[Third Person POV]
After almost an hour, Hajime and the restrained hydra stopped in the middle of the forest.
Placing the hydra down, Hajime set up as many magical barriers as he could, even using his quirk, in preparation for the next stage.
While he'd already had one rogue magician attached to Yatsufusa, that was a quick affair due to how weak they were. Now? He was about to take control of an ultimate class being, and although it wouldn't make too much noise, Hajime needed to be safe for what he would do before killing them.
So far, when using the soul fruit, Hajime had only used his soul energy for his tests.
That meant he had almost no practice with others' soul energy.
On top of that, there were two different forms of soul energy that he could work with.
The first was the external soul energy that your body naturally produced, basically the energy that Touki uses. The second was the internal soul energy that makes up your soul.
In theory, both are near infinite sources of energy, but both have abysmally slow recovery rates. External soul energy recovered several times slower than magic, while internal soul energy recovered over a thousand times slower than that.
That was why, while most soul injuries were not untreatable, without something like Sephiroth Graal, they were either fatal or permanent scars.
Asia's loss of Twilight Healing ripped her soul open, but the rate at which her soul recovered from the injury was almost nonexistent compared to the soul energy that flowed out of her.
It was like rapid blood loss; unless you get an IV to replace the missing blood, you die. In Asia's case, she would need enough soul energy to sustain herself until the soul injury healed, something that was extremely unlikely to happen.
Now, what did that have to do with Hajime's practice?
Well, using the soul fruit to make homies meant taking internal soul energy and infusing it into an object. Recovery was easily possible thanks to the soul fruit, which passively blocked the leak of the soul while also utilizing external energy to accelerate the recovery of internal soul energy.
Despite that, though, there was another option that benefited him more: using others' internal soul energy.
Doing that would allow him to skip the recovery process completely and create more homies. It also utilized a resource that would usually be wasted after a fight. After all, if he was already going to kill them, then it doesn't really matter if he takes their soul. Finders keepers.
With the barriers up, Hajime felt much more comfortable starting his test.
The hydra, still sealed, squirmed as Hajime walked closer, as if it understood that something bad was about to happen, its three deformed human faces all showing a look of growing terror.
Focusing on the energy in front of him, using the soul fruit as a conduit, Hajime tried taking a little bit of the hydra's internal soul energy.
As he almost surgically removed the energy, the hydra spasmed in place once the energy was lost, with a minor surge in energy following, caused by Hajime not plugging the soul injury.
Grabbing some external soul energy a little more forcefully, Hajime used it like a cork, plugging up the hole. Though he knew it was only temporary, that was fine since he just needed to try some things out quickly.
Taking a nearby rock, Hajime infused it with internal soul energy, similarly to when he created his first homies.
Unfortunately, the first attempt was unsuccessful.
While it created a homie, it was functionally braindead.
The others could at least move; even Anemoi, who was just a compass, could float around without hitting something. This rock gained a face, then proceeded to jump up and down, rolled onto its face, and continued jumping.
Hajime suspected it might have had something to do with either the hydra itself or the ritual that created it.
He didn't know enough about either the ritual or souls to be sure, but considering the rogues mutilated both body and soul with the ritual, at least if the large spiritual blob in the hydra was anything to go by, then it was almost certainly the cause.
The soul and body reflected one another, similarly to how evil pieces affected oneself. So with the body and soul changed so drastically and recklessly, the entire hydra's being is barely keeping itself together.
From what Hajime could tell, the monster's soul looked like several different colors of playdough rolled together until they formed a new color. He still saw traces of the original colors, but nothing that could be restored to its original state.
Seeing that his new homie was the spiritual equivalent of a failed abortion, Hajime tried extracting the energy from it to see if it was usable again.
As the energy left the rock, it screeched a loud, horrifying noise that startled Hajime for a few seconds.
He honestly didn't realize that's what it would be like for it, though. Thinking about it, it was probably that rock's equivalent of having your heart ripped out. No wonder it was so loud.
Though Hajime tried to get all of the energy out of the rock, some remained, clinging to the rock's very essence in a way Hajime couldn't understand.
The rest, which Hajime was holding, was generally fine, though there was a slight change to it, which he assumed was due to temporarily becoming its own soul, even if only for a few seconds.
Hajime spent the next hour testing how to use the soul energy, leaving several rocks screaming in pain.
After that, Hajime was hoping that was the weirdest thing he would ever experience.
