Curse Reply: After choosing Nawa, the cursed spirit cursed me for being cruel.

On the screen, countless tiny dots of light, like red rashes, covered almost the entire campus map. They moved slowly and aimlessly, mostly dim Level 4 dots, mixed with a number of slightly brighter Level 3 dots, and even a few brighter Level 2 dots flickering in the depths.

Deep within the school, probably in the direction of the old school buildings or gymnasium, a huge, scarlet, terrifying red dot, pulsating and expanding like a heart, occupies almost half of the screen!

Its size and brightness far surpassed that of the previous bat-shaped cursed spirit!

Without a doubt, this is... a top-tier cursed spirit.

Chapter 20 The Strange Puppet

"what?"

As Duanmu Yan was intently watching the pulsating scarlet dot and dense red rash on the screen, Gojo Satoru's head suddenly appeared beside him, almost touching the detector's screen.

"Duanmu, what is this? A new toy? It looks like some kind of magical artifact?"

Duanmu Yan stiffened at his sudden closeness, but quickly regained his composure. He tilted the detector screen towards him and explained briefly, "Spirit Detector. It can detect the approximate location of spirits and humans within a radius of 500 meters, and... roughly judge the level and strength of spirits based on energy reactions. Green represents us, and red represents spirits. The higher the brightness, the greater the threat usually is."

"Wow!" Gojo Satoru exclaimed dramatically. "There's such a wonderful thing?! It can display the location and level of monsters in real time? This is practically a cheat code! Duanmu, are you a hidden inventor besides the armor?"

As he spoke, he reached out and tried to take the detector to examine it closely.

Duanmu Yan flicked his wrist, retracting the detector in front of him, avoiding Duanmu Yan's hand, his voice remaining calm: "I obtained it by chance, and I don't fully understand the specific principles behind it. Now is not the time to study this."

"Stingy." Gojo Satoru pouted, but his attention was quickly drawn back to the red dots on the screen. He stroked his chin and said, "But the number shown here...tsk tsk, it's quite a scene. It looks like a hornet's nest has been stirred up."

Xia Youjie, who was standing nearby, also came over. His gaze lingered on the detector screen, his brows furrowed slightly, and he asked, "Duanmu, you just said that it can detect humans?"

“Okay.” Duanmu Yan nodded, tapping a spot on the screen. “Under normal circumstances, detected humans will appear as stable light green dots, distinguishing them from the red dots representing cursed spirits. But…”

He paused, his voice unconsciously lowering as he swiped his finger across the empty areas on the screen, representing the teaching building, playground, and corridors, in addition to the green dots representing the three of them.

"Now, apart from the three of us, there are no other green lights within the detection range."

The air seemed to freeze as soon as the words were spoken.

There were no other green spots.

This means that within this campus, which should have been bustling with hundreds of teachers and students, and within the detector's effective 500-meter radius, they may be the only remaining humans.

Gojo Satoru's nonchalant smile faded slightly, and Natsumi's narrow eyes narrowed completely. He remained silent for a few seconds before speaking in a low voice, "...All of them have lost contact, or...they've already perished? So quickly..."

Hundreds of lives vanished from the detector in the short time following the eruption of the cursed power.

"Hey."

It was Gojo Satoru who broke the silence. He raised his hand and clapped his hands twice, making a crisp sound that stood out starkly in the deathly quiet environment.

“I understand the situation. Now,” he turned his head and looked again at the detector in Duanmu Yan’s hand, “where is the enemy? What level are they?”

Duanmu Yan showed them the entire screen of the detector and pointed to the scarlet dot: "Its strength far exceeds any of the cursed spirits I've encountered before, including that near-Special Grade bat. Moreover, it's located in the deepest part of the main teaching building. The surrounding low-level cursed spirits seem to be slowly gathering and circling around it, possibly Special Grade."

"As for the others... mainly level four cursed spirits, which seem to have been catalyzed or mass-produced, numbering at least a hundred, mostly concentrated in the main teaching building and a few surrounding buildings. The number of level three cursed spirits is between thirty and forty, scattered among the various levels of cursed spirits, such as minor leaders, and there are also about seven or eight level two cursed spirits."

"The main teaching building, the headquarters?" Xia Youjie replied calmly. "Concentrating all forces in the core building... is it a defensive instinct, or a ritualistic requirement? Or... is there something special there attracting them?"

