《The Curse of The Gods》 Prologue In a dark space, 2 objects floated, both emitting white light which disappeared into the darkness. One object was a large transparent diamond that had a dangerous feeling to it, which was strange as it looked like an incredibly expensive diamond, not anything dangerous. However, no matter how expensive it looked, after looking at it for a few seconds you would want to run away from it as fast as possible. The other object emitting light was actually an old man who looks around 70 years old, with grey hair and wrinkles, but anyone who had been into a church would recognise him as The God of Intelligence. He was doing his usual study of the topic he enjoyed researching the most, which is humans. While looking at the human nobles, he found a young girl, nearly 16 years old, called Scarlet Dragonclaw, who made him very curious about. Her skin was completely white, looking like the snow that falls every winter. But that wasn''t too unusual, he had seen similar humans before so it didn''t interest him much. One part that made him curious was the contrast in her colours. She had light blue hair which looked similar to the blue sky, and the part that contrasted this was a pair of bright red tattoos on her arms. The tattoos were identical and were both an image of a dragon. As he had studied humans for a very long time, he naturally had seen this tattoo before. The tattoo was something that the occasional person in the human noble family called Dragonclaw would be born with. The name Dragonclaw naturally came from this tattoo, but the tattoo is actually just a mere tattoo, as no one had discovered what it does yet. The God of Intelligence had a few theories behind it but he hasn''t been able to confirm any of them yet as the people who are born with it are very rare. This was part of the reason behind his curiosity. The white skin, blue hair and red tattoos combined together with her beautiful face made her stand out a lot, but he soon found out that her standing out didn''t affect her at all. The reason behind this was incredibly simple, she simply doesn''t leave her room, which means not many people see her. Her not leaving her room ever was the other part that made him curious about her. From a short amount of time researching her, he found out why she stayed inside. It wasn''t like she was scared of people or she had a tragic past. She was just lazy. She spends all her time just lying around doing nothing, only stopping lying around to do basic things like eating etc. It''s not even like she is stupid, its the exact opposite. In all her tests she had to do in the past she would easily get high marks without much effort at all, but despite being such a genius she was too lazy to attempt anything. Naturally, as he is The God of Intelligence, this waste of talent frustrated him, and he wished he could go and force her into doing work. While thinking that, he suddenly had an idea, so he called for his grandsons, one was a young man wearing a typical work suit, he was known as The God of Hard Work. The other was another young man, wearing pyjamas and had an expression that said ''let me sleep'', he was known as The God of Laziness. He gave an explanation about Scarlet to the two, midway through though, The God of Laziness fell asleep and he got woken up with a slap to face by The God of Hard Work. This caused a mini argument but he was too lazy to argue much so he gave up.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. The three then stood in a circle, holding the hands of each other. The God of Intelligence quickly said something extremely fast, it was too fast to understand but it seemed to be a chant of some sort. A blinding light suddenly appeared in the middle of them and then quickly disappeared, but there was a thing standing in the middle of the circle that wasn''t there before. This meant it succeeded so they let go of each other and looked a the girl, Scarlet Dragonclaw, who was stood there. She had a look of indifference on her face, as she looked around the dark space, first at the 3 Gods, who are famous enough for every single person over the age of 5 to recognise, and then at the diamond. She then went on to say in an arrogant tone "I see you have brought me here to give a diamond that suits this beautiful me" while grabbing the diamond. Before The God of intelligence could even attempt to stop her, the diamond had been grabbed by her, and then it shattered into pieces almost too small to see. The pieces flew towards Scarlet and all got absorbed into her hands. Scarlet looked at her hands and was about to cry out in pain but then