I lined up the bottles besides me like a row of tiny, murderous soldiers, each one humming faintly with suppressed malice. Strength, agility, endurance, vitality, intelligence, wisdom, willpower, perception, dexterity, charisma and constitution.

  A full spread.

  A permanent boost.

  Eleven curses.

  And I was about to swallow every single one.

  People had gathered without realising it: Mary, Matthew, Tom, Rhea, Owen, and a cluster of others. No one spoke. No one stopped me. They were watching the way you watch someone step willingly into a storm.

  I uncorked the first vial.

  It smelled like metal and burnt sugar.

  “Bottoms up,” I muttered.

  I drank.

  Heat punched through my chest, spreading outward like fire racing through dry grass. A pulse of power snapped behind my eyes—

  You have gained +5 Strength.

  Afflicted with Minor Muscle Twitch.

  The curse sank into my nerves like cold needles.

  I grabbed the next potion.

  The blue one.

  +5 Intelligence.

  Afflicted with Momentary Distraction.

  Then another.

  +5 Endurance.

  Afflicted with Fatigue Echo.

  Then another.

  Then another.

  Then another.

  Then another still.

  I kept going, every swallow adding strength, dexterity, vitality… and another curse. Eleven times the power. Eleven times the punishment. By the eighth bottle, sweat was dripping from my brow. My breath grew ragged. My heart felt like it had a second, smaller heart beating out of sync besides it.

  By the ninth, my vision split for a moment, doubling the world into two overlapping realities.

  By the tenth, my fingers went numb.

  System messages hammered my sight like strobe lights:

  +5 Willpower.

  Afflicted with Fractured Memory.

  +5 Wisdom.

  Afflicted with over-attunement.

  +5 Vitality.

  Afflicted with backlash.

  +5 Charisma.

  Afflicted with Stage Fright.

  +5 Dexterity.

  Afflicted with Fumble Nerves.

  Eleven curses.

  Eleven corrosive, writhing parasites clinging to my soul. Twelve, counting the one I was born with.

  My knees buckled.

  I hit the ground hard, one knee slamming into the polished floor. Someone gasped. Someone took a step towards me.

  Mana erupted from me in a violent, uncontrolled burst.

  It crackled across my skin like static lightning, but wrong, darkening, thickening, swirling with a kind of hungry intent. My vision flickered between light and shadow. My thoughts twisted in on themselves.

  The curses inside me snarled.

  My own curse, the False Saint’s Mark, howled in answer.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  Mana flared again, deeper, darker, like a black sun igniting in my chest. It wasn’t painful. It was just inevitable. A pressure that demanded to be acknowledged.

  Then—

  Ding.

  A new message cut through the chaos.

  My breath caught.

  Another message.

  A third message, larger, brighter, vibrating with power.

  A wave of force pulsed outward from me. The ground seemed like it shivered beneath my hand.

  And just like that...

  The curses eating at my nerves, my muscles, my senses…

  dissolved like smoke in sunlight.

  Silence.

  Then I stood.

  Slowly. Easily.

  My body felt alive, stronger, clearer, and sharper. So much more than before. Mana flowed like a second heartbeat, calm and poised.

  I exhaled a shaky laugh.

  Then a real laugh.

  Then I couldn’t stop, half hysterical, half exhilarated. The people around me stared like I had just sprouted horns.

  Mary stepped forward, hesitant.

  “Elias… are you okay?”

  I wiped my mouth and grinned.

  “Mary… I’m better than okay. I got an achievement for tanking the curses and then a new trait. It ate the curses for me. They’re gone.”

  A wave of shock rippled through the crowd.

  “And,” I added cheerfully, “now I can go get another round of potions.”

  Rhea sputtered. “You’re joking.”

  “No.” I tapped my chest. “Turns out resisting curses isn’t just survivable, it’s profitable. If I hadn’t taken the risk, I would’ve never realised this could happen.”

  I felt powerful.

  Alive.

  Like the world had finally given me a lever big enough to move it.

  And for the first time since this hell began...

  I laughed from genuine, electric triumph. Not only that, but the question I asked was already paying dividends. I upgraded my trait already and gained the ability to gradually weaken and remove curses. I couldn’t contain my joy; I really had a shot at ridding myself of this damnable curse for some reason I was born with. It didn’t matter; I dealt with it until now, and I will do so until it’s gone forever.

  I addressed the people around me, we got much to do, and the curse was starting to act again, but I could definitely feel it was weakened, my improved resistance at work.

  I moved through the crowd with renewed confidence, grabbing two more full sets of potions from the shop.

  One set went into my backpack.

  The other I kept in hand, the next dose in my little experiment.

  While I worked, I checked on everyone.

  Most people were… fine.

  Better than fine in some cases.

