I was making my way towards the part of the city where I had sent Imir and his men. While walking there with fast strides and Elye slightly ahead of me, I reviewed the notes I had written down in my Encyclopaedia.

The man, Aef, had turned out to be the ‘Heart’ of Skovslot: a title given to the eldest of the Elfin within an Enclave. The Elders served as the wisemen of their society and were the heritors of knowledge, oral traditions, and, crucially in this case, dealings with Rotmakers, which seemed a common problem all Enclaves faced.

While looking through the notes, Seramosa moved in front of me, halting me in my step, even though I knew she was incorporeal.

What is it?

“Manifest me!”

I don’t have the energy to spare.

“I will be brief!”

I narrowed my eyes. I had no idea what she was planning, but she was looking at the tome in my hands. I had noticed in the past that she had looked at it weirdly.

Promise me that you will return to incorporeality before I am exhausted again.

“Just do it, Exorcist!”

I gritted my teeth and prepared for the worst, while hoping for the best. I had a slight suspicion about what she was planning, but she might as well simply fly off to summon a solar flare to wipe out the next Rotmaker.

With a nudge of my energy, the Ifrit took on corporeal form, startling a few of the Elfin guards nearby, although, rather than become alert and hostile, they seem to act as though witnessing a miracle.

Had this been anywhere else, this little stunt would surely have gotten me killed.

The charcoal-black half-Elfin half-human leaned forward, while the flames of her hair fluttered around. She reached out towards my tome and I instinctively started moving it away.

“Don’t burn it!” I warned.

She grumbled. “I am not!”

Her right hand started glowing with a mauve flame, before she swung it and seized something invisible to my eyes, but which, when she tugged on it, pulled the tome in my hand towards her ever so slightly. Then the mauve flame grew into a bright-purple one, before dying down. I pulled the Encyclopaedia away again, and this time it didn’t feel as though she was holding onto a leash attached to it.

“What did you just do!?”

“I removed the curse. It is what I do. I am a Cursebreaker you know.”

Can you remove the curse on the voodoo doll as well? I asked, switching to my inner voice again.

“No.”

I grimaced. I was still carrying around the doll made from my own hand in my pouch, and which was bonded to me with the awful ‘Curse of the Excruciating Bond’. Hopefully I could find a Cursebreaker in Helmstatter to deal with it for me.

Alright, time’s up. I’d like to reserve my energy for what’s about to come.

With a grumble, Seramosa actually let herself desummon, returning to her incorporeal state. Perhaps it was a benefit of advancing the rank on my Abilities, or perhaps it was a subtlety I’d started picking up on, but I could actually tell when my familiars were incorporeal or not, without having to rely on the sense of micro-fatigue that came with every time they expended my energy.

Visually, little changed, but there was still minor differences between corporeal and incorporeal forms, such as: a barely-perceptible transparency, though this was harder to notice with Armen who was naturally-transparent; the feeling of physicality, as in a very vague sense that they had physical forms or not, sort of like how even standing a metre from a wall you could notice how air rebounded off its surface; but, most relevant in this case, with the Ifrit it was the feeling of her heat going from being a physical thing to a metaphysical thing, with the latter feeling like an internal warmth and the former like a bonfire warming my skin.

What sort of curse was it? I asked, as I jogged to catch-up with Elye who was waiting at the ingress to a root-bridge. The people who had seen me manifest Sera were murmuring amongst themselves and watching me go, with the word ‘Andasangare’ being repeated a lot.

“What did you just do, Yuuta?” asked the Elfin.

“It was a Curse of Longing Attachment,” replied the Ifrit.

I could feel my head start to hurt from the effort of keeping up with two separate conversations. I decided to answer Elye first, since otherwise I might seem weird.

“She no doubt believes you quaint already,” Armen teased.

You’re not helping. All these voices are splitting my head in two…

I let out a sigh. “Apparently there was a curse attached to my book,” I said, not realising how bizarre that sounded.