realised there was no injury at all, but the diamond had fully disappeared. She looked at her hand with a concerned look for a moment, but after looking at it she couldn''t find any differences so she decided to forget about it for the time being. "WHY THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT?!" The God of Intelligence screamed at her loudly after he realised she had broken and absorbed the diamond, which had been judged by the Gods as too dangerous and was given to The God of Intelligence to study it to find out what it does and prevent it from damaging anything. She lo at him with a bored expression, which seemed to say "Can I go home?"She saw the angry expression of the old man and asked: "Was that diamond really more important than someone as perfect as me?" Even The God of Laziness, who had a reputation of being too lazy to react to people, got a bit annoyed at her narcissistic and rude behaviour, but naturally, he was too lazy to say anything to her. The God of Hard Work, who had a reputation of doing all the work he can possibly do, obviously reacted to her. After thinking for a while, he decided that nothing he says will change her mind, so he decided to use actions instead of words. He took out a diamond from a container in his pocket that looked similar to the one from before, but a lot smaller and it didn''t feel as dangerous, from his pocket and threw it at Scarlet and said this after it was absorbed into her body in the same way the other diamond was absorbed: "I have given you a present, you will be having bad luck until I decide that you have fixed your despicable personality!" Scarlet didn''t know what he threw, but the other two Gods were a bit shocked as they knew what it was, it was called Crystallised Bad Luck. It has the effect of giving the people near it some bad luck, but it''s effects aren''t too bad. However, no one had ever absorbed Crystallised Bad Luck so they could only watch to see how badly it affects her, but even though they don''t know how bad it will be, they are sure that her bad luck will look like she got cursed by the Gods. Since Scarlet had no clue that she just got given a curse that will ruin her life of laziness, so she simply asked: "The diamond you just gave me broke, can I have another one?" The God of Intelligence couldn''t stand listening to her any longer and decided to send her back, he quickly chanted like before, and another flash of light appeared, and she wasn''t there when it disappeared, leaving an angry old man, an annoyed young man and the third man was already asleep, completely ignoring the other young man shouting at him, telling him to do work. This event was only witnessed by the three gods and a young girl that was nearly 16 years old but the event was the trigger behind Scarlet''s journey, which will span the entire world, causing chaos worldwide! Chapter 1 After being sent back into her room by The God of Intelligence, Scarlet instantly went back to her bed. The room was quite big, around 10 metres by 10 metres, the walls painted blue, with a giant white bed in the middle of the room. She was about to close her eyes, but then she saw something that shocked her on her ceiling. Actually, taking a closer look, it wasn''t on the ceiling but actually mid-air. There was a strange white floating 2D rectangle, which had [HELLO SCARLET DRAGONCLAW!] written on it in pink writing. The rectangular box floated close to her face as if it was waiting for a reply. Scarlet looked at it with a tired look and asked: "How do you know my name?" Instantly after the box changed what it had written on to [I heard the old man say it before]. Scarlet read the nonsense and started thinking out loud: "Old man? Before? What is this weird box thinking? AH! This floating thing must be that crystal!" She realised after thinking for a few moments that old man must be referring to The God of Intelligence, and she thought of the most likely reason behind this weird floating box knowing who she is. [Almost correct, I am called The System, I was sealed inside that diamond until you absorbed me. Also, you are the only one able to see me.] Scarlet couldn''t be bothered to think too hard about it, but there was one thing she needed to ask: "Why were you sealed?" [Stop asking for a girl''s secrets!] She instantly retorted: "You are a box, not a girl!" The System fell to the floor as if it was in pain [Stop calling me a box, I am clearly a girl!! Scarlet couldn''t be bothered to argue so she just asked: "How are you a girl?" The System then floated to close to her face and changed its text to [Can''t you see this pink text?!?!] After seeing