Haruta Shigemo froze for a moment, then immediately burst into undisguised laughter.
"HAHAHAHA!" He pointed at Morien and laughed uproariously. "Are you an idiot? Over something like that?"
"What do you mean, something like that?" Morien waved the kitchen knife in his hand. "This is obviously a very important matter, okay?"
"You know nothing about the beauty of feminine boys!"
As Morien argued with Haruta Shigemo, the knife with hands that Haruta Shigemo had thrown upstairs suddenly stood up.
Using the hands growing from its blade and hilt, it propped itself up. Then, with a forceful push of its wrists against the floor, it swiftly stabbed toward Morien's unguarded back.
This move had worked for him almost every time.
Unfortunately, Morien had read the script.
Morien suddenly let go, and the kitchen knife in his right hand fell to the floor.
He turned around and reached out, his Cursed Energy-coated right hand grabbing the blade of the knife.
Squelch!
The blade lightly cut open the skin of his palm, but it did not cause much damage.
He had bet correctly.
Based on their performance in the original story, whether it was Haruta Shigemo or this knife, separating them caused Haruta Shigemo's overall strength to plummet.
Yet this disgusting idiot always loved throwing his knife around, relying on the information gap to bully people.
As long as someone had information on him and knew the knife could move freely, his actions were no different from cutting off one of his own arms.
Although the knife could move freely, without its user, its strength was likely not even greater than an ordinary person's.
At least in the original story, when this knife launched a sneak attack, it could not even cut through someone's leg bone.
And without this knife, Haruta Shigemo's combat strength was barely comparable to that of a Grade 3 Jujutsu Sorcerer. He was not particularly strong.
His own Cursed Technique had no offensive power at all. Every last skill point had gone into staying alive.
Haruta Shigemo, a Grade 2 Curse User. His Cursed Technique was "Miracle Storage," which stored miracles by erasing memories of small everyday bits of luck. When he encountered fatal danger, they would automatically activate and negate his destined death.
His survival ability was strong, but he basically had no offensive ability. Combined with his own lack of combat power, without his weapon, he could barely be considered a Grade 3 sorcerer.
"Oh dear, it got caught." Yet Haruta Shigemo did not look worried at all.
He chuckled and ran toward the stairs, apparently intending to rush straight up to the second floor and fight Morien head-on.
Taking advantage of the opening, Morien turned to look at Ijichi, who had gotten back to his feet, and his voice appeared in Ijichi's mind.
"Do you know Barrier Techniques?" Morien asked.
"No." Ijichi answered honestly.
"Right... then if you don't... a Curtain might work."
"You can use that, right?" Morien pressed.
He remembered Ijichi deploying a Curtain in the original story.
"I can." Ijichi nervously glanced toward the stairs, nodded, and answered at a rapid pace.
"Then go put up a Curtain now. Cover this small area nearby. Don't make it too large, and keep wishing for me in your heart."
"Wish that I can deal with that guy."
"Ah, uh... okay." Ijichi nodded.
He was a Jujutsu Sorcerer without talent, one who did not even possess a Cursed Technique.
But fortunately, he had one virtue: he was obedient.
He did not know who Morien was. There was no information on Morien among either the Jujutsu Sorcerers or Curse Users.
But he knew Haruta Shigemo. He knew he was a Curse User, a vile criminal who was wanted, and he also knew that Morien had just saved his life not long ago.
So he chose to follow the order.
"From darkness, be born. Darker than black. Purify that which is impure."
The lights inside the mall immediately dimmed.
Morien looked around, then nodded in satisfaction.
"Very good. It really works."
Ijichi was utterly confused and had no idea what exactly worked.
But he understood that he should stay quiet at a time like this.
"A Curtain?" Haruta Shigemo, who had just run upstairs, looked up in confusion before turning toward Ijichi, the assistant supervisor.
The climb from the first floor to the second was not long for a Grade 3 Curse User. The two had only spoken for a few seconds before Haruta Shigemo ran up.
