'Wake… Mas…'
'Wake… up…'
'Master…'
'Wake up, Master!'
"Mngh?" Being waken up with a jolt, Valyr gradually came to his senses as he heard Sana's voice resound in his mind over and over again, telling him to wake up. For a short while, he clutched his head in pain as he slowly sat upright, only to feel pain radiate from his back not long after.
Fortunately, it did not take long for both types of pain to subside as Valyr's consciousness eventually became fully alert, allowing him to hear Sana let out a sigh of relief in his mind.
'I was worried you wouldn't wake up, Master,' said Sana, causing a faint apologetic smile to appear on Valyr's face as he apologized for worrying his spear. After that, the expression on his face turned solemn as he tried to recall what had transpired before he fell unconscious, only recalling brief glimpses of what had happened, as well as going through inordinate amounts of pain.
'Sana, mind telling me what happened before I fell unconscious?' As he asked this question to his spear, Valyr looked around to find where Sana was, only to see that it was on top of the incision Tristan had made all this time. However, once he stood up to move closer to grab his spear, he quickly noticed that the skin of the Tidemother had taken on a dried-up texture.
With that, he became aware of his surroundings, finally noticing that the entire body of the Tidemother had taken on the same appearance as the limbs he had seen before he fell unconscious, emaciated and wrinkled. Aside from that, he noticed that he felt no aura whatsoever from the corpse anymore, prompting him to think that his spear had siphoned up all of the blood and energy that could be siphoned from it.
Rubbing his hands over the Tidemother's skin, Valyr instantly thought about how its texture was similar to dried-up leather. Though, he quickly discarded that thought once Sana started telling him what happened to him before he fell unconscious.
'Well, at first, everything was fine. However, at some point during my upgrade process, the body of the Tidemother started to rumble a lot, which I felt from the connection I had to the corpse.'
'Not long after, I felt a wave of energy from the Tidemother hit you in the back, which caused you to fall to the ground.' As these words left Sana's mouth, his recollection of what had occurred earlier became clearer, remembering that he thought that an enemy had appeared all of a sudden and ambushed him.
'After that, your expression went blank for a bit before your body started to contort in various ways while you screamed out in pain.' Hearing these words, the expression on Valyr's face had turned grim, the memories that now lingered in his mind reminding him of the pain he had to go through.
'Then, after that, you fell unconscious. It took a few hours for you to wake up, Master.'
'Is that so?' Turning his head to look at the sky to see if Sana's words were true, a bitter smile quickly appeared on his face once he found out that the sun had already gone past its zenith, its position still somewhat far away from the horizon. Thinking about how Tristan and the others were probably thinking as to where he had gone at the moment, Valyr decided to place the thought at the back of his head for now as he took a look at his notifications, knowing that they'd give him a better idea of what happened.
Ding!
[You have gained the Mark of the Alltide (Tier I).]
"The Mark of the Alltide…" Valyr muttered softly, as if imprinting the name into his memory. Soon after, he commanded the system to bring up its description, only to read through it not long after. "This…"
"I can't believe I got a curse." With a slight frown, he rummaged through his treasure trove of memories, wondering if he had seen any similar cases in his past life as a player.
Ding!
[Mark of the Alltide (Tier I)] (Curse)
Rarity: ???
To you who has defiled a Tidemother and made its strength your own, monsters shall torment your every waking moment. They all seek to end your life, leaving no trace of your existence even after death. You have incurred the wrath of the monsters. The wrath of the Tidemothers. The wrath of the Alltide.
Within a 100 meter radius around the user, any wild monster shall charge towards you without hesitation and aim to kill you no matter what. All monsters within this radius shall have their strength augmented to one tier above their usual level of strength. Killing monsters under the effects of this augmentation yield 10% greater XP.
As the frown on Valyr's face deepened, he eventually stumbled upon a couple memories he had where other players had gotten curses. However, the curses they obtained differed from his, with all of them due to the players making contact with demons from the Underworld and not being able to uphold their part of the deal. On top of that, the effects of their curses were far more ruthless than the effect of the curse Valyr had at the moment.
"Then again, it's only at Tier I. That means there's higher tiers to it… which means it could only get worse from here." Letting out a low sigh, Valyr focused his thoughts on something else, deciding to focus it on the word 'Alltide'.
"Alltide… is it referring to the Grand Tide?" Pondering over the connection between the two, Valyr felt like there was a high chance that the Alltide was the Grand Tide, prompting him to recall how his ability to communicate with Sana had been awakened in the first place.
"The third version, huh…" Letting out a long sigh, Valyr composed himself as he thought about how the curse would affect him in his day-to-day life from now on.
"Well, I guess that means I can't move through the wilderness without preparing anymore." Thinking about how he might end up attracting the attention of an incredibly strong monster without him knowing thanks to the curse, a bitter smile adorned Valyr's face as he realized he had been wallowing himself in misery all this time.
Shaking all of the negative thoughts in his mind, Valyr went ahead and picked up Sana, only to use [Analysis] on it not long after. 'Now then. Let's see how much you've improved.'
"…oh?"
"…"
"I see. Hehehe."
"I guess this curse isn't completely a bad thing, after all."
