Chapter 182: So Many Sorcerers... Missing?
Why was this information about an accident suddenly arriving now? It all began a week ago, when Emiya recommended the "Prodigy Romm".
Because Masamichi Yaga was intrigued by Romm's technology—specifically his ability to detect cursed spirits and cursed energy fluctuations through scientific means—he had recruited him into the college as an external instructor without hesitation.
Romm's innovative ideas did indeed bring about significant changes and improvements for the students, serving as an excellent example of how they might break free from the shackles of old rules in the future.
However, his true value did not lie there.
A week had passed, yet the Jujutsu Headquarters had still not approved Romm's application to be an external instructor. This level of efficiency—where a single document must cycle through different departments multiple times only to be backlogged for ages—was truly concerning.
It made one wonder if the operational efficiency of the college would actually be higher without this governing government body acting as a leader.
However, while the Headquarters was in a state of "stalling as long as possible," Yaga Masamichi, acting as the practical executioner, was far more efficient.
Hadn't Principal Yaga mentioned before that he wanted to designate an area for a pilot run of the monitoring equipment to test the practicality of Romm's technology?
In fact, hundreds, if not thousands, of monitoring devices had already been fully installed by the fourth day.
The core principle involved a special substance added to the devices that could store a small amount of cursed energy. Since Romm had already manufactured and stockpiled many finished products, he only needed to link them with existing equipment and perform minor adjustments.
As for the pilot area? After careful consideration and referencing the intelligence they had gathered, Masamichi Yaga ultimately decided on the Shibuya District.
In matters like this, it was always better to be safe than sorry. While it was a good thing they had obtained intelligence about the enemy, the problem was that the enemy also knew they had obtained it.
Would the enemy proceed with the plan? Or would they change the target location?
It was even possible that the enemy might use reverse psychology and continue to target Shibuya... It was difficult to reach a definitive conclusion.
A successful deduction would be considered brilliant strategy, but if even a tiny accident occurred, the situation would cease to be funny.
The most critical factor was that the jujutsu world simply didn't have enough manpower to prevent every possible attack. Furthermore, Masamichi Yaga couldn't directly broadcast the intelligence that the enemy might launch a large-scale assault.
Ultimately, this compromise—using Shibuya as the pilot area for monitoring—was an excellent choice.
Even if they couldn't track the movements of the hidden enemies at a critical moment, the Shibuya District was one of Tokyo's largest economic centers. Its massive foot traffic and population density guaranteed that negative emotions would be plentiful.
In the past, humans were happy just to be alive. Nowadays, humans struggle bitterly in a mediocre existence, as if the only purpose of living is simply to stay alive.
Humans are not machines, and even machines made of iron eventually wear down completely.
What is truly terrifying is not a life without hope or ups and downs, but this kind of arduous life in a big city where one can see the end of the road at a single glance.
Even as sorcerers, they obviously couldn't solve the "root cause" of why curses are born; they could only target the "result"—the cursed spirits.
Therefore, as long as Romm's invention functioned correctly, placing the pilot area here for a few months could save hundreds of lives... and once success was achieved, Masamichi Yaga might even be impatient to roll out the system to all of Tokyo, or even all of Japan.
What does it mean for roughly 50,000 people to lose their lives to curses every year?
To put it in perspective, a normal primary school has only a few thousand students. If the students of an entire school died at the same time, the whole world would focus its attention on that one small academy.
However, once that number is dispersed across the entire country over the course of a whole year, the level of shock is instantly diminished. It's like the "boiling frog" phenomenon; the frog doesn't realize anything is wrong.
Even the person who ultimately compiles those statistics would probably only view them as a string of numbers.
How many people truly care about those lost lives?
Precisely because of this, Emiya and Masamichi Yaga were so invested in this matter. They both acted with the mindset of saving as many people as possible.
On the first night after the monitoring facilities were installed, they successfully detected many "traces of curses" that had previously gone unnoticed. Their actual numbers were several times higher than anticipated.
This is because a "curse" does not materialize into a physical Cursed Spirit the moment it appears. Instead, there is a latent period ranging from several months to several years.
