Apocalypse Healer - Path of Death-Chapter 31B2 - Cursed

Torb allowed the human party inside the Dwarven Sanctuary once their intentions were clear. He provided meals and beverages in exchange for hearing their story.

“It’s not a nice story,” the leader of the human party, Lukas, warned.

“Regardless, we would like to hear it,” Torb said, and David nodded in agreement.

Some of Fortress’ zealots tried to stop him when he followed Torb and the human party into the Prime Champion’s home, but his Bloodlust worked wonders. The dwarves backed off and glared at him from afar. David let them be and made himself comfortable on the couch in Torb’s office. It wasn’t anything special—large but lacking furniture—but it was something. Definitely enough for the manager of a newly established Sanctuary.

“The integration happened suddenly, yet we didn’t take it seriously at first. Our connection to the internet was cut off, but we still had access to water and electricity. Electricity didn’t last long, but I don’t think anyone sensed anything amiss until Maja’s grandparents died,” Lukas said, glancing at the young, trembling woman clutching her Mage Wand until her knuckles turned white.

“The integration didn’t take their lives. Old age did. Regardless, Maja’s grandparents turned into Infected. I think everyone can imagine what happened to the townspeople when they saw the dead roaming our streets.

“First, the Infected killed the nurse who had taken care of them, turning her as well. They infected more townspeople before we could stop them, which granted us access to Classes and supernatural power. But that power came at a price. A Rift opened in town, forcing us”—Lukas pointed at his group—“my friends and me to kill those disgusting little cretins—Goblins, or whatever they were called. But even as we killed them, the Rift didn’t close. So, we entered the Rift.”

David glanced to the right and noticed several members of the human party in tears.

“We had to stay in the Rift longer than expected to survive and close it. While that granted us power, it also left the rest of the town without enough protection against…” Lukas gritted his teeth, clenching his fists.

“Against these bloody bastards!” the man seated beside Lukas growled.

Lukas patted the man on the back, sighing heavily. “Exactly. Our families couldn’t do anything against these bastards while we were busy clearing the Rift. We came back to find our families on the verge of death. But our families weren’t the only ones who suffered. Hundreds of people had been executed, while the rest were beaten and cursed.”

“Cursed?” Torb interrupted before Lukas could continue. “What’s this about?”

Lukas’ shoulders drooped, and he looked at the ground. “We don’t really know either. We just call it a Curse because it’s the only thing that makes sense to us. Nobody in town recovers from their wounds. They look like they’re constantly on the verge of dying.”

The sobbing to the right continued, and it didn’t take long before the woman beside Maja bawled her eyes out.

“Zora chose the Cleric Class and has already completed her First Class Advancement. I consider her Class fairly powerful, but she couldn’t heal them. Well… their wounds heal, but our families—everyone afflicted by the Curse—remain lethargic. They act like they don’t desire to live any longer. It doesn’t make any sense,” Lukas muttered the last part.

“Let’s put the Curse aside for a moment,” David said, ignoring Torb’s look, which seemed to urge him to keep his mouth shut. “How is that related to Peter and his people? I doubt they put the Curse on your town. As far as I remember, Peter and his people—though, to be fair, they weren’t strong enough to leave much of an impression—didn’t have any special Classes. Their Classes followed the average advancement path of the four Basic Classes.”

Their Secondary Classes could have been related to Curses, but if they were, the bandits would have used them against him and Zachariah.

“How do you know Peter and his people in the first place? Did your families tell you who was responsible for their condition?” David added curtly.

Lukas looked up, and their eyes met for a moment. “They came back after we returned.”

“More than once. And they always brought people—hundreds of them. These people, mostly humans but also other creatures, are like our families. Alive but lacking the drive to live. The bandits stuffed them into the empty houses. Then… when we retaliated, trying to rescue our families, our families collapsed. Some even died,” Lukas gritted his teeth, and David noticed blood dripping from his clenched fists. “They took our families hostage, mocked us… and even worse… then they did this to us.”

