Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College.
Night had fallen.
A black sedan was parked in front of the school gate.
Megumi Fushiguro stood beside the car in his dark-blue Jujutsu High uniform, looking down and fiddling with his phone.
It had already been nine minutes since the time Gojo had told him to meet.
Megumi was long since used to it.
If anything, the truly surprising day would be the one when Gojo actually arrived on time.
“Yo, Megumi.
Haven’t been waiting long, have you?”
A familiar voice came from above.
Megumi looked up.
Gojo and Jin came down the stairs with quick little steps and arrived beside the car.
“No.”
Megumi slipped his phone into his pocket, his gaze briefly falling on Jin’s arms.
It lasted only an instant before he looked away again.
Gojo opened the car door, bent down slightly, and took a paper bag from Ijichi.
“Then let’s go!
We’re heading to Shibuya for yakiniku, and we’ll welcome our new classmate while we’re at it!”
He looked back at Megumi and Jin, then spoke thoughtfully.
“Come to think of it, since you’re going to be classmates from now on, how about giving each other a proper introduction?”
Megumi raised his head slightly and looked at Jin.
“Megumi Fushiguro.
Grade 2 jujutsu sorcerer.”
That introduction was almost comically brief.
But whatever.
As a transmigrator, Jin already knew plenty about the legendary human suicide truck standing in front of him—the great Emperor Megumi, who never met a little pressure he couldn’t answer with self-destruction.
Whenever Jin looked at Megumi, he couldn’t help thinking about that shikigami capable of adapting to anything—Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga.
His fight against Gojo had already demonstrated that ordinary jujutsu attacks couldn’t break through elementalization.
His elementalization was similar to Gojo’s Limitless in that both possessed an untouchable quality.
In that case, there should likewise be only three methods capable of directly damaging his true body.
Use Domain Amplification to neutralize the cursed technique’s effect, expand a Domain and use its sure-hit effect to attack the real body directly, or use Mahoraga to adapt to it.
Jin glanced sideways at Gojo.
“Is there really any need?”
There wasn’t much he could introduce anyway.
They already knew his name, and as for his sorcerer grade, he currently didn’t have one.
“Then forget it.”
After thinking about it, Gojo agreed it wasn’t particularly necessary and stuffed the paper bag into Jin’s arms instead.
“Sorcerer grades are divided into five main levels, from the standard Grade 4 up to Grade 1.”
“The smaller the number, the stronger the sorcerer.
Beyond those is the extremely rare Special Grade.
At present, including me, there are only four.”
Jin already knew all of this common knowledge, but to avoid appearing suspicious, he had no choice but to pretend it was his first time hearing it.
While Gojo explained, Jin lowered his head and glanced inside the bag.
It seemed to contain a white shirt.
With one hand resting on the car door, Gojo continued speaking casually.
“Cursed spirits have corresponding grades.
A sorcerer of a given grade is expected to be capable of exorcising a cursed spirit of the same grade.”
“It’s not a perfect one-to-one comparison, though.
Sorcerers are generally about half a step stronger than cursed spirits of the same listed grade.”
At this point, Gojo looked Jin up and down, his gaze landing on Jin’s bare upper body.
“You can’t exactly go to Shibuya half-naked like that.
Put it on.”
As soon as he finished, he bent down and climbed into the car.
“Our sizes should be pretty similar.
It might be a little big on you?”
Megumi opened the door and got in as well.
Jin took the white shirt out of the paper bag.
The fabric was smooth to the touch and had a nice sheen.
One look was enough to tell that it was expensive, high-end clothing.
After putting it on, he sat in the back seat and adjusted the collar.
“Pretty close.
The sleeves are a little long.”
Gojo glanced at Jin through the rearview mirror, the corner of his mouth rising slightly.
“It suits you pretty well.”
At that moment, the man sitting in the driver’s seat swallowed somewhat nervously.
He glanced at the rearview mirror, took a long breath, then turned around toward Jin in the back seat.
“Jin-kun, I’m an assistant manager.
Kiyotaka Ijichi.”
The man wore black-rimmed glasses and had thin cheeks, giving him the unmistakable appearance of an overworked salaryman cursed by life itself.
He forced out a professional smile and nodded toward Jin.
“It’s nice to meet you.
I look forward to working with you!”
Jin nodded in return.
“Yeah.
Nice to meet you.”
“Also, what’s an assistant manager?”
Ijichi’s lips moved as he prepared to explain, but Gojo spoke before he could.
“Simply put, he’s a little lackey who handles miscellaneous errands for us.
Don’t worry about it.”
Ijichi sighed softly and looked helplessly at Gojo beside him.
“Gojo-san…”
Gojo leaned back in his seat and casually waved a hand.
“Enough talking.
Drive.”
…….
Shibuya, Ebisu Yakiniku.
The smell of grilled meat filled the restaurant.
Holding chopsticks in both hands, Jin attacked from left and right as he frantically devoured the grilled meat on the plates in front of him.
