Kurourushi, a Special Grade Cursed Spirit.
He had been released by Kenjaku from Cursed Spirit Manipulation and made into a Player for the Culling Game.
That was how it should have been.
Gen looked down at Kurourushi, still dormant in the huge pit at his feet, and smiled kindly.
True, the Binding Vow he had just made with Kenjaku meant Gen could not kill Kurourushi directly.
Even if he cut apart the sleeping Cursed Spirit’s body, it would hardly matter to a Cursed Spirit.
It would recover almost the moment it happened.
So Gen quickly found another way.
Anyone who had never learned much about cockroaches might assume they were creatures capable of breaking up through the earth.
But once you actually understood them, you would know better.
Cockroach legs were typical walking legs, long, thin, and covered in bristles, used mainly for running quickly and climbing.
So-called cockroaches that “break through the ground” were really just buried beneath a thin layer of soil.
Once they pushed free of that layer, they could move around as they pleased.
Their flattened bodies were designed for squeezing through cracks, not for digging tunnels through packed earth.
Of course, Kurourushi was no lowly insect.
As a Cursed Spirit, he could probably chew his way out through the dirt if he had to.
This was only a delaying tactic.
If that thing got out and started hurting people, ordinary civilians would probably suffer heavy casualties.
Either way, Gen would bury Kurourushi as deeply as he could.
He recalled the Divine Dogs, which had been hopping around on the newly leveled ground to tamp the soil down, then formed a hand sign and reproduced Nue’s Cursed Technique on himself.
“If I want to link up with other Barriers, I need to get one hundred points, right?”
Gen flapped his wings, muttering to himself as he flew higher into the sky.
After carefully reading through the rules, he looked up and called into the air.
“Kogane.”
Pop!
“Add a rule.
Teleportation between Barriers is allowed.
Is that possible?”
The small white Cursed Spirit, like a little communicator, hovered in the air on beating wings but stayed silent.
“Points are required.”
“So it’s possible, right?”
“Points are required.”
Once Gen understood what the little Kogane bug meant, he opened his eyes and beat his wings.
A sonic boom burst from his high-speed movement, and lightning traced his path through the air.
…
“Help…
help me!!”
“Hahahaha!!!
Go on, run if you want!”
On a street in Sendai, a young man in a security guard uniform was sprinting for his life.
Behind him came a Jujutsu Sorcerer, also a Player, dragging a strange long sword.
“Damn it, damn it, damn it!
First a dead man came back to life, then I nearly got stomped flat by a giant, and now there’s a psycho killer after me!
What the hell is this place?!”
The man in the security guard uniform was Mamoru Ito, the first person Gen had run into.
Right now, he was desperately knocking things over to slow down the man with the long sword behind him.
But the boxes he tipped over, the metal racks, even the bricks he threw, were all knocked aside with ease.
“Ah…
I’m getting a little bored already.
Even in the modern age, monkeys are still monkeys.
The moment they run into something beyond their understanding, all they can do is shriek and run…”
The man with the long sword kicked Mamoru Ito hard, sending him flying into a wall.
Then he dragged his blade along as he walked toward him step by step.
“Guh…
I…
I’m warning you.
This…
this is illegal!”
“Hah?”
Mamoru Ito slumped against the ground, gasping for breath.
After taking that hit, he was already nearly spent.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
The man in front of Mamoru Ito scratched his cheek and raised the long sword toward him.
“Hah.
Monkeys like you hide behind Jujutsu Sorcerers…
They save your lives again and again, and you don’t even know how to be grateful.
That’s why I can’t stand you.”
The edge of the long sword pointed at Mamoru Ito’s head.
Mamoru Ito tried to struggle, but he had no strength left.
“My Cursed Technique strengthens the blade’s power and hardness by absorbing other people’s negative energy.
Do you know what that means?
A monkey like you, stabbed to death while drowning in despair, is the perfect nourishment for my Cursed Technique.”
Mamoru Ito gritted his teeth.
From everything he had experienced, he more or less understood what was going on.
He still did not really know what Jujutsu Sorcerers did, but he could tell they were superpowered people whose goal was to protect humans.
“People like you…
how many humans have you killed?!
You’re probably worse than a Cursed Spirit!”
Mamoru Ito shouted the words, and the man in front of him looked displeased.
“I only wanted points at first…
but now you’ve pissed me off.”
“I’m going to cut off your arms and legs and make you die in agony!”
As the man raised his sword, Mamoru Ito instinctively lifted both hands and shut his eyes.
“A monkey like you should just become my nourishment!”
As the man roared, Mamoru Ito felt as though his ears had been blasted deaf.
He could not hear anything properly.
But the wounds he had expected never came.
Slowly, Mamoru Ito opened his eyes, only to find that the man from a moment ago had vanished.
In his place stood a man wreathed in lightning, with orange-yellow wings spread behind him.
Pop!
“Five points have been added.”
And beside him, a mysterious creature had appeared out of nowhere, speaking in a human voice.
“Oh, it’s you.”
Gen turned and looked at Mamoru Ito.
Then he suddenly remembered something and reached into the black shadow inside his pocket.
“Here.
The 10,000 yen I borrowed from you earlier.”
Mamoru Ito stared blankly at the man in front of him.
His hand rose on its own, and he instinctively accepted the money.
After handing it over, Gen kicked the sword hilt on the ground toward the wall.
“Kogane, is this guy a Player?”
“Yes.”
“Ah…”
Gen turned back and studied Mamoru Ito closely.
This guy clearly was not an ancient sorcerer incarnated in a new body.
Most likely, he was just some unlucky person Kenjaku had chosen.
More than that, he was a sorcerer who had not properly realized his own Cursed Technique.
If someone like him was not killed right at the start, then maybe he would not go on to kill anyone else later.
Thinking of what was going to happen afterward, Gen considered it briefly.
“Find your own answer as soon as you can, Ito.
Assuming you can.”
Leaving behind that cryptic remark, Gen lightly stepped against the floor and beat his wings.
Wind rushed past, electricity crackled, and only then did Mamoru Ito slowly climb up from the ground.
That was when he saw the scene in front of him.
The man who had chased him all this way had already become a “trace” left on the floor by lightning.
There was not even a shred of the meaty smell that should have made Mamoru Ito want to vomit.
The man had been vaporized outright by Gen’s landing.
The thought made Mamoru Ito’s stomach lurch violently.
Then he bent over and threw up.
…
“Kogane, how many points do I have now?”
Amid the crackle of electric arcs and rushing wind, the white Cursed Spirit flew at almost the same speed as Gen.
“Your current score is 45 points.”
“At this rate…”
He should be able to freely enter and leave Barriers by tomorrow.
The moment that thought came to him, Gen saw another person floating in the air.
More precisely, it was a woman drifting through the churning sea of clouds.
She had only appeared for an instant, but she had definitely been there.
Takako Uro?
Gen abruptly stopped flying and sniffed for the “scent.”
Within the cool “sky,” there was the scent of a “human.”
“Hey.”
As Gen stopped, the direction he was staring in began to warp.
Immediately after, a cool female voice rang out.
“You noticed me, didn’t you?
How?”