Lukas pulled his leather armor aside, revealing a dark mark—a black scythe with a silver frame. Yet while the scythe was still visible, David could barely sense any energy from it. He channeled Blood into his eyes and noticed a fading crimson thread of life force connecting to it.

That was… curious.

David discovered the same life force threads on the others and was certain he would find similar marks on their chests if he checked.

"Does everyone have these marks? Your families and everyone else?" Torb asked, voicing the question lingering in David’s mind.

Lukas nodded, looking down again.

"What happened next? You don’t strike me as a lethargic person. If anything, you and your friends are overflowing with life," David said.

"We received some help from…" Lukas hesitated. "Well, from something—or someone. We don’t know who or what helped me, but whatever it was, it allowed me to regain control of the situation. I killed several men when they returned with more of the Cursed. The mark weakened, and I managed to kill a few more men when they returned again until we were freed of the Curse."

Footsteps rang out from outside, and the door to Torb’s office swung open.

David didn’t have to look up to know who had barged into the Prime Champion’s office.

"Only your Curses grew weaker? Why?" Zachariah asked, approaching the humans before slumping onto the couch opposite them. "I killed this Peter or whatever he was called. Neither he nor the others carried Curses. I’m certain of that. However, that also means you and your friends are either lying to us, or your Curses are weakening due to other factors."

Zachariah lifted his hand, stopping Lukas and the man beside him before they could protest. "I don’t think you’re lying. I think one of the transcendent beings helped you a little. It might be interesting to find out why one would do that, but the answer is not crucial."

He locked eyes with Lukas. "You came here to kill Peter and the rest to free your families, right? But they’re already dead, meaning your families should be better now if—and only if—they were the primary aggressors behind your families' suffering."

Maja sprang to her feet, and David sensed an astronomical amount of mana surging through her body. She waved her Mage Wand, releasing golden particles into the air. The space before her cracked open, the golden particles twinkling vibrantly as they shot toward the fissure, expanding it.

However, to his disappointment, the crack shrank and collapsed a moment later. David stared at Lukas, whose hand rested on Maja’s shoulder.

"There were more people. You know that. They also mentioned other towns when they… did all of that to us," Lukas whispered, barely loud enough for David to hear.

He got to his feet, smiling at the party of humans. "Even if there are more bandits or towns that fell victim to them… how about we check on your families first?"

Lukas raised an eyebrow as they locked eyes. "We?"

David nodded. "Of course. What if Zachariah is right and Peter wasn’t the culprit who put everyone under this Curse? Don’t you want me to take a look at the Cursed?"

"You?" the woman beside Maja asked skeptically, wiping her face.

The party’s healer must have stopped crying a while ago.

"I’m a Healer," David responded matter-of-factly.

As soon as he spoke, he felt several eyes on him, scanning him from head to toe. Clearly, they didn’t believe him.

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"You certainly don’t look like a Healer." Zachariah chuckled. "More like a Tormentor."

David looked down at himself. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since his physique had improved this much. Was it when he acquired [A Body’s Impurity] or when his Body stat reached Advanced? His muscles had grown, but they were also more compressed than before. Lukas had a great body, but David was sure his physique was even better than the swordsman’s.

Still, with the scars and the Relic, he probably looked more dangerous than reassuring.

Did they sense my Bloodlust earlier? He wondered. Maybe that was it.

"I might look a bit fierce, but I can tell you I’m a good healer," he said, turning to Zora. "Better than her."

She scoffed. "How would you know?"

Was that a sore spot? Either way.

David shrugged. "It’s a fact. I don’t need to know you to tell you with certainty that I’m better than you. Or else, you would have sensed something odd about the scythe marks."

Zora didn’t look like she wanted to leave it at that, but he turned back to Lukas.

"I can heal everyone if the marks disappear. And even if they’re still there, I’m pretty sure I can alleviate the symptoms."

