With a slight click, Jade opened the front door of her parents' flat. She was nervous, very clearly so, as if she had only just realised one very important thing.

  "Uhm..." She turned around toward Ryan. "If they grill you, uhm... I'm sorry?"

  Ryan smiled and shook his head. "I'm used to getting grilled, don't worry."

  "You are?"

  Hesitating to respond, Ryan opened his mouth, "Ehhm... I'll tell you later. Long story short, you don't get this good at fighting without getting arrested once or twice. Or..." he stopped, counting in his head. "... eight times? I think?"

  "Eight?!" Jade let out surprised, but before she could ask more about that, the door was pulled open.

  "Huh? Daughter, what are you doing here?" A man pulled open the door. He looked like he was in his thirties, despite being so thin that his cheeks were sunken in considerably. Though, the clothes that he was wearing showed that he was probably a lot older than he looked. Considering what he called Jade, this man was her father.

  Startled, Jade turned around and smiled at him. "Papá! It's hard to explain, but uhm... I think we might have a way to cure grandma!"

  Confused, the man frowned. "What are you talking about? You know that this can't be cured." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Daughter, I know that this has been hard on you especially, but please... don't-"

  "No, I'm serious! Here, this is Ryan! He's-"

  "Selling you unrealistic dreams?" Jade's father scowled at Ryan, who smiled lightly and shook his head.

  "No, sir, I actually do have a cure. I know it might be hard to believe, but-"

  "Hard to believe? We-"

  Letting out a long sigh, Ryan could feel the stares of the spirits. He didn't want to go through this whole game a second time, so he interrupted Jade's father again.

  "I'm Ryan Aglecard, nephew of Runar Aglecard. I'm an Awakened with a summoner-type class. Three months ago, I was temporarily infected with corruption myself, and so was one of the spirits I have a contract with, so I know this curse quite well. To skip all the lengthy backstory; we, the Aglecards, are currently working on a cure that I know for a fact works, because I myself have found and used it multiple times before," Ryan said with a smile on his face, looking at the man's stunned expression.

  "You... you are... an Agle-an Aglecard?"

  "Yes, so it would be great if you could let us inside," he said, pulling his bag from his back. He pulled out the vial with the cure as well as some bottles of the flavoured artificial blood. "Also, if you would like, you can have these. They're prototypes of some new flavours that Jade herself can promise are great."

  Without hesitation, Jade nodded. "Yes! They're all amazing! I had no idea chocolate tasted like that!"

  A moment later, while her father stood there stunned, Jade pushed past him and pulled Ryan along by his wrist. They walked through the small living room and kitchen, where a woman was sitting, reading a book, and a young girl and a teenage boy were sitting in front of a television. Everyone was just intensely staring at Ryan. He couldn't even say 'hello' properly before he was pulled down the narrow hallway.

  "Jade? What's going on? Do you have a boyfriend?!" the teenage boy, who was probably Jade's younger brother, asked surprised. But Jade didn't react, and instead just bolted straight for the room at the end of the hall. She tried to reach up above the doorframe, but she couldn't quite reach.

  Ryan grabbed the key that was hidden up there and gave it to Jade, who quickly unlocked the door.

  "No, no! Don't go in there, it's dangerous!" Jade's father yelled out, and it seemed the others quickly followed behind, just as worried.

  The moment Ryan stepped inside, the air changed. It was stale and musty, and there was a distinct absence of mana in the air. In the corner, there was a mana-filter, that actively pulled all the mana out of the air to seemingly stop the spread of the curse.

  "... They just left her here?" Ryan asked, looking at Jade. She slowly nodded, looking at her grandmother in the clean hospital bed.

  "Grandma asked for it. When she could still stay conscious. Grandpa is the only one that comes in here to clean her as safely as he can, the rest of us always had to stay in the doorway, just watching..."

  "Your grandfather takes care of her alone? How is he, did he get hit at all?"

  "No, no, he's fine. Papá, is grandpa in his bedroom?"

  Jade's father, who had just caught up, was quietly nodding. He was clearly nervous about what was going on right now.

