Chapter 44- Consequences of Carelessness

"Attention leads to immortality. Carelessness leads to death. Those who pay attention will not die, while the careless are as good as dead already."

A quote from Guatama Buddha on being careless. It was scary how when you first hear a quote, it has no meaning to you until you go through a situation and find how accurate it is.

While I wasn't dead, I was currently hunched over, wishing I was. I foolishly thought I was fine after the first couple of hours after mistakenly eating the meat in the lasagna.

Shame that when I feel asleep, I was awoken an hour prior to breakfast, by an extreme rumbling pain in my stomach. Like the idiot I am, I dismissed it as just me being hungry. After laying down and trying to drift back to sleep, I found that it was so much worse.

With it just minutes away from breakfast, I was sent to the infirmary, where I was given a cup of water with medicine mixed in. It didn't take effect immediately however, so the nurse left me alone to suffer and I was excused from the first class. With most of the pain subsiding, the silence of the infirmary quickly helped me drift to sleep.

I was awoken suddenly by a bright red notification from the system.

[You have failed to take Agfochen in the proper timeframe. A random body part will be cursed permanently.]

I start to feel a searing pain in my eyes making me jump up clutching my eye lids close. I feel a warm liquid on my hands and assume its tears and hope it's not blood.

In the hopes to heal myself, I cast Blessing of Invigoration and Blessing of the Titanium Body. But the pain only intensifies, making me cry out and fall to my knees as my face touches the floor. The nurse rushes in seeing the state I'm in full of worry.

"What's wrong, the medicine should have helped you by now."

Through gritted teeth, I try to explain the situation I'm in, "It's not my stomach, it's my eyes."

She kneels next to me, picking my head up but I refuse to let go of my eyes as every movement of my head send waves of pain throughout my entire body.

In the calmest voice she can muster she says, "Ok I need you to try to open your eyes. I need to identify the problem for proper treatment."

Biting my lip, I remove my hands from my eyes and slowly struggle to open them. Her brown hair and nurse outfit slowly come into view but everything I see is red. As my eyes fully open, my mana fluctuates uncontrollably to the point that more pain spreads throughout my body. I feel a burst of mana circulate through my body rapidly until it comes up to my eyes.

My vision turns to fully red as I feel the mana exit my eyes and I can't control myself as my body falls backwards to the floor. My muscles tense and spasm as my mana continues to rampage and I'm left on the floor stunned. With so much pain and not being in control of any part of my body, I black out, my red vision turning to black.

A cold slap woke me up, but my vision was still black and my body still sore from the earlier pain. I attempted to move but was held in place, by something cold against my skin and realized, I was practically naked. Panicking a bit, I attempted to wrestle free to avail, and learned from my struggle that I was chained.

A calm soothing voice I know I've heard before makes me pause as I listen to his words.

"Just what have you gotten yourself into Mr. Eric?"

I try to open my mouth to respond but find its bound and I've only just noticed. Now terrified of the situation I'm in, I try to get any kind of advantage by activating Mana Survey, but my mana refuses to listen and remains dormant. Understanding how screwed I was, I remain still listening for a way out of my current predicament.

"Now that you're in the mood to listen, I'll explain some things to you. Right now, I see before me a boy with a powerful curse on himself and a powerful variant of dark magic that half the world trembles over. To make matters worse, you killed someone, right in my school."

Hearing those words, I was filled with dread as I understood the only person, I've been in contact with was the nurse. I snuck lower in the chair I was sitting in as I fully processed what was said. As I'm wallowing in my sorrow, I hear footsteps approaching me then the gag rips away from my mouth.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I have no control over myself and don't know what's even happening to me."

"I can hear the remorse in your voice, but it matters little as I have no choice but to do what I have to for the safety of everyone else."

"Are you… going to kill me?" I ask with a bit of fear and disappointment. While it may be true that I killed her, it was clearly an accident, and I didn't feel like I deserved death in return there.

"No that's not up to me. Instead, I'll leave that up to him actually." The smell of roses permeates the room, and I can no longer feel the chains or the blindfold on my eyes. Blinking, I take a look around and find myself in what appears to be a desert with black sand under my feet. Looking up, there's a black sun hanging high in the sky, but it doesn't radiate heat. Turning, in the distance I see the outline of a pyramid.

Remembering the guy's words, I fill myself with determination that I won't die here and that the only way to leave this place is to meet whoever he was referring to. Convincing myself that I'll be fine, I head off in the direction of the pyramids.

After walking for what seems like hours, to pass the time while I walk, I check the system for recent notifications. Scrolling through I see the red notification I first noticed when I got cursed and below it there's another one.

[You have been afflicted with the Cursed Eyes Tier 9. When someone gazes into your eyes, a random debilitating curse will trigger. Each curse takes the users mana at full cost and cannot be negated or cleansed except by a higher Tier blessing or cleansing.]

The guy refrained from mentioning how she died, but I know for a fact that I was responsible after reading what my curse was. I didn't know how I could avoid people looking directly into my eyes for them to not suffer the same fate.

Soon my seemingly endless walking paid off as I was now in front of the hulking pyramid. When I was straining to look for a way in, the pyramid seemed to respond to me, opening two blocks to show a way in.

Carefully stepping in, I fumble around as there is no possible way to see where I'm going and use the walls as a guide. I continue on in the darkness for about 10 minutes until a raspy voice echo through the halls,

"A mortal dares step foot so far into my plane? Come that I might entertain myself before your death."