I could barely breathe when the water, which I prayed wasn't from the pipes, soaked my back, and that weight below my waist vanished. I immediately covered my nose to keep the dust, the airborne dirt, or any other particle from making me sneeze. I couldn't afford that, for nothing in the world would I let my brother suffer the consequences of this fight. I had to hold on until I found a solution, or a miracle cure in my pockets, to heal my wounds.
To say my body hurt would be an understatement. It felt as though every second were absolute hell. My ribs creaked whenever I tried to move or breathe, and the coppery taste of my own blood drowned out everything else in my mouth. My knees trembled on the verge of collapse, my nerves completely numb after enduring so much strain. If a building suddenly sprouted arms and decided to strike me with all its might because I'd stolen its cement, I was certain it would feel exactly like that monster's attack.
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—MISSION COMPLETE—
CURSE SUCCESSFULLY ERADICATED
TARGET: Special Grade Curse (Newly formed)
STATUS: Eradication confirmed
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS: Defying all logic and emptying your mind of any instinct for self-preservation, you stood firm as an unbreakable wall. You have just shown a calamity that monsters can also bleed from fear, and that the physical manifestation of that panic bears the exact imprint of your shattered knuckles.
—REWARDS UNLOCKED—
RESIDUAL ESSENCE EXTRACTION
100,000 fragments of condensed Cursed Energy have been harvested from the target's corpse.
—ADRENALINE JACKPOT (TRAUMA DIVIDENDS)—
It defies the laws of statistics that your lungs still demand air. You danced on the razor's edge of a massacre with a 99.5% probability of death, yet refused to close your eyes. Chance itself kneels before your survival.
House bonus: 300,000 credits
—BROADCAST ROYALTIES—
Status: Reward received.
Details: Your bloodied silhouette will be etched like a shield into the memories of those you snatched from the Grim Reaper's grasp.
Traumatized, but alive, children: 9
Credits earned: 200.
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¡Wait a minute!
—¡The mission!— I snapped my fingers, and instantly, every joint I'd strained or relentlessly battered cracked in unison. —¿How could I forget? Heh, heh... heh...
I managed to pull myself up with great difficulty, driving the hook into the ground to use as a crude cane, its weight a real nuisance now. But complaining wouldn't help, and there was no reason to keep doing it anyway.
—The sweet scent of victory... ¡Ugh!
I tried to speak, but all that came out was a gush of blood mixed with a fragment of something that, I was certain, had no business coming out of my insides. For a second, I thought I'd regret taking such a huge risk, but the thought vanished before I could even give it serious consideration.
¡I'd do it all over again as many times as necessary!
Of course, if I had a choice, I'd rather cross "calamities" off my list of problems and worry only about what I'd be having for dinner with my brother. A notification regarding rewards interrupted my thoughts with an electric buzz and a flash of neon light. Out of nowhere, the system spat out a metal token, identical to the ones used in old-school arcades.
Token, token...
I felt a hot pang in my temple as my brain tried to process, all at once, every memory of what I'd lived through up to that moment. Finally, I recalled the exact instant my brother, amidst a lot of blah-blah-blah and other things I hadn't paid much attention to, had mentioned that token. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the very coin I'd been thinking of, identical to the one the mission had just given me.
No wonder the vendors slammed the door in my face when I tried to use it to buy a pony.
¿Damn, am I a genius or what? Whatever they were, or whatever they were supposed to do, I now had two of them. That was nothing but good news, and it meant I'd done an excellent job. I think.
Now, nothing and no one could wipe the smile off my face. I took another step, and a token, resembling the ones in my hands but much larger and bearing the face of a strange ventriloquist's dummy, materialized in mid-air. It spun a few times before landing with the dummy's face turned toward the ceiling.
—That didn't look good.
The credits I'd just received were absorbed by the giant coin, it began to glow and shot off toward the spot where the curse had disintegrated just seconds before.
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— RESULT: BANKRUPTCY AND DISGRACE —
The house always wins. You pitted your luck against pure mathematics, and the result is exactly what you deserve for not knowing when to stop. The process of multiplicative fission has collapsed.
Credits Earned: 0 (Funds seized).
Gaming token revoked: 1
— PENALTY APPLIED: THE HOUSE'S TREAT —
The curse you worked so hard to shatter has been reassembled using the balance you just lost. Its rank has been raised, its stats multiplied, and unfortunately for you, it remembers the pain of its previous wounds perfectly.
