The next morning, Nem and the others were led into a vast flat field that ended in an abrupt mountain flank. The rising sun came from behind their backs and didn't draw any shadows and lined up archery targets were perfectly visible, outlined by the dark mountain rocks.
Jane Spencer, in a brown dress, was waiting beside a few crates to start the lesson.
This archery class was a fairly rare event, but Nem was the only newcomer in the past two months, so this was only a first for him. After Jane's greetings, the orphans took the bows and arrows by themselves and got in position while Nem was given a personal lesson.
While the young woman was explaining how to determine which one was his dominant eye, she noticed the boy in front of her was looking rather... dull.
"What's wrong ? Little Nem, you're always so interested, usually... Is this because the bow is a ranged weapon ? But you were fine with the throwing knife."
She made a confused face, and even though it was cute, Nem was too annoyed by his nickname to notice it. As a response, he just made the finger-gun gesture and mimicked a shot with an interrogative look.
'How come there aren't any guns if we're using long-ranged weapons ?'
That was his question. Jane opened her mouth, seemingly enlightened, and said :
"You're too young and small to handle the rifles and the handguns are too loud and unreliable. Also, it's rare for churches to use firearms, because most believe they fall under the domain of the God of Combustion. But shouldn't you know this by now ?"
Nem suddenly seemed to be plagued by a very sore throat, as he coughed a few times. Seemingly forgetting about the previous conversation, he quickly grabbed a bow and played with it in a mostly correct fashion.
'Haha ! What kind of kid never played with a toy bow ? This is easy !!'
After he was corrected on his posture and hand placement three times in a row, Nem expression grew more concentrated. And he shot his first arrow... which simply fell on the floor right in front of his feet.
'F*ck !'
That day, Nem found out he wasn't a talented archer. Not even close.
***
Time passed, and with it, Nem grew, absorbing knowledge with perseverance and focus. Due to his peculiar mental illness, his mind was never inactive, and his body had no choice but to follow.
Little by little, Nem found out how dangerous this was. His health was slowly deteriorating, and he became more prone to self-destructive behavior, even neglecting hygiene. Like a drunk solving his drinking problem by drinking to forget it, he kept being more active to fight his growing concern.
Despite this, he clearly made great progress in everything he did, and woke up every day with a strong desire to live life to its fullest. Nobody around him noticed anything, maybe because they didn't really know in the first place or because he was never down or sad. For a shut-in like him with a non-negligible mental trauma, being forced to be positive all the time was really annoying, but then again... he was still positive.
Nem continued to practice his meditation every evening, grabbing onto the clarity brought with it. He didn't have a real solution to this problem. It wasn't like the "brainwashing" done by brother Ivan – noticing the existence of this illness had no impact on its development, or perhaps had a negative impact.
In this strange conundrum, roughly a month had gone by since Nem arrived in this world. Amazingly, Nem was now the best in hand-to-hand combat, even surpassing all the children younger than 12 when he held back and Lana if he fought seriously... or so he thought, since he never really tried. Similar progress was made in the other domains as well.
'Well, if she gets her staff I'll lose no matter what, it's not even close. I can't even imagine what would happen if she had her actual weapon of choice, whatever it is.'
These were astonishing results, even for the instructors who could only see a third of it. These children weren't normal after all, they each were pretty good at at least one thing and trained every day as well. In return, Nem had dark circles under his eyes, paler skin and a constant need to clear his throat. Everyone assumed he was sick, but he knew the truth.
'At this rate, I'll probably die in another six months... If nothing changes I'll have to try some of the methods I thought of.'
These methods included finding calming drugs, locking himself in his room and chaining himself to his bed and asking the monks for a brainwashing directly, exposing a large number of his secrets in the process.
All of these were less than ideal, although Nem had to admit he would have already done the first one if he could.
'Why is it so hard to find weed all of a sudden ?'
As for dying and giving another shot at reincarnation, Nem wasn't tempted at all. Perhaps it was because he was very lucky to have found a place to learn and train as well as a way to acquire superpowers so quickly or because of the strange memories about Nartolem.
Fortunately, there was hope. Recently, Nem had felt his meditative state become much more solid. He believed that he had finally figured out the way to sustain it for a short amount of time. The benefits of what was described as "spiritual vision" in the scroll were currently unknown for Nem, and he could only count on his luck.
Becoming a Cursed was an option in Nem's mind, but only before he did his daily meditation that made his mental illness lessen.
