The Great Pallum abuses monsters part II*

"I'm not sure, but the curse I cast will affect my body or at least the hand I choose. It's arguably weaker than the effects shown on the enemy I touch, but it looks like as long as I don't touch or scatter the magic, I will continue to be affected. I would like to try one more time," I replied.

"Alright, let's go to the seventh floor; otherwise, we won't be able to get back from the middle floors today," she spoke as she started to run, waving teasingly and urging me to keep up the speed.

'Ugh, she's planning to carry me, isn't she?' I thought as we ran.

I followed, running for half an hour while she took time to kill almost everything on the way, leaving the bodies to the few adventurers we found, and left alone killing monsters. Until the fifth floor, where I had to stop. Even though I drank an energy potion to recover, I gasped when I felt a chill in my neck. I was grabbed and carried against a sarashi faster than I could react.

"Here we are," the half-dwarf woman spoke as I tried to regain my senses, leaning on my sword and watching a group of three goblins with stone knives approaching.

"So, your plan…?" I spoke while looking at her.

"Yea?" she spoke with a smile, to which I could only respond with a grunt of resignation as I ran to cripple the goblins.

Now, alongside three new lab rats, I tested some more spells.

"Bleeding wounds, Bestow Curse!" and touched it after a few seconds without seeing side effects when holding the magic. I cut it on one wrist and thigh, seeing how the shallow wounds began to leak more blood than they should.

After that, I used a spell I learned from the half-elf at the beginning, conjuring a few phrases about regeneration, the dew of nature, fairies, spirits, and blessings. I attested that the spell was really weak, even though it consumed a lot of time and mind when it barely closed the shallow wounds on the goblin.

Outside that, I wasn't even a quarter of an elf, which caused the magic to be weakened at least in half, even if I had a bonus on mind use. When I cut again and watched carefully, I saw that the curse power was slowly consumed to aggravate the wounds, damaging the goblin's blood vessels, disappearing after reopening the wound.

"Uncontrollable magic that prevents healing, Bestow Curse!" I sang this time, definitely consuming more mind than before, about 15% after fully charging even though it was just one sentence.

Touching the goblin this time, I could feel his hatred replaced by fear as the spell's effects glowed eerily around him before fading away inside the monster. This time, I just used an ordinary 500-valis healing potion and saw that it didn't heal him from the injuries and barely consumed the curse by ten percent.

Seeing this, even Tsubaki was interested and told me to try a bluish potion she handed me that I thought was expensive.

I spilled half of the potion, which hissed as it came into contact with the goblin who cried before the curse was gone and the wounds healed.

"I see, the curse stays in your magic and can invade the enemy's body with touch. It's weak compared to a cursed weapon as it doesn't permanently curse the target but mimics a curse, consuming the mind you used in the magic to keep working, and it ends when it is totally consumed," Tsubaki stated.

"Yeah, I think so too. Plus, I can't use magic on the same target before the first effects are canceled."

I spoke before testing a new curse, this time sword ready, in the right hand.

"Battle frenzy without fear of painful death, Bestow Curse!" I said before leaving after touching the goblin.

When I saw the aura of magic being sucked quickly into his chest as he rose to his feet, his bones snapping back into place as his muscles bulged and his skin turned red, and he screamed like a child who has lost a battle of reason.

As I moved around him, putting the other two crippled goblins in the middle, I prepared to attack. I quickly chanted "Shocking paralysis, Bestow curse" as the goblin ran towards me, making a grimace of anger and stepping on one of the goblins, making the back of the goblin crackle as he screamed.

"Scary," I said as I threw a handful of lime powder in his face and sliced his legs before pushing back, gaining distance, and applying a new curse.

Then the goblin rose, legs barely upright, muscles quivering as if he were being electrified. I realized the curse was quickly ending; maybe I had half a minute before it broke free.

"Tsubaki," I said.

"What, want help with your problem?" she replied, clearly interested in the mutated monster.

"No, just stay tuned. I'll try something dangerous," to which she replied by placing her hand on her naginata and glaring at me with her eye.

"Cursed and imbued with negative energy, greatly damage the enemy. *My Blade, Bestow Curse!" After five seconds charging the magic, I was almost dry for more than half that I had after the last two curses. I touched the sword, and it cried.

(Whiiiirlllll)

After I touched the sword, it got covered in black and purple curse flames before dwindling and covering the edge with a black glow.

I felt the cold of the sword slowly spread through my fingers as I watched in delight as the blade metals darkened with each passing second.

"Sinn, attack!" Tsubaki yelled with a little worry to bring me out of my stupor.

I walked over to the goblin who tried to defend himself with his arms trembling in front of his body, which I cut with a single blow and watched as the wounds slowly necrotized, making him scream in rage. Realizing the pain was releasing him faster, I decapitated him, and strangely the body turned to smoke instantly after that, leaving only a white fang with red edges and no magic stone.

I fell to the ground tired after killing two other goblins while Tsubaki came and took the sword out of my hands.

"Interesting, the sword is not cursed, but its metal has been polluted with magic permanently. It seems to be stressed too. Remember that girl's skill," Tsubaki spoke to herself as I drank my last mind potion.

"Girl? You mean..." I said, guessing the answer.

"The Sword Princess? Yes, all the common swords she uses her skill Avenger on gets destroyed," she said, proving my thought.

So I took the glove off my hand and watched.

"Interesting, there doesn't seem to have been any effects on me, maybe because I didn't curse something alive directly? It cost a lot of mind though," I informed her.

"So are we done here?" the master blacksmith asked.

"I intended to test some curse that would affect vision, but better make sure I don't go blind until I curse something."

"Play it safe Sinn, so let's go to the deeper floors." So I was carried like a sack of potatoes through the next floors as Tsubaki gouged holes in the dungeon floor as if she knew which parts were thin until we reached an area of

 mist and dead vegetation. Instead, we slowed down when descending to the 11th floor where monsters with LV 2 strength can spawn.

So we kept stopping only for Tsubaki to teach me how to kill the monsters that appeared while she was using my sword, which I kept cursing this time with only curse power and a new curse.

"Weapon inhabited by salamanders, burn the enemy," causing burns, besides being more economical than my first attempt.

Finally, out of the fog, we reached the middle floors, where Tsubaki started using her different swords, barely giving me time to harvest the most valuable stones on the way. So she broke the floor again down to the 15th floor where we spent more time than I would have liked killing Minotaurus and Ligerfangs, who happily dropped several items forcing me to use my cloak as a makeshift backpack.

On the way back, I was carried again after getting tired of the extra weight.

'I'll probably get Artel Assist if I do this more often, which reminds me of someone and some useful places to steal... kof, I say gaining knowledge of the special qualities of the Psionic skill, mainly the gnome library, or were they spirits?' I thought, remembering with doubt.

When we were finally about to leave the dungeon, I tried to get off Tsubaki's back, only to be pinned again on his free arm. I tried to argue, but...

"Tsubaki?"

"Yes, Sinn?" she spoke as she squeezed me tighter.

"Can you drop me?" I spoke gently, trying to be "cute."

Needless to say, I passed out from suffocation after that. When I woke up again, I was in a bar full of "strong" women and Amazons laughing as they teased me while trying to serve me drinks. Tsubaki drank his fifth bottle of something, with an arm around my shoulder ready to arrest me if I tried to run away.

"Sinn, drink! We'll only come out when you get drunk!" Tsubaki, a little altered, said.

"Taichou, I don't like alcohol."

"Come on, boy, you're an adventurer." "Yes, celebrate Sin-nya," and "Drink if you're a man" were the friendliest and wholesomest phrases I heard there...