Scarce Cursed Spirits

On Fushiguro's side, the battle between both teams had also entered its most intense stage.

What had begun as a massive melee had gradually split into several separate battlefields.

Maki faced Kasumi Miwa, who wielded a katana. Kugisaki and Panda fought Mechamaru and the broom girl, while Fushiguro and Junpei were locked in a struggle with Kyoto Jujutsu High's captain, Kamo Noritoshi.

Their original objective in fighting had also changed.

What had started as standing up for their teammates had now shifted toward the competition itself.

They all knew they could not do much to each other in a short time, so they restrained one another while searching for traces of cursed spirits.

Since they had no idea how many cursed spirits the higher-ups had released, they had no sense of whether they were densely or sparsely distributed.

After experiencing it firsthand, they found that the number of cursed spirits was pitifully low. The higher-ups likely wanted this exchange event to focus on competition between the students, using it to improve their individual strength.

That was why they had not released many cursed spirits. They could only find one trashy Grade 4 cursed spirit for roughly every kilometer they traveled.

Fushiguro sensed the presence of a Grade 4 cursed spirit. Forming a hand sign, he sent the Divine Dogs lunging forward.

But just as their fangs were about to tear the cursed spirit apart, an arrow struck it first.

"That's one point!" Kamo sneered. After successfully snatching the kill, he immediately put distance between himself and Fushiguro.

He knew he could never beat Fushiguro's shikigami when it came to finding cursed spirits, so he had decided to follow behind Fushiguro and look for chances to steal the kills.

He believed that was the higher-ups' intention as well—to let the students keep growing in an intensely competitive environment.

Fushiguro cursed under his breath. Kamo behind him was like a fly he simply could not shake off.

Kamo had already stolen four points from him this way!

A full four points! Two Grade 4 cursed spirits and one Grade 3 cursed spirit!

With so few cursed spirits in total, those four points might be enough to decide the outcome!

Though Fushiguro was furious enough to feel his lungs burst, there was nothing he could do.

As a third-year student at Kyoto Jujutsu High, Kamo surpassed him in both strength and combat experience, and he was also one of the Kamo Family's key protégés.

The training he had received was on an entirely different level from Fushiguro's. Breaking through head-on was nearly impossible, and he could not shake him off either.

If only he and Junpei remained with Kamo, their chances of securing the remaining cursed spirits would be slim.

Only by adding more variables could they level out their disadvantage!

At Fushiguro's command, the Divine Dogs let out a howl that echoed through the entire forest.

Tokyo Jujutsu High's members scattered throughout the area heard Fushiguro's signal and broke away from their fights, converging on his location.

After sending the signal, Fushiguro continued pretending to search for cursed spirits. When he found the trace of a rare Grade 3 cursed spirit, he showed no excitement.

As if he had not noticed it at all, he intended to wait until his teammates drew closer before joining forces with them to exorcise it.

Only then would they have a chance to snatch this point from Kamo!

Just as Fushiguro was about to pass the cursed spirit by, it suddenly went berserk for some reason. It bolted from its hiding place and ran out into the open, as though it had just experienced something utterly terrifying.

Kamo immediately locked onto the cursed spirit that had suddenly run onto the "main road."

"Not good!"

Just as Kamo was about to fire an arrow and claim those two points, a voice came from behind him.

"Don't move!"

Inumaki-senpai pulled down his collar and used Cursed Speech!

Kamo's body stiffened in an instant. No matter what he did, he could not release the hand pulling his bowstring.

The moment Fushiguro saw that Inumaki-senpai had arrived to support him, he wasted no words and immediately had the Divine Dogs tear the Grade 3 cursed spirit to pieces!

Only at the instant the cursed spirit was shredded did Kamo finally break free of Cursed Speech's control.

Kamo snorted coldly and quickly opened up distance from Inumaki.

As fellow semi-Grade 1 sorcerers, Inumaki, with his Cursed Speech, posed a considerable threat to him.

"Senpai." Fushiguro moved behind Inumaki, his gaze warily fixed on Kamo.

"Bonito flakes?"

"I only exorcised that Grade 3 cursed spirit just now." Fushiguro sounded a little ashamed.

"Salmon."

"Is it not looking good on your side either, senpai?"

Though Inumaki spoke only in a few sushi ingredients, Fushiguro had no trouble communicating with him at all.

The baffling sight left Kamo staring blankly from the side.

"You understand whatever he says?" Kamo was astonished.

Since neither side had any display showing their scores, they could only calculate them mentally. He had no idea how many points Tokyo had accumulated.

As long as they did not kill the target cursed spirit, the points counted were the entire team's total, which would determine victory or defeat.

Inumaki's encrypted conversation made Kamo feel slightly tense.

He knew Tokyo Jujutsu High's team this year was no pushover, especially Lin Mu, whom he had briefly clashed with before. With his strength, scoring six or seven points would be easy!

In a worse-case scenario, he might have already racked up more than ten points.

Given how scarce the cursed spirits were at the moment, more than ten points was an absurdly high score—enough to compete for first place in this exchange event!

Unfortunately, they had not ended up together during the later melee. He only hoped his teammates could limit Lin Mu's performance.

After Inumaki arrived at Fushiguro's side, the rest of the members gradually gathered as well.

Naturally, this included the people from Kyoto Jujutsu High. At this point, all the students had met up again.

Both sides took advantage of this rare opportunity to roughly calculate their own scores and estimate the other side's total.

On Fushiguro's side, he himself only had two points. Aside from Junpei, who had zero points, his score was the lowest.

However, he was not far behind the other members.

Kugisaki had three points; Panda and Maki each had four. Itadori was still fighting Todo, so no one knew his exact score, though he most likely had zero.

'Lin Mu' had five points. The highest scorer was Inumaki-senpai, who had earned seven points all by himself!

Their Tokyo team had a total of twenty-three points.

Considering how pitifully few cursed spirits there were, twenty-three points was definitely no small number.

Even if the Kyoto team had more points than them, the difference could not exceed five!