Chapter 56
Chapter 56
Saint, You’re So Vulgar! – Chapter 56
Asher was panting.
Only then could he fully release the tension from his body.
With Melvin after him, and now Judith too, there was nothing more he could do.
He slumped limply into Versia's arms.
Versia looked down at him with a twisted expression.
Asher chuckled softly and whispered.
"Crisis... yeah, it wasn't that big a deal. Even now. My body's still not back..."
To reassure her, he stroked the back of her hand.
Hot breath escaped from her.
It was then.
"What the hell did you do to end up like that? Moderation in carelessness, you know."
Judith approached, scolding him sharply.
Her gaze then shifted to Versia.
"Couldn't you protect her properly?"
"...I'm sorry."
"You do know you're sorry, huh?"
Judith sneered and puffed on her pipe.
Her eyes had sharpened.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Melvin clashed head-on with the witch, unleashing explosive blasts.
In truth, nothing circular remained intact where they collided.
Judith exhaled smoke with a sigh and muttered.
"Ah, about that much."
With that, she took a step forward.
The smoke she exhaled began to take form.
"Rest up. I'll handle the finish."
Click-clack. The sound of her heels echoed, and right after, Judith swung her pipe like a conductor's baton.
Crackle!
The smoke transformed into magic circles.
Divine power seeped into them, infusing the arrays themselves with radiant light.
And then,
Drip
Judith shed tears of blood.
Her lips curled up wickedly.
"Fun."
The array began to manifest.
* * *
Mira gritted her teeth.
She had paid the price to summon Ashanta's body, but the opponent's resistance was fiercer than expected.
Above all, the knight's 'half-spirit' state granted natural immunity to several curses, wasting her efforts.
Physical curses like decay or weakening didn't work.
Traps like mutation or sealing failed to snag him.
It was literally wind molded into human shape.
Its flesh unbound by physical limits.
But her panic was fleeting.
Mira found a way.
'If physical curses won't work...!'
She just needed to lean into more shamanistic ones.
As she swung her hand, Ashanta's followed suit.
Thus, a hundred curses formedlanguages that ensnared souls.
Curses that struck at the soul and mind.
The knight sensed it, halting his attack to shift into evasion.
Too late, of course.
"Die!!!"
The curse completed faster than wind, lancing through space at its target.
With Mira's scream, the curses surged like waves.
But
"Give it."
Clang! The curses shattered all at once.
Mira's eyes flew wide.
There, at the end of her stare, stood Judith.
Instant fluster, but swift realization.
Dozens of magic circles floated behind the woman, reversing and dismantling the curses. Veins bulging on her forehead, Mira hurled them at her instead.
A physical curseone she hadn't been able to use on Melvin.
"Don't interfere!!! Get lost! Get out!"
But the truly absurd happened right after.
Crackle!
Before they reached, in that razor-thin gap, Judith reversed every incoming curse.
Impossible.
Each curse was a bundle of the world's rules.
Reversing even one demanded grasping its rules, calculating, and rewinding through intricate, labyrinthine steps.
To dispel them on sight? Mira had never imagined it possible.
"How...?"
A bewildered voice slipped out.
Just then, Judithbloody tears streamingreplied.
"Drugs."
Sip. Pipe smoke flooded into her mouth.
Her pupils dilated.
Pipe clenched between her teeth, Judith murmured low.
"Melvin, kill her."
Puff. The forcefully exhaled smoke hurtled like blades toward Mira.
A chill raced up Mira's spine in raw crisis, and she thrashed wildly.
"N-No! No!"
The grotesque life barreled toward its end.
* * *
The curses began to splinter.
She flailed and fought, but the tide kept turning against her.
Now Judith unraveled them before they even finished forming, displaying divine prowess.
Magic circles laced with divine power, cognition accelerated by the awakening agent, fused with her innate analytical giftsit made the impossible real.
Soon Ashanta's hand withered.
The essence Mira had paid was nearly spent.
Terror engulfed Mira.
And fury.
Resentment lanced out.