"Plus," David smiled at the party’s leader, "I can rip the bandits a new one if they return."

He checked on Zachariah. The regressor’s expression didn’t change, but he seemed angry.

He shook his head. "Don’t look at me like that. Healing the townspeople is not my job."

"That’s it?"

Zachariah shrugged. "I can scout the towns and see if I can find more bandits. Tending to the weak is your job. It helps you grow stronger. I can only concoct potions and hunt some bastards to grow stronger."

David had no issue with that.

"How about we stop wasting time and depart? We don’t have all day."

Lukas and the others looked at each other and shrugged. Torb grumbled something in the dwarven tongue and got up with the words, "Since you guys have everything under control, I’ll take care of my business."

Lukas nodded at Maja, who waved her Mage Wand again. Golden particles filled the office, and the space before her cracked open once more.

"A portal?" Zachariah jumped to his feet. "You have a Portalmage in your group?"

"Portaligist," Maja muttered, her forehead drenched in cold sweat. "And this… might take a few seconds. Long-distance teleportation with so many people is… not that easy."

The regressor gasped, his eyes locked on the small woman as mana continued to pour out of her. However, he didn’t utter a single word. But David noticed the shock in Zachariah’s eyes—something about being a Portaligist unsettled him.

The crack in space expanded, and it did not take long before it resembled a Rift, albeit a small, golden, glistening Rift.

***

David watched the scenery change as he followed Maja and the others. They walked out of Torb’s office one moment and emerged in the plaza of a gloomy town after a few long strides.

"It feels like walking through a Rift," he muttered.

"Because long-distance teleportation requires a medium to be used. Replicating a Rift is probably the easiest way to travel long distances. It cannot be used in combat, but from what I see on the live-updated map, we saved some time," Zachariah responded, grinning as he studied the map before him.

He turned to Lukas and spoke to the swordsman while David turned around, channeling Blood into his eyes.

The life signals of thousands unfolded before his eyes in detail, making his head hurt as he tried to digest all the information. But he did not have to know everything to tell that something was wrong with the town—its people, to be precise.

It didn’t take much to notice how weak the life signals of everyone in town were. That was the odd part; even if most townspeople did not gain access to the Class System by killing an Infected or a monster, David doubted their life signals should be this frail. Yet, after studying the life signals for a few seconds, his confusion deepened.

How is it possible that everyone has exactly the same amount of lifeforce? he wondered, trying to understand the situation. Not only was the amount of lifeforce left behind shockingly low, but it also shouldn’t be possible.

From David’s experience, every lifeform had a different amount of lifeforce. Finding someone with a similar lifeforce level was already very hard, but exactly the same? More than a thousand times in succession—in the same town? David sincerely doubted it was possible.

Was that the Curse’s fault? The thought stirred something inside him. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the sickening cracks as he clenched his fists. How could people do that to their own in a time of need? They were all in dire need of power to survive against the masses of Infected, monsters, and other creatures trying to conquer and claim parts of the Earthen Union. Worse even, creatures were trying to devour the Earthen Union—possibly the whole cosmos. Was it necessary to weaken thousands of people when they needed strength the most?

"You said nobody can be healed, right?" David turned to ask Zora, who shuddered and retreated as their eyes met.

He rolled his eyes. "Quit joking around and tell me what you used on them, including the skill ranks."

Zora took a deep breath and patted her chest, but she still shuddered when she answered, "I… used [Restore] at Rank VI, [Cleanse] at Rank IX, and… I tried a variety of [Healing Touch] at Rank V, and [Blessing] at Rank II, [Holy Light] at Rank X, and [Healing Patch] at Rank III."

David listened intently but gestured for her to keep talking.

