After the moment of silence, the commotion inside the house gradually subsided.
Hope and the Village Chief pushed the door open and entered, only to see Natsu, Gray, Lucy, and Happy—three people and a cat—with large bumps on their heads, sitting neatly in a row on their knees.
Erza stood before them with her arms crossed; though she had changed back into her regular clothes, her overbearing aura still made it hard for anyone to look her in the eye.
"I've understood the situation."
Erza turned to the Village Chief, her expression serious. "Even though they acted on their own, since they've taken on an S-Class request and I've come here as well, I won't just stand by. We will resolve the issue of the island's curse."
Hearing this, the Village Chief thanked her repeatedly in excitement. He had already learned of Erza's identity from Hope while they were outside; she was a true S-Class Mage.
"Hope, you stay and help too."
Hope had intended to say that since he had already obtained his medicinal herbs, he could bow out now, but Erza shot him a look that made him swallow his words.
Oh well, the moonlight flower would last for three days anyway. He'd treat it as gaining practical experience; besides, he was quite curious about that eerie purple moon and the curse on the villagers.
Hope carefully recalled everything he had seen and heard on Karna Island today and spoke up, "Chief, you said the curse began three years ago on a night when the moon turned purple, and the villagers exposed to the moonlight only turn into demons at night, right?"
"Yes, when daytime comes, everyone returns to their original forms, but..."
A sorrowful look appeared on the chief's face. "There are also those who cannot recover. Their minds are lost to the curse, and their bodies and souls turn completely into demons. They spend all day shouting that we are actually all demons."
"They couldn't be contained or cured. In the end, to prevent the villagers from being harmed by those who had completely fallen into demonhood, we had no choice but to steel our hearts and kill them. Among them was my son... Bobo."
Bobo?
Lucy and Natsu suddenly remembered that the boatman who had brought them to Karna Island seemed to have the same name.
It might just be a coincidence; after all, the chief said he had killed his son.
Seeing the chief break down in tears at the end, the group became even more determined to break the Curse of Karna Island and prevent the tragedy of kin killing kin from happening again.
Only Hope didn't seem to care at all, lost in his own analysis.
"I also saw the purple moon and was exposed to its light, but I'm certain my body hasn't changed at all. This suggests the curse might not be caused solely by the purple moonlight... there must be some prerequisite for it to affect a human body."
Erza gave Hope an appreciative look. "A very rational judgment. Do you have any suggestions for breaking the curse?"
Hope pondered for a moment and said, "I think before we look for a way to break the curse, I should examine the villagers' bodies first. I might find some clues."
Erza thought it was a viable plan, but they still needed the chief's consent.
What else could the chief say? Since the lives of the entire village were at stake, he was more than willing to agree.
And so, late at night, with the chief's assistance, Hope conducted a detailed examination of several volunteer villagers.
Inside a cleared-out room, Hope mobilized the magic power within him to sense the abnormalities in each villager's body one by one.
Sure enough, within these villagers, he discovered a faint, abnormal energy with a trace of coldness. This energy was perfectly integrated with the villagers themselves, as if they had been born with it.
If Hope didn't possess similar energy himself, it would have been difficult to detect.
Demon Curse Power.
Within these villagers, there actually appeared "Curse Power," something that only exists in demons or those who practice Demon Curse Arts!
Frowning, he conducted another careful examination. Hope was certain the villagers had not mastered Demon Curse Arts; the meager Curse Power in their bodies was nowhere near enough to support the requirements of such arts.
In that case, there was only one hypothesis that could explain the Curse Power within the villagers.
They were demons to begin with!
This village was actually a village of demons!
It was just that under the influence of some force, the demon villagers were misled into believing they were humans. Those villagers who had "fallen" completely into demonhood in the eyes of the others were actually the ones who had woken up.
Hope looked through the window at the full purple moon hanging in the Sky. As for the so-called "curse," what could be more suspicious than this purple moonlight?
In the end, Hope chose not to tell everyone his hypothesis, brushing them off with the excuse that he was tired and needed rest.
The next morning, using the investigation of clues regarding the curse as a reason, Hope led the group out of the village.
On the way, Natsu, Gray, and Lucy each voiced their opinions.
"By the way, can we really break the curse? It doesn't seem like any of us are experts in this area..." Lucy began to worry a little, as usual.
Compared to the still-conflicted Lucy, Gray was clearly much more rational. "At the end of the day, a curse is just a type of magic. As long as we..."
Natsu interrupted Gray like an elementary schooler and forcefully stated his opinion, "It's all the moon's fault anyway, so let's just blow up the moon!"
"Aye! That's it!" Happy chimed in.
Lucy: ... Gray: ... Erza, however, didn't remain silent like the two of them. Instead, she immediately reached out and gave Natsu a flick on the forehead to prevent his train of thought from becoming even weirder.
After dealing with Natsu and the blue cat who followed his lead, Erza looked at Hope, who was leading the way in silence. "Hope, did you discover something from those villagers last night?"
"As expected of Erza, you noticed?"
Hope stopped and turned to face his companions. "I suspect the villagers' demonized bodies aren't because of some curse... they are demons themselves."
"Eh!!" x4
Four simultaneous cries of surprise startled the birds perched in the trees.
Even Erza couldn't suppress her shock. "You're saying those villagers are actually demons?!"
Hope nodded calmly. "Exactly. I suspect some kind of magic caused their memories to be jumbled, making them believe they are human. As a result, they mistook their instinctively revealed demon forms for a curse."
Although it sounded strange, compared to Natsu's wild idea of "blowing up the moon," Erza and the others felt that Hope's explanation was quite well-founded.
"Then why didn't you tell the villagers directly?" Lucy asked.
Looking at the naive blonde girl, Hope felt a bit helpless. "Aren't you afraid that the villagers themselves might actually be evil demons? There are dozens of them."
When out and about, Hope didn't mind speculating about others with the utmost malice, especially when it concerned a village that might be a demon's nest.
"But why do that? Who would cast a Memory-scrambling magic on a whole village of demons?" Lucy couldn't help but ask. She really couldn't associate those simple and kind-looking villagers with demons.
"That's what we need to find out."
Erza took over, her gaze turning sharp. "If Hope's hypothesis is correct, then there must be an unspeakable secret hidden behind the 'Curse of Karna Island'."
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