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I swallowed hard. That, without a doubt, meant I was completely screwed. A new blizzard erupted in the area, sweeping through with three times the ferocity of the last one. The gust lifted me off the asphalt and dragged me several meters backward, leaving me no chance to grab onto any debris to steady myself. The wind cut like blades of ice, shredding my clothes and snatching away my frog hat.
«Thank goodness I have 120 spares», I couldn't help but think as I steadied myself.
The creature's shattered remains began to knit together with a wet crunching sound that rose above the howling wind. Column-thick bones pierced its abdomen, weaving a sort of armor over musculature that kept expanding in an aberrant fashion, a mountain of taut muscle and black, distended veins that somehow merged into a harmony of flesh and ice, none of it looking out of proportion. When the misshapen abomination unleashed its first roar from its new maw, the sonic shockwave nearly burst my eardrums.
There was no time for tears. Gripping my hook with both arms, I planted my feet firmly and took aim at the wretch. It didn't matter how often it regenerated or how strong it became; under no circumstances would I let it continue to exist solely to terrorize innocent people. I raised my weapon, pointing the heavy tip toward its hideous face.
—¡I won't let the forces of evil get away with this! —I shouted at the top of my lungs.
The abomination took a heavy step, and a wave of cold swept across the area, coating the asphalt in a thick, slippery layer of frost.
¡That wasn't going to stop me!
I lunged forward with all my might just as the behemoth opened its jaws to unleash another ice attack. But my heroic charge lasted exactly one step.
My footing gave way on a patch of ice and traction vanished; my legs flew upward, and the world spun violently. I fell face-first onto the frozen ground, while the arcade token, the one I'd been holding, slipped from my fingers and landed flat on the ice a millisecond before my face smashed into it. My nose pressed against the center of the cold metal with such force that I heard a distinct mechanical click from the coin.
The beast's roar was cut short. From the exact spot beneath my nose, a wave of neon light exploded outward. A gigantic dome expanded, swallowing the entire parking lot and the wrecked cars in the blink of an eye. The clouds and blizzard vanished, replaced by a massive vaulted ceiling of flickering lights and golden static that completely sealed us off.
The sudden silence was broken by a digital throat-clearing and a voice that resonated from every wall of the dome.
—Hold on a moment... ¿what's going on here?
A long mechanical structure, resembling a brass tube, descended from the center of the ceiling. It was a floating Victorian-style telescope, but instead of a glass lens, a huge organic eye was embedded in it, blinking curiously. The contraption snaked down through the air until it hovered just centimeters from my nose, which was still pressed against the ground. The pupil contracted, focusing intently on me to study me.
—Oh, it's you... —the voice said. The telescope straightened, and the eye began to look around, assessing the ruined asphalt and the gigantic ice curse that had been frozen mid-attack by the system's intrusion — I suppose I need to adjust a few things.
—¡¿God?! —I asked, springing up with my nose throbbing. The telescope looked back at me before the "corners" of its eye slid upward.
—¡Bingo! — exclaimed the voice echoing through the dome. —¡I am your God! Or at least, that's what I'd try to sell you if you weren't... well, "that" version of yourself. ¿Where's my whiny little runt?
The gigantic curse decided it had had enough of being ignored. Breaking free from its paralysis with an enraged howl, the mountain of muscle and frost lunged straight at God. The telescope lazily swiveled to track it. Out of nowhere, a massive, three-fingered white glove materialized in mid-air and snatched the beast mid-charge, holding it several meters off the ground like a harmless ragdoll.
—Oops, sorry, big guy — said the telescope —,You need a minimum level of intelligence to play the game.
The curse's body contorted as its form collapsed inward toward its navel, until every trace of what had once been a frozen mass of hatred vanished from sight. Two coins floated in the empty space; to God's obvious dismay, they shot upward and fused directly into the dome's ceiling. The environment flickered with a shower of warm golden sparkles before stabilizing.
—¡Oh, come on! — God complained —I had no idea that was allowed. Your luck operates on some twisted logic, huh... I think I hate you.
