I Was Nearly Killed by My Fellow A-Rank Party, but Now I Fed a Nine-Tailed Fox Deep in the Dungeon. ~ “My Master, I Shall Never Leave Your Side for All Eternity,” the Legendary Monsters Said While Doting on Me. Before I Knew It, I Had Become the World’s Strongest Lord of the Demon Realm~ - Chapter 39 & 40

The Protagonist Awakens

“Th-this guy’s… Ryomen Sukuna!?”

The silver-haired man standing right in front of us—Ryomen Sukuna—looked at Tamamo and the rest of us around her, then sneered.

“That’s not like you at all, nine-tailed fox. Hanging around with a bunch of nobodies like this?”

“Those nobodies just took down all your precious youma, didn’t they? How’s that feel?”

“I miscalculated. I never thought you’d struggle so much against something on that level. Honestly, I’m disappointed. You’re no great youkai anymore.”

“Then why don’t you just give back the half of my soul you stole? Right now the soul inside this body of mine is just borrowed.”

Hearing Tamamo’s words, Sukuna laughed even harder.

“I see. So that’s how you broke the seal… You shoved someone else’s soul into your own body.”

“That’s right. This is a youju that someone precious to me cherishes. I have to get it back no matter what.”

“And that’s not all. You handed over most of your youki to that human, didn’t you? The weakening is obvious.”

Sukuna let out a sigh, looking completely fed up.

“The proud, aloof you I knew is nowhere to be seen. I can’t stand watching any more of this pathetic display…”

He unfolded his arms and grabbed the sword hanging at his waist.

“…I’ll bury you right here, right now.”

The moment he said that, an overwhelming pressure of youki wrapped around the whole area.

My skin prickled like crazy, and every inch of my body was screaming danger.

Mike scrambled back from Sukuna in a panic.

“W-whoa, this is bad… I’m already wiped out and can’t even move!”

“Kuon big bro, run—!”

“Nurara!? Suzu-san, no! It’s dangerous outside the wall!”

Seeing Sukuna radiating pure killing intent, Tamamo gave a fearless grin.

“What are you getting so worked up about, Sukuna? I was just poking a little to see how you’d react, but you really are easy to read.”

“…What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s funny, y’know. If you were gonna fight, you should’ve just come yourself from the start. Why’d you send Yamata no Orochi or whatever instead?”

“There’s no reason for me to charge in alone when you’ve got a whole crowd. Even if we’re just counting heads, we’ve still got the numbers.”

Tamamo hid her mouth behind the sleeve of her kimono and laughed softly.

“No need to play dumb. You’re scared, aren’t you? Back in the old days, you fought an onmyouji and his shikigami and got sealed away.”

“Why do you even know about that…? It was ages ago. And the onmyouji’s long gone anyway. He poured every last bit of strength into sealing me and died.”

“Ah… that onmyouji, though—”

Tamamo glanced at me for a second.

“—seems he’s calling himself a ‘youju tamer’ these days?”

“…Huh?”

Tamamo’s words hit me like a shock.

Me… an onmyouji?

Once she said it, I started thinking back.

(…I’ve never even met any youju except Fokko. I only started calling myself a ‘youju tamer’ after the fact. It’s just because Fokko took a liking to me that I went with that title…)

Tamamo kept going.

“You asked why I know all this, right…? The spirit fox inside me is the child of that shikigami you killed back then, and the Kuon who’s standing here with me is the descendant of that onmyouji. We’ve been connected through ‘souls’ since way back.”

“…No way. That’s ridiculous.”

“Thanks to you, I finally understand why you sealed me away. You were scared because I could use onmyoujutsu, weren’t you? Ironically, the fact that you sealed me is exactly what let me figure out how to beat you.”

With that, Tamamo smiled at me.

“Kuon, he’s the one who killed Fokko’s parents. If we team up, we can take him.”

“B-but how…!?”

“Kuon, just trust me. Here we go… ‘Possession’!”

The second Tamamo said it, she turned into light and wrapped around my whole body.

Then a fox mask settled over my head.

“…Whoa, youki’s pouring out of me like crazy!”

Tamamo’s voice rang out from the fox mask on my head.

“All right, Kuon. Let’s take that guy down!”

“Yeah! Let’s do this, Tamamo!”

Let’s Run Our Territory with Youkai Power!

Tamamo possessed me, and youki flooded my body from the fox mask sitting on my head.

“Kuon, in this state we can just brute-force it! Keep the pressure on!”

“Got it! Fox fire!”

I formed the hand seals and shot out fox fire.

Actually, Tamamo had taught me how right before lunch today, before we headed to the guild.

Maybe because the youki had originally come from her, I picked it up super fast.

The second I finished the seals, a blazing flame made from both our youki combined slammed into Sukuna’s body.

“Guh, that’s some serious firepower…!”

“Kuon, fox fire won’t hurt us! Don’t hesitate, just charge straight in!”

“Roger! Uwooo!”

