"Ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling~"
The melodious dismissal bell rang, and the students, who a second ago looked listless like invalids, instantly revived, turning into Olympic sprinters as they rushed out of the classroom.
The teacher, long accustomed to this scene, shook his head helplessly, closed his lesson plan, and followed the students out.
Eichi, who had been drawing and writing in the back row all day, also packed up to go home.
The year was 2003, and Eichi was already a second-year middle school student, two years away from entering high school.
As for why Eichi was attending an outside school?
The story goes back a few years.
It started when he was playing around with Satoru and, relying on fragmented knowledge from his previous life, mocked Satoru for a long time. Later, he suddenly received a notice that he had to go to elementary school.
"Gojo Satoru, this is your doing, isn't it?"
Upon hearing the news, Eichi immediately put Satoru in a headlock.
"Hmm, don't you like to study? I'm doing this for your own good. Besides, you're already old enough to go to elementary school."
Satoru forcefully pulled at Eichi's arm, while his other hand defiantly reached behind him, grabbing half of Eichi's face and pulling it outward.
"Ha, aren't you old enough too? Why aren't you going?"
His rare leisurely life was broken. The thought of having to go back to school and pretend to be young with a bunch of little kids made him blush.
"This old man attends family schooling. If you've got the guts, you go too."
Family schooling, the Zen'in Family's family schooling.
Eichi's fists clenched.
The courtyard got pretty chaotic after that.
Outside the courtyard, the two bodyguards no longer worried about Satoru. Instead, they skillfully lit cigarettes and drank tea, occasionally commenting on the two's moves.
Later, Eichi still went to school, but he chose the school himself.
"What are you thinking about, Eichi?"
A young man with long, narrow eyes, a bun, and a wisp of bangs over his left forehead placed a hand on Eichi's shoulder.
"Geto, I'm thinking about what to do after I go home later."
"There's still a long time until the commission. Do you want to come hang out at our club?"
Suguru smiled and extended an invitation.
Suguru's club was a music club formed in imitation of a famous rap band. Several boys in it were fans and dressed in a more alternative style.
This also told Eichi the origin of Suguru's odd bun and bangs hairstyle. It came from the lead singer of a band Suguru really liked.
"I'd rather not. After sitting in the classroom all day, I need to go out and move around, or my body will rust."
As he spoke, he put all his manuscripts into his school bag.
"Speaking of which, Eichi, if you like writing, why don't you join the literature club?"
After several years as classmates, Suguru already knew his best friend's hobby.
Eichi often wrote stories about historical figures being summoned as Heroic Spirits into certain events.
These stories, in Suguru's opinion, were all very exciting, but Eichi never published them, only kept increasing his backlog of drafts.
"Literature club? You know as well as I do there are more people there trying to flirt with girls than actually reading."
At first, Eichi was curious about club activities. In his previous life, because his PE teacher was often sick, he only had PE class a few times a year, so he envied such extracurriculars.
However, after joining several clubs in a row, he lost interest.
He found that these clubs were essentially just kids with similar interests playing together, or an instructor giving extracurricular tutoring to their favored top students.
The literature club was a bit special. Because it had many girls, it also attracted many boys.
Honestly, Eichi was surprised when he learned this. Don't the teachers crack down on puppy love?
Time quickly moved to night. After finishing their club activities, Suguru and Eichi arrived at an abandoned amusement park.
"Is this the commission this time? By the way, couldn't the client be more responsible? Unknown number of Cursed Spirits, unknown strength of Cursed Spirits. How can such a commission even be issued?"
Eichi mercilessly complained about the commission letter in his hand.
"It's precisely because there's no information that the price has increased three times in a row."
"Why are they so concerned about this abandoned land?"
"A big boss took a fancy to this cheap piece of land and bought it, planning to develop it. Later, when construction started, several workers died. To prevent the project from falling through, they begged for help everywhere. After learning about the existence of Cursed Spirits, they pulled some strings to find the Jujutsu World and issue a commission."
The speaker was Kong Shiu. The two met through Toji Zen'in.
After Toji left the Zen'in Family a few years ago, Eichi began to approach him under the guise of being a fellow member.
Perhaps because Eichi had also left the Zen'in Family, Toji's attitude wasn't too bad, but it certainly wasn't good either.
However, Eichi, who already knew his personality, didn't mind.
Later, when Shiu was looking for Toji, Eichi successfully obtained Shiu's contact information and, through him, took on some commissions related to Cursed Spirits.
"The people of the Jujutsu World aren't handling it?"
Suguru was a little curious.
"They think no one comes to this place anyway, so they are too lazy to deal with it. After all, the Jujutsu World is chronically short-staffed."
"I'll send a few Fly Heads in to check the situation."
His curiosity satisfied, Suguru prepared to act.
"No, I'll let Rabbit Escape go check."
Eichi rejected Suguru's proposal.
Although small Cursed Spirits like Fly Heads are easy to find and not a pity to lose, Eichi had noticed Suguru's obvious pain when replenishing Cursed Spirits in previous commissions.
The taste of Cursed Spirits was like a rag wiped with vomit.
Remembering this, Eichi proactively took on the reconnaissance duty, trying to help Suguru reduce how often he needed to consume Cursed Spirit Orbs.
Subsequently, a giant mass emitting countless red lights appeared in front of Shiyu, making him involuntarily swallow.
It was a small mountain made of Rabbit Escapes, the countless red lights being the individual scarlet pupils of the Rabbit Escapes.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
Hundreds of Rabbit Escapes scattered, and Eichi quickly got the answer he wanted.
"Interesting. The Cursed Spirits' location is the office building on the west side of the amusement park and the adjacent dining area."
Eichi became interested.
"What's wrong, Eichi?"
Suguru was a little puzzled.
"Generally, the entities that would generate negative emotions in an amusement park should be clowns walking around giving out balloons, ghost employees in haunted houses, or ghosts on roller coasters and Ferris wheels, right? It's strange that the Cursed Spirits here are concentrated in the office building and dining area, isn't it?"
"It seems so."
Suguru thought about the amusement park ghost stories he usually saw and agreed with Eichi's statement.
As he pondered, Rabbit Escape brought the latest news.
"Target confirmed. There are a total of five Cursed Spirits, all above Grade 2 in strength and very aggressive. After discovering Rabbit Escape, they pursued it continuously until I dispelled the summoning."
(To be continued.)
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