Ch273 - Cursemaker’s Past: The Golden Apple

Translator: gin

Editor: DragonFae

The day we escaped from the Research Institute buried by flames, it was I who carried Knicks out. Due to his stubbornness, we had to spend more time saving lives and returned to the specimen room to bring out my original body, Adrian. This probably had some profound meaning, though I could not understand it.

Human bodies were way too weak. Knicks was roasted alive by the thick smoke and coughed continuously, so I smashed the porcelain plate on my chest, allowing him to bury his face in and breathe the fresh air in my chest cavity. I tried to carry him away, but he hadn’t made me tall enough and strong enough. His feet were always dragging against the floor, but I dared not use the Sacred Wind-Up Key. I feared that this ceramic body would not be able to withstand the massive forces, and also feared that I would not be able to meet Knicks’ woeful eyes.

Thankfully, in the end, he was still dragged back. By the time I carried him and climbed out of the institute, its exterior lay in ruins. It was as though Divine Envoyda-gehad lost his mind and gone on a killing spree. Divine Envoyda-gewas, from head to toe, a lunatic. However, he was so good at acting, that humans recognised him as one of them. Today, he could no longer hide it and showed his true self. It was a pity I could not stay to watch the chaos; I had to rush Knicks home.

Upon returning to the White Snow Castle, I cleaned up the mess for Peacockda-jieand the others. Knicks had been very weak this whole time and he lay on the bed asleep. For one straight week, he would only stir for a short while everyday, yet when he was awake, he would always ask me what I was up to while he slept.

What could I even do? I waited with his slippers for him to wake up.

After being questioned like this for three days in a row, I began to sense that perhaps I should be doing something. Therefore, on the fourth day, once he woke up, I fibbed that while he was asleep, I had used my porcelain tongue to play with his tongue for a bit. However, after this lie, he scolded me for half of a whole day and asked me why I did that. How should I know? Wasn’t he the one who wanted me to do something?

From then on, Knicks did not sleep as much as he used to, and his energy had recovered significantly. It seemed like the kiss I gave the princess had been useful indeed. (He was the one who had told me about the fable of Snow White. When I repeated this story to the children in the castle, I had slightly embellished it and made up some scenes where the princess killed the queen by her own hands, dismembered her body and cooked, then ate it. As a result, the kids never pestered Knicks to tell them this story. It was my own story.)

Knicks took out Adrian’s body and asked me if I would like to return to my original body, but my current body was more beautiful and more sturdy. Even if the castle crumbled into ruins, I would not fall. I am Eris, and I will watch over the snows of Mount Lawrence for eternity.

He did not say anything after that, and just pushed Adrian’s body into the incinerator, then squatted down to wait. He did not smoke. To him, waiting just meant changing a spot to think at. I really wanted to know what he was thinking about. Before, I also had a big brain. Afterwards, I discovered that I was no different with or without it.

Knicks asked me, “Do you still remember things from your childhood?”

Since he had expressed so much interest in the topic, I also squatted down and began to tell him.

My childhood years were considerably happy. A priest in a church adopted me. Every morning, I heard the comings and goings of people who confessed and poured out all of their sins. I enjoyed listening to them recount their poor luck.

The priest loved me deeply. He often praised me for my figure and my face. He even came up with a girly nickname for me, Alice. He would sniff and lick my fingertips and feet, touching me underneath the holy statue. Oh how much he loved me. Yet, I used a pair of silver nun’s scissors stolen from outside to snip off his penis. In this world, it is impossible to justify why I must love him if he loves me.

I have also felt regret that I hurt the one person in this world who loved me. He ceased all affection towards me and handed me over to the doctor who visited the village to give the nuns their medical checkup.

On leaving the church, I promised myself I would never again hurt anybody who loved me. I would use all my heart and soul in being loyal to them, regardless of how bad their temper was or how repulsive they were.

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I already held no hope towards my differentiation abilities. Later, I completed the third level of differentiation and discovered my third differentiation ability, “Like The Abyss.” Sigh, how boring.

The training to induce differentiation was simple. It was just replacing my limbs piece by piece with porcelain versions of them, and then suturing them together. A total of 53 of these swaps were made and when completed, my entire body, except for my glands, was made of porcelain. From then on, I was no longer Adrian. The researchers gave me a new name, Eris. According to them, this was the name of the goddess of discord and strife in Greek Mythology. She had used a gold apple as a gift, luring the three goddesses into fighting, which eventually started the Trojan War.

After my brain was removed, I relied on the combat computer chip to think. Honestly, the difference was small since I was not often thinking. Other than my temperament becoming more violent and irritable, everything else remained as usual.

Indeed, the researchers did not lie to me. I had in fact become popular. As an experimental subject that fully replicated an A3-grade differentiation ability, I was their top creation. I awaited their welcoming cheers, but they only watched me with cautious and fearful eyes. This made me so bored that I killed numerous researchers when the suppressor device failed, but I stuck to my oath and have never changed since.

Later on, I was packaged up and sold. The researchers tied a big brown ribbon round my neck and pasted a barcode on me. They also stuffed a product manual in the box that contained me, then hammered nails into it to seal it. For a full day, I rattled around in the dark, before being violently unloaded by the courier company.

Through gaps in the crate. I saw an alpha. He seemed like a reliable German with golden hair akin to my Cursed Thread. He wore a plain blue shirt in his leather apron, as well as a pair of gloves. He stood amongst the piles of stock and busied himself, using German and Italian to converse with the other workers. I could not understand what he was saying.

I sat upright and waited for him to come over. At this point, I became grateful for the brown bow the researchers had tied on me. I straightened it and put on my most gentlemanly face, mentally preparing ten ways to greet him, trying my best to appear decent.

