The Strongest Curse Master

"Hey! Did you find him?" Man Hunter shouted at the top of her lungs just as Delores passed by the rooftop she was perched on.

"Yeah, I did, agent, but guess what? I just love flying around the city skyline like a crazy person. So if you don't mind, I'll get back to it." Delores was fuming. She just wanted to find Ace and give him a good spanking. God knows he deserved it. But she also knew that if she did, he'd just turn it into another thing to tease her about—and that realization made her even angrier.
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Because damn it, she wasn't supposed know him so well, he was supposed to be just another person in her life. Someone she didn't give a crap about. But somehow, that sleazy little parasite had wormed his way into her heart, and now, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't ignore him.

She should have been focused on ensuring Janice's safety. That was her actual job. Yet here she was, darting from rooftop to rooftop, chasing after that little demon child like that crazy mom in the mall who can't find her child.

"Well, you better find him soon, because the Curselings are halfway—" Man Hunter didn't even flinch at Delores's snappy tone—she could tell the woman was stressed. But before she could finish her sentence, her words were cut off in shock as she witnessed a blinding flash of light, almost like lightning, shoot into the night sky from a building's terrace.

"There!" Delores yelled, already taking off in that direction.

Man Hunter followed, leaping effortlessly from terrace to terrace, moving like she'd done this a hundred times before.

…

Inside an elevator of an unknown building, about a couple miles from the local C.I.B. headquarters…

"Master, this thing is useless. We should get rid of it as soon as possible," Doctor Druid muttered, peering into the wicker vase holding the mutant rust worm.

"Why? Can't we just get it to talk—" Ace started, then suddenly stopped, realization hitting him like a brick. He screwed up.

Without its curse master's shell, they couldn't communicate with the mutated rust worm. Unless one of his toy summons just so happened to know how to speak Curseling—or he was willing to go through the trouble of getting it a new curse master shell at minimum a Mortal-Tier one—there was no way to get anything out of it.

Then, a thought struck him. He turned to the Kunoichi beside him, asking, "Emi, turn it into your Shikigami. Then, we can use the status screen to communicate with it that way."

"I can't." Emi shook her head. "It's under a strong curse spell. Even if I managed to bind it, I'd risk the curse spreading to me—and then to you through me."

Ace clicked his tongue in frustration, listening to Emi explain the serious consequences of binding the mutant rust worm as her Shikigami.

"So, our only option is to find a curse criminal for it to possess, and then Druid can make it sing," he said, refusing to be deterred believing learning how the Samsara cult managed to solve the drawbacks of the rust worm curseling was worth it.

"No, Master," Emi corrected him. "Because of the curse spell, the rust worm can't use its abilities. That means it can't fuse with an innate curse tool to possess another curse master. Druid's right—it's useless to us."

"Damn it!" Ace cursed, rubbing his temples. "All this time, I've been lugging this damn thing around for nothing?"

Had he known earlier, he might've tried to snatch up a mutant rust worm from the 8th underground floor when he had the chance. Now, they had nothing. No— they still had Lilith. She wasn't a mutated rust worm herself, but as a curse slave of the cult, she might know something. After all, her Curseling partner was a mutated rust worm.

"What do we do with it?" Doctor Druid asked, handing the wicker vase to her master, hoping he had a plan to handle it.

Ace took it, turning the vase in his hands. "I'll give it to Elinor—tell her some dude calling himself Apex asked me to pass it along."

If nothing else, maybe it would give Elinor and Lilith something to vent their grievances on.

As the elevator reached the highest floor it could go, Ace recalled Doctor Druid and Emi into their toy spaces, leaving behind only Dame Wasp, who nestled herself inside the Rail Rifle's power chamber. He took the service stairs three steps at a time, making his way up to the terrace before kicking open the door.

While Dame Wasp set the power supply up, Ace used the rifle's scope to scan the descending Curselings and the desperate Delores, still zipping around the skyline like a bat out of hell.

Once Dame Wasp finished setting things up, Ace took his position, waiting for the power chamber to charge up a lot more—because he planned to start big.

Pearing through the scope, Ace adjusted the rifle's angle, trying to find a worthy pery, a Sky-teir at a bare minimum. Anything less would feel like a waste of a Mischief bullet. He locked onto a worthy target—a Sky-Tier curseling. Just as his finger hovered over the trigger, he noticed a pattern.

If he timed his shot just right, he could take out not just one but at least a couple of Sky-Tier Curselings and a handful of lower-tier ones in a single blast.

The sky was swarming with them, all converging toward the C.I.B. headquarters. It was chaos—and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If he pulled this off, he'd have something to brag about for ages.

Hands steady, bracing for the kickback, Ace slowly breathed out and pulled the trigger—boom! Even though he was ready, he still got thrown back. He quickly scrambled to his feet, wanting to see the once-in-a-lifetime shot with his own eyes. But his view was blocked by Delores, hovering on her board in red. He smiled and waved nervously. "Hi, Delores. You finally made it."