So… How many upgrades can I pick?

  We shall see once this ‘Anathema’ character has been fully absorbed. For now… How do I put this? The process is so rich with experience and nourishing to your curse side that the system functions I can usually control and check have gone into paralysis

  It’s actually pretty insane. The requirements for evolution have gotten exponentially higher compared to last time, so I do not believe that it will be enough to get there… But still! This is an enormous boon

  From the sound of things, that ‘Anathema’ girl isn’t actually that powerful. She is just a Living Curse who didn’t even mature yet, but simply happened to possess a powerful cursing ability that allowed her to go toe to toe with the Bombidour, only because he had the right ‘weakness’

  This means that this enormous amount of experience and nutrition is on the low end for a Living Curse. This is tremendous!

  Right, but Living Curses aren’t exactly common, are they?

  …They are extremely rare. I am certain that there are places where they would be more common, but I am unaware of the locations of such areas, and as you probably noticed, there was a bit of a struggle as you tried to devour Anathema

  You were able to overpower and feast upon her because you are technically a more powerful curse, but mostly because of your total immunity to being cursed and the fact that what you begin to devour seems greatly restrained in the process. We had seen it with spirits in the past

  I get it. You mean that an actually powerful and competent curse would be to wrestle out of my grasp, right?

  Precisely

  Are you fuckers insulting my strength?!

  …Have I finally gone insane, or did you hear that as well, Nara? It felt like an adorable little girl just spoke in my ear, but the problem is that it isn’t the voice of one of MY adorable little sisters.

  Who the hell are you calling cute? Me? Do you think I am cute? Aww… That’s so nice. No one’s ever been nice to me before. Why did the first kind words of my life have to come from the woman who literally just ate me?!

  It would appear that Anathema is not dead, and due to the process of your curse side devouring other curses by basically absorbing them whole, she has been hooked up to your mind

  Does that make sense?

  It definitely does

  Your lack of an elaborate answer tells me that you are lying to me, Cutie.

  I swear it makes sense! I just don’t understand why Anathema is able to speak. She is getting torn apart and broken down as we speak. By all means, she should be experiencing the most excruciating pain she has ever endured

  Too bad, I am not feeling a thing! Now let me out of here! What do you think I am? I am a Living Curse! I don’t belong in someone’s belly! Do I look like a big baby to you?!

  Huh… Sounds like she can hear you as well, Nara. Let’s ignore that for now, though. What will happen once I am done absorbing her? She is a living being after all, will the system count it as a kill for me?

  Several things overlap with one another here, but normally, it should definitely still count as you killing her. Why do you ask?

  And–Just to be sure–Living Curses do have a soul, right?

  They do, sort of

  That’s great! Say, Anathema… Want to be one of my little sisters? You are very cute, and there is already a sort of kinship between us. We should take that to the next step. Meaning that you should let me give you big hugs and call me ‘Big Sis’ with a very enthusiastic tone that would make me want to pinch your cute little, chubby, inky cheeks.

  Do you seriously think that you can convince me to play a stupid role like that? The promise of affection will not move me–I mean… I guess I would find a bit of affection most welcome, but you still won’t buy me like that!

  How would it work anyway? You’ve already gobbled me, and I am dying right as we are speaking. Are you going to spit me out if I agree?

  Of course not.

  Then what the hell-

  I will gain your soul when it is over, and I’ll be able to use that soul to bring you back as a spirit… As a Cursed Spirit, I suppose? Is that a real thing? I would assume it is. It rolls off the tongue very nicely.

  …You’re going to make me into an undead? That actually sounds cool as hell. Wait. No! I do not agree to being your little sister! You are literally murdering me right now! Is murdering how you get little sisters, usually?

  Pretty much.

  …Is… Is that so…? Mmh…

  For a few moments, the Living Curse did not say anything else. I looked around the place, thinking that I should get out of here soon enough, but there wasn’t really a hurry, considering that I had alerted absolutely no one.

  The people of the manor were absolutely none the wiser, and as far as I was aware, neither of the two Bombidours had come back yet. So, the patriarch was still hunting the hunter who was after me, and the scion was presumably staying at the orphanage to check on my nightmare victims.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Wait a minute… Did my plan go… Well? No actual setback or unexpected encounter that ruins everything? Oh my… It feels a bit weird for things to go as planned for once.

  …If I may ask… What is the rate of physical show of affection daily? I was stuffed into a bottle after being openly despised for years. I would like a lot of love, pretty please.

  Oh, you caved in pretty easily, huh?

  Listen… Aherm… B-Big Sis… This feels weird–Listen! Maybe I quite enjoyed the brief moment you held me before literally eating me up, alright? I’m a person with emotions, I need some love, damnit!

  Don’t worry, once you are my little sister, you’ll not only receive love from me, but your other sisters as well.

  How many are there?

  Six.

  Six?! I’ll have six friends?! Ooh… This is making me a bit anxious. I never had any friends.

  Sisters are even more precious than friends, you know?

