After school, I tried looking for Saionji.
But she had already gone home.
When I stepped out of the classroom, the same black sedan was waiting in front of the school.
The same maid was standing there, holding the car door open for me.
I stared at the scene for two seconds before letting out a sigh.
This was far too conspicuous.
Even so, I could hardly turn around and run, so all I could do was swallow my discomfort. The moment I got into the car, the maid closed the door behind me, and I found myself sighing once again.
Even after the car door shut, I could still feel the eyes of everyone around us fixed on it.
I leaned back slightly against the seat and spoke.
"From now on, you don't have to come pick me up from school. I'll go and come back on my own."
The maid, who was seated in the front, paused slightly before answering politely,
"Understood, my lady. If that is your wish."
I said nothing more and merely turned my gaze toward the window.
...
Because it was right after school, the traffic on the main road was moving slightly more slowly than usual.
Before long, the car turned into the parking area of a luxury apartment building.
I had only just learned that this would be where I lived from now on.
The maid escorted me to my room before taking her leave, explaining as she did so,
"If you require anything, you may contact me at any time, my lady. My number has already been saved in your phone under the name Shizuka. My room is right across from yours, Room 402. If anything urgent happens, you may call for me immediately."
She continued,
"I must ask one thing of you, my lady. Please finish your morning preparations before six-thirty, so that I will have enough time to come and arrange your hair."
I gave a small nod.
"I understand."
...
That night, I spent some time leaping across rooftops before dropping down into a dark alley and fastening a red bow—another cursed tool with the same properties as the one I had used that morning.
Before long, my outward appearance shifted into Nanakusa: a white sweater, a long black skirt, and a black leather shoulder bag.
Then I walked out of the alley without anyone noticing anything unusual.
Tonight, I intended to buy a desktop computer and some clothes, so my first destination was the electronics store inside the mall.
But as I stood in front of the display of laptops, I found myself starting to hesitate. Which would suit me better—a desktop computer or a laptop?
I was more familiar with desktop computers, but their weakness was obvious: they were inconvenient to carry around.
Besides, the reason I had chosen a desktop back then had simply been because it was clearly cheaper.
"I can help recommend something for you, ma'am."
A voice sounded from nearby, causing me to turn.
It was a sales clerk in the store uniform, standing a short distance away with a polite smile.
I looked at him for a moment.
To be honest, I had no problem with money.
Even the most expensive laptop in the store would amount to no more than a tiny fraction of what I had.
In the end, I chose the most expensive laptop and let the clerk handle the rest.
Once everything was settled, I walked out of the store with the shopping bag in hand and immediately headed for my next destination.
This time, it was the clothing store.
I looked down at the bag in my hand for a moment.
I should start by buying tops, since I couldn't exactly leave the laptop lying around.
I selected some clothes for going out and some sleepwear, then went to the checkout counter and joined the line.
"Eh...?"
At that moment, a girl's voice sounded from the side.
I turned automatically toward it and saw a girl standing at the counter, with a maid standing close beside her. Both of them looked slightly serious.
The girl hurriedly searched the pockets of her skirt, then began rummaging through the shoulder bag she was carrying, clearly flustered.
It looked like she could not find her wallet.
The clerk at the register was still smiling, but when I glanced behind us, I saw that the line was steadily getting longer.
I was not that kind-hearted a person.
But at the same time, money was not a problem for me either.
All of that probably came to... around three thousand yen, I guessed.
I pulled out roughly twice that amount in cash and called out to the girl.
"Would you like to borrow some money for now?"
The clerk, the girl, and her maid all turned to look at me at once.
The girl blinked in obvious surprise.
"Eh? But we don't even know each other."
I answered in a calm tone,
"If it makes you uncomfortable, you can pay me back later."
The girl looked at me for a moment, then smiled brightly.
The maid standing beside her still looked slightly wary, but in the end she did not object.
The girl took her shopping bag, then turned back toward me.
"In that case... may I have your contact number?"
She added, almost apologetically,
"That way I can at least contact you to repay the money later."
I gave her my number shortly.
"1234567890."
The maid beside her then spoke politely.
"My name is Kuroi. I serve Lady Riko."
She continued,
"We will certainly repay the amount from earlier later on."
I gave a slight nod.
"That's fine. You can use that number if you need to contact me."
The maid bowed her head a little, and when the girl saw that, she quickly followed suit.
After that, we exchanged names and then parted ways, both sides waving goodbye to each other.
"Goodbye, Miss Nanakusa!"
I replied with a nod.
1
After parting with them, I walked out of the shopping mall.
At that moment, I sensed a certain curse pressure.
Originally, I had intended to head straight back to the apartment, but along the way my eyes were drawn to an old roadside shop instead.
It was a small shop wedged between a watch store and an antiques shop.
Its sign was so faded it was nearly unreadable; at a glance, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary old curio shop.
But the curse pressure leaking from inside was far too distinct to ignore.
I stood there for a moment, then pushed open the door.
A little bell above it rang softly.
The shelves inside were packed with old items.
Watches, jewelry, paintings, and antique weapons were all crammed together with no clear order.
But those were not what caught my eye.
It was a sword, propped up deep in the back of the shop.
The blade was large, broad, and thick, dark with a dull silver hue. The edge and the scratches on the metal made it clear this was no decoration.
Even though I could not directly sense its curse pressure yet, I could still tell it was a cursed tool.
"Are you interested in that?"
A voice came from behind me.
I turned to look at the middle-aged man in neat clothes standing behind the counter, then shifted my gaze back to the sword.
"That's a cursed tool, isn't it?"
