Next Target, 400PS!
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"So it's still my problem then?"
"Pretty much!"
"..."
Satoru Gojo couldn't remember the last time he felt this speechless.
Ever since he became known as the strongest, hardly anyone had attempted to joke around with him like this.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
But Gojo didn't get angry. Instead, he just laughed out loud.
"Just as I thought. Anyone capable of awakening Cursed Spirit Manipulation is bound to be an interesting guy."
He found himself thinking about his old best friend—Suguru Geto.
Innate Techniques weren't unique to one person. If someone awakened an ability, it didn't mean others couldn't as well.
Take the Gojo clan's Limitless technique, for instance.
In theory—
Anyone born into the Gojo family could use the Limitless technique.
But using the technique needed extremely precise control of Cursed Energy, down to the atomic level. Only those with the Six Eyes bloodline trait could use it easily.
Without the Six Eyes, it was just a weaker version of the Limitless technique.
It wasn't even good enough to be called defective.
So, upon learning that Kai possessed the exact same Cursed Spirit Manipulation as Suguru Geto, Gojo was only surprised for a moment.
After that, he stopped worrying about it.
It came down to one thing: as the strongest in the modern era, Satoru Gojo was completely confident.
No matter who he faced, he believed he would always win.
"Speaking of which, if I remember correctly, the taste of a Cursed Spirit is supposed to be vile, right?" He spoke in a teasing tone.
Gojo remembered it clearly.
Suguru Geto had once described the taste of consuming Cursed Spirits as swallowing a rag used to wipe up raw sewage. Every single time he ingested a Cursed Spirit, it was practically a form of torture.
It was easy to think that Geto's mental breakdown and his wish to wipe out all ordinary humans partly came from that constant torment.
Right now, Gojo was really curious about what Kai felt when he ate those Cursed Spirits.
"Vile?" Kai seemed to know exactly what Gojo was thinking.
He pretended not to know and asked a question back. "Why would you say that?"
"Huh?"
Kai's reaction caught Gojo off guard. 'Why does this feel entirely different from what I expected?'
"Don't tell me you don't think Cursed Spirits taste disgusting?"
'Does this guy have some sort of twisted dietary kink?'
"The taste of a Cursed Spirit? What taste could they possibly have? It's just like drinking a glass of cool boiled water. You don't feel a single thing!"
"???"
Is that right?
Gojo's face went blank.
Was Suguru Geto messing with him back then? No... With the bond he and Geto had, Geto might have lied about other things, but not about this.
"Don't tell me you don't have a sense of taste?" Gojo now sounded very suspicious.
"What do you think?"
"..."
Kai didn't answer directly. He calmly tossed the question back.
That answer left Gojo at a loss for words. Now that he thought about it, whether someone was a Jujutsu Sorcerer or just a regular person, losing their sense of taste wasn't hard to fix with modern medicine.
"Tsk!"
Perhaps—
Kai's version of Cursed Spirit Manipulation really was fundamentally different.
At that thought, Gojo couldn't help but click his tongue several times. On one hand, he had failed to tease Kai—on the other hand, he suddenly thought of something highly amusing.
"If Suguru ever heard about this, he would probably lose his mind!"
Both of them possessed Cursed Spirit Manipulation—yet when Geto ate a Cursed Spirit, he had to endure agonizing torture, while Kai experienced nothing.
Just thinking about it would make anyone feel it was unfair.
"Well!"
Kai obviously knew who the "Suguru" Gojo mentioned was.
But Kai couldn't be bothered to dive deeper into the topic. He shrugged and cut straight to the chase. "Listen, you definitely didn't call me this late at night just to ask about my Innate Technique, did you?"
'Are you really that bored?'
But thinking about it carefully. Satoru Gojo really was the kind of person who could be that bored.
"Right! I do have some serious business with you!" Prompted by the question, Gojo finally remembered his actual reason for calling. He immediately stated. "Well, the number of Cursed Spirits popping up lately is getting a bit ridiculous. A few of my students went out to exorcise some curses and went missing. I've got my hands full with other stuff right now, so I need you to go check it out for me!"
"If they're dead, please do me a favor and drag their bodies back!"
Gojo said that last part in a careless, joking way.
