The Wrong Kind of Immortality

Orestis returned to his island research facility after dropping his mother home, and reassuring her—extensively—that he was fine. Apparently, the moment they were out of sight of everyone else, she had decided it was finally safe to unleash the full force of her mothering instincts.

She had inspected his mended hand twice, checked his forehead despite his headache having nothing to do with a fever, and insisted he drink the tea she prepared for him. She had also fed him enough pastries that he suspected she believed baked goods possessed restorative properties.

Not that I mind the last one. Still, who knew she had enough tact to wait until we were alone before fussing over me?

He paused to think about that. She had never bothered to hold back before. Was this because of the idiot’s words?

Orestis smiled and shook his head as he sat down in his chair. It was one he had enchanted for maximum comfort—a necessity now, when he needed to think. It was also somewhat of an inconvenience. Back when he was immortal, he could think perfectly well while standing still for hours.

And that was what he needed to think about: his immortality. Or lack thereof.

The recent incident of losing himself had brought a great deal back to the forefront of his mind. Like the fact that he needed to allocate more time to assessing—properly assessing—the current state of his body.

This was not just about the state of his mind, either. He had to determine exactly how his current curse, and the loss of his previous one, were affecting his mind, body, and soul. He needed to be absolutely certain about how both had changed him and how they would affect him going forward.

Losing myself to old trauma once was embarrassing enough. Allowing it to happen again would be incompetence bordering on negligence.

It was already bad enough that he had delayed things as long as he had. There was a time when he would have taken care of the research immediately. But what about now? How long had it been since he had found out about the other shrine? How long since he had decided to investigate the intricacies of the curses linking him and Maxim together?

Waiting for Varra? That was nothing but an excuse.

Since when did he ever depend on another for his research? Yes, she would undoubtedly accelerate the research—that was true enough. But it was never a reason to stop and wait. Even in his first life, when he had known Varra, there had been several times when he had simply gone ahead with his research instead of waiting for her.

But now? He had been putting off his personal research in favour of other things. Like planning events, or dealing with gods. Or improving society.

What is even up with that last one?

Okay, maybe I’m being a bit harsh on myself. I chose to do it because it does not cost me anything to help.

However, that did not change the fact that he had been ignoring his main goal—the thing that should have been his main priority. He had not thought to research the intricacies between the curses and their effects on him as thoroughly as he should have. Sure, he could no longer dissect himself and conduct research without consequences, but that did not mean he could not find alternative methods.

And worse, he already had proof that, despite the regression, he was not the same person he had once been. The undying curse had altered his body and soul. His current curse affected his mind and soul. The soul was where the two overlapped. Even with the undying curse gone, its imprint remained.

He knew that. From the moment he had seen the soul lens readings at Lyse’s temple, he should have investigated it immediately.

But he hadn’t; he had simply accepted the change and moved on. Why? What had happened? What made him accept an incomplete answer?

The answer was obvious: he had grown complacent. His goal of dying of old age had made him lose focus and ambition. He had grown passive.

The old me would have constantly monitored my mana, aura, soul, body, and emotions. But I no longer do.

Somewhere along the way, I became reactive instead of proactive.

And that? That was the real mistake. He had stopped treating himself as an experiment.

Worse, because of his carelessness, he had allowed a side effect to reveal itself under the worst possible circumstances. If it hadn’t been for Maxim, Orestis would have slaughtered everyone from the Temple.

Well, everyone who had been at Theramon, anyway.

Killing them was not really the problem, though; it was doing that in front of his mother. No matter what, he did not want her seeing that side of him—did not want her to change the way she saw him.

She still has no idea that I’ve regressed. It is not fair to her that others know about it while she does not. I should remedy that, too.

But first, he needed to ensure that his state of mind remained stable. Recent events had proven Eirene’s hypothesis correct: his parents’ deaths had affected him far more deeply than he had believed.

Going forward, he would have to treat any emotionally charged situation involving them as a potential risk factor. And telling his mother that he was a thousand-year-old soul who had been pushed into her ten-year-old son’s body certainly qualified as one such situation.

It might not trigger another traumatic episode, but it never hurts to be thorough.

Which brought him back to the main problem: priorities. Specifically, the order of his tasks.

Should I put the curse first, or my mother first…

The rest of the tasks were pretty much in order. But numbers one and two were being a pain.

If he chose to attend to his mother first, he would have to create spells to stabilise his mental state as well as his body’s responses. But merely suppressing everything was a terrible plan. He needed to know when something was happening—when a trauma was triggered—so that he would be able to identify the cause. Then, he could eventually correct it.

