~ Chapter 63: The curse ~

[Illsyore's point of view]

 Although I stood in front of this so-called Prince surrounded by his so-called knights, all I could see were puppets pulled by the invisible strings of their own greed and lust. His words were meaningless to me, and the Dungeon behind him was a weakling I could shatter whenever I desired.

“Why are you obeying him?” I asked in the language of the Dungeons, the same one I used with Deusur.

No reply came.

“I don’t know with what sort of magic you managed to destroy my palace, but you will reveal all of your secrets to me and bow down immediately! Do so, and I may spare the lives of your friends!” the overzealous Prince demanded.

He felt safe while surrounded by so many knights and even a Dungeon, but what were they when confronted with me, Nanya, and Ayuseya? They were of no interest to me. What we wanted was to rescue Shanteya and Tamara.

Where are they? I asked myself, but thanks to the idiot knights blocking my way, I couldn’t tell.

“How do I know they are still alive?” I asked the Prince in Kalish, hoping that this way, maybe I could see them.

He looked to his right and nodded. I felt the Magic Energy flowing through this place and then my two, precious slaves were lifted off the ground on a stone platform, similar to the one the Prince was standing on.

“Tamara… Shanteya…” Ayuseya said when she saw them.

They were unconscious and held in chains. Blood stained their clothes and their missing parts could be seen clearly: the right ear of the nekatar’s furry head, and the left arm of the el’doraw. Just by seeing them in that state, I could feel a terrible rage building up inside of me.

How many are they? 58? And they even have a Dungeon on their side? Should I? Who cares? I thought and then took a step forward.

I didn’t have a plan or a certain tactic to work with. All I knew was that everyone around me was a weakling, and I had more power than they could possibly dream of. So, I dashed through the knights at top speed, pushing them to the side, avoiding their swords, and stopping only when I reached my two slaves. This happened in the blink of an eye.

In my rush to get to them, I stepped over a few knights and mortally wounded another. A couple of them had their Magic Armors shattered from simply bumping into me, while the rest, including the Prince, had no idea what just happened.

A moment ago, I was standing in front of them, but now I was next to my slaves.

“My poor Shanteya…” I spoke softly as I knelt on the platform.

She looked weak, feverish, and her breath was barely there. Tamara wasn’t doing any better either, even though unconscious, she was still suffering from the wound. I sighed and absorbed the two inside my Inner Mind, leaving behind only their shackles. When I left this place, I planned on healing them completely.

“Idiotic Prince, what’s your name?” I asked him as I looked at him with a piercing cold gaze.

“Rey-Reynolds D. Lagrange!” he stated proudly.

“Reynolds, huh?” for some reason, I remembered an old strategy game.

“You… Who are you? Why do you wield such power and what happened to those slaves?” he asked me or rather ordered me to reply.

“My name is Illsyore…” then I looked over at the Crystal Core “I am a Godlike Dungeon Lord.” my eyes moved back towards Prince Reynolds.

“Godlike? You must be kidding! There are no such things!” he shouted.

I shrugged and jumped over to my wives, the force I applied to the platform would have been enough to damage it, but with the help of a small localized Magic Energy detonation, I completely shattered it to bits and pieces.

“Nanya, please take out your sword.” I told her.

“Do I have to?” she asked and looked at me a bit displeased.

“Yes.” I showed her a kind smile.

Nanya took out the fearsome two-handed black sword with red runes inscribed on it. Unlike before, I didn’t feel the cold chill coming from it. This was most likely due to the fact that I was her husband, however, the other Dungeon wasn’t so lucky. I was hoping this would be enough to keep him or her out of our battle.

“Now, I’ll give you two choices: give up now if you want to live or don't, and I can just kill you all. This I say to all of you, knights, not the Prince.” then I smirked and looked at the Dungeon Core and spoke in our language “Dare to defend these mortals or attack me, and I’ll turn you into a chandelier. Got that?”

“Yes…” the Dungeon replied with a trembling voice.

“What?” the prince was confused, he didn’t understand what I said in the last part, none of them did.

“Our duty is to protect our prince! Our lives were offered through an oath to him!” shouted one of the knights.

They were a noble and loyal bunch, I could respect that.

Showing them a smirk, I then said softly “Nanya, Ayuseya, you may attack anyone but the Prince. Kill if you must, but I would prefer it if you only break their armors, weapons, and limbs. I want them to see what I’m going to do to their precious… royal.”

