After the social gathering, I returned to the convenience store.
Ayla had advertised it so boldly, but nothing extraordinary happened to me. Ayla said an enormous number of orders flooded in, but I can’t make that many anyway.
“Then just make what you can!” Ayla laughed it off. She didn’t seem too concerned.
I’d like to set up a mass-production system someday, but item duplication furniture comes out quite late in the game.
I’ll definitely get my hands on that.
Anyway, for now I’m focusing on making fortune cookies rather than buff pastries.
Actually, I didn’t plan on making more after handing them out to the kids, but the proficiency gains are surprisingly decent.
**[Handy Worker proficiency increases.]**
**[Accessory Crafting proficiency increases.]**
**[Shining Patissiel proficiency increases.]**
Since one skill raises three proficiencies at once, I usually just make fortune cookies when the mana recovery field is active.
A few great successes happened in between too. Since I have no one left to give them to, I’ve stashed them away on the convenience store shelves for now.
“Here you go, Mille-feuille. A pastry imbued with blessing.”
“Thank you.”
Mille-feuille received the fortune cookie and bowed her head.
But her eyes held confusion rather than gratitude.
Is she not pleased? When I asked…
“No, I’m really happy. It’s just… behind you, Senior…”
“Ah, you mean this.”
Behind me was a mountain of fortune cookies piled up.
If she thinks I just handed her one from that pile, I suppose the meaning as a gift would be diminished.
“That one is a particularly high-quality item.”
“Ah, I see. You said it’s a talisman, right? I’ll treasure it, Senior.”
Mille-feuille nodded several times.
Actually, even if it’s not a great success, a blessing is still imbued in it.
I just wanted to alleviate any unease, so I couldn’t help it.
Since the fortune cookie is both a “pastry” and a “talisman,” even after its expiration date, it still works as a talisman. I’m not sure what options activate if you eat it. Better not to eat it.
“Honestly, I can’t really feel the blessing.”
“I see.”
Mille-feuille has mana sensitivity, but it seems she’s insensitive to divine power on the flip side.
“Is there anything I can help with, Senior? Since you gave me a gift.”
Ever since becoming grade top student, Mille-feuille has been approaching me quite intimately.
She seems to think of me as the benefactor who helped her break out of her shell.
What a good junior.
“Nothing in particular. You can go.”
“Heeeng.”
With that, I sent Mille-feuille off and fell into thought.
Now only Nephti remains.
“I should give one to Nephti too. Should I wait until she comes?”
—
“Can I eat it?”
“No. It’s a talisman, so keep it safe.”
“Yes, understood! But why did you make this?”
“Do you remember when we went to the Black Market last time?”
When I handed the fortune cookie to Nephti who had come by, the first thing I heard was “Can I eat it?”
After briefly explaining the circumstances, I also added the reason I made this item.
Since she’s the one who goes around the Black Market with me, I could explain a bit more seriously.
Of course, not in full detail.
“…A curse. A curse targeting celebrities might activate?”
“Yes. Curses are established in exchange for longing and thirst.”
“Is there no precursor?”
“None. That’s what makes it such a clever method. A dirty method, too.”
By showing them vain dreams, it accumulates negative emotions.
And with those accumulated emotions, many things become possible.
Especially if you cast a curse on the person themselves, the effect is strong.
For example, Eve.
Among the countless feelings of “I wanted to be Eve,” there are some truly unspeakable ones.
For instance, let’s say there’s a 32-year-old Black Market resident named “Willie Um,” a Knight Department graduate who should have graduated eight years ago.
If his dream—having failed to graduate from the Knight Department—was to stand at the pinnacle of the academy, then he would dream of becoming Eve.
In other words, the dream of 32-year-old unemployed Black Market resident Willie Um is to become Eve von Lohengrin, a second-year academy student council president. Legendary, truly.
Anyway, it lets them relieve their dirty desires in dreams.
He becomes Eve in his dream.
And the middleman—the Act 2 boss—collects those emotions.
They bundle them up well, cast a curse formula, and throw it at Eve.
In the original story.
That desire manifests before Eve as Wolfram von Lohengrin’s corpse.
“Eve, you killed me.”
“You, you, youuuuu!!”
“I couldn’t even become a corpse. I, I!!! Still dead, I wander this world!!”
A garbage attack that converts dirty desires into her trauma and strikes her.
Eve collapses crying on the spot from the disgusting shockwave that shakes her entire life, and if you can’t stop it within the time limit, she goes slightly off the rails.
On top of that, the Act 2 boss is impossible to catch.
It’s a truly disgusting story. The boss only casts curses from a distance, and all we do is get pushed around and try to block them.
I know who it is, but the bastard always hides their face, living deep in the Black Market.
And if they use Fake Face, they’re truly hard to find.
