Severing Ties
Even at a single glance, Stanashila Pitra was clearly out of her mind.
"Son, my sweet little liar of a son. Fufufu... The villain who stole my boy's body and murdered Berik. The great hero who saved the Duke's Castle from ruin... Ah, I truly have no idea how I'm supposed to treat you..."
Her head lolled from side to side as though she were dead drunk, yet those crimson eyes—seething with violent hatred and hostility—remained glued entirely to me.
"Alzen. What sort of state has Pitra been reduced to?"
"...It's likely..."
I answered Urtega's grim question with a furrowed brow.
"A curse."
"A curse, you say?"
"Yes. Piecing together the testimonies of the knights and mages on the scene... there is a high probability it's a high-tier curse cast using a Soul Gears."
For the record, Hedos had already been put down by the castle's knights and mages. Just before breathing his last, he had managed to inflict this curse upon Pitra.
"Can it be lifted?"
"Dispelled, huh... Well. That's hard to say."
In Origin World, dispelling curses wasn't normally that complicated. Curses were fundamentally classified as status ailments, and if curing them were a nightmare, players would have spent the entire game suffering under one debuff or another. The real issue was that curses had distinct grades.
Namely, Minor Curses and Greater Curses. If it were a trivial Minor Curse, drinking holy water from the Church or receiving a purification spell from a priest would wipe it away with ease. A Greater Curse, on the other hand, frequently demanded specific, convoluted prerequisites to undo.
Phew...
And when a high demon threw away its life and sacrificed its own Soul Gears to lay down a curse, nine times out of ten, it was a Greater Curse.
"...Cecilia. Think you could try lifting it?"
"Um, I'll give it a try!"
At my prompting, Cecilia knelt before Pitra and clasped her hands together in prayer.
"Oh my, what an adorable little Saintess. Fufufu... The Goddess's pawn, the detestable proxy standing beside my mortal enemy... Saintess. Why did you kill my Berik? Why has this Kang Han-gil become the Goddess's champion? Is the ruin of my family just another one of the Goddess's cruel games?"
"...O Goddess. Cleanse the profane malice dwelling within this frail soul."
Fwaaaah!
A dazzling radiance of holy power burst forth, and pure white smoke began hissing off Pitra's body.
"Aaaaargh?!"
An ear-splitting shriek tore through the air as Pitra's skin began to blister and char.
"Ah...!?"
Horrified, Cecilia instantly halted her prayer.
"As expected, conventional methods won't do the trick."
"It hurts, it huuurts...! Ahaha, ahahahahaha... It burns so much! Hey, Alzen—no, was it Kang Han-gil? Lord Kang Han-gil. Were you trying to murder me under the pretense of lifting the curse? Were you?!"
"...Haaah..."
I let out a weary sigh as I watched her spit venom at me through a face covered in fresh burns.
"I don't know the exact nature of this curse, but... for now, it doesn't seem to be the kind we can cleanse right away. Fortunately, it doesn't look like her life is in immediate danger, but..."
"Ahahahaha! Wrong, dead wrong, Lord Kang Han-gil! You couldn't be more mistaken! I am going to die. I don't have much time left at all."
"...What did you say?"
A chill crept down my spine as she blithely announced her own impending demise with a manic grin.
"That high demon prattled on and on as he laid the curse upon me, you see. It seems he hated the thought of dying in vain. I suppose even a high demon can't keep his composure when staring death in the face, can he?"
"What did he say? That demon."
"What was it again... Ah! Right! He said negative emotions like hatred, resentment, and suspicion would grow stronger and stronger within me. That they would swell and fester endlessly until they became completely uncontrollable. And as those emotions intensify, some bizarre occult mechanism will cause demonic energy to accumulate in my body... until I gradually languish and rot away. But he said I won't suffer demonification! What a relief that is. Even if I have to die, I certainly wouldn't want to die as an ugly monster."
"......"
I had never heard of such a curse in the game, but just listening to her description made it obvious how vicious it truly was. That bastard Annus had prepared this specifically to cause as much devastation as possible. If I hadn't caught wind of Annus's approach through Rubias and put him down early, Pitra wouldn't have been the only one suffering like this.
"...So, you truly resent me that much?"
"Fufu, fuhaha...! Do you even need to ask? Yes! I despise you, I loathe you with every fiber of my being! Posing as my son, murdering Berik, seducing Tsarkhella! You destroyed my family!"
"Is that so. Well, you're not wrong."
"To admit it so brazenly... Ahahaha! Ah! I truly, truly hate you so much I can hardly stand it! If I had my way, I'd chain you down and subject you to every torture my mind could conjure! And while I was at it, I'd conduct all sorts of experiments on that body. To see what kind of foul stain your disgusting soul left on my Alzen's flesh, whether it can be excised, whether my sweet Alzen could ever be brought back... Fufu, fuhaha, just imagining it brings me such joy!"
"...I'm glad to hear you're enjoying yourself."
"Oh yes~ It brings me immense, absolute joy. Though living it out would be far more delightful. Would you perhaps care to indulge me?"
"I'll pass. I'm not fond of pain."
"Ah, what a pity. How resentful I feel. How bitterly I hate you... Fufufu."
Meeting her chilling gaze, I pressed on.
"Then tell me, do you also doubt what I told you before?"
"Whatever do you mean? Ah, perhaps that absurd oath of yours? That after slaying the Demon God, you would plead with the Goddess to resurrect Berik and Alzen...?"
"Yes."
