The Bombidour manor was a rather quiet place. Which was greatly enjoyable for someone of my refined tastes, it was just that… The silence was almost oppressive. The servants all seemed to do their best not to make a noise, and seemingly wore shoes cursed to muffle all of their steps. Furthermore, the inside of the manor was absurdly large, and yet, the number of personnel was still sized as though it were a regular manor.

  To put it in simple terms, it was awfully easy to just walk for hours through this place without encountering a single soul. Such walks felt quite refreshing, but after a while, it was a given that it would feel as though you were being watched. The halls were just too wide, and the many doors felt like countless eyes staring at you as you went by…

  I quite like this place.

  I spend my days eating curses to no end, having nice little walks, and at night, I spend time in my mindscape with my cute ghostly little sisters.

  Speaking of the little cuties… They seemed to be viewing Heltna as a potential addition to the ranks, but I frankly did not see it. For sure, a spectre skilled in slinging curses would be incredible, but that was a purely utility-based view.

  When it came to adding little sisters, it wasn’t about utility. It was about affinity. Ophelie had been adorable and had slightly grown on me throughout our interactions. And as much as I appreciated Heltna’s cuisine, I did not feel the same about her at all.

  For one, she was too old and mature. That doesn’t scream ‘little sister’ at all. She knows too much, and her personality is too developed. I do not dare to imagine the sheer amount of negative emotions I would need to use to ensure that she did not get ideas of betrayal once I turned her into a spectre.

  After all, unlike the rest, she had a wonderful life and a family remaining on top of being an adult. It just sounded like too much work to convert her to sisterhood. Also, Nara told me that curses cast by me, or an ‘extension’ of me, couldn’t be consumed, so it wasn’t that attractive to take her too.

  Alas, my little sisters were quick to get attached. They must feel like people that I don’t immediately kill or don’t actively plan on killing are friends, despite the many times I told them that the only friends we had were those I explicitly called as such.

  Well… I guess I could make Heltna into a lesser servant instead of a proper ghost, but I didn’t really know the fine points of spirit-crafting well enough at all to be able to make a powerful entity, but one that was not in possession of its memories…

  I sort of only had two tricks when it came to making helpers. I either have a high-quality soul and make it into an adorable little sister, or I have a regular soul and make it into a lesser servant. There was no in between. There were very few avenues of specialisation for the servants.

  In short, I was a two-trick pony in regard to my spectre-assembling capabilities. I really needed to get my hands on stuff to increase my ghostly nature.

  One thing at a time, though.

  My walks weren’t just for my personal enjoyment. I was scouting for a future heist. The inside of the manor was very clearly spatially distorted, but it had the politeness of not changing at all. It was set in stone so I could learn the layout, learn the patrols of guards and knights, learn the paths taken by each servant, and of course… I could also pinpoint where the good stuff was.

  One place where my future food was in–And the greatest of the bunch–Was of course the storeroom. I had actually been inside of it in the company of Heltna a few times already, but of course, I hadn’t touched anything despite greatly wanting to.

  That room was… Absurdly large. Truly humongous, as in, you could invite a literal giant in there.

  Not the piss-baby giants who were just very big humans, the real deal, whose height was in the double digits of meters. And the damned shelves extended all the way to the ceiling. There were so many of them that, despite the room's hugeness, you had to move in between them like you were cave diving.

  It was obscene, and I felt like I was unravelling with how much being near this place made me hunger…

  Now, not everything inside that room was exceptional. There were a lot of very simple things. It seemed like the Bombidour family was in the habit of collecting and storing everything, even if it was worthless to them, as long as it was related to their craft.

  The best part was that the storeroom wasn’t the only room that was of interest.

  Linked to it, but even more tightly guarded, were extra rooms that were much smaller and instead filled with very specific curses and cursed items. So basically, the ‘main’ storeroom was just the miscellaneous section.

  If you were willing to traverse the labyrinthine expanse and perhaps even crawl, you would reach rooms filled with curses and cursed items attuned to certain elements, with similar functions, or items that had not been willfully cursed, but had instead become so through a series of specific events or by coming into contact with the right person…

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  Naturally, these rooms were attractive in a sense. They were smaller and more orderly, thus containing more high-value food per square meter compared to the main room, but overall, the quality was still the same.

  The real treasure trove of this manor was what Heltna referred to as ‘the vault’. It was where the truly unique and precious things were stored and preserved. It wasn’t quite the heritage of the Bombidour family, as their particular ways to learn curse slinging were stored elsewhere, but it could be counted as an alternative stash of valuables.

  As far as I could see, there were no guards or knights who would go check inside the storeroom at any point during their normal routine throughout the night, and the main portion was fairly unsecure… Which, I guess, wasn’t too abnormal considering how difficult it should be to get anywhere close to the residence in the first place.