"Whatever. It doesn't matter."
Grinning, he raised his hand and threw a punch at Morien's face.
Morien swung his right hand, which was gripping the long knife's blade, forward, intending to use Haruta Shigemo's knife to cut off his own hand.
But in the next moment, the hand growing from the hilt suddenly jerked upward, dodging Haruta Shigemo's fist.
Morien had no choice but to take two steps back with the momentum of the raised hand, turning sideways to avoid Haruta Shigemo's next punch.
However, the knife began to thrash wildly, dragging Morien's arm back and forth with it. It took immense strength to hold it steady, leaving Morien completely unable to keep his footing while also cutting open his palm.
He could not simply grab the hilt either, because the hilt itself was a hand, with the blade growing from below its wrist. If he held it, the knife could simply twist its wrist and turn the blade around to cut him.
That was why Haruta Shigemo was never afraid of throwing the knife away.
If an enemy seized the knife, it would be difficult for them to maintain their balance while dealing with the long knife's interference.
But if the enemy did not take the knife, they would have to constantly guard against sneak attacks.
Of course, if the enemy was strong enough to forcibly control the knife...
Haruta Shigemo would have run away long ago.
He was the most shameless bully of the weak and coward before the strong among all Curse Users.
If he had not seen how little Cursed Energy Morien had, he would never have come up here to launch a sneak attack.
Whoosh!
Haruta Shigemo's fist let out a faint whistle as it struck Morien in the stomach while he was still unsteady on his feet.
Morien staggered back in pain, his grip loosening as the long knife spun into the air before quickly falling back down.
The blade cut a gash across his palm.
Haruta Shigemo smoothly raised a hand to catch the long knife falling from above, then stepped forward and slashed.
However, after synchronizing, Morien's reaction speed and flexibility had likewise reached several times that of a normal human.
He bent backward with the motion, forming a back bridge to evade the attack. Then, with one hand on the ground, he kicked upward from below, forcing Haruta Shigemo back.
The Knowledge Pursuer from earlier had not been for nothing.
Knowledge Pursuer was painful and agonizing, but the Hidden Sage really did give him the real deal.
For example, some relatively basic fighting techniques.
Morien had not fully understood them all, but his powerful control over his body allowed him to barely use the techniques within.
One hand braced against the floor, he swung his raised leg upward, spun with the momentum, and returned to his feet.
Without giving Morien a chance to steady himself, Haruta Shigemo's knife came right after him.
Morien switched the kitchen knife from his left hand to his right and stepped forward to clash blades.
He had not used knives much, nor had he ever chopped someone before, but decent technique combined with extraordinary reaction speed allowed Morien to barely exchange a few blows with him.
Although several more wounds were scraped across his body, he could barely keep fighting.
But...
Crack!
With a crisp sound.
The kitchen knife in Morien's hand shattered.
Although it was coated in Cursed Energy, it still broke after several clashes.
"Aha! Your knife isn't a cursed tool!" Haruta Shigemo cried out in delight.
Pressing his advantage, he slashed Morien across the chest, diagonally from his left shoulder down to his right waist.
Fortunately, Morien retreated quickly, so the wound was not particularly deep.
Indeed, even covered in Cursed Energy, it was ultimately only an ordinary kitchen knife.
"This is really bad, isn't it?" Haruta Shigemo asked with a grin. "What are you going to do without a weapon?"
Morien casually tossed aside the remaining handle, revealing the palm that had just been cut open by the blade.
The fresh wound in his palm was rapidly healing.
"What am I going to do?" Morien answered with a smile of his own. "Didn't I say I was a summoner?"
"I am the Mother Bug."
As Morien's wound healed, his cells began dividing in massive numbers.
And division was precisely a manifestation of the [Propagation] Path.
As he spoke, a tiny butterfly fell away from around Morien's wound and rapidly grew larger.