“What happened to her?”

“A house fell on her. Don’t give such a perverted look. Calypso has selected her. She’s off limits.”

The light blur began to fade to darkness as my eyes fell closed once again. Every time I tried to return back to consciousness, an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion and weakness would overtake me. I could feel myself being carried. I seemed to have been put on the back of a saddle. We rode somewhere. The entire time, I felt completely powerless and unable to move or say a thing. I felt a hand grab my head roughly.

“She’s burning up! You think it might be contagious?” I heard a Bandit say.

“Maybe, we should just cut her throat and tell the boss she died.” Another offered.

“Watch your tongue! Do you want to become one of her next sacrifices?”

Some more time passed, and I felt like I was lying on something soft. It was some kind of fur.

“Here, drink this.” I felt someone pushing a vial to my lips.

“You waste such a powerful healing potion on her?” A voice said disdainfully. “Can’t you just kill her and resurrect her?”

“Perhaps, I should just kill you instead!”

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“You treat your ‘harem’ too well…”

“What can I say? Cute, vulnerable girls are my weakness…”

It was night when my eyes finally snapped open, and for the first time I felt awake. My first instinct was to reach for my mana, but I immediately felt unable to grasp it. It was like my fingers were slick with oil, and when I tried to grab the mana to use it, a film kept me from touching it. Any attempt to grab it caused it to slip out of my reach. Mana was acting like it was repelled by me.

I felt a hot towel being placed on my forehead. “You’re lucky to be alive. In fact, I don’t know how you’ve held out this long. She struck you with the knife. You were clearly infected with the curse. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice. You were covered in black ash and lacerations. Everyone just assumed you were a rare survivor of a house that burned down. The curse seemed to run its course now. At least, your veins no longer show miasmic curse.

“S-S-Siti?” I asked, trying to make out the blurry shape hovering over me.

“It’s me. We’re with the bandit camp now. We’re in one of Calypso’s tents. Apparently, she thinks herself quite the charmer. She picked us up as part of her harem. I didn’t know you could shapeshift into a girl. You picked a good time to do it though. It saved your life. As for what being in her harem means, I don’t know. She’s left me alone so far, probably because I’m taking care of you.”

“S-Salicia?”

There was a brief hesitation. “I… she suddenly turned into a different person. Calypso called her a puppet. After she arrived, Salicia just went slack and did whatever Calypso asked. She was like a zombie. That’s all I know.”

Siti had already said enough. The memory of Salicia turning on us was still fresh in my mind. As my head cleared, I could recall how Siti pushed me out of the way when Salicia struck. That small cut had nearly killed me. If she hadn’t have knocked me out of the way, I would have been dead, killed by my slave!

“Thank you…” I said.

“It’s fine… but Deek… she has the dagger now.”

It seemed like my plans had blown up in my face, while Calypso received everything she was looking for.