary unit full of members who disobeyed orders.”

“Disciplinary unit?!” Hudom repeated, aghast—an expression mirrored in Rosenberg. The information must have also resonated with Sebas, whose brows were knitted.

It was easy to imagine that this disciplinary unit hadn’t been treated well—a place where it was unimaginable to send a young noble lady, especially one married to the son of the lord.

“Even for a one-sided political marriage...” Hudom began.

“The lord at the time, my former father-in-law, did not want me to have a shred of power. The disciplinary unit is beneath the other units. Even as a captain, my powers were severely limited. Moreover, orders are to be followed without question in the militia, as you must well know, Mister Veldoole.”

“Still... The disciplinary unit is always a ragtag band of ruffians sent into the most dangerous missions. Sending in his daughter-in-law couldn’t have been a good look.”

“Filling his pockets was more important to him than his reputation. With magic, I was useful enough to save him from hiring another captain. Besides, he must have thought that keeping me in a position of hardship would help him pressure my family and squeeze more profits out of the gold mines. My former husband also pushed for me to be in that position. He had no talent in sword or magic, nor any inclination to train. That did not stop him from being bitterly jealous of anyone more skilled than him—women in particular. That much, he always shrieked about. Apparently, that was a big reason he avoided me so much.”

“I don’t want to trash-talk your ex-husband, but he sounds like a real piece of work.”

“He really was, Miss Mizelia. That house was filled with people who did not hesitate to cast aside their decency and morals for any little scrap of money or satisfaction.” Eleonora’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. Was this the alcohol talking, or her built-up frustration? “Joining the militia was a stroke of good luck for me. Belonging to the disciplinary unit came with its own benefits.”

“How curious. Would you mind sharing?” Rosenberg encouraged.

Eleonora wet her lips with wine and continued. “It helped me regain part of my freedom. The first was time. Training and missions became an excuse I could use to escape the suffocating guest house, and even carve out some free time for myself. Money was another. In addition to their regular salary, soldiers are customarily paid stipends for each mission depending on how dangerous they are. Each fiefdom has its own way of paying these stipends. In mine, soldiers were awarded any money raised from the parts of monsters we slew and any bounty from bandits we captured. The disciplinary unit was not excluded from this cause. In fact, we had more opportunities than any other unit because we were always sent on dangerous missions. Thanks to those stipends, I was able to afford small luxuries like dining out in the city or buying the occasional book for myself.”

“I see... Any form of solace can give you the strength to break free from difficult situations. You seemed to have found it in the militia.”

Eleonora had been confined to a guest house without her own money or entertainment. When she finally escaped that prison, she was forced to go on dangerous missions for the militia. I admired her for fighting out of that situation all on her own, but this was domestic abuse to the extreme. No wonder the others were shocked to hear it.

“You should not be troubled by it, Master Takebayashi,” Eleonora said.

“I’m sorry. Was it written on my face?”

“On your brow. I have no pleasant memories of those days, but they are in the past. Thanks to Duke Jamil, who gave me a new life, a new job, and true freedom. A great fortune beyond my wildest hopes.” She nodded to her own statement, as if to reaffirm her outlook. Considering how I was told that she could have been executed with her ex-husband as an accomplice, I didn’t doubt her fortunes had improved...but was she really over the past? “Everyone goes through hardships,” she simply added. “I am sure you have too, Master Takebayashi.”

“There were times when I was on rocky ground with the people in my life, but nothing as dangerous as being sent out into battle. A few assassins were the worst of it.”

“Which is still crazy,” Hudom said. “How did that happen?”

“I’m not sure myself, and it was a long time ago. For example, a fortune teller on the street once screamed that I was going to be a serial killer one day and started attacking me with a crystal ball. Maybe I was cursed to attract people like that.”

I knew it wouldn’t have been the case on Earth, probably, but I’d found myself in enough senseless attacks that it would almost have made more sense if it had been a curse. Even then, I’d never been sent into battle, so Eleonora had me beaten on that front.

“In my case, I went there on missions. It was my job. As coldly as I was treated, no one outright wanted me dead,” Eleonora countered.

“No, that wasn’t as bad as—”

“But you had to—”

Eleonora and I were starting to break out into some kind of bizarre contest when I realized that Eleonora’s eyes were slightly out of focus—the only thing about her demeanor that was out of the ordinary. She was more talkative than usual, but her speech remained steady and clear.

“Eleonora, are you drunk?” I dared.

“Am I drunk...? I feel a little warm, perhaps, but nothing more.”

“All right... Wait. How many glasses have you had?” I asked.

“The first with cheers, you poured me one, then Miss Welanna poured me another, then two more while we were talking...” Eleonora swayed in her chair, as if the alcohol caught up to her while she was counting up her glasses.

“Hey, are you okay?” Welanna asked.

“Excuse me. I think I am drunk, after all. I feel a bit drowsy.”

“I thought so. Let me get you some water,” I said. It was a short span of time to down five glasses of wine. She didn’t look ill from drunkenness, but she would be better off hydrating nonetheless. I quickly found a large cup and filled it with ice water by means of magic. “Eleonora?” She was sitting back in her chair with her eyes closed, maintaining a prim posture.

“Hey,” Welanna nudged. “No dice. She’s out cold.”

“All right. Can I ask you to take care of her...and have her drink the water when she’s up?”

“No problem. I’m used to handling drunks.” Welanna carried Eleonora off to the ladies’ room. The other three downed their glasses and followed, intent on helping.

Our party was over, leaving me with the knowledge that Eleonora was a very subtle drunk. I’d be more careful about having her pace her alcohol intake in the future.

Chapter 10, Episode 24: The Party Continues...in Secret

Despite the slight hiccup at the end, I’d call our little dinner party a success. By the time I had cleaned up and returned to my room, there was nothing I had to do...but it was still too early in the night to go to bed. I’d barely had anything to drink, and I certainly wasn’t drowsy.

“I know.” I have plenty of alcohol left from the party. I could share it with the gods. To put my plan into action, I took out a book from my Item Box. As I poured magical energy into it, bright light flooded my vision—just like it did whenever I prayed in a chapel.

In an instant, I was in a white space occupied only by Wilieris and Grimp sitting at a coffee table.

“Good evening. Just the two of you today?”

“Welcome, Ryoma. Most of us are out and about,” Wilieris said.

“Now, now. Take a seat,” Grimp offered.

When I did, a plate of baked goods and a cup of tea were already in front of me. “Thank you. I know I came up unannounced.”

“You can come see us anytime you like. That’s why Fernobelia made you that relic,” Wilieris said.

“It won’t work when it’s not a good time for us, so don’t concern yourself there. What’s happened today, Ryoma?” Grimp asked.

“Oh, right.” I told them what gave me the idea to come up here, and showed them the goblin-distilled sake from my Item Box. Then, I laid out a series of glass sake cups—which I had fashioned with Alchemy earlier—and a snack to go with our drinks. “I hope you’ll like it, but there’s at least enough for all of you to drink...if Tekun restrains himself to a reasonable amount.”

“This stuff is good, Ryoma,” Grimp said.

“Wonderful,” Wilieris chimed in.

“I’m happy to hear that. For a second, I hesitated to bring you leftover drinks from a party.”

“We don’t care about that,” Grimp reassured. “It may not be refined, but I can taste the hard work and ingenuity in this brew...and the passion of the goblins who worked on it. Drinking it directly makes it all the more special.”

“Directly?”

“All year long, we receive wonderful offerings that we can’t directly enjoy. For the most part, there is no means to send objects from the mortal realm to the divine realm—not without a significant use of our powers, and we can’t do that just so we can taste those offerings. So, we make copies of offerings up here that taste and feel exactly the same as the real thing. We receive the heart of those offerings.”

“Yep. Anything tastes good if there’s heart in it,” Grimp supplied.

In that case, I figured that I could bring offerings more often. It was a small way to repay the gods, and the goblins weren’t going to stop making booze. Besides, a history of offering the sake to the gods might give the drink some sort of boon when using it for hexing.

Just as an ulterior motive was crossing my mind, Wilieris smiled. “We would greatly enjoy more offerings, but don’t stretch yourself too thin for it. While it could help you visualize your hex better, it won’t have much effect on your casting beyond that. Speaking of, we’ve noticed how quickly you found your footing when it comes to hexes.”

“I learned the basics of curses and purification. I have a good teacher, and I apparently have a knack for it. Now I’m stuck on recreating this lost magic.”

“Yeah, it’s no wonder. That spell wasn’t made for folks of this time.” Grimp chuckled, sipping on his sake.

“This time? So the people in ancient times were different from people today?” I asked.

“Oh, where to start...” Grimp turned to Wilieris for aid.

“Let’s begin with clarifying the premise.”

“First off, there is a difference between folks today and the folks who once cast the spell you’re trying to re-create. That comes down to how much magical energy they could hold. Folks had magical energy back then, just drastically less of it than folks today.”

“Do you know what magitons are?” Wilieris asked.

“It’s appeared in some of the texts I’ve read. Something about magitons being the smallest building block of magical energy. The magical energy stored in our bodies is a collection of magitons,” I said.

“Correct. Back when this spell was used, people were anatomically unable to hold the massive store of magitons that modern humans can,” Wilieris explained.

“A magical energy overload?” I guessed.

“Right again. Long ago, people of this world were much like folks on Earth. Magic was reserved for priests and priestesses who performed spells like rituals in groups,” Grimp supplied.

They went on to explain that, back then, the gods would help the people much more directly in the form of miracles. The origin of magic dated back to rituals asking for a miracle. In modern-day terms, they were filing a request for a specific miracle.

“I know you’re putting it in a way that I can understand, but it takes away all the gravitas...” I said.

“Miracles were not particularly a big deal for us to perform,” said Wilieris.

“By using our powers through folks, we could buffer some of the effects that’d affect the world too much otherwise. Still, every ‘miracle’ made pretty big ripples, so we set standards for what problems warranted a miracle, taught them to a group of folks, and had them request a miracle when humans couldn’t handle something on their own. That’s how the Creationism religion down there got started. It’s also one of the reasons why folks today have a different anatomy when it comes to magic.”

With Creationism in its infancy, every aspect of the miracle-requesting rituals was kept under lock and key...until, naturally, people who sought to research miracles for scholastic or selfish purposes paid no heed to the dogma of secrecy. Information spread slowly but surely. Before long, groups independent from Creationism attempted to re-create miracles. The original instructions from the gods had included warnings about handling magitons, but those had become fragmented in the process. In addition, these independent groups had a habit of cutting corners in the safety protocol department. As a result, many rituals ended in catastrophe, exposing humans and wildlife to an abundance of magical energy, which occasionally triggered a sort of mutation.

“One time, I saw a mushroom magicified by scavenger slime fertilizer... I didn’t know it could happen to humans.”

“The modern human body is able to safely store and expel any excess magical energy. For the most part, the worst that could happen from being overexposed to magical energy nowadays is a little bit of nausea. Back then, humans had not developed these functions yet. Over generations, the organisms of this world gradually built their resistance to magical energy until individuals could wield magic and humans branched off various species,” Wilieris said.

“You mean like elves, dwarves, and hybrids...”

“Those and a bunch more. Another example you’re familiar with is goblins—they’re descended from humans too,” Grimp said.

“Wait, goblins evolved from humans? On Earth, they were sometimes considered relatives of fairies.”

Grimp’s face soured as he downed the rest of his sake and began pouring out another. Slowly, he told me how magicification took many forms, and it wasn’t uncommon for humans affected by it to mutate beyond recognition. Those who were magicified into inhumane forms and their descendants were considered hellion—heretics hunted down by followers of Creationism. War ensued, of course, and expanded until it destroyed several kingdoms. That was when the first goblin was born.

“If you’re making booze with goblins, you already know how purely they pursue pleasure. On the flip side, they don’t worry much about things like their stink or grime,” Grimp said.

“That’s true.”

“They’re a species evolved specifically to preserve their kind through tumultuous times. Times were rough in those war-torn kingdoms. When normal folks could barely get by, persecuted groups had it particularly rough. It had to be better for their mental health not to be bothered with things that didn’t directly threaten their survival. In exchange for their intelligence, these goblins gained emotional resilience. But then they’d be easy pickings for anyone with half a brain that wanted them dead. That’s why they evolved until they were heartier than humans against injury and sickness. Their stomachs were stronger, so they could live off of half-rotten food, and they reproduced earlier in life and much faster than humans, so that their species could endure,” Grimp explained. “Those changes may seem like regression on the surface, but their species adapted well to their environment. As a result, goblins are still prosperous—so much so that goblins were once the most populous species among those descended from humans.”

I had no idea how much time it had taken for goblins to evolve this way, but their evolutionary trajectory made sense, especially when I imagined what would happen if society as I knew it on Earth came crumbling down. What would happen if the people of Japan, for example, were plunged from a comfortable life of immaculate hygiene, good food, and convenience, to one of life-or-death, postapocalyptic survival? During disasters, the stress of evacuation alone caused friction in shelters. It was difficult to imagine the emotional distress that would come with the crumbling of civilization. How many modern-day people could survive something like that with a sound mind and body?

On a related note, out of the new hires at my old office, the ones who had been hardworking and considerate to those around them had been the quickest to mentally break down. Maybe the key to a happy life was not caring so much? Besides, I’d heard once that there was only about a one percent difference between the DNA of humans and that of chimpanzees. It didn’t seem too far-fetched that goblins and humans shared ancestors.

“That’s enough on the history of human evolution,” Grimp said. “Let’s get back on track. That curse-breaking lost magic you’re trying to re-create is a spell utilizing magitons that was wielded by people who barely had any magical energy. Long story short, the density of magical energy was completely different back then.”

“You are performing the spell correctly, but your own pools of magical energy are interfering with the flow of magitons. Imagine pebbles rolling down a hill, then several heavy boulders rolling down and knocking the pebbles off course,” Wilieris said.

“No wonder the spell was working, just not showing any results,” I said.

Using moonlight to gather magitons wouldn’t do us any good when our own magical energy was scattering them all to the wind. On top of that, there was no way we were working with one hundred percent efficiency, which would explain the discrepancy between the magical energy used and the results we saw.

“In complete hindsight, I probably should have prioritized communicating with Korumi.”

“That’d be more efficient,” Grimp said. “As a fairy, he can sense magical energy much better than any human can. Being able to absorb it from nature means he can control magitons. There ain’t anyone better suited for giving you advice on this stuff.”

“Part of why we explained how the spell works is because we knew you would be able to ask him and discover the issues,” Wilieris added. “You have two more days of inspection left, and you plan to return to Korumi straightaway, don’t you?”

That was the plan, and I was going to tell him what I’d been up to, which would have driven the conversation from inspecting the cursed ground to the lost magic. I would have gotten the solution in a few days, even if they hadn’t told me today.

“We’ll take care of breaking your curse. Take your time with it,” Grimp said.

“Studying hexes seems to be benefiting you— Oh?”

My body started glowing—time to go.

“Time flies when we get talking like this,” Grimp said.

“You can say that again. I’ll be back soon,” I promised.

“Then you will make all of us happy. And one more thing, as thanks for the delicious drink and food. Once you return to the city, I recommend trusting your new employee Eleonora with larger tasks. While it can’t be helped during your inspection, she feels like she has too much time on her hands,” said Wilieris.

“Got it. I was going to have her start work in a more official capacity once we made it back. I won’t hesitate to delegate paperwork to her.”

“She would like that.”

“Take care, Ryoma.”

With Grimp’s word of parting, my vision went white in the familiar way it always did when I visited the gods through a chapel. In the next breath, I was standing in my room in the cottage again.

I’d unexpectedly gotten useful advice from simply sharing my leftovers. With newfound information, I was ready to tackle another day of work tomorrow.

Chapter 10, Episode 25: A New Challenge...and More

The next morning, I discovered that my concerns for Eleonora had come true—she was hungover. Leaving her with porridge and a bowl of miso soup and mushrooms that did wonders for a hangover, I set up breakfast for the rest of us. Eleonora would eat when she could eat.

At the table, I shared the information the gods gave me last night, under the guise of recalling a story my grandmother told me years ago.

Rosenberg grunted. “The change in capacity for magical energy... That would explain our results, but the solution to our problem remains elusive.”

“Can’t you just use less magical energy?”

“Miya. Unlike magical energy, normal people can’t even detect magitons. When you use enhancement magic, you can sense the magical energy in your body, but not in the world around you, right?”

“Miss Cilia is correct... We can control, for example, a half of the magical energy it takes to cast a spell, or maybe a tenth of it. Magitons are far more minute than that. Their existence is widely accepted, yet they are considered largely impossible for humans to control. Releasing control of magical energy and letting it dissipate should get it closer to a state of free-floating magitons. First, we would need to test if it is even possible to control dissipated magical energy without condensing it again. Even if it is possible, I expect mastering the craft to require some rigorous training.”

With my slime vision cheat code, I could at least observe magitons, which meant I was a lot closer to controlling them than the rest of humanity was. Moreover, I had a powerful ally by the name of Korumi. I decided to tell the group about him.

“Absorbing magical energy from nature...? I’ll add it to the list of crazy things you’ve mentioned like they were nothing, Chief,” Hudom said.

“I know it’s unheard of, but let’s table that. If I speak to Korumi, I’m sure he can share some insight on magitons with me. That won’t happen until I go back into the Sea of Trees, so I will continue my research until then. However, I was hoping to start exploring other methods of communicating with Korumi using hexes. What do you think?”

“There is no deadline. If those are tasks you would like to accomplish at some point, there is no harm in starting now...especially given how quickly you acquire these skills, Ryoma. Besides, I would be interested to hear this Korumi’s opinion on the matter myself. Have you thought about what kind of spell to use in particular?” Rosenberg asked.

“When it comes to this, no clue. Korumi’s body is an old house. I’ve tossed a few ideas around in my mind, but none of them have clicked,” I said.

For example, I remembered how, in countries with wider highways than Japan, houses could be driven from place to place on the back of a flatbed. In this world, though, moving a house from the Sea of Trees to any city seemed impossible, even with the help of magic. I could probably move the desk that constituted his core, but I wasn’t going to risk hurting him by ripping the desk away from the rest of his body. I’d been focusing on wireless communication along the lines of telephone or radio, but no idea had felt right.

“In that case, why don’t you put a pin in designing a specific hex, and focus on elevating your hexing to the next level?” Rosenberg suggested.

