Yotogi no Kuni no Gekkouhime

Chapter 19: Curse Invoker.

Tonight’s the night of new moon. Under this dark moonless night, a bonfire was set up in front of Valbell Castle’s gate to illuminate the area. Using the bonfire as his sole source of light, the lone gatekeeper tasked with night security lets out a big yawn.

With the big event of sending off the Holy Prince and his entourages from Helifalte Kingdom officially over a few days ago, he can’t help but feels relaxed. There’ll be no more visitors for a while, and no one is stupid enough to try attacking Valbell Castle from the front, so it’s inevitable for the gatekeeper to lowers his vigilance.

However at this moment, in the middle of the darkness, the gatekeeper notices a single shadow approaching the gate from far away. Somewhat alarmed, the gatekeeper steels his nerve, calling out to the shadow moving in the darkness, making footsteps sound as it moves along the cobblestone path.

“Who the hell are you! It’s long past the time for visitors. If you have businesses here, come back tomorrow.”

“My, even though I toil my old body coming here, what a horrible treatment.”

“A-, Apothecary-dono! Please excuse my rudeness!”

Hearing the hoarse voice, the gatekeeper hurriedly apologizes. The old woman who walks up to him, though her appearance is suspicious, like that of a witch, but she’s the apothecary in princess’s service.

It is said that she’s a descendant of a family that comes from foreign country, but he doesn’t really know the details himself. The medicines this old woman made, although expensive and disgusting-looking, its effect is a real deal, so the nobles of Valbell trusted her highly.

“May I know the reason why you visited at such late hours? If you’re here to deliver the medicines, it should be us going to receive it at your place though……”

“Well, the princess said to me that her 『head hurts』a few days ago, so when it’s ready I think it’s better to give her the medicine as soon as possible, so here I am.”

Said the old woman as she laughs fu fu fu and walks past the guard. The old woman easily walks into the castle as if it’s her own home, she can do that because she’s a doctor valued by Valbell Kingdom itself. The guard didn’t stop her and allow the old woman with a suspicious-looking crow to enter.

“Good grief, princess’s having a headache again huh. The one who should be having headaches are us servants…..”

After the old woman completely disappears, the guard complained to himself. Princess Ente always have a headache after she sent off envoys from other country. All the servants thought that the reason for her headache must be because she has to put up an act of politeness and elegance, her original self is that of an ill-mannered and arrogant princess after all.

And the pent-up stress made the princess vent it all on the subordinates. Clicking his tongue in dissatisfaction, the gatekeeper resumes his post.

“My my Ente-sama, how are you feeling?”

“You already know it from my face don’t you.. It’s the worst.”

The old woman who enters Ente’s room under the guise of 『Medical consultation』smiles as if making fun of Ente, who’s sitting on the chair in a bad mood.

『SHINY SHINY, GOLDY SHINY, I TAKIE TAKIE?』

“Calm down Kokumaru. I have to examine princess’s condition now.”

The crow called Kokumaru is excited by shiny stuff on Ente’s body, but the old woman scolds him. Although Ente has invited the old woman over countless times by now, she still doesn’t like the idea of a dirty old hag and a crow entering her pure, clean room.

“Curse Invoker. Can’t you please stop bringing in that annoying caw caw crow?”

“No can’t do, he is an important partner in my work after all, it’d also be better to let him hears what we’re about to talk.”

The old woman―― the Curse Invoker, casually refused Ente’s request. Her name is Curse Invoker. No one knows her real name. The only things known about her are that, one she’s a descendant of a family that comes from a foreign country long time ago, second that her magic has the power of ‘cursing people, bringing death to them’, nothing more than that are known.

“Things were really great back in the good old days. Pestilence, Famine, War…… the world was filled with feeling of resentment and hatred to the brim. But it’s so peaceful as of this era, so I have no choice but to do a boring side work as an apothecary. I’m truly grateful for princess for giving me the real job I wanted to work on.”

Said the Curse Invoker in a tone that doesn’t seems to contain much gratitude, but Ente ignores her before asking the question that she wants to know.

“No need for flatteries. By the way, that Kokumaru…… that’s its name right. Wouldn’t it be better for you to find a human partner rather than a beast?”

“This one isn’t just any ordinary beast. It’s called 『Magic Beast』, a beast with magic power. Its intelligence and strength far surpasses any normal beasts, and it can even understand human language to an extent.”

“It’s just an annoying caw caw sound to me though.”

“Magic beast can only communicate with its master whom it made contract with. Other humans won’t understand it.”

“What’s with that, so it can only talk to a single person isn’t it, there’s no usefulness to it then.”

“No not at all, they’re rather convenient to use more than you think. For example……”

『STOOPID, STOOPID』

“What did the crow say just now?”

“It says that princess is truly beautiful, wise and benevolence.”

Said the Curse Invoker, Ente smiles upon hearing that.

