Chapter 11 – Caught Cheating

◇《POV: Renma (Miyama)》

That instant just now.

Shinano’s body was definitely positioned away from Chiena.

“Shinano, what happened!!”

“Felt like I got pushed out by some weird force! I wasn’t touched!”

“I felt the same. When I approached her, I sensed strong resistance.”

Air, repulsion, or something else entirely—some kind of jujutsu that manipulates it.

Either way, getting close to Chiena doesn’t seem like a good idea.

“Pull back for now! From Shirou too! We don’t know what kind of jujutsu he’ll use to attack!!”

Naturally, the grand hall is packed to the brim with cursed energy.

For jujutsu users, there probably isn’t a place where it’s easier to bring out their full potential.

“Miyama-kun! Your Unique Jujutsu!?”

“Not yet! After we force Minegi Shirou out of the shelter!!”

The idea that “I can’t attack good people” as my restriction is, strictly speaking, wrong.

More accurately, I can only interfere with the excessive konpaku a target possesses.

Harming others is accomplished in the form of taking their konpaku.

Taking it back and redistributing it—that’s my jujutsu.

Even so, the situation is the worst.

Chiena stands facing us.

Her konpaku was far, far less than the amount she should have had.

With this, even if I take some damage from her, I can’t retaliate against her.

Which means she’s the one who’s been oppressed—and she doesn’t possess konpaku I can steal.

The culprit is, without question, Minegi Shirou.

Whether by coincidence or inevitability, the last assassin he sent our way was, for me, practically a natural enemy.

“I want to restrain Chiena! We’re going to probe her jujutsu!!”

“Roger!”

“Understood.”

Up until now, Chiena had only been walking toward us, but she gradually started attacking.

Her method: invisible, untouchable impacts.

If it were a physical attack, my cursed-energy-reinforced body would take it.

With the amount of cursed energy I’ve got, I can keep moving without caring about wounds as small as a knife stab.

But if she doesn’t touch you, what can you even do?

The impacts deal damage directly to internal organs, so even reinforcing yourself with cursed energy makes it hard to fully block.

For Shinano—who has less cursed energy than I do—it’s an even more serious problem.

I order Shinano to keep her distance, and with Yuuri, I move to pin Chiena down.

Suddenly, I sense something glowing from the four corners of the grand hall.

But I don’t have the breathing room to check every little thing.

We stayed on the defensive—an exhausting fight dragged on.

◇《POV Shift: Renma → Shirou》

“Kukuku… struggle. Suffer.”

The gem set into the gauntlet on my right hand glows dully.

This cursed tool, imbued with the power of 【Body Manipulation】, currently has Chiena under its control.

Like a game player, I issue commands to Chiena from inside the shelter and move her around.

How humiliating it must be—to be forced by the orders of the father who has oppressed her, to harm an unknown young man.

If this continues, the cursed energy of the mentally eroded Chiena will awaken the cursed tool housed within her body.

But that would be too late.

“Ah… hurry. Hurry. I want your power.”

The black-clad young man facing Chiena.

Even without seeing his face, his aura and build make a single name rise in my mind.

Yes—Miyako Renma.

He is the perfected form of the human cursed tool I have pursued for years, and by that uniqueness, a weapon of destruction called the strongest in the world.

I attempted to brainwash him many times when he was young, but every attempt ended in failure.

The reason is extremely simple.

My greatest masterpiece had its effect canceled out by the overwhelming difference in cursed energy.

After that, with some restriction I still don’t fully understand, he grew to the level where he could easily cause special-grade incidents—at this point, direct attacks on his mind are close to impossible.

It’s impossible to take him into my grasp.

In that case, I’ll simply make one with my own hands.

“Now then… shall I activate the device around here?”

The fixed cameras installed in the grand hall light up.

The scenery captured by those mechanical eyes is immediately sent to the servers and spread across the world.

I discovered it only recently.

Remote activation of cursed energy through a screen.

By fusing that with a streaming system, I created an environment where viewers’ emotions can interfere with the cursed energy surrounding the streamer.

A single girl relentlessly beats down a cozy-looking couple—a man and a woman.

That stream, uploaded to a video platform under the title “Caught Cheating,” drew attention from all over the world in the blink of an eye.

-That guy in the black hood pisses me off!!

-Yeah!! Kill him!!!

-Don’t actually kill!! Just beat him half to death!!

-I checked the description and it’s vile, holy crap

-So this is jujutsu users fighting… it’s totally one-sided

-That’s what happens when you pick a fight with a jujutsu user

-Jujutsu users are terrifying!!

-Also the girls are just straight-up cute

Humans truly are foolish creatures.

Give them some half-baked commentary and slap on an AI voice, and they’ll interpret it exactly the way I want—becoming pawns that add negative vibrations to cursed energy.

Even without directly feeding negative cursed energy into it, the energy saturating the space is slowly absorbed, steadily corroding them from within.

The cursed energy already inside Chiena’s body is wrapped in an overwhelming negative aura—there’s nothing strange about the cursed tool awakening at any moment.

If there’s one concern, it’s that Miyako Renma might stop Chiena, but I’ve prepared carefully for that, too.

There should be no problem—surely.