“I’m glad I made it in time for this! This will make history!” Elfrafim exclaimed. We were currently at the Harvester Home which was at the foot of my family’s hill. “Provided you are successful, of course. But I’m happy to be part of the process anyway!”

“Gee. Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I rolled my demonic eyes at my elven friend. Our goal here today was to take my cursed greatsword and somehow transfer that infusion into a new sword, because I definitely needed a better one. “Have you never done anything like this?

“Of course not,” Elfrafim answered. “I can craft things, but I’m really only about average at it.”

“Average.” I snorted. “Yeah right. Then I guess the rest of us are talentless rubes!”

“I mean as an elf of my level.” Elfrafim clarified. She waltzed around the house on her toes, peering at everything she could get her bright gem-like eyes on. She’d been here before, and not much had changed. “We are a very dextrous and creative species, and I’m very high level compared to anyone you can really compare me to in your life. But pit me against an actual crafter of similar power, and I’ll probably lose without ever standing a chance.”

“Weak.”

“Hey! You’re weaker!”

My expression faltered. Getting called weak did offend me, but I knew I started it.

“Fair enough,” I chuckled, just a bit awkwardly. “But I didn’t mean you personally. I get that you guys don’t work with curses very much, but the elves are a lot more advanced than us in general, right?”

“Of course!” she answered enthusiastically. “You only have us beat in all the boring things like paperwork.”

“Now that I take offense to,” I crossed my arms and huffed. “I’m bad at paperwork too!”

“Have you ever done paperwork?” Moonwash asked Elfrafim.

“No. Not really. But I can already tell it’s an evil thing.”

“That it is,” I nodded sagely.

“On a more serious note, we can make better architecture, and I believe we’d win an all-out war with just about anyone short of a dragon, but we would probably suck at planning a city or organizing an army, things of that nature. There are some enthusiasts of course, but I don’t know how well they’d do with the real thing.”

“That makes sense.” I nodded. “How about infusions? It seems like the kind of thing you guys would’ve at least dabbled in, right?”

“Oh, it absolutely is.” Elfrafim gestured to her cloak, staff, bow, and many other little weapons she had hidden on her. “Most of these are infused with wind, and we did it by harvesting the materials from creatures that were already infused with the element, like your cursetaceans and cloudbirds, or by leaving them out for centuries in some mana-dense place like a wonderzone.”

Moonwash asked for more specifics, and I learned that most of Elfrafim’s gear enhanced wind spells, reduced air resistance, or added some sort of wind impact.

“But you’ve never tried to take some infusion and put it elsewhere?” I asked. “Like to transfer the infusion on some weapon of a better make?”

“No. Why would we? Our infused shit are already pretty high quality, so there’s no need to make any of them worse. We just pass them down to the next generation, and make something new for ourselves. Or take a hand-me-down from someone if it’s available. My bow is from Ovelger who’s the latest elf to reach ancient status. He’s so cool! I wanna reach that level someday!”

“That’s neat.” I took out my greatsword. “I suppose I could just keep this. Have it on display somewhere. A memento. Or I could someday bestow it upon someone else like you… But nah. I don’t want to. The curse of this sword has been developed through time, and if possible, I wish to keep it with me. It feels… meaningful.”

“And that’s all fine! You don’t have to follow our customs. And even back home, it’s just a choice people make. No one’s going to force you!”

“Of course not.” I chuckled and shook my head. “Let’s get to forging a new blade then! A new tomorrow!”

“We still have to figure out how we’re going to actually do that,” Moonwash informed.

“Ah. Right. Of course.”

“We knew that.”

