“So, can it be lifted?”
Kazuki merely smiled, and Jurim nodded.
He had expected it, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth.
From what he had discovered, the curse was a spell cast with a blood talisman passed down through the Takahashi family, a house of onmyoji.
It would not be easy to undo, all at once, a curse containing even a family’s karma, using a medium that had aged for several hundred years.
All of this was because of Takahashi’s greed for power.
After all, the fact that he had an “S-rank production-type” in the palm of his hand had been a major advantage in Takahashi beating out his formidable rivals and seizing the prime minister’s seat.
“Most of the senior lawmakers knew about your debuff.”
“Ahaha, I’m not even surprised.”
Kazuki shrugged and crossed his arms.
Japan had a parliamentary cabinet system, and to gain control of politics, he would have needed the support of senior lawmakers. Inevitably, what Takahashi had done to Kazuki must have been shared as well.
In the end, the only one who hadn’t known was the person involved.
“It’s like The Truman Show~”
“……”
When Kazuki laughed, pretending it was nothing, Jurim furrowed his brow and turned his head away.
Amakusa Kazuki.
The self-proclaimed “friend” who had approached Jurim as he pleased when Jurim had come down from the Tower and was receiving all the hatred in the world, offered him respect, and helped stop his synchronization with the master of the 99th floor.
Jurim had no special feelings for him. He did not want to get involved with him privately, nor was there any need to……
Jurim, who had turned his head, met Geuru’s eyes.
Geuru had been standing there all along in a strange outfit, with a monk’s robe draped around her like a head-covering skirt, as if trying to gauge what the two of them were talking about.
It was probably a difficult conversation for a child.
It would be better if she did not understand a single thing.
He could clearly picture her being saddened if she heard that someone she called Master or Uncle was sick.
Geuru, who had been watching for her chance, met his gaze and then trotted over like a puppy reunited with its owner, settling down beside him.
As Jurim brushed the dirt off Geuru’s knees, he said bluntly,
“I’m going to bring down Takahashi. Searching through the prime minister’s head isn’t easy, but if he becomes an ordinary person, it won’t be hard.”
He meant that after stripping him of the prime minister’s position, he would search through his mind and find a way to lift the curse.
“Huh?”
But was that really something to say in front of a little kid?
With a troubled expression, Kazuki fumbled for words.
“On-chan, you don’t have to do something that difficult because of me……”
“This seems broken, so I need someone to make me a new glove.”
Instead of saying Geuru would be sad, Jurim waved his left hand.
At that, Kazuki laughed as though it were an amusing joke, but seeing Jurim’s serious expression, he asked gravely,
“Are you for real? Then I’m allowed to be moved, right?”
“Who knows?”
Jurim answered vaguely and was just about to pull the monk’s robe off Geuru’s head.
Geuru quickly covered the crown of her head.
“What’s wrong?”
At Jurim’s question, Geuru covered her crown with both hands, each as small as a maple leaf, pouted, and said in a voice full of tears,
“Daddyyy—Geuru, Geuru’s gonna become Groot……”
There were times when Jurim had absolutely no idea what Geuru was saying.
With an expression that truly said he did not understand, Jurim asked back,
“But you like Groot.”
You even said, “I’m Groot,” when you were acting, didn’t you?
Shake, shake.
After much deliberation, Geuru steeled herself and spread her hands wide, showing him the crown of her head.
“Daddyyy, take this off, please. Or else…… sniff!”
Inside the bud that had opened while Geuru was hiding it away, there hung an acorn the size of a fingernail.
“Or else…… Geuru will become a tree……! Huuup! Hic!”
Jurim had no choice but to lose his words.
*
[Activating skill ‘Chilseok Potter.’]
Pop!
When Kazuki’s skill touched her head, the sprout that had been trying to turn Geuru into Groot popped out.
Instead of simply handing over the sprout, he made a small flowerpot and planted it there.
“Sniff!”