Of course, due to the peculiar nature of curses, the user can also get hit in reverse, so you trace that back and eventually approach the boss. Then—*kwang!*—and it’s resolved.
Anyway, filtering out all the game talk, I relayed “Wolfram-brand knowledge found in the Imperial Library” to Nephti, and she went “Hmm,” pressing her index finger to her forehead.
“So that means I could also be affected by such a curse.”
“So take it with you.”
“Yes. I’ll gratefully accept it. …But Senior, are you alright?”
Nephti asked me that question.
As in, is Wolfram von Lohengrin safe from curses?
“Who would imitate me?”
“There might be more than you think. That’s what worries me.”
“Nephti, if you’re going to make jokes like that…”
“It’s not a joke.”
Nephti’s eyes were as serious as they could be.
No, really, there isn’t anyone.
“Basis for that judgment?”
“None. But I am someone who aspires to the Royal Guard, even if only halfway.”
“Did you forget? This is a curse that turns admiration into delusion and casts it. There’s no way anyone admires me.”
“There is.”
“Basis?”
“I myself am that basis.”
With that, Nephti placed her right hand over her chest and looked at me with earnest eyes.
Seeing those eyes filled with conviction, a sense of déjà vu rose within me.
The knight of conviction. Nepterian.
The senior who was with me from the very first playthrough.
She who raises her shield for everyone in the front line originally had eyes like these.
“…Understood. I’ll be careful.”
“Yes. I’m relieved.”
—
The tricky part of Act 2 is that “you have no idea when the boss battle will occur within the story.”
There’s no trigger that enters the boss battle. Because the initiative is entirely on their side.
At best, you can open the Black Market early to check who’s most popular in the sleep rooms, or somehow secure blessing items?
The curse appears before the heroines randomly and wreaks havoc, and it’s incredibly exhausting.
And this is one of D/Z SAGA’s many frustrating mechanics.
Amazingly, this kind of boss isn’t exclusive to Act 2.
So does it just end with one-sided defense? Well, it’s ambiguous.
The developers did include a considerate system.
‘If you achieve a complete defense—whether through blessing items or Kelterus arriving at the right timing—then when you later face the enemy, their defense, health, and mental strength will be reduced.’
This is the characteristic of curses in D/Z SAGA—
Curses ignore the opponent’s mana. Of course, this is a huge advantage.
However, while you can inflict all sorts of CC and damage, if the activation fails, you also take damage yourself.
A defense-piercing attack with a probability, and if it fails, you get hit in return—a no-turning-back skill.
The same goes for divine power, which is why you have to be extremely careful when putting rare curse or divine-using characters in your party.
Curse users must bear responsibility when they fail.
“So I might be targeted too.”
At first, I dismissed it as Nephti’s exaggeration.
But from the Act 2 boss’s perspective, it’s possible.
Hmm.
Targeting me.
You’re going to harass a ordinary commoner—a small business owner who runs a corner convenience store with no customers, spending every day developing products?
Thinking about it, I feel…
“Quite angry.”
If it comes to that…
Honestly, I don’t even know what I might do.
I laid out fortune cookies on the floor surrounding the convenience store, leaving only the entrance clear.
Then I placed the item I’d picked up before in the center and lay down.
I told the others to just block with fortune cookies.
Yeah. Come on in.
Believing you can deal damage from afar—just come on in.
I’ll show you for real.
—
That night.
My eyes quietly opened.
But my body wouldn’t move.
Ah. This is that.
Sleep paralysis.
My body really won’t move.
No doubt about it—I’m having sleep paralysis right now.
My breath is choked off, and my whole body feels bound in chains, immobile.
And when I slightly turn my eyes, I see a dark mass staring at me from afar.
Is it a gas? A liquid? Or a solid? The mass in human shape had no eyes, yet I felt its gaze. It had no mouth, yet I began to hear sound.
‘I wanted to become you.’
‘Despite being incompetent. Despite being incompetent. Despite being incompetent.’
‘I was betrayed. I got expelled. You. I’ll kill you.’
‘Die. Die, Wolfram von Lohengrin. Die. I’ll kill you.’
Voices ring in my ears. Not mixing between female and male, countless curses and abuse pour out.
Ah.
This is that.
It really came.
This is the Act 2 boss’s curse.
‘Die. I’ll kill you. Die.’
‘Because of you, my family went bankrupt. My family was cast out.’
‘Why did you abandon me? I swore loyalty to you!’
‘Wolfram. Wolfram von Lohengrin. If I can kill you, I’d die right now willingly.’
Mm-hmm. I see. You guys really hate Wolfram. Fair enough. I hate him too.
This trash of a body. Stamina 2—is that even human stamina? On top of that, you hate and resent someone who does nothing wrong, a small business owner who faithfully pays taxes—there’s no low you won’t stoop to. Seriously.