“Didn’t we!?” I high-fived my elven friend.

~~~

Moonwash showed us the mountain of notes and diagrams of her ideas for this project. There were many potential paths we could take, from reforging my sword by adding in more mythril, to making some sort of enchantment or ritual array to somehow drain the curse. The problem with the former was that the mythril would then be heavily diluted, and the problem with the latter was, well… how? Moonwash only had theories about that, and Elfrafim was once again excitedly clueless about the concept of ripping away an infusion from something.

“People have tried to get multiple elements to infuse an object before, and it has been successful!” Elfrafim said happily. “But each success is basically a legendary event. Most objects either experience no change at all, or the infused elements just get diluted. Whatever effects it had would just be lost in the latter case. Ah, there’s also one case where someone tried to infuse so many elements at once on one staff, thereby creating a chaos weapon.”

“Oh! A chaos weapon. That sounds very cool!”

“Yeah! It’s just like what the hekatons were capable of.”

“Can it cast those chaotic shifting exploding spells then!?”

“Nope! Well, yes. But only once. It exploded.”

“Ah.”

“Yep! Elthor created enchantments that pumped different types of mana into the general area for centuries in order to make it.”

“Oof. That’s gotta hurt.”

“Huh? Why?”

“...What do you me ‘why?’ Because that’s a lot of time and resources wasted, duh.”

“But it was a success!”

I blinked.

“Okay, I’m really fucking confused.” My face went through various expressions. “The staff just exploded! How is that a success!?”

“Because it’s a chaos explosion. No one’s ever been able to make anything like that before! I don’t even know of any elf that’s able to wield chaos magic! So it was a resounding success and we threw multiple parties for him!”

“Oh… so you mean it’s a success because you were able to make something new. Not because you managed to create some super strong weapon?”

“Exactly!”

“...Well. You’re not wrong,” I admitted. “There is value in discovering and creating new things. That’s incredibly important. I guess I’ve just… Fuck, I’ve forgotten the sheer joy of curiosities fulfilled! Aaaaaahhhh!!”

“I don’t think you have.” Moonwash patted me gently. “You just enjoy and want both. The process and the result.”

“Heh. Thanks.” I kissed her, and we just made out for a while.

“Elfrafim,” Moonwash said after a few minutes.

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“Yeah? You guys can continue if you want!”

“We’ll do that later, thank you for the consideration. But you mentioned using enchantments to infuse an object? So there is precedent to what I’m trying to do?”

“Errr… I think it’s completely different. All the enchantments really did was gradually dispense mana towards the staff, but most of it dispersed into the environment anyway. It’s only the equivalent of being in a wonderzone.”

“I see. So it actually means my goal here would be even harder, because the mana doesn’t actually become infused. It’d just gradually float away.”

“Yep. That’s exactly it. Good luck though! I’m rooting for you! And I’ll help any way I can!”

“Thank you Elfrafim,” Moonwash went to grab some cursetacean shells from a big pile in the corner. Luine had given us our first delivery just a few days ago for the many carcasses we left hidden on our way back from Orila. “It sucks that they just took off the flesh, but I’ll work with what I have.”

“I’ve lodged a complaint to Biggie and Larryx, so the next ones should have their meat.”

“I doubt it. The teams must’ve been dispatched by now. It’s not a massive deal, they must have rotten already and these are the only actually useful parts. The meat would’ve just been really good for the throwaway experiments we need to do.”

~~~

What followed was a long line of experimentation to figure out just how to upgrade my sword.

At first, Moonwash tried to do a ritual with my blood, but with most of the infernal magic depleted, to rip out the curse magic on a shell and transfer it elsewhere. It did not succeed the first time, nor the second time, nor in the many other failures after that. By the time it did work, we were able to move the curse mana in the carapace, but it didn’t actually turn a different separate object cursed. That was the first problem. There was technically mana in everything, usable or not, and my sword probably had a lot of it, but merely managing to move the small part that was interactable did not mean we could curse and infuse another object. The magic would just float in the object for a while, and then dissipate. The bulk of the magic, the infusion itself, could not be interacted with.

“What about your curseflame!” Elfrafim exclaimed. “Let’s do something with that!”

It was as good an idea as any, so I did it, but the problem was that even the parts left behind by a dead creature was not enough. My magic would only latch onto currently living targets. Using it to forge a sword out of metal that was never even alive was out of the question.

“What if you pray?” Therick asked in a different setting. “I know you don’t believe in god. But what about… the greater magic? That’s what it’s called?”

“Okay, first off.” I reclined in the sofa of our living room. “I believe that god is real. He exists. And maybe he even accepts and answers prayers for all I know. There is much we don’t know about the angels. But of course, I do not worship any of them. I worship no one. As for the greater magic…” I took a some long seconds to gather my thoughts. “That’s kind of what rituals are already, in a way. A plea, a request, perhaps an exchange.”

I still tried, even if I didn’t fancy the idea of worshipping anyone or anything. I addressed the greater magic directly, and I actually felt its constant gaze on me strengthen for a second, before receding back in disinterest. Why would it ever help me without an offering?

~~~

“Why don’t you just buy a new sword?” Granuel asked while we were buying supplies for our trip. Moonwash was with us, ready with a soundproof wind barrier. “Cursed things are illegal here, I know. But we can try asking some of the New Grandera spies?”

“Ehh… If we’re doing that anyway, then we might as well create an entirely new one myself.” We entered a high-end furniture store, and I bought the smallest mattress they had. “The reason why I want to save and reuse the infusion of my current sword is because it’s special. It’s meaningful. The curse has grown with me and it’s connected to me in some way. Otherwise, I’ll just replace it, yeah.”

~~~

“What if we ship of theseus it?” I explained the philosophic concept to Moonwash and Elfrafim. I wanted to replace the sword’s make, one small chunk of fantasy metal at a time.

“That’s a very interesting question. Would it still be the same sword? Will the curse be kept, if it was actually possible?”

“Right!? It’s so exciting to learn about a literal new world! I didn’t expect that when I crossed the barrier range and came here!”

