It didn't take long for Mahiru to work out exactly who had posted the "bounty on Riko Amanai" she'd tracked down this time.
So it was that person from the New Shadow Style…
Catching sight from afar of the figure seated in the place of honor before the shrine—the one the young man addressed as "Teacher"—Mahiru understood completely.
She really hadn't seen this old woman coming.
Because although the old woman was written to run through the entire story, she'd actually shown up for only a few pages in the final chapters, sped past like a mere speed bump—so ever since crossing into this world, Mahiru had never once given her a thought.
With a clatter.
Under everyone's watching eyes, Mahiru set the coffin on the ground. "Hello, I'm here to collect the bounty."
Smiling sweetly, the very picture of good behavior, she laid the coffin flat and lifted one corner of the lid just a fraction.
The old woman in the seat of honor felt her pupils tremble.
Because she'd caught sight of Riko Amanai's serene "sleeping face" inside.
At a glance, it truly looked like a corpse.
The old woman leaned forward slightly, wanting a closer look, but by then Mahiru had already shut the coffin again.
"So, Granny, where's my bounty money?" the girl asked, still smiling sweetly.
In truth, by her original plan, once she'd arrived and laid eyes on the person behind the bounty, she could have made her move right then.
But now she decided to hold off a little longer.
Because she'd sensed the presence of a Culling Game [Passage] here.
She was curious just what this old woman had been up to through the Culling Game. So she'd ask a few more questions and coax some intel out of her.
The old woman frowned. "Open the coffin lid."
"No can do." Mahiru shook her head. "I need to see the bounty first."
"Hand over the Star Plasma Vessel's body first. We need to confirm her identity."
Mahiru spread her hands, still smiling. "But I already let you see Riko Amanai's body, didn't I? The least you could do is let me see the bounty."
As she spoke, she reached out and grabbed the strap on the side of the coffin, making as if to hoist it onto her back again.
"Don't tell me… you can't actually produce the bounty at all? In that case, I'll just be on my way."
That nearly made the old woman laugh with rage. Leave? What a joke.
Were the brats these days really this arrogant?
Didn't she realize she could no longer escape?
So the old woman dropped the act altogether and simply spread her hands. "I don't have any bounty money."
The girl pretended to be stunned. "What?"
"Exactly what it sounds like." The old woman gave a booming laugh. "You fool—the bounties on the site never came with a Binding Vow. What kind of little brat actually believes something like that? I'll say it again: we have no bounty money. But seeing as you're a promising seedling, and you really did help us kill the Star Plasma Vessel, I'll grudgingly give you a different reward."
The old woman tapped her fingers on the armrest of her chair, and a faintly glowing insect drifted out from beside her, floating and swaying, giving off an uncanny aura of Cursed Energy.
"Come, form a Binding Vow with me. Become my disciple, my subordinate," the old woman said, looking down on the blue-haired girl from on high. "Serve me with all your heart, and one day I'll carve out a place for you on the map of the jujutsu world."
Oh boy, this old woman. Mahiru was tickled.
"Sure, I'd love to be your disciple."
The old woman blinked.
She hadn't expected the girl to agree so readily. Now she grew wary.
Because she remembered how Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto had been backstabbed and gravely wounded by this girl.
She narrowed her eyes, deciding to set the Binding Vow they were about to form to its very strictest tier.
"By the way, Granny, what is that firefly by your side?" Mahiru suddenly asked.
"This is the secret behind how our New Shadow Style has grown so many disciples," the old woman answered.
The blue-haired girl tilted her head. "But as far as I know, the New Shadow Style isn't like that at all."
The old woman snorted through her nose and beckoned to Mahiru. "Come here, then. Feel it for yourself."
Mahiru's eyes lit up. "Really?"
The girl climbed the steps with light, easy footfalls and came to stand before the old woman.
The old woman chuckled. "Get a good taste of what true greatness is. They call you a genius at Jujutsu High, but that's only because those people are ignorant."
The disciples around them had already been at ease, and at the old woman's words they broke into snickers.
Everyone present was curious what expression this "ignorant girl" would wear once she witnessed the power of the Culling Game. They were looking forward to a good laugh.
Then the old woman actually raised her hand and sent the glowing insect toward Mahiru.
Mahiru reached out and touched it. At once, the familiar electronic chime of the System sounded in her ears, and the familiar System panel unfolded before her eyes.
"Faction affiliation confirmed: [New Shadow Style]."
—A line of text surfaced on the panel.
But the next second, the panel began to shudder. Bzzt—bzzt—
The display abruptly scrambled, bursting into snow-like blocks of color.
The System's voice turned into a rapid buzzing, becoming the most violent of alarms.
The panel was going haywire! And it wasn't only Mahiru's System acting up!
