Hearing the girl call his name from afar, Konoe Mayoru could only marvel at the strange workings of fate.
He truly had not expected to find Shirogane Kei here.
Mayoru had merely sensed the traces of cursed energy lingering in the air and followed them in search of an enemy.
Running into someone he knew was pure coincidence.
Despite his arrogant words, he was actually rather nervous.
How could he not be?
Until now, he had only fought mindless cursed spirits.
This was the first time he had actively sought out a sorcerer.
An ancient sorcerer, no less.
Besides existing sorcerers and modern people like Mayoru, whose brains had been altered without consent before being thrown into the Culling Game without compensation, many players came from ancient times.
To put it simply, those people had died with lingering regrets and refused to let their lives end there.
They signed contracts with Kenjaku, became cursed objects, and waited for an opportunity to reincarnate through a vessel.
These ancient relics possessed a natural advantage in the Culling Game.
First, most of them had no objection to killing.
Unlike modern people, they carried little psychological resistance toward taking human lives.
Second, they possessed extensive experience with cursed energy, cursed techniques, and combat.
Mayoru had great confidence in his reflection, but he still feared encountering an unreasonable rule-based technique.
The chances were extremely low.
Still, choosing to do nothing because such a possibility existed might not necessarily be wrong.
‘But that was how the weak thought!’ At the very least, stepping forward had allowed him to save Kei, who had been his neighbor for the past year.
His earlier prediction had also proven correct.
Placing himself under pressure really did force Vector Manipulation to reveal more of its potential.
Had Mayoru not been determined to save Kei, he could never have calculated the kinetic force needed to propel that stone so quickly.
By using Vector Manipulation to combine several forces and alter its kinetic energy, he could launch even an ordinary stone at several times the speed of sound.
Aside from reflection, this was one of Vector Manipulation’s most basic applications.
He only needed to calculate every usable force and concentrate them upon a single point.
Everything else could be ignored.
However, activating it that quickly would have required considerable practice under peaceful circumstances.
‘Just as I expected.
Fighting an enemy stimulates my talent far more than rigidly training by myself.’ Meanwhile, Kei stared at him in disbelief.
She and Mayoru were neighbors, and both of them were poor students attending Shuchiin Academy.
One belonged to the middle-school division and the other to the high-school division, but two people of the same social class naturally found common ground in a school filled with nobles and elites.
They knew each other too well.
Kei could hardly connect the boy who had just launched a stone hard enough to shake a building with the Mayoru she knew, who had never displayed any athletic talent.
‘Was that a cursed technique?’ Her emotions stirred.
Every player had been informed of the Culling Game’s rules.
Kei still understood very little about sorcerers and cursed energy, but like Mayoru, Idle Transfiguration had altered her brain and awakened her cursed energy and technique.
Unlike him, however, she possessed no memories of a previous life.
Her awareness of cursed energy and cursed techniques remained vague and instinctive.
Even so, a powerful sense of relief spread through her body.
She had not escaped danger yet, but Mayoru’s arrival already made her feel as though she had been saved.
The ancient sorcerer had now turned all his attention toward Mayoru.
Kei was far too insignificant in his eyes to deserve another glance.
His mind began to race, and for the first time in ages, genuine excitement stirred within him.
How long had it been since he last tasted freedom?
Being turned into a cursed object did not necessarily mean losing consciousness.
Spending centuries, perhaps even a thousand years, trapped in darkness with nothing but his thoughts had been far from pleasant.
That was exactly why reincarnating through a vessel felt so exhilarating.
And what could possibly be more exhilarating than battle?
He instinctively began analyzing Mayoru’s technique, recalling the stone that had shot toward him at an unnatural speed.
Even if he had reinforced his body with cursed energy, it probably would have punched straight through him.
“Acceleration?
Can he increase the speed of anything he touches?” “But it doesn’t appear particularly convenient.” The ancient sorcerer examined Mayoru’s cursed energy.
“His control is terrible.
Like that girl, he must have awakened his technique only recently.
He’s a complete novice.” “Still, producing that much power immediately after awakening does make him something of a genius.” The sorcerer’s smile grew wider.
“But so what?” “A technique that merely grants speed to objects is far too simple.
It must require calculations or carry some other restriction.” “That would explain why I managed to dodge at the final instant.” The Heian era, one thousand years ago, was generally considered the golden age of jujutsu.
The most infamous and powerful being of that era was Ryomen Sukuna.
After Sukuna’s death, the overall strength of the jujutsu world gradually declined.
Its balance was not shattered again until the birth of Gojo Satoru.
This sorcerer had been born during the Heian era.
Comparing himself to Sukuna was unthinkable.
Even in that era, his strength had never placed him among the greatest.
However, he had survived the most vicious age in jujutsu history and fought more battles than he could count.
The instincts forged through those countless struggles were what allowed him to halt his attack at the final instant.
That brief exchange was also enough for him to identify the weakness in Mayoru’s fighting style.
He was too slow.
Not the stone Mayoru had launched, but Mayoru himself.
The moment cursed energy began to flow and the technique started activating, its preparation was obvious enough to detect.
That meant the boy could be defeated.
“Young man, don’t get ahead of yourself.” He lowered his body once more, taking the posture of a savage beast preparing to hunt.
The smile that had briefly vanished returned to his face.
The ancient sorcerer tossed aside the toy sword he had found somewhere nearby.
With a brittle crack, the weapon inexplicably crumbled apart.
Dust scattered across the ground as the wind swept past.
Now barehanded, the sorcerer felt no disadvantage at all.
His grin became savage.
“You talk boldly, but remember—you’re the challenger here!” The instant those words left his mouth, he moved.
His speed surpassed even the charge he had used against Kei.
Like a fired bullet, he shot directly toward Mayoru.