"Hurry up, hurry up and move!" Saki tried hard to calm herself down.

  Unfortunately, despite her efforts, she could only manage a few steps backward and still couldn't bring herself to run.

  At that moment, just as Ryuji was about to take a, he noticed something strahe cursed spirit that had been following Saki suddenly seemed to notiething incredibly appetizing. Its demeanor shifted as it locked its gaze onto the Slit-Mouthed Woman.

  Simultaneously, the aura of the Slit-Mouthed Woman began te with the cursed spirit's energy, creating a disturbing resonance.

  "What the hell is this?"

  As the two auras merged, Saki could see a grotesque and terrifying monster f behind her. One g it made her body tremble untrolbly.

  "This is a cursed spirit," Ryuji's calm voice suddenly broke the silence.

  "Curse… cursed spirit?" Kawasaki Saki stammered, not uanding how Ryuji could remain so calm in the face of this monstrosity. But, despite her fusion, his calm demeanor made her feel a little more at ease, as if she now had someoo rely on.

  "What's a cursed spirit?" she asked, still shaking.

  Ryuji, crossing his arms casually, expined, "Think of it as a mohat feeds oive humaions. You've beey stressed aive tely, so it targeted you."

  Too maive emotions? Saki thought back to her ret te nights, long work hours, and stant exhaustion. It was true—she hadn't been in the best state of mind tely.

  "Normally, humans 't see cursed spirits," Ryuji tinued, "but it looks like the merging of urban legend energy and cursed energy is causing something... ued."

  Just like when Tomoya Aki had transformed due to the Skeleton Woman urban legend, this fusion was creating a monstrous being that could be perceived by ordinary people.

  "Then… what should I do?" Saki asked, now sure that Ryuji was the person responsible for dealing with these kinds of things. The reason he had followed her earlier must have been because he knew about this situation. She wondered if she had misuood him.

  "What should you do? Just watch calmly," Ryuji replied, looking pletely indifferent to the situation as he observed the merging cursed spirit and urban legend.

  "...What?"

  Saki thought she had misheard him, but when she saw Ryuji standing there, arms crossed and pletely at ease, she was left speechless. He had no iion of ag or running. What was she supposed to do?

  The fusioween the cursed spirit and the Slit-Mouthed Woman wasn't slow. In fact, it was happening rapidly. Withihan a mihe Slit-Mouthed Woman and the cursed spirit had fully merged into a siity.

  The result was disturbing: her appearance shifted to that of a woman from an older era, her figure slightly bloated. The mask she had worn was gone, but her disfigured mouth, with the smile cut to her ears, remained. In her hand, she still clutched the bloodstained scissors, and the cruel, pyful gleam in her eyes remained unged.

  "Am I beautiful?" she asked with a siing smile. Her voice seemed to carry a strange power, and a sudden gust of wind blew around them.

  "No! I 't move!" Saki felt panic surge through her as her body became paralyzed, uo move. She could only stand there, frozen in pce.

  "A domain… inplete, but still a domain," Ryuji mused aloud, his eyes narrowing as he observed the se.

  The Slit-Mouthed Woman, who had only been a first-level cursed spirit, had merged with the third-level cursed spirit following Saki, propelling her into the ranks of special-grade cursed spirits. And with that power came the ability to form a rudimentary domain.

  In essence, when the Slit-Mouthed Woman asked someone if she was beautiful, the victim would be paralyzed, forced to answer. No matter whether the answer was "yes" or "no," it would trigger her killing ditions. This was her inplete domain, an area of absolute trol.

  If the cursed spirit that merged with her had been stronger, she might have been able to create a fully developed domain.

  "Am I beautiful?" the Slit-Mouthed Woman asked again, her voice louder this time.

  "I…" Saki could feel her mouth moving involuntarily, as if she was being pelled to answer.

  But before she could respond, Ryuji's voice cut through the air.

  "Sorry, but I'm not into ugly women like you."

  The Slit-Mouthed Woman's bloated figure had definitely lost its appeal. Ryuji's blunt response only seemed to aggravate her further.

  "Go to hell!" The killing dition had been triggered. The Slit-Mouthed Woman's figure lunged forward with surprising speed, her bloodstained scissors aimed directly at Ryuji.

  "Is it a guaranteed hit?" Ryuji could sehe certainty of the attao matter how much he dodged, the scissors would nd—it was a sure-hit dition, a trademark of domains.

  "Be careful!" Saki shouted, trying to warn him, but her voice trembled with fear.

  As the Slit-Mouthed Woman closed in, a strange series of markings suddenly appeared on Ryuji's mouth.

  "Fall," he muttered under his breath.

  In an instant, an invisible force smmed into the Slit-Mouthed Woman, knog her out of the air and into the ground with a resounding crash.

  The ground cracked from the impact, but the Slit-Mouthed Woman's scissors still flew toward Ryuji, as if determio plete their strike.

  Ryuji reached up and effortlessly caught the scissors with his hand.

  "The guaranteed hit effect of domains really is troublesome," he muttered, his grip tightening around the bde.

