Chapter 107 - Fourth-tier Curse (Patreon)

Standing on the Arena sands, a calmness enveloped Arien, a feeling that had grown scarce over the past few days.

Lately, there was always something he needed to remember, practice, prepare, or worry about. Duels were different. His opponent was right in front of him, the rules were clear, and all Arien had to do was defend himself and hit back until a golden dome appeared.

If only the rest of life were that simple...

Across from him, Hordel looked like a sprinter preparing for a race, stretching his long legs and dropping into several squats.

He was tall and lean, with reddish-brown fur, long ears, and powerful legs that looked built for speed. His narrow muzzle and amber eyes gave him a vaguely fox-like appearance.

Arien would have compared him to a fox-hare if he didn't know Beastkin considered that rude. Hordel was a Fernite, as his subspecies called themselves, and a proud citizen of the Republic.

None of that mattered right now.

What mattered was how fast he was. According to Reyna's information, Hordel could cross the distance between them in a matter of seconds.

Yesterday's spar with Will, who had been using Acceleration, had thoroughly corrected Arien's assumptions about fighting fast hybrids. With sixty or seventy feet between them, he might have buried an opponent beneath enough spells to stop the charge. Across barely forty feet, Will had crossed the distance in a few bounds, dodging Flaming Arrows, clearing or smashing through Earthen Walls, and knocking Earth Spears aside.

Arien still vividly remembered Will practically reenacting Neo from The Matrix while dodging a Flaming Whip. It had taken several attempts before Arien finally found a way to stop him during those critical first seconds.

The trumpet blared.

Arien began casting immediately as Hordel surged forward, his outline blurring with speed.

Come on, little fox.

Hordel opened with a Blade of Wind, but Arien ignored it and trusted his Mana Shield to absorb the attack. Raw spell power wasn't Hordel's strength. Instead, he filled the space in front of himself with half-formed Earthen Walls and jagged projections. They weren't meant to stop Hordel, only force him to slow down or change direction.

It worked.

Hordel was forced to leap across the improvised barricade, proving that alongside his speed, he possessed exceptional balance.

A Fire Ring roughly ten feet across formed around Arien, its heat pressing against him even through his defenses.

That wasn't meant to stop Hordel either.

As the Beastkin cleared the final obstacle and lunged toward him, Arien raised another Earthen Wall, roughly six feet high and sixteen feet wide.

It was too slow.

Hordel slipped past before the wall fully formed and struck Arien's Magic Shield with his claws. The impact jolted through the spell and up Arien's arms, tearing away far more mana than he liked.

Well, I hadn't planned on making this a long fight anyway.

Arien drew his mana back from the Fire Ring and formed two large Fireballs.

Hordel smiled.

We'll see.

Arien launched them one after the other. Hordel sidestepped the first and ducked beneath the second, both missing him by inches.

Then Arien activated the effect.

Fire Bomb was slow, imprecise, and practically useless in a duel fought across open ground, since most of the explosion simply spread outward. A large wall blocking one side changed that considerably. Especially with Pyromaniac amplifying the blast.

The explosion burst outward, but the Earthen Wall Hordel had just slipped past blocked much of it on one side, forcing more of the pressure and heat back toward him. Arien hadn't poured nearly as much mana into the spell as he had against Neile. He hadn't had the time, and he hadn't needed to.

Hordel relied on speed, and maintaining a shield while moving at full pace was still beyond students at their level. With the Earthen Wall behind him and fire erupting from that direction, he had nowhere safe to dodge.

Hordel spun around and conjured a Mana Shield just in time to withstand the blast, but the impact left it visibly weakened.

Arien’s Flaming Whip struck before Hordel could start moving again. At this distance, the Beastkin had no room to evade it, and his protective amulet activated on impact.

The duel was over.

It was Arien's shortest fight so far, yet he felt as though he'd just sprinted several miles. His muscles were already starting to cramp, and his hands and forearms burned with the strain of forcing out so much mana so quickly.

Even deeper inside, he could feel the same unpleasant heat spreading through his body.

Still, he'd done it.

He had reached the Seventh Division one day before the end of the month, guaranteeing him ten points when the new month began.

He thanked Hordel for the match, though the Beastkin still looked as though he wasn't entirely sure what had happened. By then, a respectable crowd had gathered around the field, including several students from the upper years.

Arien noticed more than a few eyes following him as he left the Arena, but his thoughts had already moved on to what kind of reward he should buy himself.

Maybe it's finally time for some mana crystals.

Arien entered the Infirmary and, as usual, glanced at the people waiting on the wooden benches. Peasants sat beside merchants and nobles. Here, everyone was equal. They belonged to a single class: the sick. At this hour, only a handful remained, hoping a place would still open for them.

