Chapter 65
"This is..."
What was being held out before me was an accessory made by the genius mage Carla Orlando.
I want it.
Honestly, I want it like crazy.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary necklace. But I already knew what it could do.
"Sensei."
I steeled myself and asked.
"Has it been imbued with magic?"
"Y-yes! You noticed? That's right. I made it myself."
Sensei's face brightened ever so slightly.
No doubt about it. It was just like the game.
In other words, this necklace was a powerful accessory with all sorts of magical effects.
And when I took a closer look at Carla-sensei's hands, I noticed a little bandage wrapped around one of them.
"Ah, no, this is..."
Carla-sensei noticed me looking and quickly hid her hand.
"Sensei..."
To begin with, Carla-sensei was terrible at detailed work.
In the original story, whenever she cooked, she'd try to feed you something charred beyond recognition—not something you could call a meal. And despite being one of the most powerful mages in the story, she'd get drugged and sleep like a log during an important battle...
She was so spectacularly clumsy that people would say, "Has Carla-sensei's character changed halfway through?"
This was a handmade accessory Carla-sensei had worked so hard to make for me.
There was no faulting its performance. She must have put her all into making it.
My heart warmed despite myself.
—But still.
As someone who knew the game, I couldn't help wondering what I should do.
That's right.
Who could have imagined it?
That this seemingly heartwarming gift was actually a weapon that would plunge all sorts of characters into the depths of misery.
"My dear disciple...!"
I quietly sighed, careful not to let Sensei, whose eyes were sparkling, see.
Carla Orlando was a genius, first and foremost.
In the game, she was usually pretty lazy—or, well, scatterbrained—and never quite got to show what she could do. But the moment she entered combat, she'd go on a rampage with ridiculously powerful magic.
Just how strong was she? Her name was bound to come up in any ranking of the game's strongest characters. She rarely got the chance to fight, but her 【Ice】 magic was no joke.
When she was serious, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call her one of the most powerful people in the world.
But at the same time, Carla-sensei had quite the misfortune streak.
She was born into a prominent family of mages in the kingdom and had a brother one year older than her.
Her brother was an arrogant man who was always flaunting his talent. But one day, Carla-sensei, who had been brimming with talent since childhood, completed a spell more advanced than her brother's on her very first try.
Naturally, her big brother refused to accept that his little sister Carla was more talented than he was.
But in the middle of all that tension, Carla-sensei ended up giving her brother a magic-imbued necklace as a present.
Of course, Carla-sensei hadn't meant it as a taunt or anything. She'd only wanted to be kind. But her brother, whose greatest insecurity she'd hit dead center, flew into a rage.
Seeking greater strength, her brother lost his way, threw away the necklace, and left.
That emotionally unstable older brother, who'd betrayed his family, eventually shows up as a boss-level enemy in the main story...
Well, whatever.
Up to that point, it might have been a fairly ordinary story.
But Carla-sensei's necklace had more misfortune in store.
As time passed and the original story began, Carla-sensei became a teacher at the academy.
What's more, if you played through Carla-sensei's route as the protagonist, Sieg-kun, and raised her affection to a certain level, you could choose whether to accept this item, just like before.
And then, unbelievably...
If you accept this necklace, there's a high chance either Sieg-kun or Carla-sensei will end up on a corruption route.
...That's right.
It made absolutely no sense, but somehow, through sheer bad luck, Carla-sensei would see you getting cozy with another girl and become emotionally distraught. The relationship between the two, which had been going so well, would suddenly sour.
And to top it all off, her corrupted big brother would barge in, too. It made no sense at all.
The worst part was that Sensei herself had no ill intent whatsoever behind any of this.
She'd only given a handmade necklace to someone important to her, and then her brother got corrupted, the protagonist nearly got corrupted, and finally she herself might get corrupted. A truly wonderful chain of events.
And once she'd fallen to corruption and was freed from all the story's comedic plot armor, Carla-sensei's combat ability became terrifying. She was in a whole different league from when she was on your side.
