Curse User

That night, Shibuya Ward, Tokyo.

As one of Tokyo Metropolis's twenty-three special wards, Shibuya lay slightly west of central Tokyo, alongside Shinjuku and Ikebukuro as one of the city's three major secondary centers.

It covered roughly 15.11 square kilometers and had a population density of around 15,000 people per square kilometer.

It was a fashion mecca, a melting pot of subcultures, a street for the young.

The land here was worth every inch of its weight in gold, and the blocks remained open twenty-four hours a day.

At that moment, Lin Yi and the Grade 1 Sorcerer Kento Nanami, who had come to coordinate with him, stood before an unoccupied mid-rise luxury apartment building in Shibuya Ward, looking at the exquisitely decorated yet deserted structure.

Now Lin Yi understood why Jujutsu High had not sent Kiyotaka Ijichi, an assistant supervisor, to coordinate with him, but had instead sent Kento Nanami, a Grade 1 Sorcerer.

The area where Lin Yi and Kento Nanami currently stood bordered Yoyogi Park and was close to the JR Yamanote Line and Keio Line.

In a location near a park with convenient transportation, there should not have been an unoccupied mid-rise luxury apartment building. And judging from the rental flyers posted on the board outside the entrance, the rent had taken a dramatic plunge—50,000 to 80,000 yen a month, or roughly 3,000 to 4,800 yuan.

Yet in Shibuya Ward, a mid-rise luxury apartment like this would normally rent for no less than 160,000 to 200,000 yen a month.

"Whoa, that's cheap. Even if there were corpses lying inside, it shouldn't be this cheap."

Lin Yi joked about the rental flyer on the board, then pulled out the sunglasses housing the observation Cursed Spirit sponsored by Jujutsu High and put them on. He could only see faint traces of cursed energy emerging from the unoccupied apartment building, but no sign of any Cursed Spirits.

"Mr. Lin Ichiro, please leave. From here on, this is my overtime."

Unlike Lin Yi, who had nerves of steel, Kento Nanami had extensive experience exorcising Cursed Spirits. He pulled off his tie and wrapped it around his right hand, then drew the blunt blade strapped to his back and wrapped in white cloth, preparing to enter the enemy's territory alone.

Lin Yi knew this was the effect of Kento Nanami's technique: the Ratio Technique.

Besides allowing Kento Nanami to forcibly create a seven-to-three weak point on his opponent for critical strikes, the technique also divided his cursed energy output into different ranges based on his experience as a salaryman.

Using a standard eight-hour, nine-to-five workday as the boundary, Kento Nanami's cursed energy output during working hours was only eighty percent of normal. In exchange, once he exceeded those eight working hours, his output would remain steadily at 120%. Combined with the Ratio Technique's active effect of forcibly creating weak-point critical strikes, his offensive power was among the best even for a Grade 1 Sorcerer.

Lin Yi did not follow Kento Nanami's advice. He vaulted over the wall, opened the gate from inside, and invited Kento Nanami in.

"Mr. Nanami, since I chose to become one of your informants, I think there are some things I need to see for myself. Of course, if anything goes wrong, I'll run immediately. I won't distract you."

Kento Nanami looked at Lin Yi standing by the gate. He gave no answer and did not step inside, merely staring at him.

The two stared each other down until Lin Yi admitted defeat, silently walked out from the gate, and made a welcoming gesture.

Only then did Kento Nanami enter the vacant apartment building and recite an incantation.

"From the darkness, born of darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure."

A black, translucent Barrier Technique, a Curtain, descended from the sky. Since this was a residential area, its range was not expanded. It covered only the mid-rise luxury apartment building, isolating Lin Yi outside the entrance.

Lin Yi could only shrug helplessly. He had wanted to use this chance alone with Kento Nanami to pry some information about Satoru Gojo out of him.

He had not expected the man to be so dutiful that he would not allow an informant like him anywhere near the Cursed Spirit exorcism site.

"Ha, what a gentle, kind, responsible adult. But I'm older than you, you know. Is there really any need to worry about me so much? Still, now that I think about it, isn't this street a little too quiet?"

Lin Yi looked at the equally deserted apartments around him. From experience, he could naturally tell that they differed from the apartment building before him where the Cursed Spirit had appeared. Before he could figure out why, the phone in his pocket rang again. The caller ID read: Kiyotaka Ijichi.

