Chapter 125: Missing Without a Trace
The Sorcery Association was giving Hikigaya Hachiman a great deal of "face," making Yukinoshita Yukino's arrival look like a high-ranking official coming down for a formal inspection. However, the security personnel at the entrance of the Tokyo branch reacted immediately when they saw the group of unidentified individuals approaching. One of them stepped forward to drive them away.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"Tourists are prohibited from entering this area."
Normally, the existence of the barrier would provide a certain degree of defense, but this sorcerer had stepped outside the barrier's bounds. To him, the people in front of him looked like ordinary civilians, posing no threat at all.
Before the sorcerer could finish his sentence, he alertly took a step back.
"Are you alright?"
A clear bloody scratch appeared where the sorcerer had been grabbed; it was evidently made by the hands of one of the unidentified persons.
"Be careful, something's wrong with these guys."
Suddenly, the sorcerer who had been scratched by the unknown entity felt his heart leap violently. The area around the scratch was already covered in pitch-black, bulging veins, and his eyes completed a transformation from black to blood-red. His colleague, unaware of this change and still standing beside him, only felt that his partner had suddenly twitched.
Unexpectedly, the infected man lunged forward, grabbing his colleague's shoulders with both hands and sinking his teeth fiercely into the man's neck.
The movement was fluid. Even as he felt the searing pain, the sorcerer standing next to him wore a look of utter disbelief. Blood splattered everywhere, but pinned down by immense strength, he was unable to move.
Soon, the sorcerer who was missing a large chunk of flesh from his neck also began to twitch. Finally, he stood back up in an extremely eerie posture. The two monsters, having completed their transformation, turned their sights inward toward the branch.
This bloody and cruel scene far exceeded the expectations of the security sorcerers. After all, they never imagined a curse user would be bold enough to attack a branch of the Sorcery Association in broad daylight.
Upon smelling blood, the monsters still outside the barrier became even more frenzied. Their bodies swelled instantly, growing from normal human sizes to the size of young calves. The remaining security sorcerers immediately pressed the "Enemy Attack" alarm and began attacking the monsters at the gate.
"Fire!"
Upstairs, where Hikigaya Hachiman and the others were being welcomed, a piercing alarm suddenly blared through the speakers. The sounds of heavy gunfire and the sudden siren from below caused everyone present to react.
"What's happening?"
"We're under attack!"
Hachiman and the others were in the third-floor lounge area. It would take some time for an attack from below to reach them. However, since the sorcerers present—excluding the newcomers Yukino and Mutsumi—were all Grade 1, their overall quality was high. No one panicked.
"Switch the monitor feed."
The images transmitted from below shocked everyone in the room. What they saw looked like a scene from a horror movie: colleagues who had been tackled and bitten by the monsters stood up after a few moments, having turned into monsters themselves.
They saw it clearly; those who were unfortunate enough to be scratched or bitten joined the ranks of the monsters in less than ten seconds, turning to fight against the security team. These undead monsters continued to advance through a metal storm of bullets. Once they bit someone, that person became one of them.
The scene was exceptionally gory. The monsters displayed incredible vitality; even those whose heads were blown off continued to attack with just their torsos. Some were eviscerated, dragging their intestines while still sprinting at high speeds. This fearless, suicidal advance cast a shadow over everyone watching.
"Zombies?"
Mutsumi Wakaba watched the spiraling chaos, feeling it resembled the zombie apocalypse movies she had seen. Yukino Yukinoshita found the description very apt. Those who were scratched or touched by the blood were turned into "zombies" by a virus, just like in a movie.
However, unlike the polished scenes in cinema, what they were seeing was uncensored, raw, and happening very close to them. The bloody and terrifying images made both Yukino and Mutsumi frown in discomfort. Mutsumi could even hear the monsters' roars and the sound of machine guns firing through the floorboards.
Hachiman sensed Mutsumi grabbing the corner of his coat again, feeling her unease. He comforted her directly:
"It's not that serious. It's just a curse user's technique."
In reality, it was impossible to create such a terrifying virus so easily. To achieve this effect, a curse user had to be using a technique. Hachiman had sensed the sudden surge in cursed
energy and knew there was an intrusion, but he had assumed the guards could handle it, so he hadn't paid it much mind.
The attacking entities were roughly at the level of Grade 3 spirits and should have been manageable. However, looking at it now, the defensive capabilities of this area seemed a bit weak. Moreover, the guards at the door were using live ammunition; that should have been enough to deal with monsters made from carbon-based organisms.
Actually, the area where Yukino, Mutsumi, and Hachiman stood was the safest place in the entire Tokyo branch. Simply because the people entertaining them were all Grade 1 sorcerers—the strongest defensive force of the branch was gathered right here.
"Mr. Hikigaya, and ladies, please follow me," a receptionist sorcerer said with an apologetic tone. The sorcerers at the entrance had been completely eroded by an unknown technique and turned into half-human, half-ghost monsters; they would likely break through soon. Their orders were to satisfy this "big shot" and the two ladies. Now that an attack had occurred, they couldn't leave these three VIPs in harm's way.
