Chapter 76 – Chapter – 76. A Curse Like Rice Cake.

There are experiences in this world that become more familiar the more you do them.

And there are experiences that always feel like a mess, no matter how many times you try.

The act of vomiting up a <Curse Fragment> is clearly the latter.

What actually came out looked just like a rice cake made of burdock burrs.

Ah, seriously….

It was tough, maybe not as bad as the Curse of Gluttony, but still hard.

Don’t you know strong-weak-medium-strong-weak?

‘Strong-weak-medium-strong-weak?’

Where did you even learn a rhythm like ‘strong-super strong-strong’?

Did you learn music from someone who plays heavy metal?

“Tch.”

I clicked my tongue at the curse.

Honestly, I wanted to pound it to a hemo rhythm and let loose.

But it looked like I’d be the only one getting hurt if I hit it.

Just look at those sharp, spiky edges showing its nasty temper.

It looked like a monster born from an evil spirit inhabiting a rotten durian.

What if I hit it and it bursts?

Wouldn’t this place turn into dead land again?

It kept rambling on and on until the end, and I’m sure it’s going to hold a grudge.

Let’s not get involved for no reason and just leave it to the curse response team.

Right now, there’s something more important than dealing with a curse like that.

“Kids. Come here.”

I hugged Gongdori and Gongsooni, who bounced over to me.

I approached Mother, who was hesitating for some reason, and stretched out my tentacles to pull her into a hug.

“I’m sorry.”

A mix of emotions-worry, disappointment, anger, relief-came rushing in.

“I’m sorry.”

My relationship with these kids is a bit complicated.

Originally, these kids were a part of me.

Even when we were physically apart, we were still connected.

Even outside, I still recognized them as a part of ‘me’.

But as we spent more time apart,

these kids gradually became independent from me.

And with the [Analyze+] skill, they became completely independent of me.

They were ‘me’, but no longer ‘mine’.

The moment I saw these kids displaying abilities beyond my own,

I felt a sense of crisis that they might take my place.

Is this how a teacher feels when their student surpasses them?

I suspected these kids would take my place.

Yeah. Suspicion.

Damn curse.

It’s using a loophole.

What the curse planted in me was distrust.

There’s no doubt about this point.

I doubted the true intentions of others.

I doubted Hans and the rest of our staff.

I doubted monster materials.

I doubted my kids.

In the end, I even doubted myself.

Because I couldn’t trust others, I tried to handle everything alone.

There was so much to do, but doubting others made it all the more exhausting.

Suspicion is endless.

No matter how much smarter I got or how high my skill level rose, it was useless.

Every time I looked at something, new unresolved problems kept piling up in the back of my mind, so of course I got tired.

After people, I started doubting objects.

Especially since I couldn’t trust monster materials, I fed them to the Glutton Slime.

Eventually, I couldn’t eat anything, my level stagnated, and I even ran out of slimes to store with the [Store+] skill.

I doubted my kids.

Like children who betray their parents for an inheritance, I kept thinking they’d push me aside and take my place.

I even experimented to see if I could really be replaced.

I handed off all my tasks to others.

I realized that everything I did could be done by someone else.

I doubted my own abilities.

When I started doubting myself, I couldn’t make slimes anymore.

Making slimes is a task that has to be done quickly, like sugar art. If you hesitate, second-guessing every move, there’s no way you’ll get good results.

When I lost my abilities, I couldn’t trust anything around me.

My body isn’t made of flesh and bone, but of slime.

Are the things my eyes see-without even an optic nerve-real?

Can my ears-without eardrums-even hear the truth?

Is the information my slime brain processes distorted?

I couldn’t know anything anymore.

I couldn’t trust my own judgment.

I couldn’t tell if any of the information I received was true or false.

The basis for my actions disappeared.

Without judgment, I had no idea what consequences my actions would bring.

In fact, in my state as big as Mother, what I thought were rocks might actually be skyscrapers, and what looked like ants might really be humans-so just moving around, I could be causing disasters.

