""Teacher!""
Upon seeing Satoru Gojo appear, Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara immediately called out, their voices carrying both surprise and unease.
It couldn't be helped.
After Riezel and Satoru exchanged glances, a pressure suddenly radiated from both of them, making the surrounding air feel noticeably heavier.
Satoru had an arm around Riezel's shoulder, a smile on his face, yet the gaze beneath his eyepatch seemed capable of seeing through everything, making Riezel distinctly aware that he was being watched.
Hence, although Riezel did not resist, a transparent glimmer suddenly flashed across his eyes as they met Satoru's gaze.
"Oh?"
Satoru raised an eyebrow, and the smile on his face grew wider.
Just like that, the two continued staring at each other, causing the atmosphere to grow heavier and heavier. By the end, even Yuji and the other two were beginning to have trouble bearing it.
"What are you doing, teacher?!"
Yuji, thick-skinned as ever, was the first to speak up and intervene.
"...We're in the middle of the street."
Megumi also spoke in a low voice, subtly implying what he meant.
"Seriously..."
Nobara, meanwhile, looked somewhat annoyed.
Under such circumstances, Satoru released his arm and laughed.
"Your name's Riezel Brynhart, right? Can I just call you Riezel?"
Satoru acted incredibly familiar with Riezel. He even pulled out his cell phone, looking as though he wanted to exchange contact information with him.
Riezel's expression immediately became somewhat strange.
"Are you trying to gather information about me?"
Riezel asked the question directly.
"Hmm... Not really?" Satoru thought seriously for a moment before giving up and going back to his usual carefree attitude. "I'm mainly just interested in you as a person. You don't gotta answer if you don't wanna."
Among those present, the one who objected to Satoru's statement was none other than Megumi, who still wore a stern expression.
"No, that's not right, is it? Does it really not matter?"
Finding out the identity and background of the special grade curse user was the first instruction issued by the higher-ups after the Juvenile Detention Center incident had ended. It was only natural to assume that Satoru's unusually quick return was partly related to this matter.
Yet Satoru was saying that none of this was important?
How could it not be important?
"C'mon, don't be so serious, Megumi," Satoru said casually, still looking as carefree as ever. "I'm different from those old geezers up top who wanna control everything. Everyone's got their own privacy, so we should respect it. Besides..."
He looked at Riezel, and the eyes beneath his eyepatch seemed as though they could see through everything, making him grin.
"My 'eyes' don't make mistakes. You really don't have any cursed energy. You don't even have that extremely faint amount of cursed energy that an ordinary person would have, yet you've got another enormous source of foreign power."
"Maybe that's why I can't sense that negative emotion everyone possesses from you. Instead, I feel an aura that's incredibly dazzling and scorching."
"Yeah, just like the sun."
Satoru's words caused Riezel's eyes to flicker.
Satoru's eyes were indeed extremely special, probably even more so than Charlotte's heightened intuition, so Riezel was not surprised in the slightest that they could see through some of his secrets.
Because of Pioneer of the Sun, Riezel himself possessed a trace of a spiritual physique, one that was close to that of a sun spirit, which was why Satoru could sense such a scorching and dazzling aura from him.
As for the enormous foreign power he had sensed, it was naturally the magical energy contained within this body.
Unlike the magical energy that Riezel had refined from his mind through the Falna originating from the world of Danmachi, this was the magical energy possessed by the people of the Akasha Continent, originating from the 'Gate.'
Speaking of which, there was one thing that had to be mentioned.
Ever since Riezel had obtained the Divine Ring of Life and used one of the ring's effects, the damaged Gate within his body had actually been completely repaired.
Because the Divine Ring of Life was an ancient treasure capable of detecting all negative conditions affecting its wearer and restoring them to a flawless state, it had naturally detected the abnormality within the damaged Gate in Riezel's body and completely repaired it.
Because of that, Riezel was actually capable of using the magical energy contained within his body. However, since he was already used to using magical energy from the mind, his original magical energy had gradually become almost useless.
Meanwhile, one of his highest-rank development abilities, Spirit Healing, meant that Riezel had practically never experienced mental exhaustion, nor had he ever encountered a problem with insufficient magical energy.
As a result, the only purpose his original magical energy currently served was to replenish the magical energy of Divine Meloe. At most, he could also allow it to circulate through his bloodstream when using Sun Breathing, providing a slight enhancement.
Aside from that, it had little practical use.
As a result, when his mind was not being used for magic, it would not be converted into magical energy, meaning it could not be perceived by Satoru's eyes. Instead, it was the magical energy originating from his body that Satoru's eyes had detected.