I rushed forward and swung a punch. Sukuna tried to block with his sword, but my youki-charged fist smashed right through the blade and smashed into his face.

“Guhah!? What the hell is this strength…! Tch, I can’t win like this.”

The punched Sukuna flipped himself over on the ground, turned his back on us, and took off running.

“Hey, get back here!”

“From the way you keep charging in like an idiot, I can tell you don’t know any other techniques! I’m getting out of here alive! I’ll kill you lot next time!”

“Damn it!”

Now that Tamamo was possessing me, I could tell I had way more youki than Sukuna.

But he must’ve been using some kind of youjutsu, because I just couldn’t catch up.

I still hadn’t learned any long-range techniques yet, so at this rate…

“I can’t reach him, he’s getting away…!”

“—Kuon-kun! Use this!”

I turned toward the voice and a bare sword came flying at me.

Looked like Mike had thrown her own sword my way.

I caught it, took aim at Sukuna’s heart, and hurled it like a spear.

“Go go gooo!”

The sword streaked forward like a laser beam and stabbed straight into Sukuna’s heart from behind.

“N-no way!? A sword that can pierce my body…!”

“We did it!”

Sukuna tumbled forward and collapsed on the ground.

I rushed over to him in a hurry.

“It’s over, Sukuna.”

Even while coughing up blood, Sukuna was laughing.

“Heh heh heh… pointless. I teamed up with the ‘Demon King’ of this world. No matter how much power you guys get, you can’t stop it anymore. I’m the one who’s gonna take over the world.”

“…What are you even saying? You’re about to die right here.”

“—Kuon. Sukuna can split off parts of his body with youjutsu and make clones. Judging by how fast he ran, this one’s probably just ‘Sukuna’s leg.’ The real body’s somewhere else.”

“Exactly. Struggle all you want.”

With that last laugh, Sukuna died.

The fox mask on my head cracked apart, and Tamamo returned to her original form.

—Right after that, an insane wave of exhaustion slammed into my body.

“Haa… haa… I can’t move at all…!”

“Yeah, looks like a few minutes is my limit for now… First time trying it, but ‘possession’ really takes a lot out of you…”

The two of us dropped to the ground with a thud.

“Nine-tails-sama! Kuon!”

“Kuon big bro~! Fox big sis~!”

“Kuon-san! Tamamo-san!”

“Kuon-kun! Nine-tails-sama!”

Four voices calling our names came from far away, then quickly got closer.

“Glad you’re both okay~!”

“Ahaha… somehow, yeah.”

“Nine-tails-sama! Are you alright!?”

“Yukime, sorry, but can you give me a piggyback? I can’t move.”

“M-me, carrying Nine-tails-sama!? O-okay, got it!”

“Then I’ll carry Kuon-kun.”

“Mike, thanks for everything back there. You really saved us.”

“Nuraraa! A fated showdown! Kuon-san’s awakening! That was so cool!”

Once Yukime and Mike had us on their backs, I realized we’d somehow ended up deep in the forest.

“Geez, because of Sukuna we had to run all the way out here… hm?”

Tamamo suddenly started looking around like she’d noticed something.

“Hey, Yukime. That way, go that way.”

“Nine-tails-sama, that’s the opposite direction from town, y’know?”

“It’s fine. Pretty sure it was around here…”

After walking a little farther, Tamamo made Yukime stop.

“Yeah, yeah, this is the spot.”

She held up two fingers.

Suddenly the air split open, and another world spread out between the trees.

“Just as I thought. ‘Mayohiga.’”

“Mayohiga…?”

“Yep. Well, you’ll get it once we go inside.”

Following Tamamo’s instructions, we stepped through the tear in space.

—Inside, it felt like time had completely stopped.

Even though it should’ve been dark outside by now, everything was bright and the weather felt like spring.

Past the gravel path stood a magnificent mansion.

Well, magnificent only in size—the inside was a total wreck.

The tatami, shoji screens, fusuma doors—everything was falling apart.

The walls had chunks of plaster missing, looking miserable.

The huge Japanese garden you could see from the living room had bare dirt showing everywhere.

“This is… Mayohiga?”

“One of my old homes from way back. It used to be nice… but yeah, way too much time has passed.”

Tamamo let out a big sigh.

“Sorry, just forget it. A haunted house like this is worse than an inn—”

“Tamamo, let’s live here!”

“…Huh?”

“We can fix it up! And nobody’ll find us here, right? Sukuna won’t be able to track us.”

“Well, that’s true, but… it’s gonna be a ton of work, y’know?”

“It’s fine! If we all work together!”

Suz and the others immediately agreed with me.

“Our own house! Living together sounds like a dream!”

“Nurara! Boys and girls under one roof… something’s gotta happen!”

“I’ll follow whatever Nine-tails-sama decides. Leave all the daily chores to me.”

“It’s all run-down, but… it’s huge. Way better than the apartment I’m living in…”

I slid off Mike’s back and clapped my hands.

“Alright, it’s decided! From now on this is our base—everyone’s gonna live here!”