Chapter 22

Rain fell like silk, shrouding the city, which resembled a colossal beast of steel, in a hazy mist.

Pedestrians hurried along with umbrellas, appearing from above like a scattering of colorful mushrooms. The streetlights cast soft, warm halos, polished by the veil of rain.

Rainwater flowed along the streets toward lower ground, carrying the noise and dust of the city into the storm drains, where it was cycled to treatment plants for purification before finally flowing into every household.

The glass door of a convenience store reflected three blurred figures. Amidst the dense, rapid patter of rain, their conversation was faintly audible:

"Can the protagonist's appearance be changed?"
"Wait, we can't jump like in Super Mario?"
"I can do it if you want to change the look; I'll just import your own features... You can jump; this is the jump button..."

The downpour stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Crystal-clear droplets hung from the leaves, and the air was filled with the scent of damp earth, a refreshing mix of moisture and herbaceous fragrance.

Cars zoomed past with their low beams on, their yellow light flickering over the three figures again and again.

The temperature had dropped below the range of human comfort. Suguru Geto, only just realizing the chill, sneezed uncontrollably, which snapped him out of his immersion in the game. He looked up and saw that the rain had stopped.

"Stop playing. The rain has stopped; let's hail a cab back."

Satoru Gojo hummed dismissively, his focus still entirely on the game.

Fyodor, wearing two layers of outerwear, was not cold at all. Noticing Suguru’s sneeze, he considered returning the extra coat he was wearing.

Just then, a taxi approached. Suguru hurriedly waved it down, and the driver tapped the brakes, slowing to a halt.

Suguru opened the rear door and turned to Fyodor. "Don't bother taking the coat off; it won't be cold once we're inside."

...

Time: 20:14.

A taxi drove along a winding mountain road. Occasionally, cars from the opposite direction roared past, brushing by in a blur of noise.

Satoru hadn't stopped playing after getting in, as if he had become addicted to the little game Fyodor had put together.

Suguru sat by the window on the right, propping his head up and looking out, his gaze unfocused.

Fyodor sat between the two. Having nothing better to do, he eventually pulled out his own phone and began to play as well.

Playing on a phone in a moving car usually induces motion sickness, but that seemed to have no effect on Fyodor or Satoru.

*Boom!*

Suddenly, a massive explosion rocked the air, and the ground trembled for several seconds before settling.

Everyone’s attention was captured, and even the driver instinctively turned his head toward the window—specifically, toward the side of the road facing the forest to their left.

"What's going on? Blasting the mountain? Road work?" the driver muttered, puzzled.

"Stop the car!" Satoru shouted.

"What?" the driver was stunned. "Are you sure?"

There was nothing for miles in either direction, and they were still three kilometers away from the destination the passengers had requested.

"Yes."

"Fine."

Since the passengers insisted, the driver had no choice but to pull over.

Before the car had come to a complete stop, the doors on both sides were flung open. Satoru and Suguru leaped out simultaneously and vaulted over the guardrail.

The driver couldn't help but gasp in shock, so startled he even forgot they hadn't paid yet.

However, the third person present hadn't forgotten. "How much?"

"2,346," the driver replied reflexively.

Fyodor opened his wallet, took out the cash, and handed it to the driver. The driver’s muscles acted on autopilot to accept the money, but then he snapped back to reality, breaking down in a panic. "Wait—those two jumped! They jumped off, didn't they?!"

The driver hurriedly tossed the money onto the seat, unbuckled his seatbelt, pushed the door open, and rushed to the guardrail to look down. The drop was at least ten meters. He couldn't see the two young men who had just jumped; they had truly fallen.

"It's over, it's over! You didn't come out here to commit suicide, did you?!"

Fyodor stepped out of the car as well. His slender frame, draped in two coats, did not look bulky. He walked to the driver’s side and peered down, but the dense canopy obscured his vision, making it impossible to see the situation below.

"Not suicide. They're just doing parkour," the dark-haired youth said nonchalantly.

"Parkour?" The driver had never heard the word.

"An extreme sport. Extreme—sport," Fyodor repeated.

The driver likely didn't believe him—his expression said it all—but he said nothing more, silently got back into the car, and drove away.

But Fyodor knew the driver would definitely call the police.

That was why, when paying, he had attached a button-sized jammer to the driver, ensuring he wouldn't be able to make a call.

The jammer’s battery would last about an hour. An hour was enough; the driver wouldn't be suspicious, merely assuming there was poor signal in that area.

Fyodor lowered his head, woke his phone, and entered the game.

Accompanied by a jaunty, upbeat background melody, a pixelated figure holding a wooden sword appeared in the center of the screen.

Fyodor tapped the red house icon in the top left corner, and a screen resembling a bookshelf appeared. On the top row, there were two numbers side-by-side: 1 and 2.

He selected 1.

A pixel-art forest unfolded on the screen. A red dot representing "1" and another red dot labeled "2" were nearly overlapping, moving rapidly through the forest.

Elsewhere.

To the driver, the explosion might have been for road construction or something similar—something within the realm of normalcy.

However, Satoru and Suguru could not be mistaken. The sky-high surge of cursed energy meant the explosion was inseparable from a cursed spirit, and that spirit was at least Grade 1, perhaps even Special Grade.

"Hey, Suguru, want to make a bet?"

Two figures tore through the forest like lightning, their speed so great it stirred up a gale, causing their coat tails to snap violently in the wind.

"What kind of bet?"

"Let's bet on who can take care of the cursed spirit first."

"And the stakes?"

"We ended in a draw this afternoon, so the stakes weren't used. Why don't we use the same ones again?"

Suguru let out a "ha," a confident smile playing on his lips. "Deal."

Satoru curled the corners of his mouth, a flash of excitement dancing in his icy blue eyes. He pushed off the ground with force, accelerating instantly to open up a one-meter lead, leaving Suguru behind.

"I was waiting for you to say that! I've already won."

"Don't think that just because you're fast, the victory is in your pocket." Suguru, unwilling to fall behind, also increased his speed.

*

[ "Could there be wild beasts lurking in the forest..." Fear. ]
[ "It's been a whole day, and the mist hasn't cleared. Damn it, if I'd known, I never should have let Yuji go up the mountain!" Hatred. ]

For thousands of years, the intense negative emotions humans felt toward the forest had spilled over from their own meager cursed energy, mingling together until a cursed spirit named Hanami was born.

Having just arrived in this world, Hanami was like an oviparous animal that had just cracked its shell. But while others simply destroyed their own shells, Hanami had turned the surroundings upside down. As its consciousness gradually cleared, it felt a pang of regret for the destruction it had caused and hurried to crouch down, using its clumsy power to mend the plants.

It was carefully and gently repairing half of them when, suddenly, a force struck its shoulder, sending it flying and snapping several more trees in the process.

Hanami’s eyes turned blood-red—or they would have, if it had eyes.