“What did you have in mind?” I asked.

“Casting a powerful spell requires great power. Warlocks draw said power by facing down their own negative emotions. In other words, you would be pushing your limits. You have learned to cast hex after hex that I have taught you, but you have never cast a hex with all of your power.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

“Just to be clear, you have been a model student,” Rosenberg continued. “There is no doubt about that, nor has there been any flaw in your approach. In fact, I believe it was your keen understanding of how dangerous these hexes can be that drove you to carefully wield your negative emotions and strength thus far. That is precisely why I feel comfortable testing your limits. The kind of training I have in mind would never be recommended to children when they have not yet emotionally matured. But I would sooner trust Ryoma with this process than anyone who has grown up simply by growing older.”

Rosenberg seemed to have sussed out my mental age. Even if I wasn’t exactly a well-adjusted adult, I was more mature than a preteen. He added that he only wanted me to challenge my limits under his direct supervision so that he could back me up in case of an emergency. If he was this confident, I had no reason not to take up the much-needed next step in my warlock training. “I will take you up on that.”

“Very well. There are some preparations I would like to make, so let us begin tomorrow. Ryoma, I would like you to pick out the hex you feel most comfortable with wielding out of the ones I have taught you. You may make improvements to it as you see fit.”

“So you want me to pick a hex to pour as much negative energy into it as I can? Got it.”

After that, I went to clear the lumber left from the path that we had laid out the day before. Sebas and Rosenberg went to check on the roped-off perimeter of the mountain. Hudom and the adventurers went to plant groves of baobark to serve as firebreaks. We each set out for another day of work.

***

Work went off without a hitch until lunch. When we had all gathered in the dining hall, Eleonora joined us. “I am terribly sorry for my behavior last night. Not only did I ramble off incessantly, I dozed off and had to be led to bed...”

“You didn’t do anything wrong!”

“We’ve all been there. Don’t worry about it, much less apologize for it.”

“You were a very tame drunk, if anything.”

“We barely noticed that you were drunk at all.”

“That doesn’t even count as being drunk. I’ve seen a bunch of adventurers knock back one too many and end up singing and dancing naked, or even start brawls.”

“Don’t say it like every adventurer goes off the rails at the bar!” Miya said, and turned to Eleonora. “Well, Jeff’s story is extreme, but you’re definitely not the worst drunk in the world.”

“Thank you. That makes me feel somewhat better...” Eleonora said, finally relaxing a little.

“How are you feeling? You still don’t look fully recovered,” I ventured.

“Much better, on account of my sleeping through the morning. And the soup helped settle my stomach a lot.”

“That’s great. Do you feel like you can eat anything for lunch?” I asked.

“Well... I think I will stick to bread and soup for now,” Eleonora said.

“Coming right up,” I said, and prepared a hearty lunch for the party and a light soup and some bread for Eleonora.

While we ate, we debriefed each other on the progress we had made that morning, in part so we could bring Eleonora up to speed.

“So you’ve made good progress with the firebreaks,” I summarized.

“Hudom used his magic to make the trees grow whenever he had the time, which made our jobs easier,” Cilia said.

“You dug us those ditches, Chief, so all we had to do was plant the trees and cover them with dirt. Thanks to the scavenger slime fertilizer, we could easily propagate them from the branches we’d collected. Still, we don’t have enough to line the entire path, and I still have to use magic little by little on the saplings we planted to make them full-sized. It’s going to take some time until the groves will function as firebreaks,” Hudom said.

“No problem. I’m not in a hurry to finish the firebreaks. We’ve made good headway clearing the trees from the path. By the time we leave, carriages will be able to use the mountain route. Starting with our next visit, I can start using my magic on the firebreaks. We can take our time.”

There were plenty of other projects I could do around the mountain: paving or improving the drainage of the path, turning the lumberyard into farms, setting up a waterwheel along the creek... My to-do list seemed to grow every time I started a project, but the whole point of maintaining the mountain was to show that I was taking care of it. I had no intention of leaving these projects half finished, but I also didn’t need to perfect the mountain immediately.

“Do you think our work so far has at least contributed to demonstrating our intentions to take care of the mountain?” I asked Eleonora.

“More than proficiently. No one could doubt our intentions or ability to maintain this place after seeing the work we’ve completed. If anyone does, I will deal with them.”

“Wonderful. I will call on you if it ever comes to that,” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

Soon, our relaxing lunch and teatime came to an end.

“Master Takebayashi, allow me to clear the table,” Eleonora said.

“No need. I’m just going to ask a cleaner slime to wash the dishes. I’d like you to rest up some more,” I said. Wilieris had mentioned that Eleonora had too much time on her hands, but I wasn’t going to push more work on her when she still needed to recover physically. “I will be giving you work as my secretary. Once we get back to the city, there will be a lot more of it...mostly because I’ll come up with projects I want to take on and leave you to figure out the details. It’s going to be enough of a pain working for me as it is. At the very least, you should rest when you need to.”

“Understood,” Eleonora said, rather reluctantly.

Even as we spoke, the cleaner slime had finished washing the dishes. “Now that that’s done, I’ll—”

“Pervert!” Miya yelped, bursting through the door.

“What’s going on?” I asked. What did she mean by “pervert”?

“Intruder! Probably a noble!”

Miya’s answer was succinct, but it didn’t explain why a noble had any business entering the mountain. I glanced at Eleonora, Sebas, and Rosenberg—who’d stayed behind in the dining room—but none of them seemed to know who this was. “Can you start at the beginning?” I asked.

“We were planting the firebreaks down the path. About halfway down the mountain, a guy was sprawled on the ground like he’d collapsed there. He’s conscious, but hasn’t been able to talk. I thought he was a noble because of his dress,” Miya explained. They’d decided that the trespasser was to be dealt with delicately because of his presumed status. Hudom was taking charge of assessing him while the other adventurers stood watch. Miya had come to notify me and bring other members of our group more experienced with speaking to nobles.

“A noble was on the side of our mountain road? Alone?” I repeated.

“That is suspicious. There have not been any reports of bandits or other dangers in the area. It is difficult to imagine how a noble would end up collapsed and unaccompanied, not to mention how he crossed the roped-off boundary,” Eleonora said.

“We went around this morning and confirmed that the ropes are still effective. Of course, the boundary does not go around the entire mountain yet, leaving a side of the mountain open. However, we made sure to rope off the path-side first,” Sebas said.

“Even if he followed the rope until he found the path, I fail to imagine what business he had to enter the mountain in the first place,” Rosenberg supplied.

“We have no idea either, but we need backup!” Miya urged.

“Yes. We’ll figure out more when we see this person,” I said.

Praying that we weren’t getting roped into a messy situation, we hurried to meet the rest of our group.

Chapter 10, Episode 26: Unmasking the Intruder

As soon as Miya had explained the situation with the intruder, Sebas teleported us to a spot halfway down the mountain path. We began running down the path and came up to the others in no time.

“We’re here!” I announced.

The group turned, faces brightened with relief. That’s when I realized that there wasn’t much tension or wariness on their expressions when they were regarding the intruder, who must have been just on the other side of the crowd. I spotted Hudom among them, who Miya had said was the one in charge of speaking to the stranger. Overall, the group just looked...confused. I didn’t have to wait long until I caught a glimpse of the man of the hour, because the group parted as I approached.

Sure enough, the intruder wore lavish clothes that indicated noble status. For whatever reason, though, his head had been sheared close to the scalp. He was leaning against the curb, visibly out of breath. I was about to be concerned for his health when the man huffed out a laugh.

“Magnificent. Truly magnificent! This texture... This weight... Like the altar of Vaughtecion Temple— No, methodical construction like this reminds me more of the Zepherion Ruins. Oh, how is it possible that these are here...?” The man was nuzzling the curb with his reddened cheek, with no regard for his expensive-looking clothes getting dustier with every movement. In fact, he didn’t even seem to know we were here at all. He was just...enjoying the curb.

“A pervert?” Yes, that felt like a good summary for this stranger.

“Yes, a purrvert!” Miya confirmed.

“He’s been like this the whole time.”

“I’ve tried talking to him a few times, but I don’t think he knows we exist. It’s not like he’s trying to sabotage the construction in any way, so we decided to hold out for your arrival rather than forcibly get his attention,” Hudom explained.

“Thank you for bringing me up to speed.” That still left me without a solid idea of how to deal with the intruder. At first, I had suspected some agent of malicious intent who wanted to sabotage my or the Jamils’ work here. If that were the case, the curb-nuzzling made no sense, even as an attempt to catch us off guard. His excited mumblings so far were complimenting my craftsmanship, so there was a chance he was a friend and not a foe...

“Oh? Is he...?”

“Do you recognize him, Sebas?”

“He is dressed quite differently from when I last saw him, but I believe that is Mister Perdor Beckentein.”

I’d heard the name before, about a year ago. He was a well-known architect who had been tasked with designing the colosseum that would be the centerpiece of the new city, and was also the person who had put out the quest for acquiring treant materials. I’d been told that he was...particular.

“Allow me to speak to him first. If that is Mister Beckentein, there is little to no chance that he intends to harm anyone or the work being done here. As it stands, he is the trespasser and I the duke’s butler. Even if he attempts to cause a political stir, it will not stick,” Sebas said.

“Thank you for doing that,” I said.

Sebas quietly approached the man and put a hand on his shoulder. The trespasser looked annoyed at first, but once Sebas called him by name, he seemed to remember who he was. He rose with the grace that was becoming of a noble, but his composure only lasted a second.

Now, he began looking left and right like a lost child looking for his parents. “Ethan? Where are you, Ethan?!” he cried out. Perhaps Ethan was the name of his attendant.

“Have you seen anyone else around?” I asked the group.

“No one. We had done a quick search of the area,” Jeff said.

“I would have heard the rustling of clothes or footsteps if there were anyone else around. That would have almost been preferable,” Welanna supplied.

“I agree... Does that mean that this ‘Ethan’ is still outside the mountain while the pervert got past the hexed rope? How...?” Just as my mind began to race about how this man made it up here, a loud crack came from the foot of the mountain.

“Sounds like it’s coming from the start of the path,” Cilia assessed.

“Does it sound like an Ethan?” Hudom asked.

“I can’t tell that much, but there is someone shouting. If this man is a noble, he certainly has more than one guard with him. The one yelling down there may be a keen-hearing beastkin like me. That would explain how he heard the noble calling for ‘Ethan.’ My guess is the sound we all heard came from the second intruder crossing the barrier. The shouting is getting closer and closer, but not linearly...which means he is following the path,” Cilia said.

“Maybe he thinks his master is in danger,” Miya suggested.

“Maybe... That shouldn’t be a problem. He can’t doubt our intentions if we keep away from this guy,” Welanna said.

I’d only heard the loud crack, but Cilia must have heard more with her rabbit ears. Her keen ears, combined with years of experience processing the auditory information, allowed her to assess her surroundings in a far more insightful way than I could have if I had simply cast a spell that boosted my hearing now. Seeing her in action gave me renewed admiration for her skill.

Just then, I saw a peanut-sized silhouette appear farther down the path. He must have noticed us too—the figure rapidly grew closer until I could make out an armored man and his face that was contorted with fury.

“Ethan, I’m here!”

“Master Perdor! Are you unharmed?!”

“I am. Sorry to always— Huh?”

Keeping the momentum of his magic-boosted sprint, Ethan threw himself between Perdor and us, glowering in our direction. “Who are you?!” he bellowed.

“Ethan, they’re with Duke Jamil—”

“Stand back, my lord! It isn’t safe!”

“E-Ethan? What’s the matter? Why are you so furious?”

Ethan ignored his master, looking ready to draw the sword on his belt at any moment. Naturally, we were also bracing for combat. Tension in the air became a live wire...and my eyes met Ethan’s.

Wait. He’s not glowering at us... He’s glowering at me. “Try to stay calm,” I told our group. “My curse could be causing this.”

“Oh, right.”

“Completely forgot about that. It doesn’t affect us anyway.”

“I’ll go back to the dining room. If it is the curse, you’ll probably have a better shot at a civilized conversation without me,” I said.

“Aye-aye. We’ll take care of this situation,” Miya said.

“Master Takebayashi, if a civilized conversation is indeed possible, I shall invite them to the cottage. Could I ask you to have beverages ready to serve them?” Sebas asked.

“No problem.” Using Space magic, I quickly excused myself from the standoff.

Perdor was attempting to calm his guard down, and he seemed more reasonable than I had thought at first. Even Ethan looked like he had enough sense left to know he didn’t stand a chance against our whole roster of adventurers in combat. His temper could have very well cooled as soon as I was out of the picture. If worse came to worst and Ethan picked a fight, the adventurers wouldn’t break a sweat in detaining him.

For the first time, I felt like I’d gotten a real taste of my curse. My guard had been down, working in this isolated location surrounded by friends. All I could do now was try to think up a way to mitigate the curse while I prepared the cottage for the pair of unexpected guests.

***

Thirty minutes later, Rosenberg walked into the dining room. “How did it go?” I asked.

“All well. Once you left, Mister Foster was able to collect himself. There was no squirming or injuries on either side.”

“Wonderful!”

“They requested to apologize and explain their reason for coming here. Will you meet them?”

“How is my curse?” I asked. “I did try altering the protection spell to contain it somewhat.”

“It has grown slightly stronger than before, but it seems your new spell is containing it sufficiently. From what I could ascertain from our brief conversation, much of the tension had come from the bad timing. There should not be a repeat performance of what transpired on the path.”

Rosenberg’s expert endorsement was good enough for me to trust my spell’s effectiveness. I stepped outside to formally welcome our guests.

“Incredible! The rock-hewn look and aggressively minimalist construction...just like the altars of Vaughtecion Temple and Zepherion Ruins. Truly incredible!”

“Master Perdor! Knock it off! We are trespassing on Duke Jamil’s land!”

What I saw outside was the architect trying to cling to the wall of the cottage, held back by Ethan Foster. Behind them, four men awkwardly stood around, each of them wearing matching armor to Ethan. From this vignette alone, I could imagine what Ethan had to deal with on a daily basis. I invited Beckentein, his entourage, and my noble friends inside.

Hudson, Eleonora, and I sat on one side of the table while Sebas stood in the corner of the room. Across from us sat Beckentein and Foster, the other guards lining up behind them. Rosenberg sat at the head of the table so he could supply additional information about the work going on here.

“As you may know, I am Perdor Beckentein—genius architect.”

“I am his guard, Ethan Foster.”

“It is very nice to meet you both. My name is Ryoma Takebayashi. I am not well-versed in etiquette. Please forgive any indiscretions on my part.”

“No, we are the ones who have left our courtesy behind. Entering the grounds run by another house’s engineer without his permission is not acceptable,” Beckentein said.

“First, allow us to apologize. We are truly sorry for entering your territory without permission...and for the boorish behavior I showed earlier,” said Foster.

Our conversation began with quick introductions, Beckentein puffing his chest for some reason. As I could glean from the casual way he introduced himself as a genius architect, he was very sure of himself. Currently, his hair looked like Beethoven’s, from his famous portrait. So it seemed that Beckentein wore a wig. Meanwhile, Foster was knitting his brow and rubbing his stomach from over the armor. I had a good guess as to what their relationship and history were like. Most likely, Beckentein spotted the walls along the mountain path and must have followed it into the mountain with no regard for anything else, while Foster struggled to hold him back.

Beckentein began telling his side of the story, which turned out to be pretty similar to my assumption. “I was on my way to Gaunago to discuss with Duke Jamil my commission to design and construct the new colosseum. We were taking the road that goes by the foot of this mountain. But when we came up to the mountain, I saw a brand-new path and an alluring row of walls. Who wouldn’t want to take a closer look? I stopped the carriage and ran over.”

“As ridiculous as that sounds, that is truly in his nature,” Foster chimed in. “Whenever his interest is piqued by a piece of architecture, he must drop everything. Today, he was just supposed to observe the construction from beyond the ropes...until that wasn’t enough. Normally, I forcibly hold him back from trespassing anywhere. For some reason, I hesitated today and he ran into the mountain before I could stop him.”

Hearing this, Rosenberg explained that Foster must have been affected by my hex on the rope. Because the people-repellent effect on the rope was driven by the emotions I had felt when I was a hermit, it didn’t physically prevent anyone from crossing its border, but instead created a sort of emotional roadblock that made people think twice about stepping over the rope.

At the foot of the mountain, Foster couldn’t pursue his master as he ran up the mountain path. On the other hand, Beckentein’s curiosity far overpowered the reservation he felt as a result of the hex. The genius architect went running up the mountain path like a horse with a carrot dangling in front of his nose, from how Foster told it.

“Is that hex so easy to break?” I asked Rosenberg. “I remember you rated it a fairly powerful curse, according to the report.”

“It is not a hex that could be broken easily. Lord Beckentein’s obsession was simply extraordinary.”

The ropes were hardly a physical barrier, so breaking through the curse was only a matter of mental fortitude. It couldn’t have been easy, but Beckentein accomplished it subconsciously.

“How did you get past the ropes?” I asked Foster.

“I could not cross them on my own. One of my men blew away the ropes with his spell.”

“You brute-forced it... At least that makes sense. That’s how you made it up the path,” I said.

“Knowing Master Perdor, I figured he would be along the path. As soon as I saw you, I felt a powerful urge that I needed to protect him at all costs. The thought consumed me. I offer my sincerest apologies for my behavior.”

“None of this would have happened if I had not trespassed. The blame lies with me.”

Both Foster and Beckentein looked genuinely sorry, directing their apologies at me, despite my physical age.

I glanced at Hudom and Eleonora—they both nodded. “In part, my curse might have affected your state of mind. I also understand how being separated from your master could send you into fight-or-flight,” I said.

The isolation curse cast on me amplified negative emotions in others when they saw me. In this case, it had amplified Foster’s desperation to protect his master. The stronger their emotion, the more susceptible they were to the curse. It was conceivable how a stranger—someone who hadn’t gotten to know me like the others here had—under these circumstances could get that riled up. I could chalk it up to a product of a bizarre situation and the effect of my curse, but I still needed to report back to Duke Jamil about this.

Once I explained that, our two guests looked at me.

“You are too kind,” Beckentein said.

“And gracious. Thank you,” Foster added.

