Clues · Part One

The next day, the group headed to the Qutb Minar Complex in southern Delhi.

At the center of the complex, the seventy-three-meter Victory Tower stood amid the ruins, its surface covered in Quranic inscriptions and Hindu-style vine patterns-a monument the conquerors had built from the stones of demolished temples.

"According to the records, there were originally twenty-seven Hindu temples here-though that might not be a literal figure."

Larue held up a parasol as he leafed through an information booklet.

"In any case, they were demolished in the twelfth century, and their stones were used to build this Islamic Victory Tower.

The iron pillar beneath the tower is said to be sixteen hundred years old, and it never rusts.

Science attributes that to its high phosphorus content, but the Jujutsu Society has a different view. It was probably just made into a cursed object or cursed tool."

Dio placed his hand against the cold pillar.

"There is indeed some cursed energy left... It's incredibly old, almost 'solidified' into the material's structure."

"This quality of cursed energy, shaped by centuries of conquest and religious conflict...

If we could take some of the material with us, perhaps we could ask Tsukumo Yuzuki to make an interesting cursed tool out of it," Toshihisa Negi mused.

"Right now, we-"

Manami had only just frowned when Larue cheerfully picked up where she had left off.

"We haven't even actually encountered a single special grade cursed spirit yet.

Let's not damage cultural artifacts and get ourselves wanted or deported by the Indian government, or even trigger a diplomatic dispute!

We're not afraid of that, of course, but there's no need to stir up trouble the moment we arrive, is there?"

As he spoke, he winked at Manami, signaling, I've said everything you wanted to say.

Toshihisa Negi sheepishly looked away and muttered, "I was only making an offhand comment. It's not like I'd actually do it..."

Before he had finished, the phone inside his jacket suddenly vibrated, followed by a jarring electronic ringtone.

Riku gestured for the others to wait, took his phone from his pocket, and glanced at the screen, his expression growing slightly serious.

"Don't wait for me," he said, striding toward a relatively open patch of ground nearby. "I need to take this call."

"Visitors from afar, would you like to hear the legends of Qutb Minar?"

Then an aged voice reached them from twenty or thirty meters away.

"They say that on nights of the full moon, the iron pillar seeps blood, and the gods of the demolished temples appear atop the tower."

The speaker was a blind old woman wrapped in a filthy sari, sitting on a tattered blanket with colored grains of rice and dried flower petals laid out before her for divination.

Her eye sockets were sunken, yet she "looked" toward the iron pillar.

Larue walked over and crouched, placing a five-hundred-rupee note on her blanket. "Ma'am, what else do you know?"

The old woman felt the texture of the banknote with her thin, withered fingers, a rattling chuckle rising from her throat.

"The Feathered Serpent... Kunal... It has slept beneath the tower for three hundred years. When Delhi's air pollution reaches its peak, it will awaken and cleanse this city with poisonous mist."

"Air pollution? What is this, some environmentalist serpent god...?"

Dio immediately thought of a character from a fighting game. His brow furrowed slightly as he silently groused about how wildly out of place the premise was.

"The Feathered Serpent? Quetzalcoatl?" Suguru Geto picked up the conversation, his questioning tone seeking confirmation. "Isn't that a central deity in the Mayan and Aztec mythologies of Central America?"

"Legends travel, child." The old woman continued her rattling chuckle.

"Just as the British brought railways to India, the legend of the Feathered Serpent came with other colonizers.

But here... it became something else.

Like the Aryans, it drank Ganges water, ate curry leaves, and adapted to the local conditions."

She suddenly lowered her voice. "Three weeks ago, a United States tourist disappeared while taking photographs at the top of the tower.

The police said he lost his footing, but the person who cleans the tower stairs said that, early that morning, there was a thin, transparent skin on the steps, like a snake's shed skin, with feather patterns on it."

"Thank you for the story." Larue smiled gently and placed another banknote on the blanket before her.

The old woman rubbed the texture of the notes, a satisfied smile spreading across her face.

Dio turned away in silence, an old rupee coin having appeared between his fingertips at some point. With a casual flick, he sent it toward the towering Victory Tower.

He had been born with extraordinary luck, luck that could even seep into probability events that were theoretically entirely random.

Just like this lightly flicked coin: the instant it left his fingertips, its trajectory, the air resistance, and every tiny moment of impact and rebound were enveloped and guided by that invisible "luck."

The final outcome would never follow an even fifty-fifty distribution. Instead, it would lean toward whatever best supported his current understanding and judgment.

What seemed like a childish gesture was actually a way for him to obtain information out of thin air through his extraordinary luck.

The old woman had neither cursed energy nor cursed residue. She was clearly not a Non-Sorcerer.

Viewed through the logical framework of curse theory, her account was riddled with gaps and conjecture.

The coin landed tails up, confirming his judgment:

This was merely an urban legend, fabricated and circulated, perhaps mixed with scattered fragments of real events, but carrying no meaningful revelation of fate as a whole.

Taking both into account, Dio was ninety percent certain the old woman was talking nonsense.

He had never expected to find any crucial guidance here and had already set his expectations. Now, he had merely let his luck spare him needless deliberation and further digging.

After they had walked some distance away, Dio asked, "Do you believe her?"

"Of course not entirely."

Suguru Geto shook his head.

"Even if a special grade imaginary vengeful spirit based on the 'Feathered Serpent God' really had been born, its connection to the legend should have sent it across the ocean to trouble believers in its place of origin.

Still... the story about the shed snakeskin is worth investigating.

The forms of cursed spirits-especially imaginary cursed spirits-can indeed be reinterpreted and reshaped by local cultural legends.

From the perspective of curse theory, foreign myths introduced during the colonial era could plausibly have become distorted as they were localized."

They then carefully searched the tourist site once more. Apart from the constant cursed energy emitted by the tower itself as an ancient cursed object, they found no traces of fresh cursed residue belonging to any cursed spirit.

Just then, Toshihisa Negi hurried back and reported in a low voice:

"Our contact sent word. The Eye of Garuda, a curse user organization in Mumbai, is willing to provide information on the Elephant God cursed spirit, but they want us in Mumbai within three days.

They said... traces of the 'Elephant God' have recently appeared at Victoria Terminus."

"That location alone sounds suspicious." Manami folded her arms. "It's a special grade cursed spirit. Why would it keep appearing at a station with such heavy foot traffic?"

"That's fine. You can't buy entertainment that comes knocking at your door. Since someone's volunteering information, it's worth stepping into even if it's a trap.

As for that outlandish Feathered Serpent legend, let's leave it alone for now. We'll go to Mumbai and see what the local sorcerers are up to," Dio decided.

"Agreed. They'd never imagine our five-person team has two special grades and three grade ones.

I'm rather looking forward to seeing the shock on their faces," Larue added.

Geto recalled the information on historic landmarks he had skimmed on the plane. After a moment's hesitation, he said:

"It might not be entirely implausible... At least it makes far more sense than the Feathered Serpent God.

The investigation into the terrorist attack at Victoria Terminus ten years ago, the one that killed hundreds, did find cursed residue afterward.

Thinking about it now, that might not have been just an ordinary terrorist attack."