"Teenage Girl Brutally Murdered in Broad Daylight!!!"
The newspaper was pinned to the most prominent spot on the living room wall. Bold, blood-red headlines screamed the severity of the crime.
It had taken over the front page of the evening news.
"According to sources, the victim was a local high school student. By the time she was found, she showed no signs of life."
"The method of killing was extremely cruel and violent, causing significant social unrest. The perpetrator has already been apprehended."
To chase clicks and shock value, the unscrupulous paper didn't give a damn about the family's feelings. They published pixelated photos where you could still make out the mangled, bloody remains of the victim's torso.
The victim in that report was Kenmei's sister.
Sakura Isayama.
The story went that she was butchered in an alleyway by a "homicidal maniac." A passerby spotted the killer dismembering the body and called the cops, who arrived just in time to stop him.
Re-reading the article and staring at those gruesome photos, something strange happened. Kenmei felt absolutely no rage. No hatred that could spark anger. It was as if that part of him had been surgically removed.
This wasn't normal. His sister, the only family he had left, was brutally murdered. How could he, her brother, feel nothing toward the killer? A normal person would want to inflict the most horrific punishment imaginable on the culprit. That would be the sane reaction.
But "Anger" and "Hatred"—those two volatile emotions—no longer existed within him.
In Jujutsu terms, what happened to Kenmei could be classified as a unique type of "Heavenly Restriction."
Simply put: Equivalent Exchange.
Giving up something huge to gain something huge.
The most famous example was Toji Fushiguro, the "Sorcerer Killer." A man born without an ounce of Cursed Energy in exchange for a superhuman body that broke all known limits.
But Kenmei's case was different. His restriction was acquired, not innate.
So, what power did he gain in exchange for his "Anger" and "Hatred"?
The [Warhammer Simulator].
It happened the night he found out about the unknown, terrifying curse afflicting his sister—the one neither modern medicine nor Jujutsu could cure.
Kenmei had told his sister he wanted to go for a walk alone.
In this cruel world of sorcerers and curses, the two siblings had only each other. Just surviving took everything they had. And just when things were looking up, sickness came to torture her. Now, fate was threatening to strip away his only family.
Having been an orphan in his past life, he cherished this hard-won family bond more than anything.
But knowing the inevitable ending felt like a knife twisting in his heart.
Kenmei's eyes were bloodshot, looking like he wanted to devour the world.
"To hell with this world!"
"What did she do to deserve this?"
As his emotions spiraled, Kenmei didn't even notice what was happening.
On the back of his neck, a blood-red mark had begun to surface. It pulsed with a chaotic, cursed energy that rivaled the one killing his sister.
This mark, which had been dormant in him, was now fully active. Its purpose seemed to be amplifying Kenmei's resentment and hatred, magnifying the negative emotions in his heart a hundred, a thousand times over.
Unaware, Kenmei felt a hollow void in his chest ripping open wider and wider. Rage and hatred flooded his brain.
The eerie mark turned a deep, almost blackish red, growing more ominous by the second.
Finally, something snapped. A sharp pain shot through his brain, and he blacked out. He remembered nothing after that.
Cursed Energy comes from negative emotions. With that unknown mark driving his emotions haywire, Kenmei's output was strong enough to trigger a massive Cursed Energy rampage.
Then, the anomaly occurred.
[Detected host's extreme negative emotions "Anger" and "Resentment." System Awakening.]
A black hole-like object appeared on Kenmei, devouring his Cursed Energy like an endless abyss.
The curse on the back of his neck seemed to have a consciousness of its own. It morphed into a snarling, crimson skull, furious and trying to fight back, to tear apart this unknown intruder.
But it let out a pathetic shriek. It tried to flee Kenmei's body, realizing instantly that it was out of its league.
The curse dormant in Kenmei, no matter how hard it struggled, couldn't escape. The terrifying presence absorbed it whole.
[10%... 30%... 70%... 100%. Awakening Complete!]
[Loading...]
[Loading Complete!]
When Kenmei woke up again, he was lying in a hospital bed.
Beside him was Sakura, her eyes swollen from crying. Seeing her brother wake up, she immediately hugged him and started sobbing uncontrollably.
Kenmei, wrapped in his weeping sister's arms, was still a bit dazed.
Was he hallucinating?
Floating in front of his eyes were five burning, golden words only he could see:
[WARHAMMER SIMULATOR]
The moment he saw it, his eyes were drawn to a line of small text at the bottom of the minimalist interface. It carried the heavy weight of history.
It was written in a language that didn't exist in this world, yet he understood it perfectly.
It read, with majestic authority:
"No great sacrifice shall be in vain."
From that day on, Kenmei Isayama lost the ability to feel anger or hatred. In their place, he gained the power of the [Warhammer Simulator].
He didn't know where this thing came from or why it chose him.
Maybe it was a joke by the gods, or maybe fate just liked mocking him. But it was the last straw he had to grasp. He realized the key to exorcising the curse on his sister lay within this Simulator.
But no one knows which will come first: tomorrow or tragedy.
That newspaper article confirmed that fate was toying with him again.
While a desperate Kenmei was running himself ragged trying to meet the conditions to start the Simulator, he received the devastating news.
When the coroner led him to see Sakura, covered by a bloodstained white sheet, Kenmei thought painfully: Why did the Simulator only take my anger and hatred? Why didn't it take my sorrow and despair too?
The coroner caught him just before he collapsed to the floor.
Seeing each other again, their roles had changed drastically.
One living, one dead.
One victim, one bereaved family member.
The weight of those titles brought more than just despair to Kenmei. It felt like the sky had fallen.
Shaking off the hand trying to stop him from lifting the sheet, Kenmei rushed forward like a madman.
He ripped the white cloth away.
One look at the slab was enough to break him.
The state of the body was the real reason the coroner tried to stop him.
Kenmei's eyes went wide. He didn't even realize he had fallen to the floor.
Curled up helplessly beside the gurney, he buried his face in his knees and wept silently.
In that moment, he knew he was homeless. The happy little home he shared with his sister was gone.
As he cried, a red light flashed briefly in the depths of his eyes.
And he realized one thing.
The news reports, the TV, the radio—everything about Sakura Isayama's death was fake.
It was all a lie.
On the [Warhammer Simulator] status bar, Kenmei saw it clearly.
The moment he lifted that white sheet, a system notification popped up:
[Absorbed Cursed Energy. Points +100]
Points were the key to activating the Simulator. Points came from Cursed Energy. He knew exactly what this meant.
This wasn't a normal murder. It was a Jujutsu-related killing.
The killer was caught?
Kenmei didn't know the Japanese police had gotten that efficient.
Which meant the real "killer" was definitely still out there.
Was it a Cursed Spirit? A Curse User? Or maybe a Jujutsu Sorcerer?
It didn't matter. Kenmei was going to make that bastard regret ever being born.
Revenge! He had to have revenge!
Losing the ability to feel hatred and anger didn't mean he lost the will to retaliate.
But then, something unexpected happened. His dead sister returned to accompany him in a very different way.