The Great Curse

"Well, the story will begin with a question of mine. After all, I don't want to start a story to explain to you about something that you already know since it would be really boring."

Ares nodded his head to Arthur as he leaned his body towards him. His interest was increasing each time more. Someone as curious as him about the things of that incredible world would get excited about a story whenever he got a chance to hear it.

'This kid... I wonder how far he will go when pursuing something he wants. If he is like this just because of some knowledge, how will he become when he gets the taste of power? It can be dangerous.' Arthur rambled, squinting his eyes towards his grandson. 'However, that's the reason why I am telling this story to him. He needs to learn a thing or two about greed.'

"Ares, you said about the Grand Curse before. Do you know what it exactly is?" He asked.

"Well... my teacher never went deep on this subject. He said that we would know more once we got into the next grade."

Arthur shook his head slowly, denying what the boy just said.

"Your teacher is just fooling you, my grandson. Your next teacher of the next year's grade will say the same thing when talking about Beast Hunters, the Grand Curse, and the Ancients. They will always talk about the Beast Hunters to show the kids how human beings are awesome and then cover the rest of the history of our world. You would remain ignorant about this matter for the rest of your life if not for your grandpa here."

Ares got astonished by what his grandfather told him. He fell in deep thought as if looking behind all his time in school and realizing that everything wasn't anything but a lie, a manipulation. However, his mind couldn't take that he was being fooled for all those years. For the first time in his life, the kid began to doubt his grandfather's words, and that shock was way more painful to bear.

"I will say it to you once and for all, so take notes and think well in this matter. I am not saying that you shouldn't be a Beast Hunter or anything like this, but you need to understand what is behind this world's history."

The boy nodded to him, quiet.

Kavir was talking with the maid about some personal things since the two of them were intimate friends, most of it silly things, but he needed to stop when he noticed the look that his son had on his face. The man's countenance got sad and he frowned slightly.

'Don't worry, Kavir. Your son is a strong person. He is prepared to know how the world out there really is. His naiveness is the product of the years you passed hiding the reality from him, now you need to bear the consequences!' The old man thought, resolute.

"You know, Ares... the world is a cruel thing. So cruel and unfair, that is even disgusting. Even after so many years of life, seeing every day what happens out there, I still can't take it. The world takes advantage of the weak, try to put the strong back to the ground, and if you are weak-willed in surviving it will crush you as fast as possible. That's how things work."

The boy was still dead silent, just looking at his grandfather and gulping sometimes.

"Nature is the name of the force that the world use to influence us. Mana is just another essential element of nature that gives birth to fire, earth, wind, water, and all the others. Everything is individual, but works together as a unity, creating our reality.

"However, the same way as Nature can give birth to splendid beings... it can make mistakes and judge them as well. We humans are not heroes, we are not perfect beings, we are not part of Nature; instead, we destroy it. As a form to judge its mistake, Nature gave birth to the Great Curse. It is not a virus, nor an element, nor a living being. It's more of a rule of Nature, a condition. It was a blessing to make human beings more perfect, but also a curse because it created the Ancients."

Once he finished his quote, Ares's heart throbbed painfully. Tears were slightly accumulating in the corners of his eyes as he paid attention to what his grandfather was saying.

'Humans... are mistakes? The Great Curse is not just a blessing disguised in a curse?' Everything that they taught to him in school seemed to be pointless before the words of his grandfather.

Arthur was aware of what was happening inside the mind of his poor grandson, but he didn't stop there.

"Nature is always transforming itself. One day, this process made the barrier between the Mystical world we call Hecate and our own world to break. From there came the necessary means to trigger off the minds of the humans and enable them to notice the Mana on the environment and control it. However, from the boundaries of these two dimensions, came as well giant and powerful beings that started to dominate the world in order to diminish human domination over the earth.

"The power that came with the Great Curse was just enough to make the humans don't get extinct, but they couldn't win in a war against the Ancients and needed to back off to remote lands and live in smaller societies. Since the War that happened 1 Millenium and 5 centuries ago, the Ancients walk on our world and conquer the lands they want. For many centuries the humans just had the power to suppress them from taking the few pieces of terrain we had, unfortunately."

Ares was exasperated. He was sure that humans were the beings that ruled that world. He was aware of the power of the Ancients, but he couldn't imagine that they could nearly extinct the human race. Also, the boy's concept of the world was too small. That village, for him, was just like a city, and a city would be an entire nation. He could never imagine that the earth was so big like that. They never showed a map of the world in his geography classes.

"Nonetheless, it came to a time when the Ancients stopped their frenzy and ended their attacks against humanity. They no longer wanted to conquer more terrain. Maybe Nature called them to just protect what they had and assure that everything would stay evolving and cultivating. The balance of the specimens was back again." The eyes of his grandfather became grim as he clenched his fist as strongly as he could. "... But, sadly, the humans have two things inside them that are not good when combined: greed and grudge."

"When the time came... our frenzy began. 4 centuries ago, after a lot of research and training in the Mystical field, evolving the art of Mana nourishment, a group of humans could develop control over Mana above the excellence and special techniques to use against the Ancients. They were the five first Beast Hunters of the world. From this point, more terrain was conquered by the humans. We could kill a lot of different beasts from all sorts of ranks, meanwhile discovering even more about Mana and how the Ancients worked. Our domains are not even 20% of what they were before, but it is increasing every day."

A spark of hope lit up in Ares's eyes once he heard it.

'It means that humanity can fight back!' His excitement increased again.

Nevertheless, Arthur wasn't as animated about that. His heart got stabbed once he saw how naive his grandson was, it even made him somewhat angry.

"Look, Ares--"

"Why are you with this dejected voice? I thought at some point that it would be a sad story, but we are being able to fight back against them! Don't you think that it is amazing? Beast Hunters sure are the best, they are saving the humans, after all!" The passion behind his words was genuine.

"Ares!" The usually mellow and affable grandfather shouted, making his grandson tremble as a chill went down his spine. "There is nothing good about it at all! Just think about it carefully! We, humans, are failures, we are mistakes of Nature, we destroy everything around us as we please! And these... these Beast Hunters aren't heroes, but murderers! Just a bunch of criminals fighting against the rules that Nature imposes!"

His yell was loud enough to cross all the mansion and be heard by all the maids working there. That was the first time that Ares saw his grandfather so frustrated and angry in his life. He never thought that someone as old as him could be able to shout like that.

As for Arthur... that was the first time he saw tears going down his grandson's cheeks since the day he was born. And the worst thing was that he was the cause of those tears.