Chapter 5: Ended

—Late that night.

The woman was quietly breathing in her sleep.

But suddenly, she clawed at her neck and let out a pained sound.
Rin immediately understood that the curse had been laid again.

“...How diligent.”

It was merely observation.
Neither praise nor disgust. A single evaluation, with no emotion involved.

Rin closed her eyes and let her consciousness sink deep.
She could grasp the presence of the caster more clearly than the night before.

—As expected, it is not this one.

I knew from the start.
This is just a proxy.
Having accepted a request, it is only exercising a curse for the sake of payment.
There is no hatred, no anger. It is simply carrying out the command that’s there.

However, it’s for the sake of a peaceful life.
To reach the one who made the request, I have to ask the proxy.

Rin lowered her gaze and murmured briefly.

“Return.”

This time, it won’t end with a mere reversal of a curse.
I’ll layer my own curse over the opponent’s curse formula and send it back.
It won’t end at something like merely double.

Her gaze fell to the smartphone placed beside the woman.

—The world has become a convenient place without me even realizing it.

It was functioning as a conduit for the curse.
Rin’s consciousness followed that conduit of cursecraft and, without breaking, reached a man.

A middle-aged man. A gloomy face.
He had collapsed onto the tatami, writhing and groaning.

Before long, Rin’s figure appeared within his field of vision.

The man’s eyes flew open, and he let out a soundless scream.
Fear surfaced in the eyes fixed on Rin.

“Place the same curse formula on the one who asked you to cast the curse.
If you do that, the current curse will end.”

When Rin stated this quietly, the man immediately nodded again and again.
Tears spilled from him, and with trembling hands he tried to grasp at something.

When she returned her consciousness, her field of vision was tilted.
Apparently, in the midst of working cursecraft for the first time in a long while, she had ended up lying on her side.

Rin slowly pushed herself up and straightened her posture.

She turned her gaze toward the bed.
Her eyes met the woman’s.

It was only a moment, but their gazes clearly overlapped.

The woman soon rolled over and began breathing in her sleep.
Her breathing was unnaturally even.

—Hopefully, she didn’t notice.

But there was no way to confirm it, and no reason to do so.
Rin turned her gaze forward again and simply remained seated in silence.

Just like that, without sound or movement—
she waited for dawn.