Before you ask, Mauser was a Vanedeni [Hero]. He came long after me. I was already nothing more than a soul in a book when he almost single-handedly ruined our people. He had the famous class, the charm, and the talent. But he was a spineless idiot. No one knows how classes are really assigned, but one thing is for sure: Mauser wasn’t a [Hero].

The hope of our continent, Princess Valarith, who still had to get the class when she slew him, died with that foolish kid. Since arriving at Kome, never in our history had there been a civil war among the Vanedenis, Joey. Never. The only exception was the one caused by Mauser.

He was a great [Necromancer]. One of the greatest, perhaps. And he spread his cult far and wide before he was felled. Now, please. Let me. I’ll teach you about this in the future. But for now, I need to do it myself, and I’ll need to borrow your body.

“—maybe my Ancestor could—”

“Antoninus, stand back, please,” my voice is deeper and stronger than usual. I don’t object to Lord Juler’s taking control as he simply moves my mouth. “I’ll cure your mother.”

Everyone in the room turns to me, but Lord Juler has put a neutral expression on my face. He’s looking through my eyes at the woman’s body. It’s frail and weak, barely hanging onto life. I can’t imagine what her muscles must be like if she lay in a bed for an entire year. Her body is probably atrophied and decaying. How she is still alive is a mystery.

“Joey, you don’t know—”

“Antoninus, I can remove both curses. But I need all of you to get out.”

No one has moved yet.

“Joey,” Lucillus eyes me severely, and I can feel Lord Juler’s anger starting to mount after being disobeyed.

You know, I actually wonder how this ‘possession’ thing works. If magic comes from the soul, does he need to bridge our souls and—

Silence, Joey Luciani. It is indeed very hard. But do not forget who you are talking to. [Supreme Archmagus] is not a title to throw around casually. I need to focus to make this work.

“Give me half an hour with your mother. That bone-mending balm lost its efficacy months ago. And you know it too. Her bones are not mending properly. She needs my intervention, now.”

Antoninus gets up and stands in front of me. The guy is much taller than me, and I have to look up to gaze into his eyes. He’s pained by what’s happening. And he clearly doesn’t trust what I – or better, Lord Juler – just said. But they have also seen me do incredible things, haven’t they?

“If anything happens to my mother…”

It’s the first time I see Antoninus growling. He’s usually laid back and relaxed, but now he looks like an elephant about to rampage.

“She will walk again, Antoninus. You have my word.”

Princess Laura takes all the people in the room out and closes the door behind her. But not before she gives me a long and meaningful stare.

I’m going to show you how Formations work. This is just fueled by Mana, but we need to establish what curses affect her body first.

Before I can ask what he means by that, lines of Mana materialize in the air, visible even to the naked eye. The form intersects in circles and other geometrical patterns above the shaking body of the woman.

I might not have my skills anymore, but magical expertise is not just skills, student.

Slowly, a massive array – or what some would call a mandala – arranges itself on top of the body. Several parts start flashing before going black or deep shades of gray.

The two curses they mentioned are just the result of ten different curses ravaging her body. The bones are rotten. The necromancer managed to penetrate her body with a shard of Rottenbone. That’s one of the most insidious and high-level curses a Necromancer can employ. It eats the bone and replaces it with more Rottenbone. It’s a rare skill/material. The skill can only be embedded in a shard of bone that will need to penetrate the bone. It has many maleficent properties. The most significant is the ability to keep digging through flesh to reach the bone and meld with it.

Mauser was an expert on curses and body manipulation. He created Undeads that still haunt some countries. On Kome, our home, there should still be a lake infested with his last creations, some of the most powerful ones.

[Rottenbone] requires a physical vessel because its properties are so against life itself that it would never pass a soul-shroud. Therefore, Mauser engineered the curse himself. It was one of his most terrible Unique Skills. We’ll talk about that in the future. Rottebone is like a worm that eats and spawns more Rottenbone. This woman’s body is riddled with it. It’s a curse that will leave the body debilitated and slowly kill it over a couple of years. It was meant to affect the [Dragonslayers] – assets so dear to our enemies that they spent immense riches to try and heal them. But no one could. Only in very few cases, where Rottenbone had barely taken hold, was there any success at lifting the curse. And that happened by amputating the affected limb or body part.

How are we solving this, then? Didn’t you just say that this woman had Rottenbone all over her body?

I don’t have a solution for this. I could have done something if I had my own body here. And even then, it would have been a very crude solution.

Lord Juler, you just said you are a [Supreme Archmagus]! For God’s sake, aren’t you all-powerful or something? Isn’t there a spell to save this woman?

Magic can do everything, but I did not expect Rottenbone here. The [Necromancer] this woman killed must have been of the highest caliber. Over level 50, maybe approaching level 60. In time, such a person could have revived Mauser’s legacy.

Give me a second.

Lord Juler draws a few more lines of Mana in the air.

This woman is a [Blademaster] at level 44. That’s… not too bad. But she sacrificed herself to prevent a possible catastrophe. If what I’ve heard is true, many should thank her for her noble deed.

What are we going to do, then?! We have to save her! You said I would save her!

We might have to give Antoninus some very bad news, Joey Luciani.