Sitting beside Shoichi Kano, the Slit-Mouthed Woman had already begun to yawn out of boredom. Then she started playing with her hair, twirling strand after strand around her fingers before letting them go.
Smack! Toji Fushiguro lightly slapped a black card onto the coffee table.
"Thirty million yen in here. You two take it and use it to post fake jobs." As he said this, he also pulled out a shiny silver Zippo lighter and lit himself a cigarette, beginning to puff away.
"Of course, you don't have to actually spend all of it. Just make a show of it. Those small fry can't do any real damage to those two brats anyway, but they can at least cause some harassment."
"So, what's the password?" Shoichi Kano asked politely.
Toji Fushiguro tore a small scrap of paper off the cigarette pack, scribbled a few numbers on it, and nearly threw it in Kano's face.
Just as Toji Fushiguro had flicked some ash into the ashtray, Megumi Fushiguro came running in, clutching the caterpillar Cursed Spirit.
The Spiky-Haired Boy glanced at everyone in the room, then fixed his gaze on his father, Toji. "What are you going to do with them this time?"
The boy's tone was cold and hard-less concern for his father, more like an interrogation.
But Toji Fushiguro simply snatched the caterpillar Cursed Spirit from Megumi's arms and draped it around his neck like a scarf.
He was willing to take a moment to explain to Shoichi Kano: "This Cursed Spirit is called Inventory Curse Worm. It has a pocket dimension inside its body that can be used to store Cursed Tools."
At the words "Cursed Tools," the Slit-Mouthed Woman's eyes lit up. After hearing the discussion between Kano and Toji Fushiguro, she had begun thinking about how she should deal with Suguru Geto.
She didn't know how her precious boy had gotten his hands on intelligence even she didn't have, but clearly now wasn't the time to dwell on that. So she could only interpret it as her eldest cub having grown up and having his own secrets.
She ran through everything she knew in her head and found that whether it was Simple Domain, the Forced Q&A technique, or the half-baked Barrier Techniques she'd mastered to complement those two abilities, they all leaned toward single-target specialization. Fighting a summoner like Suguru Geto would naturally be tough.
Moreover, she had to consider that her identity as a Cursed Spirit was countered by him. If she were beaten to near death and Suguru Geto absorbed her, turning her into a tool Cursed Spirit with no will of her own, that would be even more painful than being exorcised outright.
After mulling it over, it seemed her only option was to see if there were any suitable Cursed Tools to make up for her weakness in area attacks.
Though Shoichi Kano didn't know what she was thinking, he could feel her icy palm resting on his thigh the whole time, occasionally giving it a squeeze.
So Kano guessed that Miss Cursed Spirit's heart wasn't as calm as her face suggested.
"Since this little Cursed Spirit is meant for storing Cursed Tools," she poked the Inventory Curse Worm on Toji a few times with her sharp fingernail, making it press even tighter against his neck, "I wonder if you could lend me one or two usable Cursed Tools?"
"After all... you don't want the mission to fail either, right?"
Toji Fushiguro's expression darkened instantly. "Are you threatening me? Cursed Spirit!"
He bit down hard on the word "Cursed Spirit."
"How could I?" The Slit-Mouthed Woman's eyes brimmed with a thoroughly ill-intentioned smile.
"Let me think about it." Toji Fushiguro, still ignoring Megumi, chose to bolt out the door. "I have other commissions. If you two have nothing else, please leave first."
"Oh, right." He stuffed a wad of cash from his horse-racing winnings into Megumi's arms. "You and Tsumiki use this for now."
The five or six-year-old boy just stared blankly as his father's tall figure disappeared from view.
And this time, he'd even taken his playmate Inventory Curse Worm with him.
Megumi Fushiguro looked down at the yen bills in his arms. Being so young, he couldn't possibly hold all that money, so naturally many bills slipped from his grasp and fell onto the carpet.
Megumi Fushiguro's pitiful appearance even melted the Slit-Mouthed Woman's heart-mainly because the negative emotions radiating off him, and the Cursed Energy seeping out because of those emotions, were simply too delicious. To a Cursed Spirit, it was no less than a Michelin three-star delicacy!