“Oh my, it’s a really intelligent crow then. I kinda like it now.”

“It is indeed intelligent, my princess.”

Trying not to laugh, the Curse Invoker somehow managed to reply so. That’s right, just like the scene you saw earlier, only magic beast and its master can communicate with each other, with this ability they can exchange information whenever and wherever straightforwardly.

“I’m a little curious now. How does a beast turns into a magic beast I wonder?”

“Providing it with food and a place to sleep, together with sharing it with some of your magic and that’ll be enough. However, if you give it too much, not only that its intelligence will be overwhelming, but your own magic power will decrease as well. The safe zone will be around three months.”

“I’d hate to give the beast my own magic power. Not to mention that I have to live with it, absolutely no way I’d do that.”

“Is that so. Well, if you don’t want to then you don’t have to.”

As the conversation reaches to this point, Ente combs her hair with her hand, standing up from her chair and approaches the Curse Invoker.

“I didn’t call you here just to listen to your lecture about training an animal. Have you prepared what I asked for?”

“Hehheh, it’s here my princess. I’ve prepared you a 『Special Medicine』for curing your headache.”

In servile manner, the Curse Invoker bows to her, and a smile quickly forms on Ente’s face. Just by acting a little subservient to her, presenting her with a bait and her mood improves immediately, so the Curse Invoker finds the princess to be a client that’s extremely easy to deal with. You have to feed a rich idiot appropriately to be rewarded handsomely.

“But still, telling me to kill a young child like this, don’t you think it’s a little too vicious? If you cursed too many people, one day the curse will come back to get you you know?”

“You’re real annoying you know what. And what a hypocrite you are, your mouth says it’s vicious, but your face looks very happy to me.”

“Oh my, seems like I’m busted. Hihi.”

The Curse Invoker’s eyes shine blazingly, her whole old body is full of vitality to the point that it’s creepy. Her smile so wide that it almost split her ears into two.

“This Curse Invoker’s main job is to curse people to death after all, but since Ente-sama is a kind-hearted person, you often told me to only weaken them, very rarely would you tell me to kill, so I’m very motivated.”

Up until now Ente’s requests to the Curse Invoker has only been to weaken the nobles from other countries that came to visit her. For Ente, she just wants to have a rumor spread around, saying that if you get involved with that princess your body will break apart.

Her eyes has only Milano in them. And since she has known him from childhood, that rumor didn’t matter as long as Milano didn’t get suspicious of her, and deep down Ente herself somewhat opposed the idea of killing someone outright.

On the other hand, the Curse Invoker is not happy with this. She’s a top-tier Curse Magic user, but with the princess’s dull requests she couldn’t use her outstanding skill to its fullest. Well it’s an easy job and pays real well, but doing a job not worth even putting effort into is not fun nonetheless.

But then, Princess Ente comes directly to her and told her that she ‘wants a girl dead’, the Curse Invoker couldn’t believe her ears when she heard that.

“Right right, the target…… her name is Selene right? I met her in my store unexpectedly.”

“You and Selene?”

“She told me that she wanted to buy a medicine for her important person. She’s a young yet very brave girl aren’t she.”

“Important person…… huh. What a goddamn frickin annoying wench!”

Ente bites hard into her thumbnail in frustration. As she thought, that little harlot really has a special feeling for Milano. The thought of that vamp resting her head on Milano’s shoulder, gazing up at the stars in a romantic mood during the night as both of them rode the carriage back to Helifalte truly frustrates her.

This is a little off-topic, but when Selene’s stomach is full with food, she’ll go sleeping like a log in the sleeping bag, her appearance like a bagworm, her usual place being the corner of the horse carriage. During daytime she just rolled around the carriage by herself, but Ente doesn’t know any of that.

“Curse Invoker! Get going and kill that girl already! Right now!”

“Yes yes. I’ll bring that out now.”

『GYAHAHA! HISTEHLIAH, HISTEHLIAH!』(Gyahaha! Hysteria, hysteria!)

Kokumaru laughs at the screaming Ente, making fun of her, but Ente has no idea. The Curse Invoker replies nonchalantly, rummaging in her pocket before bringing out a small transparent vial. Inside the vial is something black and elongated, wriggling. Even Ente who often requested her service has never seen this thing before.

“Hiee……? W-, what is that thing!?”

“This is a poison fabricated by the Curse Spell. Something that’ll cleanly eliminate Ente-sama’s ‘headache’ without any trace.”

The Curse Invoker does a little trolling by shoving the vial straight in Ente’s face, in which Ente screams and quickly flees to the wall of the room, her body almost become one with the wall. Well of course she would run. After all, the thing inside the bottle is a large deep black centipeded the size of about a man’s hand.

“S-, so it’s not the usual pebble huh……”

“Ahh, you meant the curse stone. If you just want to weaken someone, then filling a suitable stone with the curse is more than enough for the job. If you want to kill however, we need a more powerful curse.”

