Aimi and Hoshihime exchanged glances before turning to face Aella, conversing amongst themselves with the latter's psychic abilities.
Aella, still not knowing what the IDOL element could mean, didn’t know any better and had far more critical thoughts to care about anyway.
‘10,000 Health? For a tail, I’m gonna get right after this? This is surely going on the list of dumbest shit I’ve done in this life. Well, whatever, score the girl’s loyalty and worry about the consequences after.’
While she waited, she bobbed her head slightly as she kept an eye on the system. She didn’t know how long it’d take, but eventually, the technique would start rapidly draining her life force again. The initial HP loss can be considered an investment, but after that, she would leave; it’s not worth losing so much for this girl, even if her tier 8 dragon could be an asset.
“Fine! Please save Mom! I’ll do anything if you can save her life!” Aimi confirmed.
Those were the exact words Aella wanted to hear. “You should be very careful how you word things, little girl,” she chuckled maliciously.
Bringing Sylpheed back to her hand without activating the second verse, Aella grabbed Aimi’s mother, promptly using [Apprasial] on her, seeing if it’d give her any information related to the curse.
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‘Yeah, you would force me to use SP for that.’ Aella rolled her eyes inwardly before placing her hand before Yukiyo’s face.
“Short of breath, pained expression, black markings racing toward the heart. Didn’t think I’d see something as cruel as the [Curse of Emity]. Too bad whoever cast this curse is an incompetent fool.” Aella hummed to herself.
[Curse of Emity] is a cruel curse that falls into the category of guaranteed death. If it’s not purified, the recipient is bound to die, regardless of their life expectancy or methods of prolonging themselves. This one, in particular, was cruel but very inefficient.
The issue with guaranteed death curses was that they took a while to activate, so typically, you’d want it to go unnoticed for as long as possible. The [Curse of Emity] doesn’t do that, and this individual specimen of the curse was fragile.
As Aella doesn’t have [Holy Magic], she was sure that she was going to have to go through a complicated process of weakening the curse with her own [Curse] skill and then create a [Blessing] to counteract it and give her a chance to remove it but instead, she could just…
Change it.
An eerie, murky purple liquid-like energy came out of Aella’s hand. With this energy, she touched the woman’s forehead, and instantly, the black markings began to recede, replaced with small scars around the spots where they ended.
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After 3 minutes of seemingly doing nothing, Aella took a few steps back with a few heavy breaths, falling on her butt after finishing the session.
The moment she fell, Aimi ran up to her to assist her, “Did it work? Did you save Mom!”
Aella, like the smug asshole she was, looked at Aimi with a confident smile and a thumbs up, only to cough up blood moments later.
‘System, you can give me my tail now.’
Aimi’s eyes widened as the false tail Aella had created with her flames began to flicker. Her species, the Valkyrie, specialized in burning their life force to build powerful armaments. That was their entire thing. Unlike the Foxin, though, they evolved specifically for that and had ways to recover their lost life force.
That was irrelevant. What was relevant was the fact that Aimi could see Aella’s life force draining, and it was a hefty amount. Luckily, it was akin to a drop of water in an ocean for a naturally immortal species like the Foxin, but Aimi didn’t know that.
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‘Wait, what?!’ Aella questioned as a flash of light began emanating from her, causing Aimi to step back and Blair to question whether she should start worrying about Aella. She couldn’t tell if this was one of Aella’s party tricks or if she was legitimately dying this time, and that bothered her far more than it should, considering this was Aella.
Before the light faded, a happy chirping could be heard, along with a loud thump, a yelp, and the brief but manic wails of Aella. Also a bunch of system pop-ups.
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As the light began to wane, what revealed itself was Aella struggling to force a certain tiny blue dragon off of her ear, eventually getting to the point where she channeled wind through her body and sent the little rodent flying.
The moment Stormy was finally off of Aella, and she noticed that she had about 6 seconds before he came dashing back at her, she began coughing out more blood and kneeling on the ground.
Six seconds passed, and what do you know? Like a missile in flight, Stormy came darting toward Aella, only for her to move ever so slightly with the help of her wind to avoid the attack.
“Well, that was closer than I expected.”
Aimi, who took the time during the light to bring Yukiyo to her Dragon, ran back to Aella and the new arrival of Stormy, who rested nicely in the dirt.
“You… You Sacrificed your life for her? Why?” Aimi questioned, assisting Aella up.
“I told you, didn’t I? I’d return the favor for showing me such resolve, little girl.” Aella stated, keeping her confident demeanor but allowing a slight hint of weakness to escape her. “That being said. I failed to remove the curse. I only managed to change it to a slightly better one.”
Aimi was shocked by Aella’s words. She clearly understood what she said, but the meaning eluded her.
Noticing this, Aella let out a small sigh. “Have you read Sleeping Beauty? It’s something similar to that. Although I can’t guarantee, true love's kiss will wake her up. That said, her sleeping for a while is better than death.”
Looking over at Hoshihime, the Dragon nodded in agreement. Being able to wield [Holy Magic], Hoshihime had a base understanding of curses. It was far less than Aella thought she’d have, but curses were rare on Earth so that fault couldn’t be placed on her.
That being said, she intentionally changed the curse to something simple but still complex enough that Hoshihime wouldn’t be able to purify it yet. Also, she lied. She was fully capable of removing such a weak curse.
It was as simple as changing the curse to something benign, like a curse that makes you 1% less lucky, and then she transferred it to herself and then eventually some other poor fool. Aimi could suffer a little longer because that would work against Aella’s goals.
“That being said. Your Dragon there will be able to with a bit more practice and strength, so how about a deal? I’m trying to create a group. A group powerful enough to rid the world of that damned cult. If you join my cause, I’ll gladly help your partner learn more about curses.”
Going silent once again, a deep reflection made itself known in the eyes of Aimi. Adding the events thus far together, she realized she was in quite a tight spot. This little girl, whom she didn’t know the name of, saved her and her mother; that was an undeniable fact.
For all she knew, Aella’s offer was the ramblings of a child, but that seemed unlikely. Aella had no problems cutting down well over 100 people while laughing like a maniac. She had the power to back up her words, but that didn’t make Aimi feel safe. Instead, it made her less inclined to accept the offer.
On one hand, could she trust a girl who was laughing while killing hundreds of people? On the other hand, the [Children of the Lost Sun] won't leave her alone after this, not to mention the sizeable old man standing idly next to a tree, talking with Blair. If even he was backing her, she might be the real deal.
“Can I think about it?” Aimi asked with a pleading tone.