Geuru hugged the flowerpot with the fingernail-sized acorn planted in it tightly.
A sprout with a snowball attached instead of roots.
An acorn hung from the bud, and that was unmistakably an “Elixir.”
[Immature Elixir…… 33%]
It was not fully grown yet, but……
“That thing was growing?”
Jurim asked with a grave expression, and Geuru tilted her head.
She didn’t know.
It had been a sprout from the beginning, and most of the time, even that had been in the form of a drooping, sickly sprout, so she had never imagined it would grow.
But.
“Sprouts are s’posed to grow.”
With the ends of her eyebrows drooping pitifully, Geuru said it in a sympathetic tone that seemed to ask, “You didn’t even know that?”
“……That’s true.”
Having nothing more to say, Jurim picked up Geuru, who was holding the flowerpot with the immature Elixir like a precious jar of honey.
“Geuru-chan, is that really an Elixir?”
Kazuki, who had been watching their conversation, asked with an expression of disbelief.
He must have found it hard to believe that an Elixir could actually exist. Just as Jurim had at first.
“Yees.”
“Why was it growing from your head? Is that how it’s supposed to be?”
Shake, shake.
“Geuru, um, picked up an acorn in RP…… uhm, so I planted it in my head.”
A few steps in the middle were missing, but in any case, Geuru looked proud of herself for completing the explanation of how the Elixir had been planted in her head.
And Kazuki—
“Wow! That’s really, really amazing, Geuru-chan!”
Accepted it exactly as it was.
“Hehe!”
While the two of them chatted away in that dazed manner, Jurim sank into thought for a moment.
‘Am I the only one who can’t keep up with this situation right now?’
He had wondered what she had planted in her head, and it turned out his daughter had been walking around with an Elixir planted there.
“……?”
It was bewildering, but now he was beginning to get the hang of it.
He had to understand his daughter’s actions not with his head, but with his heart.
She was a child who needed “I see, so that’s what happened,” rather than “Why did you do that?”
Jurim desperately swallowed the urge to ask, “Why did you have to plant the sprout right on the crown of your head?” and decided to think about something else with his chaos-filled mind.
“……In any case, now I won’t have to bring down the prime minister and search through his head.”
“Huh?”
“Because we have this now. Even if it isn’t fully grown yet.”
Jurim indicated the flowerpot with a tilt of his head.
“You’re going to use that? On me……?”
Kazuki was wearing a truly peculiar expression.
If one weighed the gravity of the matter, using an Elixir was even bigger than the plan to bring down the Japanese prime minister and search through his mind.
At that moment, Geuru, who had been watching the situation with her large eyes rolling around, quietly asked,
“Why? Is Master sick somewhere?”
“He’ll be all right now.”
Jurim lightly pinched Geuru’s cheek and glanced toward the Elixir.
Geuru opened her eyes wide and nodded as if she understood. Then, looking relieved, she hugged the flowerpot even more dearly to her chest.
After giving the child a faint smile, Jurim glanced at Kazuki, who had fallen silent.
For someone who had been willing to risk death to remove his debuff, his face looked even more at a loss than before.
Why was he suddenly acting like that? Did he think he would be incurring too great a debt?
‘What a pain.’
Jurim let out a deep sigh and set his mind to work.
All he needed was a suitable reason to offset that feeling of indebtedness.
Something that could, while he was at it, punish those detestable Japanese government bastards who were doing everything in their power to make his life troublesome.
And what would deal the greatest blow to Prime Minister Takahashi? What was it that Japan cherished so dearly?
It was right in front of him.
Having found the answer, Jurim said it aloud.
“Naturalize.”
“Huh? What did you say?”
The merciless villain On Jurim took a tiny acorn hostage.
“If you want your debuff removed, naturalize.”
“……?”
Kazuki opened and closed his mouth, as though the naturalization card was something he had never expected at all.
“Venerable Hyeongak can look after it until the Elixir fully grows. So come to Korea.”