So, a warning system. But warnings by themselves would serve no purpose if he still ended up losing himself right after. Which meant his working needed warning and suppression, both acting simultaneously.

He could then analyse the triggers dispassionately. Hopefully. But such things took time to design and implement properly. Which meant he would be delayed looking into the curse.

On the other hand, investigating the curse would mean delaying attending to my mother.

Orestis sighed and leaned back in the chair. Going purely by logic, he should focus on the curse first. But then again, he felt like his mother deserved to know the truth after what happened.

And I’m still procrastinating. Since I cannot decide between the two, I will just do both.

Let’s break both tasks down into smaller steps, then alternate between them, completing the quickest ones first before moving on to progressively longer ones.

Having made up his mind, he mentally split both tasks into a series of individual steps and ordered them by estimated completion time. The shortest one happened to be part of the curse-related task.

Go figure.

Orestis stood up and cast a perception spell on himself. Then he rapidly opened several dozen gates around him, their exits scattered across the sky above the point Maxim had marked on the map of Valdren that day.

He was looking for that damned shrine which was the origin of the regression curse. The shrine he still had not visited yet. Because part of him was apprehensive about going there.

After a couple of seconds, he closed all but one of the gates. Pulling it closer, he enlarged its diameter until the opening was large enough for him to pass through.

Orestis stepped through, let the gate close behind him, and cast a levitation spell on himself. Hovering hundreds of metres above the ground, he glared down at the Valdren shrine.

Of course, if it was anything like the shrine in Aethera, he had nothing to worry about. The curse would be absent, and the shrine would be little more than an ancient ruin.

But then again, he was currently more than a thousand years in the past. There was a non-zero probability that the curse still existed—in which case he might end up cursed twice over.

There was likely nothing he could do to prevent it either. From what he remembered, the undying curse had latched onto him simply because he had been nearby. He had not touched the shrine, activated anything, or done anything that should have triggered it.

If this shrine works on similar mechanics, I could end up as an unwilling case study in overlapping curse interactions.

Orestis preferred not to discover what the universe considered an appropriate outcome for such an experiment.

The problem with stacking curses was that the outcome could be wildly unpredictable unless they had been designed specifically to interact with other curses. More often than not, two overlapping curses would evolve into something entirely new—and equally unpredictable.

Considering how powerful both curses were, he had no doubt that the consequences would be nothing less than catastrophic.

Still, now that he knew the location, he could come back again when he was more confident in his preparations. Such as proper mental and soul wards, and curse repulsion workings. That would also take no small amount of time. It would be yet another delay.

Or, I can throw the idiot at it. I’m sure he won’t mind.

Actually, now that he thought about it, that was an excellent idea. If Orestis was lucky—and Maxim was unlucky—something would go wrong. And that would present an opportunity to gather some useful data.

Even if nothing went wrong, he would still be able to assess how safe the place was.

Yes, that would work.

Orestis pulled out the call-node paired with Maxim’s and called the hero.

“Sup?” Maxim answered after a few seconds.

“I have an opportunity for you,” Orestis replied without wasting time.

Maxim scoffed. “Yeah, no. Every time I’ve heard that line from you, I always end up nearly dying. Or actually dying, and doing it all over again.”

Orestis glanced down at his call-node. Every time, huh? At least I’m consistent, then.

And since he was consistent, he would never have pushed the idiot into something that served no purpose.

Setting aside the present circumstances, Maxim must have come away from each of those opportunities stronger, more knowledgeable, or—however unlikely it seemed—a slightly better person.

“I am fairly certain you would have benefited in the end each time,” Orestis ventured.

“Well, I suppose that’s true. What do you have in mind?”

“I need you to do a survey of the shrine in Valdren.”

“Why? There’s nothing there anymore,” the hero replied.

Orestis blinked. “You’ve already been there?”

“Of course. One of the first things I did.”

Right. What did I expect from this reckless idiot? Just because he’s immortal, he thinks himself invincible.

Choosing to ignore the irony of that thought, Orestis asked, “So the curse is gone?”

The question was largely unnecessary; if the curse was there, Maxim would have received it. Orestis was asking on the off chance that the regression curse was present, and had simply rejected Maxim because he already carried the undying curse.

“It’s gone,” the hero replied.

Perfect. This meant there was nothing for him to worry about.

“Right. Good to know.” Orestis cut the call and teleported to the shrine’s entrance.