I once again found myself in the area of my mindscape dedicated to storing ‘souls’. However… What I was looking at was not truly a soul.

  After a whole week, Anathema had been fully digested, bringing me an incredible boost in strength. I had yet to return to my ‘Base Form’ since this had happened, so the full scope of what I had gained was still blurry. Nonetheless, before checking this out, I had wanted to take a look at her soul for the purpose of making her into one of my cute little sisters.

  Turns out that Living Curses did not have a soul. I did, but that was because I was a weird hybrid and had once been a human to begin with. A real Living Curse was akin to a Pure Spirit, as in that they belonged to another form of existence.

  They had no life force. They ran purely on whatever energy their entire self was made of. In turn, unless something weird was at play, they did not have the same concept of ‘soul’, ‘mind’, ‘spirit’, and whatever else.

  Anathema was made of pure force. Made from utter… Cursed energy? I did not know if that was the name, to be honest. It sounded like it should be, though.

  In any case, in essence, she was just like a regular curse, but just happened to possess sentience and sapience.

  I had been under the impression that my innate ability, ‘Tormentor’, was specifically meant to steal the souls of my victims, but it seems like it had just been a manner of speech and not quite literal. Anathema had been collected in her raw form.

  At the moment, however, she was inactive, similar to the Faelan fellow.

  Let me guess, the furnace that I have isn’t going to work for her, is it?

  Unfortunately, no. We are going to need to unlock something else in this room to make her into one of us. Thankfully, we were still able to collect her, so it is just a matter of time before we can bring her into the team

  Right. It should be night right now. I am going to go torment some defenceless orphans, and I’ll see what I gained from all of this. I feel like I am going to feel it when I switch over…

  I exited the mindscape and soon turned into my ‘Base Form’. It was a bit odd how the form with ‘base’ in it was used so little these days–AH!

  I indeed felt it. As per usual, the indication that something was going on with me was a most–Delightful–surge of abominable pain. My body slightly jolted as it took me off guard with how sudden and brief it was.

  It was like a congealed mass of pain had been waiting for me to turn back into my ‘Base Form’ to unfurl in full at the first occasion…

  Aah… That hits the spot… I feel like a bunch of things suddenly changed within me…

  First of all, my side as a Steel-Bound Curse had been reinforced to such a ridiculous degree that I could feel it instantly. It felt as though countless curses were coursing through my body like blood. The best way to understand what had changed was just to listen to Nara, though.

  …Alright, I can feel the changes now that you’ve gone back to your ‘Base Form’... Holy moly. Go back into that corner and get inside your mindscape. It will be easier to explain if you can see it

  I did as she asked, and the instant I went back into the furnace room, I instantly saw that a corner which had once been completely empty had now been filled with some sort of… Kitchen, from the looks of it? It was equipped with a bunch of culinary equipment for certain, but there were also some tools that stood out amidst it all.

  They looked more like torture tools than anything else…

  I approached the new corner. It gave off a grim impression, but was very orderly. Everything was in its proper spot. The tools were all in pristine condition, the work table was large and wide… Everything was clean and shiny.

  The only strange things were some sort of pieces of machinery that I had never seen before, and whose usage I couldn’t even begin to guess.

  This is where you are supposed to create–Well, cook new curses for you to use

  Pardon?

  It is a bit weird, but it seems like you were always intended to approach curse slinging from a completely different and unique angle compared to others. It is probably why you had seemed so ‘untalented’ before, despite being a curse yourself

  It seems like your transformation took your lack of talent as a human and interpreted it into something else. I am not sure, to be frank. In any case, rather than doing it like regular people, you are supposed to use negative energy–Not negative emotions–To manifest ingredients you think are suitable for whatever curse you want to create and be able to cast

  Do… Do you know how to cook?

  Who do you think you’re talking to, Nara? Do you really think Leton had been capable enough to make his own food back in the day? I am a culinary mastermind, Darling. And do you have any idea how easy it is to control people by controlling their stomachs?

  Is it about finding a man again?

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  You know me well, Nara… But anyway, so when in here, I can use negative energy to manifest ingredients, and the result of what I cook will give me a curse? It seems like something that will need lots of testing to get a good grasp of. No two dishes are the exact same, so I would assume that two dishes can give varying curses…

  If that’s how I was always intended to make curses, it is no wonder that the ones I did create turned out so poorly–How do I create ingredients, exactly?

  From what I can tell, it should be done through a book of sorts. It should be in one of the cabinets

  I flipped open several of them before finding a small one containing three books.

  One of them was much larger than the rest and completely blank on the inside, but as soon as I picked it up, a title wrote itself on the cover.