“However,” Moonwash added, “it isn’t actually possible. That’s not how forging works. It’ll just fall apart.”

~~~

We debated the issue some more, until we came up with a method that Moonwash thought would work. After some extensive testing, we concluded that this plan would indeed work. What followed was some more training, because I needed to learn a little bit of forging. Good enough to follow instructions and do it accurately at least.

“Let’s start,” Moonwash said. “Just like we practiced.”

I nodded at her and began to thread my mana. From my greatsword, through my body, to a forging hammer, and then back. I created a circuit of wrath magic that connected everything together.

We were currently in a newly created room/building covered from floor to ceiling in enchantments. The fuel was entire tanks of my blood, and the enchantments were made with cursetacean carapace, goblin seed, my very blood again, and more. They depicted the many battles I’d been through with my old greatsword. It showed my growth, and how I wished for my cherished weapon to grow with me. The very center of the enchantments, which was also where I had set up, showed a demoness taking the curse of an old sword upon herself and using it to forge a new one.

That demon was me.

A nascent greatsword was taken out of a newly built forge, and placed upon the anvil in front of me. A switch was flipped, and the enchantments were activated, causing the air to thrum with a curse that was uncomfortable for Moonwash too. Elfrafim hovered nearby, to help in whatever way was needed of her when the time came.

“Right here.” Moonwash indicated a spot in the forming sword, and I focused on my image and my intent. My memory core reminded me of how I had trained for this, to connect with the curse that lingered in my greatsword, a scheming menace of an infusion. It tried to invade my mind once I dove deeper, it brought such sweet promises of how good it would feel to betray and murder, but I was angry and I was wrath itself. I wrestled with this curse, I forced it to obey, and it did so easier than in my previous attempts, having now learned not to oppose my will. The infusion of menace moved, it coursed through my body painfully, and I thought of a thousand ways I could lie, deceive, and backstab. My body rebelled, muscles tore, nerves frayed, and bones began to splinter.

Into the hammer it all went.

My right hand struck, and the mythril sword sang upon impact.

I had hit right where Moonwash had indicated. My accuracy was without peer. This was the culmination of my efforts.

I took in more of the infusion upon myself. I felt the expected rush of revulsion. I had bled from every orifice in my face before I was able to interact with infusion mana, and it was far more intense in practice than what already coursed through my blood. But I squeezed down upon all that outright evil energy, for I did not wish to lose any more of the cursed infusion that I had worked so hard on for years to build.

I brought it all to my hammer, and once again struck the nascent sword.

I repeated this same task, over and over and over, again and again and again; without pause, without complaint, and without fail.

It created a wonderful tune, to hear the two objects of mythril singing together for the success of all our efforts.

I fell into a trance. Elfrafim healed me as I continued to work with a single-minded focus.

I forgot even the pain and the pressure of taking an infusion upon myself. All that mattered was the nascent greatsword, and everything that I could do to bring out its full and true potential.

It was all I cared about. It was all that mattered. It was my world.

~~~

“Can you put that over there?” Granuel asked from across the workshop, and I obliged. I carried the empty crates to the wagons, and then tied them secured.

We all double-checked our cargo to make sure that we had not left anything, and after Therick had to run off to fetch some cheques, and Berry forgot a box of her personal effects for cleaning herself; we were finally ready to move out.

I jumped into a wagon with Moonwash and Therick, while the rest rode the other one because we had two. The crustecar workers that worked there waved and cheered, but they were soon drowned out by what we found outside.

The piss hunters had gathered. The rest of the crustecars we’d rescued were in the surrounding streets. The orphans were present and enthusiastic. An elf who was openly an elf waved from the rooftops. A bunch of other people had been taken in by the massive procession and were now openly gawking and pointing. But what those strangers were most excited about was the massive 5-meter-tall man that was waiting for us at the very front. Even my grandfather had come, and we were sent off by a hero.

“See the world Haell! Have an adventure!!”

“We’ll miss you!”

“Send letters!”

“Come back soon!”

“You’re so cool!”

“I want to be like you someday!”

“Go Harvesters!”

“What’s happening? What’s happening!?”

“Don’t forget us!”

“Good luck!”

“May the angels be with you!”

“Be safe!”

“God bless you!”

“Did you forget anything!?”

“Bring gifts!”

“Come by sometimes!”

“Latarus born!”

“See you later!”

“Stay safe!”

“Tell us stories next time!”

“Goodbye!”

“GOODBYE!” I answered them back. We all did. We did not stop until they were out of sight, as some of them, the ones that mattered most, followed us all the way to the gates. It was an impromptu parade that I was sure would cause them some trouble, and I took joy in how that was to be my final gift to them all.

I was crying by the end. Snot was running down my nose. It was a good thing that my makeup would not fracture just from that. But I did not let any of that detract from the biggest smile on my face that I showed to the people that I loved.