Chương 145: Curiosity Was Becoming Its Own Problem

Ronan and Sieghart sprinted through the southern area while alarms echoed behind them, but pursuing Chimerians rapidly erased the distance using modified legs, and bodies engineered entirely for speed. Some ran on four limbs, others bounded with elongated legs, while winged scouts glided between buildings and shouted directions toward every group attempting to intercept the fleeing humans.

Ronan used mana threads to pull himself around corners, but even those tricks barely prevented the fastest pursuers from reaching striking distance whenever the road opened into wider stretches ahead. Sieghart glanced backward and immediately understood that continuing on foot would fail. Their enemies had redesigned their bodies specifically for movement, while Ronan remained injured and increasingly exhausted already tonight.

A horse-bodied Chimerian crashed through a boulder behind them, before accelerating again with enough speed to make Sieghart reconsider every remaining ground route available. Sieghart slammed one palm downward while running, forcing Earth Creation beneath both travelers until a thick rectangular platform erupted from the road and continued rising beside their legs very rapidly.

He jumped onto the forming slab without slowing, spread Wind Magic beneath it, then pointed toward Ronan while several pursuing Chimerians emerged around the previous corner behind them moments later.

"Get on!" Ronan looked at the floating stone, then at Sieghart, questioned several personal decisions, and grabbed one mana thread before pulling himself onto the platform beside him without further argument anyway. Sieghart released everything at once. Wind exploded beneath the platform, launching the stone skyward while several Chimerians jumped after them and narrowly missed the rapidly accelerating lower edge beneath them.

One winged scout followed successfully, beating mismatched feathered wings hard enough to climb behind them, but Sieghart answered with several Wind Blades aimed directly toward the exposed membranes above it. The Chimerian twisted around the first spell, blocked another with hardened feathers, then abandoned pursuit when three more blades crossed ahead and forced it to lose valuable altitude almost immediately.

Sieghart kept feeding wind beneath the platform until the settlement shrank into scattered lights, the pursuing figures became indistinct shadows, and the surrounding hills disappeared beneath darkness far below them. Ronan dropped onto his back and immediately grabbed the platform edge, staring toward the clouds ahead while the stone slab continued accelerating through increasingly cold night air above them both.

"You could have mentioned you could do this earlier!"

"You didn't ask." Sieghart strengthened Protection around both travelers and angled the platform southward, using repeated wind currents to stabilize the crude vehicle whenever turbulence threatened to rotate them sideways during their flight. The method was inelegant, loud, and completely unsuitable for secrecy, but nobody below could identify two passengers clearly once they climbed high enough into the surrounding clouds above them tonight.

Sieghart maintained their flight for nearly an hour, following remembered landmarks whenever breaks appeared beneath the clouds and occasionally correcting direction using Ronan's map and distant mountain silhouettes below them. By the time the abandoned village finally appeared beneath them, both travelers were cold, exhausted, and considerably more interested in stopping than preserving any remaining dignity after their desperate escape.

Sieghart lowered the platform behind the repaired stable, reducing their speed gradually until stone touched the grass and cracked beneath the combined weight of both passengers upon their final landing. He stepped down, dismissed the remaining Earth Creation, and released a long sigh while his shoulders relaxed for the first time since their distraction began inside the Chimerian settlement earlier.

"That was an annoying job." Two days of sneaking through hostile territory, fighting modified enemies, and becoming deliberate bait had turned what Ronan called a rescue mission into another exhausting magical research expedition for Sieghart. At least he had learned useful things about Chimerian abilities, battlefield coordination, magical biology, and exactly how quickly ordinary enemies became terrifying once enough modifications accumulated inside their bodies together.

He had also obtained one corrupted core, although that accomplishment felt less like victory and more like evidence that his curiosity had started influencing decisions before he consciously approved them. Sieghart disliked that realization because he could remember the exact moment he should have ignored the core, continued running, and treated survival as the only objective that mattered back then. The action had been efficient, almost effortless, and that bothered him more than open recklessness would have.

