Chapter 103: The Method of Breaking It
"A connection... from sixteen years ago?" Ren asked hesitantly.
"Mm." Mei Mei swung their joined hands back and forth as she walked. "Did you know, Ren? Sixteen years ago, I carried out a mission together with your teacher, Utahime."
"What?" Ren blinked in surprise.
Though, on second thought, it wasn't all that unexpected.
Mei Mei was older than Utahime, and according to her, she had once served as an assistant supervisor at Jujutsu High. It was only natural that the two women had crossed paths.
And judging from how tense Utahime became the moment Mei Mei's name was mentioned, it was obvious they went way back. They had probably worked closely together at one point.
"Yep." Mei Mei's next words, however, genuinely caught him off guard.
"The curse we encountered back then was very similar to this one."
"Just like now, we wandered endlessly through a looping space, unable to find any way out."
She brushed aside the silver braid covering one eye and let out a long sigh.
"Back then, I was still a youthful maiden in the bloom of her years."
"How nostalgic."
"Sixteen years ago, I walked this path with the teacher. Sixteen years later, I'm walking it again with the student."
"Well, strictly speaking, Utahime and I weren't holding hands like this back then." She suddenly went off on a tangent. "Workplace safety standards weren't nearly as advanced in those days."
Then she continued casually.
"And we certainly weren't facing an enemy that felt this familiar."
"Wouldn't you call that a rather unique kind of fate?"
Listening to her, Ren could indeed feel a strange sense of time's passage.
The overlap of past and present, the familiarity hidden beneath years of change-it all carried a peculiar, almost dreamlike weight.
But...
Now was hardly the time for nostalgia.
Mei Mei reached the top of another staircase and gazed steadily into the darkness stretching ahead.
"Then," she said calmly, "let us go meet this ghost from sixteen years ago."
Still holding his hand, she strode forward into the depths of the corridor with unwavering confidence.
The firmness of her pace eased Ren's tension somewhat.
She was right.
If this curse truly resembled the one she and Utahime had faced all those years ago, then the fact that both women were still alive today meant they had successfully exorcised it.
Which also meant they already knew how to deal with it.
All he had to do was follow her lead.
As for similar-or even identical-curses, Ren found nothing strange about it.
Curses were born from humanity's negative emotions. When the same kinds of fears, resentments, and anxieties gathered together, they naturally gave rise to similar cursed spirits.
What intrigued him more was the nostalgic tone in Mei Mei's voice.
He found himself becoming curious about that period of her life.
"What was Utahime-sensei like back then?" he asked with genuine interest.
The teacher he knew today was graceful, beautiful, and impeccably composed.
It was difficult not to wonder what she had been like in her youth.
Mei Mei smiled faintly.
"She was a good kid."
"But she was incredibly timid."
"She survived the curse just fine, yet nearly died of fright when she saw me appear normally."
"What?"
Ren immediately pictured Utahime's elegant face twisted in terror-her complexion turning green, eyes rolling back, mouth twitching, perhaps even foaming at the lips before collapsing unconscious on the spot.
The image was so absurd that he couldn't help laughing.
"And besides," Mei Mei continued, "she was much livelier back then."
"People naturally become calmer and more mature as they grow older, but personally, I think the younger Utahime was a little cuter."
Then she clicked her tongue.
"And she was far better at showing proper respect to her seniors."
...
The two chatted idly as they walked.
More than ten minutes later, the familiar corridor appeared before them once again.
The wall with the gaping hole.
The collapsed section of masonry on the right.
They had returned.
At this point, it was all but certain that the culprit was indeed a curse with spatial abilities.
Ren turned toward Mei Mei expectantly, waiting for her to reveal a solution.
Instead, her expression suddenly shifted.
"Ren..." she said.
"Did you happen to count?"
"Count what?"
"The number of steps."
"From this point until the moment we returned here again."
Ren shook his head.
"No."
Mei Mei pressed a hand against her forehead beneath her silver bangs.
"Then let's do it again."
"This time, pay attention to your stride length."
"Keep every step as consistent as possible and calculate the total number."
...
About forty-five minutes later, the two sorcerers and their giant wolf returned once more to the corridor marked by the collapsed wall.
"One thousand five hundred and thirty-eight steps," Ren reported.
Mei Mei lowered her gaze in thought.
This was already the third return since she had asked him to start counting.
The previous totals had been 1,537 and 1,539 steps.
Such tiny discrepancies were effectively negligible.
In other words, every circuit covered exactly the same distance.
Her own measurements confirmed the same conclusion.
"That's troublesome," she sighed softly.
"What is?"
Mei Mei crouched down and picked up several pieces of rubble and splintered wood.
"Sixteen years ago, when Utahime and I encountered this phenomenon, the number of steps required to return to our marker point changed every time."
She arranged the stones and wood fragments across the floor in an uneven line.
"That meant the space wasn't a stable loop."
"It was constantly being assembled and rearranged on the fly."
Tap. Tap. Tap.
She pointed at the scattered pieces.
"In that situation, all we had to do was run fast enough."
"If our speed exceeded the curse's ability to generate new space, we could break free."
Then she swept her hand across the floor, scattering the makeshift line.
"But now..."
She rearranged the fragments into a perfect circle and inhaled slowly.
"The distance remains identical every single time."
"That leaves only two possibilities."
"The first possibility is that this curse's spatial technique is simply far stronger and more precise than the one we encountered sixteen years ago."
"It can effortlessly create identical stretches of space while we move through them."
"In that case, increasing our speed might still work."
"If we can exceed its limit, we may be able to break through the barrier."
She paused.
"Unfortunately, the second possibility is even worse."
Her finger traced the circular arrangement on the floor.
"The curse may not be generating space as we move."
"It may have already constructed a complete spatial loop."
A heavy silence followed.
"If that's the case," Mei Mei said gravely, "then there is virtually no conventional way to escape from inside this space."
She rose to her feet.
For the first time since entering the estate, she released Ren's hand.
"Which means it's time to test the first hypothesis."
Her gaze sharpened.
"Next, we're going to run at full speed."
"You and I will head in opposite directions."
"I'll go left."
"You go right."
"I'll move upward."
"You head downward."
"That will maximize the difficulty of keeping us trapped."
"If the curse has to extend space in two directions simultaneously, the speed at which it can maintain either route should theoretically be reduced by half."
"And if it chooses to maintain only one direction..."
A confident smile appeared on her lips.
"Then the other person will escape."
"The one who escapes should be able to find the curse in the real world."
"And once the curse is exorcised..."
She glanced at Ren.
"...the trapped person will naturally be freed as well."