Once the others had left, the coldness on Mirai's face softened noticeably.
"Have a seat," he said gently, pulling out an expensive cushion from Kamui's dimensional space and offering it to the two girls.
Looking at the now clean floor, the chill in Mai's chest finally eased a little.
Suppressing the lingering fear in her heart, she tilted her head up and called out in a crisp voice, "Mirai... big brother."
Mirai took the lunchbox handed over by Maki and nodded. "Has anyone in the clan been bullying you lately?"
The two girls sat across from him and shook their heads.
Ever since they had been assigned the role of delivering his meals, no one in the vast Zenin household, whether servant or sorcerer, had dared to openly mock them anymore.
At least not on the surface.
But that scornful look in people's eyes was still everywhere.
Pushing those thoughts aside, the girls moved with practiced ease as they opened the second meal box Mai was holding.
Kobe beef, lobster sashimi, fugu, matsutake mushrooms...
Even the watermelon had been sliced into perfect bite-sized cubes.
The four-tier bento box was packed to the brim with luxurious ingredients far beyond anything the girls had enjoyed before.
For Mirai's health alone, more than ten professional nutritionists within the clan managed his diet.
After all, he was still growing.
And thanks to just one word from him, the two sisters received the same elite treatment.
Once Mirai began to eat, the two girls followed, savoring every bite.
Over the past six months of dining with him, they'd both put on a little weight, just enough to show.
"Mirai-nii, I want to join the Shugyoryu Unit and start training," Maki declared, lifting her chin with determination in her eyes.
Mai froze, stunned, the rice in her puffed cheeks momentarily forgotten.
She couldn't understand it.
Life in the clan had just begun to improve. Why would her sister willingly step into hell?
Mirai chuckled and nodded without hesitation. "Alright."
It seemed the earlier events had taught Maki the value of strength.
"Then I'm going too!"
Mai swallowed her food in a few quick gulps and clutched at Maki's sleeve tightly.
She had only one thought in her heart, to stay with her sister forever.
Even if it meant going to hell.
Maki was about to stop her, but the words caught in her throat.
She had been the one to speak first. How could she now ask Mai to back down?
"Fine. It's good to train anyway," Mirai said with a smile.
"When you've learned enough, you can choose any cursed tools you want from the Forbidden Vault."
Perhaps it was because before his awakening, these two were the only ones in the clan who had ever shown him kindness.
Or perhaps it was that their miserable lives before age six mirrored his own too closely.
To Mirai, these two girls were the last fragments of goodwill he held for this world.
Everyone else... were just monkeys.
...
After eating his fill, Mirai glanced across the table at the still-munching sisters, then pulled out an old notebook from Kamui space.
"Maki, what month is it now?"
Over the past half year, he'd been endlessly busy.
Training the shikigami of the Ten Shadows Technique.
Feeding the Gedo Statue with cursed spirits... and the occasional sorcerer.
Refining his cursed energy control.
Researching Reversed Cursed Technique.
Learning the basics of Domain Expansion.
Thankfully, the Zenin Clan's immense archives had helped greatly.
From detailed records on inherited techniques and combat notes from previous Ten Shadows users to extensive theories on domain mechanics,
All of it had drastically sped up Mirai's growth, saving him a tremendous amount of time.
And as for food, clothing, shelter, and equipment... there were no obstacles at all.
But don't think being a sorcerer made money easy.
Look at Nanami Kento grinding away like a corporate slave.
Or Toji Fushiguro risking his life taking hit jobs.
Even the underground curse-user groups only scraped by after years of running jobs in the shadows.
"August, 2007," Maki answered without thinking.
As soon as she said it, both girls leaned forward curiously to peek at the notebook Mirai laid on the table.
But the strange characters scribbled across the pages were completely unreadable to them.
Mirai flipped through the notebook to find the section corresponding to August.
The densely packed handwriting was in Chinese, written back when he was a kid and afraid he'd forget the plot.
Even if you dropped a scholar from Longguo in front of it, they wouldn't be able to decipher a single word.
The writing was so chaotic it made a doctor's prescription look neat.
This was the pinnacle of mad scribble calligraphy.
On the pages for August, the top few lines had already been crossed out in black ink, plot points that had already occurred:
"2006: Star Plasma Vessel Death Incident"
"2006: Gojo Satoru Awakens"
"2006: Toji Fushiguro Dies"
Mirai's gaze dropped to the next entry, and a faint smile tugged at his lips.
"2007: Geto Suguru's Fall"
A single twisted line of text, but he recognized it immediately.
...
Meanwhile, in the former clan head's courtyard.
Having just received word that another sorcerer had died in the Forbidden Vault, Naobito Zenin's expression darkened further.
In the past eight months, the number of clan sorcerers killed by that brat could fill four mahjong tables.
And that didn't include the two foolish servants who'd died as well...
At this rate, the entire cast of the Eighteen Arhats would be waiting for them in hell.
The thought alone made Naobito's expression sour even more.
"What's wrong? Can't take it anymore, old man? Thinking of making a move?"
Zenin Noritoshi lifted his wine glass and smirked at Naobito with mockery in his eyes.
"I told you already. Drop that little scheme of yours."
Naobito glanced sideways, voice filled with disdain.
"Planning to let me clash with the kid so you can climb the ranks once I'm dead?"
He caught the brief moment of stiffness in Noritoshi's posture.
Naobito chuckled coldly.
"Zenin blood ties, huh? What a joke."
His tone suddenly shifted, now laced with warning.
"You can talk like this in front of me, sure. But if you ever try anything in front of him..."
"I doubt you'd survive three seconds."
Truth be told, Naobito had already given his half-brother more chances than he deserved.
If he hadn't swallowed his pride eight months ago, Noritoshi's head would've been long separated from his body.
Watching Naobito's serious expression, Noritoshi frowned, clearly confused.
"Then why..." he began, "why were you the one who told me to have someone disguise themselves as a Kamo clansman and raise the kid's bounty on the black market?"
"Eight hundred million yen, just like that? Don't tell me you had no hidden agenda!"
Right now, Zenin Mirai's black market bounty had already reached a staggering one billion yen.
Ten times what Gojo Satoru had on his head as a child.
"You think I wanted to do that?" Naobito snapped, furious.
"Use that shriveled brain of yours for once!"
"Just the pure Ten Shadows Technique alone makes that boy the clan's greatest treasure. You think we'd be sending people to kill him?!"
"Add to that his cursed spirit manipulation rivaling Special Grades, and the space-warping technique that nearly vaporized you..."
"A monster who doesn't lose out to Gojo Satoru in the slightest, and you think I'm out there putting bounties on him?"
"Is that thing on your shoulders a head or just for decoration?"
Having vented his rage, Naobito let out a long breath.
Noritoshi stood there dazed, eyes blank, before finally snapping out of it.
"But... but you did order me to do it!"
Naobito sighed. "Don't forget, I'm just the head of Hei right now. I'm not the clan head anymore."
Noritoshi's mouth twitched. "You mean... the one who gave the order to raise the bounty was Clan Head Mirai... himself?"
Naobito didn't reply, which only made Noritoshi's expression even more bewildered.
"Why would the clan head do that?"
"You think that kid would bother explaining it to me?"
Naobito gave him a look that screamed "are you stupid?"
He was starting to seriously wonder what was rattling around in that brother's skull.
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200 P.S = 1 Extra Chapter