that, Scarlet couldn''t even be bothered to talk to it any longer after and decided to go to sleep. But as she was about to close her eyes, the text changed to [STOP! YOU WILL REGRET SLEEPING IF YOU SLEEP NOW!] Scarlet looked at The System with an annoyed expression and said: "Why? If you are wasting my time that could be spent sleeping, I will ignore you forever." [I will explain to you would regret it after I show you your status.] Scarlet looked at The System with a confused expression and asked: "Status? What''s that?" [Do you have to question everything? I will show you your status now so please be quiet!] [Name - Scarlet Dragonclaw Age ¨C 15 Sex - Female Level - 1 Title ¨C The One Cursed By A God HP - 7/7(+0) MP - 10/10(+0) Strength - 2(+0) Stamina - 2(+0) Agility - 2(+0) Perception ¨C 10(+0) Attraction ¨C 1 Attraction - 20 Additional Stat Points ¨C 0 Money Points - 0 Skills - Status effects ¨C Bad luck Daily Quest ¨C Day 1 (Not complete) Quests - ] [Also I will give an example of an average person''s status, here is the status of villager A, also keep in mind that no one else other than you can see their status: Name ¨C Villager A Age ¨C 20 Sex - Male Level - 1 Title ¨C Villager A HP - 10(+0) MP - 0(+0) Strength - 10(+0) Stamina - 10(+0) Agility - 10(+0) Perception ¨C 10(+0) Attraction ¨C 0Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Attraction - 20 Additional Stat Points ¨C 0 Money Points - 0 Skills - Status effects ¨C ] Scarlet read the information that appeared on The System and thought about it for a few seconds before asking it a question: "Why is the text not fully pink anymore? More importantly, from what I can work out this is showing my information, but you need to explain to me in more detail what each part means!" The System was happy that she had given up trying to sleep, so it ignored her rude attitude and went on to explain what each part of the status meant. [First of all, the name, age and sex are very obvious about what they are stating.] Scarlet looked at it with an annoyed expression that said: "Hurry up." [Level is something easy to understand, it rises as you gain experience, which is obtained from killing monsters, and as it increases your stats will increase.] Scarlet thought for a moment after reading it and went on to ask it a couple of questions: "How hard is it to level up? How big is the stat increase?" [The first level up requires 10 experience, and then the amount of experience required doubles every level up. The stat increase is simple, it is the same number as the level, so when you reach level 2 your stats will all go up by 2. You will also gain that many points as Additional Stat Points, which you can put in any stat you want to.] "Doesn''t that mean it will become extremely hard to level up later?" [Yes, but you will be getting Additional Stat Points from Daily Quests and Quests so you will be able to get stronger even if you don''t level up often. You can also kill stronger monsters the stronger you get and therefore you shouldn''t hit a complete stop in levelling up.] Scarlet then went to say: "I understand all of that, hurry up and explain the rest." [Why are you so impatient? I will explain the stats in detail now. First is the HP, it is short for Health Points and when you get hurt it will go down, and when it reaches 0 you will die. Next is MP, it is short for Mana Points and when you use magic or skills that use MP it will go down. A normal person wouldn''t have any MP, it is probably due to your noble bloodline that you have a small amount of MP. This is because nobles try to marry mages into their bloodlines in hopes of having mages in their family. You probably know this so I will keep the explanation short. Mages are people who either have an ancestor who had mana or they themselves were born with it.] Scarlet looked at The System and said: "Yes I already know about mages, hurry up and explain the rest all at once so I can sleep!" If The System could talk, it definitely would have sighed but it couldn''t talk so it went on to explain the rest of the stats as if Scarlet hadn''t been rude at all [Strength is your muscle strength, but upgrading Strength doesn''t make you look bigger, it just makes the muscles stronger, so you don''t have to worry about your looks. Stamina is obvious, having higher Stamina will make you able to run longer etc. Agility is speed and ability to dodge, basically having a high Agility will make you able to run faster and be able to dodge attacks a lot easier. Perception is how good your eyesight, smell and mana detection are. A high Perception would make you able to see far, smell far and detect