  Ryan could understand that. He took off his jacket and smiled. "Do you have a bathtub? If so, please fill it up completely. Otherwise, a clean bucket and washcloth, please."

  Jade's father turned toward his wife, speaking to her in Gardian for a moment. She rushed off to the bathroom, and seemed to be filling up a tub.

  "Alright, uhm... I'll carry her. Everyone needs to get out of my way while I'm moving her."

  "Wait, what?" Jade stared at Ryan. "You'll carry her? But won't you get infected?"

  Ryan shook his head. "I'll be fine. Tiar will stop it from getting me, and I've built up some resistances to corruption in general."

  "Are you-"

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  "Jade, I promise. It's fine." Ryan approached the bed. The woman laying in it was hard to see from the door. She had practically disappeared within the pillows and blankets covering her. Corruption tended to lower body-temperature, and since vampires already ran cold, they were clearly trying whatever they could to fight against this.

  But once again, he was shocked. The woman laying there, Jade's grandmother, looked barely like she was in her 40s. She was a beautiful woman. Or at least, she clearly was a beautiful woman once upon a time. Now, she was thin and sickly. She had been on her deathbed for a while, after all. Half her face was covered in a black growth that looked like a vile ichor trying to swallow her whole.

  She was barely breathing. Scared that they had been too late, Ryan grabbed her arm to feel the woman's pulse. He could hear a gasp from behind him, when Jade, her father, and her siblings saw that Ryan had touched their cursed grandmother, but he just smiled at them for a moment to show that he was fine.

  But when he looked back at Jade's grandmother, he noticed something. Tiar was going absolutely wild. Their patterns were spiralling all over his arm, waving and moving back and forth rapidly, pulling on Ryan's skin in the process. It was uncomfortable, but bearable.

  "What's going on? What are you doing?"

  Slowly, the red patterns on Ryan's arm gave off a soft glow, and a message appeared in front of his eyes.

  [The Ruby-Symbiote -Tiar- has found a hidden spark within the -Tree of Blessing-]

  [The Ruby-Symbiote -Tiar- has inherited the ability -Dominion over Corruption-]

  Ryan's heart skipped a beat. They inherited an ability? It was clear who they inherited it from; the undead symbiote that had been the base for corruption in the first place. Just as the Tree of Blessing gained the 'shop' ability, something else must have been hidden in there.

  And before Ryan had to figure out what this ability did, Tiar already got started. Just like what happened when the 'Spirit Construction' skill was used, red tendrils split off Ryan's skin. But instead of tearing apart wood, stone or metal, they grabbed onto the corruption stuck to the woman's skin.

  Every part that was touched by Tiar shrunk away. It didn't fall apart like it did with the cure, but instead it seemed to shrink away.

  Ryan tore off the blanket to give Tiar full reign over the corrupted growth, and before long, the tendrils seemed to cover Jade's grandmother from head to toe.

  And soon, by the time Jade's mother had come back, Ryan was holding something in his hand. A small, black seed. Not a 'Seed of Blessing', but a 'Seed of Corruption', the thing that had been fed to the symbiotes to turn them into this curse.

  But before Ryan could even think about what to do with this, Tiar got to work. They linked with the Horn of Shapeless water, and ice soon enveloped the small seed to keep it safe. And despite the fact that the water was made from magic, the corruption didn't seem to spread.

  "Uhm..." Ryan looked at the woman on the bed. He couldn't feel any corruption from her anymore. Did Tiar just... cure her? Completely on their own? "Well, fuck."

  "Huh? Ryan, is everything okay? What happened?" Jade asked, her voice quivering. She hadn't been able to see what Tiar had just done.

  "... We're done."

  "Wait, what? What do you mean, she can't be cured?"

  "No, that's not-"

  "But you promised! You said that you could cure her!" Jade yelled out, wiping tears from her eyes.

  Ryan immediately rushed over to her and shook his head, placing his hands onto shoulders. "Calm down, that's not what I meant. I meant that we're done. She's cured."

  Jade looked at Ryan stunned. Before she could ask anything else, a man stepped out of a room on the other side of the hallway. It was an older man. A much older man. Greying hair and wrinkled skin, brown skin. This was a human, not a vampire.