“I can’t wait.” the demoness said with a smirk and then rushed towards the knights.

“As you wish, my love.” Ayuseya said and ran after Nanya.

While the two forces clashed in the middle, I walked at a calm and relaxed pace towards the Prince. He was screaming at the Dungeon Core now.

“What did he tell you?! Answer me! I order you, you lousy Dungeon! If it wasn’t for my family you would be dead!” the Prince kept pointing his finger at the Crystal Core, but the Dungeon wasn’t willing to give him a reply.

From this one-sided conversation, my guess was that this unfortunate fellow had the bad luck of being born in a Dungeon Core Room placed here, in this palace. Once the royal family discovered him, they probably began to tame him in order for him to build stuff and act as a defense of sorts. This could explain why this whole palace was made with enchanted walls and even had a barrier around it.

I need to learn how to make barriers too… I thought.

Looking to my left, I saw Nanya destroying the knights. The demoness skillfully jumped and moved sideways to avoid the sharp edges of their swords and destructive power of their magic attacks. Whenever she found an opening, she attacked them as well, but despite wielding her powerful black sword, she was reluctant about using it to cut them down. Most of her sword attacks ended up being slaps with the flat side of the blade, but even those were more than what the poor knights could handle.

One hit was enough to shatter their Magic Armor or break their weapons in half. A rather funny moment occurred when a mighty and imposing knight in shining armor was prepared to face her in a one on one combat, but after her first attack, his sword turned into an awkward L shape.

Against this batch of individuals with a power equal or slightly surpassing a Godlike Ranked Adventurer, the demoness could easily hold her ground. For now, she was merely playing with them because if she were to get serious, she would use spell attacks as well as activate her [Boost] skill. I never did get to understand how exactly it worked though.

“Quickly, take them down!” shouted one of the knights as he ignored both Nanya and Ayuseya and dashed towards me.

I showed him a smirk and then he was sent flying into the wall to my right by one of the demoness’ kicks.

Ayuseya didn’t have any trouble either. Her two-handed sword skill wasn’t the best out there, but thanks to her excessive strength, her strikes were deadly. Because of her lack of control, she had a bit of trouble with adjusting her attacks so that they were non-lethal. Limbs and body parts were sent flying all over the place. The poor knights tried to stop her attacks, but when that enchanted sword came crushing down at them with more than 1000 strength points, it cut through them like butter.

If Nanya and Ayuseya had similar stats as they did, the battle would have been completely different. Instead of crushing them with one strike, they would have to pile up hit after hit until their opponent’s Magic Armor shattered and then go for a killing blow.

The number of knights dwindled from an impressive 58 to barely a handful by the time I reached the Prince. Their defeat was imminent.

“What did you do to my Dungeon Core?” he asked while glaring at me.

I smiled and looked up at the pale-red crystal.

“He knows that it’s better not to anger me. I can crush him in a second if I so desire to.” I then looked down at the Prince “You are the only one in this room who doesn’t think so.” I said.

“I am Reynolds D. Lagrange! I will never back away from a ruffian like you!” he declared pointing a finger at me.

I tilted my head to the right and then grabbed him before he could pull back his hand. With a single twist, I broke his finger.

“AAA!” he screamed in pain, and I kicked him in the stomach.

The poor Prince vomited his last meal and fell on his knees.

“I’m sorry, did that hurt?” I asked and then walked up to him and kicked him again, sending him rolling on the floor.

“Your highness!” shouted one of the knights before he was silenced by Nanya.

Between me and them stood two very powerful women. There was nothing they could do but watch and resign to their fate of having been defeated by me.

“Y-You will not g-get away with this!” shouted the Prince.

“Hm, nah! I’m pretty sure I will. If I kill you and all of your soldiers, there won’t be anyone left to hunt me down, right?” I smirked and punched him in the face, breaking one of his teeth.

“Aaa! Ow! Ow!” he whined.

I punched him again, and again, and again.

Of course, I didn’t use my full strength because I didn’t want to kill him.

“You know…” I said as I picked him up by the collar of his clothes.

His face was a mess.

“I think I’m going to heal some of your injuries now.” I said and then I did just that.

His wounds were healed, but his teeth weren’t repaired.

“Time for round two!” I punched him again.