He had not debated very long because collecting cores was becoming automatic behavior. That was the dangerous part. Zombification and Fury had both proven corrupted power could influence emotions, yet the promise of understanding still made another core feel irresistible to Sieghart anyway. Sieghart could defend the decision easily. Chimerians were enemies, their abilities threatened humans, and understanding their corrupted methods might someday save him from powers he otherwise could never anticipate beforehand.

Unfortunately, almost every dangerous decision became reasonable when someone searched hard enough for excuses. That realization forced Sieghart to question whether investigation remained his reason or merely his justification now. The distinction mattered because curiosity had once meant opening books, testing spells, dismantling equipment, and occasionally damaging walls rather than pulling corrupted organs from dying enemies during escapes like this.

He did not believe himself corrupted merely because those opportunities interested him. Still, Sieghart recognized how convenient that conclusion became whenever another core promised knowledge unavailable anywhere else to him. The horses recognized them immediately and approached the repaired doorway, looking considerably calmer than before, although both still became nervous whenever the wind carried unfamiliar scents from northern territory nearby.

Ronan inspected their water and feed, confirmed nothing had disturbed the stable, then suddenly stopped while passing Sieghart and sniffed the air with a suspicious expression beside the doorway nearby.

"Something smells like blood." Sieghart continued cleaning dirt from his sleeves using Water Creation, pretending not to notice Ronan's attention while diluted blood ran from his coat and disappeared into the grass below slowly.

"You should wash your knives, then." Ronan stepped closer, sniffed again, and narrowed his eyes toward Sieghart's coat where the bag containing the corrupted core rested against his ribs beneath several layers of fabric quietly tonight. Stolen novel; please report.

"It's coming from under your coat." Sieghart kept his expression neutral, although the attention immediately confirmed that carrying fresh biological material around someone trained for infiltration had been less discreet than he originally imagined after all.

"That seems unfortunate." Ronan pointed toward the damp fabric while his expression changed from ordinary suspicion into something considerably more serious, making Sieghart stop cleaning and look back at him directly without speaking.

"Why do you have one of their cores?" Sieghart shrugged once and returned to rinsing blood from his coat, hoping Ronan might accept the explanation long enough for the conversation to become somebody else's problem sometime later anyway.

"I found it."

"So you stole it from the corpse."

"I decided to investigate it." Ronan did not accept anything. He stepped closer, crossed his arms, and waited silently until Sieghart understood that pretending ignorance would only make the eventual questioning more irritating for everyone. Sieghart remained quiet for several seconds before opening his bag carefully, making sure the corrupted core stayed hidden beneath folded cloth rather than displaying it openly near the nervous horses.

Ronan's expression hardened immediately when he saw the dark red glow beneath the fabric, apparently recognizing corrupted energy without needing Sieghart to explain where the object had originated tonight nearby.

"You know those things are corrupted."

"So I was told."

"And you know corrupted cores aren't good for you."

"Yes." Ronan's usual humor disappeared completely. His voice became quieter instead, suggesting that whatever lecture followed came from genuine concern rather than irritation about Sieghart ignoring another adult rule again today.

"Sieg." Sieghart looked at him.

"Being a curious kid is one thing." Ronan pointed toward the bag.

"But there are some things you're better off never knowing." For once, Sieghart answered without sarcasm. He understood exactly why Ronan sounded worried, because corrupted cores had already altered his thoughts twice without asking permission or offering proper warnings beforehand.

"I'll keep that in mind." Sieghart listened without interrupting, partly because Ronan had earned that much after the fight and partly because the warning matched doubts Sieghart had already carried for several weeks alone quietly. He knew corrupted cores could affect thoughts, desires, emotions, and magical development because Zombification and Fury had both demonstrated consequences far more dangerous than ordinary experience rewards alone could explain.

The problem was that refusing to study them would not make corruption disappear. Enemies continued using those powers, adapting them, combining them, and building entire societies around forbidden methods anyway. Sieghart wanted to understand what those methods actually did, how his System interpreted them, and why corrupted essence sometimes produced spells while other cores merely advanced his existing magical branches.

