Chương 317: The Foremost Expert Here, Is Me

I wasn't expecting a mere baron to be capable of getting so many experts to show up in so little time. It feels like the whole line-up of Malkazertian elites is here… Of course, demons are unlike humans. The human kingdoms are usually made up of just a single human species, but demonkind is typically filled with all sorts of demon species, which means that some of them are far from average by default. Devilblood himself is obviously innately built for physical combat.

He is naturally incredibly strong and resilient, so he has a much better foundation than a human knight. Even if a human can definitely get strong enough to punch right through him, the difference in starting points means that the average human knight wouldn't be able to exert anywhere near the amount of strength Hyotrask could. In the same vein, some demons were simply predisposed to being mages, which resulted in larger quantities of experts in certain domains compared to humans or even beastfolks.

As such, there were quite a lot of people who showed up, but most of them were within the area of energy manipulation. They might give themselves fancy names like 'shaman' or the like, but at the end of the day, the majority are just regular mages who simply use their spells in a creative way. Can you imagine what I would be able to do with the souls of these people? I could make a ton of powerful spectral servants, or… I could mash them all together to create a single being…

My dark thoughts remained perfectly concealed beneath the false face I wore. Professional, yet slightly intimidated and nervous, is how I look right now. A perfectly normal set of emotions for a recently hired maid to feel in the presence of so many important guests. Especially since my maid-self was currently a center of attention and topic of discussion as everyone tried to figure out how and why I was unaffected by the malevolent drain ability that plagued the young lord.

Of course, since I was pretty much a subject of study right now, they all came up to me for a greeting, allowing me to plant 'Forever Bonded Together' on each and every one of them. It might seem risky, but I trusted my guts, and indeed, even the curse slingers didn't notice a thing. I suppose this curse was simply too good. It wasn't actually aggressive. It wouldn't do anything until they were already dead, after all. Some of these guys really looked weird, though.

I knew demonkind was very diverse, but some of these guys genuinely look more horrifying than any of my forms. One of these guys is five meters tall, but thinner than a starving peasant girl's arm, with arms that had probably more articulations than there were candles in this manor.

Said arms were somehow long enough to drag against the ground, and his curved horns somehow had fake eyes on them, as if he was descended from a demon species that needed fake eyes to deter predators–What the hell kind of predator looks at this and actually attacks? Not only does he look like an evolved version of one of my nightmare creatures, but he clearly has no meat on his bones. There is no benefit to eating such a thing… Though all of his horrifying presence vanished when he actually went up to me.

His voice sounded like it was coming from behind a cheesegrater in Hell, but I noticed that he had a freaking moustache on his pale, flat face of horror, which killed his scare factor faster than I could grab Leou's tail–Which means ungodly fast. … I had only ever seen demons who looked like humans with funny colours and a few additions before coming here, so this was quite interesting… I was starting to understand why some people thought they were at least partly descended from devils, though.

Commit these guys to memory, Nara. We'll be making a pre-final trial with monsters when we have some time on our hands. In any case, they all had plenty of questions to ask me, which I answered to the best of my current persona's abilities. All of them tried a bunch of stuff, but obviously, none actually succeeded. Surprisingly, there seemed to be no charlatans around, as none of them even pretended that they were achieving anything.

The diviners and seers in the room were very much gobsmacked by their inability to do anything. This was due to my own ability to mess with such things, but since they had already been made useless by Conduit's excellent hiding, they didn't think too much of it and blamed it on the nefarious innate ability. The expert and the baron eventually went to discuss in another room, leaving me by myself. I stared out of the window, admiring the unusual landscape of Malkazert.

The colour of the clouds and sky wasn't actually always the same. The slight tint changed nearly every single day, which made any body of water also change colour often. It was quite a pretty place. Whilst standing, I accessed the Mindscape. As per my will, I appeared inside Anathema's Art Room. This place had expanded since it had first manifested, and it was filled to the brim with countless creations of my adorable little curse.

Her style, or even the kind of art she was doing, changed drastically all the time, but while she didn't seem to think all of her pieces were on the same level, they all exhibited great skill nonetheless.

"Big Sis!" Anathema popped out of the ground, and instead of the small shadowy figure in a puffy dress, her body proportions were a bit bigger, and her lower half was just a trail of ghost shadows. She didn't really have a real form. Her shape could vary quite greatly, and when she was in her own area, this was the form she preferred.

"Everything going fine, Ana?" She nodded fervently, spinning around to swiftly grab a canvas from a pile. Showing a dark painting featuring a cloaked figure whose head was a blood skull missing its lower jaw. The upper teeth were human, but white needles. The dark crimson glow in the sockets gave me a hunch about who this was supposed to be, but I let my little sister explain.

"This is what Conduit is supposed to look like! After taking a lot of good looks at him, I was able to figure it out. He sounds a bit silly, but he actually looks quite cool, doesn't he?"

"I suppose so, but he is a bit too old for you""I… I didn't mean it like that!"

"Sure, you didn't" I rubbed her head, her dark red eyes turning into sideways Vs. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"A-Anyway… I can confirm that what he said was true. His innate curse ability is just as he described, and the way it is acting is indeed out of his control. I had no idea that one could immerse oneself so much into pretending to be an innate ability, to the point of basically becoming one!"

"He is completely trapped inside that demon's body, but… He did keep one thing a secret" I tilted my head slightly.

"Oh? What did your crush keep to himself?"

"I don't have a crush on him! I don't even like cool skulls! Huh…" She cleared her throat that did not exist.

