The light of the lake was already visible at the end of the tunnel, although the silhouette of a female woman blocked it slightly. The sound of the string tightening invited her to stop.
“Jean, is that you?”
“[That girl has strong feelings for you! Try not to hurt her!]”
“What do you take me for?”
“[I am talking about the future.]”
Jean narrowed her eyes. She still didn't know why she trusted him so much. “It's me, Eris!”
The young woman lowered the bow and three more individuals appeared from the sides of the tunnel. “Are you okay? We heard a lot of screaming. They didn't sound like yours! I got them engraved in my mind from when he hurt you so bad.”
“Don't worry, I'm fine, but I need more enemies.”
There was some silence. “We don't venture that far away from the lake. Narhad forbids us to do so, and has already reprimanded me, so... You didn't get what you wanted?”
Jean shook her head. “Not enough to bring her back.”
A young blond-haired, pale-skinned man approached Erish. “There are spiders, amphibians and crabs around, but if you kill them all, you'll leave us with nothing to eat in an emergency.”
»Human Aspirant«
Level: 18
Name: Yarosh
Marks: [Sacrificed]
Details: This young man distrusts you, but not enough to attack you. You have nothing to fear from him.
Highest attribute (Dexterity): 35
One of the guys nudged the blond young man. Jean noticed it. “Relax, I’m looking for demons, undead, and other corrupted creatures. I have no intention of depriving you of food!”
Jean slowly approached them until the light of the lake illuminated her body. All those present stared at her voluptuous body covered in that tight-fitting armor. Jean felt uncomfortable and tried to divert their attention to her hair and face. “What's wrong? Am I dirty?”
The guys and Erish realized their audacity. Only the boldest dared to speak up. “What a... tight outfit. Is it exclusive to demons?”
Jean raised a single eyebrow defiantly. “Yeah! Of the Cursed One, actually!”
Erish tried to deflect the tension as best she could. “Zad is organizing a mission. A raid, as he calls them. We need supplies and equipment. Are you coming?”
The young woman's offer was interesting and her pleading eyes were a problem. Jean could not leave unprepared. “I'm sorry! I don't know what it's like outside yet and...”
“You once told me that this world resembled a dark version of Lord of the Rings, I think you said!”
Surprised that Erihs knew about her tastes, Jean blushed. They must be close friends if she had talked to her about her hobbies.
Yaros cleared his throat loudly. “Don't worry, you're among freaks! I find it more like Dragon Age Origins, although there are also Diablo-like areas.” After an awkward silence that ended with him proudly lifting his head. “Old school, of course!”
Jean didn't feel comfortable talking about her hobbies with strangers, so she closed her eyes and opened the map. The location of one of the abominations was nearby. “Are there any creatures in that direction that you don't eat and you don't mind if they disappear?”
They all started muttering among themselves, though not low enough for Jean's enhanced senses to ignore the conversation. “If she doesn't know anything about this place, how come she points out our emergency food at first! It can't be a coincidence!”
Yaros spoke at last. “Over there are cave crabs. They don't have much to eat, but... they're our emergency food. We’d have to ask Zad.”
Jean shook her head. “There's no need to bother him, I'll keep searching!”
“Why don't you come with us? There's plenty of prey outside! Even the one you need.”
Jean found that suspicious. If that was so, why were they worried about food? Maybe leaving wasn't as easy as she thought.
“[Be careful if you are thinking of accepting the offer! Outside, the sunlight will burn you.]”
Jean could hardly disguise her distress. “What! That's new!”
“[Don't take it the wrong way! Erihs doesn't know you're allergic to sunlight now, but some of the others... Shit!]”
“What now?! What about the others?”
Narhad suddenly emerged from the lake, splashing water all over. Jean did not even flinch and blocked it with a barrier, but the others weren't so calm. Much less when the huge elemental began to approach them.
Everyone moved away from Jean except Erihs. “NO, WAIT!”
Narhad focused exclusively on Jean and began yelling at her telepathically. “[I told you as soon as you get the damn relic to get out through the portal!]”
Jean took a step back as huge tendrils of water formed from her body.
“[Why are you still talking to him after what I told you, Cursed One? And on top of that you've endangered this place by luring a spawn here!]”
Jean dashed into the depths, but to no avail. The elemental split one of the giant tendrils into dozens of smaller ones that avoided Erihs and ended up catching Jean with ease.
At the mere touch. Both cried out in pain. Jean for the purification of her cursed body, and Narhad for coming in contact with the curse.
