Chapter 29 (1/2)

Curse (2)

Woong!

Park Chang-hee’s Mana raged all over my body. It was the first time that I had absorbed this much at once. But now, there was no time to worry about it.

‘Park Chang-hee was also cursed by the same kind!’

It was like the one Seo Jin-wook suffered from.

I could feel red Mana at the tip of my hand. It was a seed that was the composition and result of a curse that looked like a sphere with entangled blood vessels.

It was baffling that the host died, so I poked the Mana in the form of bloody tentacles all over Park Chang-hee’s body.

However, there was no response. Park Chang-hee, who was hung on the chain, laid cold as he was lifeless.

‘Geek…?’

A low and small cry from the seed continued endlessly.

‘Geek! Geeeek!’

The sound grew louder and then louder… And finally tore my ears, almost as if it was groaning.

‘Geeeeeeeek!’

At that moment…

Swoosh!

An aggregate of red Mana, free from the material’s resistance, jumped out of Park Chang-hee’s heart and ran toward my heart like in a blink of an eye.

As if it was trying to change its host!

But then…

‘Geeek! Queek! Queek!’

What unfolded was a very unexpected scene.

The curse’s energy originally residing in Seo Jin-wook’s body, the seed that was dormant in the Mana after being blocked by the [The Successor’s Eyes] at first, and that was unable to speak again, suddenly revealed its power.

It wrapped itself around my heart as if to threaten me. It was almost as if it was telling me that this core was at its place, so I shouldn’t invade it, like a beasts’ territorial battle.

It was only then that I could see that the size of what was in my heart was much larger than the seed of Park Chang-hee.

‘Geek… Geek!’

Park Chang-hee’s curse couldn’t penetrate my heart in the end.

Then, this time it turned its direction towards my head.

At that moment…

-The skill [The Successor’s Eyes (Rank: EX)] resists the skill [Mercadius’ Seed (Rank: SSS)].

[The Successor’s Eyes] thoroughly defended this time, suppressing Seo Jin-wook’s curse.

Unlike Seo Jin-wook’s seed that existed before the possession, Park Chang-hee’s curse could not even penetrate my body.

‘Geeeeek!’

The [Mercadius’ Seed] protruding from the corpse stretched out something like a red tentacle in all directions. However, there were no hosts around for it to live on.

As there was no other way, it stretched back to my body, but the [The Successor’s Eyes] and the seed that was originally in the body defended.

Eventually, the momentum of Park Chang-hee’s curse began to falter.

‘Geek!’

Losing host and without taking over my brain or the heart, the seed, which trembled outside the corpse, gradually decreased in size.

Then…

Swish!

As if it was aiming for the window of opportunity, the curse that was hiding in my heart stretched out its tentacles and attacked Park Chang-hee’s seed.

‘Geeeek!’

It penetrated the seed of Park Chang-hee. It was seen that the energy of the red sphere that constituted it was scattered and gradually disappeared.

Like a scream in the agony of death, I began to hear a particular ‘voice’ from the thing in contact with me.

‘How can you think that way, knowing how much Ms. Han-seol has cared for you so much? Her instruction to hurt you? You are ungrateful for even thinking that way. Why… What would ‘The One’ have to do with this bastard… Why this psychopath··· Yes, let’s kill him. This kind of bastard isn’t worth living!’

At first impression, it sounded like Park Chang-hee’s own voice, which was frowned upon with delusions of being the victim, but there was a difference.

It was not that things like voices and speech were different.

That telepathy was not human in the first place.

‘The voice of the seed!’

It must be the voice that had led his thought process until now.

‘Was Park Chang-hee not aware of this as he listened to it?’

He may have mistaken all of those impulses and thoughts as Park Chang-hee’s natural things, his raw feelings, and his own choice.

Unlike Seo Jin-wook before the possession.

The original Seo Jin-wook recognized this voice, so he suffered because something that was not his thoughts forced him to act.

He resisted trying not to be manipulated, and when he felt the urge to harm someone, he repressed it and even hurt himself. Meanwhile, Seo Jin-wook went crazy for a genuine reason, and he became suspicious of everything.

‘Until which line of the guild are affected?’

As the leader of the exploration team, who was in the top tiers in the rankings of strength, was affected, I could imagine even the worst situation. I thought it was fortunate that I didn’t tell Seo Gyu-cheol about the curse. If this was the situation, I shouldn’t trust anybody.

‘Seo Jin-wook in the past life must have felt like this.’

I could understand his attachment to suspicion.

‘Why such a curse?’

Park Chang-hee and Seo Jin-wook. Apart from them belonging to the guild, if I were to find a narrower commonality…

Both of them were endeared by Han-seol.

The curse’s effect was to amplify the host’s most intense desires and emotions and induce thoughts. In the case of Seo Jin-wook before possession, it was clear what it was.

‘Anger. The wrath that cannot be suppressed. And the desire to express it.’

Did the curse take place during his childhood?

Perhaps from that age, he might have lived with anger that could not be resolved in his heart. The curse slowly amplified it. On the other hand, in the case of Park Chang-hee…

I heard the voice again.

‘Ms. Han-seol… All the rest of my life is for her.’

It had blind loyalty to Han-seol.

‘Ah, Ms. Han-seol…!’

The voice of the seed and the memory of Park Chang-hee resonated, and I listened to it. Then, like a fantasm, a person’s life unfolded in front of my eyes.

*

It was a typical story.

An E-class hunter who was rejected from the guild because his growth rate was too slow.

It didn’t work even if he insisted that he had A-class potential Mana. Many hunters died without activating even half of their potential Mana that they insisted on having. It was tough to train hunters with verifiable abilities, even indirectly, that even the country had ultimately given up.

There was no guild to use such means for an E-class.

Han-seol came to him who lived in despair in that way.

‘You, the training method is completely wrong. And you don’t even know what you’re good at… Why is your use of unique skills that way? Do you wanna be a human stove?’

Han-seol’s teaching was magical. After joining the guild she led, Park Chang-hee’s growth was remarkable. The day he was finally certified as an A-Class hunter, he cried. Life had changed.

Park Chang-hee decided to repay Han-seol this grace throughout his life.

But then…

‘The Celestial Dragon Guild? Come on, our guild is small in size, but we do not lack in skill. What’s so disappointing that we integrate ourselves to be absorbed there?’