July 20, 2000, Kitano Village.
More than half a month had passed since Igarashi Amaha had been imprisoned. Although he occasionally took a beating, fortunately, they had no intention of letting him die yet.
"Brat, what's your cursed technique?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? Don't tell me you don't have an innate technique?" Aoki Akawa said, disbelief written all over his face.
Igarashi Amaha did not answer. He could feel that he had a cursed technique, but it was very "weak." He did not know how to describe it.
Just then, a strange cry rang out-"Ah-aaah!" Igarashi Amaha hurriedly stood up, watching the wall behind him warily.
A blue-black cursed spirit crawled out. Why crawled? Because he had only two arms; his lower body had been severed, and pale blue blood was still flowing from it.
"Don't be nervous. It's fine. He can't fight anymore," Aoki Akawa reminded Igarashi Amaha when he saw him poised to fight at any moment.
Igarashi Amaha frowned. "Did you lure him here?"
Aoki Akawa hurriedly waved his hands. "You give me too much credit. This is a grade 1 cursed spirit, you know. Though it looks like a jujutsu sorcerer beat him up pretty badly."
"Grade 1..." Igarashi Amaha was somewhat surprised. Both jujutsu sorcerers and cursed spirits could be divided into different "grades" according to their strength. From weakest to strongest, these were grade 4, grade 3, grade 2 (semi-grade 2), grade 1 (semi-grade 1), and special grade. A grade 4 jujutsu sorcerer could defeat a grade 4 cursed spirit, a grade 3 jujutsu sorcerer could defeat a grade 3 cursed spirit, and so on.
Grade 4 cursed spirits could be called small fry. A wooden baseball bat was enough to repel one.
A grade 3 cursed spirit could be handled with a handgun.
A grade 2 cursed spirit required a shotgun just to barely handle it.
Even deploying a tank would not make a grade 1 cursed spirit easy to deal with.
As for special grade cursed spirits, those required carpet bombing with cluster bombs.
In their current state, a single grade 2 cursed spirit could probably slaughter them both, yet the cursed spirit before them was actually grade 1.
For some reason, as Igarashi Amaha looked at the cursed spirit before him, he kept feeling something peculiar inside, as though it were urging him, pushing him to go "eat" him. Leaving aside what would happen if he ate him, the real problem was that he simply couldn't.
An absurd thought surfaced in his mind. Igarashi Amaha looked at Aoki Akawa and voiced it. "Aoki, can I kill him?"
"Hm? Of course, but even if he's already half-dead, killing him will still take some effort. Wouldn't it be better to leave him to his fate? He threatens us anyway." Although puzzled, Aoki Akawa did not turn Igarashi Amaha down. Nor did he have any reason to. The fact that the boy had asked showed respect for him, and he was not stupid enough to refuse.
"I want to test an idea I have." As he spoke, Igarashi Amaha walked toward the cursed spirit.
Having said that, he rose and walked over, straddled the cursed spirit's remaining half-body, took a deep breath, and raised his fist.
Boom!!
A feeble clump of blue flame ignited around Igarashi Amaha's fist. This was all his cursed energy-as pitifully little as it looked.
"Aaaaaah-!!"
As the cursed spirit watched the flames of cursed energy ignite around the boy's fist, his ghastly face twisted with terror, as though he had remembered something.
Splat!! Splat!! Splat!! Splat!!
Igarashi Amaha slammed his fist down hard, again and again. At that moment, he seemed like an unfeeling machine, a machine that did nothing but repeatedly hammer its fist down.
Beside him, Aoki Akawa watched with his heart pounding in alarm.
After an unknown length of time, as Igarashi Amaha brought his fist down once more, a word slipped unconsciously from his mouth: "Capture!"
Splat!!
The cursed spirit stopped twitching and turned into a cloud of black mist, vanishing completely.
But that was not what Igarashi Amaha saw. In his eyes, the vanishing cursed spirit suddenly turned into a mass of fluorescent energy. Before he could react, that glowing mass burrowed into his body.
At that moment, overwhelmed by extreme exhaustion and the glow's "invasion," he fell unconscious.
His consciousness faded. When Igarashi Amaha opened his eyes again, he found himself in an unfamiliar place. It was pitch-black; he could not even see his hand in front of his face. Just as he wondered what to do, clack! A sound rang out. It sounded like... a game piece being placed? He was very attuned to that sound. In his previous life, he had been a player of some renown, dabbling in Go, shogi, Hua Capital chess, and international chess. But this sound... seemed to be Hua Capital chess?
Whoosh!!
The sound of waves rose, and the surrounding space changed dramatically. All the darkness vanished, replaced by a vast azure sea, and beneath his feet... a pavilion?
Igarashi Amaha cautiously surveyed his surroundings, but there was only sea on all sides, without a soul in sight. He turned his gaze to the chessboard in the center of the pavilion, but the sight before him was one he would never forget.
"This... what... is this...?"
Whoosh!!
The sound of waves pulled Igarashi Amaha out of his daze. Coming to his senses, he looked at the two pieces on the board. Yes, there were only two pieces on the board, and one was the black "general"!
That was nothing remarkable. What truly shocked him was the piece opposite the "general." There was no writing on that piece, only a simple image. That image was none other than the grade 1 cursed spirit Igarashi Amaha had exhausted himself killing!
Igarashi Amaha once again recalled the instant before he passed out. He was not mistaken. He had said it. He really had said that word. With that absurd conjecture in mind, he slowly picked up the "general" and gradually raised it above the "cursed piece." An ethereal voice left his mouth: "Capture!"
Clack!!
The sound of a piece being placed rang out. The instant the "cursed piece" was captured, it forcibly squeezed into the "general."
Igarashi Amaha frowned deeply at the scene before him. If my guess is right, then... it should be coming.
Thump! Thump-thump!!
A clear heartbeat sounded. The next second, Igarashi Amaha's body suddenly began to burn. Feeling as though his body were about to explode, rather than panic, he burst into loud laughter.
Thud!
He dropped to his knees, spread his arms toward the sky, and laughed wildly, his expression crazed. "Hahahahaha! I was fucking right! This is my innate technique! Hahahahaha! I... am the 'general'!!!!!"
Feeling the power inside him grow stronger and stronger, he laughed until he began to cry. He looked utterly insane now. He was still laughing madly, yet snot and tears streamed down his face without stopping. Even when they flowed into his mouth, he paid them no heed. All the while, he kept murmuring obsessively, "Ah, what do I do? What do I do? I'm... starting to like this world! Ahahahahaha."
At that moment, his laughter echoed across the entire ocean...
And at that moment, he did not know that the person who could change his entire life was about to appear...
Please send whatever support you can. I'd be endlessly grateful.