mana accurately and detect mana from far away. Perception can also be controlled, which is very useful as you don''t want to always smell sewage etc. Finally, Attraction and Attraction are about attracting people. The Blue Attraction means attracting males and pink Attraction means attracting females. The higher the number is, the easier it is to make people of that gender fall in love with you. Additional Stat Points and level up stat increases cannot add points to these two, it can only increase through the rewards of Daily Quests and Quests.] Scarlet read the text and then complained: "Why did you have to write so much? I want to sleep so stop giving me paragraphs to read!" [You are the one who asked for me to explain it... The readers will hate the paragraphs more than you anyway...] Scarlet looked at it with a confused face and asked: "Readers?" [Next explanation is the Title, it is very simple. It can be one of three things. The first is something a lot of people know you as, for example, if you are known by a nickname by many, it will be that nickname. The second is getting a big achievement, an example is "Dragon Slayer" for slaying a dragon. The final one is by having something done to you, for example being pushed down the stairs by a king could get you a title of "The One Pushed Down Stairs By A King". Your title is the third one, and since it is quite the major title, it will be hard to replace it.] Scarlet saw it trying to change the conversation and told it: "Don''t try to change the conversation... Wait are you telling me I am going to have the title "The One Cursed By A God" forever?" [Well it probably won''t be forever but I can''t say it will change anytime soon. Anyway, I have nearly finished the explanation of the status, the next part to explain is the Money Points part. You can get Money Points from Daily Quests and Quests. They are spent in the shop, where you can get Skills and items. The items are things like weapons and armour, and on top of their use as equipment, they give a stat bonus, which is shown where you currently have (+0) due to having no armour. Daily Quests are set by me Daily and last until the end of the day, Quests are set by me whenever I feel like it and last however long I want them to. There is also a punishment for when you don''t complete quests, so you should hurry up and complete your Daily Quest, you can see it by tapping on it in the status. Oh, I almost forgot to explain Status effects, it will show things like poison etc.] Scarlet read through the long text and then looked at The System with an annoyed expression: "Why the hell did you give long explanations when I have to do a Daily Quest soon!?! Quick open the status so I can tap on it at least!" [Don''t worry, the first Daily Quest is very, even a lazy person like you could do it.] The System then changed to her status, and then she tapped the "Daily Quest ¨C Day 1". After being tapped, The System changed to [Day 1 - Do 10 push-ups] Scarlet looked at The System as if she was looking at trash and asked: "WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE TO DO EXERCISE?" [Please calm down, remember there will be a punishment if you don''t do it.] After being reminded of the punishment, she slowly did 10 push-ups, though if anyone saw it they wouldn''t even see it as exercise due to how lazily she did it. [Daily Quest rewards - +1 Additional Stat Point, +1 Money Point, +10 Attraction, -1 Attraction, +3 HP, +3 Agility, +3 Stamina and +3 Strength.] [I will now show your current status, I made the numbers look neater, now the readers will feel less annoyed when reading the stats.] [Name - Scarlet Dragonclaw Age ¨C 15 Sex - Female Level - 1 Title ¨C The One Cursed By A God HP - 10/10(+0) MP - 10/10(+0) Strength - 5(+0) Stamina - 5(+0) Agility - 5(+0) Perception ¨C 10(+0) Attraction ¨C 0 Attraction - 30 Additional Stat Points ¨C 1 Money Points - 1 Skills - Status effects ¨C Bad luck Daily Quest ¨C Day 1 (Complete) Quests - ] Scarlet looked at The System with an annoyed expression and said: "I. Am. Going. To. Sleep!" [It will be your 16th birthday tomorrow, I will give you a good birthday quest tomorrow!] Scarlet had already fallen asleep without reading the message, and The System started thinking of a fun quest to give Scarlet tomorrow. However, despite it sounding like it is about to make a nice birthday present, Scarlet would have definitely paled despite being completely white if she heard its thoughts. Chapter 2 After having a long sleep, Scarlet woke up and before she could do anything, The System flew in front of her and greeted her. [Good morning Scarlet, or well