Return

Once the last of the monsters were taken care Bell collapsed the moment he relaxed. I didn’t fault him for this as he was quite thoroughly exhausted and suffering mind zero. I poured a mana potion and a healing potion down his throat in a trickle to make sure he didn’t inhale it but it hit his stomach. I passed Welf, Lili and Daphne potions since while they were exhausted they were nowhere near Bell and could be jolted awake by me easily enough. Cassandra was also close to mind zero but otherwise unharmed in this affair and needed only a mana potion.-

“Now that everyone will be alright can you tell me exactly what happened here?” I asked her seriously.

“Bad luck is what happened.” Welf said with a long look.

“Explain.” I said with narrowed eyes.

“The party that pass paraded us had an injured member being carried. It’s pretty obvious that they were in a bad way and to save themselves they damned us, it was pure bad luck all around.” he said with a sigh.

Seeing as nobody had any rejection to what he said I took it as the truth and pushed down my anger at the party responsible.

Thanks to this account I could understand WHY they had done it. Don’t fucking mistake me I definitely didn’t approve but I could at the very least accept the shittiness of the situation all around.

“Did any of you at least get a good look at who was in the party so we can go get an apology?” I asked with a sigh.

“Looked like they might have been from the east with the clothes they wore. I could probably point them out if I saw them again.” Welf said tiredly.

“Good enough, everyone rest up here for a few minutes to recover your strength before we head topside.” I said before standing guard.

Five minutes later everyone other than Bell was able to at least walk which was perfectly fine since I’d be taking care of any monsters we ran into. I strapped Bell to my back with some of the hellhounds hide that dropped and we set off slowly. We ran into a few monsters but I killed them instantly with a single point of my finger and a beam of erasure through their magic stones.-

Welf and the others visibly relaxed and breathed sighs of relief once we stepped out of the dungeon and onto the dungeon square. The guards at the entrance to the dungeon looked like they wanted to say something to me when I walked out but after seeing how battered and weary the group seemed held their tongues. 

“Hestia familia.” I said having a pretty good idea what they wanted to say.

The guards nodded at that and we continued through the city until we reached the manor at which point the group collectively collapsed on the pews of the church.

“Is he okay?” Hestia asked as I put Bell down.

“Utterly drained but otherwise fine, minor injuries he’ll recover from in a day or two at most.” I said honestly.

“That’s a relief, I was so worried.” she said tearfully.

“I rushed over as fast as I could, which coincidentally might cause us a small issue in a while. Made a bit of a commotion with my rushing that we might get fined for.” I said sheepishly.

“So long as everyone is fine it’s worth it.” she said with a sigh.

I nodded “My thoughts exactly, besides it’s not like I hurt anyone in my rush, just made a big spectacle is all.” I said with a shrug.

I was being honest as even in the hurry I was I made sure that not a spark of hellfire got away from me and kept me feet from putting too much pressure when I ran on the rooftops. At most we’d get fined for disturbing the peace and creating a scare. Hell we might not even get fined if I explain why I was in such a rush. Still whatever came we were ready for and I went to go get changed back into my casual clothes and out of my armor.-

I didn’t twiddle my thumbs as we waited for whatever was inevitably coming but grabbed one of the [gravity] attributed goblin teeth items I made previously and reset it before ascending it to test if it had sat long enough to take that property permanently. I was delighted to find that the newly ascended material did indeed still have an innate affinity for gravity. With that settled I began to draw out the small orb into a coin two inches in diameter and a few millimeters thick. On one side I had the image of a laughing face and on the other a crying face.-

I imbued this coin with a rather peculiar cursed technique but one that I felt would come in handy once I found out who it was that pass paraded Bells party. It wasn’t anything cruel but depending on how it affected the one who made that call I might be. I took the gravity affinity of the material and twisted it to a degree so that it changed depending on a single factor, regret. If the person who held then coin felt genuine regret when they flipped it it would show the crying face and if not the laughing face.-

While I might understand why they made that call if they didn’t genuinely feel regret for throwing Bell and the others under the bus they would when I was done with them. I’m no saint and learning that my close ones risked death because of another’s decision and that person didn’t regret it was more than enough to bring suffering to them. Maybe it was my growing closeness to being a cursed spirit but my mind jumped to vindictiveness at the slightest wrong done to me and mine.-

Despite knowing this I couldn’t really bring myself to care about it since it was bound to happen eventually. There was no reverse switch here and the only way to stop my descent into being a cursed spirit was to stop chasing my goal. Well there was also the possibility of me turning into something new and unknown due to the falna being divine in nature as well as the catalyst for my transformation but that was a big unknown.

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