Chapter 653 - Wrong History (Patreon)

After having that small 'talk' with the curse, Hera decided to head back. Her blades were unable to find anything, and most of the village was already going to bed, some not just to sleep. Even if they were in the past and they were trying to figure out who created the curse, she didn't want to invade people's privacy like that. But she was also too tired to get back on foot, and she could already see her house from the top of the wall.

'Nimbus, can I be lazy and ask for a favor?'

'Of course,' the Sentinel seemed eager to help.

'Could you carry me down? I don't want to go all the way around just to get back here.'

Nimbus chuckled and appeared in his humanoid form. He took Hera in a princess carry and brought her down with ease. Some guards noticed that, and a couple even got ready to attack, but they soon realized it was just the new girl and her fancy new power.

Hera soon arrived back at the house, where she found everyone in the living room with serious expressions. Seeing the Empress arrive, Shane made a gesture that meant to use the soundproof bubble. She pointed up and then made a vertical circle with her hand. It wasn't something they had agreed to, just something that happened, and everyone ended up doing it. With a frown, Hera activated the spell and closed the door with her stone shape to reinforce the 'lock.'

"What happened?" the Empress asked as the spell finished.

"Alex used the curse," Bonnie replied.

The assassin looked up, and the black veins almost reached her mouth, with some going down to her neck. A weird pattern was forming on her forehead, not quite like a crown or a tiara, but similar to a turtle shell.

"And why did Alex use the curse?" Hera asked.

"You don't have to talk to me like I'm not here," Alex huffed.

"Don't I? Is it still you in there? Dammit, Alex, I told you to let me or someone else use the curse if you really needed it. We don't know what is the next stage of that thing!" Hera yelled.

"I couldn't! What I wanted to check was something that only I knew," Alex shouted back.

"And what was it?" Blue joined the chorus of loud voices, "What was so important that you had to use the curse?"

"We are in the wrong place!" Alex got up with an angry expression.

"What?" Helena and Shane asked at the same time.

"We are in the wrong place. Ever since we got here, I had this feeling in the back of my mind that something wasn't quite right. That something was out of place, but I couldn't tell what it was. So I asked the curse to let me relive the moment when I saw the painting and when Kirouhebi told me about it," Alex was yelling the entire time, gesticulating wildly, but when she reached the end of the sentence, she pulled back, "This is all wrong."

"What do you mean?" Adriel placed one hand on her shoulder.

"Yes, please, tell us, Alex," Sammy floated forward, confused by what she was saying.

"Look, Kirouhebi told me how the curse started. We were supposed to be in the kingdom during an invasion of ants. Then a mage with a curse legacy would show up and use the legacy to make a Trojan horse. A curse that would eat away at the monsters, but that curse became too strong, and it just spiraled out of control. There was no Vanguard, no criminals, no Night River, no mention of this place at all," Alex replied.

"Are you sure?" Helena frowned.

"I wasn't, but I asked the curse to show me, and yeah. Now I'm positive. This is not where the curse was born or started, or whatever."

There was a moment of pause before everyone turned to Sammy. The turtle was in deep thought, as if he was trying to piece things together. Of one thing he was sure, this was the right moment in time for the curse to appear in its original form. The memory told him that, and it matched whit the information the guides gave him. After thinking for a few minutes, Sammy finally spoke, "I think someone is lying to you. Maybe it's the curse. Maybe it's Kirouhebi. I don't know. I can tell that the memory I used to guide us here is right. This is when the curse is supposed to show up. Memories don't lie. Sure, they can be skewed and altered with time, but I'm a specialist who knows the signals of change. There were no signals in the memory I used."

"Are you sure you used the right memory to get us here?" Alex asked.

"If I'm being honest, no, I'm not. I had never done something like this before. Not just the time travel, but reaching for a memory inside something that was inside someone was already new. But all the markers are right. All the things that would show that we are in the correct memory are here. I can only believe that, yes, this is the right spot. Or rather, the right time," Sammy explained.

"Ok then, we are still in the Waperath Jungle, aren't we? Let me go talk with Kirouhebi and figure this out. Hera, do you remember how to get there?" Alex turned to the Empress.

"Wait. You can't go there," Sammy interrupted her.

"Why not?"

"Two reasons; first, if you go there, you will be too close to the system, and that will mess up the spell. Going there will send us all home or, worse, get us stuck here. Second, even if you go to talk with Kirouhebi, he won't know what you are talking about. We are in the past, remember? The conversation you had with him and the whole ant invasion didn't happen. Not yet, at least. To answer why he told you that, whether it is the truth or not, you are going to have to wait and go talk to him yourself," Sammy continued.

Alex looked up as if she was trying to see the sky, "Yeah. I guess you are right. I'm just so confused right now, and asking about its origins didn't work that well."

"You asked how the curse was born?" Shane raised an eyebrow.

"I did, it showed me, but it was… weird," Alex nodded. She wasn't going to say anything, but seeing everyone's expression, she realized that she couldn't stop there, "It felt like a… Birth? Like actual birth. Everything was dark, stuffy, wet, and slimy. Then I saw a light coming from above. I, I mean, the curse moved towards it, pushing past something, another slimy mass, and then it plopped out in the jungle. But not this jungle, it was close, but the trees and the ground were covered in some weird purple goo. Behind it were some large masses of the same color, and I just remember being hungry. Very hungry."

"But how are we here then?" Blue turned to Sammy, "If even the curse doesn't remember this, why are we here?"

Sammy stopped to think for a moment, but his ideas came out flat. They were inside a memory, and it was the oldest memory the curse had, but how could it be like that if the curse wasn't anywhere around? "I'm sorry. I honestly don't know. This really doesn't make any sense."

