[One day in July 2018.]
[In a bustling downtown district, crowds thronged the streets, while neon signs and advertisements playing on giant screens wove together the glitz and clamor of modern society.]
[A "group of people" was strolling leisurely down this crowded street.]
[Of course, calling them "people" was clearly wildly inappropriate.]
[More precisely, they were a short-haired woman whose clothes and appearance gave her a distinctly intellectual air, followed by three bizarre-looking, misshapen special grade cursed spirits swaggering along behind her.]
[An extremely conspicuous line of stitches, ugly as a centipede, stretched across the forehead of the short-haired woman leading the way.]
[An inscrutable, serene smile remained on her otherwise gentle face.]
[The ordinary humans around her seemed to have collectively gone blind, utterly ignoring the three terrifying monsters exuding a sickening aura. Even amid the packed crowd, people unconsciously steered their bodies around the cursed spirits without noticing anything unusual.]
["Hey!"]
[Jogo, the short cursed spirit with a single eye and a small active volcano atop his head, finally lost patience with his irritation and complained to the woman ahead in a harsh, grating voice.]
["Was it necessary to go out of your way to waste such a precious finger? Just to test the strength of that so-called Sukuna?"]
[Jogo's displeasure was written all over his wrinkled face. As his emotions fluctuated, the little volcano on his head began bubbling and boiling, spitting sparks and white smoke from its crater.]
[Hearing his complaint, the short-haired woman at the front did not even pause.]
[She merely turned her head slightly and answered with a smile, her tone exceedingly casual yet carrying the confidence of someone in control of the entire situation.]
["It was a necessary expense. After all, against the King of Curses, sending some half-baked weaklings to probe