“The combination of [Restore] and [Cleanse] worked, but the effect didn’t last long. I don’t know why, but they reverted to their old behavior within minutes. [Healing Patch] seemed to make things worse, while [Blessing] and [Holy Light] actually caused them pain. At first, their condition seemed to improve, but within seconds, it worsened. [Healing Touch]... was similar to [Restore]. It helped them, but only for a minute or two before their condition returned to the lethargic norm,” Zora said, looking like she’d finally regained her senses.

“As expected,” David muttered, turning to an elderly woman staring out of her window. She was the nearest life signal with an intact Curse and provided him with enough information to put the pieces together.

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“What are you getting at?”

Someone grabbed his shoulders and shook him as he gathered more intel from the elderly woman. He turned to Lukas, who hadn’t stopped shaking him.

“Let go,” he said quietly, but the Bloodlust oozing from him must have been enough to pull the swordsman back to his senses.

Lukas released him and stepped back.

“Where is Zachariah?” David asked, looking around.

“Your friend left to check out the other towns,” Lukas said impatiently. “But who cares about that? What did you mean by ‘as expected’?”

“Your friend over there”—David pointed at Zora, the healer—"probably cannot see the lifeforce of living beings. Regardless, she should be able to sense it when she heals others.”

He noticed how impatient everyone was and went straight to the point. “These scythes—the marks—seem to drain the targets’ lifeforce. That is also why [Restore] and similar skills only work for a few minutes. The Skill Runes are functioning, but all Zora did was replenish some of their lifeforce without removing the root of the problem.”

The Curse appeared to stop draining someone’s lifeforce once it went below a certain threshold, leaving David with a few important questions: How long would the victims’ lifeforce be drained, and where was it going?

David could answer the latter to some degree. He sensed a lifeforce thread flowing toward a specific point in the elderly woman’s chest, presumably where the scythe mark was located.

Every bit of lifeforce above a certain level goes straight to the mark, which is probably connected to whoever inflicted the Curse. He frowned as he realized he was looking at a blood bank. The only difference was that this wasn’t charity, nor were there any volunteers. He was in a town where people were being drained of most of their lifeforce.

If the aggressors used something resembling Blood—a type of energy that required lifeforce to be produced—it would turn the townspeople into their living energy reservoirs. David shuddered at the thought.

“They’re so lethargic because someone is stealing their lifeforce?” Lukas demanded.

Zora shuddered. “I… didn’t help anyone. I hurt them by healing them, didn’t I?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” David responded, though he wasn’t sure how much Classless people suffered when their lifeforce was taken by force. He remembered the time he had been forced to use his own lifeforce to fight Kobolds and other creatures, but back then, his lifeforce had never been at a constant low. In the first place, he had been too focused on survival to think about it.

“Can you help them?” The man beside Lukas—David still had no idea what he was called—asked.

“To be honest, I cannot say anything for certain,” he responded honestly. “All I can say for now is that I can see what the Curse is doing and that my Skills are much stronger than Zora’s. I might not have all of her Skills, but I’m fairly sure mine are adequate.”

He didn’t bother mentioning Blood’s potency.

“Can you bring me a few resilient men and women? It would be best if they could endure pain,” David asked, earning several odd glances. They looked at him like he was asking for the impossible.

“Give me some Cursed at the Bronze Rank. I’m not speaking in dwarven or elvish, am I?” he grunted. “Unless you’d rather I test my ideas on the old woman over there?”

He pointed at the elderly woman at the window. She didn’t move away and winked weakly at him instead. That was odd, but David ignored her and stared back at Lukas and the rest. “I doubt she’ll survive it. At worst, she might die of heart failure when I tamper with the scythe mark.”

“You want to experiment on them?” Zora asked skeptically.

“Didn’t you do the same?” David snarled. “Or would you say you actually healed your patients?”

Lukas nodded slowly. “All right. I’ll ask around, but we won’t force anyone to be your guinea pig.”

“I never intended to force anyone. Nor do I want to kill my patients,” David snorted. “Only my enemies are getting killed—not my patients.”