Isekai Journey Of The Magic Archer

The headmaster\'s office.

Standing before him without any disguises or hoods, we faced him with a not so great expression.

"Can we get straight to the point, headmaster?"

He was looking at us with an interesting look as if whatever he was seeing in us was interesting to him.

We had come back after only a day in that place while we were originally going to spend more than two days in that city, so this certainly was an interesting development for him.

"Yes. We shall do that if you want."

There was no need to waste any more time on this matter since the four of us couldn\'t deal with it ourselves anyway.

"Thanks."

He found the serious expressions we had to be interesting and the way he was looking at us made me certain he had no idea what kind of results we had achieved.

\'He was smiling.\'

It meant he knew about the situation at the blessed city and the things that might be going on in the Kaksha, however, he did not know anything about the things that we might have found out.

"Please, take a look at this."

But as soon as I took out the projection headgear from my storage space, his smiling expression changed completely.

"Why that…?"

We had gone there to investigate whether the Saint of Meyat was connected with the demonic cutists, so there was no need to take something that I usually only used for bigger presentations.

There shouldn\'t be any need for something like this for a task that only needed us to investigate one single individual, but that was what made this more important.

"Please take a look at this headmaster."

-Oooooooooooooong!

First, I created a model of the city of Shrudha, then, after turning the important structures of the city like the Kaksha, the castle of the lord of the city, and the various places owned by the Temple, I created moving dots that represented people all around this city.

"Everything went as we planned when it was necessary. And we were able to confirm that the saint of Meyat, at least, doesn\'t have any connection with the demonic cultists."

First of all, I focused on the Kaksha and gathered the attention of the headmaster and his familiar owl.

"However in the process of investigating the individuals, we came across something that must have been the trigger for someone starting those rumours."

Just like I did when showing this to the rest of them, I turned the colors of the people working in the Kaksha according to their roles in the institution, and created the Aura that signified the corruption they had gone through because of the Fragmantin curse.

There were various things that might have been the trigger for the curse that we aren\'t certain about since we still only know the properties and effects of this curse, not the way it could be cast.

That\'s why even we didn\'t know how it was put on so many individuals, but, if we think that all of the curse was a single entity that resonated with the other parts of it and could grow based on the number of individuals it was affecting, the situation that this city was in was even worse than I had imagined.

"We found out about a curse, something that had also been the reason for the death of SanSan\'s mother in the world where the President Zodiac comes from.

She used to be a divine being that had evolved after various trials and an endless journey according to him, and still, this curse had managed to not only destroy an entire nation in that world, it created creatures that became the reason for her death.

To understand this more clearly, I was able to extract a fragment of the memory from the president."

While keeping the model of the city in its place, I displayed the memory that I was able to extract from him with his consent.

\'It wasn\'t an easy task since his integration with SanSan made his mind a little too strong, but since I had Lucy helping me, it was possible in the end.\'

I was able to get the memory that he didn\'t want to remember ever again, however, under the circumstances, even he did not have any way to deny us access to his precious memories.

"Oh?"

We had already seen this when we were in that city so seeing an adult Okagi wasn\'t a new thing for us anymore, but still… looking at a majestic creature that was the same as the world destroying serpent that I had seen in the memory of my master when we met Wali and her love.

"As we can see here, the curse is a collective consciousness that, when grown to a certain extent, gains a will of its own and is able to exist without any hosts… ultimately, something similar to what (Z-grade Paracita) are capable of."

This curse, Fragmantin was a strange thing.

\'We don\'t know how it came to this world. We don\'t know whether the gods sent it here themselves or what kind of connection they had with this thing exactly, but one thing that we know for certain is the fact that they were connected with this thing.\'

And their connection to a curse that was slowly eating the individuals it was attached from inside, was no good thing.

"The curse originates in one or more points, we do not know the methods it originates. However, from the findings, we\'ve found out that the curse is able to proliferate rapidly.

There are certain conditions that, when met by other individuals that do not possess this curse, open up a path for the curse to travel from one mental body to the other.

Physical attachment has nothing to do with this curse as it exists in the mental world primarily, however, if the curse collectively becomes strong enough by affecting a certain amount of individuals, it could manifest in the physical world.

Though, thankfully, it doesn\'t seem to be that advanced in this city just yet."

The Fragmantin was a weird thing, even for Lucy.

When she was scanning it, it tried to affect her as well, as if even as a copy of its data, it was alive.

It was a strange being, a peculiar thing that I had never known about.

And from how even she knew little about this, there must be some kind of conditions we still haven\'t met for her to unlock that knowledge.

However, she was able to analyse that thing by trapping the data of the curse. And she found out how this \'creature\' was the exact opposite of a \'helper\' of nature.

"There are many individuals that are affected by this thing in the Kaksha, and there are a small number of people outside of Kaksha who are also affected by this curse in the city.

The total goes to 186 people as of yet, but I\'m sure the number will increase continuously."

As I said, there are some kind of trigger conditions for this curse to travel from one person to the other, and until we know those conditions, we won\'t be able to figure out the exact conditions for the curse\'s progression.

"A number of people are still in the initial stages of the progress, so they shouldn\'t lose their humanity just yet, but there are a few that are very concerning."

There were nine individuals in this city that were almost completely consumed by this curse.

And one of them…

"Even Cardinal?"

The current grand order of Kaksha. A stigma holder and one of the strongest beings present in that city.

He was messenger of the goddess of light Boök. Someone that possessed the brightest light of this era.

He was a kind individual comparable to the pope of Meyat, however…

He was affected by the curse and the curse that he had on him had progressed so much that it wouldn\'t be long before the curse completely consumed him and nothing else was left of him.

"Headmasters…"

Slowly and steadily, we told him everything that we had found in this last few hours we had been away from here and with all the information laid bare before him, there was little that he could deny.

The involvement of divinities, the spread of a strange curse that shouldn\'t even have existed in this world in a specific institution of the Temple that followed these gods, and the fact that many of the individuals that had highly progressed curses on them were closely connected with the Temple was no coincidence.

"What do we do now?"

There was demonic evil on one side. A cult that possessed demon contractors that were sane and not in control of the demons that they had signed contracts with.

And now there were divinities that were involved in a ploy that might not only hurt the entire humanity, this whole thing they had prepared might also give the demons an excuse for what they had planned themselves.

"Haaa…"

The headmaster was stunned by the new revelations.

He had not expected this level of threat from this simple mission, and he certainly wasn\'t looking forward to facing a problem that involved the Temple and the divinities they served.

His expression looked grave all of a sudden, but that was within the range of our expectations.

Though, what we did not expect was how he suddenly washed off the expression he had from his face and looked back at us with a straight face.

"You four, do nothing." He ordered. And yes, it was an order.

"This is not something you have to be concerned about anymore."

He walked towards us, placed his hand on my, and Cradle\'s shoulder, and looked straight in all our eyes.

"Leave this to us… I\'ll tell you if we need your help regarding this. However until then…" he walked past us, and opened the door of his office before moving all four of us out of the room with his magic.

"Don\'t do anything foolish, and go enjoy your weekend."

-Clang.

And then he shut the door before our faces, leaving all four of us a little confused, and also a little worried about the future.

"This is going to be…"

"Difficult?"

"Yes. Though, not for us."

He Told us to stay away from this, and truthfully, I\'m going to do just that.

And I know for sure that Cradle will make sure that the President does the same, so, even I have nothing to worry about anymore…

\'We\'re off this case now.\'

Which also means we can finally enjoy this weekend.