Now that we’d caught each other up to speed and they’d given us a verbal apology, I asked them to leave congenially and expeditiously. The group had been en route to the duke’s by carriage, but Sebas had apparently offered them a lift with his Space magic, since he was going to be the one to have to make the report to the duke. Sebas and the duke were sure to go over all the details.

“Phew... I’m glad we could talk that out,” I said.

“Fortunately, they only saw the path, cottage, and the exterior of your construction sites. This would have been more complicated if they had seen your current research or watched you work with slimes,” Sebas said.

“It definitely helped that he wasn’t one of those nobles. Beckentein knew he messed up and admitted it. Of course, you can’t always give him a pass for losing his self-control like that,” Hudom added.

I’d been taken aback by his bizarre display at first, but Beckentein didn’t seem like the malicious, corrupt kind of noble. If anything, he was complimenting my construction. Besides, I had no room to talk when it came to getting lost in an obsession...even though I liked to think that I wasn’t as bad as Beckentein. He was an...“artíst” through and through. How many great artists were also known for their eccentricity?

Then, it occurred to me. Since he was in charge of designing the colosseum, he might soon find his way to Gimul. With his curious mumblings about my construction, and what could have been a sidelong glance out the window before he followed Sebas through the portal, I had a strange feeling that I would be seeing genius architect Perdor Beckentein again.

Chapter 10, Episode 27: Preparing the Right Tool

After our bizarre interruption in the afternoon, we finished our work for the day with time to spare. Before I turned in, though, there was something I had to ask Rosenberg.

“In preparation for tomorrow’s hex, I’m thinking of building something like the staff you used to extract cursed energy. Could these magical crystals store cursed energy?” On the dining room table, I’d laid out the dark magical crystals we had found in the gallows of the City of Lost Souls. From what Sebas had said at the time, these were very high-quality crystals.

“May I?” Rosenberg carefully reached for one and held it up against the light, closely inspecting it. Then, he clasped the crystal in both hands and smiled. “It is a wonderful crystal, of more than sufficient quality to make a staff with and far superior to mine, both in cursed-energy capacity and durability.”

As I’d hoped, the crystals were well suited for this purpose. Rosenberg’s high praise for one of the ordinary magical crystals made me wonder: What would he think of the magic gem I’d also found in the gallows? “Could you take a look at this one?” I produced a piece of the magic gem that was once the demon lord fragment from my Item Box.

As soon as he saw it, Rosenberg’s eyes flew open and he almost leaned out of his chair, nearly startling me in turn.

“This is a fragment of the magic gem I found, back when I was cursed.”

“I recall you mentioning it when you told me the story. So this is it...” Rosenberg took the fragment into his hand...and fell silent.

Fernobelia had said the demon lord fragment had been removed from the gem, so I wasn’t worried about it cursing Rosenberg or anything. Still, his expression and the air grew more tense with every breath.

“Is everything okay?” I finally asked.

“It is difficult to say... I am unable to perform an accurate assessment. But I will say that I have never seen a better conduit for hexing than this. Those magical crystals were of excellent quality, but they pale in comparison to this. If I were to estimate a price... It could buy a castle, at the very least.”

“A castle?! With a little piece like this?” The piece he was holding had chipped off the original cluster when we moved it out of the gallows. It wasn’t bigger than the nail on my index finger...and it could buy a castle?!

“A magic gem, one of a Dark element at that, would fetch a fortune on its own. Perhaps because it had once contained the curse that afflicts you, I sense that it is highly conducive for hexing. Any warlock would go to great lengths to acquire something like this. Whether they have the financial means to afford it or the skills to utilize its full potential is another story entirely. Duke Cassiel would trade one of his castles for it without a second thought. That is how extraordinary this piece is. I understand that you have shown this to me because you trust me. Still, I must caution you to choose very carefully who else you reveal this to.”

“I will,” I promised. It felt like a waste to keep it stashed away forever, though, so I decided to use it for experiments that no one else would see.

“May I ask what sort of spell you intend to create? I would like to be mentally prepared, just in case something goes awry.”

“Of course. Right now, I’m thinking of combining three steps of removing cursed energy.” The first step was protecting myself from what I expected to be a huge quantity of cursed energy that would gather around me. Next up was collecting the cursed energy. Because of how this process made sense to me, I would be surrounded by the cursed energy I’d gather—naturally, that was going to be very dangerous. “In addition to my own protection, I intend to ask the help of the curse slime that recently evolved. There’s still a chance that I wouldn’t have enough of a buffer to shield myself with. My third step is using the magic gem to divert the cursed energy away from me and into some sort of receptacle. After that, it would be even better if I could cleanse the cursed energy.”

“I see. You have already considered redundant safety nets. Beyond that, I have no advice. New hexes are normally a process of trial and error... You should try it out in whatever way you see fit. If I see that you are in danger, I will step in. I will create an exit route and have one of the adventurers pull you out, even by force,” Rosenberg said.

“Thank you. Beyond the spell’s procedure, is there anything else I should be mindful of?”

“Let me think... In hexology, ‘pushing your limits’ means to discern the ceiling of your power and attempting to approach that ceiling...not to break it. Never try to wield more power than you have.” Rosenberg meant that I could improve my skills through this training, but that would come as a result of finding out where the limits to that power lay, not by breaking those limits. Stability was paramount. “Of course, that is easier said than done. It is not uncommon for warlocks to lose their composure and control over their spell during this training. It would be best if it never comes to that, but losing control of a spell is almost expected. Worrying too much about that can break your focus, so try not to let that burden you when you attempt the spell.” Rosenberg added that spotting signs that a warlock was about to lose control of their spell was one of his particular talents.

“Now that you say that, I remember you told me how finding sources of cursed energy and studying and uncovering the causes of curses are your specialties. Noticing signs of a warlock about to lose control falls under that umbrella, I suppose.”

“The particular branch of hexology passed down in my family for generations is one that gleans information from the magical energy of hexes and from cursed energy itself... For example, you leveraged your memories from your days of seclusion in the forest to hex those ropes, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I could have gone down to town at any time, but I never really wanted to. I used those feelings of isolation,” I said.

“In other words, you imbued the ropes with your emotion, along with your magical energy, when you cast the curse. Because magical energy is manipulated with the power of will, residual intentions and emotions of the caster linger in the magical energy of any hex. However, that information is not revealed in concrete words or images. Based on the reaction I sense when I influence the hex with my own magical energy, I begin my deduction. From there, I still need to navigate towards the answer with my experience as my guide,” Rosenberg explained.

He went on to tell me some of his family legends about his ancestors: One stopped on a mountain path on his way to work, only to stray off the path and somehow find a buried body; another suddenly began nodding along beside a dead body, then perfectly described the murder scene he wasn’t there to witness and even described the hideout of the bandits responsible for the murder...as if they communed with the dead.

“Hearing the voice of the dead... That almost sounds like a séance,” I said.

“Oh, is that another piece of knowledge from your family? Our family has practiced hexology that deals closely with spirits, much like necromancy. Before our family was protected by the Cassiels, we were outcasts even among other warlocks. The difficulty of learning this branch of hexology has kept the craft and information about it from spreading to many others. I am very impressed that you guessed that much from those stories.”

“I’m no expert, of course, but my grandparents had plenty of books and all sorts of categories. Also, when I used my cleansing magic against the Undead in the City of Lost Souls, the responses I felt from them were humanlike. It seemed plausible that there would be a method of speaking with them.” I’d even seen Undead with their souls bound to Korumi in the Sea of Trees.

“Since you know that much... Would you like to learn my family’s craft?” Rosenberg offered.

“Are you sure? Isn’t it a trade secret?”

“Once our family joined the Cassiels—a few generations ago—we stopped keeping our craft a secret. In fact, we welcome anyone willing to learn it, in order to prevent our craft from fading away. Of course, there are no obligations that come with studying the craft either.”

What Rosenberg had taught me so far had been aligned to the hexology curriculum set forth by the Cassiels. He hadn’t introduced me to his family’s craft due to how difficult it was to learn. It wasn’t something he’d teach a novice warlock still working on fundamental hexing.

“Experience plays a great part in acquiring our family’s craft, which can be quite time-consuming. I would not be surprised if you learned it much faster than most,” said Rosenberg.

“I’m not sure I can live up to that expectation, but if you’re willing to teach me, I’ll try my best.”

“I would be grateful even if you only try it once. My father, who has retired from active hexing, is working on passing on our craft to other warlocks...without great results. He often pesters me about passing down our craft to an apprentice.”

So the dwindling warlock population was hitting Rosenberg closer to home than I’d thought. Does he have to pass on his craft to a human? I wondered. If not, Korumi might be a better candidate...

I asked him, and Rosenberg seemed intrigued by Korumi too. I promised to introduce them as soon as I figured out how to set up communication between Korumi and others. On that note, I returned to my room to craft the tool I needed for tomorrow’s experiment.

***

“I did it...” I breathed. By the time I’d gotten the details to where I wanted them, it was late into the night. If I didn’t go to sleep soon, I was afraid I’d make people worry that I wasn’t getting enough sleep again. I decided to try out the staff really quickly before turning in for the night.

When I stepped outside, I found Eleonora standing outside the ladies’ cottage. “Eleonora. Are you still up?” I asked.

“Master Takebayashi... After sleeping until lunch today, I could not find sleep. And you?”

“I was making this for tomorrow.” I showed her the rake I was holding. In Japan, rakes were considered a tool to gather up good luck. There were even decorative fortune rakes out there. My rake was an augmented wand for hexing—a tool to gather up cursed energy. Other than the magic gem fragment I’d embedded in its center prong, it was made from ordinary bamboo I gathered in Fatoma...so calling it a “wand” was a bit of a stretch. Tekun said he’d teach me how to make a proper wand. I should take him up on that.

“Yes. That seems an intuitive tool to gather cursed energy,” Eleonora said.

“I think it’s a good design, if I do say so myself,” I said. Then, I noticed something off about Eleonora. She didn’t have a long face or anything, but there was an inexplicable hint of gloom in the air. Remembering how Wilieris said that she had too much time on her hands, I wanted to keep her talking a while longer. “If you wouldn’t mind, could you help me prepare for tomorrow? It won’t take long.”

“I will do anything you ask of me,” Eleonora said without hesitation, despite the late-night hour.

I couldn’t help but draw a comparison between her and myself or my coworkers back in Japan. Regardless, since Eleonora was—apparently—eager to help, I took her to a location better suited for our next task.

Chapter 10, Episode 28: Eleonora’s Regrets, Part 1

Eleonora and I moved to the lumberyard carpeted with plenty of fallen leaves and located far enough from the cottage to encourage more conversation. I raked the leaves a few times with my new rake to get a handle on the tool. Of course, I didn’t actually need help with such a simple task.

“What do you require my help with, Master Takebayashi?”

“With generating negative emotions for the spell. In short, I was hoping you could listen to me vent. I’m sorry to bring up last night again, but I felt like I could open up to you more easily than I could with others. Not that I don’t trust or think that anyone else in that cottage wouldn’t let me vent to them, but...”

“I believe I understand your meaning. I sensed that you have dealt with troublesome characters in your life, though not quite in the same manner that I have. Whether you trust someone or not, it takes some practice before venting comes naturally.”

“Yes, that’s it. Venting feels so effortless with someone you can share a drink and commiserate with. Without that, I feel pressured to keep things bottled up instead of bothering them with my complaining.” I’d make no promises that a complaint didn’t slip out of me once in a while, but the thought of intentionally venting to someone made me painfully aware of the potential consequences. I would worry about information I share getting out to more people than intended or giving off a negative impression of myself. Some people might even get preachy and tell me to stop complaining and to do something about it, or else give unwanted advice, which was the opposite of what I wanted from a vent session. When it came to the friends I’d made in this world, I was sure none of that would be a problem...but my faith in them made me feel like cheating—like I was owing them, somehow. Considering all of the above, it honestly felt easier to keep my grievances to myself.

“I feel the same. There were opportunities for me to vent both when I was a student and during my time in the militia. Each time, however, I hesitated to share how I really felt, and missed the window of opportunity in the conversation,” Eleonora said.

“I’ve done that too. Missing the opportunity is one thing, but the worst is when you share and the conversation stops in its tracks.”

“In my case, it culminated with someone at the table later calling me a ‘stuck-up square’ behind my back... I have always wondered why people cannot make those kinds of disparaging remarks more inconspicuously. Nothing can come from analyzing their behavior, but I always thought it curious how people could make those comments with their full chest.”

“Ah. Like when it sounds like they’re trying to keep their voice down, but it’s so obvious that they’re talking about you. Not to mention the sideways glances and snickering.” I’d had people talk “behind my back,” except they were in plain sight, giving me looks, and barely keeping their voices down. I would have thought they were doing it on purpose, except that they’d quickly look away whenever we made eye contact. “Maybe it’s herd mentality. If their friends are doing it, there can’t be anything wrong with it. They think everyone is doing the same. But then if you make direct eye contact, it becomes one-on-one. It becomes about you versus that person instead of the group. Once they realize that, it makes sense for them to hastily look away,” I assessed.

“That all makes sense. I still struggle to reconcile how girls from noble houses could not have at least found somewhere better to speak ill of me. There were plenty of places on campus where they could go, chief among them a café built for secret conversations.”

“You’re absolutely right— Wait, a café built for secret conversations? That’s a real facility of the academy in the capital?” I asked.

“More precisely, the academy’s café has private rooms that students can reserve for closed-door meetings. The academy was not only a place to pursue education but also a place for students to practice their part in high society. Politics among students was rampant and encouraged, especially from their fourth year onward, when students are permitted to help organize academy events. For noble-born students, their first three years are considered a training period to prepare them for year four and beyond.”

“Attending this academy sounds more and more tiring...if you don’t mind me saying.”

“It was tiring. As is the case in high society, the academy was filled with people who constantly tried to outsmart each other, even in casual conversation. My father is a baron—a low-ranking noble—and there were plenty of students from low-ranking noble houses at the academy, many of them pining for the favor of students from higher houses. It was common for students to sabotage each other to achieve that goal. Because of that, coupled with the expensive tuition and difficult classes, many students from houses without titles end up dropping out by year three. Any commoner who makes it past year three in the academy either has an exceedingly wealthy family or has exceptional skills that earned them a scholarship.”

I’d once been invited to attend the academy...and I couldn’t be more glad that I’d turned them down. “Thank you for sharing that with me. I’m sorry to circle back to this, but that sounded suspiciously like venting to me,” I teased.

“It was. Exchanging our grievances was considerably easier than sharing them one-sidedly.”

“Yes! That’s exactly what I wanted to say!” Good thing Eleonora had verbalized it. Personally, I felt better when whoever I was venting to returned a similar dose of venting back to me. Of course, I’d never pressure anyone into doing so if they didn’t want to. Still, I imagined Eleonora would feel awkward about refusing a request from her boss, no matter what I said. If only I was better at these kinds of things...

“As I mentioned yesterday, I have given myself closure about what has happened in the past. Eloquence has never been my strong suit either. If I can still be of service, I would be happy to,” she said.

“Thank you. I very much appreciate your help.” Seeing that Eleonora had agreed to help without any shade of reluctance, I took a seat on a nearby log. “Then let’s continue... I suggested this, so I’ll share something that I usually hesitate to do. It’s kind of related to how I find venting difficult. Do you feel, or since moving to Gimul, have you felt out of place somehow? I have...at least, a little.” I had no complaints with my work or pay or the people working with me, of course. I could unequivocally say that I was happy with my life.

Still, there were some times I just felt unsettled. I’d be in an environment where I should be at total ease, yet I wouldn’t be. That’s all it was—a strange and slight discomfort.

Eleonora stared at the sky thoughtfully and said, “I must agree with you once again. Although I am satisfied with my life, there are also times when I feel unsettled. I would never complain about the kindness I receive, and I would sooner suffocate than tell them I was made uncomfortable by their thoughtfulness...”

“If it’s not rude to say, I’m relieved. I couldn’t say that either.”

“Is this the reason you plan to return regularly to your family home in the Sea of Trees?” Eleonora asked.

“In part, yes. There’s Korumi too, so that isn’t the only reason.” As dangerous as the Sea of Trees had been, my journey had been freeing. Deep in the treacherous forest, there was no one around to be polite to or worry about offending. I had a firm grip on the reins of my life—and death. The only person I was accountable to was myself. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the time I spent free of social obligations. “With the risk of repeating myself, I am very happy with where I am... I just can’t seem to get used to it. It’s a first-world problem if I’ve ever heard of one.”

“Be that as it may, our conundrum may be a product of our circumstances. In my case, I was wed against my will and isolated in my own house, only to be nearly executed for a crime committed by my ex-husband and his family. Now, I am suddenly a free woman and I am not always sure what to do with myself or the time. I live a life where I am closer to people than I have ever been before, after I had gotten used to getting by with minimal social interactions... Something like a friendly glance was completely foreign to me.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself. Seriously. The best we can do, I suspect, is get used to it gradually.”

“I keep wondering if I could simply fix how I feel...” Eleonora trailed off, her expression troubled.

There was a long spell of silence between us. After that, Eleonora slowly began sharing her thoughts with me, perhaps encouraged by our venting session.

She was concerned about her family. For years, four other noble houses had controlled and exploited her family, until that was brought to light last year and the four houses faced justice. I confirmed that I’d known that much, and she moved on to telling me things I didn’t know. The first of which was that her family and fiefdom were not free from the rule of those four houses that exploited her family in many ways. One of which came in the form of the four houses sending in workers to develop and run the mines in Eleonora’s family’s territory, draining money from her family through the workers’ salaries.

Though they were under the guise of technicians and managers of the mines, these were actually members of crime syndicates that operated in each of the four fiefdoms. Basically having members of the mafia in her family’s territory wasn’t the worst of her problems either. “When the crimes of the four lords were brought to light, there was enough evidence against the syndicates for the kingdom to try and dismantle them. However, the higher-ups of the syndicate—who worked with the lords of their land for years—were quick to escape. My family’s fiefdom, where they already had a base of operations because of their exploitation, was the perfect refuge for them. Each syndicate set up their hideout. None of them have begun their criminal operations yet...but it is as clear as day that the syndicates will begin clashing with each other, sooner or later, which will inevitably endanger the civilians in the fiefdom. They must be dealt with. The problem lies with my father and two brothers, who should be the ones to deal with the syndicates.”

Clearly disheartened, Eleonora let out a long sigh and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Then, she continued.

