"It's Hachioji then…"
An hour later, the car came to a stop in front of a dull gray building.
I stepped out and lifted my head to examine the four-story structure more closely.
Several windows were shattered, blackened cracks spreading outward like spiderwebs.
The walls were stained by time and neglect, and even from outside, an ominous pressure seeped from within.
Just from that presence alone, I could tell, there was a stronger curse inside.
"Shigenori-san! You came very quickly!"
Both of us turned toward the voice.
A woman in her mid-thirties walked over briskly.
She wore a coat suit, her brown hair neatly tied back.
Her appearance was plain, but the pressure she carried was anything but ordinary.
Is she also an ex-sorcerer?
I wondered.
Her gaze fell on me, and her smile froze slightly before she spoke in an amazed tone.
"You're really tiny! Practically the same age as my nephew! Are you really going to exorcise the curse?"
Instead of responding, I turned to Shigenori and pointed at her, giving him a clear look that said, please tell her to do her job immediately…
She seemed like a kind person, someone I wouldn't mind talking to under normal circumstances—but I can't talk, and I wasn't here to explain myself.
I'd rather prove things through action.
Understanding my intention immediately, Shigenori stepped forward and pulled her aside.
"Aoyama, stop talking. Let's set up the barrier."
Thankfully, this past month hadn't been wasted.
He had started to understand my intentions without me needing to type things out every time.
Still looking doubtful, the woman named Aoyama nodded and began chanting.
"Emerge from darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure."
Cursed energy surged upward.
A dark, translucent Veil spread across the sky before descending silently, wrapping the entire building like a funeral shroud.
"Inumaki-kun," Shigenori called out, nodding at me.
Now it was my turn.
The moment I stepped inside the barrier, the air grew heavy, pressing against my skin.
The dormitory looked as though it had been abandoned for decades, peeling paint, broken doors, and dust thick enough to leave footprints.
"Hee… hee… hihihi…"
A thin, eerie giggle echoed through the corridor.
I followed the sound deeper into the building, but the curse still refused to show itself.
Instead of searching blindly, I stopped in front of a broken mirror.
I loosened the scarf around my neck.
The snake and fang seal of the Inumaki clan on my cheeks reflected clearly on the glass.
Without hesitation, I spoke.
"COME FORTH."
A wave of cursed energy surged outward, rippling through the corridor and dragging something unseen toward the mirror.
The space warped violently, and soon a tiny figure surfaced within the reflection.
It resembled a child, but grotesquely twisted.
Its limbs were unnaturally small, a single eye sat in the middle of its forehead, and its mouth was stretched sideways across its face.
It struggled desperately, trying to break free from my cursed technique.
I didn't give it the chance.
"Die."
Another wave of cursed energy burst forth.
"GYEEEEEEHHHH!!"
The curse screamed as its form collapsed and evaporated into nothingness.
A sharp sound followed— KLANG!
The mirror shattered into countless pieces.
Silence flooded the building.
I extended my senses, enhanced by cursed energy.
Aside from a few low-level curses hiding in corners, there was nothing left.
"Die."
I spoke again.
In an instant, every remaining curse vanished.
A massive surge of cursed energy rushed into my small body.
My throat felt dry, uncomfortable, but manageable.
I could see it with my own eyes: dense waves of cursed energy swirling violently around me before finally settling, leaving behind a chilling sensation.
The cursed energy inside my body was now a complete mess.
This was the result of using my broken ability, Instant Death.
Normally, what had just happened should have been impossible.
But the more I used Instant Death, the more I began to understand how it worked, and why cursed energy flooded into me afterward.
The jujutsu world operates under a strict balance.
Sorcerers and curses exist under the same rules. Cursed techniques, cursed energy—everything follows this system.
When a curse is exorcised using cursed energy, that energy disperses and is recycled.
It may return to nature, be absorbed, born inside the body of sorcerer or eventually form a new curse born from human negativity.
This rule is absolute.
But my Instant Death ability exists outside that rule.
The curse dies before cursed energy can properly interact with it.
Which goes against the very rule of cursed being can only be killed by cursed energy.
The connection between the curse and the system is severed completely.
With nowhere to return and nowhere to be reborn, the rejected cursed energy has only one destination, The source of the rule's violation.
Me.
And that was why every time I used Instant Death, the cursed energy had nowhere to go but into my body.
At least, that was what I believed.
To truly understand my ability, I needed to use it more frequently and observe its effects carefully.
Theory alone wasn't enough, only repeated use and close examination would let me grasp its limits and consequences.
I walked toward the entrance.
The grade-2 mission that had already failed twice was now completely over.
Not even half an hour had passed since I entered the building.
If there had been any other curse capable of using mirror-to-mirror teleportation, it would have appeared the moment I issued my command.
So that twisted little curse was the sole source of all the trouble.
The command "Come forth" had forcibly dragged the hidden curse out into the open, and my Instant Death ability finished it off before it could even react.
Normally, I would avoid using this ability as much as possible.
But since I had already used it and completely disrupted the natural circulation of cursed energy, there was no point holding back now.
I decided to accumulate as much cursed energy as possible into my body before restarting my control training.
The more cursed energy I possessed, the more freely I could use my cursed techniques without suffering serious backlash.
It was time to move to the next location.
As I stepped out of the Veil, a voice called out to me.
"Huh? Inumaki-kun, what happened? Did you forget something?"