"...Sothing’s not right."
Wizard squinted his eyes slightly.
He vaguely sensed sothing amiss. Although he was just a quick-ford Transcendent, Wizard had reached at least the silver tier and his perception attribute wasn’t low.
It wasn’t as simple as soone trailing him.
After he had left the team, he started to feel a strange sense of malice. He hadn’t walked far when he started to experience a growing discomfort in his body.
If he had to describe it, it was like coming down with a cold or a fever. But the discomfort ca on so rapidly... in less than a minute, he felt his body wobbling, his head spinning.
He even felt his chest grow more oppressive, breathing beca difficult and sluggish. His limbs beca heavier, and intense neuropathic pain emanated from his skin all over.
...No, that’s not right.
Wizard suddenly realized sothing and glanced at his status bar.
Health: 85%
About three to four seconds later, the number dropped by 1%.
The mont he realized his health was actually depleting, Wizard imdiately beca alert.
He stood still and quietly counted the seconds.
After ten seconds, he lost 1% of health; another ten seconds, and he lost another 1%.
...A dot controlled to trigger every ten seconds? It has sothing to do with the number ten.
This must be a curse from the domain of the Moth’s Mother.
But what’s the dium?
Why curse ... No, that question can wait for now.
Wizard quickly cald down, started looking around, searching for sothing related to the number ten.
anwhile, a thought separated in his mind and began to calculate:
——Based on the rate of health loss, it all started about five minutes after he had left the main group...
With that in mind, he imdiately stopped walking, returning the way he ca while enduring an increasingly severe sensation of illness.
He tried to maintain the sa speed of movent as when he had co.
And the mont his health dropped to 67%.
Wizard clearly saw the anomaly—a piece of wet hemp rope had been placed in a fish tank.
And that hemp rope had ten knots in it.
"...Knots?"
Wizard murmured softly to himself.
He rembered—knots could also serve as a dium for curses.
After Delicious Goose shared many theories of ritual, Wizard found so strange similarities with the customs of so ancient Earth tribes. So, he bought so books on folklore recently to conduct research.
The natives of the East Indies Archipelago believe that "tying knots" could bind a fetus inside a pregnant woman. It ant that they could prevent her from giving birth, causing a difficult labor, or slow postpartum recovery. Thus they believed that neither husbands nor wives should "tie knots" during pregnancy.
In so places in Southeast Asia, during childbirth, everything in and around the house that could be untied was undone—like braids, shoelaces, ropes; even gunpowder was removed from gun barrels and arrows from bows, and one couldn’t even sit cross-legged—because sitting cross-legged was also a form of "knot."
Russians would use nets filled with knots to ward off wizards... This is also why Russian brides wear veils full of knots at their weddings. The net full of knots is believed by Russians to resist spells.
In West Africa, among the Fon people, there are witches who curse their enemies using knotted grass ropes; if you can’t find and untie the knots, you’ll continue to fall ill and eventually die; the Quran also ntions "those who blow on knots," referring to wizards cursing others by tying knots, and even Muhammad had almost been killed by such thods but was saved when the Archangel arrived and directly helped him find the hidden knots; The French believe that tying knots can curse soone’s marriage to be unhappy, causing couples to quarrel... with the specific effect being impotence in n.
Although this is a fairly common witchcraft, in all types of rituals taught by Delicious Goose in this world, there was none involving tying knots.
So Wizard hadn’t paid much attention to it at the ti.
But now, seeing this rope knot so unnaturally thrown into the fish tank—bear in mind, there were live fish in there too. Such a thick rope knot just tossed into the tank would contaminate the water.
And the shop owner was completely oblivious to it, as if it didn’t exist.
Either he was in league with the person attacking Wizard, or he’d been controlled.
Thus, Wizard didn’t bother with the shop owner but directly fished the hemp rope out of the tank.
...How should this be dealt with?
Should he untie the knots or, like Alexander, simply Sever the Curse with a single slash...
It’s still safer to be cautious.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
Just then, the shopkeeper, while wiping his hands with a towel, rebuked in an unfriendly tone, "Don’t touch that rope—put that thing back!"
He was a dark-skinned, burly man.
His eyes shone with bright brown light—a testant to his pure Underground lineage.
"Oh?"
At these words, Four Dark Deeds suddenly felt much more at ease.
He had thought he might have taken a wrong turn...
But since you ntion it, I can rest easy.
Without a second thought, he began to untie the knots one by one. With each knot he undid, he felt his body loosen up.
"Hey!"
The shopkeeper imdiately rushed over to stop him upon seeing this.
But before he could take a few steps closer,
the ground in front of him suddenly exploded—a thick orange fla burst upward in beams, wildly spurting out.
Amidst horrific screams, the man turned to ash in four or five seconds as the raging fire consud him. Only then did the flas on the floor slowly dissipate.
—This was a "Fla Trap."
One of the Destroyer’s exclusive skills, it appeared as a very thin milky-white card that would gradually turn black when activated, and being pressed by a heavy object would greatly accelerate this process.
Once it turned completely black, a scorching beam of fire akin to the bronze-tier "Jet Fla" spell would burst forth, hot enough to incinerate a human; to disarm this trap, one would need to drench the card with hot blood. Then, tear it apart before it dried up.
Otherwise, even cutting it with a sword would imdiately trigger the trap spell.
Before the man could rush forward, Four Dark Deeds casually tossed it in front of himself. The mont the man approached, the trap was instantly triggered—
And by then, Four Dark Deeds had already untied all the knots.
He suddenly felt lighter, as all feelings of discomfort vanished.
It really was the problem with this thing.
Four Dark Deeds heaved a sigh of relief and thoughtlessly tossed the knots into the remnants of the fire on the corpse.
—Suddenly, blood-red, sowhat sloppy letters appeared in front of Four Dark Deeds, making him shudder:
"[Curse Severed—Moth’s Knot]"
The next mont, the rope that had been scorched by the flas disintegrated into countless gray moths. With their wings ablaze, they flew towards the sky. But they didn’t get far before plumting to the ground one by one, turning into piles of ashes.
As for the burned hemp rope, it seed to have sothing left within it...
Ignoring the passersby who fled in panic due to the sudden killing of the shopkeeper, Four Dark Deeds squatted down and pulled the hemp rope out once the flas had extinguished.
He scraped off the black ash covering the hemp rope, revealing the golden thread inside.
It seed to be hair but was as fine as copper wire...
When Four Dark Deeds touched it, a system panel appeared before him:
"[Lock of Youthful Senility (Remnant)]"
"[Type: Material/Miscellaneous (Blue)]"
"[Description: The hair of soone old yet young, treated with special potions. It has been destroyed but still retains residual curse properties.]"
"[Effect: The bearer will suffer from the Curse Binding ’Accelerated Aging’]"
"[Accelerated Aging: The aging speed of the bearer will double]"
...A blue-grade cursed material even after being damaged?
Four Dark Deeds’ first thought was "Should I not have burned it with fire," followed by a pang of regret. But he quickly realized—the fla wasn’t hot enough to destroy it.
It was probably because the "Moth’s Knot" had been destroyed that so of the curse was damaged.
...But isn’t he a player?
He doesn’t know anyone here at all, so he couldn’t possibly have any grudges...
"Who... wants dead bad enough to go to such lengths?"
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