  "Father! I'm sorry for waking you!" Jade's father said, and the man pushed through.

  "What are you doing to my wife?!" he yelled in a thick Gardian accent, particularly staring at Ryan. "You! Who are you? Get out of my way!"

  Of course, Ryan did as told. After all, there was no reason to get in the way anymore. Plus, from the rustling behind him, Ryan figured he should leave everyone here be anyway.

  The woman laying on the bed was slowly moving, turning her head to the door. With a weak voice, she spoke.

  "André? Is that you?" she asked, and the old man stopped, stunned.

  "Maria, my love..." André walked toward her, with slow, heavy steps as if he didn't want to believe it. He held out his hand toward her, but pulled it back at the last moment. Ryan smiled, and from the side of the room, explained.

  "You can hold her."

  Before he even finished speaking, the old man embraced his wife. Tears streamed down his cheeks. "I never could have thought... my love, I... I can't believe that you..."

  Jade's father walked into the room as well, trying to get a closer look at his mother. The others were similarly unsure, just watching and in disbelief. They never could have thought that this was how the day would end.

  Ryan snuck out past them. Even Jade wasn't really looking at him, so he had the opportunity to walk out of the flat for a moment. He made his way out of the building, and as he did, looked down at his hand, with a massive smile on his face. Obviously, Tiar and him wouldn't be able to do this for everyone in the world affected by corruption, but they were able to remove corruption without the cure - that was absolutely monumental.

  "I swear, I'll buy you anything you want to build, no matter what it is!" Ryan grinned, and the symbiote replied with a smiling face on the back of his hand.

  However, just this seemed to have strained Tiar quite a bit. They would get better at it at some point, but for now, it left its mark on Tiar and Ryan. The symbiote was exhausted, and Ryan was sweating. He could feel his body heating up, and it seemed like he was already running a fever. Using the horn of shapeless water, he cooled himself down for at least a little while, sitting down on the steps in front of the building.

  But as he sat there, he was approached by a man that had been waiting out here seemingly the entire time.

  "What, did it not work?" Marco asked, looking down at Ryan while looming over him.

  "No, it worked. You can go upstairs and check if you want," he replied, continuing to hold the ice to his forehead.

  "Seriously? It actually worked? Then what are you doing down here?"

  Ryan, with his eyes closed, held up his hand. "My buddy here isn't doing so hot, and since we're irreversibly fused together, that tends to have effects on both of us."

  Marco leaned forward to look at Ryan's arm. "Holy shit, is that a symbiote?"

  "Mhm. Their name is Tiar."

  With a loud groan, Marco dropped down on the steps next to Ryan. "Well, shit."

  "Hm?" Ryan glanced over at the therianthrope.

  "I was hoping you were some kind of douche, but if you've got a symbiote, you can't be a bad guy."

  Absolutely confused, Ryan stared at Marco. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Symbiotes are a symbol of good nature, no?"

  "Is that a Gardian thing, or a therianthrope thing?"

  "Both," Marco replied, sighing. The two just sat there in silence for a while. Ryan was a bit uncomfortable, since he could tell that there was something on Marco's mind, but it didn't take long for him to learn what that was. "So... is corruption the only thing you can deal with?"

  Ryan raised a brow. "Uh... I'm good at fighting, too."

  "Oh, that's fine, we don't need that, we can handle ourselves. But there are tons of people in this place that are struggling with curses. They're not infectious like the corruption, but they're still a problem."

  Ryan looked down at Tiar. The ability that they had inherited was called 'Dominion over Corruption', so...

  "I'll come take a look, but I'm not sure. The cure I have access to might only really work on corruption." Ryan tried to rub the headache out of his eyes. "But if I can't do anything right now, I'll come back soon with ways to at least help, don't worry."

  Ryan didn't even have to look at him to realise that Marco was grinning.

  "That's fine! As long as you want to help, then that's fine!"

  With a slight laugh, Ryan leaned back against the step behind him. Marco had changed his tune almost immediately from how aggressive he had been earlier. Maybe he could get the people in this place on his side sooner than he thought.

  "Listen... I've got a few questions for you, alright?"