Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 268 The Art of Curse (First Update!)

Salomon watched with concern as little Lorna and her companion left, carrying a pistol and seven hundred dollars in cash. Before walking away, little Lorna turned back and made a face at him. Athena focused most of her attention on Salomon, inevitably neglecting the other children. Therefore, Salomon felt that Athena wanted him to set a good example for little Lorna, preventing her from going astray.

Athena hadn't expected that, although the sorcerer knew spoiling wasn't a good approach, Salomon was completely helpless when little Lorna started to whine. He felt his expression right now resembled that of an old father sighing over his teenage daughter who was out early and coming home late. However, no matter how worried he was, some things still needed to be addressed now. Salomon glanced at the watch Bayonetta had given him on his wrist, roughly calculated the time difference, and then turned and walked towards a car parked on the side of the road.

"Give it to me, sir." He knocked on the car window and said to the man in the suit inside, "This is my bottom line. I think Nick Fury should have told you about this. I really don't understand why you guys still stupidly crashed into me. Your direct superior is really incompetent." The agent originally wanted to argue, but he panicked as soon as Salomon mentioned the director.

"I don't know anything!" He felt he was in deep trouble; the man in front of him seemed to know his superior very well. The agent said, "I'm just on orders to monitor."

"Who are you responsible to?" Salomon held up a finger in front of the agent's eyes, and his vision blurred. The agent hesitantly spilled the intelligence.

"Agent Victoria Hand," he said. "Although I'm only a Level 4 agent, I report directly to Agent Victoria Hand. You'd better promise not to tell anyone about this..."

"Alright, I'll talk to your boss about this. You'll be fine. Now drive home and forget about what happened here." The sorcerer touched the agent's temple with his wand, extracting a memory. He needed to verify the information's authenticity before modifying it. Mind Coding was the most effective zero-ring spell for detecting lies, and Salomon had used it countless times when dealing with Nick Fury.

However, this spell was useless to Agent Romanov. Even if the sorcerer could use this spell to understand the thoughts and messages contained in the memories, these might all be false—even if they contradicted the facts, they were true in Agent Romanov's mind. Her mental split problem was not so easy to solve.

After Salomon watched the agent drive away, he returned to the orphanage with his camera to carefully examine the photos. This agent wasn't Hydra and wouldn't threaten the orphanage, so Salomon couldn't act directly. He could only manipulate the agent's memories. However, he still needed to know what information Nick Fury possessed so he could figure out how to settle accounts with this audacious individual—Nick Fury's work was temporarily irreplaceable, but some extremely troublesome curses wouldn't hinder his duties.

Dormammu provided ample instructional material on how to curse someone. Countless supplicants in the Dark Dimension had been corrupted by power and lost their minds, and Dormammu didn't mind Salomon using them for practice. Since it wasn't using the power of the Dark Dimension, it suffered no loss, and even gained something—the darker, more profound power Salomon brought even allowed it to glimpse the shadow of the Cyclops. This was one of the reasons it temporarily chose to coexist peacefully with Salomon—the Cyclops was a terrifying creature from another universe, and Dormammu didn't want to cause trouble for itself until it understood the relationship between Salomon and that universe.

The door to the Director's office in the Triangular Wing was kicked open, and Salomon stormed in, ignoring Agent Maria Hill's attempts to stop him. Although he could open a portal within the office, he chose to kick the door open; the deep footprints on the blast door served as the best deterrent. He placed his camera in front of Nick Fury, who had just looked up from his documents—"Explanation," the arcane manipulator said. "I want an answer."

"Routine surveillance," Nick Fury said calmly. "It's S.H.I.E.L.D. procedure for every dangerous target. You should know how dangerous you are." He gestured for Agent Hill to close the door so no one else could hear the conversation. "Besides, this mission is being carried out by Agent Victoria Hand, whom you recruited. You demonstrated magic in front of her, so it's not a breach of contract on my part. You can trust her; she's very secretive. Apart from her, none of the other agents on this mission know about magic. You don't need to worry about your secrets being leaked. If there's anything else, just say it. I'm busy, as you can see. I didn't even offer much help when Stark got into trouble. S.H.I.E.L.D. has a lot to do."

