[Current equipped cards: Simulator [UR], Mental Pollution Resistance [N], Thin Presence [N]]
Consciousness sank into darkness. The system's cold chime rang out:
[Fifteen years ago, you transmigrated here. Three months ago, both parents were slaughtered by a Cursed Spirit. The shock of that trauma awakened your memories as a transmigrator.]
[As survivors, you were recovered by Windows observers. To ensure your silence and squeeze out what little use you had, you were forced to sign nondisclosure agreements and put to work as bottom-rung cleaners specializing in scrubbing away Residual Cursed Energy.]
[Under the contemptuous gaze of Assistant Managers and the whispers of Cursed Spirits, you and your fellow cleaners drift like the walking dead, never knowing if tomorrow will come.]
[Drawing this year's card...]
[Draw successful!]
[Cursed Energy Allergy (N): You become sensitive to the flow of Cursed Energy. Though you cannot see it, you can instinctively sense the direction of danger. Side effect: proximity to strong Cursed Energy sources causes skin irritation.]
[Adjust loadout?]
The simulation froze, waiting for a decision.
The first year counts as a draw too? A spark of excitement. He'd already used this year's draw in reality, but the Simulator granted another inside the simulation. That alone proved its worth.
An N-grade card, sure. But in a world where he was stumbling blind, a danger sense was practically divine intervention. He swapped without hesitation.
Thin Presence reduced his visibility, but "reduced" wasn't "invisible." It had never been a guarantee.
[You replaced Thin Presence with Cursed Energy Allergy.]
[Simulation resumes.]
[You realize the simulation has begun.]
[Every instinct screams at you to bolt, to find the Jujutsu High that the Assistant Managers have mentioned in passing, to learn everything you can about getting stronger. But you know better. Drawing attention is the fastest way to get yourself killed.]
[You swallow your restlessness and decide to survive this cleanup job first.]
["Hurry it up! Three more floors of blood to scrub before dawn, and if you don't finish, I'm tossing you in to feed the Cursed Spirits!"]
[The Assistant Manager's snarl sends every cleaner trembling.]
[You bow your head, mop the floor, play the obedient dog. Inside, your mind races. Soon as I awaken a Cursed Technique, yours is the first head going into this bucket.]
[Night deepens. 2 AM.]
[You've barely curled into a corner to catch a few minutes of sleep when the voice of the on-site Assistant Manager, Sato, cuts through the silence.]
["Need a volunteer. Easy job!"]
[Easy? In a place where even the air tastes like blood? You don't buy it for a second. You shut your eyes and play dead.]
["Touma Hayase! Quit faking it! I saw you mopping earlier, nice and quick. You're up!"]
[No choice but to stand. Refusing orders never ends well. You can't even remember the face of the last person who tried.]
[Sato watches you approach, the unlucky pick of the litter. He pushes his glasses up, lenses catching the light, and a thin smile spreads across his face. The cruel kind.]
["Seems there's a little stray still hiding in the basement. We need someone to go down and flush it out... Just take a lap, confirm its position, and you get double pay plus three days off!"]
Flush it out, or serve as live bait?
Hard to spend a bonus when you're dead.
Touma had heard the veteran cleaners talk during previous jobs. Sato exploited his own Cursed Technique, which gave him some offensive capability, by using cleaners as lures to draw out weak leftover Cursed Spirits and pocket the extra bounty.
The play was transparent. Go downstairs, let the thing lurking in the dark pounce, and Sato swoops in for the easy kill.
Whether the bait survived? "Acceptable losses." After all, compared to those precious Jujutsu Sorcerers, a cleaner's life was barely worth the paperwork.
Everything about this simulation confirmed it. Sato had no intention of bringing him back alive.
So tonight's a dead end. At least the Simulator had shown him early.
[You curse silently, knowing there's no escape. Your skin prickles as Cursed Energy Allergy screams its warning. From the direction of the basement, suffocating malice rolls upward like heat from an open furnace.]
[Dead either way. Might as well gamble.]
[The moment Sato turns to grab a talisman, you lock eyes with Shinjiro beside you, then bolt for the edge of the Curtain.]
[You're going to break out of this barrier.]
["You bastard! Think you can run?!" Sato reacts instantly, flicking a talisman forward. A low-grade Shikigami materializes in a flash.]