'You said I could do it...!'
Toward whom?
It wasn't clear.
Not that she didn't know the foebut the memories of them had been carved from her mind.
Face unclear. Voice unclear.
Even when it happened, unclear.
One thing Mira knew.
A woman had approached herthe one who'd scraped by in the gutters and brothels her whole life, grown old, reduced to begging.
Words the woman had spoken.
-I'll put you above everyone. Now it's your turn to use others up and toss them aside.
She'd grasped that offered hand.
When she came to, her aged body was young again.
Mira wielded near-omnipotent power.
She thought she could live like this forever.
As the woman promised: trampled all her life, now time to trample back.
That belief hadn't changed.
Onlythis situation where she couldn't act filled her with rage.
Boom!!!
"Kyaaah!!!"
Melvin's storm sheared off one of Mira's arms.
Black blood rained down in globs.
It hurt.
Resentment toward the enemies before her boiled over.
'From where?'
Life blazes brightest just before fading.
Mira's final spark, doused in the oil of grudge, burned with vicious spite.
She sought the enemy trampling her anewthe origin of all tragedy.
Something caught her eye.
God's favoritism.
The woman with cascading sky-blue hair, receiving healing in the knight's arms.
'You... because of you...!'
If only that woman hadn't hidden her identity for no reason.
Logic's holes didn't matter.
The grudge's misdirection didn't matter.
For a curse, only the hatred matteredand the price to match it.
Mira forsook her life.
One thought consumed her: shatter the god who'd made her wretched, destroy what that god cherished most.
Thus, she staked the juiciest price a curse could claim.
'Take my soul. So...!'
Crunch. As her arm thrust out, moisture drained from Mira's entire body.
Writhing in agony, she laughed hideously.
'Make that bitch miserable! Make her regret ever living!'
Grip. She clenched her fist.
In that instant, Mira's breath snuffed out.
* * *
Judith's eyes widened to tearing point.
Not aimed at her, so no prior defense.
Worse, the soul-fueled compulsion exceeded Judith's expectations.
Yet one thing burned clear as venom: what the curse was.
"Galrae...?"
Galrae's curse.
The lone despair that toppled the first holy nation.
Versia scoffed at it as the 'bitch's curse,' but no this was no trifling hex. An atrocity beyond measure.
Dark purple thorns shot out with a pop.
Too swift for Judith's reaction; she couldn't intervene.
Arm outstretchedbut too late.
Stab!
Unseen, it pierced past her, embedding in Versia's solar plexus.
And seeped in.
Judith froze solid.
"Wha...?"
Versia let out a dazed sound, staring at her chest.
Asher, supporting her, went deathly pale and clutched her tighter.
"N-No..."
Thud
Versia convulsed.
Vicious energy swept through her body.
Judith yelled.
"Get away from her! You'll catch the curse!!!"
But Asher only hugged tighter.
Like reason fled, he mumbled disjointedly.
No, no. The words leaked amid deep groans.
Versia's body started shuddering.
Her head snapped back.
Hic, hicharsh, ragged breaths.
The energy lashed out viciously.
Ah, too late to turn back.
Despair crashed over Judith.
Right thenas all the energy sank into Versia, her chest heaving hugely
Judith's eyes squeezed shut
"...Hachoo!"
Versia sneezed.
Judith reacted.
'...Wait, a sneeze?'
Judith creased her brow and opened her eyes.
What she saw:
"Heh, hachoo...! Hachoo!"
Versia was sneezing.
Wrinkle at her nose tip, shoulders jerking nonstop.
The mood iced over.
More precisely, absurdity chilled the air.
Right after.
"Sniff...!"
Versia swallowed her snot and blinked.
Tears clung to her eye corners, but anyone could tell: sneeze tears.
No anomaly lingered in Versia then.
"......"
"......"
Silence fell around them.
Versia glanced sheepishly about at the reactions.
Awkward for her too? She rubbed her solar plexus, furrowed her brow earnestly, and said.
"...C-Curse of the common cold?"
Galrae's curse.
...Probably.