“When I was finally freed from my ex-husband and returned home, I learned that the younger of my older brothers had gone missing, leaving a note that he had lost hope in the future of our house; my oldest brother, the heir to the fiefdom, drowns himself in liquor for the same reason; my father refused to do anything about the crime syndicates because they have yet to openly engage in their operations in our territory. Each syndicate was backed by one of the four lords before the fallout, providing them with a legal means of being in our fiefdom. Since they were there to extract profits from our mines, they held back from egregious criminal activity for fear of interrupting the mines’ operations and they were careful not to leave any incriminating evidence.”

I listened closely as I watched Eleonora’s face contort.

“Now, things have changed! Their restraint was never for the sake of civilians in our fiefdom, but purely out of loyalty to their own lord and self-preservation. With their patrons gone, they are sure to resort to brazen criminal activity to protect their reputation and profits. Fleeing their own fiefdoms in and of itself made them criminals, and anyone who harbors them, accomplices. There is abundant justification to arrest them all without fear of any retribution from other houses!”

Eleonora’s disappointment made way for outrage. It showed how much she cared for her fiefdom and its people until she was married off and forced out of the picture.

“Of course, even if they wanted to arrest those criminals now, we no longer have the resources.” She spoke calmly again, having regained her composure. “When I finally returned to my family’s estate for the first time since I was married away, I found it in disarray: Our gate was left open without so much as a guard posted; the house itself wasn’t maintained in the slightest; all of our staff had left, save for the butler. For days, I demanded answers from my family and even spoke to the townspeople anonymously until I discovered that everyone—our guards, staff, and the others in our fiefdom—all considered the house of Ransor finished.”

Once Eleonora was married, her family was completely at the mercy of the other four houses. The Ransors continued to operate the mines that were profitable to their exploiters under the supervision of the crime syndicates that served as their watchdogs. Rights to the mines—the lifeline of the Ransor fiefdom—were split between the four exploiting houses that made decisions and settled disputes as a committee...which didn’t include the Ransors. As Baron Ransor became a lord in name only, trust in the Ransors quickly diminished among the people.

“Now that the advisors have left and the constables have their hands full with maintaining law and order, eliminating four crime syndicates—even if they have diminished significantly—is not realistic. House Ransor cannot do it alone,” Eleonora said.

“Currently, your house is under the supervision of Duke Jamil, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ve considered this option, but could you ask the duke for aid?”

“I have, but my father and brothers vehemently refused to ask for any help. Without an official request from my father, even the duke could not intervene without reason—a clear threat to other territories, for example. A lord is responsible for his own fiefdom, for better or worse. If criminals find refuge in a territory, it is obviously expected for the lord of the land to deal with them with his own militia.”

“That reminds me of the incident the other day when we suspected an infringement of proprietary techniques,” I said.

“This kingdom conquered and absorbed many others. As a result, there are many pockets of local cultures and customs passed down from kingdoms that no longer exist. Too many lords disrespected those customs in their own lands either to protect their own interests or sense of superiority. Laws and new customs were drawn up to protect local culture, leading to the stronger independence of fiefdoms. Nowadays, fiefdoms are closer to their own kingdoms than territories.”

“Breaking that unspoken rule and intervening with a problem on Ransor territory will blemish the Jamils’ reputation...and they don’t have a reason to stick their neck out like that. This is a conundrum,” I said.

Within their own fiefdom, the lord held absolute power. Even other lords with a stronger position within the kingdom couldn’t easily intervene in business that was contained within another lord’s territory. By the same token, all Reinhart needed was a request from Baron Ransor to take action. That might involve some politicking, but it wasn’t that complicated a solution. Eleonora seemed to be especially frustrated with her father for not even attempting this relatively simple solution. “This is my guess, but does the baron avoid explaining why he doesn’t ask the duke for aid?”

“How did you know? That is exactly right. He only gives nonanswers like ‘It isn’t the right time’ or ‘We cannot spare the expenses.’ I demanded more details until he finally threatened to disown me.”

“It was that bad?”

“Yes... Thankfully, Duke and Duchess Jamil were there and talked my father out of disowning me. He still adamantly refused to ask for help with the syndicates.” Eleonora explained how she’d crashed the meeting of lords that convened to discuss the crimes committed at the end of the year. There, knowing she would most likely face some punishment for it, she enlisted Reinhart’s help in trying to talk some sense into her father. For a baron’s daughter to ask a duke for something like this, especially when her family was at fault, must have taken immense courage. Even then, her father remained resolute. She had tugged on the Jamils’ heartstrings, so they took Eleonora under their wings and convinced the Baron Ransor against disowning her. This was how she was freed from her toxic marriage and ended up with the Jamils.

“As a lord’s autonomy grew in history, so did his responsibility to his fiefdom. A lord who cannot fulfill his obligation to his people does not deserve his title. Having to ask another lord for help with a matter within one’s fiefdom is a sign of great weakness. If put in the same position, most nobles would recognize the need to step down and allow someone who can deal with the problem to take over. I cannot stop asking myself this question: Would our people be better if my father had been executed?” No tears ran down her face, but when Eleonora gazed up at the sky, I saw her eyes shimmer in the moonlight.

I sat there quietly, waiting for her to speak again.

Chapter 10, Episode 29: Eleonora’s Regrets, Part 2

It didn’t take nearly as long as I’d thought for Eleonora to regain her composure. “I am all right now. I apologize for that display.”

“Please don’t apologize. You mentioned that your family was this way when you returned home after escaping your marriage. They weren’t that way when you left the house to marry?”

“They were not... My father always told us that the king led the higher nobles, the higher nobles led us lower nobles, and we needed to lead our own people. He would also say that nobles are servants of the people, and we had to face and withstand ridicule at times if that meant protecting those in our fiefdom. He always taught us to conduct ourselves with honor—both in ruling the fiefdom and in living our lives. True to his word, he had always faced problems in the territory head-on and improved the lives of our people the best he could, even when prospects were grim. My brothers used to work diligently under my father so they could one day take over the reins. We were once a family worthy of the people’s trust.”

That’s what I’d thought. Throughout the night, Eleonora had spoken like she had been betrayed by someone she’d believed in. Of course she was rattled to see her family had changed so drastically.

She went on to say that seeing her father and brothers act with such integrity had motivated her to study everything she had a talent for, in hopes of aiding her family in ruling the fiefdom. Striving to become a royal sorcerer had all been to that end. “Royal sorcerers are not merely experts in magic. Working so closely with the king means they have significant sway in noble society. The pay is incomparably higher than the average sorcerer, and a significant enough accomplishment can even lead to a direct reward from the king himself. The position alone can elicit marriage proposals from noble families hoping to bring talented blood into their family tree. I was hoping to receive one from a family stronger than the four families that controlled our territory...or at least a family strong enough to fight back against them. I would have married any man to secure an ally like that. I was proud to be a Ransor, and dedicated my life to studying magic with the sole thought of giving everything to my house and fiefdom.”

Eleonora’s voice wavered a little. Self-deprecatingly, she added that she was blinded by her pursuit of power. Those four lords—old schemers and manipulators—understood the threat Eleonora could pose if she were to become a royal sorcerer. Almost as soon as Eleonora was recommended by the academy for the job, her family was pressured into marrying her off, ruining her chances of becoming a royal sorcerer and trapping her in that toxic household in one move.

“I lived with being my family’s sacrificial offering because I trusted my father and brothers to keep fighting. To acknowledge my sacrifice. That is why I feel betrayed, I suppose. Even if I cannot bring myself to blame them, thinking of what they must have gone through,” Eleonora concluded powerlessly. Whether she was thinking of what to say next or waiting for me to respond, silence filled the air.

There was no way for an outsider like me to know what her family was thinking. Even if I somehow could, I didn’t think that would fix Eleonora’s problem. This was about her feelings. “Eleonora. There isn’t much I can say about this. I could give you advice that sounds pretty, but I think that’ll just be irritating to you.”

“I suppose...?”

“But you are my employee, and I like to think we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well. I want to help you in any way I can, so I’m going to present a few options. Generally speaking, we can take one of three approaches: fight, flight, or freeze. Freezing would mean maintaining the status quo. I won’t rush you into any action. Until you decide what to do, I would greatly appreciate your help in Gimul.”

Then, I presented her with options of action to take whenever she felt ready. Running wasn’t always cowardly. If Eleonora decided to forget her family and cut all contact with them, I would support her in that. I’d keep her employed if that’s what she wanted, and I wouldn’t fight her on it if she wanted to work somewhere else. I didn’t know what contract she had with the Jamils, but I’d try my best to advocate for her if necessary. If she wanted to live somewhere away from people, she could move to the Sea of Trees and take up residence in Korumi, where it would be safe. In that case, I’d hope that she could be a conversation partner for Korumi until I could work out my hex that would allow long-distance calls. If she wanted to take a step further and disappear from society entirely, there were ways to fake her death. By eating a strand of her hair, my mimic slime could take her form. Once I extract the slime core, that would leave behind a fake corpse. Even if it was morally questionable, that was an option for her.

“I’m sure we could think of more options with time and planning, but that would be the running option. If you would like to fight, you will decide if we fight against your family, the syndicates, or both. Personally, I think it would be easier to deal with the syndicates,” I said.

“That would be too dangerous. They no longer have the protection and resources of noble houses, but the syndicates still wield the threat of violence. They would not hesitate to retaliate—and kill you,” Eleonora interrupted. She was clearly rattled enough by the idea to break her normal cool. I wasn’t surprised. If they had been so easily dismantled, her family or even Eleonora herself would have dealt with them, if the only cost was to herself. I understood that it wouldn’t be easy to deal with them.

“Generally speaking, it isn’t admirable to resort to violence to resolve a problem. Would you agree?” I asked.

“Yes... Where are you going with this?”

“It takes strength to protect something, whether that be yourself or your family... I wouldn’t disparage the use of force under all circumstances. However, solving one problem with reckless violence could lead to a chain of revenge. The longer the cycle of violence continues, the more pain it causes. It could even be counterproductive if the goal is to gain sympathy from others. As far as I’m concerned, violence is the last resort of conflict resolution. I would prefer to negotiate...but I am really skilled with that last resort.” I’d beaten around the bush a little—I’d never admitted this to anyone before. As much as I sincerely—from the bottom of my heart—didn’t want things to come to that, it would be easier for me to deal with people who did resort to violence. What kind of person was I that I almost hoped they would, just to make things simpler for me? “I’ve never said this out loud before. It’s not something I can be proud of... Anyway, do these crime syndicates have anyone with them that could hold their own against, say, a former captain of the Knight’s Order, a former royal sorcerer, or a current S-rank adventurer?”

“Certainly not. If any of the syndicates did, they would have long taken over the other three organizations. They would not be in the standoff they are now. It is even less likely that each organization has someone of that caliber in their employ. My impression was that the syndicates are composed of a decent number of strong fighters in the higher ranks and a whole bunch of trusts. That is only the impression I have gotten from observing how things are in the city.”

“That makes things easier. In your opinion, if a syndicate member were to be injured—not killed, but pretty severely—would they let that slide?”

“Never. I dealt with similar organizations during my time in the militia. Those gangs think their reputation will be at stake if they do not retaliate.”

“So what would happen if the one who beat him up belonged to another syndicate?”

“Of course, they would—” Eleonora turned her gaze to me, seeing where I was going with this. “You showed me a mimic slime’s transformation once. I doubt anyone could see through the disguise without prior knowledge. If you have the slime take the form of a syndicate member and make sure it was witnessed as the attacker of another syndicate’s member, we could intentionally trigger a war between the syndicates.”

“Yes, and that’s just one idea. I don’t know anything about these syndicates—I’m sure it wouldn’t be so simple as to resolve everything with one little trick. But all we have to do is continue to sabotage them until it is all resolved. Hexes would probably be useful in that, too, although I’m still a novice at those.”

I had an idea for a combat-ready hex that would trigger commotio cordis—impact-triggered cardiac arrest, which would stop the heart and prevent oxygen from being delivered throughout the body. It could be triggered with the equivalent impact of a baseball to the chest. However, it has to hit at the right angle at just the right timing in between heartbeats. It’d be nearly impossible to trigger on purpose...without a curse. If I were to use it in combination with hand-to-hand combat—my forte—I could make punching the opponent’s chest the ritual to trigger the curse and stop their heart. The same idea could also be used to trigger a concussion or burst an organ. Using the hex, I might even be able to delay the onset. Other applications, against opponents wearing armor, for example, could include inducing osteoporosis, weakening their bones at the moment of impact. A single strike with a weapon could render an armored opponent immobile. I did understand that Rosenberg wasn’t teaching me hexology so I could use it in combat...but I could see the terrible potential of working in curses with combat.

“Even if it’s not in combat, we could use something like a cursed letter—well, maybe not. That could ruin the whole fiefdom or even the kingdom,” I mused.

“The kingdom?!” Eleonora blurted out. “Excuse me. You can concoct such a devastating curse?”

“Probably? There’s no way to know without trying, but this isn’t something I can experiment with without forethought, so I’ll keep the details of it to myself... It’s more ‘I think I can’ than ‘There’s no way I can’t.’ I think hexology really suits me.” I wouldn’t claim to have mastered the core of hexology in a week of studying it, but I came to understand that casting a curse was like a game of association. There was a higher risk of losing control of the spell compared to other branches of magic, but as long as you could imagine something concrete that tied into your object, the spell would work. All I had to do was amplify my negative emotions with magical energy. When it came to curses that I could use in combat, imagining a video game’s debuffs or status conditions could do the trick. The osteoporosis curse was the same thing as a Defense stat debuff, for example. Since I’d only need to activate it at the moment of impact, it should be fuel-efficient when it comes to magical energy... But I could mull over that later.

“I’ve gotten off on a tangent. I don’t intend to take any of these measures now. I just wanted you to know that, if you wanted me to, these are some ways I could contribute. I value you as an employee and associate. If you should ever need it, my help is yours, whether it be brute force, financial aid, or influence—as much favor as I can garner from Duke Jamil, anyway. When it comes to force and money, I have more than most.”

“I understand. Thank you very much for your offer. I will take you up on it, when I decide to take action and if it shall require your help. When that time comes, I will try my best to think of the least violent method.” Traces of regret had left her face, replaced with a subtle smile. Come to think of it, I’d seen a myriad of expressions on her face today: sorrow, confusion, surprise.

Now that our conversation had come to a lull, I noticed how chilly it was getting out here. “The wind is picking up... If we’d like to call our first venting session to a close, it may be a good time. We probably shouldn’t be out in the cold for too long.”

“Yes... I think I was doing most of the talking again, when I was supposed to help you prepare for tomorrow’s hexing.”

“You helped me a great deal, just in a less visible way. We can talk about what I had in mind on another day. Speaking of, there was something I wanted to give you.” I took out the bag I’d prepared from the Item Box.

“What is it?”

“I was going to give it to you tomorrow, but it’s a task I’d like you to complete when you have the time. The bag contains the materials, tools, and directions to make a wish bracelet. It will be like weaving a small rope. I figured this would make it easier to carry a hex around.” Making these bracelets, which were supposed to grant a wish if you wore them until they naturally broke, was a trend when I was in elementary school. They were pretty easy to make, so I hoped that framing it as a low-priority task would help Eleonora kill some time. “There’s no quota or deadline. Could you try to make some whenever you have extra time?”

“Absolutely.”

We returned to the cottage after that, and I went straight to bed. Considering how I’d gotten to hear a critical piece of what was troubling Eleonora, I’d call that a pretty productive venting session.

Chapter 10, Episode 30: The Curse of Ryoma

The next day was the last day that we’d scheduled for the initial inspection of the testing ground, which was also the day for me to try maxing out a curse. Sebas had made it back to the cottage in the morning, so we had breakfast and went out together to the upper half of the grounds.

Once we arrived, I handed out the wish bracelets I’d asked Eleonora to make last night. She’d made a whole bunch already, so I was putting them to good use. “These are imbued with a spell that protects you from cursed energy. One should be sufficient, but if you put one on each wrist, you’ll have a backup.”

The bracelets were all-white—the color of undyed fiber slime strands—which made them look like miniature ropes. I’d also made white clasps in the shape of a lighting bolt, making these bracelets like a wearable shimenawa—a rope that designates the boundary of a Shinto shrine.

While we excitedly discussed the bracelets, I summoned the curse slime from the Dimension Home and wrapped it around my neck. With bracelets around my wrists and the rake I made last night in my hand, I asked everyone to give me five meters’ berth and encircle me. They looked ready.

“Here we go!” I announced. After a deep breath, I began drawing out the cursed energy. As soon as I gently imbued the rake with my magical energy and dragged it across the ground, cursed energy spewed out like I’d broken a fire hydrant—nothing like the black mist of cursed energy we saw the other day. The sheer amount and density of it froze me for a second, but I couldn’t afford not to keep moving. While I vacuumed up the burst of cursed energy with the magic gem, I was already pulling the rake to pull out the next geyser. As I continued raking and vacuuming, the outpouring of cursed energy began to outpace the magic gem’s intake, leaving excess cursed energy to fill the air around me. That much was expected, so I kept calm and continued my work.

Cursed energy was like poison—something that damaged living beings. I thought of the saying “Birds of a feather flock together.” In other words, like called to like. As I imagined tendrils of cursed energy calling others, I began to see a drastic change in the cursed energy around me. Instead of dissipating and drifting away, the excess cursed energy in the air gradually began to condense itself around me. From this point, I just had to amp up the power of my spell...which didn’t take much imagination.

“Hey, finish this task too—by tomorrow morning. It better be done by the first thing tomorrow when I check it!”

I’d gotten the hang of it during my venting session with Eleonora. The wellspring of the negative emotions warlocks had to leverage in their hexes was memories—past experiences and emotions associated with them.

My wellspring was the life I lived on Earth. Once I primed my mind with one memory, a flood of memories and negative emotions rushed up. Emotions like heavy, viscous oil bubbled furiously in my heart, like they always had. Until now, I’d tightly bottled up those emotions like it was second nature. That’s what adults did. Now, I just had to uncap the bottle and let the emotions boil over.

“Hey! If you’re going to turn in work, you better make sure it’s perfect the first time! Stupid mistakes like this show me you don’t take this job seriously! Fix it, and fix it now! If you have a problem with that, quit! I can replace you by Monday!”