Empty plates were nearly stacked into a small mountain beside him.
He had genuinely been starving today.
He’d already been hungry after spending half the afternoon working out.
Then he’d fought an enormous battle against Gojo-sensei, completely exhausting the energy inside his body.
“That’s…
enough food for twenty people, isn’t it?”
A customer at the neighboring table stopped eating and couldn’t resist craning his neck to stare.
“Amazing—is he some newly debuted competitive eater?”
“Can a person even digest that much meat?”
Even a server passing by with a tray couldn’t help taking a couple of extra looks, nearly spilling a dish of sauce in the process.
Countless gazes came from every direction.
Some were amazed.
Others were simply curious.
“That’s enough for twenty people, right?”
Feeling all those eyes being directed toward their table, Megumi took a sip of his drink with a dead-inside expression.
They weren’t looking at him, but being at the center of everyone’s attention still felt slightly uncomfortable.
His gaze lowered toward Jin’s perfectly flat stomach beneath the shirt, the corner of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.
‘Seriously, though…
this amount…
Is this guy even human?!’
Jin stuffed a freshly grilled slice of wagyu into his mouth.
The surface of the beef had beautiful dark-brown grill marks, while the inside remained tender and pink when he bit into it.
Hot meat juices mixed with the sweetness of fat and melted across his tongue.
He chewed contentedly several times, then picked up the beer mug beside him and took a huge gulp.
The fine foam and ice-cold beer washed away the heavy richness of the fat.
Jin put down the empty mug, leaned back completely, and let out a satisfied sigh.
“Haa…
I’m alive again.”
Gojo sat opposite him, with two lonely pieces of meat lying on the plate in front of him.
He gently picked up one slice of beef and put it into his mouth.
His gaze swept across the mountain of empty plates beside Jin as he thought,
‘His constitution is far beyond an ordinary person’s, and apparently his appetite is too.’
Gojo pointed his chopsticks toward Jin, speaking with some certainty.
“Jin, you can consciously control your elementalization, right?”
Elementalization should be similar to his own Limitless—an automatic defense system covering every direction without blind spots.
Limitless didn’t block absolutely everything.
Harmless or low-threat things such as clothing and sunlight weren’t stopped by it.
Jin lightly nodded.
“As long as I consciously control it, I can prevent myself from elementalizing.”
Gojo leaned backward and looked toward Megumi beside him, speaking with rare seriousness.
“If you rely too heavily on the inherent performance of your cursed technique, your hand-to-hand combat will never improve.”
Megumi’s brows furrowed slightly.
He couldn’t understand why Gojo-sensei was looking at him while saying that.
Jin watched the scene, lowered his head, and silently laughed.
“I know.
I train regularly.”
Gojo crossed his legs and lightly tapped the tabletop with his fingers.
“You can ease up on the physical training for now.
Your raw physical ability is already extremely strong.”
“But your cursed energy reinforcement is still at the level of a third-rate sorcerer.
The flow of your cursed energy is far too easy to read.”
“Cursed energy flow…”
Ring, ring, ring.
The ringing phone interrupted Gojo’s explanation.
He grabbed the phone from the table and pressed it to his ear, looking up at the ceiling with some irritation.
“What is it?
Don’t call and bother me while I’m enjoying life at a meal with my adorable students.”
Whatever was said on the other end couldn’t be heard, but Gojo’s expression gradually became more serious.
“Is that so?
Got it.”
He stood up and turned toward Megumi.
“Something came up.
Megumi, I’m leaving Jin with you.”
Megumi nodded.
“Understood, Gojo-sensei.”
Jin glanced at the time displayed on his phone and sighed.
“Still have to work overtime this late?
Gojo-sensei really has it rough.”
Gojo smiled helplessly.
“Can’t be helped.
I’ve already had a pretty relaxed day.”
He waved toward Jin and Megumi, then turned and left.
“See you later.”
Megumi watched Gojo’s retreating back and suddenly felt that something was slightly wrong.
Half an hour later…
A server approached with a tray and bowed with a smile.
“Thank you very much.
Your total is 600,000 yen.”
Megumi’s fingers froze slightly.
Exactly as he’d expected, that unreliable teacher had left without paying the bill.
Jin sat beside him picking his teeth with a toothpick, looking as though he hadn’t heard a thing.
Who held a welcome party and then made the person being welcomed pay for it?
Megumi looked at the bill, then at the mountain of empty plates piled in front of Jin.
Expressionlessly, he pulled out a bank card and handed it to the server.
Swipe!
The sound of the credit card passing through the reader was like the background music to a small funeral.
Charge: ¥600,000.
The 550,000 yen in “gambling winnings” that had only just entered his account that afternoon was still warm.
Now every yen of it was gone, principal and interest included, and he still had to cover another fifty thousand from his living expenses.
Taking the bank card back from the server, Megumi couldn’t help letting out a soft sigh.