Daily Life

"Quite a few new games have come out lately."

Inside a large shopping mall, Suguru Geto held an exquisitely packaged box in his hands.

"Let me see."

Hearing there was a new game, Eiji leaned over as well.

"Mario has another new release?"

Seeing the familiar red cap, big nose, and overalls on the box, Eiji was immediately intrigued.

Eiji had loved Mario games in his previous life, but unfortunately, he could only play them in secret back then.

Things were different now. He could openly play with Suguru Geto.

Suguru Geto had excellent grades, so his parents were not overly strict with him. As a result, the two often played games at Eiji's house.

"Want to come over to my place and try it out?"

"Of course."

Suguru Geto also loved playing games.

Or rather, no boy could resist the joy of fighting alongside his best friend until dusk, each with a controller in hand.

Besides, Suguru Geto had other uses for games.

The strange abilities and stages in games often gave him inspiration.

Suguru Geto had subdued thousands of Cursed Spirits through Cursed Spirit Manipulation.

It was simply impossible for him to remember every Cursed Spirit's traits and use them flexibly.

It would take too much time and effort, and many of them would probably be useless even if he remembered them.

Thus, Suguru Geto had always given his Cursed Spirits simple classifications.

For example, which Cursed Spirits were suitable for scouting, which could serve as shields, which had high damage output...

After sorting the Cursed Spirits into simple categories, Suguru Geto would group together those that could work well with one another.

There were standard Cursed Spirit squads, with a frontline, support, and damage dealer assigned to each team.

There were also specialized squads assembled for specific purposes.

For instance, if the goal was to restrict an enemy's movements, he would place a Cursed Spirit capable of controlling water and Snow Woman on the same team.

That way, when Suguru Geto used Cursed Spirit Manipulation, he only needed to summon the Cursed Spirit team he had prepared in advance according to the situation.

Some of the inspiration for these combinations came from actual combat, while the rest came from games.

The bizarre abilities of monsters in games had quite a high degree of overlap with the equally bizarre Cursed Spirits.

Therefore, when playing games, Suguru Geto deliberately studied interesting monsters and traps in addition to the protagonist's party.

That was why Suguru Geto could always summon Cursed Spirits suited to the current battle.

The pleasant shopping trip continued.

After paying, Eiji went to the restroom and skillfully placed both of their shopping bags into his shadow.

"That really is convenient."

Watching the shopping bags vanish into Eiji's shadow, Suguru Geto felt a little envious.

Anyone who understood the convenience of having personal storage space understood it.

"Can't your Cursed Spirit Manipulation store things?"

"No. It can only store Cursed Spirits."

Suguru Geto shook his head.

"Then you could look for a Cursed Spirit that can store things."

"A Cursed Spirit that can store things?"

Suguru Geto rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"That's right. Some Cursed Spirits have abilities related to space and time. Although those abilities have restrictions and aren't much help in combat, they should be fine if you're only using them to store things."

For example, Toji Fushiguro's Inventory Curse Worm, or the Cursed Spirit that had trapped Mei Mei and Utahime for a while.

"That's a pretty good suggestion."

Suguru Geto decided that when taking commissions in the future, he would pay more attention to jobs where such Cursed Spirits might be present.

"Oh, sorry to keep you waiting."

Satoru Gojo, wearing sunglasses, appeared before them.

"You're so slow."

Eiji showed no mercy.

"It's because those people in the family kept dragging things out. Otherwise, I would've been here ages ago."

"Come to think of it, didn't you bring your Bodyguards this time?"

Eiji looked left and right but could not find the Yukata-clad men who often appeared with Satoru Gojo.

"If they came along, how could we have any fun? I sent them back."

Satoru Gojo waved a hand.

"Oh, right. Where are we going next?"

"The Comic Convention."

Eiji took out a Comic Convention flyer advertising the event being held at the mall.

"Let's go!"

The group quickly arrived at the Comic Convention venue.

The moment they entered, the three of them felt a visual impact rarely seen in everyday life.

The novel set designs, large numbers of exquisite hand-drawn illustrations, and all kinds of handicrafts caught their eyes.

"Look, over there."

Satoru Gojo pointed at a booth not far from the entrance, where Naruto and Sasuke were selling art books together.

"Those are living Naruto and Sasuke! I'm going over first."

"Satoru, don't run around inside the venue. You'll bump into someone."

Suguru Geto hurried after him.

Eiji followed closely behind.

Honestly, it was a very strange feeling.

They clearly knew that the people before them were only cosplayers, not actual anime characters who had somehow appeared in front of them.

Yet every time they saw these cosplayers at a Comic Convention, their eyes would light up, and they would unconsciously treat them as the real anime characters.

"Hey, Naruto, want to go eat ramen together?"

"Huh?"

Satoru Gojo suddenly appeared and invited Naruto.

"Sure! Ichiraku Ramen is the best."

After snapping out of it, Naruto gave Satoru Gojo a thumbs-up and flashed a sunny smile.

"Alright, let's head out right now."

Satoru Gojo grabbed Naruto's arm and was about to leave.

"Hey, hey, hey, wait! I haven't finished looking around the convention yet."

The boy cosplaying Naruto could not take it anymore. I thought you were just acting like a chuunibyou, but you're actually serious?

"Oh, it's Sakuragi Hanamichi."

Fortunately, a new figure caught Satoru Gojo's attention.

Beside them, Eiji picked up an art book from the booth and opened it.

Smack.

The next second, Eiji forcefully shut the art book with both hands.

Eiji blushed slightly.

"What's wrong?"

Suguru Geto, who had just grabbed hold of Satoru Gojo, noticed Eiji's strange reaction.

"Nothing. Didn't Satoru want to see Sakuragi Hanamichi? Let's go take a look together."

The group quickly made their way to the Slam Dunk booth.

"This one, this one, and this one too. Wrap them all up."

Satoru Gojo directly bought figurines of the entire main cast.

Eiji also picked out and bought several that he liked.

They were all childhood memories from back then.

Soon, several familiar figures entered Eiji's line of sight.

Artoria, Medusa, Golden Flash, Red A.

The cosplayers all looked highly authentic.

"This one's pretty good."

Eiji picked up a figurine of Artoria in Formal Attire and examined it closely.

"There are art books here too. Would you like to take a look?"

The stall owner enthusiastically promoted them to Eiji.

Eiji flipped through the art book in his hands. Some pages featured only one person, while others showed Teacher Kuzuki and Caster Mother together.

"This is drawn pretty well."

"You like Medusa too? Let me tell you, Medusa is super cool. A mature beauty with long hair and an eye mask is just the best. Just looking at Medusa is enough for me to eat three bowls of rice..."

More and more people soon gathered to discuss it. Some liked Artoria, while others liked Rin Tohsaka...

Eiji, who had initially managed to stay calm, was soon swept up by the atmosphere and joined the discussion and photo-taking crowd.