“Our team lead’s throwing a tantrum at Ryoma again. The font size was half a point too small? That’s not even a mistake, especially when he never specified a font size to begin with.”

“Shut up if you don’t want to be up there with Ryoma.”

“Sorry. Ryoma was helping me with my work yesterday.”

“Wait, Ryoma was helping you with your task? He was helping with mine.”

“He’s fine. He always helps us out. He’s got the stamina for it.”

“Right. Ryoma will be fine.”

In this particular memory, my coworkers were having this out-of-touch conversation like the team lead berating me didn’t concern them in the slightest. Even though the font size thing was just an excuse for him to yell at me and not a mistake I’d made because of my added workload, their attitude while they watched me getting grief still rubbed me the wrong way. Come to think of it, they even berated me for missing tasks outside of my job description—like sales and customer service. Whenever I refused, they’d talk behind my back that I had handled it before and it would just be easier if I did it. When I heard them complaining about me in the break room like that, I felt so awkward. As much as I wanted to help them, I couldn’t take on every task like I was taking on a simple chore. It was even more frustrating that they didn’t seem to understand that.

Primed with that memory, another one bubbled up from the wellspring.

“I’m disappointed, Ryoma. I understand projects change hands, but you need to train your replacement properly. The new person from your office was crying that you wouldn’t tell him anything. I felt horrible for him, answering every question with ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I will find out and let you know.’ Frankly, we’re frustrated that we wasted time holding a meeting. I didn’t think you were the kind of person to be so petty as to not train your replacement.”

That one had been a phone call from a business partner, blaming me for the incompetence of someone else. Then, another memory came.

“Crap! I just broke the window of our classroom... Oh, well. Let’s say Ryoma did this. No one will think twice about it.”

“Sounds good to me. Why do the teachers hate him, anyway? The PE coach crashes out every time he sees him. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Probably because he’s doing something shady all the time. He puts on a good front in school, but he has to be causing trouble. Why would there be so many rumors about him if he wasn’t?”

“Huh... Whatever. I don’t really care what happens to him. It’s his fault he’s got a bad reputation. The least he can do is help us out.”

That was the time they blamed me for no reason in school.

“Can’t you do something about Ryoma, that new hire? He’s just a part-timer and he’s doing too much. It makes it look like we’re slacking off or something.”

“I get what you’re saying, and I agree...but he is a hard worker, and the manager likes him for some reason.”

“He’s creating a hostile work environment. He already has. I’m not the only one saying this either. Everyone says he’s annoying. As the trainer, you need to crack down on that.”

“Well... He’s kind of scary. Yeah, it sucks, but am I really going to tell him to not work as hard as he can? If he snaps and starts throwing punches, I can’t beat him. You know he brings out like five times as much product as anyone else when we roll them out.”

“Stop being a wuss. He’s just a high schooler! Fine... We’ll teach him a lesson ourselves.”

“W-Wait, what are you going to do?”

“We’re all going to sit him down and talk, that’s all. We’re going to tell him how disruptive he’s being. We’ve been getting yelled at more because of him. So what if we’re a little more...assertive?”

“Well, I guess it’s fine. I really don’t like him, so I won’t get in your way, but don’t get in trouble. If our location gets hit with a scandal, it’s going to hurt all of us.”

“Of course. We’re just going to drill some rules of the real world into an ignorant child. How dare he waltz in and brown-nose the manager a little and get recruited for a full-time position when we worked so hard to get the same full-time positions in this economy. How can we let that slide?”

That was when I’d overheard my coworkers discussing a sinister plot in the break room.

“Why? Do you really have to ask?”

“We’re going to need you to come down to the station with us?”

“We made eye contact! He was staring at me! Get on your knees and apologize right now!”

“Why are you even here?”

“Don’t you want to carry your weight once in a while?”

“What, you think you’re my teacher or something? Get real, dude. Of course, you might be too old to change your ways.”

“Ew... Just die already.”

“You know what you are? A rotten apple. The dirt under society’s boot. Remember that for the rest of your life. Through school, work, always.”

“Did you just complain? That’s why you’re useless. You always blame someone else for your problems.”

“Drop the attitude. We’re doing this for you.”

“No one wants you around.”

“The fact that you don’t get it tells me you’re really that bad.”

“Burning to death is supposed to be the most painful way to go. That’s how I hope you die.”

“It’s not the task you work on? You mean it was your fault for not taking initiative and stepping in to help!”

“Why can’t you just do it all yourself? Stop complaining and learn how to work in a team.”

“Teacher! I can’t be around Ryoma!”

“You’re an adult. Take responsibility for your actions.”

“That’s serial killer mentality.”

“Even if everyone else gets away with it, you never will.”

“It’s all your fault.”

Chained together by the slightest link of thought or emotion, a flood of memories from random times and of random people rushed into my mind like a demonic chorus. Each time something like that had happened, I’d smothered my complaints, convincing myself that I was just unlucky.

I’d brought up these experiences to others, usually over a few drinks. Usually, they’d responded with incredulity that people like that really existed, concluding that I was either exaggerating or had fabricated a story. That had made me realize that they had never encountered anyone truly unhinged. Although it didn’t feel good to have my experiences dismissed so easily—and I couldn’t say definitively that their comments weren’t made in derision—I had been happy for them that they hadn’t had these outrageous experiences.

As sorrow, rage, and desperate longing raged like a torrent, the whirlwind of cursed energy became thick enough to block out daylight—a pitch-black wall. My bracelets were protecting me from it, but it still felt like I was locked in a tiny space that somehow shut out sounds from the outside. Just as I felt blindfolded and earmuffed, the myriad of memories all merged into one—the pain I’d always felt, as long as I could remember, every time I laid down to sleep. It was the thought that burned my mind in the darkness of my bedroom.

What’s the point in going on?

No matter how many times I had imagined my future, it never came out bright. I’d lived my life out of obligation, just to paint a picture of a respectable existence. Navigating society had been a painful ordeal, and I couldn’t think of a possible reward for it—just the thought of dying alone, having done nothing but inconvenience other people.

Then, another thought had come to me. Why shouldn’t I give them exactly what they expect of me? I’d had the katana my father left me, along with the strength and skill to use it. I’d had little more than nothing to lose—certainly not enough to hold me back. Besides, no matter how I was going to be treated afterwards, I thought I could live with the consequences so long as they were the result of my own choices and actions. It would make more sense than being treated like this without reason.

A powerful urge to unleash my emotions rocked through me. All I had to do was let go. All I needed was one little push—

“That’s it,” I said, stopping myself out loud.

The negative emotions I had let pile up had nearly shifted to being murderous and self-destructive. Now the cursed energy was much closer to me than before.

Sensing my limit, I raised the rake and moved. The steady rhythm of the sound and sensation of lightly dragging the rake across the ground made me quell my reckless heart.

It was just like martial arts training... This feeling had been what kept me studying martial arts in Japan. It had been what convinced me that it wasn’t a waste of time.

Reminding myself not to lose control completely, I moved to wrap up the ritual. Without stopping my movement, I poured more magical energy into the rake. It was all an extension of my arm—the rake was my bone and my magical energy my flesh.

Like calls to like. Curse calls to cursed energy... I told myself that over and over again.

If I had asked the gods to erase the memories of my previous life and had been reborn as a normal child in this world, my life would have been vastly different. My accomplishments in this world were only possible because of my memories of Earth, and as long as I had those memories, I was never going to be a normal child here.

To me, there was no separating my previous life from the negative emotions I had experienced through it. In a sense, the echoes of the past were a kind of curse—the curse of Takebayashi Ryoma—that afflicted me in this life. Memories of my previous life could fade with age, but I was never going to forget them completely.

“If you’re going to haunt me all my life anyway... Be of some use!” I shouted. My imagination reinforced by following the steps of the ritual, I moved magical energy from my rake to the magic gem. The dark layer of cursed energy broke off and followed the flow of magical energy, peeling back the wall to reveal the sunlight.

My mood was as sour as it got, except that I was starting to see the blue sky, all of my friends, and my rake that now resembled an arm formed of cursed energy. Not only was the cursed energy viscerally dense, but it writhed along the path of magical energy I had provided like blood vessels underneath skin. It was like bugs were crawling under the skin of the cursed-energy arm—a pretty disturbing sight.

If I had to describe this curse and the arm before me, I’d call it... “Manifested Hand.” The words slipped out of me, and it all made sense. As my understanding of the curse clicked in my mind, it became much more stable. From this point on, the black hand continued to draw in cursed energy without ever letting any of it leak out. It was so effective that I could easily imagine cleansing the entire site with this curse.

Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be happening today. Not only did the curse burn through my magical energy, it was mentally exhausting me. I stopped drawing out cursed energy from the ground, and vacuumed up the quantity that had formed the arm, making sure that all of it went into the magic gem. A breath of relief sounded from the onlookers, almost too loudly.

Then, Rosenberg quietly approached. “Well done. How do you feel?”

“Good. The curse functioned as expected. If I were to make an improvement, I would work on making my tools more durable.” I eyed the rake. Most of its teeth had crumbled away, and even the handle looked like it could snap with the slightest bit of force. The ordinary bamboo I’d used to make the rake couldn’t withstand all the cursed energy that comprised the Manifested Hand. My wish bracelets were intact, albeit with much less magical energy in them than they’d started with. The only part of my equipment left completely unscathed was the magic gem. “The rake is one thing, but I would like to improve the strength and effectiveness of the bracelets to make this a safer process. I think I saw the best results I could today...”

“Good. Your dedication is admirable as always, but you should rest for now. Analysis of your progress can wait. Take this medicine please.” Rosenberg produced a vial of gray liquid from his pocket. He uncorked it and handed it to me, a mixture of refreshing fruit and something medicinal tickling my nose.

“What is it?”

“A preventative measure. This training method is particularly taxing, mentally speaking. Temporary depression is almost expected, and many warlocks experience visual or auditory hallucinations. If one pushes too far, those symptoms can become prolonged. Mostly, this induces sleep—a critical requirement for maintaining proper physical and mental health. The most effective way to avoid the negative side effects of this training is to invite sleep and reset the mind and body before your thoughts drift to darker territories.” He added that the second best thing I could do was eat a nutritious meal...which reminded me of a typical treatment for depression on Earth. Maybe good sleep and good food were always the building blocks of mental health.

“Oh?”

“Do you have any other questions?” Rosenberg asked.

“No, I just noticed something through my Tamer magic... It looks like the slimes I’d tasked with processing the clay we produced from the well-digging the other day are evolving. I already have a guess as to what kind of slime they’ll evolve into and what skills they’ll have. I’ll check in on them later. I do understand the drug’s effect and necessity. If I’m going to be knocked out when I drink it, shouldn’t we return to the cottage before I take it, though?”

“Just drink it, Ryoma. It’s not hard to carry one kid back there,” Welanna offered.

I took her up on that and downed the contents of the vial. It didn’t taste too good, but there was enough juice in it to make it go down easily. I made sure to finish the last drop before returning the vial to Rosenberg. Sebas gave me his water bottle to wash it down. After a few sips, drowsiness came over me quickly and fiercely.

“Thank you for the water... And for your help...” I managed to get out before I succumbed to sleep.

Chapter 10, Episode 31: The Adults’ Hushed Conversation

“Whoa.” Mizelia was standing behind Ryoma and caught him before he hit the ground. “Lights out.”

“Due to exhaustion as much as the drug,” Rosenberg said.

“Under his guise of nonchalance, the training was really getting to him,” Hudom pointed out.

“I’ve never seen him put off doing something slime-related before...” Miya said.

“Under any other circumstances, he definitely would have checked on the slimes before taking the medicine...” Hudom said.

“By the parameters of Master Ryoma’s normal behavior, it was downright bizarre.”

Everyone present—except for Rosenberg and Eleonora, who hadn’t known Ryoma long enough to truly appreciate his passion for studying slimes—nodded in agreement.

“Um... Are you all right, Lord Rosenberg? It looked like you were quite tense during the training session.”

“You are very observant, Miss Eleonora.” Rosenberg had been monitoring Ryoma with a spell of his own to make sure he could quickly jump in to help if Ryoma had lost control of his curse or overextended himself. “I must have been overexposed to his curse and magical energy from having to pay very close attention to any shifts in Ryoma’s magical energy, which he was using an abundant amount of. Albeit through blurry vision and muffled hearing, this was the first time I have experienced someone else’s curse through sights and sounds.”

“Should you not rest as well?” Eleonora asked.

“If I had allowed myself to, I would have been dragged into his memories. Fortunately, I pulled back before that could happen. It was a critical call that I made correctly, in hindsight.”

“What happened?” Hudom asked, sensing an undertone of fear in Rosenberg.

“I am not sure. Nothing was clear... Imagine a picture drawn solely with the gradient of black ink, or perhaps a moving, shifting silhouette. Even its outline was blurred... I saw long lines rising from the dark ground to the dark sky, intercrossed by shorter and thinner lines. The shorter lines were most likely people, freely moving through the shapes made of the long lines. The longer lines seemed to be buildings...in a city far larger than the capital.”

“A city bigger than the capital? We’ve been to the capital, and it’s hard to imagine any city bigger than that,” Welanna said.

“It is a reflection of Ryoma’s imagination, so his visualization may not accurately reflect reality. He was brought up in the Sea of Trees, so they could be trees instead of buildings. My true concern lies with the countless people moving through this place. I sensed all forms of animosity coming from them...all directed at Ryoma. It was as if they were forcing Ryoma to shoulder their dissatisfaction and misfortunes. I sensed unfathomable malice, more than anyone should experience over the course of their entire life. Something about the flow of malice felt...intentional. It is possible that Ryoma was raised to be a warlock’s sacrifice. Mister Sebas, you told me Ryoma is an orphan. Were his caretakers trustworthy?”

Sebas thought for a moment before answering the sudden question. “Master Ryoma’s grandparents who raised him are above suspicion. He has never shared any stories of mistreatment.”

“Then it must have been before his grandparents took him in... No, this is mere conjecture. I should not develop my theory further without evidence. However, I must say that the negative emotions Ryoma used in his curse were visceral enough to make me wonder...and enough to nearly make him lose control. In my defense for failing my supervisory duties, Ryoma had easily soared past my expectations, which I thought I had already adjusted sufficiently higher.”

Jeff took a step forwards. “You’re not inspiring a lot of confidence here... I don’t wanna interrupt his progress, but I gotta ask: Is this going to put Ryoma in a tough position? I know nothing about curses, and even I could feel his—what did you call it?—negative emotions. You’re the expert and you’re saying that Ryoma’s unpredictable? Is that gonna mark him as some kind of threat? Don’t you dare throw him to the wolves now because you think you can’t handle him.”

“Easy, Jeff. We’re all on the same side here,” Welanna reminded him.

Jeff was eyeing Rosenberg and the other members of the nobility there, demanding an answer.

Rosenberg met his gaze without flinching. “I misspoke... Ryoma was able to control his curse until the very end. He clearly has very firm control over his emotions, and he has never shown any behavior to the contrary. From our brief training alone, Ryoma has demonstrated enough skills to call himself a full-fledged warlock. If he so wishes, he can expect to receive eager support from Duke Cassiel, which would secure his safety and status. Of course, he is already under the protection of Duke Jamil...and forcing him into a new environment against his wishes would be folly. That could potentially jeopardize his current mental stability. For those reasons, my official assessment as a warlock is that Ryoma’s choices should be respected unless he commits a crime. That is my professional opinion—but merely that. How would Duke Jamil feel about it, Mister Sebas?”

“Things should stay as they are. No matter what transpired in Master Ryoma’s past and no matter what dangerous curse he may wield, as long as his character remains unchanged, the duke will continue to support and maintain the same relationship with him. The duke himself has established this policy,” Sebas said without hesitation, and continued how he’d known that there was a deep well of darkness within Ryoma since the day he’d met him. “A home reflects one’s character. We first met Ryoma in a house in the Forest of Gana. Inside and out, the house was neatly kept in a way that showed the warmth of those who lived there...other than the mountain of souvenirs in the shed taken from bandits, enough to suggest the house’s owner had fought them more than a few times. Outside of that shed, the house looked like it was lived in by a poor and humble family...but with no grave markers or any sign of trouble beyond the house. Anyone would have realized that all was not what it seemed there. I doubt Master Ryoma remembers that. When we first met him, the duke gave him permission to speak frankly and Master Ryoma immediately did so. Some may think him uneducated for taking permission like that at face value. In my opinion, it was Master Ryoma who was testing us—to see if the duke was the kind of person who would nitpick his etiquette, or someone he could allow himself to grow close to. I suspect that, had the duke reprimanded Master Ryoma’s behavior, he would have apologized without a fuss...and disappeared. As insignificant as this might seem, I always saw a wariness of others behind his polite demeanor.”

“Now that I think about it, before he started living in Gimul, he used to ‘go home to the forest,’” Welanna said.

“Oh, right... The whole team talked to him once after work, trying to convince him the forest was too dangerous for a kid to live in it alone,” Jeff added.

“Back then, it did feel like Ryoma could disappear into the wind,” said Miya.

“If something makes Master Ryoma uncomfortable, I can’t imagine him fighting against it on the spot. He would diffuse the situation quietly, and once he reached his limit, he would disappear without a word. I’ve seen him do just that in the city of Teresa. I wonder if anyone else here has glimpsed his inner darkness?”

“I have,” Hudom said, drawing all eyes to himself. “Not that I’ve known him that long, but I always thought there were two sides to him. Everyone has these, of course, but when it comes to him it seems like two opposite personalities share a body: an innocent kid and a man who’s tired of life. He usually acts closer to a kid his age, but when he works or fights or deals with emergencies, I really feel like he’s a full-grown adult.”

“I get it. He was in that mode full-time at the end of the year,” Jeff said.

“Yeah, that’s it. I think the ‘adult side’ of his is the same thing as the ‘inner darkness’ Sebas mentioned. It feels to me like the adult and kid sides are always bleeding into each other, and the ratio is constantly shifting. That might explain how he’s usually calm and nice to those around him, but isn’t just permissive either. Take the end of the year, for example. Against anyone who crosses a line against him or his people, he can be ruthless,” Hudom pointed out.

“I think so too.”

“Oh? Have you glimpsed it too, Miss Eleonora?” Rosenberg prompted.