Those kinds of bad thoughts consumed me.

So I tried to let everything go.

That way, I could find peace of mind.

The world would probably have a better ending that way.

Of course, I didn’t actually believe a truly good ending would come.

It wasn’t just that I couldn’t trust myself-I still couldn’t trust others.

Still, second-worst is better than the worst, right?

“Thanks, kids.”

If the kids hadn’t forcibly raised my level, I would’ve just holed up and done nothing, suffering in silence.

And when I couldn’t take it anymore,

what kind of reaction would I have shown?

I don’t even know.

Maybe I would’ve tried to make the world really, really simple?

If that happened, I wouldn’t need judgment or anything else.

“But don’t ever do something like this again.”

I checked the kids’ status windows.

As expected. The kids’ levels had dropped drastically.

Just as I can give these kids new skills, it seems they can raise my skill levels.

But the efficiency seems really low.

It’s going to take a long time to recover.

My words made the kids protest.

Maybe it’s because they’ve been slimes since birth.

Instead of human language, they send me strange information-a jumble of all their senses mixed together.

To translate what they were saying.

[Because Dad isn’t doing it right!]

“Sorry, sorry. I promise this won’t happen again.”

[Really?]

“Yeah. Promise.”

I can feel the kids relax.

To think I was jealous of such good kids.

Damn the curse of jealousy.

Yeah. Jealousy.

That’s probably the real name of this curse.

I was filled more with thoughts of tearing others down than lifting myself up.

Jealousy and distrust are inseparable emotions.

Because I don’t believe I have the ability to rise higher than others, I try to cut them down.

Because I don’t trust the other person’s feelings, I assume they’ll leave me for someone else.

Because I can’t trust others, I suspect they’ll try to take away what I own, and I get jealous.

I always thought I wasn’t the jealous type.

Even when the cute Gisu, who used to cry after being headbutted by me, awakened and became a human weapon, I was the kind of person who just said, ‘Congrats. If you make a lot of money, buy something expensive, okay?’

Makina is a monster in the gaming world, but I never grumble, ‘I’m jealous! If I had that kind of skill, blah blah blah.’

Even if someone is better than me, I don’t hate them or desperately try to steal their place.

I mean, everyone has their own special talent, right?

And those who say they don’t just haven’t found it yet.

Everyone is holding onto something unique to them.

For me, I guess that talent was making Slimes.

The moment that was attacked, I crumbled instantly.

It was even easier to break because it poked at the one thing I thought I didn’t have.

But jealousy could never target that.

After all, there’s no one in the world who can make Slimes better than me.

Until [Analyze] evolved into [Analyze+], I even considered my kids as part of myself.

That’s why the curse of jealousy resorted to tricks.

It poured all its power into distrust instead.

First, it made me suspicious of everyone around me.

It shook things up until chaos was created when the kids became completely separated from me, and made me doubt them.

Once I was doubting everyone around me.

It made me doubt even myself.

If the curse of jealousy had focused solely on distrust, it would have gotten me too.

But this time, the curse just talked too much.

It couldn’t even hide its true nature until the end.

You know how even when you’re entranced by a con artist’s story, if they start spouting nonsense, you snap out of it?

That’s exactly what happened here.

The curse of jealousy tried a huge provocation by insulting my family and friends, and that snapped me out of it.

Even now, just thinking about it makes me mad again.

Should I just close my eyes and punch it once?

The most vicious thing about this curse is this.

It kept saying that if you just get the [Mind Reading] skill, you’ll know everyone’s true feelings.

But there’s no guarantee that the voices you hear with that skill are actually someone else’s true feelings.

True feelings, my ass.

Most likely, those voices were just what the curse of jealousy wanted me to hear.

Unable to trust other people’s words or even the words rising up inside me, I probably would have just done whatever those voices told me to do.

Ugh. Horrifying.

