After finishing my meal, I blankly stared up at the ceiling.
Normally, this would have been the time to go for a walk or chat with Lily, but without her around, the time felt oddly vacant.
What should I do…
‘Study? Can I even focus in this state… Then, how about black magic? Hmm?’
A sudden thought caused me to abruptly rise from my seat.
‘Wait, how much mana do I have left anyway?’
I had expended a great deal of life force, enough to make even the scales groan.
That means…
After scanning my body internally, I tilted my head in confusion.
“…Eh? What’s this…?”
Inside my body, near the heart, I sensed two types of energy.
One was a warm light, life force.
The other had a slightly sinister aura, black mana.
The two energies were entangled like snakes.
…No, upon closer examination, it was slightly different.
Though it looked like they were intertwined, in reality, the life force was consuming the black mana.
The size of the black mana was gradually diminishing under the life force’s attack.
It seemed like antibodies working to eliminate a foreign substance within the body.
‘Is mana considered a foreign substance…? Hold on, so that’s why I didn’t have any mana before?!’
While not completely certain, the current situation made it quite plausible.
‘I should ask the Chancellor tomorrow.’
A sage who has lived for centuries might have some answers.
For now, I decided to focus on the black mana itself.
Even though it was being consumed by the life force, the black mana was still overflowing.
As long as I had such an abundant amount of black mana, I figured I’d try practicing some black magic.
I pulled out the Necronomicon from my pocket, flipped through the pages, and found the curse section.
There were various curses written down, some of which were oddly familiar.
“Diarrhea, constipation, vomiting, hair loss… kidney stones… prostate cancer?! What on earth…”
Terrifying ailments were listed there.
I decided to try one of the more familiar ones.
The curse that had brought sheer agony to Louis and Dennis.
Diarrhea.
Since there was no foolhardy volunteer willing to take this curse, the obvious target was…
“Hmm…”
…me.
Following the book’s instructions, I cast the curse on myself and immediately clenched my sphincter shut, eyes tightly closed.
And then…
“…”
“…”
“…?”
Nothing happened.
“Did I mess something up?”
I had followed the book’s methods precisely, so why wasn’t anything happening…
At that moment,
Gurgle—
A signal came from my lower abdomen.
However, I was expecting something akin to what happened to those two after Lily cursed them.
I thought I was about to experience thunderous cramps and excruciating abdominal pain, but…
“…Makes sense. This is probably what a ‘normal’ curse feels like. Lily just made hers stronger and faster.”
As I recalled, curses usually progress gradually over time.
And since I used only a small amount of mana, the reaction was mild, to be expected.
It was slightly disappointing, but I was still glad the curse had taken effect.
I’d been worried it might not work at all.
Using more mana should cast a proper curse. And then, I could try it on Lucas.
Gurgle—
Only then did it occur to me…
Can I do that?
—-
“There isn’t… There isn’t!”
No matter how thoroughly I scoured the Necronomicon, there was no method written for undoing a curse.
“What an idiot!”
I had thought it would dissipate quickly since I cast it so weakly…
Now I’d been confined to the restroom in succession for hours.
I had practically set up camp on the toilet, the Necronomicon propped open in front of me.
Yet, no matter how many times I reviewed the sections on black magic and curses, there was no method written for removing a curse.
“Hmm, the clerics of the Holy Order were probably the ones who could remove it…”
As far as I understood, there was a method where one could unleash all their mana to dispel a curse, but it required an immense amount of mana and also put undue strain on the recipient.
Moreover, since my mana was purely black, that method wouldn’t apply.
The Holy Order’s clerics were indeed called upon to counter black mages, after all…
By the grace of the gods, they could use purification spells to lift curses.
However, as long as I was brimming with black mana, meeting anyone from the Holy Order was out of the question.
I might be immediately labeled a heretic and executed on the spot…
“Ugh… what should I do? If this keeps up, I might get dehydration or worse… Completely removing black mana…”
I looked up from my position on the toilet, struck by an idea.
An unusual thought popped into my mind.
Honestly, I had no idea if this would work, but for the sake of my rectum, I had to try.
I tightly closed my eyes and focused on the life force beside the black mana instead of the black mana.
The life force that consumed the black mana…
Could it possibly consume a curse based on black mana as well?
For that, however, I needed to move the life force first…
“…Guh, how do I do that?”
There wasn’t a method for manipulating life force written in any book.
After all, even Chancellor described it as a ‘hard-to-master art.’
It made sense why Lily was remarkable for devouring it effortlessly.
I recalled a meal with Lily.
The exchange of life force through mouth-to-mouth.
That movement sensation.
