Chapter 38
It is said that the 〈Abyssal Curse Mage〉 carries a spring deep within his body.
The spring is dark and deep, like a bottomless bog, and filled with countless curses.
And the curses dwelling in that spring—responding to the curse mage's emotional turmoil, they ripple across its surface and crawl out.
For example, jealousy. For example, hatred. For example... fear.
Emotions that grow too strong sometimes become curses, manifesting in forms Ray does not desire.
That was why Ray made a point of voicing his own complaints and desires whenever possible.
──I'm envious, I'm jealous, I want to be loved, handsome men should be cursed...
By muttering his dissatisfaction aloud, he could release a small portion of the negative emotions he had stored within himself.
That was how the third 〈Abyssal Curse Mage〉, Ray Albright, had kept his emotions under control.
And now, between the unfamiliar party venue, the confusion of encountering his fiancée, and the fact that her brother was pointing a shovel at him, Ray's emotions were in utter turmoil.
More than anything, the decisive blow had been the genuine killing intent radiating from Henrik Blanke.
Faced with killing intent as intense as that directed at enemy soldiers on a battlefield, Ray felt the terror of death... and the surface of the spring where he stored his curses rippled violently.
Black markings surfaced across Ray's entire body and crawled over his skin. Not only that, the markings began to lift free of his skin, trying to leave him.
To infect those nearby.
"...Ah, aah... uah... stop, stop it... Don't come out...!"
Frieda and Henrik watched in astonishment as Ray writhed on the ground, his entire body covered in black markings.
(Ah, ah, I did it, I've definitely been hated, they think I'm creepy! Hated, hated, hated!)
That despair accelerated the curse's rampage even further.
The black markings rose silently from Ray's body and began crawling along the ground. If this continued, the curse would infect Frieda and Henrik.
Ray rolled across the ground, trying to get away from them. But his feet tangled, and he could not walk properly.
"No, no, aah, nooo... Somebody, somebody...!"
If this continued, he would use the curse inside him to make someone suffer. And then they would hate him.
Tears overflowed from Ray's eyes. They were thick and black like tar.
Even Ray's tears had become curses.
A black tear plopped onto the flowers at his feet, dyeing them black... and the next moment, the flower swelled enormously.
Plop. Plop. Each time the black tears overflowed, the plants and flowers at Ray's feet transformed into grotesque shapes.
The trees and flowers, mottled with black, grew huge, their vines and leaves trembling as though they possessed wills of their own. They sought to ensnare and curse everyone around Ray.
A curse's true purpose was to make people suffer.
Those touched by a curse were tormented by pain so intense that they wanted to die, writhing on the ground before eventually going mad.
"Lord Albright."
When he turned around, Ray saw Frieda approaching him.
As though it were only natural, she reached out a hand toward Ray, who was surrounded by grotesque plants.
But Ray's curse could no longer be stopped. The plants that had become curses began to move, trying to ensnare Frieda.
(Ah, no, no, I'm going to curse even this kind girl who reached out to me. I don't want to, I don't want this...!)
As black tears dripped and dripped from his eyes, Ray wept in wordless anguish.
(No, stop, somebody, help me.)
Despite that plea, the blackened vines reached out to ensnare Frieda...
With a sharp crack, the vines were repelled by an invisible wall just before reaching Frieda.
(...Is this a defensive barrier?)
But an ordinary defensive barrier could not block a curse. A specialized barrier was necessary.
Curse magic was an art almost entirely unknown to the world. Naturally, few people could use defensive barriers against it.
But there was someone here who could use a defensive barrier capable of stopping such curse magic.
It was the small hero who had defeated Lainburg's cursed dragon two years ago...
"...The 〈Abyssal Curse Mage〉-sama hasn't hurt anyone yet... I won't let him hurt anyone."
One of the Seven Sages: the 〈Silent Witch〉 Monica Everett.
＊ ＊ ＊
The defensive barrier Monica had devised when she fought Lainburg's cursed dragon two years ago had been improvised, so it was full of flaws and incomplete.
That was why Monica had learned the structure of curse magic from Ray and spent two years rebuilding the theory behind a defensive barrier against curses.
Monica was now maintaining a defensive barrier to protect Frieda and Henrik.
Monica's barrier activated properly, repelling every attack from the plants contaminated by Ray's curse.
"That's awesome!" Glen cried out in admiration, but Monica had no attention to spare for him.
(It's far more powerful than the cursed dragon's curse from two years ago...!)
Ray Albright—the nation's foremost curse mage, the 〈Abyssal Curse Mage〉.
If he unleashed his full power, he could envelop an entire castle in curses.
To defend against a curse that enormous, Monica's barrier alone was nowhere near enough.
(Even so, I have to stop it...!)
If that curse magic hurt someone, Ray would surely blame himself and curse himself.
Monica knew that even someone who was not a curse mage could easily curse themselves.
──Someone like me. Someone like me...
That was how young Monica had continued cursing her own powerlessness.
If this continued, Ray would surely end up the same way. He would curse himself with a dark look in his eyes, cut off all contact with others, and shut himself away in a room alone...
Monica did not want Ray to become like that.
(Ngh, the barrier won't hold. Release it temporarily, reconstruct it...!)
Monica dispelled the failing barrier once, then immediately recast it without an incantation. It was an audacious feat possible only because Monica was a practitioner of silent magic.
But this defensive barrier against curses consumed a considerable amount of magical power.
