Laying on my back atop two bedrolls piled together, I gazed at the moonlit sky above, but my focus wasn't on the celestial body; it was on my system interface hovering hologramicallly above my face.

  By defeating the bandit leader and his two captains, I’ve acquired enough experience points for a level up, making me now a level 13 Hexcaster. This meant that I now had attribute points to allocate, 13 of them, to be exact.

  As someone who valued pragmatic investments, I struggled more than ever before with deciding where to allocate these attribute points. As a former Sorcerer, I mainly invested in wisdom, then intelligence and charisma, with some points thrown into Constitution and agility for added HP and reflexes. But now, as a Hexcaster, I had two additional levelable attributes I was more or less compelled to level up: Faith and Luck.

  Understanding that I was no longer just a sorcerer and noticing the gap in level between these two attributes and my other main attributes, it was clear that Faith and Luck were the attributes that needed investment the most, numerically speaking. However, something I realized during my battle against the bandit leader made me hesitate to just pour all my points into these two attributes.

  Despite being a Hexcaster, I wasn't fighting like one at all; instead, I was fighting like I always had, I was fighting like a sorcerer.

  To be fair, it sounded like a bad idea to fight that fight with a fighting style I wasn't yet familiar with. So, it seemed like, it was the right decision to stick with the style I was proficient in, involving casting ice-related spells and using my ice magic.

  This left me feeling conflicted. Perhaps I should invest these attribute points in improving what I was already good at.

  But once again, realizing how far behind Faith and Luck were compared to the attributes deemed equally important by my identification skill, I couldn't bring myself to follow through. I was divided, weighing the pros and cons for a long while. But eventually, I settled on a decision, or to be exact, a compromise. I decided to give my special class its chance.

  It's just that for a class that excels in prolonged combat situations, I've yet to stumble upon the right situation to allow this class to perform as it should. So, I decided to invest 10 of my 13 available attribute points into both Faith and Luck, bringing them to 9 and 10, respectively. I threw two of the remaining three attribute points into Constitution to slightly increase my overall defense and, most importantly, my HP.

  The last available point was the one I truly hesitated with. I debated whether to choose Wisdom or Intelligence to increase my MP, but ultimately settled on the former. I may "" it at times, but I had exceedingly more MP than the average sorcerer, especially one who, as they should, didn't invest all their attribute points into Intelligence. That was thanks to the skill I was very lucky to spawn with, Mana Reservoir, which at level 4 granted me an additional 217+ to my base MP. Now, factoring in the additional 25% MP reserve granted by the Infused skill of my Staff of Impotence, I had just enough MP to make mages two to three levels above me jealous. So, I thought it was fine to give this one to Wisdom. The next round would be Intelligence's turn instead of Wisdom's. When getting my new attribute points, I would invest them into making it so that Faith and Luck caught up to, at the very least, my secondary scaling attributes like Intelligence and Charisma.

  While that sounded like a bad idea, I decided that for the upcoming level, I'd be fighting properly like a Hexcaster to see if the two Hexcaster primary scaling attributes were worth investing into or not. "Fighting like a proper Hexcaster, huh?" I mustered.

  I had an idea on how to do that. That ideal still needed polishing but that made it sound like a challenge, and I liked that.

  The fact is that I had already tried to fight like a Hexcaster—no, actually it wasn’t quite that, it was more accurate to say that what I did was torturing like a Hexcaster.

  After defeating the Verdenkind bandits, I went after the remaining bandits who, without their Verdenkind leader, were as helpless as any peons. They couldn't even pose the slightest hint of resistance, which was a good thing considering what I had planned for them.

  With a mental command I navigated through the system’s many options to the interface of the last ability I’ve unlocked.

  ---

  [Arianna’s Interface]Ability Name: Legacy of Agony

  Ability Type: Curse, Hex

  Status: Unlocked

  Sub-abilities:

  —

  Once the curse is cast, the corresponding harvested memories used for the engraving are irrevocably removed from the wielder's harvest stash, lost forever.

  Using the peons as guinea pigs, I quickly figured out how my newly unlocked ability worked when wielded. With the assistance of Identification, which actually aside from allowing me to examine inanimate objects like appraisal would a living being, the skill from level 2 granted heightened access to the system.

  For example, most people don't even receive an explanation as to what their skill allows them to do; they only get a notification informing them that they acquired a new skill, and then nothing else. Anything else related to the skill they will get from the system are level up notification and balancing if instead of a skill, it's an ability.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Anyway that is to say that, [Identification] granted a whole unique level of interaction with the system interface altogether, and I would have gotten the full complete experience if I had the skill appraisal, but I didn't.

  Anyway, that is to say that with the help of Identification, I just had to read the system interface to know what the newly unlocked ability Legacy of Agony can do. But there was a surprising difference between knowing through the interface and figuring it out through actual practice.

  Fair enough, I quickly understood one thing or two about the ability that I was not mentioned in the system interface, but aside from that, it was just as the interface told me.

  The ability allowed me to harvest memories and then granted me the ability to graft these memories onto a target. It can be done two ways: either graft onto a target for a limited amount of time as a Hex or be cast as a permanent graft that becomes an inseparable part of the target as a curse.

  The former, I was told by the bandits, had the effect of causing them to experience the death of their brethren but only in their mind. As for the latter, fearing the drawback mentioned by the system, I decided not to try it yet, as I had too few guinea pigs to afford squandering the final memories I've harvested. That was very regrettable, but at the same time, doing so allowed me to come to realize something about the ability. The more memories I had hoarded, the more potent the ability got when used on a target.