After the fourth round of beating him up, healing him, and beating him up again, I finally took things a step forward and let him experience the same pain Shanteya and Tamara did. I ripped out his arms and cut off his ears. His screams filled the room as I healed him over and over again only to inflict more injuries upon him.

What I did was nothing else but pure, sadistic torture, and yet… I felt nothing while doing so. There was no satisfaction from seeing him hurt, there was no sense of remorse, not even the pleasure of having revenged someone.

At best, I could say that, deep down, inside, I didn’t like this sort of behavior, yet in this world, it was mandatory. Back on Earth, the Medieval Age was one of the most ruthless and unforgiving periods of times, so who said it wasn’t the same here as well? Maybe I was just lucky and didn’t have the chance to delve too deep in the dark side of this world, but sooner or later, I was going to take a dip in it. Life in this world was cruel and people found pleasure from destroying or killing one another, no matter their species.

The question is… what am I going to do about it? this question popped in my mind after I was done rearranging the Prince’s face.

Behind me, the battle had stopped. The knights gave up and watched their master as he got pummeled by me.

How will I act? another question popped up.

How should I act?

Is there another choice besides killing him?

Can I force him to repent?

Can I help the people of this kingdom in any way or manner? Why should I?

Who am I to change the order of this world?

Me?… I stopped and looked at Reynolds as he was begging me to stop hitting him.

“Pweash… no… mowur…” he mumbled.

I looked at him and saw his broken body covered with his own blood. My fist was red from all the punching.

This isn’t me… I thought.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus. There was something inside of me, something that wanted to kill this human, yet I felt detached from it. In my eyes and heart, all of the things I did until now, all the murder and destruction could have been prevented.

There was a conflict inside of me. There was a desire to act based on this dark side of mine, while the other side didn’t wish so, but didn’t act either. The conflict was strange because no matter how I looked at things, the struggle between good and evil was clearly there, yet the good never took any sort of action, letting the evil shout its desires as it pleased. As a result, the evil won, while the good was left only to return home and sulk.

I was letting the evil inside of me, the dark side of my humanity, take over because the light never wished to take action.

“Ugh…” I groaned and lowered my fist.

The poor prince was nothing but a byproduct of his own life. His lack of knowledge in how the world worked was at the base of all of his evil decisions, but one such as him could not be persuaded so easily to change his path.

I could kill him now, I just had to strangle the life out of him. My fingers were clenched around his neck, and I could see him begging me with his eyes not to do it. A snap was all I needed; a grip harder than usual.

Yes… kill… the sweet voice whispered.

“NO!” I shouted and pulled back the moment when I felt like I was really about to do it.

“Illsy?” Nanya asked worried.

I was breathing hard and looking at my bloodied hands. I was trembling. The Prince was begging for his life in a delirious mumble caused by my torture, and all around me was nothing but death and destruction.

I did all of this… It’s my fault… I thought and took another step back, hitting a cut off hand.

Looking down, I saw the floor soaked in blood and the knights struggling to stay alive. All of them were humans like I once was.

All of this death, all of this carnage wasn’t me… I didn’t wish for this as a human. I didn’t like it.

“But I can’t back away now…” I told myself in a whisper.

Clenching my fists, I walked up to the Prince and thought about what I was going to do next.

I want him to suffer, but I don’t want to kill him… There has to be something else. Some way I can force this man to change this country for the better, but what? I thought and thought.

If anything, I wanted to come out of this experience with my conscience clear, knowing that I actually tried all that I could and didn’t simply pick the easy way out as most people would. That was when an idea came to me.

A curse… Do I know how to curse people? I asked myself.

Yes… came the answer as I saw the skill and way of doing this flashing before my eyes.

I simply had to write a complicated Magic Circuit pattern blended into his Magic Channels. Then, I had to pour my own Magic Energy in it, create some barriers and triggers… It was quite simple in theory. Worst-case scenario, this test subject would die.

No loss then? I wondered.

With a smirk, I looked at the Prince and started to heal him.

“Reynolds, I’m not going to kill you, but I am going to put a curse on you.” I told him.

“What?” he was surprised and at the same time quite frightened.

After I finished patching him up, I ripped up his clothes until I saw his bare chest. A rib was sticking out from his left side.

“Oops…” I said and then pushed it back, causing him a lot of pain in the process. “Now then, let’s do this!” I smirked and focused Magic Energy into my right hand.

