July 20, 2020

  “You may say that we humans are truly vile creatures, but what does that make you? It’s likely that you walk around committing genocide on these ‘inferior’ species. What is your purpose in doing this if it isn’t for the thrill of the hunt?”

  “It’s to rid the world of such monsters that plague this earth with their broad and deadly poison. It’s thanks to you humans that your world is no longer the same. It can never go back to what it was before. You are stuck in the prison that you mended with your own hands. It’s ironic, isn’t it? In order to stop the rage and destruction of others, you must be able to greet them with an equivalent force. I’m simply doing my part.”

  Anselm listens carefully to Osoroi’s words. He doesn’t like to admit it, especially to a curse of all things, but there is a lot of truth to his words. Humans and cursed spirits are practically poison to this planet. How many other times have humans done so much harm to the environment? How many times have humans gone around and killed several of their own kind and other species? There are too many instances, far too many. It’s as he said: Humans are trapped in the prison that they mended themselves. There is no key to unlock the door to a better world.

  (However, this doesn’t mean that the door is impassable. We can forge our own keys to open the door. It’s not too late for humanity to save itself. If only we could have cooperated with each other from the beginning instead of monopolizing the suffering of others.)

  Anselm’s thoughts are cut short as another invisible slash heads towards him. He jumps up and avoids the slash. But then, in an unexpected fashion, Osoroi creates a ball of fire in his other hand. Instead of pointing it at Anselm, he directs his aim towards the four soldiers that accompanied him. Anselm’s eyes widen and quickly face them. The soldiers try to move out of the way in time, but they are not as fast as Anselm. Osoroi smiles at this show of desperation and blasts the ball of fire towards the soldiers. The four soldiers’ eyes are met with a ferocious light. They knew then and there that their fate has been sealed. There was no way out of this situation. David doesn’t see a way to get out of this alive. He looks back at Harper with a regretful expression in his eyes. He never got to say what he wanted to say. Suddenly, the wild burst of flames is extinguished by a torrent of water. Everyone focuses their eyes and sees Anselm standing in front of them. He’s holding his hands out, which have some of their flesh burned away. Osoroi sees this and smirks.

  “From speed and strength to suddenly extinguishing my flames. Your cursed technique is quite the mystery.”

  “Sergeant Major! Your hands!”

  “It’s nothing! I’m just glad that you all are unharmed.”

  Anselm shakes his hands off from how hot they are feeling. He looks over at Harper and motions for her to walk towards him. Harper nods and walks towards Anselm. He then proceeds to put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Healer, Level Two”

  Harper suddenly feels some kind of power swelling up inside. It has to do with what the Sergeant Major just said. Does she have the power to heal others now? She decides to test this out and puts her hands on Anselm’s wounds. She uses her newfound powers to heal Anselm’s burn wounds. The process is efficient and easy, as well as fast. Anselm begins to relax as the scorching sensation from his hand is exiting. Osoroi watches this with a very sharp eye. He’s allowing this to play out in order to figure out some details about Anselm’s curse technique. However, he can’t hypothesize what it could be about. He recited words such as “speedster” and “fighter” earlier. Right before he shot the wave of fire at the human soldiers, he heard him say “Aqua Jet” as he extinguished the flame. And now, the phrase is “Healer.”

  (This kind of cursed technique has to do with these phrases. It’s as if he’s able to bestow power to other things. Can he create cursed techniques and give them to other people? No, that’s presumptuous. It’s not possible to forcibly create a cursed technique this easily. He also says something about a level. It can’t be cursed techniques. I’ll have to continue squabbling with him in order to get more details)

  Gigantic roots suddenly come out of the ground in front of Osoroi and they begin to make their way to Anselm with quick speed. Anselm notices this and looks back at the soldiers.

  “Everyone, get to a safe location that is far away from here. I’ll admit it, I won’t be able to fight with everything I have with everyone else here. I’ll need a clear area. I promise to everyone that I will return alive. Now go!”

  All of the soldiers nod and leave the vicinity without hesitation. David seems a bit anxious, but what can he do in this situation? He’s utterly powerless to change the course of this fight. If he had a cursed technique, he would have joined the Sergeant Major in fighting the Special Grade curse. Still, he leaves with everyone else to a safe distance away from the fight. Once Anselm sees that everyone has left, he sighs in relief and turns back to Osoroi.

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  “And now, it’s time I show you what I can do. You see, my cursed technique is the ability to grant anything a role. This role can be incredibly specific or even incredibly broad. The more complex a role, the more powerful it is. I can also manipulate its level from a scale of one to six as long as I have the right amount of cursed technique. The levels of my roles assigned can only add up to a maximum of six.”

  Osoroi chuckles at this. He didn’t even have to move that much in order to learn about this cursed technique.