I had already waited for a long time, yet he was still busy counting the bombs and guns. This amused me. I was so much more powerful than all of them.

You still won’t come?

Ohcome on, I’m begging you to come take a look at me next!

In the end, he never came. Some burly guys pushed me into a warehouse that was filled with gunpowder. The stench of darkness nearly drove me mad.

Being in the dark made me violent.

From inside the crate, I controlled those who walked by me and looked at me. If they mocked me, I made them drink water and choke on it. If they beat me with the butt of their gun, I would make them accidentally set their sheets on fire when they smoked. If they kicked my cage, I would make their gun backfire. If they made obscene hand gestures at me, I would make them get hit by a bullet randomly when walking. Misfortune was enough to kill, and I didn’t even need to lift a finger.

That golden haired alpha finally came. In the dark, I could only see his silhouette. By now, I was already so disappointed, I wanted to kill him, then gift my bow to him.

He fumbled around near me for a moment to find a power outlet. A lamp came on, disrupting my plans.

He bent over, his hair framing his face, and asked me in English, “This way, can you be a bit quieter?”

His eyes glowed like tsavorites and his voice sounded like the collision of gems. It was as though his whole being was expensive and had a tag hung on it that I could not afford.

He stuck his hand into the crate, reaching for the side of my lips. Perhaps he did not know that I could shatter his bones with a single bite. He was certainly very arrogant.

I obviously knew that he did not love me. Ah, but he had touched my face.

I pressed and rubbed against his palm. It felt warm, about 98 degrees Fahrenheit. This was a temperature that I had nearly forgotten about.

Afterwards, he began to carve a doll next to me and we shared the little light that shone on the table. I found out that he was a generous man and his name was Knicks, though others usually referred to him as the Puppet Master.

The body in the cremation furnace had nearly been completely burnt. Knicks had also had enough of my yapping and stood up to put out the fire so he could remove the ashes collected in the drawer below.

“Do I take them and throw them away?” I asked him.

Knicks made no response. He removed the drawer and took it with him as he left. Alas, the thoughts of an artist are unusual.

When he was working, I went out for a stroll. Yes, I was certainly jealous. I despised the fact that Knicks carved other dolls’ bodies with great care while I had to stay by his side and help him pick up the dolls’ limbs and carry them around gently, not daring to break even a single one.

The castle was in chaos. Some freeloading experimental subjects had mated with each other and gave birth to even more freeloaders that spent all day crying, defecating everywhere and crawling around haphazardly.

Peacockda-jiehad recently become interested in Chinese opera, occasionally humming or dancing to certain parts. Sarcosuchus only knew blind flattery, saying that everything she sang was good, when in reality, her voice was so terrible it sounded as though her throat had been pecked by a chicken.

Unexpectedly, Specter the Stutterer had become a kindergarten teacher, creating a group of mini-stutterers who would follow him around babbling and mumbling in some indecipherable language.

Meanwhile, Dragonfly Girl was being extra diligent. Due to the fact that she had wings, which made flying around convenient, she often went to the village at the foot of the mountain to buy some useless things.

I was in charge of guarding the entrance and sat on the hands of the big clock in the castle, specifically to prevent the IOA or PBB from entering.

Knicks had warned us, in the next 20 years, we were not allowed to appear in view of humans. After resting for 20 years, then he would plan what we should do next. To be honest, I could tell that his resolve was crumbling and he now preferred sitting by the fireplace making dolls to going out and fighting armed forces.

At night, when I had completed my door-guarding duties, I returned to Knicks’ workshop. He had made new dolls again. They were as big as a palm, with extremely fine limb joints. Knicks wore an eyepiece as he carefully tinkered with them. His look of deep concentration angered me.

“Eric, don’t break my parts.”

He seemed to hear my thoughts and warned me in advance.

“Tsk, fine.” I summoned up some of my energy to reply to him, “Later, are you going to make some clothes for your little babies? Then, will you print your red spider logo on their lower backs? Maybe even a kiss upon completion? These stupid toys are so lucky.”

Hey, I think my vision has become blurry, I almost thought I saw Knicks smiling. Ever since my condition worsened, my pupils have been crossed and everything just looks a little bit blurred.

I did not want to spend a night watching him do such a stupid thing, so instead, I fell asleep on his lap.

When I was awakened by the morning calls of birds, Knicks was still using coloured powder to sketch the doll’s cheeks.

Sure, let me take a look at this doll’s dumb appearance. It’s cupid-shaped face that’s just asking to be slapped, it’s white skin and high nose that almost seemed racist, it’s thin and cold-looking lips, the fact that it was sticking its tongue out in an infuriating way, it’s green eyes that were the color of fungus and parasites all made me think of…myself.

This was a miniature ball-jointed model of Adrian, wearing the same overalls as me.

Knicks removed his eyepiece and rubbed his eyes, handing the doll to me, “Go and play with it.”

“I…” I didn’t have the time to go and wash my hands so I could only rub my palms clean on my pants before receiving the doll.

It was truly beautiful.

Knicks busied himself with washing his hands at the nearby sink, muttering about how cold the water was.

I attacked him from behind, planning to land a bite on his nape to inject some of my pheromones into him. This was something myda-gehad revealed to me when bragging about how often his wife would do that to him.

I had suddenly experienced a strong urge to leave my mark on him, but the moment my teeth touched his skin, I regretted it. My mark was that of a dead Teru Teru Bozu. Whoever receives this mark would be instantly doomed.

But I gave it another thought, having me around was already unlucky enough, was there even any way for it to get worse?

I took a bite out of him and it hurt Knicks so badly he gripped his nape, smacking me and saying, “Don’t mess around.”

I did not inject any pheromones into him, but picked up the pen he used to color in the dolls and drew a golden apple on his nape.

This was Eris’ gift.