Eleonora seemed to choose her words carefully before answering. “I spoke to Master Takebayashi about my family last night—how members of crime syndicates have gathered in our territory, raising crime rates. When I did, he offered to dismantle the syndicates and apprehend those criminals, should I ask for that. But there was something about how...”

“I think I can guess. I’m not going to pry about anything you don’t want to share, but I can easily imagine him wanting to help his employee. I’ve already said my piece,” Hudom said.

“Master Ryoma always follows through, no matter how much work a task demands... I urge you to make your decision carefully,” Sebas cautioned, implying that Ryoma’s involvement might stoke the flame before putting it out.

The others chuckled at this.

“Another showdown?” Miya asked.

“Very possibly.”

“It’ll probably work out in the end.”

“Just like things worked out in Gimul.”

The female adventurers added that it wasn’t easy to be caught up in Ryoma’s reforms, brightening the mood in the room again.

“Setting aside my unprompted conjecture of Ryoma’s past, his curse, in its essence, works by shouldering evil and freeing others from pain and suffering. The monstrous arm that appeared in the end, in contrast to its fearsome appearance, was a hand of salvation. Regardless of his past, Ryoma is using his powers for good. With your trust and assistance, there is nothing to worry about where he is concerned. Of course, as his tutor, I will do everything in my power to assist him,” Rosenberg promised brightly.

Jeff huffed out of his nose. “Okay... Sorry I bit your head off earlier.”

“It is forgotten. You only spoke out of concern for Ryoma, I am sure.”

“I see him at the guild a lot, and he takes care of the slum kids. The less trouble he has to deal with the better,” Jeff said.

“That’s called ‘being concerned,’” Miya pointed out.

“Can it! Are we gonna get Ryoma to bed, or are we gonna chitchat here all night?”

“We should get Ryoma to bed. Then you should carry him, Jeff. It’ll be easiest for you to take him into the boys’ cottage.”

“Fine. Give him here, Mizelia.” Jeff gruffly slung Ryoma over his shoulder.

Welanna watched him leave and muttered, “He’s like a stubborn kid. It’d be so much faster to ask for Space magic.”

“Shall I call him back?” Sebas asked. “It may be awkward somewhat, but our top priority is Master Takebayashi’s well-being.”

“Don’t worry about it. Going up on foot won’t take much longer than Space magic.”

Jeff carried off the sleeping Ryoma while the others remained at the testing ground to assist Rosenberg in measuring the impact of Ryoma’s curse on the area.

Chapter 10, Episode 32: A Week’s Progress

“Hey, you’re up.”

“What? Jeff? Right... I was knocked out from the medicine.” I’d woken up with a jolt, and it took me a moment to remember what had happened.

“How do you feel?” Jeff asked.

“Still half asleep...but not bad.”

“Good. Everyone else is in the chow room. If you can walk, you wanna join them?”

“Let’s.”

Jeff and I went to the dining hall together, expecting further directions from Rosenberg.

Even before we stepped inside, I could see through the window that everyone was staring at something on the table, some of them putting their hands on the table and leaning all the way over. Eleonora sat in their midst, staring at the table with visible intensity.

I opened the dining hall door quietly, but Miya immediately spotted me. “Ryoma! Are you feeling better?!”

“Yes, thank you. What are you looking at?”

“Eleonora is amazing!” Miya stood aside and revealed what was on the table: on one end a pile of blank paper, already used pages on the other, three sets of paper between them, and three quills hovering in the air. This was the setup she had told me about while we were preparing dinner yesterday. “I thought you’d be more surprised,” Miya said.

“I am impressed. I’m not surprised because she already told me about this yesterday. However, I hadn’t seen her in action yet. Are you writing more reports for us?” I asked.

“I was compiling information about your curse, from the preparation stages through to the inspection of the area after the fact,” Eleonora said, making me realize that I’d fallen asleep without even reviewing what happened after I used the curse.

Rosenberg spoke up. “The main objective was to practice control over the curse and your emotions. Testing its effectiveness was secondary. It was part of my duty as your tutor to assist with the aftermath...not to mention it was I who instructed you to sleep straightaway. More importantly, do you feel off in any way, emotional or otherwise? It could be something as simple as soreness.”

“If anything, I just feel a little sleepy still,” I answered.

“I see. That is most likely because the medicine is still in your system,” Rosenberg explained. “If you do not feel any other symptoms, there is nothing to worry about. Please notify me if you feel unwell at any time, even days later. Now, let us go over what you missed last night. Something came up that you definitely need to know.”

What could that be? I remembered raking out torrents of cursed energy... Did I miss any of it?

“It is not bad news,” Rosenberg assured me. “As with the ropes you created, you exceeded my expectations. Let me begin by saying that your hex was flawless. Your powers, which you have displayed by pushing yourself to the limit, exceed my own... In fact, I do not know of any warlock who could achieve what you have without assistance. Your vast supply of magical energy certainly helped you accomplish a hex that would require a congregation of warlocks performing an extensive ritual to replicate.”

“Compared to the hundreds and thousands of spells I’ve cast, this one truly felt like I gave it everything I had. Still, I didn’t expect such high praise.”

“Allow me to be blunt. It would be safer to be cautious about who you show that curse to. It is truly a marvelous hex, and you deserve nothing but praise for it. Still, in addition to the menacing arm, your hex emanated a sort of...pressure.”

I remembered the arm well, and I’d admit that it must have looked ominous to bystanders. I hadn’t noticed any pressure or intimidating aura about it, so I was glad that Rosenberg had told me. “Do you know what caused that pressure?”

“Simply your magical energy and negative emotions. Everyone has magical energy within them and the ability to sense it. With such a powerful pulse of magical energy, even those without a keen sense for it would feel the pressure. Combined with your negative emotions, some may find it discomforting. Just as my family can detect impressions from hexes, so can anyone else...albeit subconsciously,” Rosenberg explained.

“So...if I used the same process but eased up on the output a little to lessen that pressure, and found a way to make it easier on the eyes, I could potentially use it in public,” I pointed out.

“Having that as an option would serve you well. What I have to say next may help you with that.” Rosenberg brought out my rake—which had crumbled beyond repair—and the magic gem that was left entirely undamaged among the broken pieces. Apparently, the effect of Manifested Hand had stuck with the magic gem, which now worked like an air purifier that automatically cleansed cursed energy around it.

“Okay. So I just need to cast the diet Manifested Hand onto some other object.”

“Just to be clear, please do not use that magic gem,” Rosenberg warned. “I was shocked enough when you first showed it to me, but I was stunned when I saw it in action. After absorbing all that cursed energy, it hasn’t shown any sign of change. There is no telling how much cursed energy it can store nor how much abuse it can take.”

“Information regarding your magic gem will be kept confidential among those present here. With Sebas’s agreement, I left any mention of it out of my reports,” Eleonora said.

“Rest assured, I will personally relay the details to Duke Jamil,” Sebas said.

The magic gem was already as valuable as a national treasure. I could see why they wanted to keep it—and the effect of my hex—a secret. I had no intention of showing it off either. If anything, keeping it confidential would probably mean fewer headaches for me, so I had no objections.

“Wonderful. There is one more thing. As a general rule, it takes decades of continuous treatment to fully cleanse a land afflicted with cursed energy. A lapse in treatment can not only halt progress, but also cause a relapse. However, the testing grounds here—the source of the cursed energy—have shown a dramatic decrease in the amount of cursed energy I could sense in the ground. From what I could sense, I believe you could completely cleanse this place with only ten more runs of yesterday’s hex.”

“In other words, my hex did the work of...a few years’ worth of ordinary cleansing?”

“Correct, thanks to your exhaustive efforts and that magic gem that was perfectly suited for the hex. This is why I saved this piece of information for last.”

If I was being honest, I was so far in the zone while I was casting the hex that I wasn’t really registering the magnitude of the situation, except a vague sense that this was truly an anomaly. “If I did it once a day, I could finish decades of work in ten days...”

“Theoretically, yes. But you should not push your limits every day—not even close. Giving you time to monitor your status... I would recommend no more than one execution of that curse per month, just like the curse-breaking lost magic. Considering that it still will not take you a year to completely cleanse the mountain, you would be working at a breakneck pace,” Rosenberg said.

“If you really wanted to, you could probably cleanse this place in no time,” Hudom chimed in. “But achieving something like that too quickly is also going to draw attention. So, we decided to keep that information to ourselves too.”

“If you ever draw out cursed energy in front of others, work stupid slow,” Mizelia suggested.

“I second that idea. If you wish to keep this information protected from nobles, then moderation is key. I do not expect you to have a difficult time concocting new spells that you can tailor to your needs. That is all I have to relay to you,” Rosenberg concluded before turning to the group. “Is there anything else?”

“This is not directly related to the hex, but...” Eleonora said, handing me the papers she’d been writing throughout our meeting.

A quick skim told me that they were as thorough as her reports always were, plus a summary of everything we’d done in our allotted time here. I’d definitely surpassed my original goal of learning the basics of hexology, particularly when it came to handling cursed energy. In the process, I’d created the cleansing incense, repellant rope, and protective wish bracelet. Casting the lost cleansing spell and developing a way for Korumi to communicate with the outside world were works in progress. As for the mountain’s development that I’d started on a whim, it had begun with my construction of the cottages. We established a basic path from the cottage all the way down to the travel road, and we cleared the lumberyard—future farmland—and dug a well. We were still in the midst of pruning and felling the trees, starting with those around the lumberyard. We hadn’t reinforced the ground of the cursed clearing either.

“We didn’t quite finish everything...mostly because I kept adding to our to-do list,” I said.

“No duh. No one would even believe we did all that we did in one week,” Jeff said.

I chuckled at that. “You have a point. Well, now that I’ll be managing this place, I’ll keep up the work at a reasonable pace.” It wouldn’t be the fastest route to achieve all the goals I’d set, but this was the one I had chosen—a way with plenty of forks and no way back. Taking detours and going the long way was all a part of life. “Since there isn’t a deadline, I might build a trail from the cottage to the testing grounds and make the paths and cottage more comfortable.”

“Now he’s adding even more tasks,” Jeff commented.

“Stabilizing the cursed ground and improving its environment is most welcome... I only ask that you take care of yourself,” Rosenberg said.

“Of course.” I didn’t have to be told twice. In fact, improving my quality of life here would make things easier for me. There were plenty of things I wanted to do... Oh! I finally remembered. Those slimes evolved last night!

“Is something the matter?” Rosenberg asked.

“I just remembered those slimes. My mind is finally waking up. Um, is there anything else I need to be briefed on? Anything I need to take care of...? No? I will read through these reports later. Right now, I’m going to check on the slimes.” I excused myself to do just that. Before I left, I saw everyone exchange a look.

“Is that...?”

“Normal? Probably.”

What was that supposed to mean?

As expected, the slimes that ate the clay from the well evolved into clay slimes.

Clay Slime

Skills: Disperse 3, Condense 3, Hold Moisture 3, Consume 1, Absorb 2, Split 2, Synchronize 5

Their skills remained mostly the same from when they were mud slimes, except they now synchronized with clay instead of mud. Now that they were closer to solids, they could also change their form like the metal slimes and iron slimes did. They wouldn’t make for effective weapons or armor, but with the help of a wire slime, they could help me mass-produce bricks and shingles. I also noticed that they processed the clay internally, breaking down any pebbles and removing organic material, creating purer clay in the process. Since I also had stone slimes that liked pottery and might evolve soon, I thought about dipping my toes into ceramics. Developing the mountain would give me plenty of space and firewood to work the kilns.

Chapter 10, Episode 33: Back in Town

The next morning, having settled my affairs at the testing ground, I made my way back to Gimul.

I stood on a grassy plain, looking over the familiar city to my left and the new city undergoing rapid development to the right. Watching the streams of people flow between the two cities really made me feel at home...and reminded me of what I had to do.

“Here we are! I’m sorry for the wait,” I announced. Since Rosenberg and Sebas had traveled ahead to see Reinhart, I’d volunteered to give everyone else a ride back to Gimul via Space magic.

“It’s only been a few minutes. I wouldn’t call that waiting,” Jeff said.

“Space magic is really handy. If only I could learn to use it.”

Since there were so many of us, I had them all wait in the Dimension Home, which made me feel like a field trip bus driver.

“Did you encounter any problems inside?” I asked. “With my familiars, for example.”

“No trouble. We weren’t there long to begin with, and your familiars are so well-behaved,” Hudom confirmed.

“Yep, yep. The little monster from the Sea of Trees is adorable,” Miya said.

“Yes, she’s so friendly.”

They were talking about Rino—the juvenile cannonball rhino I’d protected in the Sea of Trees. I’d stashed her in my Dimension Home and brought her back with me.

When I had asked a branch manager of Gimul’s Tamer’s Guild on how to care for her, he had responded rather disappointingly. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but we hardly know anything about cannonball rhinos. Because they are a species that only appear deep in the Sea of Trees, bringing one out of there alive is an ordeal in itself... There are records of some cannonball rhinos wandering out of the woods, but I’ll need to do some research to find out more.”

That had made sense to me. He’d then continued.

“One thing I can recommend for sure is to acclimate her to the environment inside your Dimension Home. A quick change in surroundings can cause stress and illness in both monsters and humans. It may be tempting to want to bring her outside or show her around, but I recommend holding off until she firmly recognizes your Dimension Home as a safe place.”

So, other than giving her the occasional fresh air and bringing her out when necessary, she’d spent her days in the Dimension Home. Many of the monsters I’d tamed so far were very resilient to changes in environment: highly adaptive slimes, limour birds who act like migratory birds, and goblins that survive in harsh conditions.

I’d almost forgotten how important it was to wait for a familiar to acclimate on their own. When I first tamed the clever chickens, I’d had to consider their acclimation...but they had always told me their complaints and demanded change. In winter, it was too cold. In summer, it was too hot. As a result, I’d never had to figure out what they wanted. In the end, the clever chickens had decided that the climate-controlled Dimension Home was the most comfortable place for them. All day long, they ate or slept or played board games in their dedicated space—living it up. Demanding whatever they wanted was a way of adapting, I supposed. I’d have to give Marble—my liaison with them—another reward for his fine work.

“If Rino wasn’t intimidated by the new faces, she may be ready to gradually come out,” I said.

“That’s a good idea. Even though she could run around in there if she wanted to, the other monsters make the space cramped,” Miya said.

“I’ll reach out to the Tamer’s Guild for advice.”

“Let’s get going, then. There’s no sense standing around here,” Jeff said, already walking towards Gimul’s city gate.

We quickly followed and went to the Adventurer’s Guild first, reporting the completion of the adventurers’ quest of guarding me during my inspection. Then we split up, leaving only Hudom and Eleonora with me.

“What’s next?” Hudom asked. “We never really discussed what to do back in town.”

“If there are no conflicting plans, I would like to let Carme know that we have returned and continue my training to take over his duties, if his schedule allows... What will you do, Master Takebayashi?” Eleonora asked.

“As long as there are no urgent matters, I’d like to prepare for a trip into the Sea of Trees. I don’t like to leave Korumi alone for too long. Even though I can travel there much more easily with Space magic, I still have to make some preparations. That being said, the goblins will help me stock up on bug repellent and instant meals...starting tomorrow, once they’ve rested up for the rest of the day. I was going to take the day off myself. Maybe go on a stroll to find people who could take on manufacturing the incense and the wish bracelets.”

Eleonora immediately offered to tag along with me, and Hudom followed suit. There was no reason to turn them down, so the three of us set out on our leisurely stroll. The first destination was a particular alley near the former slums.

“He should be around here... There he is,” I announced, spotting a figure crouched in the shade of the alley.

“Look who it is, with a pretty entourage, no less, in a place like this. What can I do for you?” the mouse beastkin information broker, short and adorned with rags as before, asked with a slimy grin.

“Eleonora, I don’t believe you’ve met him before, and I never properly introduced him to Hudom either. He is someone who knows the city of Gimul well and has many friends—someone who gives good advice,” I said.

He turned to my employees. “People are generous to me all over the city. I’m happy to share anything I can. If you’d like my services in the future, come talk to me anytime you like. If I’m not around these parts, grab someone in the neighborhood and tell them you’re looking for Street Rat. They’ll know what to do.”

Once Eleonora and Hudom had quickly introduced themselves, I told Street Rat the concept of my incense, and that I was looking to hire people to make them for me.

“Why don’t you ask the chimney sweepers?” he suggested without missing a beat.

“Chimney sweepers?” I repeated.

“Your main concern’s for the health of the folks making them. You want people who can work without breathing in the crushed bark...even better if they can watch after the kids that will mold the incense from the powder. Every chimney sweeper knows that breathing in soot or ash will get them sick. It’s second nature for them to make sure they don’t—should be easy for them to work under your conditions. Lots of them apprentice kids because a lot of chimneys have crannies that need small hands to clean. On top of that, chimney sweepers usually can’t work in the winter when everyone’s using their fireplace. They’ll be eager for extra work then.”

“That sounds like a great fit to me. What do you think?” I asked Eleonora and Hudom.

“They do meet all of our criteria.”

“If they have the skills we’re looking for, I’d interview a few of them and see how it goes.”

That was good enough for me. We would be bringing this project to the chimney sweepers of Gimul.

“You’ve decided already? I can spread the word to them, if you like,” Street Rat suggested.

“Well... I’m going to be in the Sea of Trees for a while, and we still have to prepare the workspace. Could you tell them that a plan is in the works? I’ll hold off on officially advertising positions.”

“Yessir. Everyone knows your generosity. One word from you, and people will flock anytime.”

“That’s reassuring. Well...these are for your help today—just something I had on hand. Will these be enough?” I produced two large bottles of white liquor and a loaf of bread left over from breakfast. After seeking out his advice and services, I wondered if I’d shorted him...until his face crinkled into a smile.

“More than enough, I’d say. Thank you.”

“I’m glad. I’ll come find you if anything else comes up,” I said.

“I’ll be looking forward to your business.” With that, Street Rat vanished around the corner of the alley. It seemed like a tip broker to keep the small talk to a minimum.

“One step closer to mass-producing incense,” I remarked.

“You also wanted to make hexed ropes and wish bracelets, right? Do you have another workforce in mind?” Hudom asked.

“Jeff had said that weaving the ropes isn’t a job suited for the children of the slums, so I’m thinking of sourcing slaves. When I had business with the Moulton Slave Trading Company, they told me that I could rent slaves rather than buy them relatively cheaply. If I could rent someone who’s worked on farms before, that would be best. I’d have to work based on their schedules, so I won’t pursue that until I return from the Sea of Trees.”