  R-Really? Oh boy…

  That was easier than I imagined. Cute girls don’t seem to mind getting killed, it seems… Anyway, it’s time to leave now. I could try to score some more curses around the manor, but I have already gotten the most valuable stuff around–Well, I could raid the treasury for all those sweet coins, gold ingots, and whatever else made from tasty metal… But I knew not to push my luck too much.

  I feel like I can hear Nara heave a sigh of relief as I focus on the plush I left well away from the noble residence. I warp through what feels like time and space itself, nearly instantly finding myself in a dark corner tucked away behind a toolshed in the backyard of the nearby orphanage.

  I rise in my elegant knightly form.

  Would you look at that, the heist is officially complete. The correct way of doing things would probably be to leave the region entirely and start doing my thing somewhere else. But it has its own drawbacks, namely… Someone with a keen eye and a curious mind would realise that the mysterious nightmares that end up killing people both began appearing after Maya, The Silent Knightess, showed up in town.

  I quite enjoyed my good reputation at the moment, so I would rather not be associated with my own actions. And also… Heltna had made me learn that my nightmares, or whatever it was that I planted into people, counted as a curse in some amount.

  Thus, I desired to see how the nightmares and their resilience to being pried off would be impacted by the massive increase in my nature as a Steel-Bound Curse, or just a Living Curse in general.

  If things worked like how I imagined they did, then the nightmares should have received a significant upgrade and should have also been far harder to remove now. I did not doubt that Heltna would still be able to do it without some insistence, but being that she was the only one who had figured out the trick to getting rid of my nightmares completely, it was only with her that I could check the progress in this area.

  For now, though, being that she was most certainly inside the orphanage, or somewhere nearby in town. I decided to just wait for a better time to infiltrate the building and resume my work…

  Huh… What’s up with the nightmare stuff, exactly? Is it your innate curse ability?

  I guess it sort of is, but it is more something I do passively rather than an actual curse I consciously target people with… Are all Living Curses supposed to have an innate curse they are born capable of casting?

  Of course! We are living curses. The innate curse we have is basically just us. We are our innate curse ability. That’s why I was stuck inside of that woman for so long, I literally cast myself at her to put the curse into effect.

  It backfired because of the specifics of my curse and the weakness my target had, but when a Living Curse does that, it is basically unstoppable and untreatable. Then again… My own curse didn’t do me much good.

  It got me stuck for years, and then, it gave me powers, but the same as my opponent, who had way more experience than me. Using my powers feels way too much like gambling.

  I would much rather have had an instant death curse. It is more straightforward!

  Mmh… So I could potentially have an innate curse, but I can’t use it because I can’t fling myself at people?

  I wasn’t a basic Living Curse, after all. I was steel-bound… Maybe I can curse steel? No, I know I can’t leave my body anyway… Is it something I could only do if I were to get a form that made me into a Living Curse like Anathema is?

  Huh. I feel like I could ponder on this subject for the entire night.

  By the way, how long do you think it will take for me to digest Anathema, Sweetie?

  Hard to tell, but it is looking like a matter of several days at the very least, probably a week

  She’s quite hard to eat for such a short girl…

  ___

  “Automaton! Get out of this house and come speak to me at least! I am not asking you to immediately release the hostages, but would it not be wiser to negotiate?”

  Outside a small house surrounded by a farm, the Bombidour patriarch was just standing in the wind alongside two of his loyal knights and about a dozen of his guards. Local authorities were also present, including a town mayor who was actually a retired knight.

  The old mayor had a wide and long scar running across his entire face at a diagonal angle.

  “Lord Jorah. The automaton has not shown any signs of its presence for ten minutes, and neither have the hostages manifested themselves in any manner…”

  “Do not worry, Mister Kaarl, my mana sense tells me that they are all still inside. The automaton is holding its hostage dearly”

  “Mmh? I thought the lump of steel had disrupted all mana in the area to prevent this?”

  “Please, it was a nice trick for the first five minutes, but I figured out how to sense again by adapting to the new behaviour of ambient mana. It is childplay, and goes to show that the automaton does not hold much understanding of energy manipulation as it has not noticed a thing yet”

  “Incredible, My Lord!”

  “No need for praise. We are still in a stalemate. We were able to find that thing again, but it was quick to fall back onto hostages again. It will get away again”

  “Right as we speak, it is coating the house and hostage in the same thing it claimed was a bomb last time. I have no idea if that is true, but I am inclined to believe it in this regard…”

  The Bombidour patriarch frowned.

  “...This thing is bizarre. It hasn’t actually killed anyone and only caused harm when we actively got in its way. All it does is wander around and give people good scares by repeatedly asking about Mara Nebulo’s whereabouts”

  “I thought the automaton was saying this as a tackle to Leton Nebulo, some sort of insult as it paraded itself around, demonstrating how advanced it was… I am beginning to doubt this. This thing’s insistence makes it sound like it is actually looking for Mara Nebulo”

  Jorah sighed.

  “Let it get away again for today, it is not worth blowing up an entire family and their home. I will consult with Leton Nebulo. He should have a good idea of how to deal with an automaton”

  Thus, the prowling machine once again disappeared in the wild.