On his way in, he exchanged a few words with Limmeth, the student from House of Quill, who was sitting behind a tall desk. From what he managed to glimpse, she was doing homework for one of her classes. She informed him that the day had been fairly quiet and that no particularly interesting illnesses had been admitted.

Afterward, he knocked lightly on a door: two quick knocks, one slow, three quick. He had arranged that code with the guards stationed there long ago. It let them know that a friend was coming and that there was no need to use the artifact to determine who was on the other side. The device was useful, but reconfiguring it afterward took fifteen minutes, a task both Ulf and Roth hated.

Roth let him through with a nod. The familiar smell of herbs and disinfectant greeted Arien immediately.

After four years, the Infirmary had become almost a second home. He knew its layout and recognized nearly every healer, student, and trainee working there.

Today really was quiet. Healers Sten and Uwa were flirting while pretending to prepare a potion, several students gossiped while rolling bandages, and the nurses hurried around while ignoring questions from passing patients.

"Hey, Jolly," he said to one of the women dressed in a yellow apron and cap. "I assume Ferien's already gone?"

The woman smiled warmly and walked over at a leisurely pace, as if whatever urgent task she had been rushing toward wasn't actually that important.

“Arien. Good to see you. Your face always improves my mood. Ferien left about an hour ago, thankfully. Ever since she took over the Blue Ward, even the patients seem more eager to leave than usual.”

"In that case, I guess she's doing a good job," Arien replied with a laugh. "Aren't you always complaining that there are too many patients?"

"Thanks to her 'improvements,' we admit even more patients than before," the woman grumbled. "It's a shame that the increased workload didn't come with increased pay."

Arien knew that the Academy paid its nurses fairly well. Despite their inability to use mana, they were invaluable when it came to caring for patients, but life in Wayhold wasn't cheap. Many of them frequently threatened to quit during private conversations. None ever actually did.

“Don't count on me,” he warned her. “Remember what happened the last time I tried talking to Lamaral about Ferien.”

“I know, I know. Still, we appreciate the effort. Master Lamaral is waiting for you in one of the rooms in the Red Ward.”

Arien thanked the woman and headed toward the neighboring ward. The Infirmary was divided into four categories:

The Blue Ward handled patients who could usually be treated quickly, often without staying overnight. The Yellow Ward housed those requiring several days of care.

The Red Ward consisted of private rooms for serious cases requiring prolonged treatment or constant observation. Most patients there were wealthy enough to cover expensive potions and materials themselves, though unusual cases occasionally earned commoners a place as well.

Then there was the Black Ward, accessible to only a handful of Healers and staff. Countless rumors surrounded it, including stories about experiments being conducted on living people. It had taken Arien an entire year to gather the courage to ask the Mistress about it. 

She had explained that beneath the Infirmary were housed not only rare cases but also conditions dangerous to anyone nearby: diseases, curses, possessions, and forms of madness that could spread to others.

Arien crossed the Yellow Ward, greeting both patients and familiar staff members while wondering why Lamaral had summoned him upstairs. Normally, he spent his time in the Yellow Ward observing or assisting Healers during treatments.

He raced up the stairs, taking several steps at a time, and emerged into a long corridor covered by a soft carpet. Leslie stood guard there, his primary duty being to ensure that no patient from downstairs accidentally wandered upstairs and vice versa.

“Room seven,” he muttered when he saw him, without pausing in his enthusiastic attempt to pick his repeatedly broken nose clean.

Arien merely nodded and walked past him. After passing several closed doors, he finally arrived at number seven. He knocked lightly and entered.

The room was one of the smaller ones, consisting of a single chamber with a narrow bed, a heavy wardrobe of pale wood, and a small table holding a clay basin for morning washing. Apart from two potted plants, that was all the furniture.

A middle-aged man lay in the bed, watching Lamaral nervously as she worked beside him with her eyes closed.

Arien identified him as an Explorer almost immediately. A great bow and quiver leaned against the wall beside an enormous backpack, heavy boots, and a weather-beaten cloak that had clearly seen better days. The modest room fit as well; wealthier patients often occupied suites with sitting rooms and private baths.

"Arien, come in and observe," the Master ordered without opening her eyes.

He knew her well enough not to ask unnecessary questions. Arien stepped closer and focused on her magic. After years of watching Lamaral work, he'd stopped comparing his own skill to hers. He had no intention of dedicating his entire life to Healing, and even if he had, reaching her level would probably take decades.

There was only one Lamaral for a reason.