The Systems of everyone present—including the old woman and her disciples—all broke into the same scrambling and the same alarms!
[Warning! Warning!
The old woman and her disciples all went pale.
[Warning! Warning!]
On the System panel that had popped up before each of them, a huge red exclamation mark glared.
[Warning! Warning!]
Their heads snapped up, and they stared in disbelief at the blue-haired girl standing before the old woman at the very center.
[Attention all Culling Game players—high-risk Cursed Energy signature detected!!—]
The girl was studying the alarming panel before her, watching the words "Faction affiliation confirmed: [New Shadow Style]" blur and dissolve away, and she arched an eyebrow, mildly surprised.
"So it even put me on a blacklist?"
[Confirmed: Cursed Energy signature of high-risk target "Mahiru"! All players, go on alert at once!!—]
"You…" The old woman looked up at Mahiru, her eyes blank. "Who are you…?"
"Shh." Mahiru pressed a finger to her lips with a smile. "Not so loud. This isn't the sort of thing we want that Sleeping Beauty over there to hear."
Boom—the battle was about to erupt.
Cursed Energy surged into the sky.
The disciple nearest the old woman shouted, drew his blade, and charged at Mahiru. The Cursed Energy of a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer was strikingly conspicuous—in sheer volume it was in no way inferior to Miwa Ran's.
This was what these people had counted on all along. They truly weren't afraid of a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer.
"New Shadow Style: Draw!"
The disciple came drawing his blade, his body and the flash of steel quick as lightning.
At the same moment, more disciples around them realized something was wrong and swarmed in together, besieging Mahiru at the very center of a ring of blade-light.
But in an instant, mighty Cursed Energy poured out of Mahiru's body. Laughing softly, she parted her lips, and a cursed seal surfaced at the tip of her tongue—
"—Freeze."
In a flash, every last person present was pinned where they stood, unable to move a muscle.
They were all seized by sheer horror.
"You—this is—?!" Frozen in place, the old woman shrieked in terror. "This is the Inumaki clan's Cursed Speech?!"
Before her words had even faded, Mahiru had already flung out a great spread of paper slips.
Nearly a hundred slips leapt into the air, drifting like a snowfall across the sky.
Cursed Energy rose, and thunder came crashing down.
Blossoming lightning blazed across the heavens, rolling thunder booming back and forth through the valley to blanket the whole battlefield. It was as if someone had detonated a colossal mass of explosives—mountains crumbled, the earth split, and the entire shrine was blasted away by the shockwave.
The crowd had only just torn free of the Cursed Speech when the terrible thunder blasted them tumbling in every direction.
The vast majority of the disciples lost their ability to fight in an instant. Against this single strike a Grade 2 had no way to resist at all, and even a Grade 1's Cursed Energy defenses were shattered to dust in a heartbeat—this was in no way the level a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer should possess!
The old woman's face twisted grimly as she retreated step by step under the guard of two disciples—but those two disciples were flayed raw by the thunder in the process.
"What on earth are you?! What kind of thing are you?!" The old woman was panicked to the very edge. "You actually disguised yourself as a Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer! How cunning of you!"
She'd been fooled! Utterly fooled!
The Cursed Speech the girl had just used was entirely outside all the intel.
And the Cursed Energy she'd wielded just now towered far above the level of any Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer.
This blue-haired girl she'd so thoroughly looked down on was, in fact, the "most troublesome calamity" recorded by the Culling Game System!
Damn it! Damn it all!!—
"Stop her! All of you, stop her!" the old woman screeched. "Don't let her get near me!"
Because these disciples had all formed contracts of obedience with the old woman, no matter how little they wanted to face the terrifying monster before them, they had no choice but to grit their teeth and charge.
And Mahiru wasn't about to show mercy.
"First, you'll all forget that I used Cursed Speech." Mahiru spoke again, the cursed seal on her tongue glowing. "Second—Re-Contract Manifestation."
Rumble—thunder again.
This time, the thunder Mahiru unleashed carried double the power of the last.
The Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerers still able to move were swept up by the sky-filling lightning and blasted away one and all, utterly stripped of the ability to fight.
The whole hilltop had an entire layer shaved clean off it by the lightning.
With a clattering rush, broken stones rained down from above.
The old woman crawled behind a boulder and curled up, her face full of panic, caked with grit and dust.
The truth was, she wasn't strong. Right now she couldn't even beat the most ordinary Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerer.
Which meant that if even her disciples could do nothing to Mahiru, then she herself had no other means of resistance left.
No—there was, in fact, one last move.
With trembling fingers she opened the System panel before her, flipped to the shop, and deftly found the item she'd long coveted but had never been willing to buy.
—[Cursed Spirit Legion].