more accurately I should say good afternoon as you have slept in so long.] Scarlet looked at The System with and said with a look as if she was stating the obvious: "I need at least 16 hours sleep to function." [Isn''t that too much?!? Oh, I almost forgot to say it, HAPPY 16TH BIRTHDAY SCARLET!] She looked at it and shamelessly said: "Hurry up and give me a present then." The System had predicted she would act like this so it didn''t react and so it went on to say [Hmm, since you want a present that badly I will give you a quest for it ] Scarlet didn''t feel like arguing with it so she just asked: "What is the quest?" [It is on your status like usual.] [Name - Scarlet Dragonclaw Age ¨C 16 Sex - Female Level - 1 Title ¨C The One Cursed By A God HP - 10/10(+0) MP - 10/10(+0) Strength - 5(+0) Stamina - 5(+0) Agility - 5(+0) Perception ¨C 10(+0) Attraction ¨C 0 Attraction - 30 Additional Stat Points ¨C 1 Money Points - 1 Skills - Status effects ¨C Bad luck Daily Quest ¨C Day 2 (Not complete) Quests - Birthday] Scarlet repeated what she did yesterday to view the quest, which is tapping on it. The text of the quests changed to [Day 2 - Set the bed on fire.] [Birthday - Register as an adventurer. Time Limit - 2 days.] Scarlet looked at The System and asked it: "Do you really think you could ruin my peaceful life that easily?" [Yes I can. Remember if you don''t do the Daily Quest you will get a punishment. I didn''t go into details yesterday but I will now. The punishment can be anything I want it to be, as I can take control of your body. Do you want to do this the easy or the hard way?] As if trying to prove its point, Scarlet''s right arm moved a small amount on its own and Scarlet was unable to control it. Seeing that it wasn''t lying, Scarlet realised the seriousness of her situation. She asked The System in an annoyed tone: "If you can do that why didn''t you just make me do that forcefully in the first place?" [It''s more fun this way!] After reading that Scarlet knew that she wouldn''t be getting any peace for a long time so she decided to do what The System wants for a while. She got out of her bed that she had been lying on, and decided to burn it. Luckily she has a small amount mana, so she is able to cast basic spells. Not too many people have mana, however, a lot of nobles have mana from marrying mages into their bloodline and some commoners were lucky enough to be born with it or have a mage ancestor. Those born with it will sometimes pass it on but not much gets passed on so normally only those born with it out of nowhere will become very successful. The way magic works is very simple, you only need mana and an imagination. Mages that are born in a noble family tend to be more successful than commoners though because they are taught chants which are necessary for top tier magic, and they have a bigger imagination due to being taught more. Them knowing more allows them to make spells that are more effective, for example, only someone with education will know the concepts behind how things work like gravity, an uneducated person wouldn''t even think about how you get pulled down when you jump. However, there are a few rare cases where there are extremely successful commoner mages, normally due to them having a lot of mana or them being taught by someone after they realise they have mana.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Scarlet gathered the mana inside her body into her hand and pointed it at her bed, and then imagined a big fire on her bed, with an increased amount of oxygen around it to help it burn. However, due to not practising magic for a long time, she used too much power and it didn''t only burn the bed, but also the room. The use of the oxygen and the high amount of mana used made the fire much bigger than the bed, and it instantly filled the side of the room the bed was on. She was planning on setting the fire out after lighting it but she couldn''t due to having no mana left. After realising that the house was currently storing a lot of flammable resources, she cursed under her breath and quickly left the room and then exited the house. Smoke could soon be seen coming out of the roof and the maids working there had already exited and went to the nearest mansion owned by the family, which is nearby, to get help from someone who can use magic to set it out. [Well done, you did even better than I thought you would!] "Shut up." [I will give the quest rewards now.] [Daily Quest rewards - +2 Additional Stat Point, +2 Money Point, +10 Attraction, +1 HP, +1 Agility, +1 Stamina and +1 Strength.] [Name - Scarlet Dragonclaw Age ¨C 16 Sex - Female Level - 