Published: September 10, 2025
Satou here. In fiction like detective manga or dramas, it's one thing for incidents to happen wherever the protagonist goes, but in real life, I’d rather not deal with trouble popping up everywhere. Peaceful everyday life is the best, isn’t it?
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“What’s the big deal?”
“Karina is—”
“You have to come with us!”
Pulled along by Tama and Pochi, I slipped through the shadows and moved to somewhere else.
Emerging from the alley shadows, we arrived at a square near the outer walls of Karisuok City.
Something had happened because many people in the square were all crouched down, looking sick.
At several places in the square, fires had been lit, and in one crowded corner, there were signs that food was being distributed.
—Food poisoning?
“Harya~”
“Master, this way!”
Tama and Pochi pulled me by the hand toward a blue glowing point indicating Lady Karina.
“Master, over here.”
Liza’s voice came from the glowing point.
By the water source in the center of the square, Lady Karina was sitting down.
“Lady Karina, are you alright?”
“...Satou.”
At my call, Lady Karina directed a pained look at me.
Above her, an AR display showed her condition.
—Status: “Curse: in progress.”
I didn’t expect there to be a status ailment that even Laka couldn’t dispel.
It seemed Lady Karina had been cursed.
Since it was unlikely that only she was cursed in a foreign country we had just arrived at, I checked the others nearby who were feeling unwell.
Sure enough, the people around were also cursed.
I searched the map for those in the “curse” status and marked them.
There were so many that I grouped them and color-coded the markers.
“Master~?”
“Is Karina okay?”
Tama and Pochi looked up at me worriedly.
“Yeah, she’s fine.”
I smiled back to reassure them and selected from my magic menu a necromancy spell related to “Return Curse,” a curse reflection spell.
Among them was a spell called “Karma Retribution (Spice Return Curse)” that strikes back at the curser with tenfold curse, but it might kill the target, so I passed on that.
—I chose “Return Curse: Chaser.”
This handy spell reflects the curse back to the curser and also tracks their location.
When I cast the spell, black miasma poured from Lady Karina’s body and transformed into black, paper-cutout-like crows, then flew upward—
“Nyu?”
“They disappeared.”
For some reason, the moment the crows tried to fly over the water, they burst and vanished.
Normally, they should have flown to the curser’s location, but maybe some curse reflection countermeasure was in place, so the tracking was cut off midway.
For now, since Lady Karina’s status returned to “none,” I was satisfied.
Since others were also cursed, instead of individually using “Return Curse,” I decided to use the advanced light magic purification spell, “Divine Might Radiance Purification,” to dispel all the curses at once.
“Nyu!”
Just as I was about to activate the spell, Tama slashed his claws in the empty air.
Through the skill-enhanced vision, I saw a mosquito split in half falling.
A mosquito? In this snowy season?
Why?
Thinking that, the conversation with Arisa flashed in my mind.
‘You said you got bitten by an insect, right? Maybe the vampire mosquito is the vector?’
Thinking it unlikely, I still scanned the falling mosquito’s data.
Its species was “Vampire Mosquito: Variant.”
...No way.
Searching around for “Vampire Mosquito,” I found quite a few.
With no reason to ignore them, I used spatial magic “Garage” to create a subspace, then with wind magic “Air Control,” I swept up all of them in one go.
I also sucked up the freshly fallen snow nearby, but since the mosquitoes dying would be a problem, I sent the snow to storage.
I kept one mouse that had the same cursed condition as Lady Karina for confirmation, then canceled the previous spell and cast “Divine Might Radiance Purification” to cleanse the curses from the people collapsed in the square.
A brilliant flash colored the square, but since no one else cared, it was fine.