“…Why? What do you mean?”

I asked as I inspected the thing I was holding.

Hmm. I could touch it and carry it just fine.

‘Uh…the slimes who saw it told me that the humans said you would die if you touched it…’

“…Is that right?”

I asked. And the new slimes answered.

‘They did say that!’

‘The people who brought it had it attached to a stick.’

‘That stick over there. I think it was a week ago?’

The slimes said as they pointed to a wooden stick on the ground.

It did not look like a stick that had been there for only a week.

It was so old-looking that I would have believed it had been there for a year.

One side of the stick was especially bad.

But there was also an attachment there that looked like it might have been metal…but I was sure it would break if I touched it.

Maybe it was used to secure the magic stone.

“…Oh? Am I actually holding something incredibly dangerous now?”

I began to get a little worried, and so I dropped the magic stone for now.

However, there was no change to my status.

“Uhh…do you know why I didn’t die?”

‘I don’t know.’

The slimes shook their heads.

The Dryad opened her mouth instead.

‘It might be because of the curses inside of the magic stone? If it is, it would make sense that it doesn’t kill you.’

“Curse?”

‘Yes. My magic energy capacity should be so large that it’s incomparable to humans. But if you have enough energy to revive me, then maybe you can weaken the effects of the curse. A curse is a type of magic, after all.’

…Interesting.

So curses were a type of magic.

‘By the way, how much magic did you use to heal me, Yuji? One-hundredth?’

“Uhh…more like half.”

‘Half…so that means twice as much as me. I don’t think that’s enough to weaken the curses…are you lying to me?’

“I’m not lying.”

I had no reason to lie.

…Oh, but there was one thing that I was wondering, regarding magic energy.

“Now that I think of it, there was this one time I used magic and my MP went below 0. Does that usually happen?”

After I said this, the Dryad looked at me as if she were seeing the strangest thing.

‘Your MP went below 0? I don’t think that is possible…but then again, it should also be impossible that a human has more magic energy than me…’

The Dryad said and began to think…then she smiled and said,

‘Yes! I have no idea! You sure are funny, Yuji!’

…Right.

In any case, I now understood that it was not normal for your MP to go below 0.

Also, it would be better if I didn’t touch the magic stone if I could.

“Alright, enough about that. The problem is how we should deal with this rock…I guess taking something so dangerous with us is not an option?”

That’s true.

So then…

“I guess I have to destroy it here then. -Sword Summon.”

I used magic to call out a sword.

And then immediately swung it down over the magic stone…

“…Huh?”

Just as it hit the stone, the sword broke.

Then it crumbled and disappeared.

…I see. So this was the power of the curses.

I was even more shocked now that I had touched it with my bare hands.

“This…I’ll have to use more high-power magic to destroy it all at once. But I don’t want to damage the forest any more…”

Normally, I might have just used h.e.l.lfire of Death, but this was the Dryad’s forest.

It would be missing the point to burn down the forest in order to destroy this stone.

After thinking about it for a while, I drew a circle on the ground around the stone.

“Alright then. Come over here to this line and surround the stone!”

‘Okay!’

All of the slimes then made a circle where the line was.

It was about five meters in diameter.

At this distance, there was no danger of accidentally touching it.

Once I was sure of this, I activated two spells at once.

“Magic Transfer-Anti-Magic Barrier!”

“Magic Transfer-Anti-Physical Barrier!”

The magic was all transferred to the slimes.

Now the stone was surrounded by multiple barriers.

-In other words, even if I used powerful magic, it wouldn’t affect the rest of the environment.

“Now…let’s try it.”