I imagined the shelf with books about magic would be filled with books, but apparently I was wrong. There were only five books in total, three of which were written in the common language. Since these three books were on basic magic which I already knew too well, I simply ignored them and took out the other two books. One of those two books was so thin I didn't know whether to call it a booklet or leaflet.

I brought the two books downstairs to Amber. She was still busy admiring the aquatic creatures, apparently. The thicker book looked like it might contain knowledge I didn't know about, so I gave it to her first.

"Could you translate the title of this book, Amber?"

"Sure. Let's see… 'How to control mana and use basic spells' is the title."

"That sounds familiar…"

"It says at the bottom that it's a translation of a basic magic textbook."

Maybe looking for books about magic in this town wasn't such a good idea. Hardly anyone could cast magic in the first place, so of course there wouldn't be any good books. I should have just lowered my expectations when I had the chance.

"What about this one?"

I passed the thin booklet to Amber. I think her face cringed a little after looking at the cover.

"This one is called 'Devils can inflict curses, and so can you!' and underneath it says 'Basic curse spells used by devils to trouble their opponents or prank their peers'"

I think I might just cringe at that title and description, too. Nonetheless, it probably contained some spells I had never seen before, so I can't really say I wasn't interested.

"Well… I don't know any demon magic, so it might have a couple nice spells I could learn."

"I hope you don't plan on harming anyone for no reason. There are laws against that, you know."

"I won't. I'm just intrigued by the description. I might never use the curses on anyone, but being able to recognize and undo them would be some useful knowledge."

If a book teaches about curses, then chances are it would teach about how to cure such curses. If I could deduce some patterns out of such cures to create ailment healing scrolls and potions, it would be a fantastic thing.

One thing's for sure: I definitely won't misuse these spells. Probably.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Do you have a library card I can borrow?"

Now I think her eyes twitched a little. Gee, if it bothers her that much, then I guess I'll go through the trouble of applying for a card the next time I go to a library.

Amber reluctantly gave me her library card and I borrowed the magic booklet, as well as two books on coral reefs and marine mammals.

* * * * *

"Um… Are you going to beat me up again?"

I called the reptilian Casath over to an empty street the next day, after the giant zombie rode off with the daily army supplies. It was currently around noon, and most streets were empty since people were mostly having lunch indoors at the time.

"No, not at all. I just needed someone strong to test some new spells on."

"What?! I'm not a sandbag! Find someone el—"

"Here's 50000 doviti."

"Please go easy on me."

I probably could have gone to a monster farm and test the curses on some of the creatures there, but the closest farm was 50 kilometers away and I was too lazy to go that far. Bribing Casath was a much more convenient thing to do.

Besides, he was the best choice for me to test some of the curses on. Casath was of the reptilian race, whose members varied greatly in appearance but had a lizard-like face and scaly body as a common feature. He was two meters tall with a large muscular build; he had rough dark green scales and an alligator-like tail. Like other reptilians, he had great physical power and endurance, and his thick scaly skin granted him moderate resistance to physical and magic attacks.

The only weakness he had was that his race was cold-blooded, making him extremely vulnerable to extreme temperatures. That was why he passed out after getting hit once with my Flame Pillar attack the week before. I don't know what exactly the curses I'm testing today can do, but I'll try not to use any spells that change the temperature.

"What's the first curse spell written in the book, Amber?"

"Let's see… 'This is a simple, yet effective curse to unnerve your foes, making them doubt whether or not they have full control over their bodily functions.'"

Interesting. That sounds like a manipulation spell. Amber pointed her finger on the page when I looked towards her.

"The chant is on this line, and this line is the chant to undo it."

"Got it. "

"To cast the magic, you need to invoke ∇∇∇ with ◐◐◐ property, followed by 凸凸凸 with the property of ■■■, then […]"

Simply put, the magic required a long series of mana conversions and complicated invocations to activate. It was in many ways similar to rapidly alternating one's pitch to imitate multiple voices while singing with a varying tempo - it was very easy to describe what to do and not too trivial to remember how to do it, but it was extremely difficult to do it right without practice.

Since I already bribed Casath, he didn't seem to mind staring at me in the middle of the street as I tried to reproduce the activation steps for the spell for almost half an hour. Finally, when I felt like I could faultlessly cast the spell, I pointed my staff at Casath, performed all the necessary invocations, read aloud the chant that Amber previously pointed at, and channeled mana into the staff to activate the curse.

An indigo colored light briefly shot out of the staff and hit Casath. Upon hitting its target, the light vanished as quickly as it appeared.

"…Nothing happened? Do you feel any different at all, Casath?"

"Nope."

"Do you feel like you still have control over all of your body parts?"

"Yes."

I waited half a minute, but it didn't seem like anything was happening.

"Um..."

Another half minute passed, and Casath suddenly opened his eyes wider.

"My pants… Feel wet…"

"Your pants feel wet? Did you pee your pants?"

"No… But it feels wet…"

"Amber, is this the effect of the curse?"

Amber flipped through every page of the booklet to see if there was any more mention about the so-called curse I used just now.

"Ah, I found more information about the spell… 'This curse is best used in the early morning, when your opponent is about to wake up. Their senses are still dull from drowsiness, so the curse creates a very believable illusion that one has accidentally wet their pants. Those who wake up to find their pants soggy will certainly become embarrassed and wonder if they've actually matured to the point they can fully control their bladder.'"

