“Tokiwa-kun, we are about to enter Inunaki Village. Please prepare yourself for vigilance immediately.”
Nanami adjusted the special glasses on his face, his voice low.
“From here on, attacks from Cursed Spirits could come at any moment.”
Ryuichi nodded.
“Understood.”
“My Cursed Technique is fire. I use a long sword, so I can engage in melee combat or provide support from a distance.”
Nanami nodded.
About fifteen minutes later, the sparse trees and steep mountain roads gradually disappeared.
The two arrived at the edge of Inunaki Village.
Nanami pulled the handbrake.
“We will first go to rendezvous with the intelligence personnel in the village. If we encounter any Cursed Spirits that attack us on the way, we will exorcise them.”
“Understood.”
From the side of the car, Nanami took out a blunt blade wrapped in spotted talisman cloth.
Cursed Tool “Thallium”.
It seemed to be a Cursed Tool with no special effects, but when combined with Nanami’s Cursed Technique, it could deal considerable damage.
“Let’s go.”
The two got out of the car and moved forward along the dirt road in the village.
“Isn’t it too quiet here?”
Ryuichi looked around.
Compared to an ordinary village, the surroundings seemed overly desolate; looking into the distance, there were hardly any pedestrians to be seen.
Nanami adjusted his glasses.
“In places where Cursed Spirits gather, ordinary people will subconsciously feel uncomfortable.”
“Recently, many young adults have left Inunaki Village, leaving behind some elderly people with limited mobility.”
“There is one more thing. According to the intelligence personnel’s investigation, there seems to be an anomaly here capable of affecting human thought.”
Ryuichi frowned.
“Affecting thought?”
Although they are born from negative emotions and cannot be seen by ordinary people, the essence of Cursed Spirits is actually more akin to “living monsters.”
If they possess the trait of affecting thought, it is somewhat similar to the ghosts and spirits in traditional horror films.
Nanami’s expression was grave.
“It hasn’t been confirmed yet; this is also a part of our investigation.”
The two walked for ten minutes, but instead of entering the village, they arrived in front of a graveyard.
“A graveyard, huh…”
Ryuichi examined the tombs and memorial tablets before him.
“I heard that environments like graveyards are more prone to birthing Cursed Spirits.”
Nanami corrected him.
“It is people’s fear of graveyards that makes it easier for Cursed Spirits to be generated here.”
“Most of the anomalies in Inunaki Village are triggered by urban legends and ghost stories.”
“If there are any Cursed Spirits in this graveyard, they probably won’t be very strong.”
Click, click, click.
No sooner had Nanami finished speaking than scattered bones on the graveyard rose into the air, piecing themselves together into humanoid shapes.
Green flames emerged from their hollow eye sockets.
‘A Taoist with fifteen dogs can walk sideways across the whole server?’ Ryuichi complained inwardly. This chapter is updated first at novelping.com.
“Grade 3 Cursed Spirits, Skeleton Demons.”
Nanami shook the blunt blade in his hand.
“Let’s finish this quickly.”
The blunt blade swiped across, and a lunging humanoid skeleton was split in two.
‘Oh no, my points!’
Ryuichi drew shigurekiri, and Lord Flame energy coated the blade.
At the same time, Cursed Energy began to gather in his throat.
Fireball Jutsu.
Boom!
A fireball the size of a fist flew out, engulfing one of the skeleton Cursed Spirits.
At the same time, shigurekiri, imbued with high-temperature energy, sliced another one in two.
‘Damn, it’s so small.’
While Ryuichi was still complaining about the effect of the Fireball Jutsu, the Cursed Spirit he had just sliced apart actually used its hands to hold its waist, piecing its severed body back together.
Only then did Ryuichi realize that his points were still at 0.
Fire and slashes didn’t have much effect on these bones.
‘Wow, what a pain in the ass…’
From a distance, Nanami reminded him: “Use Cursed Energy!”
Hearing this, Ryuichi immediately coated his long sword with Cursed Energy.
Swish, swish—
With one slash to the waist and one to the head, the Skeleton Demon before him finally scattered on the ground, making no more sound.
