The mission to eliminate the invaders who caused great damage to the Border Guard Unit and the facility was completed earlier than usual.
Rayos, who seemed to be clinging to the man’s back, reluctantly went to report that the mission was safely concluded.
“You’re the one who put Shifuru through that, aren’t you? You’re the reason Tarune screamed my name (alias) and died! You’re the reason I had to kill Honey when she tried to help me, all wounded! It’s good that Aiz, Shiers, and Sharz managed to escape, but it’s your fault they were separated…”
It was scary. The curses of hatred were spun endlessly.
The man had no skills to sense or see spiritual beings (astral bodies, spirit bodies, energy bodies). He couldn’t hear or see them.
The man guided the clinging Rayos to the Royal Castle in the important capital of the country.
“Welcome back, Commander Hero.”
“Ah, thank you for your duty at the gate.”
The gatekeeper informed the man—Commander Hero—of his return.
The thick doors opened and closed.
Rayos learned the man’s name was Hero.
“How should I get my revenge? Hm?” He noted down the castle’s layout, including the corridors and ceilings, while wondering how he would report to Hero’s superior.
“Commander Hero, what can I do for you?”
“…I am here to report on the mission you assigned.”
“Please wait a moment.”
“I will confirm it immediately.”
“Ah, I’ll be waiting.”
There was a guard soldier standing in front of his superior’s office as well.
One of them knocked and entered the room to confirm permission to meet with Commander Hero.
“Thank you for waiting.”
“Please, come in.”
“Hero, I will enter.”
“Come in.”
A voice from inside the room, emphasizing haste, called out, “Enter.”
“Wow…”
Rayos, floating behind Hero, looked at the appearance of the superior, who he assumed was manipulating Hero.
He thought, “This lord of the castle must be disliked by the goddess of beauty.”
He placed his hand on his forehead and wished their values of beauty and ugliness would align with those of Earth and the former Silveren Countship.
While Rayos was wishing for such trivial things, Hero and his superior, a toad-like, warty being, continued their mission report.
“Hmph. Then, I order you to fill the positions of the lost soldiers.”
“Yes, I accept the soldier replenishment mission.”
“The deadline, let me see… ♪ Try to accomplish it within four days.”
“Ugh, yes. I will manage the soldier replenishment within four days.”
“Good. You may be dismissed.”
“Excuse me…”
Hero could not defy his superior due to the curse.
Attacking his superior or intentionally putting himself in danger was included in the prohibited acts of the curse, and he could not do it.
When Hero bowed his head, he thought of killing the superior immediately, but a sharp pain shot through his body, reminding him that it was a prohibited act.
Rayos saw the bitter expression on Hero’s face, his target for revenge.
Rayos thought, “Their master-subordinate relationship doesn’t seem to be going well.”
He left the room with Hero.
Once he knew Hero’s room, Rayos wandered around the castle to gather information about Hero.
He listened to conversations from servants working in the castle, especially maids, chambermaids, (female) attendants, and collected rumors and recent topics by passing through walls and doors.
Hero’s weaknesses. Traumas. Abilities.
He listened to eavesdropping on any casual conversation that might provide a hint, no matter how small.
“Hohō ♪ Curses, huh? ♪ I heard something good.”
Hero had risen to the rank of commander with a skill called “Magic Power Corrosion,” which disturbed his possessed magic power.
However, no matter how much merit he accumulated, he could not defy that toad who was his master in the curse contract.
“The more magic power he has, the more effective it is. That’s unfair… that guy (Hero)…”
Rayos now roughly understood the name and effect of Hero’s troublesome skill.
He pondered how to get revenge. If he wanted to kill him easily, he could attack him in his sleep.
However, that method was too kind for the revenge of what happened to Shifuru and others, and the separation from Aiz and the others.
Rayos wouldn’t be satisfied unless they suffered more, unless they were cast into the depths of despair. He thought. He thought and thought. His thoughts turned to making Hero take responsibility for all the minor accidents that had occurred within the castle.
“First, let’s start with an accident that’s only a scratch.”
He went to the castle kitchen.
He took a shortcut by passing through the walls.
“Hey, hey, move it efficiently.”
“Yes!”
Cooks and laborers were cleaning up after lunch.
Even though it was still light, the cooks began preparing for dinner.
The laborers busily cleaned dishes, sorted ingredients, and did chores for the cooks.
“Which one should I injure? Hmm~”
Rayos pointed at each person, choosing today’s unfortunate victim.
“It’s you.”
One of the laborers was carrying a sack, possibly filled with flour, on his shoulder.
Rayos possessed the flour sack.
He forcefully tore the bottom of the sack from the back.
*Poof!*
“Huh? It got lighter…”
“Gah, *cough cough*!? What is it!? Smoke… flour? Hey!? What the hell did you do! You ruined the perfectly good meal! What do you think you’re doing?!”
The laborer carrying the flour sack looked back, confused by the sudden lightness of the burden on his shoulder, only to be enveloped in pure white.
And from within the white vision, he heard voices filled with confusion and anger from the cooks and colleagues who were also doing chores in the kitchen.
He looked down at the flour sack he was carrying (the bottom part).
