May 14, 2020

  Mara’s arm still feels really weird. After the fight with the now cursed spirit jujutsu sorcerer, Waldo tried to use his cursed technique and cursed energy to snap Mara’s arm back into its place. Mara went through a lot of pain during the entire process. She lost a lot of blood as well and that made her feel quite sluggish and weak afterwards. Then, that’s when an idea came into Waldo’s mind.

  “What if I simply have an animal kill you and you turn into a cursed spirit? All of these hassles would be eliminated if you weren’t a pathetic human being. Your training would be smoother and you could deal with these injuries with no problem.”

  Mara was beyond shocked when she heard Waldo suggest the idea. She frantically put up her arms and shook her head.

  “No, no, no, I don’t think it’s a good idea! I’m fine with staying like this!”

  “If that’s the case, then you should prove it. That was a very poor performance earlier.”

  “Y-yes… you’re right…”

  And so, they continued to travel west without any more problems. Mara’s arm still feels slightly off and a bit numb, but other than that there haven’t been any sort of motor or pain issues. However, even if she did have some issues, she would still be forced to pull the wagon behind her. She has surprisingly become used to the intense rotting smell of the corpses. It must be due to all of the time they’ve spent on the road. She’s gotten used to all of this way too quickly, she tells herself. She’s been needing less sleep in order to pull the wagon, and she has far more strength compared to before. Waldo also seems a bit different, but she doesn’t have the courage to tell that to his face.

  Suddenly, one of the wheels snap off of the wagon. It tips over and Mara catches herself before she falls down with it. Waldo looks back and sees the wheel roll away. A couple of the things on the wagon have fallen on the ground. He then glares at Mara, as if he’s accusing her of causing this.

  “I didn’t do it! It just came off on its own!”

  “Then either grab that wheel and fix it, or make a new one. We’re not stopping for such a trivial mishap. You’d better catch up.”

  Waldo looks forward again and keeps walking. It’s pretty clear that he is not going to stay behind and help Mara with the wagon. Mara stands there looking at Waldo for a few seconds. She goes back to the wagon and crouches next to the empty space of the wheel. She lets out a sigh she didn’t realize she was holding.

  “I guess I have to fix this.”

  .

  .

  After about 40 minutes of going around the forest, taking down some trees, collecting the wood and shaping it together, Mara successfully finishes making a new wheel and putting it on the wagon. At first, she tried to use the old wheel on the wagon but saw that it was no longer able to used anymore. Some kind of change occurred to the material that caused it to decay and rot. As she was looking at the wagon, she noticed that the other wheels also have this type of change, although it isn’t as severe. And so, she decided to leave those wheels alone and focus on the one that needed fixing. Now with the new wheel attached to the wagon, Mara picks the wagon back up and runs in the direction Waldo walked off. She picks up the pace, going from walking to jogging with the wagon.

  (Who knows how far he walked in this time. If it weren’t for me holding him back, he would walk twice as fast. So I just have to move twice as fast as well!)

  Mara looks behind her and lifts a finger off of the wagon’s handle bars. Some of the thermal energy around her goes into the air and the air lifts the wagon up and helps with making the wheels spin faster. With this method, she can ignore some of the weight and go faster. Turns out that it’s helping her a lot more than she thought. When she looks forward again, she sees a low hanging tree branch closing in, about to hit her. Mara gasps and moves out of the way of the branch. However, as Mara moves herself and the wagon out of the way, one of Waldo’s corpses fall out of the wagon.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Oh no! But, I can’t stop this thing right now! Actually… how do I stop?!”

  Mara lifts a finger again and releases her technique. The air begins to cool down and return to its normal temperature. The speed of the wagon decreases without the extra support. The wagon touches the ground again and everything comes to a halt. Mara takes a minute to recollect herself and make sure she wasn’t injured. After seeing that she is fine, she contemplates on whether or not she should go back to retrieve the corpse that fell off. She then decides that getting to Waldo comes first. Mara picks the wagon back up and continues to haul it. As she continues to go forward, she begins to feel Waldo’s cursed energy. That means he’s up ahead. But it’s not only Waldo she can sense. Something else…

  (No… it’s someone else! I’ve never felt anything like this before. They have just as much of a presence as Waldo does! I have to get there quickly!)