<Curse Fragment>

-A piece of the curse wrought from deep resentment.

■■ The most beloved ■■ Despair’s ■ ■■ ■■ ■■■■■ ■ will meet their end at the hand of ■■■!

Will meet their end at the hand of the most beloved Despair.

That turned into an ominous sentence.

Out of a total of 14 words, 6 have been revealed.

That’s three out of seven, if you do the math.

Does that mean I have to spit out four more of these things?

With the number seven, the Curse of Gluttony, and the Curse of Jealousy, it feels like the curses of the Seven Deadly Sins.

But the curses I coughed up at first didn’t really match up with that.

It only looks like they fit because I interpreted the curses through the lens of the Seven Deadly Sins.

In reality, they could be completely different curses.

I hope they are different curses.

Isn’t the Curse of Lust incredibly dangerous?

If I ever publish my story as a book, I might have to slap an R19 sticker on it.

Riiing.

[Counselor Park Taeyang]

“Yes. Alche-”

-Alchemist-nim! The Slime-nims have disappeared!

Gongdori and Gongsooni flinched.

Ah….

There’s no way Gongdori and Gongsooni would have filed for early leave and left.

By now, the Seoul Central Alchemy Center must be in chaos.

I reached out a tentacle and patted them both.

It’s okay. It’s not your fault.

“They’re with me.”

-Alchemist-nim? It’s a problem if you do this without saying anything!

“Why?”

-Huh?

“And what exactly is the reason I shouldn’t do this?”

-Didn’t you entrust the Slime-nims to us?

“I never entrusted them to you.”

-…What?

“The relationship between the Alchemy Center and my kids is more like a rental office company and the employees working in that office. They’re not dispatched employees, not Alchemy Center staff, and not property of the Alchemy Center. So why are you talking as if my kids’ rights belong to you? Do you think just because our kids quietly work inside the machines, they’re pushovers?”

-….

No answer came back.

Of course, they can’t answer.

I must not forget this.

The role of the Alchemy Center is simply to sell the alchemy products made by alchemists to the best of their ability.

Gongdori and Gongsooni work inside the Alchemy Center’s factory for efficiency, but they’re not obligated to do so.

There’s no obligation to produce a certain amount of alchemy products each day.

We’re the ones who decide the production volume.

If we suddenly went on strike, there’s nothing they could do.

I’m not really sure how this kind of contract came to be.

Maybe it’s because in K-Alchemy, if you try to sign a long-term contract, all the alchemists just run off overseas.

Anyway, the only obligation I currently have is the contract to send the Glutton Slime to America.

There is no contract that allows the Alchemy Center to force my or my kids’ actions.

You could argue about verbal agreements or implicit understandings.

You want to pick a fight with me?

With someone who received clear goodwill from the chairman of Sole Alchemy?

I did say I’d be the one to reach out first.

But what if the other side grabs that hand and tries to swing me around?

Then I should plant my feet firmly on the ground and swing them right back, shouldn’t I?

Gongdori and Gongsooni poked me.

Huh? You have no complaints?

You’re fine with working 24 hours a day?

In fact, you say you’re so free right now because there’s not enough work?

You want more work?

It’s only been a few days since you were born and you’re already workaholics.

I raised these kids wrong.

Or did I never raise them at all?

Guess it really is my fault.

Well, as long as Gongdori and Gongsooni have no complaints.

“Just kidding.”

-I-I see.

I said it was a joke, but this conversation will still reach the higher-ups at the Alchemy Center.

They’ll think I’m giving them a warning.

That if they cross me, I could just quit everything.

This wasn’t part of my original plan, but now that things have turned out this way, I’m just going to push forward.

Soon, I’ll be launching a large-scale project called Slime Land, and for that, I’ll need the Alchemy Center’s cooperation.

If I assert dominance now, it’ll make things easier later.

“I’m at the waste processing facility right now. Something urgent came up, so I called the kids.”

-Did something happen?

I was wondering what excuse I should use to call the curse response team.