  I had already bypassed most of the security measures by getting myself invited in, and frankly, the number of guards and knights was suspiciously low, but I knew not to underestimate them. I had learned much from letting Heltna run her mouth endlessly to me.

  The Bombidour household was a bit of an odd one out amidst the various noble houses of Rootriska. Curses and the like were not outlawed like necromancy, but they were definitely not seen with the softest eye. The peasants who knew nothing viewed it as an unsavoury practice, and such an image wasn’t helped since the crown tended to call upon the Bombidour to perform some classic acts of generational curse-branding.

  In general, though… The Bombidour pretty much embraced their bad reputation. Every single person who was not a direct member of the family in this house was marked with a curse that prevented any act of treachery, even the small ones, by literally making them impossible to perform, and potentially killing those who tried to do it regardless.

  Of course, if you weren’t a rat, you wouldn’t even see the difference between bearing the curse and not having it, and that was the only curse servants bore. Apparently, it was a well-known fact amongst curse slingers that you could use curses like blessings, and blessings like curses. To them, the two concepts were basically the same. The only difference is that each was slightly geared toward one side compared to the other, but in practice, the difference only mattered to the very beginners and to the absolute top of the top.

  Only there did the specificities really show themselves.

  So, the knight, for example, despite none of them being incredible or possessing unique capabilities on their own, was to be feared as the augmentation of many curses granted them physical might, senses, and such on a level close to that of great knights, as well as the ability to cast spells at will despite their lack of talent in such a domain.

  That was without mentioning their cursed equipment… It was no wonder that they seemed so tasty. They were like roasted chickens covered in delectable sauce to me.

  Who knew that getting cursed could make one look like a mage… Good thing my parents never figured that out–Wait a second… If they had figured this out, considering the low numbers of curse slingers, wouldn’t I have ended up here as a maid, perhaps? Could I have seduced a noble then?

  Damn you, idiots! You wanted to make something out of me, and forgot such a juicy one?!

  I thought you had a very specific preference for men, but it seems like it doesn’t matter if talking about a noble…

  Listen, Nara… Other women won’t tell you about it, but I am your big sister, so listen closely… You should be willing to forget your usual preferences if the status is big enough. Those who tell you the opposite are just trying to get rid of competition, alright? If the noble guy deserves his title, then magnificent! You just landed yourself a great man of high blood.

  If he doesn’t? Who cares! You’re a noble too now, and he is probably a worm you can step on anyway–He’ll probably like it too–Just whip him into something less annoying to be with. Become best friends with his parents, become best friends with his siblings, become beloved by the servants, bear at least one child, and stay faithful without reproach. Divorce can’t be done without good reason! And then, if he really doesn’t like you and tries to get you killed, be vigilant and expose him to his family, who now like you better than him!

  Boom! You’ve just succeeded in life, and as a widow, you can marry someone of even higher status! Maybe a real man this time.

  …Sounds like you thought about it a lot…

  Of course, but I would still prefer a man who fits my preferences. You just need to know how to seize opportunities in life. It might sound predatory, and that’s because it is. Be a predator, be the queen of the jungle and crush prey in between your teeth.

  Anyway… Such considerations no longer apply to me very well. Instead of becoming a noble matriarch, I got squashed inside an automaton and was left to rot for twenty years. Life truly is full of unexpected occurrences.

  This makes me think… Will my cute little sisters want to find themselves handsome male ghosts at one point? I’ll need to have The Talk with them, just in case.

  What was I thinking about originally, I think I veered off topic… Ah yes. The same applied to the guards and servants as well, but in terms of danger, only the knights truly mattered. I was in a comfortable and uncomfortable position where I was pretty damned powerful overall, but when presented with other pretty damned powerful people, I sort of fell on my own face and ended up in a thousand pieces.

  The augmented guards were still too weak to resist me, but the augmented knight would definitely be able to deal enormous damage if given the occasion to…

  Good thing I wasn’t planning on fighting fair and square, my original idea before getting to know the place was to rob the main storeroom in the middle of the night and then make my escape. But that plan was too simplistic.

  My current idea was far more complicated and had so many parts that it meant it was far more prone to encountering a problem due to an unforeseen situation, but what can I say? I’m a greedy gal. I want all the curses all for myself.

  I want to eat so much that my past as someone with negative talent in all magic-related categories was long gone. I wanted to come out as a real talent in curse slinging, the sort that would make Old Argantis bow in reverence.

  …Alright, maybe I was exaggerating a bit. But I held no doubt that if I could devour even half of what I was planning on eating, then I would finally be able to make proper usage of ‘Cursed Metal’.

  For now, though? I was just going to laze around and be handfed by Heltna.

  Life inside a noble manor was indeed quite relaxing…