“Near me?!” I said in doubt, “I’m afraid that can’t be possible except if that Nero did something to me back then.”
“He didn’t,” the firm answer came from that boss of mine, “if he did, then why would he need to send you such a message?”
His words made sense. Besides this curse started long before I met up with that jerk anyway.
“So who might he be?” I asked, “He is a god, right?”
“I told you so already, he is a god and a higher grade one as well,” his tone was still filled with his anger. Yet to avoid him pouring it on me, I remained silent while he kept talking.
“But for a god to curse you this early on… He must have someone belonging to his shrine,” he said before something flashed in my eyes when I heard his words.
“Damn! It can’t be him!! No way!!!” I said in a weird shout while my words attracted the attention of the grandmaster.
“Do you know who he is?”
“I might be wrong but… If it was him then this would be hard…” I slowly said before asking, “If I removed this curse, can that bastard curse me again?”
“Do you think it’s a toy or what?” the grandmaster snorted, “it’s one curse per person. If there is such a thing as repeatedly cursing us, then our career would have long been wiped out from this universe.”
“That’s relieving,” I heaved a deep sigh of relief before adding, “there were two occasions when I got near someone with the same specifications as you said… One was just after the start of the curse and the second was just around the time I got this message.”
“Really?” the eyes of that grandmaster shone in a vicious way, “tell me who are you doubting and I can help thinking about it with you.”
“It’s all related to that bastard,” I helplessly shrugged, “that jumper of mine.”
“The one with the second highest view ratings after you?!” The tone and reaction I got from the grandmaster told me he was genuinely surprised.
“Is that hard to believe? Wait until I tell you what happened…”
I started telling him two tales about the jumper. Even when Sissy came back with a robe that fit me, he didn’t spare me a glance and kept checking my channel, watching the events I pointed towards.
Indeed that jumper was the only one I could think of who got related to two unknown beings. Also these two would have the ability to use such curses on me.
The first being was his god. It was the one who told him about that rumour, the false one about all the gods in my channel being terrified of certain gods.
After thinking about it many times, I realised something didn’t add up here. Why would the one who did such a curse take the trouble to spread such rumours and give such lame excuses?
It didn’t make any sense! From the words of the grandmaster just now, I realised this curse was known and infamous at least in the circle of streamers and those related to them.
Gods would know about it for sure. So why would someone take the trouble to fake such a story and sell it to me?
There was only one purpose behind this, and he succeeded brilliantly in it so far. He made me lower my guard towards the channel’s silence, not digging about what caused all the ruckus from my gods to disappear.
At the same time there was another incident that I had to consider.
From the words of the grandmaster, I knew whoever did this had ulterior motives that served a grand scheme.
Trying to stand against streamers like me? That would only help to weaken the strength of people who had such high chances in dominating the apocalypse they were in.
So doing that wasn’t just a blow to the streaming industry and community in the entire universe, but it was also a direct blow to the apocalypse itself.
Who would have such deep and bloody grudges against the apocalypses? Who would take such trouble of paying a big price to just hinder those prodigies in any apocalypse?
There was only one race I could think of, those damned Curasee. The jumper got infected with one of them just before my visit to the death shrine.
I recalled that when I got back, he was waiting for me. I still remembered his storm of rage when he saw my face. He acted like that because he got hit by that weird arrow, the one which got him infected with that Curasee race.
And as any race in this universe, it must have gods. Those gods could do such a lowly thing as cursing me.
Everything pointed to these two beings, yet I didn’t have a clue which one did it. And weirdly enough, the two were related to the same person.
What? Should I go back and beat that bastard to death as a fair retaliation for what he did to me? Tsk, he didn’t worth the trouble or the pain of my fists from punching his ugly mask and face behind it.
As the grandmaster was reviewing the scenes of the two events I told him about, Sissy stood watching while feeling lost.
“What’s wrong?” After ten minutes she failed to contain herself and asked in a low tone, fearing to disturb the grandmaster.
“Not now,” I felt tired of explaining everything to her. Besides, wearing that robe and recalling the little debate that she created before getting it made me talk in a higher tone to her.
She was lower than me in rank, she admitted that herself. So why should I explain these things to her?
As she got nothing from me, she returned to watch the grandmaster in silence. From time to time the grandmaster would stop what he was doing, magnify part of the screen before shaking off his head.
“Whoever did this made it so it would be hard to detect his fingerprints,” after almost an hour, he closed everything and turned to me to add:
“But I’m ninety percent certain of his identity.”