During this process, the curse continuously accumulates related negative emotions until it is ignited by some event or reaches a certain threshold to form a Cursed Spirit. During this phase, it is difficult for jujutsu sorcerers to detect these "curses" because they are non-physical entities attached to certain rules; only continuous observation can reveal their presence.
Due to the characteristic of hiding before an outbreak, the jujutsu world estimates that the actual number of latent curses in a location is roughly five times the number of cursed spirits that appear within a month.
The monitoring equipment developed by the "Prodigy Romm" discovered a vast number of curses on the very first night, giving the sorcerers near Shibuya a harsh taste of what it meant to work through the night without sleep.
But the most disheartening part was that after a night of hard work, Romm's excellent monitoring equipment quickly discovered an even greater number of "curses" on the second day than on the first.
What task grows the more you do it? This joke was originally used to describe the exaggerated workload of students, but now, the "corporate drone" sorcerers were lucky enough to experience it as well.
It was a perfect illustration of the saying: "Your day of becoming a legal adult will come sooner or later."
However, overall, this was still considered great. Because these "curses" were hidden dangers that would eventually erupt, the sorcerers were essentially working overtime to reduce their future workload.
Furthermore, dealing with unmaterialized "curses" wasn't as dangerous as facing a Cursed Spirit. As long as one was careful not to be directly tainted, it was generally difficult for them to be life-threatening.
After all, a sorcerer's cursed energy is resistant to external "curses," and unmaterialized "curses" do not possess the combat power or clear consciousness of Cursed Spirits. They can be eradicated with certain rituals and procedures.
As for whether this "treating the symptoms but not the root cause" method would allow the eradicated curses to brew again years later under the accumulation of negative emotions...
That was clearly not something these front-line sorcerers could handle. That was a problem belonging to human society as a whole.
These front-line sorcerers were clearing latent "curses" every day at a speed far exceeding previous records. Yet, for some reason, the more they cleared, the more the number of "curses" seemed to surge.
Finally, two days and two nights later, the accident Romm mentioned occurred—
"Because the number of detected curses far exceeded expectations, Principal Yaga treated this as part of the cursed spirits' conspiracy. Within his authority, he commissioned even more sorcerers to carry out the clearing operation."
"As of three hours ago, the number of sorcerers in Shibuya, including freelance sorcerers, reached 216. This caused the speed at which the monitoring facilities detected curses to fall behind."
Two hundred and sixteen. This number doesn't sound large, as a heavily populated middle school class can have over fifty people.
Usually, a single grade in a normal school has at least four or five hundred people, so a count of just over two hundred doesn't seem like much.
But to make a comparison of this scale, one needs a similar reference point to be accurate.
According to information recently released by the Headquarters, the number of officially registered sorcerers managed by the organization is approximately 564.
Even if the number of freelance sorcerers is more than three times that amount, the total number of sorcerers in the entire Japanese jujutsu world is less than 3,000.
Two hundred is already one-tenth of the total. Is that not a massive number?
It could be said that if these people were to meet with an accident simultaneously, the state of the entire jujutsu world would truly be heavily crippled.
"The strange thing is, while the sorcerers cleared the curses very quickly, new curses always appeared from dark corners, making it impossible for them to truly relax.
This is very strange, right? Cursed spirits can be manipulated and released, but 'curses' have never been known to have similar characteristics.
Adhering to the principle of safety first, Principal Yaga immediately ordered the cessation of the search operation and quickly conducted a tally and investigation of the actual situation..."
At this point, Romm's tone suddenly paused.
Even if he didn't say the next part, Emiya could probably guess it.
"An accident... no, are there many sorcerers who have lost contact?"
Would the enemy have predicted in advance that they would deeply clear curses in the Shibuya District? This was highly unlikely, unless Romm had exposed his talent and been noticed from the beginning.
But before this, as a freelance sorcerer, he hadn't even registered his information. How could he have been noticed?
Furthermore, with so many cursed energy detection devices in Shibuya, the only consequence of the enemies acting recklessly would be having their precise movements tracked. Yet, what Romm was about to say clearly wasn't that.
"Yes. According to the tally, a total of twenty-eight sorcerers have lost contact. Compared to the total number, it doesn't seem like much.
However, these missing sorcerers are, without exception, Grade 2 or above, or freelance sorcerers with strength at Grade 2 or above.
We are still unable to determine exactly what happened..."
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