  Meanwhile, in the time that Mara was fixing the wagon, Waldo continued to walk forward without worry.

  “I don’t have the luxury to wait on a little girl. She’ll have to catch up on her own. Meanwhile, I shall find something to snack on.”

  Waldo says that, but when he takes more steps forward, he comes to a suddenly halt. There’s a sinister feeling in the air around him. He smells blood, but something is off about the scent. It reminds him back to the mauled and unrecognizable corpse that Mara had found during their training session. There was a faint scent like that back there too. He looks around in search of the source of blood. He turns to his left and walks in that direction. He comes to a stop at a tall tree and sees a body hanging from one of the branches. They’re hanging from the branch that has been impaled through their chest. One of the eyes has been gouged out and there’s much blood dripping from their mouth and eye socket. A brutal sight like this would have just frightened Mara, but Waldo smirks and nods his head.

  “A fitting method of disposal. I approve of this. Whichever person traversed through here has a sense of style.”

  He looks higher into the tree, the scent of blood still heavily present. He gives the base of the tree a light punch and another corpse falls down to the ground. Waldo looks down and inspects it. It’s just like the other corpses, mauled viciously as if an animal were chewing them up. That same feeling is present in these bodies again. This is not the work of a cursed spirit. If it turns out to be a sorcerer, their cursed technique should be mildly interesting. Perhaps they’ve even reached that “special grade” level of power.

  “Well, one can only hope. Human beings are such pitiful creatures. Hardly anyone strong is still alive in this world. The strong human beings are always the one being ripped off first by the slums of the shadows.”

  Waldo gets up from his crouching position. He stands there, his back facing towards the tree. He lets out a sigh and chuckles. He glances behind him, his eye flaring viciously.

  “And I assume you’re the one behind all of this? Well, I extend to you my greetings.”

  Behind him, Waldo looks in the shadows of the hills and feels a presence inside of them. He fully turns around and smirks.

  “Chicken? Come on out, I know you’re out there.”

  With the amount of cursed energy this individual is releasing, they’re practically asking to be caught. They’re either extremely bold, stupid, or do not know how to control their jujutsu just yet. It must be either the first or third option. There wasn’t a lot of cursed energy residues with the corpses Waldo found. Suddenly, Waldo sees a man come out of the shadows. He looks like a random straggler. Some of his clothes are shredded and his hair is long and untamed. Something about this man doesn’t strike him as human, but he’s undoubtedly part of the species. This cursed energy… it’s mixed in with something sinister, almost chaotic.

  “This is a sight for sore eyes. You’re human, but you sure don’t seem like one.”

  “It’s… complicated. Lots of stuff has happened.”

  “Am I correct in assuming that you killed all of the humans back here as well as the one by a smooth stoned spike?”

  “That’s right… they were grave sinners that needed to be cleansed.”

  “I see… so you’re the type of guy roaming around, finding people to redeem for some kind of justice. How very noble of you!”

  “It’s… not entirely like that.”

  “So? What are you going to be doing with me then? I’m sure you’ve noticed it already, but I’m a curse. I’m built off of the many sins of humanity. I leave a trail of destruction and blood in my wake. I’m enticed to eat these corpses you left behind, but currently I’m more interested in you.”

  The man’s expression turns more hostile but in a cautious manner. He can feel Waldo’s sadistic nature oozing from him, and he can tell this curse is pretty messed up. The man also begins to mumble to himself a bit. He’s too far away and is speaking too quietly for Waldo to actually hear him. He notices this small change in demeanor and chuckles.

  “Talking to yourself now? What’s that justice telling you to do now? Are you going to try to hunt me down? Are you going to try and kill me? You might be different from all of the other humans, but a human is still a human.”

  Waldo crouches down to one of the human corpses at his feet and takes off one of the arms. He bites into the hand, chewing it loudly just to see what the man will do. He’s actively provoking him.

  “I care not for what you do to their corpses, but at least have a bit of respect for them.”

  The man flicks his finger up by a slight bit and a spike pops out of the ground, aimed at Waldo. Waldo looks at the spike with no surprise and looks back at the man. He drops the arm and smirks with a smile of blood.

  “It seems you have a bit of a spine after all. So, what will it be? Which of our ideals will come out on top?”