The Strongest Curse Master

"Why can't I participate in the patrol? You agreed earlier," Elinor asked her cousin, starting to seriously doubt something was off about her behavior.

"Now I'm telling you that you can't join the patrol," Janice said sternly, trying to dissuade her cousin. She was thrilled to see Elinor slowly returning to her old self, but she also knew how Elinor always managed to find herself at odds with their way of doing things. Just as Janice was about to level with her—

KABOOM! KABOOM!

Two massive explosions echoed from the outskirts of town, sending shockwaves and tremors rippling across the area. Both cousins snapped their heads toward the source, spotting two columns of smoke rising into the clouds.

"I told you, he saw through your carefully selected words and promises. You should've known the moment he genuinely thanked you," Delores said from the side, sipping on the mocktails Elinor had prepared previously.

"How? I didn't feel him leave the array—and the staff monitoring him didn't report him missing," Janice said in disbelief.

"He can travel through shadows and has at least two perfect clones. Now you tell me how he did it," Delores mocked, thinking it was foolish of Janice to believe she could contain Ace with array formations.

"What the hell is going on?" Elinor demanded, seeing neither her aunt nor cousin answer. She continued, "You knew where they were hiding—that's why you didn't want me on the patrol, isn't it? And what was all that about you calling Jason? Was that all bullshit?"

"She went a bit overboard with that one," Delores commented, thinking Janice was making promises she couldn't keep.

"That wasn't bullshit. I did ask Jason to come over once he was done with his duties. We could use his help here—especially now," Janice said, implying she hadn't just said that to appease Ace. Then she pulled out her cursed phone and showed the screen to Elinor and Delores. "See? My phone hasn't stopped buzzing. If Ace keeps acting out like this, it'll be hard for me to keep them at bay. They'll demand a tighter leash on him."

"How will they know it was Ace if you don't tell them?" Delores asked nonchalantly. Knowing how Ace liked to do things—leaving no evidence or trail behind. No one would suspect him until he made it painfully obvious. Not to mention, these people had no idea what he was capable of. Which was why they had no idea that trying to leash Ace would only lead to bigger problems.

"If I don't, they'll start subtly fighting among themselves, which could leave an opening for the cult factions to launch whatever they are scheming," Janice explained, justifying why she had to rat Ace out.

"Them fighting among themselves is better than them ganging up on us," Delores countered, leaning toward letting the country's curse forces clash it out. It would be easier for them to stay in control that way. Besides, with the curse arrays in place, she didn't think they needed to worry about the cult right now.

"Still, I need to go talk to Ace and stop him from doing whatever crazy thing he's planning next," Janice said, deciding to ignore the other forces for now until they calmed down enough to hear her out.

"You know, without any evidence of his crimes, he'll just deny everything and continue doing whatever he wants. The only way to get him to listen is through mutual interest—let him in on the plan," Delores pointed out, knowing Janice would be wasting her time trying to persuade Ace to stand down and quietly follow their arrangements for him.

"You know that's not up to me," Janice rejected Delores's advice, reminding her that the plan wasn't hers but Elinor's father's. Without her uncle's permission, there was a strict limit to what she could do on her own—and letting Ace into the McSuile family's plan was far beyond that limit.

"Then forget about getting the boy to cooperate and be a splendid bait for the family's grand schemes. His trust issues are no news, and now, with the current circumstances, I can see him spiraling out sooner or later. Let's just hope the damage this time is less than when he allegedly blew up a congressman, a mayor, and a commissioner all at once," Delores remarked, knowing Ace was bound to react. Anyone would—no one likes having their life controlled and discarded like garbage.

"So what am I supposed to do, nothing?" Janice asked in frustration, feeling caught between Ace, her family, and the other forces.

"No. Just do what you were hired for—provide the best security for the Landers. Ace already paid in full, so we can't come up short," Delores reminded her that their job wasn't to manage the politics of this shit show.

"So, I'm just supposed to let Ace run wild?" Janice asked, still unable to see things from Delores's point of view.

"Do you know that nowadays in zoos, they don't tame or train animals? They let those fancy habitat cages do that for them," Delores commented. "At first, the animals are wild, trying to escape every way possible, but soon they realize escape is not an option. Then they give up, adjust to the routine, and slowly become docile, settling into their new lifestyle." She was telling Janice to let Ace run wild and feel the atmosphere for himself—just like the animals in a zoo that were left to roam their small habitat until they grow tired of trying to escape and ultimately give up.

"There's a lot more at stake here than weekday ticket sales. Forget the cult's factions—these forces out there won't hesitate to break Ace until he becomes their perfect bait—" Janice began, wanting to shield Ace from the country's curse community.

But Delores cut her off. "Janice, wake up. Ace isn't some kid in distress. He's a curse master planning to apply for the National Asset Program. And based on my experiences with him, he always follows through on his word. I think we just need to protect his family while he does his thing. That's what he hired you for."

"Fuck it, I'll do just that," Janice said, still not entirely agreeing with Delores but swayed by how rare it was for her to show enough interest to argue. Since she did, Janice decided to follow her lead for once. Trusting her.

With that, Janice turned off her cursed phone and walked back into the house, saying, "If anyone calls, tell them I'm busy with curse crafting. If they try to force their way into the curse array formation, detain them. And if things get out of hand—act at your discretion."

"Cus, do you need me to help you craft the curse traps?" Elinor asked. Since the plan to go on patrol was a bust, she figured she might as well focus on using her curse spells to set traps around the Lander estate.

"Sure, but you can't bring Lilith into my lab," Janice said, not wanting Lilith's budding curiosity to wreak havoc in her mobile lab.

"Don't worry. Lilith went off to play with one of Ace's clones," Elinor assured her. Then she added, "She's been gone for a while now—you didn't even notice she was missing. Remind me to never ask you to babysit Lilith."

"That girl doesn't need a babysitter; she needs a warden," Janice joked, only to get kicked in the shin by her cousin.

"Hey!" Janice cried out in pain but didn't complain.

…

[ — Status Screen —

Emi: Master, mission complete.

Emi: I've looted as many curse cores as I could. Please recall me now.

Ace: Recall.

Emi: Phew! That was close. There are some powerful curse users out there. My body was paralyzed almost instantly by just one of their gazes. But thanks to your status screen, we made it out in time.

Emi: I have no idea how they managed to detect me so quickly. They're a capable bunch.

Emi: I'm sorry, Master. I couldn't collect all the curse cores. And I don't think the explosions managed to kill them all. They may be fools, but they're strong.

Ace: That doesn't matter. What matters is that they can no longer pretend. Now, the forces will have to take action.

Ace: With that, others will back off from any plans to attack my family estate—for a while, at least.

Ace: Which means my family is safe… for now.

Ace: Anyway, now that you're back, go join Dame Wasp. Start setting up the workshop and begin crafting the Specwork and Dame Wasp's bodies.

Emi: Hai!]

With that, Ace summoned Emi into the Wood Palace, where she reunited with Dame Wasp, who had just finished mapping out the palace's layout to help optimize the setup for their crafting workshop. The Wood Palace was large and spacious, but the girls were thinking ahead—making sure there would be plenty of room for the workshop to expand alongside their growing curse-crafting skills.

Meanwhile, Ace began using the new mutant rust worm curse cores Emi had brought to increase his stats by feeding them to the cursed toybox.