Just Me?
6: Chapter 6: Anyone Else Think Construction Tech Clears Ten Shadows?
Just Me?
Chapter 6: Anyone Else Think Construction Tech Clears Ten Shadows?
Just Me?
[Sneak attack?
Getting blindsided?
Impossible.
Not in this lifetime.] [You had thoroughly internalized the painful lessons of Megumi Fushiguro’s past failures, keeping a constant, hyper-vigilant eye on the ceilings and walls.
With a smooth sliding step, you easily evaded the Cursed Spirit’s desperate diving assault.] [Construction Technique: Activate!] [The concrete ground beneath your feet violently shattered.
The multi-jointed insect limbs you materialized in a flash fired you forward, accelerating you to a blistering speed that would make a Projection Sorcery user do a double-take.] [Shifting your torso to dodge the spirit’s frantic swipe, you whipped your arm around, delivering a cursed-energy-infused chop straight into the side of its neck.] [The impact felt dense, but it was absolutely cuttable.] [Most Cursed Spirits fight entirely on primal instinct, meaning you can generally gauge their threat level based on their volume of cursed energy.
The one standing before you–draped in a blood-soaked loincloth and clutching a stone Jizo statue–was clearly a Ubume, a spirit born from women who died in childbirth or from postpartum illness.
It was roughly a Grade 1 threat.] [Winable!] [Digging your multi-jointed leg joints firmly into the wall, you sprinted completely sideways across the vertical surface, hurling your dagger wrapped in dense cursed energy straight at the Ubume’s chest.] [The Ubume let out a piercing, screeching howl, swinging its Jizo statue to swat your dagger out of the air.
But you had already used that exact split-second window to circle around to its blind spot.
Swinging your materialized scythe-arms in a wide, vicious arc, you sliced clean through its midsection.] [*I’m so sorry, Lord Rui, for making you hold back so much of your true strength…*] [“See?
Pretty simple, right?
At this rate, we can probably win without even needing Rika’s help.
Death won’t claim you when you’re fully prepared, Okotsu-san.”] [Before you could even finish flexing, the clinic door on the opposite end of the corridor was violently blown off its hinges.
Two more Cursed Spirits–looking every bit as menacing as the Ubume you just diced–came squeezing out of the room together, charging right at you.] [Beside you, Yuna Okotsu let out a tiny gasp of terror, her hand instinctively reaching out to grab your…
uh, antenna.] [“Tachibana-kun, two of them at once…
are you really going to be okay?”] [“Well, if both of them are fully-healed Grade 1 Cursed Spirits, it might be a tiny bit troublesome.”] [“…Would you lose?”] [“I’d win.”] […] *(Image)* [“Yo.”] [“Whoa!”] [In a sudden daze, you felt as though you were standing in the middle of an airport terminal…
Then, Ms.
Gojo materialized right in front of you, asking, “So, how were the Grade 1 Cursed Spirits?” You, like a perfect straight-man in a comedy routine, delivered the mandatory textbook line: “They were scary strong.
Honestly, I don’t think either of them was even giving it their all.”] [Yikes.
Talk about a jumpscare.] [Fortunately, a violent jostling sensation jolted you back to your senses…
You opened your eyes, and the first things that filled your vision were messy, cascading strands of long black hair and a pale, delicate neck that looked so fragile it might snap at any moment.] [You realized you were piggybacking on Yuna Okotsu.] [The young girl was carrying you on her back, staggering precariously down the corridor of the abandoned hospital.
Her footsteps were completely erratic, her breathing heavy and ragged…
After all, she hadn’t even begun training in cursed energy manipulation yet.
Forcing her physical body to lug a teenage guy around was an absolute stretch.] [You mentally scanned your own physical state.
It was a total disaster.
Your abdomen had been torn open during the previous clash, and your cursed energy reserves were scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel…
You felt like you could finally empathize with Mai Zen’in from the Kyoto branch.
Surrounded by broken, hyper-efficient skills like Boogie Woogie and literal Evangelion Unit-01 mechs, she was the only one stuck with the “overpowered” ability to manufacture a single bullet a day.] [Fucking garbage Construction Technique.