  “Well, you have just revealed your secrets. What are you planning to do now? Are you going to ‘fight with everything you have?’”

  “That’s right.”

  Anselm closes his eyes and puts his hands together.

  “Sage, Level Six”

  Once Anselm opens his eyes back up, he now sees the world in a new light. A menacing aura is tangling around Osoroi like a slithering, giant cobra. Having such a strong presence and immense cursed energy of this level must be abnormal for even a Special Grade curse. Anselm is surprised that he hasn’t fallen to his knees by being in front of such a being. His mouth slowly curls up into a small smile. Osoroi notices this and lifts his head up with curiosity.

  “A Level Six Sage now. You must be able to assign whatever role you choose. If you really can do what you want with your cursed technique, then your mind is your only weakness. What a very dangerous ability to possess, especially in the hands of a human.”

  Anselm keeps his eyes on Osoroi, watching his every move. Because of his role as a sage now, he has become more enlightened and aware of everything around him. Suddenly, a vision appears in his mind. In the vision, he sees Osoroi swiping his hand downwards at the ground. A slash appears in the ground. The vision soon disappears, and Anselm rolls out of the way. The slash cuts open the ground but fails to deal any damage to Anselm. Osoroi’s eyes widen for a moment, but he quickly sends another slash at Anselm. Anselm also completely avoids the attack as if he had already known it was coming. Osoroi scoffs at this and switches from slashes to flames again.

  (If I launch a large-scale area of effect attack, he certainly won’t be able to dodge it. Even if this sage role allows him to see my attacks, he shouldn’t be able to avoid this!)

  Osoroi thrusts his arms forward and a wave of fire is released from his hands. As the wave of fire gets closer to Anselm, he switches roles to an ‘extinguisher’ and gets rid of the wave of fire coming at him. His hands have become damaged again with severe burns. However, he doesn’t let it get to his head. He tries his best to push through the pain.

  “Speedster, Level Three. Fighter, Level Three.”

  Anselm pushes himself off of his left leg and runs towards Osoroi. Osoroi decides to face him head on and charges towards Anselm. Anselm suddenly comes to a stop and puts his hands on the ground. His fingers dig into the earth and take out chunks of rock. Osoroi expects him to throw those at him, so he swipes his hands down and slashes fly towards Anselm. Anselm, however, doesn’t actually throw the chunks of rock at Osoroi. He narrowly avoids the slashes as he charges in and continues to tightly hold onto the rocks. Once Anselm locks in, he appears right in front of Osoroi. Before Osoroi can retaliate, Anselm brings the two chunks of rock together and smash them against Osoroi’s head. The large chunks of rock, when smashed together against Osoroi’s head, crumble into several pieces and fly in several directions. Osoroi grunts in minor pain and throws a punch. The punch connects with Anselm’s face and knocks him away. Anselm rebalances himself and begins to run away from Osoroi. Osoroi sees this and begins to laugh.

  “Running away now, are we? Did your human spirit finally crumble? You should have known from the beginning that a human can never win against my power!”

  Osoroi doesn’t chase after Anselm but takes out several small clumps of flesh out of his clothing. Using the power of Idle Transfiguration, he mushes the clumps of flesh together. They merge together and release outward in a snake shape. Anselm glances behind him and sees this grotesque looking snake slithering after him. He starts to run even faster towards this gigantic tree that he sees. The transfigured human snake is starting to gain ground on Anselm. It’s almost as if it could begin to taste his flesh. Anselm eventually reaches the gigantic tree and places his palm on the large trunk.

  “Electric Saber!”

  The tree suddenly begins to light up and change its shape. It shifts around and gets much smaller than before. The transfigured human snake appears in Anselm’s eyes. Osoroi watches as the creature slams into the ground where Anselm is. He puts a hand on his forehead and shakes his head. He is quite disappointed that Anselm has already died.

  “In the end, as interesting as he seemed, he was only a human. Human bodies have their limits. They can never hope to surpass a curse. It’s quite disappointing to see a talent go to waste like this.”

  Suddenly, the snake created from the transfigured humans is sliced into several pieces. Coming out from the pools of blood and chunks of flesh, Anselm walks out from the body of the transfigured snake. Osoroi’s eyes widen a little bit, but he is proud to see Anselm still alive and kicking after this. He then looks at the glowing sword in his hands. It seems he has turned the tree into an ‘electric saber’. Anselm wipes the blood off of his eyes and stares daggers into Osoroi.

  “Humans this, human that, can you shut your yap? I don’t care for even a single second what you think about humans or curses. What matters in a battle is not the difference of physiology, but the clash of ideals. So, if your arrogance is the only thing you have going for you, you’ll end up losing against an ‘inferior human.’”