Curry Part 2

“Kerron has to lead the souls of the departed to their next lives. It is a heavy responsibility.”

It was part of the explanation given to Yuzuki after they all came back inside.

Opening up the pot to give the curry a check up stir, she contemplated the whole idea of the ‘Hero’ and the ‘Lord of Death’ that was intertwined into the world of Vestia.

In Vestia, the balance of nature was disturbed due to overdependence on machines that used magic in order to function, thereby giving the masses a more comfortable life. However, magic itself was a finite resource and not something that was easily and quickly renewable. There was an abundance everywhere as magic was in the air itself, in the sunlight, in the wind – in everything. Ambient magic tended to gather and crystallize, resulting in magical ores, some of the first fuels for the machines. They had also been used to replenish the spent magic in those capable of spellcasting, though with their mining being forwarded for machine fuel, many magic users had to look elsewhere to restore their magic reserves as much as society did to fuel their machines.

Yuzuki knew that humankind decided that the residual magic left within the dead was harvested for their own daily use. Spirits were gathered and then drained of their magic. While it probably did them no harm, it actually harmed the cycle of life within an area. The leftover mana at the end of one’s life was the catalyst needed to push new life into being after a mortal life has passed. Kerron’s role was to gather and protect those souls to send them off into their next lives.

“Our dear Kerron has a very large reserve of mana – more than one person could ever need. When he leads the souls, he’s actually letting his mana bleed out behind him to nourish the magic starved spirits so they can return to this world as new life. He sometimes goes far to find souls that had been drained so that they can be rescued from a fate worse than death.”

It was a big responsibility and Yuzuki couldn’t help admiring the man for holding everything on his shoulders. He did this job alone. There was no one else she saw standing there beside him as he performed his duty as the Lord of Death. Rather than being something as scary sounding as a Lord of Death, which sounded more like the final boss of a video game dungeon, he was functionally more like a ferryman of the dead. He did not kill or steal lives, rather he was helping them pass on peacefully. When Yuzuki thought about it, if she had died in this place, all alone and scared, it would be comforting knowing someone was doing their best to make sure her afterlife would not be a terrible one.

It’s gentle. I have no idea why that driver believed Kerron would be so frightening.

“But his mana would have to run out, right?”

“Kerron is a special case. Unlike most beings in this world, his mana actually restores itself over time. Of course, with how much he uses it every night, it can be taxing. It often makes him quite tired,” Crim explained.

Azura sighed, her voice sounding like a concerned mother worried about her overworking son. “Honestly, that boy could do better with a warm meal. It would help him more than eating a raw piece of pork. The stomach trouble he had afterwards was intense enough for him to be sick for days. So thank you for doing this, Yuzuki.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I worked in a restaurant in my home world, so it’s the least I can do since he’s letting me stay here while I figure things out.”

Somehow, Yuzuki had trouble imagining someone so ethereal and imposing having food poisoning, doubled over a toilet and puking his guts out after eating something questionable.

“So, what’s the Hero’s deal? Well, heroes. The place I got called to summoned a bunch of us at once. What’s that about?” It was something that bothered Yuzuki. So far, what she learned was pretty straightforward. If people learned to live a little less dependent on machines, perhaps the world would not be in the state it was in.

“Heroes are meant to destroy monsters,” Crim told her. “Since a time immemorial, they have always been called from other worlds to do the job of monster extermination.”

“Is it really that necessary for a hero to come from another world?” Yuzuki inquired, not at all hiding the bitterness in her tone. She really wanted to be given a good reason as to why she was ripped from her home, though she didn’t honestly think there would be any good explanation for outright kidnapping. Vestia was truly a world filled with a lot of problems that they could not solve on their own.

Crim continued his explanation. “It’s because otherworlders, no matter their origin, have a special affinity that people in Vestia do not possess in order to vanquish monsters. You see, the people here are capable of fighting them, however, the monsters revive every night unless destroyed by a hero.”

That was a terrifying thought, though it confirmed to her that this was very much a problem for the locals to be figuring out and not outsourcing to people against their will. For a world of fantasy and magic, it felt like her own problem riddled world, just in a different world. Same dish, different flavor, as it were.

But she supposed if this kind of thing had been going on for years and, she assumed, the population of monsters only grew as time went on, she supposed the world would need help with culling the population. It was like a rat infestation in a kitchen that refused to go away, because people chose to simply catch them when they entered instead of getting rid of the course itself.

“Where do monsters come from, then? Do they just pop into existence?”

“They come from the malice borne of the souls who cannot move on.”

Yuzuki blinked, stupefied. “Seriously?” The dead of this world seriously got the short end of the stick. Sure, their lives were finished, but what did one have to do in order to rest in peace? “Is there a way to turn them back?”

“As of this time, there have been no recorded ways of returning them to their former selves, which is where the heroes come in – they have the proper affinity to destroy them before they cause untold damage and breed further malice in this world.”

So it was like an endless cycle. Made sense, then.

In Vestia there were affinities in place. It didn’t establish a hierarchy or anything like that, but it made things a lot easier to classify. There were the four main affinities that a person from Vestia can be born with: water, fire, air and earth. Each element did not have any specific trait other than one would expect in terms of physics (water being wet, fire being hot, etc.) as each person determined how their affinities could be used to benefit their life and goals. Simple enough to understand.

However, there were other affinities, but they were the kind that had to be made, rather than be born with. They were the affinities of Malice and Holy. Malice was linked to the feelings of all beings within the world; it came from the fear, the strife and tragedies that occurred, which was why in Vestia malice could only beget more malice. It also randomly appeared and manifested in all kinds of forms; the biggest source of Malice affinity beings were spirits drained of their magic.

The Holy affinity was linked to heroes, or rather, those that came into Vestia from another world. Due to their nature of being otherworldly, it took a lot to bring those people over. Some say nothing short of a miracle could make this occur. And when these visitors from another world do arrive, it is through the blessings of the world itself, accepting the newcomers. And they are given this special affinity unique to them. What it meant to have the Holy affinity was also unique to each person. In the past, Vestia saw heroes who wielded a powerful light that took on the shapes of weapons. Others gained incredible healing ability that bordered blasphemy, capable of bringing others back from the brink of death.

On top of this otherworlders had a magic to them that was wholly different than the ones born into this world, but that had nothing to do with the Holy affinity.

In theory, Yuzuki should have this, too, being brought over from a different world, though they would need an instrument to measure how that Holy affinity would manifest. The next thing she would do after she served her curry to Kerron.

In the distance the clocktower began to sound, twelve large booming chimes, signalling that it was midnight. At the same time, Yuzuki checked on the curry once more, knowing it would soon be time to serve it up. She took a little into a ladle and gave the broth a small sip, eyes lighting up when she tasted the mellow flavor.

Dinner’s ready.