  "Physical strengthening," he said to himself, triggering the ability he had learned from Maki.

  The muscles in his arm bulged slightly as his strength increased.

  "Bang!"

  The scissors shattered into pieces uhe pressure of Ryuji's grip, crumbling into dust.

  Ryuji g the Slit-Mouthed Woman, who was struggling to get up from the ground, her body now limp and broken.

  "You're not giving up, are you?" Ryuji said calmly, watg her writhing form.

  Though she was helpless, the look in her eyes was still filled with pure malid a desire to kill.

  "Third Dimension," Ryuji muttered.

  The space around the Slit-Mouthed Woman began to twist and distort. Her limbs snapped and shattered uhe immense pressure, rendering her pletely powerless.

  "Ahhh!" Even a cursed being like the Slit-Mouthed Woman couldn't suppress the agonized scream that escaped her lips as she was torn apart.

  "I'll… I'll kill you… human!" she screamed through gritted teeth.

  Ryuji didn't take the threat seriously.

  "You'd o survive first," he said with a cold smile."

  With that, Ryuji activated his dev spell.

  "Soul Dev!"

  Dark s materialized from thin air, ing around the Slit-Mouthed Woman's dismembered form. She was dragged toward a spatial crack, uo resist.

  In seds, the street was silent again. The only evidence of the battle was the cracked ground where the cursed spirit had fallen.

  "Ahh, that feels better," Ryuji said with a satisfied grin, patting his stomach. The power he had absorbed from the special-grade cursed spirit had signifitly strengthened him.

  With his hands casually tucked into his pockets, Ryuji began to walk away, a look of plete te on his face.

  "Uh…" Saki, who had been watg the entire event unfold, was left speechless. In just a short time, her entire worldview had been turned upside down.

  The street was quiet, but it no longer felt familiar to her. Now, it felt as if something unseen was always lurking in the shadows, watg her.

  "Wait for me!" Saki called out, hurrying to catch up with Ryuji.

  Before she could reach him, Ryuji stopped and looked back at her with an amused smile.

  "Are you a pervert?" he asked, eg her earlier accusation.

  "..."

  Saki was stunned for a moment. Was he really getting back at her for calling him that earlier? Was his revenge mentality that strong?

  But she couldn't deny that she had misuood him. So, she sighed and said sincerely, "Sorry… I misjudged you."

  Saki had realized that Ryuji was no ordinary person. Whether he was an exorcist, an onmyoji, or something else, she didn't know, but he clearly dealt with things beyond her uanding.

  "Sorry," she repeated.

  "Well, don't worry about it," Ryuji said, waving it off. He wasn't the type to hold grudges over something so minor.

  "e o's go," he added.

  "Yeah!" Saki didn't hesitate to follow him this time. After everything she had withere was no way she was walking home alone. She felt much safer staying close to Ryuji.

  As they walked, Saki hesitated before asking, "Um… what exactly are you?"

  "My name's Ryuji, and I'm a sorcerer," he replied casually, not stopping as he spoke.

  Saki was still processing the information. "A sorcerer?" she repeated, trying to her head around it.

  As if sensing her fusion, Ryuji shrugged casually and decided to crify. "Yeah, a sorcerer. Basically, we're the ones who deal with cursed spirits and things like that."

  Kawasaki Saki still seemed puzzled, but at least now she had a basic idea of what was going on. "I see… So, all those strahings like the Slit-Mouthed Woman and that monster followihey were cursed spirits?"

  "Exactly," Ryuji firmed. "Cursed spirits are born from ive humaions. The more ivity you have around you, the more likely you are to attract them."

  "That's… terrifying," Saki admitted, a shiver running down her spine. She hadn't realized that her ret stress and exhaustion had made her a bea for these things.

  After a moment of silence, curiosity got the better of her. "Is it possible for someone like me to bee a sorcerer?"

  Ryuji g her and shook his head. "Sorry, but probably not. If you couldn't see that cursed spirit behind you earlier, it means you don't have the natural ability to be a sorcerer. Without that, it's impossible."

  "Oh…" Saki's shoulders slumped, a little disappointed. She had briefly eaihe thought of gaining supernatural abilities, but reality quickly dashed those hopes.

  "Don't feel too bad about it," Ryuji said, sensing her mood. "Not everyone's cut out for this kind of life. Besides, it's not all it's cracked up to be."

  "Yeah, I guess…" Saki muttered, though she still felt a bit let down.

  As they walked further, they came to a fork in the road. Ryuji was about to tur, heading toward his home, but Saki tugged at his sleeve and pointed in the opposite dire.

  "Um… I live this way," she said, her voice a little softer than usual.

  Ryuji raised an eyebrow, amused by the sudden ge in her demeanor. "So?"

  Saki fidgeted slightly, embarrassed. "I don't want to walk home alone… especially after everything that just happened."

  Ryuji smirked. "Oh? You were fine walking home earlier. What happeo the tough girl who called me a pervert?"

  Saki gred at him, her face turning red. "I didn't know about cursed spirits back then! And now, after seeing that… I'm a little freaked out, okay?"