1 Title ¨C The One Cursed By A God HP - 11/11(+0) MP - 0/10(+0) Strength - 6(+0) Stamina - 6(+0) Agility - 6(+0) Perception ¨C 10(+0) Attraction ¨C 0 Attraction - 40 Additional Stat Points ¨C 3 Money Points - 3 Skills - Status effects ¨C Bad luck Daily Quest ¨C Day 2 (Not complete) Quests - Birthday] Scarlet didn''t even read it and replied: "This isn''t the time for rewards! MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE!" The house she lived in was one of many mansions that her family owned, as the family is an Earl family. The nobility ranks from lowest to highest are Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess, Duke, Royal Family, King/Queen. The higher the rank is, the more powerful they are, but they also have more responsibilities. There are many responsibilities, but the main ones are collecting taxes and defending the country if a war happens, or if monsters appear that are too numerous for adventures to handle. The higher the rank they are, the easier it is for them to get away with crimes so a lot of the high ranking nobles other than the Royal Family and the King do some illegal things. As the Dragonclaw family is an Earl family, they naturally have many mansions, but they still wouldn''t be happy with one suddenly burning down. As Scalet has been lazing around for years, many people in the family want to remove her and this is a good enough excuse to do so. As Scarlet knew this, she decided to not even attempt returning to the family. Luckily, she had slept in her clothes and had grabbed her item bag that has her money in. An item bag is a bag which can store more than it looks, due to being made by a mage. The way it works is by creating a dimension inside, and time conveniently doesn''t pass inside, unless you set it to do so. However, the amount of money inside is only some pocket money. The money in this world is the same in all countries. The currency is copper coins, then silver coins, then gold coins, then big gold coins and then platinum coins. There is also big platinum coins but they are extremely rare due to how much they are worth. 1 silver coin is worth 100 copper coins, 1 gold coin is worth 100 silver coins, 1 big gold coin is worth 100 gold coins and 1 platinum coin is worth 100 big gold coins. An average commoner family could live for about a month from a few silver coins. Inside her bag she had 50 silver coins, which would be enough to stay at a good inn for a few months, but it wouldn''t last forever. She thought for a moment to decide which inn to go for and then started walking to it. Since she had used all her mana she felt tired, but it wasn''t to the point where she couldn''t walk. By the time she reached the inn, it was already nearly night as she woke up late and walked slowly. She looked at the price board on the outside of the inn and sighed, as it said it costs 50 copper coins for night and breakfast. The name of the inn was B Inn. She ignored The System who said [You are going to be leaving in a Bin.] She couldn''t be bothered to find an inn that wasn''t overly expensive, and since it wasn''t an issue to spend money she decided to stay here. She had enough to stay for 100 days, and it shouldn''t be too hard to make some money in 100 days. She entered the inn and was glad that the inside looked good enough, and then went to the reception desk to pay. At the reception desk, there was a woman with dark hair who looked like she was in her early twenties. Scarlet had gotten 5 silver coins out in advance before coming in and then handed it over to the receptionist, who silently gave her a key with the number 27 written on it in return and pointed to the stairs. Scarlet also couldn''t be bothered talking so she was glad to not have to talk, she silently left the desk and went up the stairs and entered room 27. The room wasn''t big but it was big enough to fit a good bed and a desk, so Scarlet was mostly satisfied with it. Scarlet suddenly remembered something she forgot to ask earlier and asked The System: "Can other people see you? Or do I look like a crazy person talking to air?" [I can become visible if I want to but others will see you as a crazy person talking to the air so I stay invisible!] Scarlet sarcastically replied: "I can see you are extremely nice." [At least I didn''t burn a mansion down] Scarlet then replied: "You were the one who forced me to..." [Make sure you don''t forget to do the quest tomorrow!] "Stop changing conversations! I can''t be bothered to deal with you, I am going to sleep!" Scarlet then went into her new bed, and quickly fell asleep, hoping she will wake up and find out it was all a dream.