'How to resurrect a dead man?'
[What makes you think you can resurrect people as you please?]
Liel clicked his tongue.
[You cannot unlock Necromancy skill on this level.]
Therefore, Liel decided he'd come along with Naomi to her village, even with the high probability that he'd become sick – just like every other male there.
For him, her well-being was the most important. Not that he told her so. He was sane enough to remember that sudden infatuation would only bring suspicion.
Ashwell village could be reached in a two-hour walk from the forest where they fought with Melva. The sky was dark when they arrived, and Liel suddenly felt the pain in his stomach when he stepped foot on the village's border.
'Fuck!' Liel bit his tongue, stopping the curse from slipping past his mouth and alerting Naomi of his pain. He volunteered for it, despite the System's incessant insult of his lack of IQ.
[Warning!]
[You are about to enter a cursed zone.]
'Too late, damn it.'
The pain had grown more excruciating the moment he walked further into the village. He let out a low groan, alerting Naomi, who walked in front of him.
She turned around with a concerned gaze. "You're hurting yourself."
He knew. But damn it, he wanted to be with her. "I don't want to leave you."
"I'm fine here. Thanks for everything that you've done, Liel. But you have to leave. I can't let you here if you're this hurt."
"It's fine," he said. It wasn't. Of course, it wasn't. For a fleeting agonizing moment, he thought that perhaps, it was what Melva felt when this village's leader and his men bit the dark mage and her unborn baby.
Naomi abruptly turned around and placed a hand on his bare chest. Stopping him mid-step. "You are clearly not."
He could feel her eyes roaming his face. She grimaced at the slightly pinched expression, the thin sheen of sweat on his forehead and clenched jaw. "I don't know anyone besides you."
Her face softened at that. She brought her hand down, and he missed her warmth already. Naomi furrowed her brows, staring far away.
"There's an abandoned barn on the outskirts of the village. Hopefully, the curse doesn't reach there. Perhaps you can stay there. You can go here again tomorrow when the curse's effect eases in the morning."
Liel didn't want to, but the pain grew even more agonizing. He didn't think he could brush it away any longer and pretend that he wouldn't buckle any second. He nodded.
And so, they both parted ways.
Liel walked in the direction Naomi told, heading north from Ashwell village. Striding through the woods with his back hunched, he felt the curse's effect diminish as the distance grew.
When the pain disappeared completely, he straightened his back and looked at his surroundings.
'Can you scan how wide the scope of Melva's curse is?'
[Scanning area for curse radius.]
[Error.]
'Seriously?'
[Scanning area for curse rad–]
[Error.]
[Scanning curse's ground zero.]
[Scanning completed.]
Liel spluttered, 'Are you kidding me now?'
[Erasing scan result because user do not–]
'Don't fuck with me.'
Eerily, he could picture some androgynous figure grinning behind the floating purple screen in front of him. Very insulting.
[4 points of a foreign curse found.]
'Where?'
[There are 4 curse points exactly 400 meters away in the east, south, west, and north of Ashwell village. The center of those 4 curse points triggers the highest curse effect.]
'Show me where the nearest point is.'
The floating purple screen now displayed a childish and almost not helpful map. It was crude and extremely simple, looking like a child's drawing, really, but it did well in showing him six important dots.
A blinking green dot, signing where he stood at the moment. One red dot to signify where Ashwell village's center was. Four blue dots show the four curse points the System detected.
With that, Liel headed to the nearest blue dot. Intent on destroying whatever it was made the village's males suffer such excruciating pain in the stomach.
And he stopped dead when he arrived there.
To be precise, he stopped because he didn't find anything, despite the System's stubborn report that he was in the correct place.
[Not only an idiot, but you also can't see the obvious.]
'You don't even have an eye. Stop insulting me.' Liel cursed under his breath. 'What am I looking for exactly?'
[Dig.]
Raising an eyebrow, Liel looked at the ground beneath his feet. It looked hard. 'Wait, where did I put the stone dagger?'
[Idiot.]
Even so, the System still summoned the stone dagger for him. It fell to his hand from the glitching air before his red eye.
[The System cannot summon it again out of the radius.]
'A kilometer?'
[A hundred meters, dummy.]
Ignoring that, Liel started digging with the Stone Fang Dagger. Surprisingly, the hard-looking ground wasn't that hard to dig. In no time, he made a hole about two feet deep. Then, something hard clashed with his stone dagger.
Liel narrowed his eyes and dug around it. He carefully scraped the ground and scooped up the soil.
A Russian doll, made of stone, was what was in the hole he dug.
'The hell is this?' He quickly twisted the doll. It opened with a pop, making something wrapped in a piece of white fabric drop on his lap.
[Scanning unidentified objects.]
Liel brought the white fabric to his eyes for close inspection. Setting the Russian doll aside, he unwrapped the white cloth. It was dirt.
Like, a handful of dirt. Reddish and with a strange smell when he tentatively sniffs it.
[Scanning complete.]
'What is it?'
[Dirt.]
'The heck, you want to say I got a jar of dirt like fucking Jack Sparrow?'
[You ask for it.]
[The System only provides information acquired from scanning it.]
'Useless piece of–'
[This user's level is too low for a more advanced scan.]
[Please ask a more powerful mage or a level 7 System user.]
'And where would I meet them?'
[Torrine is the capital town of the Tashlym Region. You can find much stronger mages there who might know about curses. There might also be some System users.]
Liel decided that he'd go there tomorrow.
His stomach growled.
[There is fruit.]
'Can you scan which one is not poisonous?'
[…]
'Right.'
[You can eat snakes.]
Liel would rather sleep than hunt for a snake. He hoped there wouldn't be any snake sauntering around the abandoned barn. For now, he'd sleep and try to forget about his hunger.
Tomorrow, he'd go to the capital city and look for a stronger mage after he met Naomi.
Tomorrow came.
So was a fire in the middle of the village.