The pain was short-lived. Narhad backed up at great speed to the lake, and at the same time, threw Jean straight into the portal.
She barely had time to process the urge to vomit until she crossed the oscillating transparent membrane. Everything went dark immediately after, but her mind was still shaken by the sudden force.
It took a while for her mind to calm down, but she eventually managed to realize she was in a dark place with the flickering glow of the portal behind her.
After summoning Soul Collector and Cursed Perception, her surroundings became much clearer. She found herself in what appeared to be a huge, very ancient ruin with a single corridor between two huge natural pools of water on either side. She didn't need to go in to see that they were deep, the souls at the bottom were all she needed.
Most of the black ballast walls were covered with inscriptions like those of the portal. The ceiling was a natural dome and there was only one exit in the entire enclosure, the corridor leading to another room.
For a moment she thought about waiting for Erihs and the others, but Jean wasn't the type to wait patiently. It didn't take long for her to reach a second and third room, both with the same characteristics. There were few places where there wasn’t a soul, but there were no remains of its body. Not even the bones. Did they belong to the slaves who built the place hundreds of years ago?
“[They predate the first demonic invasion. 892 years ago.]”
“And here I thought I was finally getting rid of you!”
“[I can be anywhere there is a soul.]”
“Don't you have anyone else to blab with?”
“[Don't think you are so important! I'm not the only keeper of the plane of souls.]”
“Since you're in a teacher mode, how many demonic invasions have there been?”
“[Three. The third one is still going on. However, it has reached a kind of stalemate.]”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Jean continued the exploration thoughtfully. She couldn't help but remember the disdain with which she was treated at the lake. “Am I really half-demon?”
“[The only thing certain is that you are a Cursed One, and that you must seek out more relics. Where there are cursed relics there is miasma and corrupted creatures. That will help you survive, but it will also drive you away from virtue.]”
Jean understood that, on some level, the sun signified virtue. It might be linked to a divine god, or it might simply not be compatible with the curse. However, that was a problem for later. He needed to accumulate corruption, and that water-filled place didn't seem to have any.
She closed her eyes and opened the map in search of the locations of more cursed relics. A new arrow appeared from among the multiple ones still pointing to the portal.
[Mission: »Find and kill Choog« to extract from him the Uzuf relic.]
The relic had merged with someone, but she would be the one to decide whether to kill him or not.
“Is it daytime?”
Whispers nodded and added that it was midday.
“Would a tunic be enough to protect me from the sun?” Whispers shuddered at the thought. “Ok, ok! Forget it!”
“[Only at dusk and dawn.]”
“Is it always going to be like this?”
“[Depends on how many relics you obtain.]”
“Great! Goodbye to tanning on the beach for a while!”
That slip triggered a noise coming from a room that deviated from the ascent route. She halted and considered checking to see what it was, but her whispers warned her that Cursed Binding no longer worked at a distance. Only as long as she maintained direct contact.
“That sucks!”
“[I warned you!]”
Jean moved in complete silence for the more than ten meters of the narrow passage that led to the room in the distance. A much lower, muddy one. It was precisely from there that a creature came rushing out to dive into a nearby pool of water.
“I could still use the skills I learned previously, like Healing Hands, right?”
The whispers agreed, but warned her that they couldn't be improved. She could only improve the cursed version.
“As long as I can heal myself, I will find a way to refill Cursed Graveward!”
She didn't have to move much to realize that the further down she went, the more light she could perceive. There must be souls at the end and she was not mistaken. Soon she came to a flooded area. She didn't need to get into the bubbling water to see the creatures waiting to ambush her.
“Come out! Don't be shy!”
Two humanoids with scales and huge mouths full of sharp teeth emerged. They looked like men with an improvable fish mask very similar to a piranha. They were barely a meter and a half tall and wielded very primitive knives and swords made of bones.
»Kuo-Toa«
Level 8
Name: Hik-ok
Marks: [Human Killer]
Details: This creature has lived all his life in these waters and will protect them at any cost.
Highest attribute (Dexterity): 19.
The more daring one lunged at her and thrust his knife three times into her abdomen. Jean didn't even bother to block it, the weapon didn't give her more than three ridiculous scratches before breaking. However, she wasn't going to overlook his offense. She boosted her strength with Cursed Tenacity just before her fist entered through one of the kuo-Toa's giant eyes. Her arm went through his skull from side to side, making his body hang as if from a hanger.
The kuo-toa who intended to attack her from behind, petrified when he understood his situation. Jean glanced sideways at him and muttered. “Well?”