The man laughed softly.
"Yes."
He stepped out from behind the counter, came to stand beside the sword, and lightly tapped the flat of the blade.
"The faster the wielder can swing this sword, the more violently the curse energy it releases grows."
I narrowed my eyes slightly.
So it was a sword whose power increased in proportion to the speed of the swing?
"If the user's body is strong enough to wield it," he continued, "that person would be as dangerous as a special-grade sorcerer."
"Are you a sorcerer?"
"I am... though these days, I simply run this shop and sell the things I have to get by."
He placed a hand lightly on the sword's hilt.
"It may sound hard to believe, but I've swung this sword before."
I stared at the sword in silence.
It was a cursed tool with the property of turning the wielder's raw physical strength directly into an advantage.
And that property matched a vampire perfectly.
With my extraordinary strength, using something like this would be as easy as peeling a banana.
"May I try holding it?"
"Of course."
I reached out and touched the hilt.
The moment I lifted it, I felt its weight clearly.
Heavy.
This was the first time I had truly felt the weight of an object.
"Is there a place where I can test it?"
"Yes."
The middle-aged man smiled faintly.
"Follow me."
He turned his back to me and walked behind the counter.
There was a staircase descending deep below.
A basement.
Not long after, we arrived in a wide underground room.
The walls were thick concrete, and the floor was almost entirely empty.
Only the countless scratches on the walls and ground showed that this room had been used for testing weapons for a long time.
I held the sword upright and looked at its length.
If I used my own body as a ruler, the sword would easily be over two meters long.
"So what am I supposed to test it against?"
"Against me, of course."
The middle-aged man answered while cloaking his body in a blue-green aura.
"Wouldn't that be dangerous?"
He smiled faintly.
"To be honest, I'm beginning to get tired of life anyway."
The smile still hanging on his face only made him more unnerving.
"How about this? If I die, you can have the shop."
"You've gone insane, haven't you?"
"No. I'm serious."
The moment he finished speaking, he closed the distance without the slightest warning.
I reacted on pure instinct.
I brought the sword up and blocked his punch.
The entire impact was swallowed by the weight of the weapon in my hands.
"Don't regret it afterward."
I countered immediately, twisting the blade and slashing sideways at his flank.
He raised an arm to block and tried to divert the edge of the blade.
He managed it—
but only at the cost of his right arm, which was severed clean off.
Yet in the very next instant, white aura flowed from the wound, and the lost arm began regenerating at once.
"Reverse Cursed Technique?"
"That's right. Pretty impressive, isn't it?"
He grinned broadly.
I stared at that smile for a moment.
Was he really insane, or was he just forcing that smile onto his face?
In any case, I had to be careful.
Positive cursed energy was my weakness.
I swung the sword again, faster than before, and this time I had no intention of giving him another chance to speak.
I rushed in, my right hand holding the blade behind me, and the moment I entered striking range, I swung with both hands at full force.
He dodged—
but the pressure released by the slash alone was enough to blast his body back into the wall and crack it.
I did not stop there.
I swung again. He clenched his teeth and barely threw himself out of the attack's range.
I immediately lunged after him, yanked the sword back out from where it had buried itself into the wall, and slashed again before he could recover.
This time he failed to dodge.
The blade tore clean through his shoulder.
"There's no way you're just an ordinary human."
He could only respond with words.
"I'll give you one more chance to decide. Do you want to die, or do you want to keep living?"
...
The middle-aged man smiled, even as blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
"If I have to die at the hands of a sorcerer as skilled as you, then at least I could die satisfied."
So that was why he did not fear death?
"At last I won't have to worry about curse spirits anymore."
The moment he said that, I let out a quiet laugh.
"Hehe..."
A puzzled look appeared on the man's face at once.
What would happen, I wondered, if he knew that I myself was a curse spirit?
"Before you die, I'll tell you something."
I continued in an even tone.
"The truth is, I'm a curse spirit."
I removed the bow and threw it far away.
My hair returned to its original white.
The curse pressure that had been suppressed began spreading out once again.
The middle-aged man's eyes darted in confusion, then he hurriedly wrapped his body in white aura to restore his wounds.
This time he kept the white aura fully covering his body.
Something had clearly changed after he heard that I was a curse spirit.
The smile had vanished from his face.
"A technique—"
I had no idea what he was about to invoke.
But I was not about to let him finish.
I swung the sword at full speed, and the blade sliced through his abdomen in a blink.
The white aura around him vanished instantly.
"..."
He froze there, as though he could not yet understand what had happened.
By the time he did, the upper half of his body had already fallen backward to the ground, while the lower half slowly lost all strength and collapsed after it.
In the final instant, he had clearly become serious.
And I could feel the negative emotions of hatred coming from him.
Just moments earlier, he had acted indifferent even after losing an arm, as though he valued his own life so little.
I stood there looking at the corpse for a moment before opening my domain for five seconds to erase all traces.
I looked around.
Where had my bow gone?
Well... I had hundreds of things like that anyway.
All right...
I looked at the massive sword in my hand for a moment.
It was time to try that.
This was the first time I would truly try using the shadow storage since reading more about the Ten Shadows Technique.
I touched the newly acquired sword to my artificial shadow.
In the next moment, it sank into it.
I narrowed my eyes slightly, then drew it back out once more.
The heavy blade returned to my hand almost instantly.
Then I stored every cursed tool in the shop, including that sword, inside my artificial shadow.
I watched each cursed tool pass before my eyes one by one before sinking into the shadow.
I could study them in detail later.
For now, I should return to the apartment before another sorcerer noticed me.