“Understood. I will have letters of initial contact ready,” Eleonora said. Without me needing to give her direction, Eleonora took the initiative to figure out what tasks had to be done, and she never jumped in with erroneous tasks either—a mark of someone who was truly good at their job.

“Yes, thank you. As for the wish bracelets, I was going to ask the children of the orphanage attached to the church. The older children already sell trinkets they made themselves. The wish bracelets should be simple enough for the younger ones to make. Right now, I don’t need too many of them, so I’d be happy if they made them just in their spare time. If it looks like I’d need more, I can always ask the children of the slums.” The reason I’d come here first was to try and avoid the morning rush hour out of consideration for Street Rat. It was about the time church service would have ended for the morning.

We went to the church and pitched the idea to Sister Belle. Surprisingly, she agreed without hesitation. “Your donations helped us keep a roof over the children. However, every orphan eventually leaves the nest. If they could take even a little bit of money they’d earned themselves... Having some kind of nest egg to start their new life can make a world of difference in boosting their confidence.”

Donations had strict rules on how they could be allocated, and sending off children with a starter fund for their new life wasn’t approved. So, the orphans made and sold trinkets to save up some money in preparation for when they set out on their own. After explaining all that, Belle thanked me profusely, which showed me how much she loved these children.

The topic shifted to how much I would pay for each wish bracelet. Thanks to Hudom, who had a knack for negotiations and fine-tuning figures like this, Belle and I agreed on a number that we were both happy with.

“Thank you for that, Hudom,” I told him.

“I admire your talent for negotiation,” Eleonora chimed in.

“Both parties were eager to settle a contract, and there were hardly any points of contention, except that you knew how much the wish bracelets could sell for once you hex them and didn’t want to lowball the orphans. Belle, on the other hand, didn’t think that making too much money too easily would benefit the children in the long run. I’d hardly call that a point of contention.”

“Still... I’ve seen too many negotiating tables turn ugly. Sometimes, it felt like a miracle that no one was killed,” I said.

“What in the world were they negotiating over?” Hudom asked.

I chuckled. “It’s about time for lunch. Why don’t we find a place to eat?”

“Okay, I won’t pry. I heard from a regular at the laundry shop that there’s a new restaurant down the road from here—a little pricey but it’s supposed to have great food. Do you want to try it?” Hudom asked.

“Sounds like a plan!” I said.

“I will join you,” Eleonora added.

Our stroll through the heart of the city continued.

Chapter 10, Episode 34: Fence-side Chat

After having a nice lunch at the buzzing new restaurant, we were out on the streets again.

“That place was delicious,” I said.

“Enough to warrant the popularity it has garnered in the short time since its opening,” Eleonora added.

“Apparently the chef there studied in a very famous restaurant. Just when they were thinking of opening their own place, they heard that Gimul was thriving and came here,” Hudom supplied.

“Interesting... I’m sure they’d researched Gimul before moving, but it still takes a lot of courage to drop everything and start in a new city.” As someone still new to Gimul, I wouldn’t mind speaking to the new chef if the opportunity arose. Speaking of... “Let’s go see Carme and the crew.”

“By the time we get there, the laundry shop shouldn’t be too busy,” Hudom agreed.

We went straight to our laundry shop’s original location, where we encountered a trio of regulars—housewives engaged in their usual fence-side chat.

“My husband is just such a slob!”

“Mine too! I keep telling him the kids will take after him, but he won’t listen.”

“Husbands are just adult-sized children, aren’t they? Oh?”

They noticed us approaching and waved. Ignoring them wasn’t an option, so we walked past the front of the laundry shop to meet them.

“Hello. How are you all?” I greeted them.

“We’re doing well, honey. How about you, Ryoma?”

“We haven’t seen you around lately. Were you doing your adventurer work?”

“Engineer work, this time—for the duke. I was out of town for a week and just got back.” I glanced back to my companions, who’d just given the ladies a nod. Eleonora looked a little stiff but dignified, and Hudom wore his friendly smile. They were both easy on the eyes, which the ladies noticed immediately.

“My, what a treat.”

“Were you both out with Ryoma? Welcome back to the city.”

“I think it’s a great accomplishment that His Grace trusted you with a big project.”

Taking this as a prelude to an extended concerto by the wives, I got Eleonora out of there under the pretense of having her speak to Carme. Hudom could handle himself in these waters, but I could too easily imagine Eleonora becoming tongue-tied and frozen, knowing what fierce conversationalists these ladies were.

“What kind of project was it?”

“Kiara. I’m sure we can’t pry him for details about an important job His Grace put him to.”

“I can share a little,” I said. The cursed land itself and my studying hexology wasn’t confidential, so I gave them a quick summary of that process.

The ladies seemed to knot their brows.

“You were on that mountain for a whole week?”

“I’ve heard of the place before, just in the sense that it was someplace scary. No one’s ever told me more.”

“Cursed energy... How scary.”

“It can be dangerous when misused, but as long as it’s treated properly, it’s nothing you need to worry about. In cities like Gimul, there are procedures in place to make sure cursed energy doesn’t leak out into the city, or if it does, it’s found and dealt with quickly. Right?”

“Hudom’s spot-on,” I said. “When I took over managing the cursed land, my hexology tutor taught me how to find cursed energy and things I need to look out for. He’s given me a stamp of approval on how I’d managed the place, and I can now contain the curse on myself.”

“Oh! That’s the curse everyone was talking about!” one of the ladies exclaimed.

“It’s not broken, but this bracelet keeps it in check enough that I can live a normal life in the city.”

“Uh-huh. What’s so special about your bracelet?” a child’s voice asked out of the blue. Pauline’s daughter had poked her head out of the flower shop next door.

“Hi, Renny. I didn’t see you there.”

“I was helping out in the store. I finished my part, so I came out. It’s so hot in there. You said there’s something special about that bracelet?” Renny asked again.

I relayed how I had hexed the bracelet, borrowing Rosenberg’s words. Even though casting curses was pretty intuitive to me, having to explain it to someone else posed a new challenge.

“So the material isn’t special—the shape is,” Renny said.

“Exactly. Back home, it was a popular trend with kids to wear a bracelet like this until it naturally broke, and their wish would supposedly come true, whether it be succeeding in school or athletics or that sort of thing,” I explained.

“I remember those trends,” one of the ladies chimed in.

“When we were children... What was it again? Didn’t we write our crush on a slip of paper and burn it in the fireplace?”

“Yes, yes! My parents yelled at me for wasting paper and ink.”

“You really did that stuff, mom?”

“Don’t kids have these superstitions nowadays?”

“Yeah, we do some stuff, but I’ve never heard of that one.”

Given how curses were real in this world, I couldn’t deny that those superstitions could produce some effect if the person wished for it hard enough. Just like on Earth, kids of this world came up with superstitions and rituals that seemed unique to each generation.

“A-Anywho, I made the bracelet because I like the mental image of that superstition, and because it’s easy to keep on my person. To be honest, even if a child weaves one, it won’t break that easily. And practicing something the whole time the bracelet is on your wrist would make you better at that skill, regardless of any superstition. I think that’s the rational explanation behind it.”

There’s something called the ten-thousand hour theory. No matter the type of skill, it supposedly took ten thousand hours of practice to master. Practicing for one hour a day would take ten thousand days, and practicing for ten hours a day would take a thousand days. Persistence was key to mastering anything.

“Come to think of it, the superstitions we did as kids didn’t just take one try. We had to do it over and over again, or until our wish came true, basically. If you stopped doing it, your wish wouldn’t come true.”

“You’re right. I was burning the paper every day. That’s why my parents thought I was wasting paper. I used to do it when my mother was cooking, so I wasn’t wasting any firewood, at least.”

“If you keep it up until your wish comes true, you think the ritual worked. Otherwise, you blame yourself for quitting halfway through. That’s kind of a scam, isn’t it?”

“Sure enough, it is!” Pauline exclaimed, drawing laughter from the group.

“Those superstitions are harmless. It’s nice. All part of a child’s imagination, it seems like,” Hudom remarked.

“You’re right. It feels like there could be more sinister curses out there,” I said.

“Well... Not to sidetrack our conversation, but there are students who use hexes to get better grades. Bad grades can haunt a noble for the rest of their life. Sketchy warlocks can show up on campus subtly advertising their services, and some students seek out warlocks for that purpose. Especially before exams. Most of them don’t work out as intended.”

“You are noble-born, aren’t you, Hudom?”

“You’re so down-to-earth I almost forgot.”

“How was it growing up in high society? Is it as ugly and dramatic as the rumors?”

The ladies asked their questions, their slight hesitation washed away by curiosity. They already knew that Hudom was the third son of his house. Despite his intimidating status, Hudom had charmed them into trusting him as a friend.

With a bitter expression, Hudom elaborated on what he had witnessed about using curses in the academy. He began by saying that a student seeking out a curse to improve their grades or confidence wasn’t as bad—it was their own choice. Things got far uglier when the curse was cast on someone else.

“Most of the time, a parent will ask for their child to be hexed, I imagine. The parent thinks they’re doing what’s best for their kid...without understanding the risks. In the end, the kid is left with a scar—physical or mental—that damages them far worse than bad grades ever would have. Most of the time, a parent would curse their child to feel visceral fear or anxiety if they took specific actions or deviated from a certain area. They would force the child to their desk, scaring them into studying. I’d even heard of parents that would make it so the kid would be frozen to the spot unless they were sitting at their desk.”

“Ugh... Why do I feel like you haven’t told me the worst of it?” I asked.

“Those are the kind of curses cast on prisoners. They’re allowed only under complicated restrictions. You’d think any sane parent should know that cursing a child into studying would do nothing but harm in the long run. One time, a classmate of mine had a warlock appointed to him by his parents, who were worried about his grades dropping. They cast a curse on him that made it so he’d be racked with anxiety except when doing the provided workbooks. The fear of fear itself drove him to those workbooks, so much so that he hardly ate or slept. His behavior was so strange that the curse was discovered and broken pretty much immediately...leaving the fearful memory with him. In the end, he became triggered by any form of studying. He dropped out and had to start rehabilitation.”

That student had then gone on to be treated by a warlock trained in providing mental health care. When the teacher explained that to Hudom’s class, he mentioned that the student was luckier than most. Other students he knew of in the past who hadn’t gotten treated by an expert were either still tormented by the aftereffects of the curse or had taken their own lives. The teacher had sternly warned them against resorting to hexes and thinking of them as an easy fix.

“Not only are parents ignorant to the dangers of curses, there are warlocks out there that cast curses regardless of the risks so they can make a quick buck. There are even some warlock tutors who secretly curse their students to fluff up their results.”

“There are some bad people out there...” Pauline said.

“I would never curse myself to study something, and I don’t think I’d ever have a tutor, but I’d definitely never agree to...that,” Renny added.

Their reactions were completely normal, and I shared their sentiment. There were stories about parents being too involved in their children’s academic achievements, and I couldn’t say I sympathized with them even a little bit, especially since I’d never had a child of my own.

“But there are laws against that kind of cursing, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. But just like any con artist, those warlocks take advantage of students’ nerves and insecurities. Legit warlocks abide by the law and work to better people’s lives. I’m sorry if I scared you with talk like this,” Hudom said.

“Don’t apologize. We asked.”

“Yes. Thank you for informing us.”

The ladies and Renny smiled, as cheerful as ever.

“No matter the power, it’s all about who wields it, isn’t it?” I said, in an attempt to pretty forcibly end the subject. “Speaking of. Kiara, wasn’t your husband a carpenter?”

“Yes... Why do you ask?”

“In addition to the cursed land I spoke of, I’m also in charge of maintaining the mountain. I plan to work my way through the mountain, which will produce a lot of lumber. Could that be made into boxes? It would still have to be dried and that’s going to take a while as well. There are some specific designs I want to make, so I wanted advice from someone with professional expertise in the area.” I was imagining the fold-up storage boxes I’d used when I had part-timed as a mover. Since those had been made from plastic, they had been light and durable. Being able to fold them and put them out of the way when they weren’t being used was a good bonus too.

I’d need storage to work on clearing the mountain, and I’d need boxes if I wanted to outsource incense and bracelets. I just wanted to do more research before putting in an order, but if Kiara and her husband could take on the job that would be ideal.

“You’re taking care of the mountain too? You really do keep busy. It should be possible to make boxes out of lumber. As for how many we can make and how quickly, that will depend wildly on whether only my husband can work on them or if our apprentices—our son is one of them—can chip in. Of course, my husband would be supervising the apprentices’ work and will ensure the quality of each piece. Except...” Kiara said guiltily. “We normally use planks cut and prepared by a vendor, so we’d ask for extra fees and time to cut the lumber ourselves. Besides, my husband mostly works with furniture and knickknacks, so we may be too small of a workshop for you to use up your extra lumber, if that’s what you want to do. A lumber vendor may be of more help when it comes to that.”

“I had considered that option... Hudom, those trees aren’t of good quality, are they?” I asked.

“Those trees were growing wild for too long. Compared to farm lumber, the quality is much less consistent and many of them are bent. A sawyer could probably cut it for us, but it would take more manpower and waste a lot of the material,” Hudom said.

“Oh... That seems a bit much for a lumber vendor.”

As businesspeople they had to be getting good-quality lumber that followed consistent standards from regular vendors. Kiara was being nice, but it was clear that us bringing in lumber of worse quality would only be a nuisance.

“That’s why I want to use as much of it as possible on things that I’ll be needing soon. I’d be happy to pay extra for good products,” I said.

“If you say so, why don’t you come over sometime? I promise we’ll help you as much as we can,” Kiara offered.

“I’ll take you up on that. If possible, I would like to hear any other ideas about how to utilize that lumber. The only other use I’d thought of was to use them as firewood,” I said...and noticed the ladies’ eyes light up. “Is something the matter?”

“Oh, sorry. We were talking about this before you came over.”

“Just a minute ago we were complaining about how expensive firewood has gotten.”

“Firewood? At this time of year?” It was late summer. Cooler air might have been around the corner, but it was still way too early for anyone to stock up on firewood.

Hudom confirmed my thoughts and said that he hadn’t heard of any price hikes for firewood.

“You weren’t in town, right? It’s only been two days or so since the price has gone up. Even then, they mean it’s expensive for this time of year. Mom and her friends are worried about it, but a bunch of people aren’t—like me,” Renny supplied.

“So the prices have only gone up a little. But if prices are up now, it’s concerning to think how high they’ll go by the time winter comes,” I surmised.

“That’s exactly what I said! A little change in price can add up over time. And we can’t stop using firewood no matter how expensive it becomes...not in winter, anyway.”

“Everyone knows it’s not worth cheaping out on firewood and catching a cold. Remember how ridiculously cold it was last winter? The three of us were thinking about stocking up on firewood before the prices go up even more, just in case it gets just as cold next winter.”

“I see... I don’t like where this is headed.” Panic buying had been a problem throughout history. Personally, I’d seen plenty of limited edition or location-specific merch for all sorts of fandoms fly off the shelf, fueled by the FOMO of collectors. While missing out on something like collector merch wasn’t a matter of life and death, firewood in winter was nothing short of a lifeline. It was natural for these ladies to want to stock up—that would seem like the best course of action to protect themselves and their families. However, when people started panic buying, there would be less of the product left on the shelf. If demand were to outgrow supply, prices would go even higher, which would make people panic more... It was a vicious cycle. Of course, the Jamils and the Merchant’s Guild would do something about it before the cycle spiraled out of hand.

“I see. In the near future I’ll reach out to the Merchant’s Guild and let the guildmaster know about my source of lumber,” I said.

“That’s...something you could do.”

“That would make us feel better, Ryoma.”

“I’d have to work with existing vendors, and I know the lumber has to be dried out before it can be used as firewood, so don’t expect it to be more than a way to slow the price hike if it comes to it.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. Just last year, you ran around the city helping all of us. Everyone who knows what you did knows you can do this too,” Pauline reassured me.

Just then, the church bells rang through the city.

“Did you hear the time? It really does fly when you’re having fun.”

“I hate to go, but I need to clean and cook dinner. See you all tomorrow. Ryoma, don’t forget to come by our house sometime.”

“Yes! I’ll be there with a mock-up of the kind of box I’d like,” I said.

I had some baobark powder left over from making incense, which I could try to make some kind of plywood out of. Woodworkers were bound to produce sawdust, so finding a way to recycle it might give us more options.

In any case, that concluded our fence-side chat. Pauline and Renny returned to their shop while Hudom and I walked up to the laundry shop.

“I suppose we kept Eleonora waiting,” I said.

“She’s probably talking shop with Carme.”

“That’s true. If anything, our conversation out there showed that a lot can happen in a week.”

We opened the laundry shop door to the normal operations of the establishment...which was exactly what made me halt in my tracks.

“Welcome back! If you go into the back, you’ll... Why are you frozen?”

“Are you okay?”

At that moment, the puzzle piece fell into place. It seemed so obvious that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought about it until now. It also made sense that Fernobelia had told me I had everything I needed to know. The key to help Korumi communicate with others was right here the whole time.

“This is it!” I exclaimed, my voice echoing through the shop of my employees and a few customers.

***

After five days of getting ready as fast as I possibly could, I used Space magic to jump my way to Korumi village without stopping. Right now, I was staring at the gate of the manor that had been so difficult to open just a month ago. Today, though, the gate was flung wide as if to welcome me home. A child in my likeness stood there, his expression and body language shouting that he’d missed me.

“Ryoma! Welcome home!”

“I’m home, Korumi.”

I’d never had kids, but I imagined this was what it felt like to come home to a child after a business trip or something.

Chapter 10, Episode 35: Special: The Origins of a Certain Columnist

While Ryoma was reuniting with Korumi in the Sea of Trees, a man—who was often mistaken for a teen—was being scolded by an older man in a room of a building near the edge of the capital.

“Jasper! What is the meaning of this article?!” the older man bellowed.

“I wrote up confirmed intel about the assault committed by House Misville’s second son the other day.”

“I’m asking you why you wrote it! Under whose orders, I don’t know, because it wasn’t mine! We can’t publish this!” The editor slammed the papers on the desk, knocking down a pile of other papers. Both the men glanced at the paper for a moment before the editor went back to glowering at the columnist and he went back to meeting his stare.

