As the hole closes, I see something shiny being thrown into it.

It’s Taula’s word, cursed sword poppy.

The sword that pierced my abdomen twice, and was the main cause for Taula being kidnapped by Zwei.

Taula threw it with the precision of someone threading a needle.

“Rust, stabbed, abdomen! Hurry, curse, on me!”

Yells Taula, stopping as she speaks.

She went beyond the limits of her wounded body to throw that sword, and her condition is clearly deteriorating. She’s crawling towards me because she can barely move her limbs anymore.

I run towards her while trying to understand what she said.

By stabbed, surely she means Zwei. Even if the cursed sword poppy that was once clad in purifying light doesn’t actually damage Zwei, it should stab it temporarily. And she hit its abdomen, and she’s telling me to use curses on her.

I throw away the glove covering my right hand just as I’m about to reach Taula.

Yes, resonance curse. I’ll do as you ask, Taula.

“Sorry.”

Taula is laying face down on the floor, and I raise her upper body, as she moves her head to face me.

Then I touch her cheek with my right hand while still crouching.

The shaman once placed a curse on her that lets the person who cast it know where the one it was cast on is. I use the very small vestiges left to recreate that curse.

The bruises that were on Taula’s face when we first met appear again.

I chant the curse while focusing on making it move to Zwei, through the cursed sword poppy stabbed in its abdomen and a resonance curse. My words become curses, and I ask that they bind Zwei.

“『Sword named after the most loved one. You who have tasted my flesh twice. I order you through the memory of my flesh. Confer a curse to the one you currently pierce.』”

The curse bruises on Taula’s cheeks seem to float off her face, and slip inside the hole that will be closed any minute now.

And then, a strange feeling pops into my head.

It looks like Zwei is moving north. So this is the way the curse tells me its location.

“Taula! It worked! Thank you!”

I say with a smile, and my hand still touching her face. Then I quickly support her body, that is falling back to the floor, and hurry to treat her with a potion.