Elye simply nodded, then started up the bridge.

I should be concerned that she doesn’t question that response, right?

“I have already made clear my opinion of these people,” Armen commented.

Alright… Sera, enlighten me about the curse please. Was it the means by which I could be tracked?

The Ifrit grumbled, no doubt upset about the nickname I was insisting on calling her by. “It is a simple curse. To my eyes it is a strand of hair that is connected to an unseen end. It is no great feat to conjure and easy to break as well.”

It surprised me that there were yet things I could not see. But I supposed that much like how I could sense auras and hidden prints of apparitions, so too could those with the ‘Cursebreaker’ Ability sense curses.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I wonder why Leopold didn’t remove the curse then, he must have been able to see it.

“The curse put on the doll of your hand is exquisitely crafted, but he must have been bad at breaking curses if he could not remove so simple a thing from your book.”

I looked back at the entry I had made thanks to Aef’s knowledge. At the top it said ‘Necrotic Parasite’ and I had added the descriptions of the Rotmaker according to the aura and root-formed monstrosity I’d seen. The Elder had said that it was ‘Phantasm’, which was a type of entity I had not dealt with before nor even read about in my tome.

It was an apparition born from negative emotions that had coalesced into a semi-sentient vague form, which acted upon the base desire of hunger, seen through its consumption of energy, especially the type found in people and long-lived trees. Both explained why it sucked the life from the buildings, but also made beasts to slay the Elfin that occupied them.

As for why the Phantasm was created, it seemed to be a by-product of the way Elfin carried out funerals, as they did not exactly purify their dead, but something close to it, as the deceased were turned into a sort of fertiliser for the buildings of the Enclave. Given that this sort of burial was carried out repeatedly in the same area for centuries, it meant that the little bit of leftover lingering regret and other negative emotions eventually pooled together in the soil, before coming together as a Phantasm. Due to the unique circumstances of an Enclave, they were a recurring threat. I had not dared point out that changing their ways might prevent the issue. It was not my place to say, and, besides, it was clear that Aef had known the truth of the matter already.

Besides the cause and descriptions, he had provided me with three methods of exorcising it. I reread the methods for the sixth time in the last twenty minutes:

—Methods of Exorcism—

#1 – Locate the Parasite in a gestating cocoon that is still developing into a root-born vessel. Poison the cocoon with Purified Blood to lay to rest the Phantasm. Burn the remains and observe the Ritual of Obsequy to ensure it stays dead.

#2 – Locate a vessel housing the Parasite and perform Contain Spirit to bind its soul to an object, which is then laid to rest with the proper rites.

Warning: Containing a Phantasm is not recommended.

#3 – Wait for the Parasite to run out of potential hosts, at which point it will starve to death. Warning: may lead to it reaching a higher, unknown, form.

Just like with the Weeping Widow, one of the methods basically just involved waiting out the apparition. It seemed that most apparitions that were confined to a specific place would eventually disappear on their own when they ran out of hosts to feed on or their grudges subsided or were carried out through the natural passing of time.

It made me wonder if the Skinstealer I’d first encountered would eventually have disappeared once the man responsible for its creation died of natural causes. Likewise, the Remorseful Betrayer might have also vanished if the object of its love died or those who had slain it passed away.

If I followed that sort of logic, it seemed like Haunters were no different than fallout from a nuclear meltdown, just with a shorter time-frame attached to the eventual recovery of the land they occupied. The main issue was that they often appeared where humans lived and thus had to be dealt with before they lead to more deaths and caused a chain reaction of apparitions.

The warning attached to the third method made it clear that the Necromancer, Mortl, who had passed his knowledge on to Aef, or maybe one of Aef’s ancestors, had not been entirely sure about the entity. But from what I understood about it, a Phantasm was something that could only barely be considered an apparition, since it was a conglomeration of disparate negative energy from thousands of souls. It might, over time, consume enough energy to evolve into something like a Shade, Wraith, or even a Demon. Thus, it seemed a terrible idea to leave such a thing unchecked, especially when an Enclave was full of the sort of energy it loved to feed on.

