"..." Akie accepted the doll charm from Jiu Ming with a strange expression. Could this thing really be as miraculous as he claimed? It was hard not to doubt it. "Does it really work?"
"Whether it works or not, there's no loss in carrying it around, right?" Jiu Ming said with a shrug. After all, it was hardly possible for her to believe him outright.
"It feels like a cursed doll," she muttered, attaching the doll to her phone as a charm.
"A cursed doll? I've got one too." Jiu Ming searched through his memories and said in all seriousness. At the same time, he turned the Card Collection Book upside down and flipped through it. Before long, he took out a new Sealed Card. After crushing it, a chibi familiar doll brimming with sunny cheer appeared in his hand.
"...That's cursed!?" Akie, seated opposite Jiu Ming, stared at the doll in his hand in utter disbelief. It clearly looked like the sort of doll any child would love—yet it was something used to harm people?
"Of course."
"It doesn't look like it at all." Comparing it with the grim, terrifying doll in her hand, she could not help saying so. The two dolls looked worlds apart.
"Well, who says appearances have to decide everything? Would you know it was a cursed doll otherwise?" Jiu Ming explained. If cursed dolls were made to look frightening from the start, wouldn't that be practically announcing to everyone that there was something seriously wrong with them?
As for the strength of a cursed doll, to an ordinary person, it was like Death itself coming for them. Once they were hit, avoiding it was simply impossible.
"With this thing, all you need to do is wrap a single strand of hair from someone you