"Who cares?" Gojo Satoru had already turned around, facing the main teaching building that looked particularly gloomy and oppressive in the dim light.

He put his hands back in his pockets, tilted his head slightly, and looked at the dark windows of the teaching building, as if he could see the malice surging inside through the walls.

"Since the host has set up the party inside, wouldn't it be too impolite of us not to go in and show our support?"

Gojo Satoru grinned arrogantly, waved to the two men, and then put his hand in his pocket. "Jay, Duanmu, let's go. Let's meet this... guy with quite the appetite."

After saying that, he strode off, no longer looking at the detector or waiting, and headed straight for the entrance of the main teaching building.

……

The dim lighting inside the teaching building was a stark contrast to the outside world.

The windows seemed to be covered with a thick layer of grime, letting in only a few dim, distorted rays of light that barely outlined the corridor.

The cloying, rotten smell in the air was so strong it was almost unbearable, mixed with dust, old wood, and some other, more indescribable, fishy odor.

The deathly silence wasn't the complete absence of sound, but rather the amplification of the most subtle movements, amplified countless times to send chills down your spine...

There were dragging footsteps, the rustling of objects scraping the ground, and mutterings of unknown meaning, coming faintly from all directions, upstairs and downstairs, layer upon layer, creating a suffocating background sound.

Most of the classroom doors on both sides of the corridor were open, and the inside was dark, like mouths ready to devour people. The student works and notices that were originally posted on the walls were stained and torn by some kind of sticky, dark brown stains, making them mottled and eerie.

However, what sends chills down your spine the most are those things.

Not far ahead of them, at the corner of the corridor, a figure stood pressed against the wall. It was a "person" wearing the uniform of a girl from Sakura Academy, with her back to them and facing the wall, motionless and in an awkward posture. Her joints seemed to be bent at an unnatural angle, her arms hung at her sides, and her fingers were stiffly spread out.

In a classroom further away with its doors open, several figures could be vaguely seen sitting in their seats, equally motionless, heads bowed, as if asleep or listening to a lecture.

However, the faint fluctuations of magical energy emanating from them clearly indicated that they were not human.

On the detector, red dots representing these entities are flashing nearby, mostly at a dim level four.

Strangely, neither the one by the wall nor the ones in the classroom reacted to the three of them at all.

Gojo Satoru stopped in his tracks, his six eyes behind his sunglasses shifting slightly as he glanced at the girl facing the wall and then looked towards the classroom.

He tilted his head. "Hey, Jay, Duanmu, are these 'things'... blind? Or deaf?"

Xia Youjie also stopped. The cursed spirit on his shoulder floated silently, scanning the surroundings warily. He frowned slightly. "It doesn't seem like they didn't notice us. They have a cursed power reaction, although it's very weak. Rather than a lack of sensory perception, it's more like... ignoring us."

Duanmu Yan gripped the detector tightly. The red dots representing the level four cursed spirits on the screen were right next to their green dots, almost overlapping, but they remained still or moved in some fixed pattern, showing no sign of hostility or wariness towards their approach.

"Are they...hiding?" Duanmu Yan whispered, observing the girl facing the wall.

Chapter 21 The Disobedient Child

"They are...hiding."

Duanmu Yan pointed to the girl. Her posture was less like standing and more like a child playing hide-and-seek, hoping not to be discovered.

And those in the classroom seemed to be hiding behind their desks.

"Who are you hiding from?" Gojo Satoru raised an eyebrow. He suddenly took a few steps forward and came directly behind the female spirit who was facing the wall. He even reached out and waved his hand above her shoulder.

There was no response; the cursed spirit remained facing the wall, motionless, as if Gojo Satoru were merely air.

Gojo Satoru withdrew his hand, stroked his chin, and the light in his six eyes flickered slightly in the dim corridor: "Interesting. Not pretending, could it be... that we are not part of their target or instructions?"

Xia Youjie walked to the door of a classroom and looked inside. Inside sat about seven or eight cursed spirits who looked like "students," all wearing school uniforms, in different postures, but all with their heads down.

On the platform, a slightly tall female spirit dressed in a suit and skirt stood with her back to the door, facing an empty blackboard. Her arm would occasionally rise and fall very slowly, as if she were writing on the blackboard.

The entire classroom was filled with an absurdly silent teaching atmosphere.

"Look at their movements, stiff and repetitive, like puppets with a pre-programmed routine."