I half-agree with your hatred, but sorry—I’m Wolfram now.
Since I decided to become Wolfram, I’ll accept that too. But I don’t want to just accept it lying down.
What can I do? I’ve got a nasty personality.
Besides, if I were getting insulted for something I actually did, that’d be one thing—but you’re trying to drag me for things I didn’t even do?
“I hereby renounce that inheritance. See you in court.”
*Thud.*
The way to break sleep paralysis is to focus all your nerves on trying to move your pinky finger.
Instantly, sensation returned to my whole body, and I sat up.
This kind of curse.
Wolfram von Lohengrin has an absolute defensive measure.
I switched the skill from passive to active, and—
“Imperial Bloodline.”
**[Imperial Bloodline activated.]**
**[All surrounding bloodlines bloodline bloodline bloodline blood]**
?
What are you doing.
**[The opponent is not a bloodline?]**
**[All surrounding mong? disregard the user’s bloodline.]**
**[Auto-counter is activated?]**
What is this.
Ah. Since it’s curse interference rather than bloodline, the skill doesn’t know how to handle it either?
I see. It’s a more human-like system than I thought.
Or maybe it’s just a buggy mess of a game.
Personally, I’d put 500 lin on the latter.
Imperial Bloodline fell silent.
…Probably a bug caused the skill to activate halfway?
Eve also has Imperial Bloodline, and she was rolling on the floor going *gwaaack* when hit by this, so it seems like it’s true damage after all.
‘Die. Die. Die.’
‘Die Wolfram. Die. Die. Die. I’ll kill you.’
While listening to the curse’s words, I fell into thought.
It’s not that the curse is scary. There’s not a single point of damage.
More than that—with the bloodline shut down, something rather interesting happened.
I try to respond, but I can’t respond.
I try to defend, but I can’t defend.
“I see. So this is a situation where the trigger errored out or the activation got tangled.”
I don’t know exactly how it got tangled, but what’s certain is—
Right now, Wolfram von Lohengrin is freed from the restriction of “must always speak and act befitting his bloodline.” And that means, in other words—
“Hey, shut your mouth for a sec. You’re making an awful racket.”
‘…?’
‘…??’
‘…???’
For the first time in a long while, I was able to speak in Lee Young-jin’s tone of voice.
Wow. What is this free time.
‘D-die.’
‘Wolfram die.’
“Look at your vocabulary getting simpler. You bastards. Waking a guy up at 2 AM, showing up all dramatic like a curse, putting sleep paralysis on me—if you’re gonna talk that much, at least use some more advanced vocabulary.”
‘…Die.’
‘Die…!’
4 million forum members.
The founding admin who ran it for 10 years amid all kinds of friendly-fire docking and goro-shi tactics.
Do you really think I, of all people, ever lost a single flame war against countless trolls?
“Honestly, my policy is instant block on double swear words and report—but for you guys, even that’s a waste. So…”
I picked up a fortune cookie lying on the floor and tossed it at the mass.
With a screeching sound, the curse howled.
Of course. What I threw was undeniably a “blessing.”
“You bastards will regret picking a fight with me at 2 AM.”
Now. I threw the next fortune cookie at the mass.
“As I’ve always said… Wolfram-sama’s Earth is a planet where things get done, you know? For trash like you, this is the most fitting punishment I can give! A slide coming right at your body! That’s it!”
“KYAAAAAAAAA!”
“GRRROOOOOGH!”
I threw another fortune cookie, and it twisted its body, begging for mercy.
‘…I’ll kill you.’
‘Someday, I’ll kill you.’
The curse’s repertoire changed. Saying that, it started slinking backward—seems like it’s preparing to flee.
The curse user probably took some damage too. If I let it go like this, it probably won’t touch me for a while.
But where do you think you’re going?
I’m not such a nice person that I’d let you go just because you took a hit and apologized.
“Fuh yuh wah nee pun chuh fuh beaseball, yuh know.”
I threw a fortune cookie in a parabolic arc toward the main entrance—the only way out.
As a result, the curse mass’s escape route was blocked.
‘…’
‘…………’
It desperately looked around, but there was no way out.
Fortune cookies were laid surrounding the store interior, so if the curse touches them, it takes damage automatically.
Passing through is also impossible.
“Now you’re trapped in this convenience store, huh?”
‘…’
“Hyung had a tough time when he fought with Wolfram, you know? Because he had nothing. But now he’s got a bit. So how do you think it feels when some Act 2 nobody comes and picks a fight?”
‘…’
“But hyung is also a gentleman who doesn’t get angry easily. When the boss comes, I tend to play with them nicely. So don’t be shy—stay and play with hyung.”
*Gulp.*
I drank a stamina potion, smiled at the curse, and wound up again.
“Wanna play the Getting-Hit Game? You go first.”