After delivering one more blow to the Skeleton Demon that was still struggling against the residual flames of the Fireball Jutsu, the notification that the points had been credited finally sounded.
[Eliminated Grade 3 Cursed Spirit, Points +5]
[Eliminated Grade 3 Cursed Spirit, Points +5]
Even a mosquito’s leg is meat; following Nanami to eliminate the remaining Skeleton Demons, the points in Ryuichi’s account rose to 25.
“Let’s continue moving forward.”
Seeing Ryuichi’s relaxed expression, Nanami continued to step forward.
“I’ll contact the Assistant Supervisor first.”
Nanami took out his phone and dialed the number.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“No answer?” Ryuichi asked.
Nanami put down his phone, his expression somewhat grave.
“It might be the influence of a Barrier Technique, or perhaps…”
Nanami didn’t continue, but both he and Ryuichi knew what the other possibility was.
Under the influence of large-scale Cursed Spirit incidents, the lives of ordinary people are as worthless as grass.
One of Geto Suguru’s Cursed Spirits from when he was alive, “Rainbow Dragon,” could easily wipe out most of the population of a village in a short time if there were no Jujutsu Sorcerers to stop it.
And Cursed Spirits of this level can be said to be everywhere in Japan.
It is easy to imagine the daily workload intensity for high-level Jujutsu Sorcerers like Gojo Satoru and Nanami.
‘Heh, there are still too many parasites.’
As the two walked, they ran into a man dressed like a villager carrying an axe.
“Ha, haha.”
Seeing the two, the man revealed a bizarre smile.
Nanami asked tentatively: “Hello?”
The man approached with a stumbling gait: “Smile.”
“You…” The man suddenly accelerated, his axe swinging directly down at Nanami.
“Why won’t you smile?!”
Clang!
The blunt blade parried the axe; Nanami, with a trace of Cursed Energy coating his hand, delivered a chop to the back of the man’s neck.
Thud.
The man collapsed to the ground.
“It’s a human.”
Nanami lifted the man’s eyelid and checked his pulse and heartbeat.
Ryuichi continued: “This should be the anomaly that the intelligence personnel mentioned, the one that can affect thought.”
Nanami nodded: “It is very likely.”
“This man told us to smile, and at the same time, he possessed strong aggression…”
“Is it similar to a zombie? But it doesn’t seem to be infectious…”
“Let’s continue moving forward.”
The two walked past a cluster of moss-covered wooden Japanese-style buildings and soon arrived at the center of Inunaki Village.
Ryuichi was suspicious and uncertain: “What’s going on? Why isn’t there a single person here?”
Although Inunaki Village is just a small village, it still has a population of nearly a thousand.
Yet along the way, the two had not met any living people other than the man with the axe.
Occasionally, prying eyes would peek out from the houses, but when the two went closer to look, there was nothing inside.
“The residual Cursed Energy here is also quite complex.” Nanami frowned tightly.
“Cursed Spirits, Curse Users… added up, there are at least dozens of types.”
“Tokiwa-kun, the danger has very likely escalated. Do you still wish to continue accompanying me?”
These words from Nanami already carried the implication of asking him to leave.
If they were to go deeper, Nanami had no confidence in protecting Ryuichi’s safety.
Seeing the situation escalate, Ryuichi also felt some regret in his heart:
‘If I had known, I would have called Fushiguro Megumi over to help.
With his Ten Shadows Technique for reconnaissance and protection, I wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to resolve this incident…’
Ryuichi calmed himself down and still decided to stay:
“Let’s continue the investigation. We still haven’t managed to see the Assistant Supervisor yet.”
Although Nanami didn’t know where Ryuichi’s confidence came from, since the latter had Gojo Satoru’s endorsement, he could only reluctantly agree.
He pointed toward the tunnel on the other side of the village:
“Data shows that this Inunaki Tunnel is the place where Cursed Energy in Inunaki Village overflows the most; several types of urban legend Cursed Spirits are entrenched within it.”
“The Assistant Supervisor’s disappearance and the source of the anomalies must all be related to it.”