Before I could demand an explanation, the local gravity cut out completely. My feet lifted off the asphalt, and I was left suspended in the void. The whole world began to spin around me; neon lights and the wreckage of the battle blurred into a dizzying vortex that churned my stomach. The place whirled like a carousel until the illusion of the ruined parking lot was torn away. When gravity returned, I didn't fall onto ice or debris. Instead, I landed softly on something ridiculously comfortable. The biting cold was gone, as were my injuries, and a bucket hat with a design similar to my own beanie sat on my head. I was now seated on a tiny, pastel-painted wooden chair inside an infinite room with padded walls. The entire space radiated a gentle warmth and was packed to the ceiling with mountains of stuffed animals of every imaginable shape, species, and color. Before me stood a delicate round table draped in a lace cloth, holding a steaming fine-porcelain tea set and a platter overflowing with sugar-dusted cookies.
I won't lie, my stomach was begging me to eat it all. But just as I was about to grab the first cookie, I looked up, sensing an impatient aura silently judging me.
The Victorian telescope was gone. Resting on the chair opposite mine was an absurd doll made of yarn and felt, the sort you'd see on a children's TV show. It had chubby, floppy limbs, thick visible stitching, and a huge red fabric mouth that seemed to move on its own. Two large, shiny blue buttons served as pupils for its plastic eyes, fixing a vacant stare on me as the plush creature lifted a tiny teacup with its little hands.
¡How cute!
—¿God?
—¡Tch! It sounds gross when "you" say it.
I turned a deaf ear to the insult. It was physically impossible for me to pay attention to his complaints while watching that little rag mouth bobbing up and down. It reminded me too much of the Muppets, with its small yarn body wiggling adorably to the rhythm of every syllable.
Ahhh, I felt an irrational urge to crush it in a hug. Restraining myself in that chair, keeping from pouncing on him, was a million times harder than fighting the curse to the death.
—I had planned to force him to sew lots of dolls for different mannequins, with a six-minute time limit while the place flooded with magma... ¡but you ruined it!
I could only hang my head.
—¡I'm so sorry, Mr. Muppet!
The little god flailed his arms in a tantrum that forced me to close my eyes. I was afraid that if I looked at him, I might do something to make him even angrier than he already was. The little God pulled a book, much larger than his own body, from somewhere I didn't bother to figure out, and flipped through the pages until he stopped at the one he was looking for.
—There's no clause against the participation of alternate personalities, and technically speaking, this is your first time here —He slapped the table, making me jump —¡Damn it, you aren't breaking any rules!
—Um...
I murmured, shrinking down in my seat. I was lost. I promised myself that next time I'd make sure to pay attention to the instructions, because having no clue what was going on was pretty frustrating.
—¿Don't you get it, girl? —With a snap of his fingers, he conjured an image of my brother in his tiny hands. —This little rascal plans to use you, squeezing out every last drop of your luck, to get free stuff and skip the trials while he's at it.
There was a note of barely concealed pride in his voice, which didn't surprise me at all, considering who he was talking about. However, looking closely at the image, I noticed it didn't do justice to just how adorable my brother is. I shook my head, swallowing the words I was about to say. I raised my hand timidly, and in response, the Muppet-god gave me the floor with an apathetic wave.
—Um... I don't mean to be rude, but I need to go back and report my success. Although, honestly, I have no idea if I actually completed the mission.
The little god leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms.
—Yeah, you're right. I want as little to do with you as possible. Just claim your initial casino reward and get out of here already.
¿Reward? That was the magic word for "free stuff," and I loved that kind of thing. A small chest appeared in front of me. I hurriedly took it in my hands and turned around, ready to leave in triumph, when his voice stopped me dead in my tracks.
—I need to put a stop to my champion's behavior anyway, or he won't stop using you — he murmured. —It would be a real shame if he stopped coming around here, ¿you know?
Before I could ask what the hell he was referring to, the entire world fell apart. The walls of the dollhouse collapsed heavily backward, revealing an open sky. Out of nowhere, the ground vanished beneath a torrent of saltwater that began to flood everything. Panic struck me, accompanied by the scent of the sea. In the distance, I could hear the squawking of seagulls, the creaking of sailing ship timbers, and the ghostly bustle of a pirate port.
The water rose to my knees, and a massive, dark whirlpool opened up just a few meters away. From the violent foam emerged the bow of an old fishing boat. I didn't even have time to scream before a heavy fishing net shot out from the deck, tangling itself around my body. The ship began to sink back into the whirlpool, dragging me down into the watery abyss. As I plunged into the darkness, clutching the chest to my chest while water suffocated my lungs, the tiny deity's voice echoed one last time.