  It read:

  ‘Mara’s Cookbook’

  Seemed like this was where the dishes I had already come up with would be stored. This seemed quite handy to have.

  Then, there was also the ‘Equipment Manual’ and ‘Ingredient Compendium’.

  The former was a lengthy explanation of what everything in the kitchen was about. There were several types of furnaces–Not to be confused with the one on the other side of the room–Machines capable of blending food, and a whole bunch of other things that would allow me to go wild with my ideas and cook just about anything I could imagine.

  This is making me a bit excited, cooking was a nice hobby of mine… Though it had been a bit tarnished, as a big part of why it had felt so nice was that there had been someone happy to eat what I made. I do believe that it is an important skill for a variety of reasons, but I had originally learned it for no other reason than to provide for me and Leton after the death of our parents. Their sudden passing was an ill omen for the businesses, so I had gone ahead and immediately sent the few servants we had on their way so as to save money.

  In the end, I had done well keeping everything afloat, and since I had discovered that the servants had been paid to do very easy work, and that I was a better cook than the chef we used to have, I never hired anyone else to work full-time at the family home.

  …Ungrateful little bastard…

  Where was I? Ah, yes, the Equipment Manual… It detailed a bunch of canisters capable of storing negative emotions. Although negative energy was the centerpiece of the kitchen, it seemed like emotions could be used like some sort of seasoning or sauce, I suppose.

  To do so, I had to store the emotions inside canisters for later usage… Boy, I am starting to think that I might start running low on some stocks with all of this new stuff to spend them on.

  I had an obscene amount of negative emotions, and negative energy had built up from my various ploys. And currently, the ways for me to spend them were few and frankly consumed very little.

  ‘Embodiment Of Negativity’ was very low-cost to use, and ‘Cursed Metal’ consumed negative energy, but once again, I had been so limited in terms of curses that I had pretty much been doing nothing but accumulate.

  It looked very much like this was going to change, however. Not only would I be spending to cook curses, but I would be spending a lot more using them since they would actually be stronger and useful on the regular.

  In any case… The Ingredient Compendium was a book through which I could flip seemingly for all of eternity. The pages never actually stop turning, and only a small portion in the beginning was actually filled with something.

  All of the ingredients were most mundane.

  Mmh… So I need to get in contact with new ingredients to add to the list of what I can manifest here?

  Indeed, it was through this book that ingredients were created, so I was limited only to what was inside of this, and right now… I could certainly cook something nice, but I could already feel that to actually be able to create something precise, I would need some more uncommon ingredients.

  The sort of thing that was infused with an element or had clear, special effects, like some healing herbs, for example. There was no real point in cooking mundane dishes besides just checking what kind of curse they resulted in. I would have basically no idea what I was cooking until the final result.

  But if I made something using some fire-based ingredients, then I would know that the curse that would come out would be fire-themed.

  Interesting…

  By the way, I do remember feeling a tremble in my mindscape earlier, which was definitely this appearing–But I felt something else as well, any idea what it was?

  I know what it is, check the system panels. There should be a new one.

  Just as my adorable little sister said, there was now a section titled ‘Curses’, and within it, I found all of the curses I had created–Or rather, I found the two that I had created and a third one.

  Crappy Natural Healing Negation - Requires prolonged contact, is heavily localised, and is very easily dispelled

  Crappy Ashen Fireworks - Requires ashes created in close proximity and directly by your action as a medium, and is merely a sparkly distraction

  They had been aptly named. They were indeed rather crappy as they currently were, but my interest was not on them.

  Remember Me? - Those bearing this curse will emit an aura of gloom, promoting negative emotions within the target and those around them. All of which are redirected to you, regardless of whether the negative emotions had anything to do with you or not. Those affected can also become hosts of nightmares

  This is quite good. This is very good, in fact! Since this curse affects people who aren’t even cursed themselves, actually tracking down the source can be difficult, especially if the so-called ‘gloom’ isn’t too overt about how it affects people’s emotions.

  The fact that it can also cause people to become infected with nightmares is a huge boon for me. I will be able to be far more efficient from now on.

  Where did this curse come from, though? It has a very flowery name as well. Rather than a name that actually refers directly to its effects, it has a name that basically says nothing about its purpose.

  If I am not mistaken, this might be your innate curse that you were owed as a Living Curse… But I am not sure it is. I would have expected your innate curse to be linked to your special status as a Steel-Bound Curse

  So this curse might not be your innate one, or perhaps you have several. I can not tell

  It is true that I am a rather special kind of curse. It’s a bit weird that it doesn’t reflect in my so-called innate curse.

  Regardless, I very much welcome this new addition to my skillset.

  Let’s see how well it works…