Tsunade suppressed her discomfort, pulled on a pair of gloves, and stepped forward to examine the body.
Shuichi stood nearby in shock as a vibrant green glow gradually appeared around Tsunade’s hands.
“W-What is that?
Magic?
Some kind of exorcism?” Shuichi’s eyes widened.
‘These people really are skilled exorcists!
Thank goodness…
Maybe we’re actually saved!’ At the same time, Shu silently activated his Sharingan.
‘That’s…
some kind of energy?’ Through the Sharingan, he could see a layer of gray-black aura clinging to the surface of the twisted mass of flesh.
It flowed slowly like a living creature, and merely looking at it sent a chill down his spine.
“You’re right.
It is some kind of energy.” Tsunade withdrew her hand and dispersed the chakra around it.
She frowned while removing her gloves.
“There’s definitely a strange energy remaining inside this body.
It’s extremely corrosive and has a powerful assimilating effect.
My chakra can’t penetrate it at all.” Tsunade paused.
“And there’s something else.” “I can feel some kind of consciousness within it.
It actually tried to follow my chakra backward and invade my mind.” Shu’s brows furrowed.
“So chakra has a hard time resisting this curse.
That makes things even more troublesome than I expected.” Tsunade glanced at him.
“It can’t eradicate the curse, but chakra does offer some resistance.” “As long as we don’t go looking for trouble or directly touch heavily contaminated sources, protecting our minds with chakra should be enough to last five days.” Shu nodded.
Judging from the Main God’s first mission, the basic survival difficulty wasn’t actually that high.
As long as they played things safe and steady, surviving should be manageable.
Of course, the fixed reward was correspondingly pathetic—only 1,000 Reward Points.
Shuichi stood nearby.
He didn’t understand what chakra was, but he could tell from their conversation that the situation was far from good.
He hurried forward.
“Investigators!
Since you really have special abilities, you must have some way to deal with this, right?” “This entire town has been feeling wrong lately.
I can feel it…
Something terrible is happening!
What are we supposed to do?” Tsunade said nothing and simply turned toward Shu.
She was completely blind when it came to this world.
Against a curse that couldn’t be punched into submission, all she could do was rely on this mysterious Uchiha brat.
Meeting Shuichi’s hopeful gaze, Shu sighed inwardly.
‘Deal with this thing?’ Theoretically, there was a way.
They could descend deep beneath Kurouzu-cho and completely destroy the ancient spiral ruins that served as the source of the curse.
Unfortunately, that solution only worked in theory.
Even with a Kage-level powerhouse like Tsunade, who could smash apart a small hill with one punch, her normal destructive power still wouldn’t be enough to destroy the enormous ruins buried deep underground.
Worse, they had now confirmed that chakra had very limited effectiveness against the curse energy itself.
Even taking things a step further and using modern heavy weapons wouldn’t solve the problem.
Bombarding the area with missiles was useless because the ruins lay far too deep underground for conventional warheads to reach.
Even if they somehow blasted open a gap, failing to destroy the entire structure could cause the curse energy accumulated inside for countless years to erupt all at once.
The result would probably be instant death for every single person in Kurouzu-cho.
Unless…
‘We just use a high-yield nuclear bomb and nuke the whole place clean.’ But where the hell were they supposed to get a nuclear bomb?
This was a remote, isolated little town.
There was no possible way one would conveniently be lying around.
And even if Shu somehow obtained one, would the heat and shockwave actually eliminate this bizarre curse energy completely?
Probably not.
For all he knew, the radiation from the explosion might fuse with the curse and produce something even more horrifying.
Then he, Tsunade, and everyone else in town would still die without even leaving ashes behind.
With that thought, every brute-force solution was completely blocked.
Shu sighed helplessly and shook his head.
“Sorry.
With our current abilities, there’s really no way to completely eliminate a curse covering an entire town.” The light in Shuichi’s eyes immediately dimmed.
“But I can give you one piece of advice,” Shu continued.
“The best option is to leave this place immediately.” “This curse is bound to Kurouzu-cho.
As long as you remain within the town, it’ll keep affecting you.” “Eventually, you’ll end up like your father…
or possibly something even worse.” “So while you still can, pack your things and leave immediately.” Shuichi gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
“Leave?
I see…
But I think it’s already too late.” He pointed toward the sky outside the window.
“That feeling of being watched from everywhere…
I can sense it.
I don’t think we can leave this place anymore.” Shu fell silent.
‘We already can’t leave?’ ‘Has the curse grown strong enough to distort the space around the town, or has it already altered the residents’ perception?’ While Shu was thinking, Tsunade suddenly snorted.
“Enough with the self-pity!” She glared at the dejected Shuichi.
“Whatever happens, you have to at least try.
Even if there’s only the slightest chance!” “What, are you planning to sit here with your family and wait until all of you turn into disgusting things like this?” Shuichi froze at her scolding.
A trace of struggle appeared in his eyes.
“She’s right…” he muttered.
“Even if we can’t escape, we can’t just sit here and wait to die.” “There’s actually something even more urgent we need to deal with first,” Shu suddenly said.
He pointed toward the twisted corpse.
“That thing is saturated with the curse.
According to your local customs, you were planning to cremate it, right?” “Y-Yes.” Shuichi nodded blankly.
“We’ve already contacted the crematorium.” “Cancel the cremation immediately!” Shu warned.
“Bury him deep underground instead, and seal the entire coffin inside a thick layer of concrete!” Shu clearly remembered what happened in the original story.
Shuichi’s father was cremated, and afterward, spiral-shaped black smoke poured from the crematorium chimney.
The smoke drifted across Kurouzu-cho and even took on the shape of Shuichi’s father, becoming a black cloud of concentrated curse energy.
From that moment onward, the curse covering the entire town rapidly intensified, and the rate of abnormal incidents increased exponentially.
“Cremating this body will release the curse energy inside it into the air along with the smoke and ash!” Shu warned.
“That’ll accelerate the spread of the curse many times over!” Shuichi’s expression changed dramatically as he immediately realized how serious that could be.
“I understand!
Investigator, I’ll convince my mother to change the burial arrangements immediately.” “Once my father is buried, I’ll try to leave this place.” The instant Shuichi turned away to prepare the burial, a crisp notification suddenly rang inside Shu’s mind.
[Ding!
Reincarnator detected slightly hindering the spread of the curse and marginally delaying Kurouzu-cho’s rate of mutation.] [Reward: 500 Reward Points.] …