"Ok, let's try to think. Sammy, how did we get here? You used a memory to pinpoint the right time and place, right?" Helena asked.

The turtle knew that was a dangerous line of questioning. If they probed too much about the spell, they might realize that this wasn't the past, "I can't say much about how we got here, but I can say that I used a memory from the curse to get us here. It was the oldest memory it had."

Everyone went silent for a while, trying to understand what this all meant. Hera's court was also sharing their theories but nothing that seemed to be able to help them until Dao asked a question, 'Daskka. What is the first thing you remember? I mean, the oldest memory you have.'

'It's when mum was hunting some moles with the tiny Chika. Outside Darni's temple," Daskka replied.

"What?!" Hera and Lurize gasped.

"What?" Bonnie turned to the explorer.

"No. Wait. Give me a moment," Hera turned to Daskka, "How do you remember that? You weren't there."

"I know, but I was kind of watching. And I only remember the last day… Also, it's weird. It's not like I remember being there or feeling anything. It's like I was just watching a TV show. Seeing you and her fight and play. It's a bit foggy, and I don't remember much of it. Then I think I remember turning into mist and seeing you crying by Chika's side."

"What are you talking about?" Shane asked.

"Daskka remembers something from before I got her. Before I even got the necklace that made her. But I only got Daskka after I found Chika's body. Meaning that Daskka remembers something about before her creation, but she is young. Much younger than the curse, at least. Her memory is much more recent. And if we consider that other things, constructs or beings that have sentience can do something similar."

"Then maybe we are not when the curse actually started, but when whatever came before it started.." Helena connected the dots that Hera was showing, "But that is a stretch, to say the least. It's some kind of genetic memory thing, and those theories are sketchy. I mean, sure, there are studies, and it's possible that a skill could do that, or a spell could be able to engrave that kind of thing on someone's genes, probably. Not to mention a Legacy. That would for sure be able to bring memories along…." Helena stopped speaking, "You know… the more I say, the less impossible it sounds."

"Ok, suppose you are right, and we are actually seeing the curse's father, grandfather, or whatever. How are we supposed to know what it is?" Blue asked.

"I think I got that answer," everyone turned to Alex as she spoke, "I mean, think about it. I saw the curse being born. I know about the weird gooey things that will be its… cocoon? Womb? Hatching pool? Egg? I don't know, but I saw that, and I saw how it was spreading. So the curse won't show up until that thing appears. So, in the end, if we kill that thing before it has a chance to grow, we would get rid of it."

"That is a plan, but we still have to figure out where the curse will start," Bonnie nodded.

"Can I just say something bad?" Shane asked, keeping her head down not to look at anyone.

"You can say we might not like it," Adriel stared at her with cold eyes.

"I know how awful this will make me look. But one option we have is to kill everyone here."

"Shane!" Hera gasped, "We are not murderers!"

"That is technically not true. We all killed monsters, including a few in dungeons that have sentience. There is an argument that we killed people, even if they were fake. But the point is everyone here would end up dying because of the curse. If we kill them all before the curse shows up, we just speed up the process," Shane continued staring at the floor, refusing to look at anyone.

"Shane!" Bonnie gasped.

"What is wrong with you?" Blue asked.

"That is messed up, and I'm the one who looks evil here," Alex crossed her arms.

"I agree with all that you are saying to her, but…" Helena started talking.

"But?" Hera looked at Helena with wide eyes.

"But, she is being pragmatic. Think about it. These people would be killed by the curse. They are not supposed to exist in the near future. They are also the people who protected the kingdom, which I'm guessing is the Waperath Kingdom since the name was never tossed around. By killing them all, we would make less of a mess of the timeline. Maybe it would go even 'better,' and the kingdom would fall, solving that problem as well."

"Lena!" Hera gasped.

"I'm not saying I like this idea, but it would make sense," Helena replied, "We are in the past, so the more we mess things up, the worst the results can be. Sammy told us that we don't have to worry about going back, but time travel is already a messy theory by itself. Now that we are actually doing it, I can only imagine it is even worse. So if the curse wiped out everyone in the room, to reduce the chances, we should do the same. With all that being said, I hate that idea. I made my peace with the fact that we might have to kill someone, but not the entire village."

"Sammy, what do you think about all this?" Bonnie turned to the turtle.

"Honestly, I don't know. What Helena says is not wrong, but from the knowledge I got from the system, even without the curse in this room, the people here would end up perishing. So we don't have to worry so much about letting a kingdom thrive here. And Shane's idea is valid. If we get rid of whatever will create the curse, the curse itself would be gone," Sammy stopped talking; just killing someone wouldn't fix things. For the curse to believe it was dead, it would have to see its previous form being destroyed, "But honestly, I can't, in good conscience, tell you to just kill people. Not just because of the obvious mental issues doing that might bring, but also, if you do something like that, you might change things enough, and the curse won't show up as we expect. Maybe someone will hide because you all went on a killing spree, and that person is who, ultimately, creates the curse. It would be better to just continue trying to find who the person responsible is and only act when you are positively sure of the target."

"So in the end, we talked, talked, talked, and we can't do anything again?" Blue huffed.

"At least we have some more information, or what sounds like information," Hera sighed.

"Yeah… honestly, hits were a bit too much for my brain. I need some rest," Adriel got up and walked to his bedroom.

"I'm going to take a while to sleep, but that's a good idea," Bonnie nodded.

"Me too," Shane got up and walked to her room. A few of the party members stared at her, but no one said anything. They understood why she said what she said, but it still made them feel weird. Without any other option, everyone went to bed, hoping to rest since the next few days sounded like they would be a lot of work.