The Cursed Child (4)
"Are you here to inspect Lady Caligosa's belongings?"
"……What?"
"I know the catalyst for the curse placed on her is kept here. You're the one managing it, aren't you?"
This boy knew something he should never have known.
Karl Manfred.
Second son of Baron Manfred.
Noble by blood, yes — but House Manfred was a nobody barony out in the sticks. Those who knew the gossip knew that Baron Manfred himself was a wastrel with a reputation to match. And this child had spent every day huddled under his blankets, trembling without end. Jeina had figured it wouldn't be long before he killed himself and handed her another corpse to feed on.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Jeina drew the butcher's knife she kept hidden in the shadows and swung.
It was the same blade she used to dress corpses.
Karl's chest split open. Droplets of blood scattered like flower petals.
To use magic, one needs mana.
The human body cannot produce it. The place from which humans draw mana is the Void — a realm that does not exist in reality, yet is connected to every human mind. The deeper one digs into the Void by elevating one's spiritual state, the more mana one can pull forth.
Naturally, not everyone can do this. The untalented are lucky to brush the outermost fringe of the Void.
Jeina had been no different. She possessed the rare gift of wielding both holy magic and dark magic, yet her mana reserves were so meager that both came out pitifully weak.
So she had found another way: curse-eating.
When a cursed person dies, the curse stops functioning. A curse sustains itself by consuming its host's life force, and a corpse has none. Just as a body decays with time, so too does a curse collapse. Curse-eating was the art of breaking those dying curses down and converting them into one's own mana.
It was a grossly inefficient method — corpses of the cursed were hardly common. But at a mental hospital, they were easy to come by. Many patients burned through their life force and died of their curses; others, unable to endure, took their own lives.
Jeina had become a priestess while concealing the fact that she practiced dark magic. The clergy did not favor postings at mental hospitals, so securing a position had been simple enough. For a long time she had enjoyed a comfortable life, playing the part of an ordinary priestess. Everything had gone smoothly.
Then, one day, the young lady of House Caligosa was admitted.
The man from the ducal house who brought her knew about Jeina. He knew she practiced dark magic. If that secret ever came to light, she would no longer remain a member of the clergy — she would be dragged straight to the Inquisition and meet a horrific end. The man made several demands of her. He called them "favors." Jeina had no choice but to hear them as threats.
Place the Curse of Emotionlessness on the young lady through sorcery. Manage the curse's catalyst. Make it appear as though the girl had been born with the curse. Ensure that neither he nor anyone else ever learned the truth of any of it.
Fortunately, none of it was difficult. The mental hospital was unpopular among the clergy, but the roster still had to be filled — so when no one volunteered, people were assigned by force. Forced appointees were almost always unmotivated and negligent. No matter what Jeina did behind the scenes, no one ever noticed.
It had always been that way. And it would continue to be.
Karl clutched his wound and staggered several steps back. Then he looked at Jeina with trembling eyes.
"There are secrets in this world that one must not dig into lightly," Jeina murmured coldly.
"Even knowing that, no one can ever quite abandon their curiosity. That's what it means to be human."
Karl answered in a calm, even tone.
"……Huh?"
Why wasn't this boy collapsing?
Blood gushed from the gash in his chest like a waterfall. The volume of bleeding was enormous — not merely fatal by ordinary standards, but so absurd that it was hard to believe a human body could produce that much blood at all.
"Wh-what is this?! What the hell is happening…"
A bad feeling seized her. Instinctively, Jeina looked toward the storage room entrance.
The door that should have been there was gone.
No — this wasn't the storage room at all. It was an empty chamber of pure darkness, and Karl's blood was already rising to fill it. A little longer and everything would be submerged.
"You—you! I don't know what you've done, but stop it this instant!"
Jeina adjusted her grip on the butcher's knife and closed in on Karl. Whatever this was, killing him ought to end it.
Before she could swing, a violent impact slammed into the back of her skull. Her body no longer answered her. Jeina toppled forward and drove her face into the sea of blood. Consciousness slipped further and further away.
"Hmm. Karl. You've altered a curse."
Maria spoke as she tucked the iron club she had swung at Jeina back into her own shadow.
"I have."
Altering.
The process of reconstructing the magic formula of a curse bound to oneself and claiming it as one's own power. If I was going to carry these curses for the rest of my life anyway, I might as well put them to use. It was not a method that lessened the suffering a curse inflicted — on the contrary, it was a dangerous technique that burned through even more life force.
The moment I used the altered power of the Curse of Illusion, it felt as though my insides had been wrenched inside out. Nausea surged up my throat; I forced it down.
"I never taught you that. How did you manage it?"
"As I studied dark magic, it simply felt as though I could. You yourself once said I had talent, my lady."