—¿What is an operator who refuses to participate, if not a mere worm?
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Rémy landed hard on a beach.
—¿Did... did it work? — he murmured.
The idea had been extremely dangerous, but leeching off the luck of the being that had invaded his body, whether it was a conscious choice or just fate playing a cruel joke on them both, seemed like the most reasonable move for survival. That minor misfortune had already driven him to bankruptcy in the past, so the least he expected by way of compensation was a ridiculous number of priceless artifacts and extremely skilled allies to make up for all those hard-earned credits that had been snatched away from him.
It had seemed like a great idea on paper, but Rémy wasn't so sure anymore as he surveyed his surroundings. He had landed on a beach in some remote corner of the world, facing miles of seemingly endless ocean, with an island behind him that showed not the slightest sign of civilization.
—It can't be... — he whimpered, collapsing to his knees in the sand. —¡¿What did you do?! ¡All you had to do was press that stupid token!
One task. A single, simple task for which he had left endless specific instructions, detailed explanations, and emergency tips. And yet, it had all ended in a disaster he was completely unprepared for. Completely drained of energy and with no will left to fight, Rémy fell back onto the sand and closed his eyes, wishing it were all just a bad nightmare that would end the moment he switched off his mind.
The sand was soft, and for a brief moment, he tried to tune out reality by listening to the sea, but the peace lasted only a few seconds before a loud whistling sound pierced his ears, the unmistakable noise of something tearing through the air in freefall. Opening his eyes, he spotted a small shape plummeting from above.
The object grew rapidly as it drew closer, and panic paralyzed him when he realized the shape was accompanied by a scream of terror that grew louder by the second. His mind screamed at him to roll away, crawl, or do anything to get out of the way, but the object was far too fast. It crashed right into him. A girl with greenish hair landed squarely on his stomach; The impact forced all the air from his lungs, and his entire body went rigid in a spasm. He stared at her, mouth agape in silent, agonizing pain.
The girl didn't even seem to notice the poor wretch who had cushioned the impact of her undignified descent. She got to her feet and, like Rémy, began to survey her surroundings while casually brushing off her clothes.
Rémy, who considered himself a pragmatic sort, someone who easily adapted to errors, detours, or anything he hadn't foreseen, now found himself facing a moment in his life he had no idea how to handle. Before him, clad in the irksome sorcery school uniform and bathed in the sun's cruel rays, stood the one person he didn't mind running into again.
—Mai...
Rémy whispered, just as she turned around upon hearing his gasping, pained groans.
Five hours earlier, the Kyoto team had been advancing silently toward a single destination. The formation consisted of second-year students, Mai Zenin, Kasumi Miwa, and Mechamaru, alongside the third-years, with the notable exception of Aoi Todo. A few meters behind, supervising the march from a safe distance, were their teacher Utahime Iori and Arata Nitta.
It was a high-priority special mission. Alarms within the sorcery community had been triggered when various auxiliary managers reported an unusual spike in cursed energy at a sprawling, abandoned complex. According to the reports, disappearances had begun roughly three days prior. Groups of people of various ages had left their homes never to return, a pattern typical of predatory cursed activity. Had that been the extent of it, assigning the search-and-eliminate mission to a couple of students would have sufficed to handle the situation.
The true anomaly, the reason for such a major mobilization, was what was brewing at the heart of the complex. Visual reports confirmed the appearance of a Cursed Womb: a massive, pulsating, fleshy sac suspended within one of the complex's largest sections. It was the incubation phase preceding the birth of a Special Grade curse. The accursed fetus was using its own energy to lure lesser spirits into murdering the missing persons, using them as fuel to accelerate its metamorphosis. Or at least, that was the theory.
And if the egg managed to hatch, releasing the fully formed creature, the place would turn into a slaughterhouse impossible to contain without many lives being snuffed out before the school could intervene. They had to eradicate it before it finished forming, unfortunately for everyone, right in the middle of their journey, they realized just how painfully slow they had been.
«I want to go home», Miwa thought, gripping the hilt of her katana.
A suffocating pressure struck the entire group, forcing them to halt the instant the atmosphere vibrated. A massive surge of cursed energy exploded less than twenty minutes away—specifically at the abandoned complex they were heading toward.
—¿Domain Expansion? —Noritoshi Kamo asked.
—¡Hurry! — Utahime urged them.