'I'm literally surrounded by monks and Blessed right now. suddenly becoming a Cursed in front of them in the hope that it will magically cure me and go unnoticed is completely delusional. The odds of me making it worse are almost 100%.'
This was the "sane" conclusion he had come to these last few days. Today, Nem was returning to his room when the usual "insane" conclusion flashed through his mind.
'Since I'm probably dead every way, why not try it ? Go out with a bang !'
Then he sighed. 'Even my mentally ill self doesn't believe I'll survive if I do it... Anyways, it's time to put my game face on... again.'
Nem stretched energetically to make his blood flow evenly into his body and sat down onto the floor, crossed-legged. His sickly face took a deep breath and he joined the tip of his fingers before his chest, starting meditation.
The small room was gradually filled with sounds of strange breathing. The rhythm sometimes unbelievably fast and sometimes so slow it seemed like Nem didn't breathe at all. An observer who didn't have any experience with it would feel taken by the rhythm, dragged and kept in a feeling of falling in a spiral. That was the way Nem had found to sustain meditation, he was confident in it.
Soon, his mind calmed down and he found himself in the position of a spectator. Everything was under his watch. Nem made his body open his eyes, revealing two dark-red pupils, shining in the slightly dark room.
Before Nem's eyes, the previously empty room he knew so well was suddenly filled with lights. Like in the night sky, stars seemed to float in the air, following mysterious patterns. The 'stars' were all of different colors and an indescribable feeling emanated from each of them.
The biggest one was like the blazing sun, warmer than fire and extremely proud, while another was soft and gentle like the moon. Nem could spot all the 12 blessings in the room and they all appeared as very small globes of light, gently floating.
Besides them, they were countless "stars" with much weirder shapes and characteristics. Nem had a strange feeling when he looked at them, it felt dangerous and made his heart beat faster in a mixture of temptation and disgust.
He couldn't tell what these Curses' powers were, but he was sure of one thing : they came at a price. If he took them, they would take something back.
'So this is how Curses work... That's insane, anyone of those lights can claim my life in exchange and I wouldn't have anything to say about it.'
'...Hum, my technique works better than I thought, I can stay in the state of spiritual vision for a while. I should try a few things.'
Nem extended his arm and touched the Blessing of the Sun. The light went right through his hand, as it didn't exist at all, only leaving a bit of warmth coursing through Nem's mind.
'I can't touch it all, is it because I don't have faith in this God ?'
All Blessings were the same, and when the Blessing of Peace went through his hand, Nem felt it calm his mind and he had the feeling of concealed danger appear at the same time.
'Those Blessings are not all sunshine and rainbows, all of them are not as innocent as they appear. Well, it's not like they could win against the Curses if that was the case.'
Making his mind quickly, Nem then reached to a Curse in the shape of light-grey concentric circles, which reminded of the undulations of water. This time, he clearly felt something, the light was faintly repelling his hands. Puzzled, Nem used more strength and the strange circles suddenly jumped out of his palm, like a wet soap during a shower.
'What's going on ? I don't understand, I thought one only needed resolution to become a Cursed... Was this not referring only to the danger involved ? Perhaps I need to truly have no hesitation in my mind to truly be able to touch it.'
'Whatever... I'll stop for today and see if they are any changes to my mental state.'
At the moment this thought crossed his mind, Nem eyes stopped moving and widened in surprise. Even his mouth opened slightly.
'This... why does it feel so familiar ?'
Before him was a small and unassuming shape, it floated in the air and didn't seem to emit light, only reflecting it. It was a small whirlpool, even stranger than the other Curses and Nem knew it should be completely foreign to him, in fact, he didn't even know what color the thing was. And yet... the spiral gave Nem the same feeling like an old friend he didn't see for a long time, a type of familiarity that exceeded déjà-vu.
Turning back to his detached state of mind, Nem noticed that he had unknowingly moved towards the shape, almost touching it. His pupils dilated at the sight. It was a miracle he even saw the thing, it seemed to melt into the surroundings in a paradoxically ordinary way.
'This is definitely a Curse, but why is it that I don't sense any danger from it ? It will still take something away from me, but somehow it doesn't even worry me in the least. Also, it's weird in general, why is it that it doesn't emit light, like literally all the others even the Blessing of Darkness ?'
He observed the whirlpool of unknown origin with a serious gaze. Compared to the others, it was... weak, like a child wanting to extort money to imitate his professional bank-robbing parents but only capable of stealing candy and give a pat on the back of the victim afterward to make sure they weren't too angry.
Based on this and the peculiar feeling of familiarity, Nem came to a decision.