“And how’s that creepy bug and curse thing related?”

“It is very related. To make a poison bug, we need to gather large quantities of bug, then give each one of them magic power. After that we sealed them in a pot together with the catalyst―― Selene’s hair. After that, the bugs will kill and consume each other, the last one standing will be the one with the strongest curse. Stacking curse on top of each other so to speak. Naturally, it’s lethality is far surpasses the stone.”

The Curse Invoker explains proudly. The more Ente listens to her gruesome refining method, the more the hair on her skin stands.

“A-, and what are you going to do with that disgusting thing?”

“The process after is the same usual thing.”

“The same…… you mean like with the stone, just putting it somewhere close to the guy you want cursed?”

“As expected of Ente-sama the wise, you’re quick to understand.”

With a pale face, Ente somehow managed to speak. The way she does it up until now is, have the Curse Invoker prepared the curse stone, then she’ll secretly throw it in the horse carriage or their luggage. After that the curse will start working while they’re on their way back home, the curse target’s life will be destroyed.

With the curse stone, the stone acts like a charger that stores curse spell, within one week it’ll lose its energy and turn back into an ordinary stone, leaving no evidence. Such fine-tuning to the curse magic is skillfully tweaked by the Curse Invoker, a professional in the field of curses.

“But Selene has already gone back hasn’t she! It’s too late to bring it to her now!”

“It takes a lot more time to prepare than the curse stone after all. Worry not however. That’s precisely why we have Kokumaru here. He’ll be the carrier.”

『ARR YA FAH REAL……』(Are you for real……)

Kokumaru lets out a caw noise in dissatisfaction, but Ente interprets that as it showing loyalty to its master.

“Well, are you certain that it’ll really works?”

“Have any creations of this Curse Invoker made for you ever fail to work?”

“……No.”

The Curse Invoker smiles triumphantly before giving instructions to Kokumaru.

『DANG IT, DARIENAA……』

While grumbling and complaining, Kokumaru unwillingly grabs the small vial with his feet. The Curse Invoker opens the window without Ente’s permission, and Kokumaru flaps his wing, blending into the darkness of the night.

“Are you really sure that it’s fine to leave the vial with that crow?”

“It’s totally fine. Or rather there’s no one more suitable for this mission that Kokumaru. Even if someone see a crow flying into the castle’s garden, no one will be suspicious of it. What do you think? Magic beasts are convenient aren’t they?”

While looking out at the sky that Kokumaru flies into, the Curse Invoker proudly said so. Magic beasts really are convenient. Especially if they are to be made into magic beast, it’s better to use small birds, mouses, or small winged insects. Humans can do the guarding and fighting duty after all.

The knowledge and skill on how to create a magic beast has already been lost on this continent. but why is that? It’s because the royalty in the past always care only for good-looking large beasts such as tigers or wolves. If Kokumaru were to be an eagle instead of a crow, then perhaps Ente would show more interest in it. Of course, the Curse Invoker had already calculated this fact in before telling her.

It looks simple to replicate on the paper, but the risks involving the consumption of one’s magic upon failure is not a joking matter. There is no creature that will obey a master that is more foolish and weak than itself. If such a creature really exist, then it must’ve been really indebted to its master.1

Because of the difficulty in controlling it and various other factors, the practice of taming magic beasts slowly disappear, and in the Curse Invoker’s era, the art of such practice had been completely forgotten. Thanks to the past’s royalty being stupid losers, the Curse Invoker can monopolizes on this practice, she’s felt gratitude to them.

“That bug has already been basked in Selene’s scent, and it remembers well, so if we bring it to Helifalte Royal Palace, it’ll crawls to under her pillow on its on.”

“And about the time?”

“Let’s see, it depends on Selene’s amount of magic and mental power, but guessing from the magic power within her hair, it’ll take about two to three days for her body to crumble, longest possible being two weeks with her dying as her body slowly withers.”

“That’s not bad.”

Ente smiles. If it takes that much time for it to work, then the suspicion on her will be less as well. And even if they did question her, but the assassination tool in this operation is only a single centipede. There will be no evidences left behind.

When Selene’s in Valbell, she even has to cut her time being with Milano just to accompany Selene. She made Selene believed that they’re best friends, so all that left after that is to visit her to give her an apology.

Prince Milano will probably be deep in the depths of his sorrow, needing an emotional support. No matter how strong his spirit is, if he loses something important to him then it’ll definitely leaves a gap in his heart. That’s when she’ll make her elegant entry, supporting the grieving Prince from the shadows. Unfortunate, but she has to use Selene as a stepping stone.

“Fufu, seems like I’ll have to thanks Selene later.”

As the crow flies off into the dark night, Ente laughs in a truly amused manner, as if she could see Selene’s death in the future.