Once all his testing was done, the hydra was noticeably weaker, as if its soul was stabbed dozens of times, which was pretty accurate all things considered.
Seeing as he had nothing else to test for now, Hajime took out Yatsufusa and stabbed the hydra in the heart.
The hydra turned to dust, while he felt Yatsufusa gained another connection to it.
-----
After removing all the barriers around him, Hajime spent the next three days hunting rogues, finding two fallen and three devils.
Though Yatsufusa could hold more strays, Hajime could always get them later.
Instead, Hajime was heading over to Tsushima.
When asking Yasaka about places with little presence in supernatural Japan, that was one of the places that caught his eye.
An island located several miles off the coast between Japan and Korea, where both factions are at their weakest, and with little mythology related to that place. There are only a few shrines on the island, and even then, those shrines are barely noticed by the gods, who focus more on shrines in major cities.
Originally, the Japanese and Korean gods fought over it centuries ago, but during one of their fights, the leyline was damaged, blocking magic from properly suffusing energy throughout the island.
After World War II, it was considered a neutral area, meaning the gods weren't allowed to claim it for their pantheons. With the gods losing interest in fighting for it, other supernaturals stopped caring, too.
There were no magical resources there, so the only reason Japanese or Korean mages went there was to strengthen their country's claims and try to get benefits from the gods.
Now, there were fewer than ten magic families there, each with fewer than five members.
It was a magic ghost town.
It was perfect.
The lack of people meant that a couple of magic barriers would be enough to defend his base.
Another benefit was that, if he could either recruit or move the magic families, he would basically own the island, which would allow him to do whatever he wanted.
If that were the case, then he could ward the entire island to know when any magic users arrive.
As for the distance, that wasn't an issue thanks to his vanishing cabinets.
Putting one in Kyoto and one in Tsushima, and he'd be able to travel between the two at will.
-----
Hours later, after traveling on both a train and a ferry, Hajime arrived at Tsushima Island.
Hopping off the boat, Hajime could practically feel the lack of magic permeating the air.
If this island felt like it had a hundred units of energy in the air, the rest of Japan felt like it had several thousand, peaking in places like Kyoto and Tokyo.
Here, magic felt like water in the desert.
Casting a fireball spell, Hajime could easily feel the difference.
All the parameters of his spell felt weaker.
Speed, distance, power, it all felt like they were cut in half.
It was no wonder that no bigger groups were here.
The lack of magic likely made being a mage on this island pointless.
As for why there were any magicians at all? Probably a mix of having grown up on the island and old age.
Even in the human world, it was shrinking in population, with only older people remaining who had grown up there, while everyone else left for the cities in search of more opportunities.
Hajime wouldn't complain about it, though, since it benefited him so much
Those people who left weren't exactly wrong in doing so. The island was dying, so those with a future left, while those without one stayed.
Still, Hajime was grateful for the fact that, given how unimportant this island was, he could easily stand to gain the most if he played his cards right.
-----
[Unknown POV]
It was late at night when I entered the hospital room.
Though usually I tried to greet people by surprise in their homes to laugh at their reactions, I wasn't sure when they'd be released from the hospital.
Tahara Kiku went missing two weeks ago, according to the police's records.
Eventually she ended up in that cult's hideout, seeing things most people wouldn't normally see.
I was especially curious about it since she remembered everything.
With all the other victims' memories being the same, it was clear that someone, likely their savior, altered their memories, keeping them in the dark according to supernatural law.
That she could still remember what happened likely meant she had high potential to use magic.
Knocking on the door, I heard her angrily speaking.
"I already told you! I know what I saw!"
From what she said, it was easy to guess that despite everything, the police thought she was crazy.
After all, how could magic exist if its existence was being kept from you?
Entering the door, she was surprised that it wasn't a cop entering the room.
"Who are you?!" She yelled, hoping to get a nurse's attention.
"Relax, I'm not here to hurt you. I came here because of your story."
"Oh, so you think I'm crazy, too?" She snarkily asked.
"What's so crazy about magic?" As I responded, I created a magic circle in front of my hand, not too big, but enough to confirm she was sane, or as sane as any magician is.
Her jaw dropped in shock, as if seeing this for the first time. Although I guess it was the first time she was certain of what she was seeing.
"Now, are you willing to listen?"
"What- Who are you?"
"Call me Azazel."
__________
Author's Note:
I briefly mentioned the island without naming it in Return Home. For a minute, I thought I had gone crazy while looking for it, thinking I didn't mention it at all.
Thanks for reading; I'll see you next time!