I had a sudden thought.

“Elye.”

The Elfin stopped and looked back at me. We had still a few kilometres to cross to get to our destination.

“Why did Aef not seek me out if he knew that I could deal with the Rotmaker?”

She gave me a look as if I was stupid, then said, “The Heart cannot leave the centre of the Enclave.”

“He could’ve sent a messenger.”

“The Heart is wise and knew that you would seek it out.”

I frowned. I wasn’t sure I could get behind the Elfin’s idea of fate or whatever you called the idea that things happened as they were designed to happen.

Another thought hit me. “How many times has the Rotmaker appeared after being slain?”

“I do not know.”

I bit my lower lip as I thought about it. I hadn’t confirmed it with Imir, but I was sure he would inform me that each of the ‘vessels’ were bigger than the previous one if I asked. The one I’d seen had been bigger than what he had described as its first appearances, since he had mentioned a bear, lizard, and snake.

My fear was that, every time it regrew its vessel, it became bigger thanks to the growth in its essence from consuming those it slayed and the buildings it drained.

How many more cocoons before the Phantasm evolves beyond something incoherent and takes on a more ruinous form?

“It seems ruinous enough already.”

Imagine how much worse it might become if this is simply the prelude.

“It does not bode well,” Armen agreed.

Sera was hovering around next to Elye, trying to play with her hair. I upped my pace, wanting to get this over with before it became unmanageable.

I spotted the Elfin warriors outside the building: a five-storied bulbous tower, where each floor was like an orb stacked upon the one below, as though some demented design for a snowman. Already, Karasumany and its clones were alighting on the strange edifice, most of them looking at me, which was deeply unsettling.

“Where is Imir?” I asked.

“Inside,” one answered and pointed to the top of the building with two fingers.

I nodded my thanks and Elye escorted me inside the tower.

The climb up the many tunnels was draining, but I was glad to find that decay had not yet compromised the integrity of the place, meaning the Necrotic Parasite had yet to recoup its lost strength and build a new vessel. At least if I was understanding its pattern correctly.

On the top-floor, we found Imir and four other men gathered around a large cocoon. It was larger than the broken one Elye and I had found. That noxious aura I’d seen was present here as well, laying thick about our feet like some miasma or poisoned fog.

“Andasangare,” Imir said by way of greeting.

“You did well to find this,” I told him. “It hasn’t been able to drain this building yet. I should have ample time to perform the exorcism.”

“What can we do to help?”

“I require blood.”

Armen had told me the way to produce Purified Blood and it was quite simple: I only needed to utilise my Sanctify on any sort of blood. As for how I would use it to ‘poison’ the cocoon, I was unsure, so I needed enough that I could afford to waste it.

Imir nodded. “I will find a worthy sacrifice.” The way he looked at his fellows unsettled me.

“What!? No! Don’t you have blood that you’ve drained from the prey you catch?”

He looked at me weirdly. “It would not be a problem to procure a sacrifice. Many will consider it an honour.”

I jabbed him in the chest with the index of my Ifrit Claw and said, “No one is getting killed for this!”

“I see,” he answered, looking down at my finger touching him. “We will go find prey-blood then.”

Suddenly the cocoon rumbled and the miasma about our feet began to stir.

“Hurry!” I told him.

The Elfin and his comrades hurried out one of the open ‘windows’ in the curving walls and scaled the outside of the building to reach the ground below.

I looked at Elye, “You should leave as well.”

“I will stay by your side.”

I sighed. “If things start taking a turn, you run away without me, okay?”

“I will stay.”

I shook my head, but couldn’t help but smile a bit. “At least I won’t die alone if this thing breaks free without warning.”

“Do not take your own life for granted.”

It was a joke, Armen. I’m not planning on dying. Obviously.

“I see.”