Streams of mana flowed into the man's body. To Arien's senses, a black fog seemed to have seeped through his flesh, gathering most heavily around his chest and abdomen. It clung stubbornly to several mana pathways, trying to hold its ground whenever Lamaral's spell reached it, only to be pushed back with ease.

A curse.

A fairly powerful one, too, and judging by how deeply it had spread, it had been active for quite some time. No wonder the man looked scared.

"Well?" the woman asked.

"A curse. Third-tier, maybe even fourth-tier. It's been active for six to nine weeks. The source was probably a monster. A wraith? Maybe a ghoul? If untreated, it should kill the host within a few weeks."

He tried to sound confident, although in truth much of it was guesswork.

"Arien, with diagnoses like that, you'll kill half your patients before you stumble upon the correct treatment," the Master said dryly.

She did not sound angry. He knew very well what she sounded like when she was angry.

"Uh, I can—" the man began.

"Silence," Lamaral interrupted. "I already told you: speak only when addressed." Then she turned her attention back to Arien. "Look at my weave. Can you replicate it?"

Arien focused on her mana and observed it for a long time.

He didn't rush.

If he threw himself into the task without proper preparation, that was when Lamaral would truly become angry. Curse-cleansing spells were complicated, and the higher the curse's level, the worse it became. So far, he had treated several patients suffering from first- and second-level curses.

This was something new.

Finally, he released his own mana and began working beside his Mentor.

After a while, Lamaral withdrew most of her spell, leaving only a few delicate threads of mana to correct the less precise knots in Arien's weave. Even after years of watching her, that level of control still seemed absurd.

A couple of minutes later, his spell activated and his Life magic began interacting with the curse, dispersing it piece by piece. At this pace, he doubted he would finish before his allotted time ran out.

"Good. Will you be able to maintain it?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied truthfully.

The spell was complicated, and he probably wouldn't have been able to recreate it without her assistance, but now that it was functioning, maintaining it required almost no concentration.

"Good. Let's step outside for a moment."

She headed toward the door, completely ignoring the patient, who looked as though he wanted to ask something but lacked the courage.

They stepped into the corridor. Arien closed the door behind them while continuing to maintain the spell. If he moved much farther away, the connection would begin to weaken and eventually break.

"Ugh. What a chatterbox," Lamaral sighed, stretching.

Arien immediately lowered his eyes modestly. For some reason, maintaining the spell suddenly seemed harder.

"I can't stand Explorers. But at least you got lucky. Normally I wouldn't allow you to handle a curse of this level. But another few hours and I would have killed him myself."

"He didn't seem that bad," Arien said cautiously.

"That's because I finally threatened to hand him over to the temple if he didn't shut up. I think he believed I was some young girl who needed to be told how to treat a curse of this level."

"Master is still a young woman," Arien replied without hesitation. "And an extraordinarily beautiful one at that, which can easily mislead less enlightened people.”

Lamaral enjoyed being flattered. Of course, only when they were alone and only at the appropriate moments.

"And that Explorer must be from some truly backwater province if he's never heard of Lamaral Hetwin."

He genuinely couldn't believe that the man lying in the next room had tried to tell Lamaral how she should treat him. How could he not know who she was? True, Arien himself hadn't known before arriving at the Academy, but he had been a child growing up in a remote rural village. An Explorer who looked like a seasoned veteran ought to know better.

“Oh, Arien, stop.” She covered her mouth, though the smile was already obvious. “In a few years, you'll grow into a fine young man. You'll meet beautiful girls your own age and forget all about an old woman like me.”

Arien would have to be insane for that to happen.

In four years, Lamaral hadn't changed in the slightest and remained one of the most beautiful women he had seen in either world. Sometimes he suspected that simply learning not to stare at her during lessons had earned him several levels in Unshakable Mind.

"Never," he declared firmly. "But I don't think I'll be able to break the curse within two hours. Honestly, even a whole day seems too short."

"You're right. But don't worry, we won't be rushing with Mister Trothson. His curse was originally third-level. It only advanced to the fourth level because it went untreated. There's no danger of a sudden escalation, and his Endurance is high enough that it won't kill him before treatment is complete." She smiled slightly. "This will be your new project for the next several lessons. I'll also send Sten to assist from time to time. Happy?"

"Thank you, Master," Arien replied sincerely.

The opportunity to treat a fourth-level curse was genuinely rare. Moreover, it didn't require nearly as much mana as working in the Blue Ward, which meant he would still have plenty left for his extra lessons with Vizimir.

"I'll come back in two hours to see how you've done."

Despite spending the weekend with family, I still managed to write two longer chapters for Book 3. I hope you'll enjoy the more esoteric topics related to the Death and Spirit Aspects!

Oh, and one important question.

Would you like EoN to have its own Discord server?