"Mr. Ijichi, the nearby residents have all been evacuated."

"Mm. Good work."

Kiyotaka Ijichi stood on a rooftop, using binoculars to observe the mid-rise luxury apartment building where Kento Nanami had deployed the Curtain. Beside him was a colleague reporting that the resident evacuation had been completed.

This was Jujutsu High's process for exorcising Cursed Spirits in urban areas.

First, the Windows represented by assistant supervisors observed signs of Cursed Spirit activity and gathered information. Based on that information, they determined the Cursed Spirit's grade, reported the intelligence to the upper ranks of Jujutsu Society, and dispatched sorcerers corresponding to the Cursed Spirit's grade to exorcise it.

The assistant supervisors then coordinated with the higher-ups of Jujutsu Society and the relevant departments, evacuating residents within the radius of the Cursed Spirit's location so the sorcerers could carry out the exorcism. This also prevented ordinary people from witnessing Cursed Spirits and causing widespread panic.

They were also responsible for observing the sorcerers' Cursed Spirit exorcism work and preparing to call for support at any time.

Since most Cursed Spirits were not very intelligent and only wandered near the areas where they were born, there was no need to worry that such a large-scale evacuation would alert them.

After giving his colleague an instruction, Kiyotaka Ijichi looked down at the phone in his hand. Having watched from afar, he had naturally seen the interaction between Lin Yi and Kento Nanami. Like Kento Nanami, he remained suspicious of Lin Yi's true identity. This ordinary person had repeatedly appeared in incidents involving Jujutsu High personnel.

Precisely because they were suspicious of Lin Yi, they had approved his application to become an assistant supervisor, intending to keep him within their field of observation and determine his true identity.

As for why he had not told Satoru Gojo, whom he was responsible for coordinating with, about his suspicions—there was no other reason. Satoru Gojo was too busy.

As the strongest sorcerer of the modern era, Satoru Gojo was either away on assignment three hundred and sixty-five days a year or on his way to one.

Although Japan was the great vortex of cursed energy in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, producing more than eighty percent of the world's Cursed Spirits and sorcerers, that did not mean other countries and regions could not produce Special-Grade Cursed Spirits or high-level Cursed Spirits. After all, the world's population was what it was.

Most of those Cursed Spirits required Satoru Gojo to exorcise them. Only Satoru Gojo's Limitless could teleport quickly to any corner of the world.

And based on Lin Yi's performance so far, the situation had not reached the point where it needed to be reported to Satoru Gojo.

"The strength and birth rate of Cursed Spirits have both increased quite a bit over the years..."

After putting his phone back into his pocket, Kiyotaka Ijichi, a veteran assistant supervisor, pondered this inwardly. At that moment, the colleague who should have been keeping watch with Ijichi let out a strange cry.

Kiyotaka Ijichi turned toward the sound and saw the man's face had turned purple. Foam spilled from his mouth as he knelt on one knee, seemingly unable to breathe.

"Hey! What's wrong with you? Hang in there!"

Seeing his colleague's vital signs gradually fading, Kiyotaka Ijichi was shocked. Poisoned? A Cursed Spirit? Or a curse user?

As those thoughts raced through his mind, Kiyotaka Ijichi felt his neck tighten. A suffocating sensation followed. Looking down, he saw a tentacle with a barbed tip tightly wrapped around his neck, lifting him into the air. A graceful figure slowly emerged from the air and entered Kiyotaka Ijichi's field of vision.

"You worthless pests are always interfering with my work. It's about time I collected some interest from you on behalf of Jujutsu High."

The barbed tentacle circled above Kiyotaka Ijichi's forehead. Drops of purple venom seeped from the barb, about to claim the life of this veteran assistant supervisor.

Bang! Bang!

Two sharp, rapid gunshots rang out. One shot severed the tentacle's barb, while the other severed the tentacle wrapped around Ijichi's neck, sending him crashing to the ground in a fit of coughing.

"Who's there?!"

Ijichi and the female curse user both turned toward the source of the gunshots.

At some point, Lin Yi had appeared on the rooftop, holding the Colt Python revolver Cursed Tool he had named White Ivory. A wisp of smoke drifted from its muzzle.

"As you can see, just a passing City Hunter~"

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