Anyone who'd experienced that route would invariably say, "Why couldn't you have gone all out like this from the start, when you were on our side...?"
What's more, after 'Last Arcanum' became a hit, the official account tweeted on social media, "We're selling Carla-sensei's necklace!" But the company tasked with making it suddenly went bankrupt. So this curse is the real deal.
A terrifying necklace that spreads misfortune both in the game and in real life.
—That, in its entirety, is the so-called 'Last Arcanum' Special-Grade Cursed Object: 'Carla-sensei and the Cursed Necklace.'
What on earth was I supposed to do?
I agonized over it while looking at Carla-sensei.
In fact, setting aside the corruption route, Carla-sensei's necklace had incredible stats. Its performance was absurd for an item this early in the game.
"Then..."
And after much deliberation, the answer I chose was—
♦♦♦♦
"Thank you. Well then, goodbye, Sensei. I'll write you once you've reached the royal capital."
In the end, I was waving to Carla-sensei with the necklace in one hand.
The hut grew smaller and smaller in the distance.
...Yeah.
I glanced at the necklace clasped in my right hand.
This necklace really was dangerous.
In the game, she was described as a mage who wielded 【Ice】 magic. But some players had said things like, "Maybe she should just make cursed items for a living," and, "Couldn't we conquer the world if Carla-sensei made necklaces for us forever and we gave them to anyone we didn't like?" That's how dangerous this thing was.
But I saw a glimmer of hope here.
The people who'd suffered misfortune after receiving Carla-sensei's necklace were the protagonist, Sieg-kun; Carla-sensei herself; and her corrupted big brother.
Thinking about it carefully, every single one of them—except Carla-sensei herself—was someone important to her.
And that's why I'd been thinking...
Wait, maybe this could work?
That's right.
The game had never shown what happened if Carla-sensei gave the necklace to someone who was just an acquaintance, someone who wasn't all that important to her.
I took stock of my current situation.
Unlike Kuzutos in the original story, I hadn't made any lewd comments, so Carla-sensei didn't hate me.
But I didn't think she particularly liked me, either.
From Carla-sensei's perspective, it was probably something like, "I'm going to the royal capital, so I might as well give my young student a necklace."
For now, we called each other "Sensei" and "disciple," but who knew how long that would last?
Once the original story began, Carla-sensei would surely grow close to Sieg-kun, just like she did in the game.
It was a little sad, but by then I would be out of the picture.
She probably wouldn't remember most of the kids she'd tutored for a short while.
It'd be like being pretty close to someone in elementary or middle school, then running into them years later and thinking, "This guy... can't keep a conversation going at all..."
"It makes me sad just saying it myself."
Well, that's life. It happens all the time.
I guess people grow up by overcoming hardships like this. Probably.
Besides, Carla-sensei had said, "There's someone I just can't stop thinking about," and seemed interested in some incomprehensible weirdo. She'd probably forget all about me in no time.
My reasoning was flawless.
Actually, the game only showed her giving the necklace to people important to her. But maybe in this world she handed them out pretty often.
At each home where she'd tutored, she'd give one as a present, like, "Well done!"
Yeah, that seemed pretty likely. Like a correspondence-course program.
And lately, I hadn't heard any rumors about a sudden rash of noble families being struck by misfortune.
Which meant Carla-sensei's misfortune streak probably wouldn't affect me, just an acquaintance of hers, and this accessory should work as nothing more than a useful accessory.
Well, that said...
"Maybe I'll put it in a jar of salt when I get back to the mansion, just in case."
For, say, three days, just to be safe.
And so, still wary of Carla-sensei's misfortune streak, I hurried home.
—But I would learn later.
Carla-sensei's necklace.
This thing was the real deal—a genuinely dangerous one.
――――――――――――――――――――――
I got carried away and made it a necklace in the previous chapter, but now I'm really wondering, "Couldn't it have been a ring or something instead?????"
Well, that's what happens when you start writing without a plot... (eyes rolling)