“Which god is it then?” I asked, “Is it his god?”
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that for now,” yet unlike my expectations, he shook his head before adding in explanation, “the answer will get revealed after I cleanse your channel off this curse. Let’s just hope it’s not just one curse though or else my guess will be wrong.”
“M… More than one curse… Damn!!” I was petrified for a second when I heard his words. Yet he smiled and said:
“Don’t worry. Even if it’s a ton of such curses, I can delete them all and return your channel brand new. But…” he paused slightly while furrowing his eyebrows, “you did really attract a lot of troublesome enemies in just a short time. You have to be more vigilant and extra careful from now on.”
“I understand,” I got his meaning, vaguely. After all I still didn’t know what he truly meant by hoping I had more than one curse over my channel.
Yet his last warning and advice told me he believed my channel was cursed more than once. Damn! Didn’t he say once cursed I couldn’t get cursed again or what?
“You look conflicted, right?” as if he could read my mind, he shortly laughed before adding, “don’t act like a frog living in the depths of a well. There is indeed a rule for one curse to not affect the same person more than once. But who told you there was only one kind of these dirty curses out there?”
“Do you mean…”
“Yes, and no,” he gave me such an answer which wasn’t one. What I wanted to ask about was that if I could get cursed again with different kinds of curses, then what would prevent the same bastard from cursing me again?
“I’ll explain everything in time,” he said before taking out a pill out of his inventory, “swallow this. It will heal the curse off your channel in the next few minutes.”
I received that pill and examined it. It has a soft and jelly-like body, with clear and translucent green liquid inside.
“Is it painful?” I asked while putting it in my mouth.
“Hahaha, if you wanted the answer then you shouldn’t have taken it first,” he laughed while pointing at me.
“The answer won’t change my mind,” I shrugged while feeling the pill crashing inside my mouth, releasing its liquid inside even before I could swallow it.
“It’s so spicy!” The first thing I felt was lava inside my mouth. My tongue screamed and couldn’t help but gaped open my mouth and took rapid breaths to alleviate that annoying feeling.
“That’s the only side effect of it,” he shook his head as if I was a helpless case, “just be ready, I’m ninety percent sure you’ll need another pill from me.”
“These green pills…” Just at this moment, Sissy seemed to be jolted awake from her silence, “aren’t these extremely precious and expensive cleansing pills?”
“It’s nothing,” I was surprised to hear about the value of such pills before I felt a vicious slap that assaulted my heart and shook my soul.
Damn! I ended up on my knees, panting for breath while vomiting a strange pitch black fluid with such an awful smell that made me want to vomit again.
“What the hell… Is that?!!” I felt like my body lost all its strength and couldn’t help but sit on the ground next to that ugly and disgusting black liquid.
*Sizzle!* Before saying anything, a bolt of fire fell from a staff in the hands of that grandmaster. I didn’t know when he got it but that liquid was purified and eroded away in mere breaths of time.
“It’s the curse you got,” he said in a deep voice, as if he was trying to control his rage inside, “let me check your channel again…”
He paused as he moved his fingers fast in the air. He didn’t store away the staff, just left it resting on his arm while focusing on the things he was doing.
“As I guessed,” he said in a weird happy tone. For the first time since knowing about my curse, his face showed a genuine smile. “You are still cursed.”
“Is that a good thing?” Sissy asked in shock while I tried to stand but couldn’t.
“Just eat something to restore your strength. This curse was deeply rooted in your body,” he waved his hand to stop my attempts before adding, “you’ll regain strength in less than half an hour. Then I can remove the last curse.”
“O…K…” I said in a stuttered way while feeling the fatigue assaulting me fiercer when I tried to stand up.
I took out my meat and liquor before starting to replenish my lost strength. Just as he said, it took me roughly half an hour to return to my full strength.
“Let’s crush the second curse and free your channel,” the grandmaster held the face of someone celebrating the success of his son, not one who was sacrificing such precious pills for someone he barely knew.
I got the second green pill and placed it into my mouth. The wave of spiciness that came afterwards wasn’t as bad as the first time. I was mentally prepared for this one and so it passed without much trouble.
But no matter how hard I prepared for the weakness after vomiting that black filthy liquid, it didn’t help at all. I still ended up on my knees, feeling the same terrible weakness as the first time.
“Check on your channel now,” the grandmaster didn’t even wait for me to catch my breaths before saying that.
“No need to,” but I said in slow tone before biting on one large piece of meat, “I got a message from the system telling me that my channel is purified at last.”
“Awesome!”
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