The Strongest Curse Master
Chapter 414: Taboo Toll

Chapter 414: Taboo Toll

“Janice, look at those scales by this one’s ears. Don’t they look like the taboo toll?” Delores said, looking at Egger’s image on Dee3’s curse pad.

“It’s hard to tell from this angle. Dee3, check if Mr Birdie can get any clear shots of this terrorist’s ears, back of the head, and the neck,” Janice requested.

Unlike Delores, she did not jump to a quick conclusion, because if Delores’s guess was true, then the situation would be more severe than she had previously assumed.

“Not right away, Mr. Birdie can only wait for an opportunity, but he confirmed that this person’s back of the head was covered in scales like a fish. Though he can’t confirm if they were taboo toll,” Dee3 answered to the best of her and Mr. Birdie’s knowledge, knowing how dangerous it would be to face an enemy with a taboo toll.

“Fuck, they have a curse caster, likely a Sky-tier at that. I should have known looting a sub-space type curse tool wouldn’t be easy,” Janice cursed in annoyance, finally agreeing with Delores’s conclusion, having heard Dee3’s report.

After all, nobody would showcase a scaly head if they didn’t have to. There was a reason why wigs, toupees, and the hair pugs industry were multi-billion-dollar industries. So, it was wrong to assume that those scales had to be a taboo toll, which a curse caster pays for peeking into the ‘Mysteries of the World’ beyond their means.

“Curse caster!” I blurted in shock, having personally experienced the terror of what Elinor, a Knight-tier curse caster, was capable of. Facing a possible Sky-tier curse caster has just made things ten times harder.

“No need to panic, not all curse casters are talented like Elinor, or give up advancing their tier and solely focus on polishing their curse casting to perfection like her. Seeing how he has taboo toll on him, he shouldn’t be a good curse caster, just a wannabe. Still, our first priority should be to take him out, and then others will follow like dominoes,” Delores said, taking the lead. She had already formulated their next move. “We need to get in touch with EAD Matthews before we begin to avoid being friendly.”

“I am on it,” Janice said, while Delores turned to me and said, “If there was ever a time for you to use your lightning rifle, this is it, young man.”

“Yes,” I reluctantly took out the rail rifle, as without Dame Wasp to manage the power input into its energy chamber, it was very difficult to use. She did teach its mechanics to the Speclimes so we could use the rail rifle without needing her. However, at present, I only had Specroll with me, and it wasn’t that bright. Hopefully, its diligence will make up for it, and the rail rifle wouldn’t blow when using the lightning to charge it.

“Do you want me to charge it up?” Delores asked, extending her hand for the rail rifle.

“Sure, just be careful, I had to change the energy regulator,” I said, summoning the rail rifle and landing on Delore’s surfboard. Under her puzzled gaze, Specroll exo-armor left my body and squeezed into the rifle’s power chamber.

“Matthew’s a second, I’m putting you on hold,” Janice said, putting EAD Matthews on hold, observing the exo-armor enter the rifle’s bullet chamber. Then, observing the rifle for a second, she dashed forward and snatched it before it exchanged hands with Delores.

She then closely scrutinized it, and then, turning to lock eyes with the rifle’s owner, she grudgingly said, “This rifle is not the same as I saw it last time. What’s wrong with it?”

“Didn’t I just say I changed the power regulator used to charge the rifle?” I said, though a little worried because Janice’s reaction said it all, Specroll wasn’t enough to replace Dame Wasp, but the question was if it was enough for us to use the lightning to charge the rifle.

“Why? The new one isn’t on par with the old one. It will get the job done, but the rifle’s efficiency has decreased significantly,” Janice said as her innate curse abilities were telling her that the rail rifle’s value had drastically decreased. Upon further inspection, she found it had undergone a downgrade.

“…” Dee3 had no idea Janice was talking about because she hadn’t seen the rail rifle in its peak. She thought it was excellent for a mortal-tier curse tool.

“You might have already noticed, the rail rifle is not one single curse tool. It is the rifle, the scope, and the power regulator. Without the other two, the rail rifle is just a regular mortal-tier curse tool——” I explained truthfully, knowing that Janice was just waiting to catch me lying. Honestly, I blame Specroll for this. If it were Dame Wasp, thanks to her camouflage skill, Janice would never notice that rail rifle’s power chamber was flawed without a proper medium to channel a vast amount of electricity into it in as little time as possible.

“You tricked me!” Janice blurted, acting as if she found it just now and not earlier when she was scrutinising the rail rifle.

She was referring to the part where I promised to let her study the Rail Rifle. The medium used to channel lightning into the rifle’s power chamber wasn’t part of the deal. Without Dame Wasp, Rail Rifle was just another regular mortal-tier curse tool. Its power chamber can contain as much electricity as we could feed it, but how does one feed it with electricity that was meant for an entire town within a few minutes, or lightning itself, without it exploding or the user getting hurt?

I used Dame Wasp, but another mortal-tier curse master would just stick to hocking it up to socket for months or even years before it would be of threat to a Sky-tier. This also meant that without Dame Wasp, any and all interest of Janice in Rail Rifle was lost.

“Yes, and you sold me things at prices way over market. What about it?” I shamelessly agreed with a shrug. It’s not like I forced her into anything. She asked for it.