He turned around and jumped into the water. He swam so fast that only a trail of bubbles was left in his path. Four similar creatures that were about to emerge from the water also stopped at the sight of their comrade still shuddering as he died. They bellowed something in a strange language and backed away menacingly.
Jean stepped back with her catch and led her curse into his body. It didn't take long to end up in the Cursed Graveyard.
Annoyed that no one else seemed to want to bite, she jumped into the water. It tasted salty. Was she near the sea?
“[Use curse skills carefully. If corruption spreads, you will kill everything that lives in it or feeds on it. The humans of the village living nearby included.]”
Jean dived admiring the beauty of the underwater vegetation illuminated by a blue light coming from the bottom. It would be a wonderful sight were it not for the fact that it came from souls lying on a bottom full of bones and skulls. They were of different sizes and races, but what she was sure of was that they all belonged to adults. Somehow, she knew that children didn't exist in that world.
Jean dived down a few meters, but the deeper she went, the more painful it became to hold her breath. If she killed enough of them, she would probably learn to breathe underwater, but she also needed corruption for a new body for Dih now that she had gained her favor. Her doubts increased when she remembered the reward the system had given her.
“[Mission: »Get Dih's favor so that she fights alongside you« completed. Flesh of my Flesh has been enhanced as a reward. Now, even if the corruption you start from is of low quality, you can improve the level of the soul to the point that it had in life by providing more mana.]”
Realizing that she would run out of air and that the kuo-toa would fight much better inside water than outside, Jean backed off. However, it was not so easy. A dozen of them had surrounded her. None of them were higher than level 15.
Several of the creatures grabbed her by the feet while others stabbed her with their primitive knives. The water turned slightly red before activating the barrier of her armor. Her lungs screamed for air. Her only option was to swim backwards to the surface by force, but first she absorbed the corruption from her blood before it spread.
She was about to reach the surface when the kuo-toa pounced from all directions. Furious because of the many cuts, she used her curse to perform Cursed Punish with Swift Strike. That really turned the water red.
Half of them die in a matter of seconds. The other half followed her out of the water. Their fate was not much different.
She purposely let one of them escape and began to absorb all the corruption from the water after removing all the bodies out of the water. She contaminated them with her corruption and added them to the Cursed Graveyard. Before the second wave arrived, it was almost three quarters of the total. In the end, it almost overflowed.
[You have learned Water Breathing— Level 1.
New horizons? This will help you last longer underwater, but it does not turn you into a fish. You are able to absorb small amounts of oxygen from the water through your skin.]
[Cursed Graveyard has increased to level 2.]
[Swift Strike has increased to level 5.]
[Cursed Search, Cursed Perception and Cursed Punish have increased to level 5. Rank 2.]
[Cursed Binding has increased to level 6. Rank 2.]
No more kuo-toa attacked her, but she didn't mind too much. She would eventually come back when she had done all she had to do in that new place full of opportunities. She just hoped Erish was all right.
She stripped the corpses of their belongings and walked back to the portal area. They were carrying some strange garments made of cloth and bones that could be of use to Dih. She wasn't going to let her go naked.
Before starting, she recalled her conversations with Dih. The ones she had had with her when they fought in the swamp as they searched for Al-Hek on the plane of souls.
From what Dianna, aka Dih, had told her, Jean understood that she had always felt ugly and short. On one occasion, looking at Jean's generous bust she had muttered. “I know boys see me as another boy.” Perhaps, that was why, in order to avoid feeling hurt again, she was acting rude. But the one that had marked her the most was. “I would like to look like you. You're incredibly beautiful and modest. It's not what I like the most about you, but I admit I'm a little... very envious.”
Jean smiled expectantly at the look on Dih's face. “Can you give me a hand?”
The whispers agreed. Jean sat on the floor behind the portal, hidden from the sight of intruders. The mana and curse flowed through her arms as a brain slowly appeared between her hands. Soon, a skull enveloped it. The spinal column and the nervous system grew out of it. The skeleton and muscles came next. Organs and skin finished the creation.
The whole process was a slow and arduous work of almost 2 hours in which she had to rest too many times. The mana to upgrade Dih's body to level 18 was astronomic, and the mental effort unbearable.
As soon as she finished, she lost consciousness. Her Cursed Graveyard level had dropped drastically. She had finally managed to create a body that started as a spawn with a soul attached to her, to a completely independent being.
[Flesh of my Flesh has increased to level 4.]
Dih's movement in her lap woke Jean after a well-deserved rest. Seconds later, Dih opened her eyes as if she had been reborn at 22 years old. “Jean?”