Conveniently, I have the perfect excuse.

“You know this is dead land, right? While I was working on various things, the land started to revive, but a curse popped out instead.”

This place was originally dead land.

And now it’s come back to life.

If I say it’s just a side effect of the resurrection process, that should be enough.

So, there’s a curse here?

Send the curse response team quickly.

***

Upon hearing the dispatch location, the curse response team leader steeled himself.

The team members also braced themselves as they got in the car.

A curse is like a fire.

If it’s small, it can burn out on its own.

But the bigger it is, the more it swells up and leaves disaster in its wake.

This is the curse that turned 300,000 pyeong of land into dead ground.

Just how terrible could this curse be?

“Uh….”

Normally, the youngest would have screamed first, but now only let out a flustered voice.

They had imagined a curse like the Demon King of Evil descending upon the world.

What awaited them was disgusting, but it didn’t look all that terrifying.

“Do not approach. Check for any traces of the curse nearby.”

“Team leader!”

“What is it!”

“The mana concentration in the area is incredibly high!”

“What about the curse!”

“It’s clean!”

“….”

The team leader forced his brain to keep working when it wanted to freeze up.

“Seal it!”

“Understood!”

The team leader watched as the preparations for sealing were made.

It was definitely a nasty curse.

The worst one we’ve seen this year.

Among the curses we’ve seen in the last five years, it would rank second or third.

But if you consider that it came out of dead land….

“Sealing preparations are complete!”

“Good!”

After several attempts.

“It’s done.”

The curse was sealed.

It was definitely a high-difficulty job.

But somehow, it feels anticlimactic.

The support team with specialized equipment should be on their way, but the job is already finished.

“Search the area. Was it Alchemy Slime who handled this one?”

“Yes. Once again, they say they don’t want to meet.”

The team leader nodded.

This wasn’t a situation to get angry about.

They should actually be grateful for handling a curse from dead land at this level.

“Team leader. There’s a gift box here.”

The team leader hesitated for a moment.

“Take it. We’re heading back!”

The curse response team took the sealed curse and headed for the sanctuary.

In the car, the team leader contacted the support team to let them know the job was done.

After persuading someone who just couldn’t believe it, they arrived at the sanctuary before they knew it.

The sanctuary was also in an uproar, preparing for the curse’s destruction.

This is the curse that turned a full 300,000 pyeong into dead land.

To destroy it, that much preparation was necessary.

“Please halt preparations for a moment! We don’t need to go this far!”

Seeing S-class artifacts and top-grade magic stones being prepared-things only used in national disasters-the team leader hurriedly shouted.

The moment those magic stones go into the artifact, there’s no turning back.

“You’re here already?”

The priest preparing the exorcism was surprised to see the curse response team leader arrive.

They had expected the sealing to take much longer.

“Please take a look at this.”

When the team leader handed over the sealed curse, the priest looked puzzled.

“Is this really the curse that came out of the dead land?”

“I think Alchemy Slime handled it.”

“Ah, right. Alchemy Slime did say they extracted the curse from the dead land. Certainly… that person’s ability to handle curses is extraordinary.”

The priest clearly remembered the curses that Alchemy Slime had made.

They were such horrific curses that you could believe they were cast by an evil god.

But the <Slime> encasing those curses blocked the curse’s effects from leaking out. This didn’t change even during the exorcism process.

It might be dangerous to touch directly, but sealed like this, there was little to worry about.

Thanks to that, they could take their time and slowly destroy the curse.

There was no need to use S-class artifacts or top-grade magic stones, so it could be handled at low cost.

“Truly a talent to covet.”

“I agree, but if we made them quit alchemy and focus on curses, the people would be furious.”

“Yes. We can’t monopolize someone who brings happiness to so many. Still, I imagine we’ll be working together a lot more in the future.”

Alchemy Slime figured out how to revive the dead land.

In the future, they’ll probably go around reviving other dead lands.