With the basic idea in mind and somehow instinctively knowing how curses worked, I started to burn strange symbols on his skin. Reynolds screamed in pain, but he couldn’t faint or get away because of my magic. Immobilized and unable to fight back, he could only scream.

When I was done, I poured insane amounts of Magic Energy into that curse, making sure it wasn’t going to come off easily. All the conditions, requirements, and possible situations were uploaded together with my magic into the symbols of the curse written on his chest. This whole process took me about fifteen minutes, but after I was done, the Magic Energy was flowing perfectly, without any irregularities.

“There!” I said satisfied.

The prince was trembling and breathing hard. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came out with a trauma or two from this whole ordeal, but it was too late to back away now.

“I know you can hear and understand me, idiotic Prince. If you don’t want me to hurt you some more, nod for ‘yes’, shake your head for ‘no’. Got it?” I told him.

He nodded.

“Good! Now, before I tell you what sort of curse I placed upon you, let me tell you a little secret about your entire family, alright?” I smiled.

“What secret?” he asked with a low volume.

“You can speak, good! Well, this is about your origin, and you can research it for yourself if you want. Just look at your family tree or that of any other royal family out there. If you dig deep enough, you will notice that all of you were originally peasants. Your great great great great grandfather was a peasant who one day decided to go and fight for his country. He survived and was given a small title for his effort in the war. In other words, he was awarded a small, almost insignificant nobility rank. His son then married a beautiful noble woman, and your two houses were merged into one. Thus, your family took a step up on the nobility ladder. A few generations later, the once simple noble families with peasant ancestry became one of the great noble families of this kingdom. Something happened to the king at that time, and he died. Maybe it was a rebellion, a coup, or something like that, who knows? Either way, your great great grandfather was then appointed as King of Aunnar Kingdom. Generations later, you were born, but do remember that all of the women and men married into this family, at one point or another, had a peasant ancestor.” I smirked and then lifted him off the ground, letting him see the blood-stained floor of this room.

“You’re saying I’m a peasant?” he asked, but it was clear that, deep down, he was rejecting this thought.

“You are a royal, technically, but there is no difference between you, the men who died for you today, and the first peasant you will meet on the streets tomorrow. You are just a well-dressed and a bit more educated peasant. That’s all.” I then showed him my blood-soaked fist. “Look at this. Your blood is red. So is theirs.” I pointed at the dead knights. “There is no difference. Same smell, same taste, same color, same composition, and do you know why?” I asked.

Reynolds looked at me with terrified eyes.

“Because the so-called noble or royal blood doesn’t actually exist. It’s just a… fantasy created by the likes of you to feel better about themselves and give reason for why they seat in that fancy throne of theirs.” I smiled and then laughed.

“You’re lying… How could my royal blood be the same as theirs?” Reynolds asked.

“If you dress like a peasant, you will see that no one can tell difference. If you put on a slave collar, it will be the same. If you don’t believe, then try it and see for yourself if I’m lying.” I glared at him.

“Is this the curse?” he asked me.

“No.” I shook my head and walked away from him.

It was then when I noticed how Ayuseya was looking at me. She appeared to be a bit troubled by my words. Seeing as she herself was a Princess, and looking at the Teslov Kingdom’s rather unpleasant way of continuing the royal bloodline, it probably came a bit as a shock to realize that maybe her roots weren’t so noble as initially believed.

Well, my words were partially true though. Royals and nobles were humanity’s more primitive way of protecting the individuals with good genes for future generations, but if I were to go into these sorts of details, the whole explanation would become a real pain in the back.

“The curse I placed on you has the following conditions and effects.” I said as I turned around to look at Reynolds right into his eyes.

He gulped.

“First. If you don’t abolish slavery from this kingdom, especially child slavery, you will die a most horrible death. What I did to you was not even a taste of what’s going to happen if this curse activates. Of course, you have only two months to do so. You are a prince, you have a certain authority, so I’m sure you will find some way to do this. Of course, the curse doesn’t activate if others plot against you. I also made it so that it can detect whether or not you are giving it your all to solve this problem. As for fake documents, don’t bother. It can identify the real ones immediately. Therefore, declaring a law now and changing it back the following day won’t work.”

“Are you mad?! It would be better off to kill me now! Abolishing slavery will ruin Aunnar Kingdom!” he shouted at me.

“Not really. There are plenty of kingdoms out there who do just fine without slavery. Now, the second part of the curse is even more difficult to accomplish. You have to actively work with your people in order to enforce these laws. This means that you are going to take some knights and go out there to stop those merchants who insist on continuing to sell or buy slaves.”

