Curse of the World's Will

Once he could get no more new information, Shinji left the water in his hand and some food behind, then departed with Hidan.

Hidan merely curled his lip at this and said nothing.

He was just some decrepit old man. There was no point running his mouth and getting beaten up again.

Shinji's efforts to reform Hidan were already beginning to show results.

"You believe what that old man said?"

"Not all of it, but my instincts tell me the missing sacrifices probably have something to do with this so-called monster."

Hidan couldn't help nodding at that.

Setting aside whether the story was true, a group from the Land of Grass had brought a sizable number of "sacrifices" straight into the lair of a man-eating monster. It didn't take much imagination to figure out the outcome.

"Come on. Let's go meet this monster ourselves."

"You know where it is?"

Hidan looked a little surprised.

"No, but if it really likes eating people, there's no reason it would pass up meat delivered right to its mouth."

"What does that mean?"

"It means the monster will come looking for us."

Clearly, this rundown town had long since become the monster's hunting ground. The two of them had not only barged in, but were also strutting around wherever they pleased.

If even such blatant provocation couldn't draw it out, Shinji had nothing more to say.

Yet he couldn't tell whether his judgment was wrong, the monster happened to be resting, or it had already left.

In any case, they waited for several long hours and still found nothing by sunset.

They hadn't seen so much as a trace of the monster.

"If you ask me, that old bastard was definitely talking out of his ass. He thought some story about a man-eating monster would scare us off. He must have something to do with the missing sacrifices."

Unable to sit still any longer, Hidan jumped down from the rooftop.

"Where are you going?"

"To slaughter that old bastard! How dare he lie to the great Hidan? He must have a death wish."

Shinji was rather speechless, but he didn't stop the idiot.

Perhaps letting him make a fuss would stir up something different.

Before long, however, Shinji saw Hidan walking back alone, cursing all the way.

"What happened?"

"When I got back, that old bastard had already run off! He must've gotten scared after making all that shit up."

Shinji didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He hadn't expected the old man to be such a seasoned actor that even he had been fooled.

But could that fear, which had seemed to come from deep within him, really have been an act?

"Forget it. If we run into him again, we'll settle the score then. For now, let's find somewhere to rest. We'll ask someone else tomorrow."

Although that was all they could do for the time being, Hidan kept grumbling. He probably hadn't spared a single ancestor of the old man's for nineteen generations.

Before they knew it, night had deepened.

Shinji and Hidan found a dilapidated house that was still relatively intact, lit a fire, and simply leaned against the wall to rest with their eyes closed.

Outside, a cold wind rustled past, while the firelight swayed and flickered.

Suddenly, a dark shadow darted past.

Neither Shinji nor Hidan reacted.

Had they looked up, however, they would have seen a giant Human-Faced Centipede several meters long coiled around a beam overhead.

The face didn't seem to be some unusual pattern, either. Its eyes kept moving as it studied the two men below, and before long, saliva even began dribbling from its mouth.

Screech!

At last, the Human-Faced Centipede could no longer restrain itself. It launched itself off the beam, spreading its hideous mouthparts as it lunged at the two men below.

Just one bite,

and it could crush their bodies and savor their delicious juices. Yet the instant it attacked, Shinji and Hidan opened their eyes almost simultaneously and reached for the weapons beside them.

In the next instant, both men sprang into action!

The Kubikiribōchō and the Bloody Triple-Bladed Scythe hacked into the Human-Faced Centipede together, chopping it to pieces in just two or three breaths!

"What the hell is this thing? It's fucking disgusting."

Hidan shook the green fluid off his weapon with a look of disgust.

Shinji did the same, but his mind was already elsewhere.

The moment he killed the strange centipede, the system had issued another message.

[Exorcised a Grade 3 Cursed Spirit. Gained 200 cursed soul points.]

That single message revealed an enormous amount of information!

So completing system missions wasn't the only way to earn cursed soul points.

That Human-Faced Centipede must have been what the system called a [Grade 3 Cursed Spirit].

It was so pathetically weak that it probably ranked among the trash of cursed spirits. Receiving only a fifth of the cursed soul points needed for one draw made sense.

Presumably, exorcising stronger cursed spirits would yield greater rewards.

But...

Why the hell have cursed spirits suddenly appeared in a perfectly normal Naruto world?!

Shinji felt a massive headache coming on.

Then he suddenly remembered the [Curse of the World's Will]!

[Curse of the World's Will]

Effect: Unknown

PS: Your unexpected arrival has caused some unusual changes in this world.

Unusual changes...

Could this be what it meant?!

To be honest, Shinji had already sensed something was off during that treasure hunt. But since he had dug up that "thing" himself, he had still been able to explain it away.

The unmistakable appearance of a cursed spirit this time, however, told him plainly that this was no longer the same Naruto world!

As the name suggested, curses, or cursed spirits, were monsters born from the negative emotions living beings felt toward anything, accumulated over time.

In other words, they were the negative emotions that spilled out of humans.

That meant as long as humans still felt fear and possessed all kinds of negative emotions, these damned cursed spirits would continue to emerge without end.

More importantly, the old man hadn't been lying. He really had seen a "monster."

Shinji didn't know why, but if even ordinary people could see the cursed spirits born in this world, then as these damned things multiplied, the society that had only just achieved stability would inevitably descend into chaos once again!

Of course, there were upsides as well.

He could earn large amounts of cursed soul points by exorcising cursed spirits, rapidly increasing his strength.

Moreover, cursed spirits varied in strength, and this world's ninja system had produced a great many powerful individuals.

As long as the major ninja villages took the cursed spirit problem seriously when the time came, they would probably be able to wipe out most of them quickly.

Thinking of it that way, the situation didn't seem quite as dire as he had imagined.

Yet Shinji still couldn't shake the unease in his heart.