"No need," Hachiman replied. "It's already too late to leave."
The interception battle below was a total failure. Most of the security personnel had been wounded and turned.
"How many staff members do you have here today?"
"Counting the eight of us here, there should be thirty-one in total."
A whole branch only had twenty-three people if you excluded the high-level personnel. Hachiman even knew that several of the eight people in front of him had been temporarily reassigned from other jurisdictions by the Association.
"So few?" Yukino found it strange. This was a branch in Tokyo, the capital of Japan; logically, more personnel should have been allocated. In reality, most of the defensive force was out on patrol to prevent potential cursed spirit attacks; only the reserve personnel remained at the branch.
"The Association is always severely understaffed," Hachiman shook his head. "And now, it seems having fewer people is better."
The dead cannot be resurrected. That thing spread its "virus" much faster than imagined. It could be said that almost all the staff they had glimpsed earlier were infected; any who weren't were merely struggling for a final breath. A curse user of this level was certainly no nobody.
Hachiman knew he had to nip this in the bud. Seeing that level of infectivity, if this curse user were left to roam free, he alone could trigger a biological crisis. To be bold enough to attack an Association branch meant he was no small fry. Furthermore, with such a high-risk technique, there was no reason the Association wouldn't have files on him.
Since everyone present (except the two newcomers) was a Grade 1 sorcerer, it didn't take long for someone to identify the curse user based on the technique's characteristics.
"Corpse Worm Manipulation. It's a biological technique similar to parasites. Those parasites lay eggs extremely quickly; once the skin is scratched, they can infest a human body."
In other words, the infected were filled with parasitic eggs formed from cursed energy. Once a wound appeared, they invaded through the opening and multiplied in massive quantities to control the body. This explained why the monsters kept attacking even when their bodies were shattered—their vital points weren't their original human shells. The parasites were the true body!
"The user is... Sachio Otani."
"What's wrong?"
The sorcerer reporting the information suddenly stopped, a look of utter disbelief on his face. He even rubbed his eyes to re-read the intelligence displayed.
"According to the Association's records, the user of this technique should have been killed by Mr. Gojo four years ago."
"Dead?"
This was why the sorcerer felt so strange. The effect of the technique was identical to the dead curse user. As for the possibility that Satoru Gojo had stayed his hand and spared the man—that was considered impossible among sorcerers. Except for his one specific friend, Mr. Gojo showed no mercy to other curse users. No one doubted the work ethic of a man who slept at 4:00 AM and rose at 7:00 AM. Furthermore, the Association had recovered the body.
Why had the Corpse Worm Manipulation reappeared five years after the user's death?
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"Do you see my sincerity? I'm helping you take down the Tokyo branch of the Sorcery Association."
In an inconspicuous corner quite far from the scene, a man with a mohawk leaned against a wall, making a phone call. Except for the crest of hair, the sides of his head were shaved clean, and the mohawk was flamboyantly dyed red.
This "delinquent-looking" fellow was the curse user Sachio Otani, who was listed as deceased in the Association's internal database. Resurrected from the dead, he looked quite non-mainstream, but what made him look even more like a work of art was a stitched scar now running across his forehead. The stitches were hideous, giving the impression that his skull had been pried open and his brain replaced.
"Suguru Geto, it seems your people aren't being held in the Tokyo branch."
Indeed, this man was the unlucky soul Hikigaya Hachiman had caught spying on Okkotsu Yuta previously. The sorcerer from a thousand years ago, the ancestor of the Kamo family, and the most evil curse user in history: Kenjaku.
At the time, he had only sensed a brat destroying his long-range observation technique, but he hadn't expected the bastard to burn his optic nerves, blinding one of his eyes. And it wasn't just a physical injury; it was a soulful, irreparable wound. The nerve damage was irreversible, so even though he was now inhabiting a different body, he could only open one eye, becoming a "one-eyed dragon."
Fortunately, he had been honored with a "divine blessing," and the blindness caused by soul damage had been repaired. In its place was an eye that seemed to burn with a shifting, crystalline blue flame—quite beautiful.
However, once bitten, twice shy. Combined with the "divine revelations" he received, he knew he had to act with a low profile. Work quietly; don't draw attention. This body was merely one he had stolen from the Sorcery Association. Therefore, the body he was currently occupying with his technique was quite far from the incident.
His appearance here was mostly to earn a favor from the still heavily injured Suguru Geto. In truth, Geto's body was what Kenjaku truly desired. Once he obtained Cursed Spirit Manipulation and the power of the "kin" given to him by his Great God, even the Six Eyes—which had plagued him for nearly a thousand years—could be snuffed out with a flick of his wrist.
To achieve this, he had to drive the madman Geto into a total frenzy. The only way to make him lose his sanity was to find Geto's "family" before Geto did. Ideally, he would brutally harm them and pin the blame on the Sorcery Association.
However, the problem was obvious: Kenjaku currently couldn't find Geto's family members who had been taken by the Association.
Mimiko, Nanako, and the user Miguel had been hidden away by the Association.
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