The steps to undo the curse was to perform its activation sequence in reverse, so it didn't take me too long to practice. I chanted and used the spell to undo the so-called curse while Casath was burying his face in his palms, possibly due to embarrassment, and removed the sogginess from his pants.

"Well, that was rather absurd… Let's try another spell, Amber."

Amber flipped back to the beginning of the booklet and turned to the page following the one about the sogginess curse.

"This curse ensures that your opponent will never be able to successfully complete a spell chant without messing up. Conventional methods will not be able to dispel its effects, and the opponent will therefore be unable to use magic until the curse is removed by someone else, or expires on its own after one hour!"

Wow, that sounded an anti-magic curse. I never knew one even existed.

"Um… Is it alright if I tested this curse on you, Amber? It doesn't look like Casath can use magic, so I can't really test it on him…"

As a mage, I can innately sense the mana flow within a couple paces around me to some degree, and it didn't seem like there was any mana flowing in Casath's body.

"... Fine."

Amber reluctantly allowed me to test the curse on her after letting out a long sigh. She read out the sequence to follow for the spell, and pointed to where I could find the chant for the spell and its reversal. It seemed like all curses could be undone just by performing the activation sequence in reverse.

Twenty minutes later, after taking a couple steps backwards, I pointed my staff at Amber and activated the spell. Just like before, nothing happened for a whole minute, and we all awkwardly looked at each other in silence. Suddenly, Amber broke the silence.

"Hiccup!"

I think I know what this curse does already…

Meanwhile, a confused Casath walked over to Amber.

"Hey, is everything alright? Um… Sorry, what was your name again?"

"It's Amber… Hic!… And I think… Hic!… I'm fine…"

She gave off such high pitched hiccups, I found it quite cute. Though I found it funnier that Casath didn't even know Amber's name even though he delivers large shipments to my shop daily, and they had already encountered each other on several occasions.

"This curse causes you to have uncontrollable hiccups, doesn't it?"

"Yes… Hic!… Please un-hic-do it."

Sure enough, if one were to constantly hiccup like that, then it would be impossible to finish a spell chant without getting interrupted. In such case, even if one could perform the necessary preparation steps, there was still no way to let their magic out as the chant was the last part of an activation sequence.

Unless the chant was for extremely basic magic with one or two syllables, it was essentially an effective way to prevent an opponent from using intermediate and advanced magic in a fight. It was still possible to use magic attacks nonetheless, since one could still just channel unconverted mana and shoot out a beam of magic energy, so it wasn't really an anti-magic curse. Still, this curse was a clever means of ensuring the opponent cannot use their strongest spells.

I undid the hiccup curse on Amber after a few minutes of practicing.

"I'm starting to have doubts about whether any of the curses in this booklet are useful at all, but let's try just one more spell. They say that third time's the charm, after all…"

"Don't test on me again, Blaze. You hired Casath for that."

"Alright. I promise I won't."

Having heard that, Casath moved a few paces away from me since he would undoubtedly be used for another test, while Amber flipped through the booklet and selected a page at random.

"This is a non-lethal curse guaranteed to take away the deadly powers of even the strongest of medusas. This spell should be used with caution, as it is irreversible!"

Medusas were a race of people with serpentine tails instead of feet, and snake-like creatures as their hair. By channeling vitality or mana into their hair, they can emit a powerful light and aura that weakens enemies that come close and petrifies those that directly gaze at the mysterious light.

I'd like to think this is a strength draining spell, but given what happened with the last two spells, I have my doubts. In any case, I chanted and used the curse spell on Casath after a while.

"So what exactly does this curse do?"

Casath asked me with a puzzled look, since nothing happened this time after two minutes. I turned to Amber and asked,

"There's a catch, isn't there?"

She flipped through the booklet to find the footnote for that spell.

"This curse does not remove hair roots, so the baldness effect is not permanent. You can use it on other body parts, too! It's a great way to save time when you need to shave!"

Right. Casath didn't have any hair in the first place, so of course it wouldn't have any effect.

Damn, if this booklet didn't belong to the library, then I would have burned it already.

"Can I borrow your library card again, Amber? I'll go return the book after lunch."

"Huh? Why the rush? Just return it when we're done with the other two books."

"Fine, but please hide it in a place where I can't see it."

"Alright."

"Um… was it really fine to give me so much money?"

Casath walked over while scratching his head.

"If you feel bad for accepting that much money, then you can treat us to lunch. Or you could let Amber test the remaining curses on you some later time."

"Okay…"

Casath treated us at a diner that served something that resembled a curry rice dish. Just like with the feast I accidentally ordered last week, the serving size was so large that Amber and I had to take the food home for dinner. Casath didn't seem to have any trouble eating it all, though.

Since I didn't want to look at the booklet of curses again, Amber ended up testing the curses alone on Casath over the next two days. Unfortunately, she was relatively bad at following the invocation instructions, so I still got dragged outside.

It turns out the booklet contained only five more ridiculous curses: one that caused bad foot odor, one that made the victim feel an urge to use the toilet, one that prevented the closing of the mouth, one that prohibited turning right, and one that made nails grow longer.