Chapter 32: Curse of Inverted Fate [Bonus]

[How was your trip here? Was it cold?]

He held it up in front of her. Nora glanced down at the words, her breath fogging faintly in the winter air.

"Cold? Mother made me wear three layers."

Neo huffed out a small laugh, writing again.

[You only look like you’re wearing one.]

Nora looked at the note, then down at her coat, as if only just now realizing how thin it actually looked.

"I took two off in the carriage. Because it felt too hot."

He shook his head, smiling faintly as he wrote his next line.

[Typical of you. You’ll catch a cold and blame me for it.]

She read it, then looked up at him with the same flat, unreadable expression she always wore. There was no smile, no visible amusement. But Neo had spent enough years exchanging letters with her, enough quiet afternoons sitting beside her just like this, to know that somewhere underneath that blank face, she probably found it just a little funny.

That was the thing about Nora that most people never seemed to notice. From the outside, she looked completely empty, a girl who stared at the world like none of it mattered to her at all. But Neo knew better by now. She wasn’t emotionless. She had her own quiet likes and dislikes, her own small moods that showed up in subtle ways if you paid close enough attention. She liked watching fish. She hated when her hair got tangled. And she definitely, without a doubt, got annoyed whenever he squeezed her cheeks, no matter how many times he tried to convince himself she secretly enjoyed it.

He studied her for a moment longer, the winter light catching softly against her pale skin, before a familiar curiosity crept back into his mind.

’It’s been a while since I checked someone’s status. Let’s see how much she’s grown.’

[Ding!]

[Do you want to Appraise Nora Valentina?]

[Y/N]

He immediately clicked ’Y’, waiting to see what kind of shocking experience he would get to see today.

[Appraising begins...]

[Ding!]

----

[STATUS WINDOW]

>Name: Nora Valentina

>Titles: Path of the Villainess, ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓

>Talent: Immeasurable

>Race: Human

>Core: 4th Circle (The Curse of Inverted Fate)

>Rank: Expert (II)

>Bloodline: Unawakened

>Affinity: All

[ATTRIBUTES]

[STR: 300/1000] [AGI: 340/1000]

[DEF: 280/1000] [STA: 310/1000]

[INT: 500/1000]

[HP: 700/700] [MP: 4800/4800]

[SUPERNATURAL ABILITY]

>Crimson Petal

-----

Neo’s breath caught in his throat.

’Expert rank already? At eight years old?’

He’d known she was talented, everyone in the anime had known that much. But seeing her power laid out in front of him now, comparing them to his own status just a few nights ago, made the gap feel far wider than he’d expected.

His eyes moved down toward the section he’d never seen on anyone else’s status window before.

Supernatural Ability: Crimson Petal.

Neo’s stomach tightened slightly.

He remembered it now, buried somewhere deep in the anime’s final arc. Crimson Petal wasn’t just some minor skill. It was the ability that let her use any element she wanted, copy any spell she’d ever witnessed, bend the very rules of magic just by thinking about it. It was the reason she’d been able to stand toe to toe with an entire kingdom’s worth of mages and knights without breaking a sweat. It was the reason the story had needed the male lead to cheat his way into the Ascendant rank just to have a fighting chance against her.

’No wonder she became the strongest villainess in the entire story. With a power like that, there’s basically no limit to what she could eventually become.’

But even a power that broken had to come with a price. He recalled a vague detail from the anime, something about her emotions shifting unpredictably every time she used it, swinging one way or another depending on nothing but chance. A power that strong, and yet one that could quietly chip away at her own mind with every single use. She might lose herself after using that power.

He moved his gaze further checking around the window, toward the two titles.

The second one, though, was blocked out entirely, hidden behind by a blank mark he couldn’t make sense of no matter how hard he focused on it.

And the first title was ’Path of the Villainess.’

Neo frowned slightly. He knew that Nora was a future villainess, but with a title like that, it almost confirmed it. So, did that mean she also knew that she would become a villainess when she grew up?

Did she even know what being a ’Villainess’ meant?

He didn’t know.

But he had to change her fate at any cost. Not just for her well-being or to save the world, but also to protect his family, who might get swept up in the trouble surrounding her.

Then just as he decided to dismiss the interface, suddenly he noticed something, as he looked carefully.

The Curse of Inverted Fate

Neo stared at the words for a long moment; a slow, uneasy feeling settled in his chest.

’A curse? What curse?’

He tried tapping on it, the same way he would with any other section of a status window, hoping for a description to pop up. Instead, the words shimmered strangely, twisting and blurring the moment his focus landed on them, as if something was actively fighting against being read.

[▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓ ▓▓▓▓▓▓]

Neo frowned, trying again and again, but the letters refused to settle into anything readable, scrambling themselves apart the instant they begins to form actual words.

’Even the system won’t let me see it. Whatever this is, it must be seriously above my current level to even understand.’

Frustrated, he tried a different approach, focusing instead on pulling up whatever data the system could show him, even without the full description attached to it.

[Ding!]

[Partial Data Retrieved:]

[Host is currently under constant high-level agony, originating from an unknown source tied directly to the afflicted’s very existence.]

[Pain Threshold: 78/100 (Sustained)]

[Emotional Suppression: Active—Curse actively dampens outward expression of pain, distress, and emotional response.]

[Voice Suppression: Active—Curse restricts natural vocal cord function, unrelated to standard deafness.]

[Compatibility with standard healing magic: 0%]

[Warning: Attempting to forcibly remove this affliction without proper understanding may result in severe, potentially fatal consequences to the host or may even cause death.]

Neo felt his stomach drop.

’Seventy-eight out of a hundred. Sustained. That’s not some small ache. That’s... that’s constant.’

He looked up from the screen, his eyes landing on Nora, still sitting quietly on the bench, calmly looking at the frozen pond like nothing in the world was wrong. No wincing. No tears. No sound at all, aside from the occasional soft rustle of paper.

’She’s been living like this the entire time. Every single day. Every single second, and she’s just... sitting there.’

He thought back to every single letter she’d ever sent him. The short, careful sentences. The strange questions about what normal feelings were supposed to look like. The way she always seemed a little too calm, a little too composed for someone her age.

’It was never that she didn’t feel anything. She’s been forced not to show it. This whole time.’

His chest tightened painfully, a hot, uncomfortable pressure building behind his chest. He thought about how many times he’d teased her, squeezed her cheeks, laughed about her lack of expression, never once realizing there might be something far darker hiding underneath that blank, quiet mask.

Neo set his own notepad aside and moved closer to her. Nora glanced up as he approached, her expression as unreadable as always, giving no hint that anything was wrong.

Before he could stop himself, he leaned forward and wrapped his arms tightly around her.

Nora froze completely, her small body going stiff in his hold, clearly caught off guard by the sudden contact. She didn’t push him away, but she didn’t hug him back either, simply sitting there, letting him hold on to her without understanding exactly why.

Neo didn’t let go. He tightened his arms slightly, pressing his face against the side of her shoulder, his own throat suddenly feeling far too tight to speak.

’I don’t know what’s doing this to you. I don’t know why, or since when, or how bad it actually gets when no one’s watching. But I swear, I’m going to find a way to fix this. Whatever it takes.’

Nora remained still in his arms, quiet as always, though after a long moment, her small hand slowly reached up and rested lightly against his back, as if she wasn’t entirely sure what she was supposed to do, but didn’t want him to let go either.