An unfinished domain, I've become Megumi Fushiguro
Two full days had passed since he witnessed that clash of three domains firsthand and experienced it at close range.
Near the edge of the barrier stood a perfectly ordinary detached house. Its original owner had long since disappeared to who knew where, so Shiratori Gotsu had moved in without a second thought.
Over those two days, aside from eating, sleeping, taking a dump, and spacing out, Shiratori Gotsu had spent all his time studying Domain Expansion.
And now...
"I can feel it..." Shiratori Gotsu stood in the middle of the living room, eyes closed in concentration. He raised his right hand to his chest, palm facing outward, and formed the hand sign for his domain.
It was the [Abhaya Mudra], a gesture often seen on Buddhist statues in temples.
Ninety percent of the Cursed Energy in his body was drained in an instant, and a black domain barrier began spreading outward from beneath Shiratori Gotsu's feet.
"Domain Expansion!"
The domain barrier imbued with his Cursed Technique rapidly spread outward, covering the entire living room floor, and then... stopped dead.
"...?" Shiratori Gotsu maintained the hand sign, utterly baffled.
He discovered that no matter how hard he tried, his domain barrier wouldn't close. It just kept writhing along the floor.
And the effect of this bizarre thing that could tentatively be called a domain was...
Within its range, the restriction limiting [Fate Track Binding Curse] to adding "health bars" to at most three targets was lifted.
That was all.
"...Huh?"
Shiratori Gotsu was absolutely certain that this thing was an [incomplete domain]-the signature move of Megumi Fushiguro, the Grade 2 Jujutsu Sorcerer from the original work.
No closed barrier, no sure-hit Cursed Technique, and no special effects.
A product with none of the three.
But as Shiratori Gotsu had envisioned it, this clearly shouldn't have happened.
When he wrote his Cursed Technique in the system space, he had already included the corresponding domain in its description.
And the system had explicitly said that once he learned [Domain Expansion], he would definitely be able to expand the domain he had designed.
"Tch... This isn't scientific!" Shiratori Gotsu dispelled his domain, and the barrier shattered in an instant. As a result, [Fate Track Binding Curse] also went into Cursed Technique burnout.
"Unbelievable, even that caused burnout!" He was so angry he laughed on the spot.
Fortunately, [Fate Track Binding Curse] was, to an extent, a [hands-off Cursed Technique], so Cursed Technique burnout wouldn't affect the "health bars" that had already been added.
Now that things had come to this...
"System!" For the first time, Shiratori Gotsu called out to the system, which hadn't communicated with him since he entered the barrier.
"After all these days, you finally remembered me, your system. So what is it, host?" The long-unheard, thoroughly robotic voice rang out in his mind.
Shiratori Gotsu got straight to the point. "Tell me, what's going on with my domain?"
"Your skill in Barrier Techniques is too low, your total Cursed Energy is too small, and your Cursed Energy control sucks. As a result, your domain barrier cannot be fully constructed and closed."
The system gave its answer in the most cutting, direct, concise, and straightforward way possible:
"In short, it's because you suck too much. Do you have any other questions, host?"
Shiratori Gotsu: ...
He smiled as though he had come to terms with it, then fell backward and slumped onto the sofa, completely out of ideas.
"I suck... so much that I ended up expanding the same kind of three-nothing domain as Megumi Fushiguro..."
He was genuinely starting to regret it. If he'd known, he should have listened to the system and just written a powerful offensive Cursed Technique.
His own stats sucked so badly. If he'd written a powerful offensive Cursed Technique back then, at least he wouldn't have been this helpless because he had next to no direct combat ability...
Should I just give up on this challenge and start over...?
...No! That's not right! The moment the thought of giving up surfaced, another, stronger will instantly shattered the dejection and exhaustion in Shiratori Gotsu's eyes.
He sprang to his feet-
"How can you have such a loser mindset, Shiratori Gotsu?!" he roared, standing on the coffee table.
"You love extreme challenges more than anything, Shiratori Gotsu!"
"Where did your winner's mindset go, Shiratori Gotsu?!"
After a thorough round of self-motivation, Shiratori "the man who put pressure on himself" Gotsu made a triumphant comeback at full health.
"My skill in Barrier Techniques is too low, and my Cursed Energy control sucks? Then I'll practice like hell! My total Cursed Energy is too small? Then I'll make a Cursed Tool that can store Cursed Energy I pour into it and use it as an external reserve!"
He wiped his right thumb beneath his nose, his face once again brimming with determination.
"That's the kind of mindset I, Shiratori Gotsu, should have!"
"I... will win!"
Having fired himself up, he jumped backward onto the sofa and casually picked up a five-yen coin the previous owner had left in the corner of the coffee table.
"I can start training my Cursed Energy control and making a Cursed Tool to store Cursed Energy at the same time..."
He carefully controlled his Cursed Energy and inscribed a special circuit inside the five-yen coin.
"I just need to give it a simple function: I have to keep injecting Cursed Energy at a fixed rate, or it'll heat up..."
His advanced [Cursed Tool crafting] skills began to come into play.
On top of that, he had the experience of making the more complicated javelin Cursed Tool last time, so making a Cursed Energy storage tool with a small special effect like this was a breeze.
In just thirty minutes, the Cursed Energy storage coin made its grand debut.
"Oh no, no, no, I'm undoubtedly a genius!"
Shiratori Gotsu held the freshly made Cursed Energy storage coin in his palm and injected Cursed Energy at the rate he had set.
Everything was normal.
The coin received and stored the Cursed Energy exactly as Shiratori Gotsu had programmed it to, without any leaking out.
"Good. Now, let's try..."
He changed the rate at which he injected Cursed Energy, and in less than a second, the coin turned as red as a ripe apple.
"Holy crap!" He instinctively flung his hand out, sending the coin flying.
It traced a graceful arc through the air and landed squarely in the glass of water on the coffee table with a hiss.
"...Hiss!" Shiratori Gotsu looked at the large blister slowly rising on his palm, then at the glass of water that had begun to steam. "Maybe I made it a little too intense..."
He used Reverse Cursed Technique to heal the burn, then picked the coin out of the glass with two fingers.
"But that's just what I wanted!" Shiratori Gotsu gripped the coin again, the corners of his mouth rising. "The moment my Cursed Energy output fluctuates, I'll get burned like a dog."
"That's exactly the kind of intensity I need if I want to improve my Cursed Energy control quickly!"
Suddenly, the alarm he had set for mealtime went off.
Shiratori Gotsu's attention instantly shifted away from the Cursed Energy storage coin, and in that moment of distraction, the coin ripened again.
"Gah!"
With a strange cry from Shiratori Gotsu, the coin went flying once more...
That evening, Shiratori Gotsu hummed the tune of "AIZO" as he went on a super-hyped shoplifting spree in a convenience store that had long since been deserted.
"Love and hate, love and hate, swirling around~ Pork bone broth ramen... This is good... Bracken-root rice cakes? I'll give those a try..."
He scurried between the shelves like a rat crossing the street, twisting wildly to the rhythm of the music.
For convenience, he had turned the Cursed Energy storage coin into a pendant and worn it on his chest.
After the pair of "grandpa's lovers" on his body had been burned no fewer than ten times throughout the afternoon, Shiratori Gotsu could now maintain a steady Cursed Energy output almost all the time.
A cause for celebration.
He hadn't let the suffering of the pair of "grandpa's lovers" on his body go to waste.
Just as Shiratori Gotsu wrapped up his shoplifting spree to perfection and walked out of the convenience store carrying a bulging shopping bag, an incredibly familiar figure suddenly entered his field of vision.
"Yuta Okkotsu?"