[Before the Cursed Energy Allergy, you'd never have dodged it. But now the prickling in your skin maps the attack's trajectory a split second early.]
[The exit is still too far.]
["Grab him! Don't let him break protocol!" Sato roars. Two of the other cleaners charge forward.]
[An instant before they pin you to the ground...]
[A roar tears through the air. Something animal, something furious.]
[Shinjiro does the unthinkable. He hefts the heavy bucket of filthy blood with both hands and hurls it with everything he has, straight into Sato's face.]
[Stinking liquid drenches the man from head to chest. The Assistant Manager who lorded over them all stands sputtering, blinded, stripped of every shred of dignity.]
["Run, Touma!!" Shinjiro throws his arms wide, a wall of muscle blocking the pursuit, dragging two cleaners down by their legs and refusing to let go.]
["You're dead!" Sato wipes the filth from his eyes, seething, and redirects his Shikigami. It slams into Shinjiro's exposed back. Blood sprays.]
Back on the real-world rooftop, crouched in the shadow of the water tank, Touma's eyes burned red.
The other sole survivor of that disaster. The man who'd been grinning like an idiot minutes ago, saying "at least we get fed." One of the only friends he had left in this world.
In the simulation, the moment Shinjiro realized Touma was trying to run, he hadn't asked a single question. He'd thrown himself in the way without a second thought.
Touma turned his head. A few meters away, on this quiet rooftop during their break, the big man sat on his haunches peeling the wrapper off an expired convenience store rice ball. The care he took with it, the quiet satisfaction on his face, like it was the best thing he'd eaten all week.
Maybe he wasn't smart. Maybe he didn't understand the world of Jujutsu, couldn't think about the future. But he understood loyalty.
Touma drew a slow breath and forced the heat behind his eyes to cool.
If this simulation didn't bring back something useful, the real Shinjiro would face the same fate.
"I'll save you. You don't deserve to die tonight."
["Nghh..."]
[The choked groan behind you. You don't look back.]
[No time for grief. You will not let his sacrifice become meaningless.]
[You run. You survive. You find Jujutsu High. You master Cursed Energy. You get strong.]
[The chaos Shinjiro bought you is enough. Guided by memory of the terrain and the tingling map of Cursed Energy flowing around you, you stumble and stagger out of the school building.]
[Ahead looms the Curtain, the barrier sealing inside from out.]
[Curtains are designed to let people in easily but keep them trapped. For a low-priority job like this, though, the barrier only blocks ordinary people's line of sight.]
[You throw yourself at it with everything left in your legs. Your body pushes through something thick and clinging, like an oily membrane stretching around you.]
[Cool night air hits your face. You're out.]
[Behind you, the abandoned school crouches in the dark like something alive. But the basement Cursed Spirit that even Sato feared doesn't pursue. Perhaps it's already busy with the... complimentary buffet left behind.]
[Free and alone on an empty street, you face your next decision.]
[1. Go to your second older sister in Tokyo. (She works as a servant for a powerful family.)]
[2. Disappear into Tokyo's streets. Hide in the slums or the sewers.]
[3. Go back and fight Sato.]
[Choose:]
The simulation paused again.
Touma ran the options.
Option 3 was suicide. Sato had a Cursed Technique that could summon Shikigami. Weak by Jujutsu Sorcerer standards, maybe, but against someone with zero offensive ability? Walking back meant walking into a grave.
Option 2 was a slow death. Without the Windows' protection, an ordinary person with no way to fight, orphaned and alone in Tokyo, he'd drop below the survival line within days. Starvation if he was lucky. Something invisible and hungry in a dark alley if he wasn't.
His gaze settled on Option 1.
Memories of his second sister, Sayaka Hayase, surfaced. She'd left home when he was twelve, introduced to a wealthy household through a contact, working as a servant to pay off the family's debts.
He vaguely remembered a name from her letters. The family she served. "Zenin."
An odd surname. Back then, he'd thought nothing of it. Some old-money Japanese clan clinging to feudal traditions.
But in those same letters, Sayaka had complained. The place was suffocating.
Terrifying.
"The rules here are insane. Everywhere you turn there are men in kimono with murder in their eyes."