The failed method I attempted when I first learned black magic. Now that Lily had dismantled the barrier Chancellor put in place with her magic, maybe…
Recalling that sensation and concentrating,
Glimmer—
“Wow, it moved!”
It was slight, but I could clearly feel the movement.
I next recalled another memory.
Right before the scales shone with life force, I felt like I was embraced by Lily.
A soft and familiar feeling, full of vitality throughout the body.
That probably happened because the life force spread to every part of my body.
With that in mind, I continued to focus and tried to reproduce that state.
The life force moved slowly, but thanks to all those hours sitting down studying, my concentration was strong.
Finally, as the life force spread throughout my body, the cramping in my lower abdomen settled.
“…Is this working?”
I had tried something on a whim, and it actually succeeded.
Despite feeling a bit dazed, the results were encouraging.
‘This way, I can practice freely.’
The next curse would be the constipation curse.
‘…I probably don’t need to practice the hair loss curse, though.’
—-
By the time I finished testing all the curses on my body, the last one being the migraine curse, I had concluded my experiments.
The remaining curses were simply too dangerous to experiment on myself, including baldness, kidney stones, disk problems, and even pregnancy.
Upon reading the explanation, I learned that regardless of gender, the abdomen would swell.
Of course, it wouldn’t actually contain a baby.
Still, movement would become difficult, and a strong impact could cause the abdomen to burst.
Seeing such terrifying curses clarified why black mages had such a bad reputation.
“Ugh… still hurts…”
Still clutching my throbbing head from the aftereffects of the migraine curse, I retrieved a bottle of golden honey wine from the fridge and poured myself a glass.
“Phew… that’s better.”
The honey wine’s sweetness refreshed my mind.
While I scanned the Necronomicon for any missed curses, I flipped through the pages casually and reached the final chapter.
The section Lily had blocked from me—titled “Apocalypse” in the table of contents.
This part wasn’t interpreted by Chancellor.
The pages were filled with an unreadable language, scrawled in an almost illegible script.
After briefly contemplating, I murmured quietly,
“Should I… attempt to decipher it?”
It was impossible not to be tempted by curiosity.
Apocalypse meant prophecy.
An actual prophecy was written here.
The Magical Empire had long dismissed the existence of prophecies.
Although occasional fortune-tellers appeared in the continent, most of them were frauds. Even the rare ones who made accurate predictions were simply lucky coincidences.
The closest concept was the revelations from the Holy Order, but they were said to represent probabilities rather than concrete prophecies.
So officially, true prophecies didn’t exist, or at least that’s what I was taught.
But this was a prophecy written in the Necronomicon.
It must be filled with incredible content.
Even though the language was unknown, I thought I could roughly decipher it by comparing it with Chancellor’s interpretations on other pages.
It was a bit of a moral dilemma since Lily had blocked it from me…
‘Sorry, Lily.’
My curiosity was getting the better of me.
I flipped back a few pages and began comparing the language with Chancellor’s interpretations to understand what symbols meant what.
At first, I thought it would be quick, but…
‘…So difficult!’
Even this simple translation was challenging.
The language written in the Necronomicon drastically changed its meaning based on the presence or absence of dots, the length of slants, and other minor differences.
Furthermore, the content itself was written in an old-fashioned tone, using many metaphorical expressions.
Which meant the actual meaning of the words might be entirely different from what I thought.
‘How did Chancellor even decipher this?’
I marveled at the greatness of the sages and then twice at my own ignorance.
Still, as I strained my brain, I managed to interpret at least one line.
– Abdul Alhazred’s Apocalypse
…That was the title.
Looking at the clock, I realized it had already taken me two hours to decipher just the title.
I had spent almost an entire day experimenting with curses, so it was already past evening.
“… Should I continue after dinner?”
Closing the book, I waddled toward the fridge.
As I sipped the warm broth of the zara soup I retrieved from the fridge to rest for a while…
“Uhmm…”
Probably due to the eventful day, I fell asleep the moment I closed my eyes.
“Zzz…”
—-
Late into the night.
As everyone was asleep, the Chancellor’s office still had its lights on.
Inside, there were numerous strange devices strewn about, and the Chancellor was pacing anxiously in front of them.
“This is impossible…”
The Chancellor’s eyes widened with horror.
Before him was a strand of Arthur’s hair.
The strand, which should have been light grey, was now glowing brilliantly.
The Chancellor fine-tuned the strange devices connected to the delicate strand, and various numbers appeared one after another.
As he observed these rapidly appearing and vanishing numbers, cold sweat trickled down his forehead.
Despite checking with other samples cautiously, the results remained consistent.
In a defeated tone, the Chancellor muttered.
“The total amount of life force… is increasing?”