  Some of the older survivors were grinning like children, flexing fingers that hadn’t obeyed them in years, marvelling at joints no longer stiff and backs no longer screaming.

  The rogue, though, wasn’t grinning. Neither was a tall man in a red jacket.

  Both were doubled over, groaning, bodies twitching under the weight of several minor potion curses stacking at once.

  Even minor curses didn’t like being stacked.

  Apparently, neither did their nervous systems.

  A few people muttered that maybe I’d gotten lucky.

  That maybe It was a lottery thing.

  I didn’t answer.

  I was watching them, evaluating, ready to jump in if someone truly started having trouble. We had to move out sooner or later, and I would like it to be sooner.

  Then a scream tore across the room, raw, terrified, and unmistakably human.

  Everyone turned.

  The man who’d been the loudest critic of the potions, the one who’d sneered at the idea of “cursing yourself for power”...was on the ground, writhing.

  Eleven vials littered the ground around him.

  But unlike me… it wasn’t stabilising.

  A dark haze bled out of his pores, thick and oily, rippling like sentient smoke.

  The air warped around him, pressure dropping, the lights dimming just a shade.

  A circle formed around him, hesitating, horrified.

  “Doctor! Someone! We need help here!”

  “A healer! The one with the healer class, come here now!”

  The man on the floor screamed, high, choking, panicked, and the haze intensified, sinking back into his body like claws digging in.

  Some people were on their way.

  Then his limbs convulsed.

  His back arched.

  Foam gathered at the corners of his mouth.

  And he stopped. Just… stopped.

  Dead.

  Just like that.

  Silence spread like spilt ink.

  Then the murmurs came.

  “He killed him.”

  “Elias made him take the potions... didn’t he?”

  “It’s his fault; he tricked him...”

  “He said it was safe.”

  “He didn’t! He literally said...”

  “This is on him!”

  Eyes turned towards me.

  Some were frightened.

  Some are angry.

  Some are desperate for someone, anyone, to blame.

  My jaw clenched.

  Before I could defend myself, the body jerked.

  “He’s still alive!”

  “No, he’s a zombie!”

  A few people screamed.

  The corpse twitched again, harder, then rolled as if pulled by invisible hooks.

  Its skin had gone paper-white, stretched too tight, and flecked with black cracks running across all his body.

  Then it stood.

  A slow, horrible marionette rise.

  The dead man launched himself at the nearest man, a middle-aged guy with a round shield who fell on the floor. He managed to interpose the shield, but the attacker was relentless; it bit on the shield and tried to claw at him.

  “Help! Someone! Help!”

  My curse tore at me like a barbed whip.

  The sight of another person in danger hit a part of my curse that I didn’t even know existed.

  Despair flooded me, sharp, urgent, unbearable.

  I couldn’t stay still.

  I had to go.

  But before I could move, someone else stepped in.

  An old man, one of the retirees who had taken only a single potion, thrust his spear straight into the creature’s throat.

  The dead man let out a wet, gurgling hiss, limbs spasming, changing his target from the shield guy to the old man. But the old-timer was no slouch; with a grunt, he pulled back the spear and pierced the creature in the face.

  It dropped down like a bag of rocks, bringing the spear with him and making the old man stumble.

  The shield-bearer crawled back, scrambling away, and I rushed in to haul him to his feet.

  The room erupted.

  Shouts.

  Screams.

  Accusations.

  Fear blossoming into panic like a lit fuse hitting powder.

  Tom, two others, and I forced ourselves between clashing voices, yelling for calm, grounding the group before they tore each other, or us, apart.

  Bit by bit, the noise thinned.

  Breaths steadied.

  We questioned the old man.

  He looked shaken, but not in shock.

  “The system”, he stammered. “It said I killed a Cursed Revenant. I… I levelled up too. My crafting class. I didn’t even know I could…”

  People exchanged looks.

  No one wanted to stay in this room anymore. Not with a dead undead reminding everyone about the dangers of this place. Funny that for escaping their own fears people were willing to move toward danger in itself.

  Aurelia floated silently above, watching everything with serene detachment, never speaking a single word, not even moving an inch.

  Eventually, everyone gathered their gear.

  We did final checks.

  Then we moved towards the glowing door.

  I stopped only once more, felt through my remaining points, and purchased another defensive skill.

  Good. I’d need it for sure.

  And finally, I uncorked the potion vials for another round.

  One breath.

  Then I drank them all.

  Fire. Cold. Pressure.

  New power hammered through my veins while ten curses lunged for me again.

  This time, though…

  I stayed on my feet.

  My new trait held firm, cutting the curse's strength to pieces the moment it touched me, grinding it down like a whetstone working dull metal.

  I waited.

  Ten seconds.

  No new title or trait.

  No new messages.

  So be it.

  I exhaled, squared my shoulders…

  …and stepped through the door of light, ready for whatever hell waited in the tutorial.