So your Auntie Slit-Mouthed Woman, operating on the mindset of "rather than let those low-level Cursed Spirits drawn by the scent enjoy it, I might as well consume it all myself," began to "drink her fill."
"Phew-" Though the amount of Cursed Energy was small (because Megumi Fushiguro was young), its quality was extremely pure, so Miss Slit-Mouthed Woman drank to her heart's content and even let out a long sigh.
Meanwhile, hedgehog-head Megumi Fushiguro remained in his emo state, not noticing that part of the Cursed Energy in his body had already been sucked away by the casually-dressed Cursed Spirit auntie beside him.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman had happily absorbed a wave of negative emotions at both the racetrack and the Fushiguro home, so her mood was naturally excellent. She even reached out and patted the slightly prickly little hedgehog head.
Shoichi Kano bent down and picked up the money Megumi had dropped on the floor. Seeing her cub helping this little hedgehog brat, the Slit-Mouthed Woman hesitated for a moment before joining in to help.
"So, um..." Kano wanted to say something to this-era Megumi Fushiguro, but after thinking for a long time, he realized that from his position, there really wasn't anything good to say. "We put your money on the coffee table."
"Mm..." The little hedgehog head responded softly, looking like he'd shattered into pieces, and shuffled step by step to the sofa, hugging his knees as he sat down.
"Let's go, baby." Even the Slit-Mouthed Woman couldn't bear to watch anymore. She pulled Shoichi Kano out of the Fushiguro home.
That night, Shoichi Kano was awakened by a cold, soft sensation pressing down on him.
He had originally been dreaming of returning to that world of 2025, 2026, about to head to an internet cafe with his buddies for an exhilarating round of Valorant.
Then he felt that the mouse on the desk didn't feel right-cold and kind of soft.
So he opened his eyes and saw the Slit-Mouthed Woman in a camisole nightgown, hair disheveled, pressing down on him like some eerie ghost woman. And his hand, by sheer coincidence, was through the nightgown kneading that full, soft "headlight" area of hers.
Miss Cursed Spirit licked the stitched line at the corner of her mouth, her dark gray eyes gleaming with an eerie light. "Little baby..."
She pressed her cheek against Kano's. The decaying cold fragrance emanating from her, like "Soul Weightlessness" perfume, stimulated the half-awake youth until his whole body burned hot, and he nearly couldn't hold back his arousal.
"Mommy wants to know," she had already begun to caress him, that boneless-soft touch brushing lightly across Shoichi Kano's chest, making him shudder, "where did you get all that intelligence from?"
"You seem to have... a lot of secrets, baby?"
By now Shoichi Kano had finally woken up fully. He felt that because certain physiological reactions had been triggered, his whole body was weak and powerless, but his mind was still basically clear.
So he knew that the fact of him being a transmigrator absolutely could not be revealed-at least not yet!
So his lips moved a few times, mumbling a string of illogical syllables, making himself appear as if he hadn't fully woken up.
"What?" The Slit-Mouthed Woman naturally didn't understand a single word.
"...Secret." Shoichi Kano mumbled, closing his eyes again, pretending to have returned to sleep.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman was almost amused to anger by the boy's clumsy acting. But since the previous "Three-Month Binding Vow" was still in effect, she couldn't use her specialty as a Cursed Spirit to torture him, so she had no choice but to let it go.
Just then, Shoichi Kano cracked his eyes open a sliver, and he saw the expression on her face-a mix of mild indignation and disappointment, like "my child has grown up, entered his rebellious phase, and is keeping things from his mother."
Then he felt the bed beside him sink noticeably under her weight, and two cold arms wrapped around his waist just like that.
Kano wanted to turn his back to her so that his already-raring little Kano wouldn't rub against her, but the Slit-Mouthed Woman's grip was strong. He struggled for a long time without breaking free, so he could only resign himself to being demoted to a body pillow.
"Don't move, little cutie..." The Slit-Mouthed Woman began adjusting herself into some kind of dormant mode, so her voice took on a faintly soft, sticky quality. "You're so warm. Let Mommy hold you..."
Shoichi Kano completely gave up and offered up his body heat within that cold, soft embrace, gradually drifting back into dreamland.
Before you continue