"... When something is drained, he could absolutely take it all for himself, but he is definitely intentionally funnelling everything into the demon instead""Ah" Makes sense. He must have realised that he couldn't break free no matter what, so he is 'feeding' the young lord to make him grow up rapidly, in an attempt to shorten his life. It was indeed odd how, despite having absorbed enough to have a sudden growth spurt, the young demon was just a regular boy in terms of strength or magical capabilities.

It was purely because Conduit was pouring everything into speeding his growth so that he would have fewer years to spend trapped inside of his body. I suppose he decided to withhold this information because he didn't know if I was actually seriously looking after the young lord or not. So, in doubt, he kept his mouth shut about the fact that he was trying to murder him. It was quite the devious killing method as well, but it was the only one available to him… Not that he cared, considering his track record.

I didn't care either with the number of orphan souls I proudly owned, but it showed that his innate curse ability wasn't actually as simple as he had made it sound. It wasn't just a mere drain to boost oneself or heal. He could actually boost precise things. Not just that, but making someone grow up faster meant that he could interact with someone's biology. I doubt he has any real limit on what he can boost…

This really made me consider turning him into a spectral servant, but the fact that he once dealt with Volthaim, the Ailing, was a bit of a concern. As he had stated himself, Volthaim was a master of contract, and Conduit has been around for a very long time. He may be restrained right now, but his strength is definitely incredible. All of this together makes me wonder if I'll really be able to turn him into an obedient follower.

He might know tricks with contracts and conditions to resist, especially since I won't be taking his soul. As a Living Curse, I'll be taking him as is, meaning that if he does have things in place to prevent people from taking 'ownership' of him, then they will probably remain even after I've devoured him… It might seem overly paranoid, but my gut was telling me that I should be careful with Conduit. Which is odd, because I don't feel any worry about trying to use the divine serpent's soul that I own.

That's actually quite embarrassing for the snake. It was–Supposedly–A god, and yet a Living Curse causes me much more concern than it ever did, and ever will. What do you think, Nara? I can not tell whether Conduit has any defences set up, but as much as it troubles me to admit it, your gut is somehow always right… Despite the fact that you definitely do not have any abilities like this It's called instinct, Nara. Instinct is not supposed to be that strong, or random for that matter.

There's plenty of time when your gut didn't say anything, and yet you ended up sliced up! It is what it is…

"What do you think, Ana? Would you prefer Conduit to be like you, or do you think it would be better if I kept him in stock until I find a way to empower you with him?" Anathema scratched her head.

"I honestly have no idea. I'll leave it up to you, Big Sis!" I restrained myself from making another joke about her potentially liking Conduit and left the Mindscape after patting her head and pulling her cheeks. Anathema is so cute. Conduit seems way more mature in comparison, so I unfortunately can not allow anything. Even if he does look cool as hell… In any case, when I returned to my body in the real world, it seemed like the meeting was coming to an end, with no progress having been made.

The baron merely told me to continue taking care of his son and soon left. What delicious negative emotions… He really was hopeful that something would be figured out, heh? I stopped myself from licking my lips and headed to see the young lord. … Speaking of delicious negative emotions, the Living Curse I had just been talking about was oddly active. He must be getting nervous, or so I would have assumed if I couldn't differentiate between all kinds and intensities of negative emotions.

This fellow was up to some dark work. His desire to kill had ramped up to levels I had never actually experienced before.

"Hello, Young Lord" Hello, Conduit. Oh, it is you again. What's up today? Nothing much. I know that's a lie, and even then, you are a terrible liar anyway. The Living Curse sighed. Do you think I can't feel that you're thinking about devouring me? I've had to deal with others of my kind before, and it was eat or be eaten every single time! I know what you plan for me, and I won't stand idle. I'll break out of this damned prison even if I have to cut myself up. I preferred to wait, but to Hell with patience!

I can just drain everything in the surroundings to immediately recover! You don't seem to be very successful so far, though. Heh, don't act clueless. You are able to suppress me somehow, and for some reason, your freaking influence never wavers for even a second! Aren't you a weird hybrid of some kind? Why do you seem to never go to sleep?! I'm afraid you don't understand what kind of crossbreed I am exactly, Mister Conduit, but… You say that you devoured other Living Curses? I'll stop you right here.

That puny little girl will never be able to devour me, even if I am half-dead and unconscious. Between Living Curses, it is purely a matter of who has the more refined innate curse ability, and I am centuries ahead of her! Don't worry, I was just curious. Devouring other Living Curses only made you stronger, but it didn't give you their unique curses, did it? You don't need to answer. I know it didn't. The Living Curse scoffed. You plan on stealing my innate curse ability to give it to this little girl?

Good luck with that. You should stop calling her a little girl. She can't hear you right now, but it will make her quite upset. Why would it upset her? She's barely a fledgling compared to–Oh… Oh, upset like that? For real? Like… Really? The switch-up was quite extreme. To be frank, my encounters with other Living Curses went poorly, mostly because they were all males. I never met any female Living Curse… Mmh… Living Curses actually have males and females? I thought you guys just popped out of nowhere.

Can you actually naturally reproduce? Of course we can! I'll have you know that we once had a kingdom! We are a sapient species… We had a kingdom until the Revenger of Noktronne showed up and ate nearly everyone, at least. Now that's some interesting bit of history! Tell me about it while I play with the young lord… Oh, that's a new board game. I swear this little fellow keeps changing the game so that he always wins… Clever boy.