The skill that I newly willed up, Hexcraft, set a series of unfortunate events into action. The end result is the ruin of a repugnant noble that appeared near me. The entire time this plays out no one is aware of the culprit or the hex that guy suffered.

As a gesture of kindness, I set the hex to be nonlethal and automatically vanish once he reverses his karma. He won’t die but as long as his karma remains the same he will suffer bad luck like before.

If he can turn around and reform then the hex will vanish and his fortune should skyrocket back. Whatever happens to him from hereon is entirely up to his actions.

The concept of karma is not so foreign to me, but using it in this way to punish bad guys didn’t come to mind until now. If I cursed someone really evil, say, like a warlord who spilled entire boatloads of blood, what would happen to him?

The bad karma he built up might explode in an unintended way, dragging whole countries to ruin. The phrase, the weight of your sins, is no exaggeration in this case.

It seems I can sense karma the same way I sense Qi in living beings. Karma, an intrinsic energy tied to good and bad fates, is born from the actions of people, sometimes even tied to intimate objects and locations.

Feng shui is another way of looking at it. Graveyards and burial sites, for instance, are steeped in the karma of death. That might explain why standing there fills people with dread.

My connection to Qi lets me see karma in the form of a transparent flame emitting from the body. The color of the flame is linked to the amount and quality of that person’s karma. If that person has done plenty of good deeds, their karma looks blue.

Red karma, on the other hand, is the obvious sign of bad karma. The intensity of the color and how big the flame, let’s me know the extent of their karma.

In fact, that noble had a pretty bright red karma so he would have suffered a bad karmic fate, albeit minor. My hex simply sped up the countdown to his inevitable downfall.

With the noble out of commission the tour party can go on none the wiser. But something tells me that Granny Abaleyn noticed my hexes. If she didn’t notice a curse before her eyes then she wouldn’t deserve to be called a Dragon God.

The escort guides us past a set of high inner walls, likely the barrier cutting off the common folk. A huge city like Verbeau has a circular wall surrounding the noble district, with a more impressive wall around the royal castle, complete with a wide moat.

This layout might be common in Yorland or even the whole world. We pass checkpoint after checkpoint as we near the castle in the innercity.

It seems the guards are too scared to frisk the guests of the priestess. Thanks to her authority we sail through security. I sense equal parts fear and respect for the priestess from the surrounding guards.

The gate for the palace castle is imposing with its thick steel bars and sentries on the balcony. There’s also a powerful magic barrier in place that alerts the guards of intruders. On both sides of the gate are twin towers with archers keeping vigilance.

The security is top notch as far as I can see. Staring in a daydream, I wonder how difficult it would be if I tried to infiltrate it. It’s just an idle thought so I don’t finish it.

A maid takes over as escort once we set foot on palace grounds. She is quiet with a deadpan face, a professional among the service industry no doubt.

She takes us to a vast courtyard filled with colorful flowers and exotic plant life. At the center is a pond with lily pads, and in the gazebo at its edge is a table. The table has silver cutlery and spotless teacups.

Besides the table are chairs and a bench, all made from a dark wood including the gazebo. The place gives off a scent peculiar to wood and tea leaves. I’m no expert but it smells pleasant to me, like a spring breeze in the wild.

A woman in that scene sits by the table, her white profile elevating the scenery. It looks picturesque how she smiles and her cheeks blush ever slightly. Her melodic voice reaches our ears like a flute.

「 Sister, you’ve arrived. And you bring guests. How marvelous. 」

The maid bids us farewell and my party nervously glance around, debating internally whether to take seats or remain in place. Granny Abaleyn and her butler gracefully slide into the gazebo, with a nod from her butler for us to follow.

We walk down the stone path until we are under the eaves of the gazebo. The woman in white church attire gestures us to join her little tea time at the table.

Granny and her butler take the seats at the woman’s sides so the girls and I join her. Luckily there are enough seats to accommodate us. Just a guess, but I’d warrant that a servant informed her of the guest count on our way here.

The woman’s eyes are small and delicate, she is practically oozing motherly compassion.

Abaleyn 「 Dear sister Dionyss, these are my friends. You have nothing to fear around them. Why not make yourself comfortable? 」

The woman she called Dionyss nods and almost immediately waves her hand, sending ripples through the pond. The plates of biscuits and tea disappears like an illusion, even the scent vanishes.

Then she pulls out of empty space a wooden barrel and roughly smashes it down on the table. The contents of the barrel swirl like liquid and her face brightens with playful vigor.

Dionyss 「 Now you’re talking, sister! Break out the booze, we’re drinking all night long! 」

The illusion of the saintly mother is shattered in front of our eyes. In its place is a woman in church clothes, wine barrel in hand, chugging an ale mug like it were water.

Her expression is like a playful old man, and her voice is boisterous like a customer that frequents taverns. I don’t see any signs of a Grand High Priestess here, only the clothes on this woman seem holy.

And those clothes are getting beer stains on it as she slams her empty 3rd mug on the table.