  When I began my experiment, it just caused the target to go into a mental breakdown. Not that the target wasn't already breaking down, knowing the fate I had for them, but the ability caused them to act like a trapped animal ready to gnaw its arm to flee from death. When first used, the target seems to develop only one obsession, and it is to survive.

  By my tenth experiment, and the eleventh memory I've harvested, the target wasn't even able to withstand the memories and experienced total cognitive disarray, severe sensory overload, so much that they weren't able to react to me putting an end to their misery.

  I came to understand very well that the ability wasn’t one that lowered a target’s overall HP, because if it were, it would have killed my low-HP peon bandit target dummies on the spot. Sure, it means I'd have to finish them off like I did the bandits back then but , I couldn’t help but think that such an ability was, as it was said in the world we came from, “busted.”

  Used on a Verdenkind, it won't lower their HP nor will it defeat them, but it will offer me a clear path to their demise. If I had a Verdenkind on their knees, defeating them would be as easy as defeating similarly-kneeling peons. Even if I wasn't able to bring them to their knees, so long as I was able to destabilize them by having them experience some random's final very gruesome memories, they'll be made vulnerable enough for me to sweep in with the more potent spells.

  Thinking about that, a smile appeared on my face, fidgeting in anticipation on top of my smelly mattress and makeshift blanket that for some mystical reason felt in that moment highly comfy. This ability was perfect for my class, a class that focused on debilitating their opponent until a point where a final blow can be landed.

  "I couldn't have dreamed of anything better. That being said, it's so ironic that I, who've died multiple times, awakened such an ability like this one," I said, yawning. "Well, I guess that means I won't be the only one plagued with those kinds of nightmares from here on out," I told myself like telling myself a charm. That brought a smile to my face as I closed my eyes and fell into slumber.

  ***

  As if I had cast a hex onto myself by mentioning my nightmares, I found myself once again plagued by the haunting visions of that place. In the dream, I was fighting those knights who, in the end, slew that version of me, snapping me out of the nightmare with a start.

  Upon waking up, I simply wrapped my things up and continued my journey. Although the day began with something that had the potential to ruin it completely, a smile soon appeared on my face at the sight of something that banished any remnants of bad thoughts. Not only had I now entered an area of the duchy far more verdant than before, but the ground beneath the hooves of Veilleuse-01 felt softer as well.

  Then, I stumbled upon a road. In the world we originally came from, this "road" wouldn't have qualified as one; instead, we'd have called it a "dirt road." But this was a significant find, it indicated that after traveling by just following directions, I had finally encountered a common route, suggesting that a city was at the end of it.

  "Guess I'm finally getting close to civilization," I mused. Well, "close" was a big word. According to the villagers' words, I had at least half a day before reaching the nearest city. Not allowing that to dampen my spirits but instead using it as motivation, I decided to overwork Veilleuse-01 a little. I wanted to reach the city as soon as possible.

  Following the road, I soon arrived at a path that passed through a heavily wooded area. Despite it being the middle of the day, the woods grew exceedingly dark as one peered into the distance. It was the kind of place perfect for monsters to proliferate, making this route a prime location for scenarios where one gets attacked by lurking monsters, especially those of the animalistic type. Having experienced such an embuscade before and died such an embarrassing death, I went on high alert. I couldn't afford to die here, and while I could always come back, I would be damned if I had to spend years as a helpless baby again.

  Urging Veilleuse-01 onward, I rushed through the road that passed through the woods, wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible, not because I was eager to reach civilization but because I felt uncomfortable in this place.

  Deeper into the woods, I heard sounds from a distance, grunts that made birds take flight in the distance. For some reason, the grunts sounded oddly familiar. However familiar or not, I didn't particularly feel like heading toward whatever was making those sounds, my immediate goal was to reach the next city, not to throw myself into danger, which is unfortunate because the source of the grunt I’ve heard came exactly from ahead which suggested that whatever was the source, it was directly on my path. Glancing at the dark woods that flanked me on both sides, I imagined all the manner of creatures that could be lurking out there. The prospect of navigating through the dense, shadowy forest seemed just as perilous as confronting the source of those grunts. "I can always try to walk around, if that's an option," I muttered, settling on just pushing through.

  As I got closer, the commotion grew progressively louder. It wasn’t just grunts anymore; there were the desperate neighs of horses mixed with shouts and screams, people’s.

  Soon enough, I saw the source of the chaos. Up ahead, several carriages were spread across the path, two of them toppled over, spilling their contents onto the ground. From what I could see thus far, people were hiding behind one of the toppled carriages, five of them. Two were dressed normally, while the other three wore warrior-like outfits, swords at their hips, their blades drawn, ready for action. They seemed to be protecting the other two from something I couldn’t yet see.

  At that moment, I heard that familiar grunt again, reverberating loudly. Following that, something was flung high into the air from behind the carriage, eventually making a flat-sounding descent onto the ground a few meters in front of me, scaring Veilleuse-01.

  "Calm down, big boy," I reassured the stallion I was riding. As Veilleuse-01 calmed down, I glanced at what had crashed in front of me and heard a weak, "Help me."

  Seeing what had just spoken, I grimaced in pity. The thing that landed before me was a person, a Verdenkind, who was missing the lower half of his body.

  "Sorry, pal. I'm no healer, and even if I were, I doubt a healer could fix that."

  He uttered a few more unintelligible words before eventually succumbing to his fatal injuries. "What could’ve done that?" I wondered aloud.

  As if in answer to my question, another grunt tore through the air. It stood up from behind the carriage, towering over it on its hind limbs. I immediately realized why the roar had felt so strangely familiar. It was that of a Thunderflamme Ursus.