Maria had taught me only the fundamentals of dark magic. But Karl's body — gifted as it was — grasped ten things for every one it was shown.
By altering the Curse of Illusion, I had become able to project illusions onto others. I couldn't inflict anything as overwhelming as what I myself was forced to see, and physical contact was required — but still.
The Karl of Luke's Biography, the demon-worshipper, had been on an entirely different level from me as I was now. He could show countless people the exact same overwhelming illusions he himself endured — a transcendent mental assault that could throw entire legions into panic. Numbers meant nothing before a demon-worshipper.
I had no need to develop the ability that far. But since I had been dropped into a fantasy world, it seemed wise to at least acquire the power to protect myself.
"Why did you do something that wasn't in the plan? It was dangerous."
Dangerous.
Did she mean my life had been at risk? Or that the plan had been?
It couldn't be the former. She was still under the Curse of Emotionlessness, after all.
"I was confident I wouldn't fail."
"Hmph."
Maria looked down at the unconscious Jeina.
"So this woman has ties to my family. How did you know?"
"I already knew she was a dark mage, so I had my suspicions. ……Did you not know, my lady?"
I turned the question back on her before she could press me. Explaining would have been a nuisance.
"I didn't."
"You sensed dark magic potential in me, didn't you? And in this priestess…"
"That's only possible when the talent is truly extraordinary. Still, this is a bit of a problem. I needed a priestess's body."
"No need to worry. This one can use holy magic as well."
"My. How fascinating. That's fortunate. So — how exactly did you know the priestess was a dark mage?"
The deflection strategy appeared to have failed. Still, I could always muddle through.
"……She was the only person in this place I trusted and followed. Spending time close to her, I happened to find out. It was a deep betrayal."
If it had still been this body's previous owner, that would have been the truth. Learning that the person he had leaned on was a dark mage who scavenged power from corpses would have shattered him.
"Hmm. I see."
Maria plucked a single strand of her silver hair and placed it between Jeina's lips. Then she pulled one strand from Jeina's head as well.
"Don't do anything strange to my body."
"I absolutely will not."
I answered firmly. Maria giggled and lay down beside Jeina, took Jeina's hair between her own lips, and closed her eyes.
Hair is a material that symbolizes a person's fate. Sorcery makes frequent use of it.
The unconscious Jeina opened her eyes and rose from the floor. With the jerky, creaking motions of a puppet, she started toward something — the storage box labeled with Maria's name.
I stepped ahead of Jeina and opened it. Inside was nothing but a single wooden chest. When I held it out, Jeina laid her hand upon it. A soft light spilled from her palm. In answer, chains of light that had been binding the chest revealed themselves — then shattered with a crystalline sound, dissolving into fragments of radiance before vanishing entirely.
Jeina's eyes rolled back, and she collapsed in a heap.
Immediately after, Maria opened her eyes and pushed herself up.
"Hah…… the chest… would you bring it here……?"
Maria looked utterly spent. The mask-like smile was gone; her breathing was ragged. As far as I knew, the sorcery to control another person's body was an extremely high-level form of death magic. Even for the future Demon King, it seemed to have been too much for this young body.
I held the chest out to her, but her trembling hands couldn't manage to open it properly. I opened it for her instead. I did not touch what lay inside. It was the curse's catalyst — and I, who didn't even know how to lift a curse, had no business handling it carelessly.
"Heh… I never imagined they'd used this as the catalyst……"
Inside the chest was a locket pendant made of silver.
"Mother gave it to me… an ornament meant to ward off evil……"
The superstition that silver is effective at blocking dark magic is well known.
"It's quite clear it had no effect whatsoever……"
Maria rested the pendant in her hand. Black energy flowed from her palm, and a dark magic circle appeared above the pendant. The patterns filling the circle's interior were erased, leaving only the outer ring. Maria opened the locket and drew out the silver hair inside — her own, no doubt, as the curse's target.
"Now… we transfer the curse. May I have a strand of your hair, Karl?"
I handed her a single black hair. Maria placed it inside the locket.
"Come closer."
Maria knelt. I took the same posture before her.
"This is the final step. Are you ready?"
Transferring a curse was similar to lifting one, she had said, but required one additional process. She had never explained what it was in detail. She'd only said it would be entertaining.
"Ready for what, exactly?"
"Mental preparation, of course."
"……I am ready."
Maria held out the pendant, and I naturally bowed my head.
"Heh. I told you, didn't I? That our meeting shouldn't end like this."
"……You did."
I thought it ought to end exactly like this. For the sake of this world. For the sake of us both.
Thank you for helping me.
She slipped the pendant around my neck and whispered.
We will meet again. Without fail.
I could give no answer at all — because her trembling hands had cupped my cheeks, and her soft lips had settled over mine.
……Not long after, I would come to understand.
She had not been lying.