*Swish…*
For some reason, the flour sack he was carrying had torn, and this white flour was swirling throughout the kitchen.
The laborer, facing the future where he would be yelled at by everyone, had to desperately think of a way to be saved.
He was thinking, “Why did the flour sack tear?” with a skewed thought process, demanding responsibility.
“Hehehe ♪ Ahhh~”
Rayos, who had possessed the flour sack, repaired the torn part as if rewinding a recording.
He inflated the shrunken part where the flour had been lost by injecting air.
If touched, he made the flour stick to the lining of the bag to disguise it.
He also disguised the weight by moving the bag downwards when someone other than the laborer tried to pick it up.
“*Cough.* The flour is a bit thinner. Honestly. What if there had been a dust explosion?!”
The head of the kitchen, the chef, was in an uproar, demanding to know who had scattered the flour.
It was one of the laborers. Specifically, the one carrying the flour sack.
The laborer with the flour sack possessed by Rayos on his shoulder.
The laborer who had been asked by the chef to carry it to bake bread for dinner.
The suspects were narrowed down to these two.
“…”
“It wasn’t me!?”
“Silence! You see, you can tell by looking at the bag… Hmm? What is this?”
The laborer who saw the bottom of the bag ripped ripped his face turned pale.
The other one protested his innocence to the chef and the cooks standing with their arms crossed, saying he wasn’t the culprit who caused the disturbance.
The chef, as a fair judge, examined the flour sacks held by the two, turning them inside out and lifting them to determine who was responsible for the commotion.
However, they were perplexed to find no trace of a hole or a decrease in the flour in either bag.
“No way…!? You’re playing games again, Chef? Is this to create an atmosphere for a mock trial? …Huh? Seriously, you can’t tell who the culprit is?”
The cooks, who had been watching to see if the culprit would escape or try some strange trick, began to grow anxious as they realized the chef’s confusion was not an act.
Who on earth was the culprit? They had to redo the preparation for dinner, and before that, they had to clean up the flour-covered kitchen and change clothes.
They had been furious, thinking the culprit wouldn’t get away with just losing their job, but they never expected the culprit to be unknown!
In the end, the culprit was not found.
With the arrival of soldiers, alerted by the commotion, the situation in the kitchen became even more confusing, with no one knowing how the culprit had escaped.
They resumed their cleanup and preparation, rushed by time.
“…I’m saved? Why?”
The laborer, the culprit, was confused.
He continued his assigned work while glancing at the chefs’ expressions.
The flour sacks, the evidence, were taken away by the chef and the soldiers who had appeared.
The laborer was terrified of being summoned at any moment and desperately wanted to go to bed early that day.
“…It’s flour inside, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it appears to be. And it tastes like flour.”
In the department that handled incidents within the castle, the chef was explaining what had happened in the kitchen.
Examining the two bags again with a knife, they were simply bags filled with flour.
Rayos, who had possessed them, had created new flour with magic to fill the bags completely.
No one would use magic detection on a simple bag of flour; there was no reason to.
“To prevent similar incidents from happening in the future, I want to find the culprit…”
“I wish I could…”
They both looked at the evidence bags of flour, wondering how they could possibly find the culprit.
They searched their memories for anyone who could tell them.
And finding no such person, they sighed, resigned to the case being unsolvable, and dispersed, hoping that the same thing would not happen again.
The chef was busy.
The chief, ordering the soldiers to carry the two evidence bags of flour, took them away.
As the soldiers received permission from the chief to tie the remaining flour with ropes to prevent it from spilling, Rayos decided he had done enough and released his possession of the flour bags, leaving.
He slipped through walls and ceilings, looking for another place (where a commotion might occur) to cause a new strange incident.
A few weeks later.
Hero, who had successfully resolved the soldier replenishment and been assigned another difficult task, heard news that strange incidents had begun occurring in the castle recently, with injured people starting to appear.
“Strange incidents… I don’t like the sound of that…”
He was ordered by his superior to resolve them.
“Ah, if only someone would break this curse.”
As Hero wished for the resolution of the strange incidents, he looked at documents, searching for something else suitable as fertilizer to increase the harvest from the moderately agricultural villages of this small country.
If he increased the number of soldiers, the next problem would be food.
Would Hero ever get a vacation?
…*Screams echo*…
The sound of turning pages and writing with a brush pen filled the executive office, but today, the screams of the victims of the strange incidents began to be heard.
“…It’s before noon today.”
*Scratch, scratch.*
*Flip.*
In order to carry out his superior’s orders, he immediately resumed his work.
If the curse was activated, it would be a painful effort in vain.
Just as Hero was thinking this, there was a knock on his executive office door.
“Commander Hero. His Majesty the Emperor wishes to see you.”
“…Understood.”
“Damn it all!” Hero slammed his fist on his executive desk.
The desk, likely wondering what it had done to deserve such venting, endured it.
Hero was ordered by his superior to solve the strange incidents.
Unbeknownst to him, this was Rayos’s trap.
Hero went to the Castle Troubled Incident Countermeasures Department to investigate each strange incident caused by the evil spirit (Rayos) one by one, to obtain information.