Running away from every dangerous answer felt safer only until somebody else learned those answers first and used them against him, his allies, or everyone else unable to understand them. He remembered the Orc King walking through flames, transforming through Wrath, and overpowering attacks Sieghart barely understood until repeated experimentation finally revealed methods capable of hurting him reliably enough.

If Sieghart had encountered that power without previous experience involving corrupted cores, he might never have recognized its nature before the King crushed him beneath that enormous weapon entirely. Knowledge mattered, especially when enemies deliberately changed themselves around whatever defeated them previously. Ignorance became another vulnerability, and Sieghart already possessed enough vulnerabilities without voluntarily creating additional ones himself.

That did not mean Sieghart trusted himself completely. Curiosity had already pushed him toward choices he recognized as reckless, and the rewards made repeating those choices dangerously easy for him. He was walking a thin line between studying corruption because knowledge protected him and hunting corrupted beings because every core promised another chance at power, progress, or magical discovery eventually.

Sieghart understood that distinction mattered precisely because it was becoming harder to recognize whenever experience, parameters, and new spells waited conveniently on the dangerous side of that line instead now. He also knew rationalization could become its own trap. Every dangerous experiment could be defended as preparation, research, self-protection, or revenge until nothing remained that he considered unacceptable anymore personally.

That possibility frightened Sieghart more than the cores themselves, because corrupted magic could be blamed on foreign influence, while deliberate choices would always remain completely his own responsibility afterward personally. Zombification could influence his grief, while Fury manipulated anger already buried inside him, but neither spell physically forced his hand toward another corrupted core when he chose one. That had been him.

Sieghart did not enjoy admitting it, yet denying responsibility would make future mistakes easier. If he blamed every questionable choice upon corruption, then he could excuse almost anything afterward. Still, ignorance frightened him more than temptation. Something had designed his System to interact with corrupted powers, and Sieghart refused to remain helplessly unaware of why that particular function existed.

Perhaps the System purified those abilities, perhaps it merely translated them, or perhaps every absorbed core moved Sieghart toward something he would eventually regret becoming without realizing. He lacked enough information to choose between those possibilities. Refusing every experiment guaranteed that ignorance remained permanent, while reckless experimentation risked turning the answer into something impossible to reverse later.

The reasonable approach existed somewhere between both extremes, meaning Sieghart needed rules before curiosity gradually decided those rules for him without requiring deliberate approval first from him. He should probably tell someone if his thoughts changed severely afterward, although identifying a person he trusted enough for that responsibility immediately became another far more complicated problem entirely.

Mira was probably the safest option, yet admitting what he had already done would confirm several suspicions Sieghart had intentionally kept uncertain since returning from the northern border. Ronan was less capable of examining magical effects, but considerably easier to deceive accidentally because his concern usually appeared before institutional calculations or questions about long-term consequences.

Sieghart disliked having to think about people that way, measuring trust against usefulness and future risk, but his grandparents' deaths had permanently damaged his willingness to rely blindly. Ronan studied him for several seconds after the explanation, apparently searching for sarcasm, excuses, or childish stubbornness and finding enough sincerity to make his concern deepen rather than fade afterward.

"You're still planning to mess with it."

"Eventually." Sieghart looked back toward the northern hills, where Mira still remained somewhere beyond the border, and tightened one hand around the strap holding the hidden corrupted core against him tightly. He wondered briefly whether Mira would destroy the core immediately if she discovered it, probably before Sieghart could ask a single question about whatever strange abilities remained stored inside.

That possibility made him strangely protective of the crystal, another reaction he immediately distrusted because the object had done absolutely nothing to earn emotional value beyond promising potential knowledge. He loosened his grip deliberately. It was a sample. Nothing more. If Sieghart began thinking of corrupted cores as treasures, rewards, or possessions worth protecting, then curiosity had already progressed farther than he wanted. He would not absorb it tonight.

That decision felt necessary while exhaustion, blood loss, and recent combat made judging another intrusive magical influence far less reliable than it usually was. But once he returned somewhere safe, rested properly, prepared precautions, and understood his own motives better, Sieghart still intended to investigate the core despite every warning he had received already.