Upon arriving at the site, facing a gaping hole in the wall, an elderly woman, her face etched with wrinkles and fear, was wandering aimlessly. She spun in circles, breathing heavily and clutching a broken phone to her chest. She was trapped in a loop of despair, not knowing what to do or how to call for help with a useless phone. Utahime approached her quickly, assessing her condition at a glance. She gave a sharp nod, and. with the exception of Arata, who stayed by the woman's side, the rest of the students moved past her and entered the complex.
—¿What happened here? ¡Tell me everything you saw!
the sorceress demanded. The woman started, on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
—¡A monster attacked our bus! — she screamed, her voice cracking —It came out of nowhere and dragged the whole vehicle inside. We were going to die, but... a girl appeared. A little girl with white hair. She did things no human could do, dodging and striking in ways that defied logic. ¡Thanks to her, we had the chance to run for it!
—¿A white-haired girl? —Mai asked as she walked away, feeling a phantom pain in her face for some reason.
The teacher kept talking, blurting out panicked, incoherent nonsense that rendered Utahime's attempts to calm her down useless. The description of the person in question didn't match the profile of any known shaman, which was far more concerning.
¿An undercover student from the Tokyo school acting on someone else's orders? Unlikely. Several theories raced through her mind in a matter of seconds. Her first thought was that it could be a secret or exiled member of the Three Great Clans. After all, white hair inevitably brought the Gojo clan to mind, though the idea of anyone else possessing abilities comparable to Satoru's was absurd.
Her second hypothesis pointed to an independent curse user. Someone who had spontaneously awakened their technique and operated in the shadows for sheer amusement or financial gain. Impossible. even an orphaned prodigy would hesitate before charging at a beast capable of Domain Expansion.
Whatever the truth was, the situation had reached a critical level. An unregistered individual operating on their own was already dangerous enough, but a complete stranger daring to fight a Special Grade solo was a problem the jujutsu society could never afford to ignore.
Any theory was immediately cast aside. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. As they raced toward the epicenter, where the lingering traces of cursed energy were nearly suffocating, Mai felt time begin to slow. Every step felt sluggish; their bodies reacted out of a survival instinct before their minds could even process the threat.
An immense dome of absolute blackness erupted around them, expanding at a terrifying speed. Some tried to brake and flee toward the edges, but it was futile. The darkness devoured them completely.
In the blink of an eye, Mai's world ceased to exist. There was no light or sound, nor the comforting sensation of solid ground beneath her boots. She was submerged in a void so profound she couldn't even sense her own body heat or the beating of her heart. She tightened her grip on her revolver, but there was nowhere to aim. Everything was nothingness. Then, the silence was shattered by the roar of a furious ocean.
A torrent of saltwater flooded the void, sweeping them away amidst currents and foam. Through the murky water, Mai witnessed Miwa being sucked into a gigantic rum barrel that hurtled off into the distance; Kamo ensnared in a rusted fishing net attached to a colossal anchor plunging into the abyss; and Mechamaru being swallowed by the figurehead of a ghost ship. Before Mai could even attempt to swim, something immense and slimy whipped around her ankle. A giant tentacle, studded with rough suckers, gave a violent yank, dragging her down toward the ocean floor and stifling her scream in a trail of bubbles as the pressure crushed her consciousness.
When a flash of lucidity returned, he was no longer drowning. The ocean had vanished, replaced by the whistling of the wind in his ears. He was in freefall, plummeting at full speed toward the sands of an unknown beach.
The wind lashed at her face with such violence that she was forced to squint. Still disoriented by the abrupt transition, Mai flailed her arms, trying to steady herself in the midst of freefall. As she looked down, her initial confusion gave way to genuine awe. Spreading out beneath her was a landmass of colossal proportions. Its vast expanse of dense vegetation, mountains, and coastlines stretched to the horizon, making it seem more like a small autonomous county than a mere island. Interspersed among the thick foliage, peaks, and valleys rose what appeared to be structures of every kind. Outlines suggesting tall towers, sprawling walls, the remains of massive edifices, and even what looked like an industrial complex in the distance. Yet, the dizzying speed of her descent and the immense distance rendered all those shapes mere blurs, making it impossible to discern a single detail. She had no more time to analyze the scene, for the golden stretch of the coastline was rushing up to meet her.
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I'm a little curious. ¿What do you think of the story so far?
¡Don't be shy!