There was no way to incorporate a formula that reduced the consumption into such an extremely advanced barrier. Thus, every time she used it, Monica's magical power was drastically drained. At this rate, it would probably run dry after three more uses.
Apparently realizing that they could not win by merely defending, Glen rolled up his sleeves.
"I'll blast those black flowers away with my fire magic!"
"Can fire magic do anything about the curse? For now, I'll freeze everything with my ice magic..."
As Cyril began an incantation, Isaac tapped him on the shoulder.
"That doesn't look necessary."
Glen and Cyril looked puzzled at Isaac's remarkably calm voice, which was completely out of place.
Isaac smiled gently and pointed behind them.
"Well, well, looks like you're having quite a bit of fun."
"Honestly, causing such a commotion in someone else's home... You, my idiot disciple. You're getting a lecture later."
Walking toward them were a large man with black hair and a black beard, and a handsome man with long chestnut hair braided into a single plait and a monocle.
They were Monica's fellow Seven Sages: the 〈Cannonball Mage〉 Bradford Firestone and the 〈Barrier Mage〉 Louis Miller.
Raul's face lit up, and he ran toward them.
"You two came!"
"Yeah, leave the big bang to me."
Bradford laughed heartily, while Louis stared at Monica, who was maintaining the defensive barrier, with half-lidded eyes.
"Ah, honestly. What an utterly unendearing little girl. To recreate a high-difficulty anti-curse barrier without an incantation... It leaves the 〈Barrier Mage〉 with no role to play."
Speaking sarcastically, Louis adjusted his monocle and stared at Ray's curse.
Then he asked Monica, who was desperately maintaining the barrier,
"My fellow Sage, how much longer can you hold out?"
"Th-thirty seconds...!"
"That will do."
Louis recited a somewhat lengthy incantation and wove a defensive barrier against curse magic.
Far sturdier than Monica's barrier, it did not so much as tremble even as the curse-tainted plants thrashed wildly.
(...Amazing.)
Though he had claimed that Monica left him with no role to play, when it came to defensive barriers, no one could surpass the 〈Barrier Mage〉 Louis Miller.
After confirming that Louis's barrier had enclosed the plants contaminated by the curse, the 〈Cannonball Mage〉 Bradford Firestone picked up a stone from the ground.
"Now it's my turn. Hey, Barrier Mage, protect the mansion—I'm going to blow this thing sky-high... Hmm, since I'm burning away the curse along with it, let's make it 'fourfold.'"
"Threefold should be enough for something that size, shouldn't it?"
"Wouldn't it be nice to give the youngsters a big, spectacular fireworks display? Make that 'fivefold.'"
"Could you spare a thought for the person who has to put up the defensive barrier?!"
Louis's temple twitched as he glared at Bradford. But Bradford had already begun his incantation.
Louis also began to chant with a resigned expression. All the while, he continued maintaining the barrier containing the curse.
Bradford's low chant overlapped with Louis's melodic incantation.
Raul, another of the Seven Sages, looked at Cyril and Glen and laughed excitedly.
"You're about to see something incredible for the first time in ages. You two, etch it into your memories!"
Louis finished his incantation first and cast a defensive barrier over the entire garden. It was an exceptionally sturdy barrier designed to withstand attack magic.
After confirming this, Bradford raised the stone in his clenched fist high into the air.
Bradford had imbued the ordinary stone with compressed fire-element magic.
The magical power packed into the stone was about equal to that of Glen's fireball. That alone gave it considerable power, but Bradford was compressing the fire even further.
Not only that, Bradford had layered the exact same formula fivefold.
The more layers a multi-layered enhancement formula had, the greater its power, but control became correspondingly more difficult. Even Monica could manage only fourfold.
Bradford grinned broadly.
"Here we gooooooo! Take this—BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!"
Bradford swung one leg high and hurled the bright-red stone in his fist at the overgrown flower.
At a speed beyond anything a human could achieve, the red stone pierced the flower and burned away the curse along with it.
──A thunderous boom, a flash, and a cloud of dust billowing into the air.
The vicious spell, powerful enough to pierce even the body of a dragon with high magical resistance, blasted Ray's curse to smithereens.
It was a strike from Bradford, who wielded the most powerful magic in the kingdom. Its destructive force was tremendous... but...
"U-um, um... Is the 〈Abyssal Curse Mage〉-sama alive...?"
When Monica asked timidly, Louis snorted.
"That is what I'm here for."
Eventually, the dust cleared, revealing Ray staggering from the shock of the thunderous blast and flash. Louis had adjusted the defensive barrier so that Ray would not be caught in the explosion.
Ray's eyes had been seared by the flash, and he was crouching with both hands over his face.
"Now is your chance, 〈Thorn Witch〉-dono."
"Oh, thanks, Louis-san!"
Raul approached Ray with a rose in hand and crushed it in his palm.
As the rose's powerful fragrance spread around Ray, the strength drained from his arms.
"I put a fairly strong sedative in it. Feeling calmer, Ray?"
"Ah, uh... I... I..."
Ray was unsteady, and his speech was slurred.
When Ray's body lurched unsteadily, Frieda caught him on reflex.
Leaning against Frieda, Ray sobbed like a child.
"Ah, ah, u-uh... I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I, I... ugh, aaaaaah..."
Tears spilled in torrents from Ray's pink eyes.
But the tears were no longer black and murky──they were clear drops.