I Can Copy Curses

Chapter 56. A Wooden Room

"How did I come here? Is this related to the task?" Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Orion wondered as he looked around.

He saw that the room he found himself in appeared very different from the hall he had been in earlier, as this room looked entirely made up of wood.

From the floor to the walls, even the ceiling appeared to be made of wood.

However, as he looked around, his attention soon got attracted by something opposite of him.

He saw a star-shaped symbol, the same as what he had seen on the second guardian's armor, etched on the wall of the room opposite him.

The star-shaped symbol glowed with a bluish white light, and at the center of the symbol appeared a hand-shaped mark.

'Do I have to put my hand there to summon the boss monster?'

He wondered since he thought that all the things they had done since coming to the temple were to summon the boss monster so that they could kill it and escape from this dungeon.

But Orion had a feeling that defeating the boss monster wouldn't be an easy task. The third guardian he had defeated earlier was already so strong, and he wasn't even the boss, so he couldn't imagine how strong the boss would be.

'Should I release the boss or not?'

For a moment, he began to doubt whether releasing the boss monster would be a good thing for them or not because he wasn't sure he would be able to defeat the boss monster if the boss happened to be much stronger than the third guardian.

'Then our ticket to escape this place will close down.'

But he also thought that killing the boss monster was their only way to escape from this dungeon.

'F*ck it.'

He cursed as he gritted his teeth and was about to put his hand on the hand mark etched on the wall when a very pleasant voice sounded in the room.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Orion flinched as he heard that voice because he felt that he had heard it somewhere else before but couldn't recall who the voice belonged to.

'Damn, why is someone else here when I am the only one who killed the guardian?'

Cursing under his breath, he turned around, and what he saw caused a chill to run down his spine.

He saw, to his horror, the white-haired girl whom he had seen previously in the hall standing quietly a little distance away from him with a serene expression etched on her face.

For a moment, Orion panicked and didn't know what to do.

He still remembered how everyone in the hall had forgotten about her when she was there a while ago. It was as if she hadn't existed at all, but now that he saw her, he felt sure that she indeed existed and he wasn't seeing things.

That realization filled Orion with fear because he believed that kind of power would only be possessed by ghosts, and ghosts were the beings he feared the most.

But he still held on to his courage and faced her.

"W-who are you? Are you a ghost?" He asked, his voice trembling with fear.

The white-haired girl found Orion's peculiar question amusing.

"What made you think that?" She asked lightly.

Looking at the smile on her face, Orion felt that his hunch was correct and that she was indeed a ghost.

"You were there in the hall earlier, and you even talked to some people, but they don't remember you at all. It's impossible unless…" He couldn't complete his sentence because he was interrupted at the end.

"Unless I am a ghost? Is that it?" She asked with a smile.

Orion nodded hurriedly.

"Hahaha, I find this very amusing," she said, smiling. "It's been what, a thousand years? Ten thousand? I don't even remember, but this is the first time I genuinely felt something interesting and amusing."

Orion wondered if the ghost had gone mad. How could someone live for thousands of years and still remain so beautiful? It sounded too absurd to be true.

'Even if that were to be true, that would mean she is an old hag by now.'

A smile appeared on his face as he thought of this.

At that moment, the white-haired girl turned to look at him, her eyes narrowing.

"Did you just say I am an old hag?!" She asked furiously.

Orion panicked and cursed himself for thinking that.

"No, definitely not," he said hurriedly. "I just thought that you were too beautiful to be able to live this long."

The white-haired girl's face became serious as she stared at him intently.

Meanwhile, for some reason, Orion felt as if he would die at any moment, his back breaking out in a cold sweat. He never felt this close to death before, even when he faced that skeleton in the cave.

"Haha, I am just kidding," she said, smiling as she patted Orion's head.

On the other hand, Orion finally sighed in relief. He felt that he had just dodged the death god by a small margin.

However, as he felt a hand in his head, he felt embarrassed about it.

"Don't be embarrassed about it," she said proudly. "Instead, you should feel blessed that I, Isis, the Goddess of Immortality, have patted your head."

"Goddess of Immortality!" Orion felt shocked upon hearing her say that. "Are you a god? Do gods exist in this world?"

Isis put a finger on her chin as he pondered what to say to him.

"Indeed, gods do exist in this world, but not many have seen them," she said, looking at Orion.

Orion felt his worldview had been shaken. On Earth, he had believed in gods and even worshipped them regularly, but what he got was failure upon failure, and ultimately, he died.

And when he came to his world, he thought some gods had transmigrated him to this world. However, at that time, it was just a whimsical thought; he hadn't truly believed that, but now hearing a god standing in front of him and saying that gods did exist made him feel surreal.

At that moment, he recalled what she said when she arrived here.

"You said to me previously not to put my hand in that mark," he said, puzzled. "Why is that?"

As he said those words, her face became solemn.

"Because I have a hunch you will die," she said to Orion.

Orion frowned as he listened to her. They had to kill the boss to leave this place, and to do that, he had to release the boss. So, not releasing the boss from here wasn't even a question. However, he also couldn't ignore what she said because she was a god, and a god's intuition would likely be a divination to him.

"So, what kills me?" He asked her. "The boss? Or something else?"

"That I don't now," she shook his head. "Although I am a god, I can't exactly tell what will happen in the future, but what I can do is see through someone's fate. And your fate is showing me death."

Orion clenched his fists as he heard her. From what he could tell, he would die either way, if not from the boss monster, then from something else.

'Why me?!'

He felt frustrated. He had tried so hard, gone so far, only to face death. He couldn't accept that. He couldn't accept dying here. Not after all the battles he had fought, all the challenges he had overcome. No, he refused to let his journey end like this.