Sucking up a massive pool of cursed energy only to run completely dry after a brief skirmish.
Is there something wrong with your build, or are you just playing this character wrong?!] [“Huff…
puff…
Tachibana…
kun?”] [It seemed she noticed you had finally woken up.] [“Those two Cursed Spirits earlier…
Tachibana-kun managed to kill one of them…
and the other one got scared and ran away.
It shouldn’t be coming back anytime soon…
It’s okay, I’m going to get you out of here right now.
If we run into any more curses, I’ll be the one to…”] [You didn’t hesitate.] [“Okotsu-san, just drop me here.”] [Yuna’s expression shifted to one of complete, utter incomprehension, as if you were speaking a foreign language.] [“…Wh-why?
Tachibana-kun, didn’t you literally just tell me to call out Rika when things got critical…?”] [“You aren’t ready yet, are you?
If you call out Rika right now, I’ll still end up dead…
If that happens, it’s just going to saddle you with another pointless crime to feel guilty about.”] [“No.”] [“Ms.
Gojo is definitely monitoring this situation from somewhere.
The moment you escape past the Veil, just spam her with messages for help.
There’s still a decent chance she can loop back and save me.”] [“…No.”] [“Listen to me, in this exact scenario, leaving me behind is the only–”] [“…I already said NO!
Why can’t you just understand?!” Yuna barked back.
“Tachibana-kun is like this, Ms.
Gojo is like this…
both of you are always, always saying these complicated, difficult things!
I don’t know…
I don’t understand any of it…!
You literally just said back there, ‘Getting eaten by a girl my own age sounds way better than getting eaten by a curse.’ Was that just a lie too?!
A lie just to spare my feelings?!”] [You froze.] [That was the absolute first time you had ever seen the aggressively introverted, reclusive Miss Okotsu pull an expression like that…
She was trembling all over, her words tangling with her heavy breaths.
Her eyes–shining with a mixture of tears and sweat–stared back over her shoulder, locking dead onto yours.] [It was a gaze so blunt it bordered on clumsy, piercing like a thicket of thorns.] [“Tachibana-kun…
is terrifying to me.
Every single time I see you, nothing good ever happens, and my chest always feels so suffocatingly tight…”] [Though, looking at where her hand was clutching, that didn’t look like her heart–that was definitely her stomach.
Chronic anxiety-induced gastritis, probably.] [“I don’t even know what kind of feelings I’m supposed to have toward you.
Honestly, if I could just hate you, it would probably make things a whole lot easier…”] [“But pulling a total reversal like that, choosing some ambiguous, half-assed solution…
I can’t do it.”] [Right at that exact moment, a nauseating, scraping sound echoed from the far end of the corridor.] [It was the curses.
And it wasn’t just one or two.
A massive, churning hive-mind of low-grade Cursed Spirits had fused into a single slimy mass, oozing out from the doorframes, window panes, and floor tiles–surging forward like a tidal wave.] [What was it Ms.
Gojo had said again?
“Oh man, this is a real pickle.
There are reports of multiple Grade 1 and Grade 2 Cursed Spirits popping up.”…
So by “multiple,” she meant a swarm resembling a Dragon-level threat like Black Sperm from One Punch Man?!] [Yuna Okotsu gently lowered you down against the wall.] [“Please don’t worry, Tachibana-kun.
You won’t die…
I won’t let you die.”] [Then, she spun around, standing completely unprotected in front of the oncoming wave of curses.] [“Rika,”] [The girl spoke, her voice shivering.] [“Give it everything you’ve got.”] [You watched as her fingers instinctively reached down to lightly stroke the ring on her finger–wait, hold on a second.
That looked exactly like the replica ring you had lazily whipped up with your Construction Technique to slide onto her finger earlier.
Where the hell did the original one from Rika go?] [You quickly ran through the memory of that night…
Ah.
It seemed you had smoothly pocketed the real one during the chaos.] [*Man, I really hope Rika doesn’t notice.*] —