"So this castle, as in the one we are sleeping and expected to live in, is cursed?"
"Yes"
"And you didn't think to tell us this because?"
Lulua made a saddened face but she answered the question nevertheless.
"The cardinal system is made using light magic. I assumed that the energy from the summoning circle would be enough to purify the castle of the curse, but I was sorely mistaken."
So summoning us here wasn't just a last ditch effort to defeat the demon king, but also an attempt to rid the castle of the curse that was looming overhead.
I shot her a look of annoyance but seeing her wince made me withdraw it. I mean, the poor girl's been having to fight fox demons that come out of nowhere for god knows how long.
"The curse typically manifests itself in such violent ways?" Tempest asked, rubbing the knot that had formed on his head from the fall he took fighting the Kitsune.
Lulua nodded.
"The curse only occurs once a week, and typically it follows the same seven day period, which would have caused it to activate two days from now since that would mark seven days from the last time it occurred. I presume the energy from the summoning may have had an inverse effect, causing the curse to occur faster than usually, which means its next occurrence will be seven days, starting from now"
That was just a theory though, assuming that we disrupted the balance enough as it is, the curse could probably take place everyday and night.
"Is the curse related to the demon king?" Fiona interrupted.
Lulua stopped for a second and seemed to be in deep thought before shaking her head.
"The demon king and his army have no clue about our kingdom, we came together as a unit only within the last 200 years. The Demon King and his acolytes are over 10,000 years old."
"So if it isn't him, then who could have cursed the castle?"
"I'm not sure, if we could find the curse caster, we could make them reverse the spell. But for the past year, since the curse started, our search has been rather fruitless."
"I see" Fitz muttered, deep in thought as he petted the fox that was small enough to fit in his hand.
He had far too much confidence in his ruler ability, but who could blame him? He basically could control whatever creature he encountered as long as he had enough mana to do so.
I wonder if his power works on humans or even elves. There had to be some limit, right?
-
After we had finished "interrogating" Lulua. She escorted us back to our bedrooms and promised that no monster would appear again. Despite her oh so soothing warning, I couldn't go back to sleep. I mean who would be able to?
I spent the next couple of hours just going through my status menu. It was uncanny how much of a rpg game this interface looked like, like completely uncanny.
"This kingdom is many things but lazy is not one of them. This clearly took a lot of care and attention." I muttered to myself.
I do wonder how they managed to make such a system, this world is clearly medieval so, how could they know about… somethings are just better left unsaid.
Finally almost nodding off, I hear a knock on my door.
Getting up to go see who it was, I was greeted by the familiar face of Fitz, our resident beast teamer.
"Are you free?"
Looking around and seeing absolutely nothing that demanded my attention, I nodded my head and gestured for the boy to come in.
-
" Everyone else seems to be asleep already, but I can't lay down, still have a bit of edge on me from earlier you know"
"Yeah I understand" Not completely though, since I was about five seconds away from shut eye before you knocked on my door.
Looking at the fox in his hand, Fitz began to explain a theory of his.
"I think this "curse" is a form of a test."
Intrigued, I stopped fiddling with my fingers and looked directly at him, causing him to do the same.
"The fox we faced, the one in my hands. It's memories, they're in my mind now. As if they synced. I can see what it's seen and feel what it feels. At least to some extent, the things further in the past are a tad blurry."
The Ruler.
I managed to take a peek at it during the appraisal from earlier today. It gave the user absolute dominion over others. It was by far the most broken class here.
"What exactly have you seen?"
Fitz looked around as if someone could be listening, before pulling up his status menu.
"That's the thing. I didn't see anything, when I tried too, what I saw was this."
I took a look at his status screen and before I could so much as glance at it, a ping went through my head.
QUEST UNLOCKED
SAVE THE CASTLE
The castle has been cursed by a powerful figure, rid the castle of the curse in order to complete the quest.
Opening my status, I read the same sentence that I just heard throughout my head, and looking back at Fitz's screen I saw the same thing.
"What is this?"
"I think… The cardinal system created this event, and every night we are going to face another one of these monsters until the quest is cleared."
"But the castle has been cursed for over a year now, if what you were saying was true, the curse would have first manifested today"
"That is true, but remember what Lulua said. The cardinal system has been in the works for quite some time, and the summoning did have an effect on the curse. If my theory is correct, maybe the cardinal system retroactively caused the curse to be made."
If we were on earth, I'd look at him like he was a moron, but here, in another time and space. Magic affecting the past wasn't something that seemed impossible, if anything it only made sense.
"The only problem I have with your theory is that Lulua said the cardinal system worked off of light magic, if that was the case, why would it curse the castle"
"Now that I'm not as certain on, but I presume that light magic doesn't just encompass light, if that was the case it wouldn't have given me the ability to control others, or made Fiona an assassin, or given Tempest elemental powers. The only person whose powers would be the same would be yours."
True. The only person whose powers actually would qualify as traditional light magic, was me. But the cardinal system did more than that, it gave the other three heroes their powers, and also summoned us from another world. Clearly light magic was more than just light, it had to be or the things that were occurring wouldn't occur. Though I have to admit, this is all conjecture.
"So what now?"
"We purify the castle of course."
Oh.
That's why he stopped by to bother me.
"I don't know if that would work, the last time I did purification, it failed." I said glancing at the little monster inside the boys hands.
"The kitsune has an ability called Death's Door. It gives it the ability to come back to life from an attack the first time that attack hits it. If you cast purification on it again, it would have permanently been turned into ash."
The Ruler, of course, would tell him the exact powers his familiar has. So he wasn't lying.
Dumb hax ability
"Okay, well then, how are we going to go about this?"
Fitz just smirked in response.
"Wear something warm"
-
Standing outside in the snow in my pajamas in another world was something.
I know I could've changed but that would be the third time today, and I just didn't have the energy for that, I just want to go to bed.
As I shivered in the cold, I watched as Fitz gave me a "I warned you" look. Too busy fighting off the cold to give a glare back in response, I ignored him.
Staff in hand, I focused on the object in front of me.
With a mutter of the words Purification, I focused all my mana in this one blow.
The castle before me had to be about 12,000 square feet wide. Surprisingly, I had enough magic power to cover it all.
This better work.
When I felt the last bit of the castle connected to my mana. I released the spell, and watched as light erupted before me.
It was odd.
Seeing the curse of the castle slowly drifted the way in the air.
Before I could turn to Fitz to celebrate, I heard a ping ring throughout my ears.
QUEST COMPLETE
SAVE THE CASTLE
You have saved the castle from the curse looming over your head.
REWARD
5 levels and a new subskill.
5 levels was awesome and all, but I was mostly focused on this new sub skill.
Mana Transfer.
Guess I'm a certified battery now, great.
Speaking of Mana
PLOP
I fell back first onto the snow before me.
I guess I wore myself out.
"WALKER, WALKER!"
Looking up at the stars, I faded to unconsciousness, knowing I had done a job well done.