"Ahahahaha! Did you genuinely believe I'd buy that? That childish, nonsensical pipe dream of yours?! Did you honestly think I believed you could pull it off?! Who do you think you are?! Some grand, destined champion chosen by the Goddess?!"
"I'm no hero, that's true."
"And yet you boast of slaying the Demon God and restoring my family?! Arrogance should have its limits!"
"So you never believed it... What was your plan, then? Were you just going to give up?"
"Fufu, hahaha... That's right. I gave up. I threw it all away! What choice did I have? You're shielded by the Saintess and the Holy Church, the hero who saved the Duke's Castle, a man who knows everything... practically equivalent to a hero out of legend. And even if the soul inside is an imposter, the flesh belongs to my Alzen... So I was simply going to bury it deep in my heart. Alzen, Berik, all of it..."
That came as quite a surprise. I had assumed that no matter what happened, she was someone who would never, under any circumstances, abandon her family. It seemed she wasn't so far gone that she couldn't recognize reality. Perhaps I had judged her a bit too harshly.
"Hic...!"
A sudden streak of clear tears traced down her laughing face. Behind the pooling moisture in her eyes, a fleeting spark of lucid, brilliant intelligence flickered to life.
"...Deep down, I know. I know you've done nothing wrong. You're merely a powerless, innocent human being toyed with by the gods, someone fundamentally kind and just... And the tragedy with Berik, and Tsarkhella's straying... that was all because I failed to look after my family properly. Because I couldn't steer them right when they went astray. So... I know it is wrong to resent you and curse your name. But...!"
Her eyes snapped wide, and that brief flash of clarity was violently swallowed whole by an erupting tempest of dark emotion.
"Even knowing that, the hatred inside me is tearing me apart...!"
"...I see. I understand how you feel, Duchess."
"Hahaha! Kyahahahaha! You understand?! You claim to understand me?! No, you don't! You don't know a single damn thing about the agony of a mother who lost her children!"
She thrashed hysterically against her bindings, the rough ropes chafing her fair skin red.
"What will you do now, hm?! Will you conquer some strange dungeon to cure my curse?! Or will you just sit back and watch me wither away into a corpse?! Do whatever you like! I won't take it lying down! I will have my vengeance on you... I swear it...!"
"......"
Watching her chew on misplaced venom and screech hollow declarations of revenge was an empty, miserable sight.
"Haah... Duchess. This is the last time. Even my patience has its limits."
"Kyahahaha! Kyahahahaha!!"
As she dissolved into the shrieking laughter of a mad witch, I grabbed her wrist and pulled an artifact from inside my coat.
"Once I help you this final time, I will never again bear a shred of guilt or responsibility toward you. From this moment on, we are complete strangers."
"...Lord Han-gil. That is..."
Muriel made a hesitant move to stop me, but when I shook my head with resolute finality, she bit her lower lip and lowered her gaze. It was an act of profound trust—a belief that I wouldn't throw my life away, that I had some kind of plan in place.
Fshhh!
I dredged up the meager embers of divine authority remaining inside me. It was pitifully small compared to what I once wielded, but it was more than enough to slice open a fingertip and draw blood.
"That hurts! What are you doing?! Ah, are you going to slaughter me right here on the spot?! Is that it?!"
"...Hold still."
Dragging her struggling, bound hand forward, I used her bloody finger to scrawl her name across the surface of the Shroud of Sacrifice.
Whew...
Exhaling a quiet breath, I activated the artifact, transferring the very curse gnawing away at her life straight into my own body.
"...Ugh!?"
The reaction was instantaneous.
Something foul, ominous, and drenched in pure malice surged into my core alongside a dense mass of demonic energy, taking root deep within my flesh.
"Guh...!"
There was no physical pain, but the sheer, sickening revulsion of the sensation made my head spin, and my balance gave out completely.
"Lord Han-gil! Are you all right?!"
"Watch out...!"
Muriel and Rebecca swiftly stepped in, catching my staggering frame. Leaning against their soft, firm bodies, I felt a violent swell of raw emotion erupt from the depths of my gut.
Irritation at the miserable hand I'd been dealt.
Rage at the absurdity of the current situation.
And... an overwhelming, unbridled lust directed squarely at the two women holding me upright.
"...Huh?"
Not resentment? Not hatred?
I cocked my head in confusion, internally sifting through the tempest raging inside my chest, but the conclusion remained starkly unchanged. Lust—a monstrous, colossal surge of sheer carnality—was expanding so violently that it crushed every other negative emotion into dust.
The pressure pounding against my skull was so ferocious that my hands acted purely on impulse before my brain could even register the thought.
"...Lord Han-gil?"
"Hyaaang...!?"
Reaching out, I firmly squeezed both of their rear ends in a tight, full-handed grip. Muriel glanced back at me with wide, bewildered eyes, while Rebecca jumped in shock, letting out a breathy, honeyed whimper.
Pant, pant...
What the hell is this? Why is the curse hitting me completely differently?
Wasn't this supposed to amplify negative emotions to cause inner chaos, channel those dark feelings through an occult ritual to amass demonic energy, and ultimately kill the host? So why the hell was it doing this to me?
—Ho-oh, well now... It seems the curse actually worked out in your favor, Kang Han-gil. Did you calculate even this? Truly impressive.
Hearing Rubias's amused voice ring inside my head, it was obvious she understood what was happening.
...Unfortunately, the explanation would have to wait.
"Ah...? Wh-Why... why did you save me...?"
Because right in front of me, Stanashila Pitra—having fully regained her sanity—was staring up at me with utter shock and bewilderment.