"Cancel the mission. I don't want anyone disturbing the lives of those children in the orphanage."

"Let me tell you the truth, Salomon, I'm protecting those children." Nick Fury put down the documents, deciding to reveal part of the truth to Salomon. In fact, Salomon, someone unconnected to any worldly power, was the one Nick Fury trusted most.

He knew Salomon was impossible to bribe; he had very little contact with the secular world, and even his schooling was at his foster mother's insistence. Such a person was the least likely to have any connection with that hidden force, and Nick Fury planned to try and persuade Salomon to provide him with some assistance.

“There’s more than one faction within S.H.I.E.L.D., and I’m worried that those hidden individuals might use those kids to threaten you. I know you care about them, and all I can do is offer some protection,” he said. “It’s not just you; I’m also worried that those people might want to exploit the enhanced individuals on the list, so I’ve increased the protection measures for them, ostensibly for routine surveillance, and the agents I’ve deployed are all people I trust most. Although this makes them very uncomfortable, feeling like their privacy is being violated, the situation is very special, and this is the only way I can do it.” Fritz paused, then continued, “I think you can understand me, Salomon. I’ve said it more than once, we’re the same kind of people.”

"I'll take care of the orphanage myself." Salomon frowned, not completely denying Nick Fury's words. To be honest, he had no intention of getting involved in the conflict between Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D., and whether Hydra ruled the world or not was none of Kamar-Taj's business.

In Salomon's view, neither the democracy represented by S.H.I.E.L.D. nor the authoritarianism represented by Hydra mattered—those who wield power should relinquish their personal desires, a lesson the Sorcerer Supreme had taught him since childhood. But human nature's inherent flaws are inescapable, regardless of the system. "Solve your own problems," Salomon patted Fury on the shoulder, casting a curse. "I can handle my own affairs. Next time, I won't be so lenient with the agents sent by S.H.I.E.L.D.

"After all I've said, don't you have any thoughts at all?" Nick Fury's eyes widened. He hadn't expected that his heartfelt words wouldn't move Salomon, wouldn't inspire any respect for his hard work, and wouldn't even make Salomon consider helping him.

That cold-hearted little bastard!

"No, you're on a leash, so you should do your job properly. Stop thinking about hiring outside help, you idiot!" The sorcerer added a trilled "r" at the end of his sentence, looking quite frivolous.

"I desperately need help right now!"

"I'll save your life if necessary, as long as you don't make the same mistake again. For example, the fact that the Skrulls don't exist on Earth right now is a good example of what you've done. That damned alien parasitic race shouldn't be on this planet. If you want to be a saint, go be one on another planet! That idiot woman!"

The arcane mage didn't forget to take a jab at Captain Marvel, noting that the Skrulls are infamous throughout the universe, and their war with the Kree is nothing more than a dog-eat-dog affair. From Salomon's perspective, only that stupid woman brainwashed by Cold War-era leftist ideology would be so kind as to help the Skrulls; it's practically the funniest joke in the universe in the last hundred years, and nobody would believe the Skrulls.

"How did you know that?" Nick Fury wondered, worried that Salomon might have information that belonged only to him. This was potentially fatal; their line of work depended on intelligence, and an agent without an intelligence advantage wasn't an agent at all.

"Magic," Salomon replied, as usual. In fact, he had asked Agamotto, the all-knowing one, whose information was never wrong. "Alright," he said, "enjoy your curse. The duration depends on my mood; it could be forever."

The sorcerer winked merrily and pointed to the bunny ears that had somehow appeared on his desk. He'd made considerable progress in cursing, a form of magic that could be considered an art form, and Nick Fury wouldn't be getting away so easily this time. He had to wear those bunny ears, or his performance in any physical or mentally demanding task would suffer greatly.

Salomon's curse can make a simple task extremely difficult, even causing one to trip and fall while walking—this is what is commonly known as an exemption check.

(All exemptions - 5)

"Do I have to wear this thing?"

"Hmm, this is the price."

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(End of this chapter)