The room was crammed with one large desk for the editor, and six other desks—all occupied, save one. Despite the editor screaming at one of their coworkers within feet of them, the other workers kept their heads down and appeared to be completely lost in their work. For some time, the editor’s and columnist’s eyes clashed without either of them speaking a word.

The editor was the one who broke the silence with a sigh. “Jasper... Introduce yourself to me, will you? There has to be some terrible discrepancy between the position I think you have and the position you think you have. If I’m not mistaken, you’re a writer, aren’t you? Surely, you can introduce yourself, at least...unless I’m mistaken about that.” With no effort to conceal his irritation, the editor reached into his drawer and grabbed a cigarette. While he lit it, he waited for the columnist to follow his heavily sarcastic order.

Jasper stiffened for a moment before pushing out the words through gritted teeth. “My name is Jasper Penbroke, male. I turn twenty this year. I was born to a merchant who mostly deals in high-end writing utensils. Ever since I can remember, I have studied literature and writing. From age twelve to eighteen, I attended the capital’s academy. Upon graduation, I began working here—at the Propo Times—as a columnist.”

“Good. We’re on the same page so far. In other words, this is your second year with the paper... Do you think you learned everything you had to learn after a year?”

“That’s not what I—”

“Shut up! Don’t you think it’s rude to interrupt your boss?!” The editor clicked his tongue. “Sure, you’re doing better than your first year. No surprise there. In your second year, you’re not even close to being done learning. You might disagree with that, and if you do, you’re prideful. Just because you can write neat little prose, that doesn’t mean you’re ready to write articles. You gotta know how to interview, validate information, not to mention a hundred things you need to be sensitive to. You’re still in your time of learning that from the other writers. Shut up and write as you’re told—that’s how you’ll learn how to work as a writer. Take an article like this, for example. Nobles are our sponsors—the protectors of the newspaper industry. We need to be careful how to do an interview with stories like this, and you go and write like you’re throwing down the glove! He assaulted a commoner? Who cares?! In this world, nobles can get away with that! What if we’d lost sponsors because of your article? Could you foot the bill? What if that makes it so none of us here can write again? When you wrote this little article, did you think that through? Huh?! Say something!” The editor’s tone and volume escalated with every question.

Jasper, on the other hand, remained perfectly cool. “Since you asked... I have no intention of starting a fight with nobles.”

“What’s the meaning of this article, then?!”

“What triggered the assault was Lord Misville getting drunk and catcalling a woman. Someone tried to intervene, which drew his ire. Several similar incidents had occurred already. In the process of researching him, I even learned that he’d used his status as a way to dine and dash without paying for his meal. I studied alongside nobles at the academy, so I do have general respect for them and know full well the power they hold in society. However, as a writer, I am resolved to report the truth as it is. If this reads like I’m ‘throwing down a glove,’ the problem is with the reader—not me.”

The editor was lost for words at his subordinate’s counterattack.

Jasper wasn’t done either. “Dine and dash, and obviously assault, are crimes. You said that nobles have the right to get away with crime, which is categorically untrue. The idea that nobles use their position to make their crimes disappear...that is the true insult to nobility. Even if nobles did try to silence a story, how could we allow ourselves to bend to their will? The pen is mightier than the sword. Our job is to fight against the darkness of the world by broadcasting truth to the people. Is that not the calling we all have as writers? The historical Propo Times can’t publish a story critical to someone in power? We should be ashamed! Because they’re noble, because they’re our sponsors, because they might sabotage us... My resolve to work as a writer is not so feeble as to crumble in the face of those obstacles!” Jasper was leaning over the desk now, showing his unwillingness to back down.

The editor sighed again. “I get it. You’re passionate. I admire your ideology and determination to pursue it... If I’m telling you the truth, I agree with you.”

“Then—”

“But I still can’t publish this piece.”

“Sir!”

“Jasper. You have the heart. And the guts. That’s clear. But this isn’t just about you. You might be ready to face the consequences that come with publishing something like this, but what about the others? We have no idea how the nobles would retaliate. When push comes to shove, are you ready to kill me, you, every writer here, and maybe even our interns? Do you really have the resolve to do something that might lead to that?” the editor asked. His tone was completely calm now.

“I...”

The editor didn’t miss the opportunity to strike in Jasper’s few seconds of hesitation. “That’s an order,” he said. “I don’t want to do this, but this article is shelved. End of discussion.”

“Yes...sir...”

“Don’t let it get you down, as weird as that sounds coming from me. If you want to keep writing, plenty of your articles will be shelved regardless of the topic. I know, I have the perfect assignment for you.” The editor slid his desk drawer open and took out an envelope full of paper. “Have you heard of Duke Jamil?”

“Of course. Who doesn’t remember the incident at the end of the year?”

“Yeah, that was a big story. Then you might already know that the territory’s garnering attention again. Apparently, the city’s thriving after surviving that end-of-year incident and the severe cold wave. The powers that be have decided that they want a new branch in that city. There are plans to add members by and by, but it’s going to start with a small staff. I’d been told to choose someone young and eager who can handle moving to a new place for a while.”

“I assume you’re considering me for the post.”

“Yeah, I’ve always known you were passionate. Besides, you’ll only be in a team of two or three, so you’ll have more power than you do here—you can write more freely. I told you that you still have a lot of work to do, but your writing isn’t bad. I thought you could try and do things your way for once, even if you can’t do it here.”

“Sir...”

“I’m not going to force you, and there’s still some time for you to—”

“I don’t need any. I’ll take the post.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I want to write my stories.”

“Okay... Then take that envelope with you and go home now. I’ll take care of the paperwork and your duties here. Your top priority now is to prepare yourself for travel. You’ll meet up with the other members there. Details are in the envelope.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Okay. One more thing. If you’re going to do it, go all the way. When you come back, show me how much you have learned.”

“Thank you, sir! I will!” Jasper grabbed his belongings from his desk and ran out of the office.

***

“He’s gone. What a moron,” the editor scoffed, watching Jasper run off through the window.

Someone quietly approached him. “Some tea, sir?”

“As attentive as always, even in your new position as assistant editor.”

“Compared to yours, my job is a walk in the park. This is the least I can do... I can’t imagine having to deal with that arrogant boy.”

“You can say that again. His writing really isn’t bad...except that it’s too rebellious. We just have to skirt around the ugly parts of noble society and write up a few nice things to keep them happy. It’s simple math and he can’t do it.”

“He still thinks he’s in the academy! That’s why he keeps mentioning childish things like integrity and duty of a writer. What’s frustrating is that you’ve tried to correct his behavior countless times! I can’t count how many times I nearly struck out at him! Your wisdom and patience were completely wasted on him!”

The assistant editor’s compliments and gesticulations seemed to improve the editor’s mood. His irritation had disappeared completely. “He’s been a thorn in my side...for the last time.”

“Then the new post you spoke of...”

“It wasn’t a lie. It’s true that I’d been told to find someone eager to send to the Jamil domain, and that they would have more freedom in the new office. I just didn’t mention that I was told to choose someone I wouldn’t miss if they were gone.” A cold grin crossed the editor’s face.

The assistant editor smirked slimily. “His future isn’t bright, then.”

“This move only expedited his fall a little. He would have been crushed sooner or later writing like that. Actually, by the time I’d heard about the new branch, he was practically preselected for me. Turns out, stories of his enthusiasm had reached my boss’s ears. They wanted him out before he could cause the company any damage.”

“One wrong move against a noble and your head could roll... In fact, I am too scared to even discuss this further,” said the assistant editor.

“That’s for the best. I never asked or intend to ask what’s going to happen to him once he moves. That’s the kind of threat assessment he’s oblivious to. You, on the other hand, know when to back down. That’s why I trust you with important work. If he had even a percent of your good judgment, he might not have found himself in this predicament.”

“I thank you for the high praise, sir, but I’ve only come this far because of your tutelage! I could not express how fortunate I am to work under not only a brilliant writer but an incredible leader!”

“Y-You think so?” The editor laughed heartily at the flattery, but regained his composure. “I almost forgot. There’s something I need to take care of. Assistant manager, can you notify HR that Jasper Penbroke was fired as of today?”

“Of course, sir. Is there anything else?”

“They’ll be expecting the news, so they’ll take care of the rest. Who knows what he’ll do in Jamil, but we’re not going to take any heat from it. If we fire him now, it’s not our problem what an ex-employee gets up to.” The editor glanced around the room. “You heard that, didn’t you? Just a minute ago, I was notifying Jasper of his dismissal. As you all know, the reason for that was his repeated insubordination and refusal to follow directions, which forced me to deem him as having no chance of improving his behavior. He apparently didn’t like the sound of that, because he refused to accept the dismissal and left the office of his own accord, declaring to show us what he’s capable of...before we could even call him back. He never showed up again, so we simply processed his firing. That’s the truth of what happened, isn’t that right?”

“Yessir.”

“I saw it happen.”

“We understand.”

The writers each responded, all too familiar with the directives of the editor.

Satisfied, the editor shoved the cigarette into the ashtray on his desk and sank into his chair. “There we go. Go send that message, will you?” he directed the assistant editor.

“Yes, sir. What would you like to do with his article? I could stop by the incinerator on my way out.”

“Information he gained by sniffing around nobles? It could only be kindling for trouble...but I’ll keep the article. Even though he did nothing but sabotage the way things are run here, his journalism was genuine. Look at this.”

“A list of informants. I’m surprised he had the time in between shifts to interview them. He even attached a reference sheet, connecting each account to each person.”

“If he gathered this much information, it’s possible they realized he was with the press. If he’s been made, we can expect some backlash. Keep the article and documents so we can claim to have confiscated all evidence and fired the writer, without ever publishing the story. That’ll be our way to show we have no intention of defying nobles. If we hand over the identity of his sources, that will also deflect the nobles’ ire.”

“I see! Claiming we burned the evidence will leave them suspicious of us. In fact, if we burn these papers, we lose critical evidence to prove our innocence. I hadn’t thought that through... You saved the day again, sir!”

“Oh? Well, you still have a long way to go before you catch up to me. Keep it up.”

“Yes, sir! I will leave the article here...and report to HR!” Having thoroughly brown-nosed his boss, the assistant editor left.

The editor watched out the window again. “The historical Propo Times... The golden age of our paper is long gone. What does he expect from a dying paper shoved into the corner of the capital? Us little guys need to survive in our own way—by not rocking the boat we’re on. I hope the world shows you how foolish you’ve been.” Speaking those words at the window, the editor lit another cigarette and began putting away the papers scattered on his desk.

Afterword

Hello. This is Roy, author of By the Grace of the Gods. Thank you for picking up volume 17, where we continued the story of Ryoma learning hexes and cleaning up the mountain.

On the mountain side of the story, Ryoma opened up a lumberyard, dug wells, completed a path... He was overworking himself again, perhaps out of habit from his previous life. What’s worse, whenever Ryoma thinks of a better way to do something, even if he’s in the middle of a task, he has to implement it. Combined with his perfectionist tendencies, he didn’t finish everything he wanted to. He’s sped through tasks much faster than a normal person would, but he just keeps adding on more tasks faster than he can complete them. This was a show of Ryoma’s best and worst attributes.

Ryoma paused his work for now, but he will resume whenever he has the chance in the future...hopefully at a more relaxing place. You can look forward to how much he’s going to modify the mountain by the end. In the process, Hudom and Eleonora are sure to suffer—wish them luck.

As for his hexology lessons, due to the nature of curses, I had to write stories that were a little more depressing than usual. I’m sorry if you were hoping to read more lighthearted stories in this volume. Hexology is like a collage of that person. For example, even though I haven’t even lived forty years on this Earth, I’ve experienced a decent number of hardships. Everyone has their own story, and even children suffer in their own way. I am sure everyone who is reading this book must have experienced hardships or painful experiences. In order to portray the gravity of a person’s life in one curse, I couldn’t make things too lighthearted (in my opinion, anyway).

Ryoma Takebayashi’s life, in particular, because the gods on Earth had had it out for him, was difficult. Ryoma accepts his past in the end, learning to control his emotions and convert them into power. Curses can be dangerous, but I believe that Ryoma could use them to break through tough situations he may face in the future. I also hope that he can use them to better life for himself and those around him. With Ryoma as my role model, I hope to leverage my past for a brighter future. I want to live a life where I don’t sneer at or dismiss anyone else’s suffering, but lend them a helping hand.

Ryoma notices a clue to help Korumi communicate with the outside world, which means things are going to be even more exciting around Ryoma while he and his friends continue to level up.

Finally, what will Jasper do in Gimul, and how will he come into Ryoma’s life? Find out in the next volume.

Life is a rollercoaster, and so is this series. I hope you will continue to experience and enjoy Ryoma’s growth.

Bonus Short Story

Korumi is Home Alone

Now that Ryoma had left the Sea of Trees, Korumi remained in his manor that was absent of Undead, staring out a window. He was in the form of a younger Ryoma.

I’m bored... Not a single other soul remained in the manor where, up until a few days ago, many residents had relived their lives as maids, couriers, messengers, and security. When they were here, it had never taken long for someone to walk by while Korumi stared out the window.

Thanks to Korumi’s ability, the Undead residents of his manor had acted as they had before their death. They’d been tracing the shadows of their life, uttering echoes of memories. And there were enough of them that Korumi could always hear the little sounds of life like footfalls and clothes brushing against skin. Now, the manor stood silent.

It’s so quiet here...

Korumi knew that there was nothing in the house to make those sounds anymore, but he couldn’t help but notice the silence lingering in the air. He turned away from the window and moved to another one, having grown tired of the view from the first window.

After some more time, Korumi seemed to tire of gazing out of a window. He ducked into a nearby room and retrieved cleaning supplies that one of the Undead residents had used to clean the manor with. Korumi began tidying up the manor, maneuvering the tools with magic.

Clean up! Clean up!

Korumi was mimicking the movement of the former resident. The manor itself was Korumi’s body—something that was half Undead and automatically kept up by his own regeneration. At most, a room might accumulate a layer of dust if it went uncleaned for a long time, but there was no reason for any part of the manor that had been made spotless by its residents until just a few days ago to need any cleaning.

Still, Korumi meticulously scrubbed room after room. This didn’t occupy him forever, though, and eventually the vast number of rooms in the manor built to house so many humans ran out. Once he’d cleaned the last room, Korumi had nothing to do again.

He wandered about for a while in search of entertainment, but that was sparse in the manor, especially when he had to occupy himself all alone.

“What to do next...” Korumi muttered, the very picture of a child left home alone and bored. Because his main body was the manor itself, Korumi had no need for food or sleep. Not needing to eat or rest only prolonged his painful boredom each day.

“I’m lonely...” Korumi whispered to himself. Extended boredom and ringing silence drew out the feeling of isolation from him. The more he tried to entertain himself, the lonelier he seemed to feel.

I could bring someone in. Korumi shook his head, chasing the temptation from his mind. “No...!” He couldn’t bind people’s souls anymore. The promise he made with Ryoma was his rule of survival now.

“I hope he comes home soon...” Alone in the depths of the Sea of Trees, Korumi fought his loneliness, biding his time until Ryoma’s return.

He wouldn’t have to wait much longer for Ryoma to arrive with a key to expanding Korumi’s communication circle.

Speechless Jeff

Since we’d finished work, clearing out the testing grounds while the sun was still up, we were spending our time as we wished, mostly bathing or resting. Apparently, we all had the same idea of getting to the dining hall a little earlier than usual.

“Am I the last one here?”

“You’re late, Jeff. Sit down,” Miya said.

“I’m not late.”

Miya looked determined. She wasn’t angry, just waiting for the food to come out. Everyone else—myself included—was getting hungry just by inhaling the smells in this room.

From what I heard earlier, we were going to be served royal cuisine. Even nobles didn’t get to eat this stuff often, I bet. The five of our group who were born-and-raised nobles acted just as eager as Miya, except for Eleonora, who’d helped Ryoma cook.

“Good evening, Jeff. Here’s a glass of water. I’m plating the food now, and it’ll be right out.”

“Okay... Start with the other guys,” I grunted.

“Very well.”

I didn’t think they were trying to intimidate me, but their eyes gave me the chills. I was born and raised in the slums, so I didn’t get it. Food just needed to fill your belly. I never even bothered trying to imagine what royalty ate. When I was a kid, I daydreamed plenty of times of striking it rich as an adventurer and stuffing my face with good food—just generic good stuff, like meat and fish. I never knew anything about expensive dishes, so I couldn’t imagine it. And now, I was about to eat royal cuisine...

“Here you go!” Ryoma announced.

“Finally!” Miya exclaimed.

It was some sort of stew served over a bed of rice. When it was in front of me, its smell shot through my whole body, making me even more hungry than I was. As soon as the side salads and soups were distributed, we all took up our spoons together without coordinating it.

It was delicious—what more could I say? I couldn’t figure out the details like how much of which spice was used. All I knew was that this “curry” was unbelievably good. When I took my second bite, a piece of meat melted in my mouth without even having to chew it. When I took the third bite, I got a chunk of potato that had soaked up the stew. When I took the fourth bite, I thought I’d scooped up some rice, but it disappeared from my mouth. Bite after bite, I kept eating—I couldn’t stop—until my plate was clean.

“I have seconds for everyone!” Ryoma said.

“I’ll take more!” I answered without even thinking. To be honest, spicy food wasn’t really my thing. Maybe because I’d grown up with food seasoned with nothing but salt and wild herbs in the area, I’d gotten used to the subtle flavors. Normally, spices felt too powerful and powdery to me.

But this dish was something else. I could tell that Ryoma had used a lot of spices. Somehow, it went down so easily.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Have as much of these as you want,” Ryoma said.

“Boiled egg, cheese, and some kind of pickled vegetable?”

“Yes. My hometown enjoyed curry by everyone adding their own toppings. Curry on its own can get old pretty quickly, so I tried to make as many different toppings as I could.”

“All right, you don’t have to tell me twice.” I took a pinch each of the three toppings and sprinkled them on top of my curry...and it was a completely different dish. It had already been delicious, of course, but the slightly melted cheese helped the flavor stick on my tongue. The egg had a perfect balance of curry-infused yolk and refreshing whites. The pickled vegetables uniquely provided acid and crunch.

As I tried different combinations of the toppings, I couldn’t stop myself from eating more and more... It didn’t take me long to demand my third, then fourth, bowl.