“That’s preposterous! I’m a Prince! I only need to give out orders not go and dirty my hands with the rest of them!” he shouted.

“You do know, you are quite lively considering the number of times I broke your bones until now. Should I break it some more? Maybe that will calm you down?” I asked cracking my knuckles and showing him a smile.

“Please don’t!” he raised his hands up in fear.

“Now then, the next part of your curse will require for you to give out the proper laws in regard to child abuse, child labor, child slavery, and orphans. You will need to make these things illegal in this kingdom. Create orphanages, a special force employed by the royal family, anything you can think of to prevent these things.”

“Why should I care for peasant or slave children?” he still had the guts to question me.

“Because you will die a most horrible death otherwise.” I smiled politely.

“Ugh…” he groaned and looked down.

“Now, what else was there? Oh, yes! For the following years, you are required to do everything you can to put the happiness and welfare of your people above yours or that of the nobles of this kingdom. Do you understand?” I asked.

“No…” he replied confused.

“It means you will do your best to make your peasants, commoners, and non-nobles in general, happy.” I told him.

“Such a preposterous thing…” he shook his head.

“You can always go and die in a ditch if you don’t like it.” I shrugged.

“Ugh…”

“There’s more to the curse.” I said.

“MORE?!” he was simply dumbfounded.

“Yes, don’t try to remove it, or the curse will be activated immediately. To be clear, the curse KNOWS when YOU are going to try to cheat your way out of the deal and will kill you. The more active you are on the field, the less chances for you to die because of it. Also, there’s another thing!” I said with a smile.

He only looked at me with a pained expression.

“The curse will go away on its own once what I just said becomes second nature to you. But the last deal for this curse is that you will marry a slave woman, not a noble woman, not a peasant or a simple commoner but an actual slave. It doesn’t matter if she was a former noble though. Also, she has to be at least a Godlike Ranked Adventurer, and your feelings for each other genuine.” I told him with a smile.

“ME? A prince? To marry a SLAVE?! Are you mad?!” he shouted quite loudly this time.

“No, but if what I said becomes second nature to you, it won’t matter.” I smirked.

“But how can I even marry a slave woman when you are asking me to abolish slavery?!” he asked, raising his tone at me.

“You will go to another country to… procure her. Imagine that, a foreigner Prince marrying the slave he met in another kingdom!” I smirked.

“I will not accept this! It would dirty my bloodline! Dungeon remove this curse at once!” shouted the prince at the core behind him.

“I-I can’t… He’s a Godlike Dungeon Lord. He’s more powerful than me.” replied the core.

“Yes, you basically have two choices: do as I said or face a painful and agonizing death.” I smiled.

“This can’t be…” he said in disbelief.

“Anyway, my time here is up. I don’t have any more desire to kill any of those present here, and I’m certain none of you surviving gentlemen will try to stand in our way as we leave the palace now and tomorrow this country, right?” I smiled and looked at the knights.

They shook their heads in unison, while Reynolds remained quiet.

“Good! Don’t forget what I said, Prince, and triple check your orders if you don’t want to have any unexpected surprises!” I waved my hand as I walked towards the exit.

My wives were right behind me, while the Prince was left there to think about his inescapable fate.

“When I’m done with this curse, I’ll hunt you down, Dungeon Lord!”

“No, you won’t! If you try to do that, you’ll die. If you do get rid of the curse the right way, then the experiences and feedback from your own people will force you not to hunt me down. No matter what, this will be the last time we cross paths this way, young Prince!” I said as I left the room.

With a calm and steady step, I walked out of the destroyed palace together with Nanya and Ayuseya and didn’t stop until we were out of the city and inside the forest. There was no reason for us to remain in that city, not even to raid their library. In the next city, I was going to make sure to gather some appropriate books for my future Magic Academy, but until then, I had other matters to attend to.

“Illsy, how did you know how to curse someone?” Nanya asked at one point.

“I just knew…” I shrugged.

Actually… how did I know how to curse him? I remember beating him, maybe doing some sort of spell, but the exact details are a blur… Can I do it again? Ugh, I don’t think so, and my head is killing me. I thought and rubbed my forehead a bit.

Migraines were never pretty. Unfortunately, at that time, I never did stop to ask myself how was it possible for someone with my body to get a migraine in the first place?