Buy this item, and the Culling Game System would automatically invoke the Cursed Technique of Cursed Spirit Manipulation, providing the purchaser with the support of a legion of Cursed Spirits.
The more points invested, the more Cursed Spirits could be summoned and controlled.
"All of it—I want all of it!"
Half-incoherent, the old woman reached out and manually dragged the points to be submitted all the way to the maximum.
The points earned from harming ordinary people and Jujutsu Sorcerers, the points earned from completing Culling Game missions… every last point, all of it, poured in!
She'd committed every evil imaginable, so she'd amassed a great many points. Now she emptied them all!
Once she bought this item, all she'd accumulated would be wiped back to square one overnight.
But now was no time to worry about that!
The System chimed and threw up a dialog box, asking whether she was certain she wanted to purchase the item.
"Kill her! Kill her for me!" the old woman screamed like a madwoman, and tapped Confirm.
And so, the next moment, countless twisted howls, as though rising from the floor of an abyss, came surging up from deep beneath the earth.
With a rolling roar, the ground shuddered violently and burst open in a massive fissure.
Black "spring water," like an upside-down waterfall, gushed out of the crack and shot straight for the heavens.
—This spring water was countless Cursed Spirits crammed together!
Thousands upon thousands of Cursed Spirits swarmed out along the Culling Game's Passage, surging into the world. An eerie Cursed Energy flooded the entire sky in an instant, dyeing the heavens dark.
"Oh?" Mahiru looked up, a touch surprised.
So many Cursed Spirits. A bit like the wave of Cursed Spirits Kenjaku had loosed back when they'd fought.
The girl was surprised, but not afraid. She'd beaten Kenjaku before—why would she fear these?
Still, it was a nuisance.
Because using Idle Transfiguration against these Cursed Spirits would leave traces that might get Satoru Gojo and the others putting things together.
So she decided to take the most direct route of all.
"—Re-Contract Manifestation." Mahiru drew out a scroll, and it burned in flames of Cursed Energy.
Right now, both Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto were in the hospital feigning grave injuries. That was because the old woman of the New Shadow Style had very likely planted spies everywhere. If they didn't see with their own eyes that Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto were lying in a hospital bed, they most likely wouldn't believe Mahiru.
But being in the hospital didn't mean they couldn't rush to the scene.
Mahiru had long since signed—and once already fulfilled—a contract with them: "No matter where Mahiru is, the moment she calls, Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto must appear at her side at once to lend aid."
The shameless brilliance of the Re-Contract Technique showed itself in this moment.
Now Mahiru re-created that contract once more.
And so, Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, far away in a Tokyo hospital, answered the summons, crossed space in an instant, and appeared right here.
Boom—boom—two masses of Cursed Energy shot skyward like pillars of light, coming down to Mahiru's left and right.
"Whoa-ho, what's all this commotion?" Satoru Gojo—plastered head to toe in casts to sell his injuries, now looking like a man carved from stone—glanced up at the sky full of Cursed Spirits and let out a marveling breath.
"…This many Cursed Spirits… is it Cursed Spirit Manipulation?" Suguru Geto—wrapped head to toe in bandages to sell his injuries, like a mummy with only his eyes showing—looked up at the sky, his gaze flickering faintly. "Or… is it just my imagination?"
Far off, the old woman hiding behind the rock saw Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto arrive, and her mouth fell open with a strange, croaking "gah."
It was over. She was certain she was finished.
Whether these Cursed Spirits could actually kill Mahiru… she'd never held out much hope to begin with.
Now, seeing Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, whatever hope remained dropped straight to zero.
Oh! That's right!
And in that very instant, a flash of inspiration struck the old woman.
The high-risk entity flagged by the Culling Game…
The mysterious blue presence that had suddenly appeared in Tokyo of late, the one the jujutsu world watched with the utmost vigilance…
This monster disguised as a genius girl, whatever it truly was, had emerged precisely after that mysterious blue presence had grown scarce!
Clutching the intel the Culling Game had handed her, the old woman understood all at once—the girl before her was the very mysterious blue presence the entire jujutsu world was desperately hunting and desperately guarding against!
That's it! If she named this blue-haired girl's identity aloud, told Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, it might set off infighting among them!
She might still have a sliver of a chance to live!
Yes—that was it!
So she opened her mouth and bellowed, "I'm an idiot!!"
Then her pupils shrank, and she clawed frantically at her own throat.
Her words had been forcibly rewritten!
"No telling, okay?" Faint and indistinct, she heard the blue-haired girl's smiling voice drift past her ear.
The voice carried the compulsion of Cursed Speech.
As it turned out, the girl's command had already reached her ear through a means the old woman couldn't comprehend, sealing off any possibility of passing the intel along.
The gap between them was simply too vast.
The old woman's face went ashen.
____
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