Xia Youjie calmly analyzed, his gaze sweeping over the cursed spirits, "Moreover, the level distribution... Level four is a student, and the level three one, judging from its clothing, looks like a teacher. They are gathered in the classroom, engaging in behavior that imitates 'attending class,' which is unlike the collective behavior pattern that naturally born cursed spirits would have."

"Imitation? Puppetry?" Gojo Satoru walked back, glanced at the scene in the classroom, and twitched his lips. "Who's controlling these puppets? That biggest red dot? Is it making these little things play house here?"

He looked around the eerie corridor; the feeling of being completely ignored was even more unsettling than being attacked directly.

“Regardless of who is controlling it,” Xia Youjie withdrew his gaze and looked towards the depths of the corridor, where the scarlet light on the detector was located, and also the area with a significantly higher density of cursed spirits. “We haven’t figured out its rules yet. But the current neglect of these puppets may be an opportunity for us to approach the core more quietly.”

"An opportunity?" Gojo Satoru scoffed, but he didn't rashly attack the strange cursed spirits. "I think it's more like a trap, deliberately letting us in? But..."

His arrogant smile returned to his face.

"Who cares? Even if it's a trap, we'll just step on it. Let's go see what this cursed spirit is up to."

Ignoring the puppet spirits in the corridors and classrooms who were oblivious to them and absorbed in their own bizarre "daily lives," the three remained vigilant and continued to advance into the core area of ​​the teaching building, which emitted the strongest malice and the most intense magical energy fluctuations.

The further in you go, the dimmer the light becomes, with only a few emergency lights flickering overhead, casting a pale green glow that makes everything look like a ghost town.

The figures of those "puppet students" can be seen in cabinets on both sides of the corridor, in the cleaning tool room, and even at the ventilation duct openings.

They curl up and hide in various places in all sorts of contorted postures.

Some had half their bodies crammed behind trash cans, only their stiff calves showing; some were hanging upside down in open fire extinguisher cabinets, their heads tilted at bizarre angles; others were piled up like a human pyramid in a narrow storage room, countless empty eyes staring blankly out through the crack in the door…

They remained completely oblivious to the three people passing by, engrossed in their own game.

Just as they passed a door marked "Faculty and Staff Lounge," Xia Youjie, who was walking slightly ahead, paused.

He bent down and gently poked at the hard card with his toes from the ground scattered with scraps of paper and dust.

Duanmu Yan and Wutiao Wu also stopped, with Wutiao Wu curiously peering over.

Xia Youjie bent down and picked it up. It was a spellcaster's certificate, made of special materials, but its surface was now covered with cracks and scorch marks.

He wiped away the stains and, in the dim light of the emergency lamp, tried to make out the writing and photos that were not completely destroyed.

The photo shows a young man with a resolute face and a short buzz cut. The information panel at the bottom is partially burned, but it is still barely legible:

[Name]: Kenji Ito

[Level]: Level Two Spellcaster

“Level 2 sorcerer… Kenji Ito.” Xia Youjie murmured the name, his brow furrowed. “Is he one of the two who came in earlier, as the assistant director mentioned? It seems he’s already…”

He didn't finish his sentence. The identification was there, but the person was nowhere to be found. There were no other green dots on the detector, and the result seemed self-evident: a level two sorcerer had silently perished here.

A slight unease settled over the group; it seemed there were more here than they had imagined.

It's important to know that sorcerers can fight against spirits that are one level stronger than themselves.

A level 2 sorcerer is sufficient to deal with a level 1 cursed spirit. A level 1 sorcerer can eliminate a quasi-special-grade cursed spirit on their own, or they can fight against a special-grade cursed spirit.

Just as the three were drawing their attention to the unexpected victim identification, a hoarse voice suddenly rang out from not far behind them!

Why not just play the game obediently?

"You disobedient children!"

The three of them turned around instantly, their magical power flowing instinctively.

In the shadows at the other end of the corridor, a figure was standing.

It was the image of a middle-aged man wearing an old, stained black suit and a crooked tie, dragging a giant ruler that was almost as tall as the suit itself.

On the detector, a light spot of a level-two cursed spirit coincided with its position.

However, unlike the puppet spirits that had completely ignored them before, this level two spirit was staring intently at the three of them!

It saw them! And it spoke!

This was the first responding cursed spirit they encountered after entering the building!