Riezel gave Satoru a deep look before answering his earlier question.
"If you mean my physical age, then I'm seventeen. I'll be eighteen soon."
As soon as Riezel said that, Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara were stunned.
"Seventeen? Doesn't that mean you're only two years older than me?"
Yuji was visibly surprised.
"So young... Honestly, just judging by looks, you even look younger than Senior Okkotsu."
Megumi spoke in a low voice.
"No way! You're only one year older than me?"
Nobara looked even more incredulous.
It was not that Riezel's appearance was deceptive compared to his age. Rather, the strength he had displayed earlier was simply too overwhelming, making the three reluctant to believe that someone this powerful could actually be around the same age as them.
"Physical age, huh..."
Only Satoru seemed to have noticed something in particular from Riezel's words, his expression becoming somewhat meaningful.
"Don't look at me like that." Riezel glanced at Satoru. "I'm definitely younger than you, anyway."
If he remembered correctly, Satoru should have been twenty-eight, not yet thirty.
And Riezel?
In his previous life, he had graduated from university at the age of twenty and then spent several years traveling around the world. After transmigrating to the Akasha Continent, less than two years had passed by the present. Adding everything together, his true age was around twenty-five or twenty-six, the same age as Charlotte.
Naturally, that made him younger than Satoru.
Of course, age no longer held much meaning for Riezel since his true lifespan was longer than that of long-lived races such as elves. If his age were measured relative to his own lifespan, he was probably equivalent to a baby?
For that reason, Riezel had gradually stopped caring about discussions regarding his age.
Furthermore...
"Although I'm not in any jujutsu school, and I really haven't found a place to live yet, there's one thing you got wrong."
Riezel turned toward Satoru and suddenly smiled.
"Before, I didn't have cursed energy."
"But now..."
Riezel extended his hand and raised one finger.
*WHOOSH!*
With a sound resembling the sudden ignition of flames, a dense negative energy began to burn like fire from Riezel's fingertip.
""!!!""
At that moment, the pupils of everyone present, including Satoru, suddenly contracted.
In front of the four of them, Riezel calmly spoke.
"I've already learned how to refine it—cursed energy."
For Riezel, it was not difficult.
In this world, as long as one was a jujutsu sorcerer, one could refine cursed energy from faint emotions. And in Riezel's perception, what was known as cursed energy was essentially negative mind.
Since he frequently converted mind into magical energy and used mind to cast magic due to the power system of the world of DanMachi, as long as he understood the principles and grasped the concepts and nature of cursed energy, he could naturally extract the negative aspects of mind and refine them into cursed energy after some experimentation.
"It's a shame I don't know any cursed techniques. Otherwise, I could use one right away." Riezel withdrew his cursed energy and smiled slightly at Satoru. "Why don't you teach me how to use one, Teacher Gojo?"
Upon hearing that, Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara simultaneously turned their heads toward Satoru. Yuji's expression looked especially dejected.
"I haven't even learned how to use cursed energy yet..."
Yuji's voice sounded somewhat miserable as he spoke.
Although he appeared to be quite familiar with Megumi and Nobara, they were all newcomers who had only recently entered the jujutsu world and begun taking on missions.
Megumi and Nobara were relatively better off. Both of them had already been learning their cursed techniques and exorcising cursed spirits before enrolling in school, so they could be considered fairly proficient in using cursed energy and cursed techniques.
Yuji, on the other hand, had it considerably worse.
He was a genuine rookie within the jujutsu world. He had only recently learned about the existence of cursed techniques and, because of certain special circumstances, had been recruited by Satoru into a jujutsu high school, becoming a jujutsu sorcerer.
For someone like him, let alone a cursed technique, he had not even learned how to refine cursed energy.
Because of that, Yuji could only rely on cursed tools to kill his enemies in battle. No matter how outstanding his physical abilities were, without knowing how to refine cursed energy, he could not kill cursed spirits that could nullify physical attacks.
In his eyes, Riezel's statement of 'I've already learned how to refine it' was an enormous blow.
"Hahaha!"
Under everyone's gaze, Satoru suddenly laughed.
It was not the kind of smile that had been hanging on his face until just now, but genuine laughter that openly expressed his delight.
"Interesting! You're really an interesting kid!"
Laughing loudly, Satoru raised a hand and slightly lifted his eyepatch, looking at Riezel with the eye beneath it.
"Sure! I'll teach you!"
A bold, fearless smile appeared on the face of the strongest jujutsu sorcerer of the modern era.
"Let's see just how far you can take this!"
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[A bonus chapter for reaching 400 Power Stones]
[Support and get early access to upcoming chapters at: patreon.com/VALRRR]