A Troublesome Curse

“A curse?”

“The Witch of the Tower actually managed to pull off a curse?”

“Why does everyone sound so surprised? Didn't the witches come up with curse-related stuff before? Isn't that how those Degenerates ended up the way they are after being cursed?”

“Those people deserved it, okay? Fundamentally, that doesn't even count as a curse, considering the blood of other evolved races can cause the same phenomenon.”

“True. Only something unique counts as a curse, like something similar to magic.”

“It's like a game—the difference between active and passive, I guess.”

“That's probably it.”

“What are you all even talking about? Does that matter? Isn't the important thing right now finding out what kind of curse it is?”

“Supposedly, it's a curse that makes you wish you were dead but won't actually kill you.”

“Tsk, tsk. The witches really do love coming up with new tricks.”

“New tricks or not, you can't deny that the witches are genuinely pushing the development of magic forward.”

“Yeah, it would actually be development if it weren't this specific brand of curse magic meant for tormenting people.”

“You’re really not going to mention why curse magic appeared in the first place, are you?”

“They must be one of the vested interest groups. Back then, over ten million people fled the Abandoned Land. God only knows what those people did while they were there.”

“Bullshit! I was just saying. What, do you people like being cursed?”

“No one likes being cursed, but anyone who hasn't done anything against their conscience shouldn't have anything to fear.”

“Exactly. You’re only this scared because you participated in the Abandoned War too, didn't you?”

The emergence of curse magic left everyone dumbfounded.

Particularly after the curse's effects were spread across the world channel, everyone began discussing this newly appeared branch of magic.

To be honest, while everyone was shocked by the appearance of such magic, it didn't go beyond that.

This was a magic world, after all. In a magic world, it was only natural for any kind of magic to appear.

It was especially natural because the idea that 'witches' and 'curses' were 'necessarily linked' was basically a consensus in the minds of Blue Star people.

In other words, given they were already mentally prepared for a magic world, the fact that a witch would use a curse didn't seem all that unacceptable.

If one had to point to something, it was only the actual effects of the curse that were a bit frightening.

But as some had said, as long as they hadn't done anything wrong or offended the witches, they had nothing to fear.

After all, looking at the overall behavior of the witches, while they had been very active lately, they were generally a bunch of people who preferred staying in their workshops to conduct research.

One could say that as long as you didn't take the initiative to provoke them, they wouldn't use such inhumane magic against you.

Anyone with even a slight understanding of researchers knew that these people didn't want to waste time on anything other than their studies.

Exactly.

To the witches, just thinking of ways to deal with those who were worried was a waste of time and energy.

Of course.

Not everyone was so open-minded, and not everyone was innocent of offending the witches.

Among those who were worried, aside from a small portion who genuinely suffered from paranoia, the majority were invaders who were still in hiding.

Originally, facing the witches' method of striking out everywhere and hunting based on luck, they only needed to hide, reduce their exposure, and keep a low profile to basically escape notice.

Who would have thought that these Black Witches would actually cook up something like a curse just to kill them off!?

As some of the parties involved, the information they possessed was naturally much more extensive than that of the leakers on the world channel.

One squad had been walking down the street, minding their own business, when four of them were directly cursed.

Furthermore, according to that squad leader's investigation of the scene, no suspicious individuals had been found.

In this situation, there were only two possible explanations.

One was that the act was done too stealthily—so stealthily that even these mercenaries, who had participated in the Abandoned War and escaped unscathed, couldn't detect it.

The second possibility was that the curse was cast from some unknown, distant location where these mercenaries couldn't see.

After all, in the concepts of Blue Star people, a curse involved a witch or hag in a dim room fiddling with various props to curse someone; it was impossible to curse someone face-to-face.

If it were the former, that would be fine; with a bit of caution, there was always a way.

But if it were the second case, then it wasn't a matter of being cautious or not.

Because there would be nowhere to run!

No matter where one hid, if the other party wanted to curse them, they could do it anytime, anywhere, and on a whim. Who could stand that!

“No, it seems we still have one place to hide!”

“Where?”

“A dungeon! That’s an alternate space where even card communication doesn't work. A witch's curse definitely wouldn't be able to reach there.”

“That makes sense.”

In their respective groups, everyone was discussing the matter of the curse.

Now, they only wanted to find a safe place to hide.

Some were even complaining about why they had attacked the witches in the first place.

However, complaints were just complaints. Faced with the established facts, they had no choice but to rack their brains for a solution.

As for why no one considered launching another attack on the Witch race, it was simply because they had finally come to their senses.

The previous attack on the Witch race only happened because Lan Qingyou, the Witch of the Tower, wasn't around, which gave everyone the courage to approach.

After a war, everyone now had a full understanding of what the Witch race was made of.

This was a race with high combat power and all sorts of bizarre magic.

Compared to other races like the forest elves, titans, or merfolk, whose magic was relatively straightforward, the witches were far more difficult to deal with.

“Do you think it's possible to figure out what medium the other party is using?”

Just as everyone was discussing which dungeon to flee into, someone asked a question that struck at the heart of the matter.

“Medium?”

Some didn't understand.

“As everyone knows, a curse usually requires a medium to act as a bridge between the caster and the target. Only then can they accurately curse someone.”

“If we can figure out exactly what the witches are using as a medium, maybe we can avoid the fate of being cursed?”

That was true!

After the reminder, everyone had a sudden realization.

In Blue Star's common knowledge, curses usually involved mediums such as dolls, candles, needles, mirrors, crystal balls, or even minerals.

If the witches developed their magic based on Blue Star's common knowledge, then such things definitely existed.

And so, everyone immediately took action, beginning to seek a deeper understanding of the Witch race's curse magic.

After all, compared to barely surviving in a dungeon where there was nothing, they still wanted to stay in the convenient environment of human society.