He made it sound as if he didn't care about his students' lives in the slightest. However, if that were true, Gojo never would have made this phone call to begin with.
Perhaps he really was swamped.
Being called the "Strongest of the Modern Era" wasn't just a title—It was a huge burden.
With so many Cursed Spirits appearing, no one was more tired than Satoru Gojo right now.
Deep down, he definitely cared deeply about these students.
But the thing was—
People like Gojo just didn't know how to talk like everyone else.
No matter what was happening, he always kept that same annoying attitude.
"How many days have they been missing?"
Jujutsu High students went missing? Kai had no intention of refusing.
For one, powerful Cursed Spirits were excellent nourishment for someone with Cursed Spirit Manipulation.
For another... This could be considered his first official contact with the Jujutsu Society.
Wherever there are people, there is politics.
Kai knew he couldn't stay a lone wolf forever. The Jujutsu Society would never let a powerful Sorcerer like him wander around without doing something.
Right now, Satoru Gojo's name was probably the only thing protecting him.
That was why the higher-ups of the Jujutsu world hadn't reached out their claws to grab him yet.
No matter how you saw it, Gojo had definitely helped him out. And Kai wasn't ungrateful. Whether he needed the help or not was another story.
But to answer someone who helped him with cold sarcasm...
That was a different matter. "I don't mind helping. How long have they been missing?"
"Well, I think it's been two days... No, wait, it should be three days!"
"..."
Calling for help after they've been missing for three days?
'Never mind what I said before. You really don't care if these students live or die!'
"Fine. Send me the address. But a heads-up—after three days, if something went wrong, their bodies might already be rotting. Don't blame me if I can't save them!"
"Don't worry! Don't worry!" Hearing Kai agree, Gojo laughed and said: "If they're really gone, it just means that was their fate, and they lacked the strength. Who else is there to blame?"
"The Jujutsu world is only going to get more dangerous from here on out. Dying now might be a form of release."
He kept up that same cynical tone, like he didn't care about anything.
But this also showed Gojo's dark outlook for the future of the Jujutsu world. There were so many Cursed Spirits now that even Gojo was exhausted. If these students didn't get stronger soon, even if they survived this time, they would eventually fail.
"Alright, I'll text you the address shortly. Thanks!"
It was rare to hear Satoru Gojo say 'thanks'.
But the moment he said it, Gojo immediately hung up the phone.
"Ha!" Gojo stared at his phone and let out a quiet laugh.
Right at that moment—
"What's so funny?" Shoko Ieiri's slightly sluggish voice drifted over from behind him.
Gojo turned around and saw Shoko coming in from outside, looking tired with a cigarette hanging from her lips.
"You actually have time to rest?"
Shoko knew better than anyone just how swamped Gojo had been lately.
It was a real surprise to see him taking a break.
"It was just a bunch of small fry."
Special Grade Cursed Spirits were nothing to Gojo. For him, dealing with them was like kicking stray dogs on the street.
"But I wouldn't call this resting. I just got word that a few students went missing, so I rushed back for a minute. I still have to head back out to handle more curses later!" While he talked, Gojo let out a huge yawn.
"Missing? Is it Maki and the others?" Hearing that students were missing, Shoko immediately narrowed it down.
Of all Gojo's students, only Maki Zen'in and her group would end up in a situation like this right now.
"Yeah! We literally agreed that I would personally assign their exorcism missions. But kids these days just won't listen. They insisted on taking missions on their own!"
When he mentioned this, Gojo sounded a little helpless. As his students got older and more mature, they were getting harder to manage.
"BUT!"
"If I remember correctly, the missions assigned by the school are strictly matched to the students' abilities."
"Maki Zen'in, Toge Inumaki, and Panda. They might not seem strong to me, but if those three work together, taking down a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit shouldn't be a problem."
"So, why exactly did something go wrong?"
As he asked that. Gojo tilted his head and gave Shoko a meaningful look.
"..."
Shoko Ieiri didn't say a word.
She just lowered her eyes a little. She already had a good idea of what had happened.
"Just as I thought!"
Gojo didn't really expect Shoko to answer, so he didn't mind her silence. He just smiled and went on.
"See? Even in a crisis like this, the people at the top only care about keeping their own power. Why would they care if anyone else lives or dies?"
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