I was the fourth disaster in Yokohama and was loved by everyone.

Kong Shiyu, an NPC, had mentioned to her that some curse master groups seemed interested in recruiting her.

Haha, with a player this skilled, it's only right to recruit her.

Zhu Yu didn't take it to heart, since she had never encountered an NPC who extended a recruitment invitation to her before.

(Some curse caster groups: This person never shows up except to complete commissions, making them impossible to catch. Even if they try to hint through Kong Shiyu, the other party doesn't reply after reading their message. What can they do?)

*

As dusk settled, the abandoned factory cast long, slanting shadows in the setting sun, with dark green vines creeping between the bricks like some kind of dormant creature.

The air was filled with a damp, musty smell.

Zhu Yu brought up the panel to check the task again. The task required assisting a young master of a Zen family in completing the training task of exorcising cursed spirits.

The NPC, Gojo Satoru, seemed to know the person she was about to team up with, and her tone was full of disdain when she mentioned him.

—"She's a little orange who still thinks she lives in a feudal era."

Oranges... I didn't know oranges could become sentient.

Zhu Yu seemed to be deep in thought.

After turning off the panel, a rustling sound came from behind me not long after.

The black-haired boy walked slowly to the dilapidated entrance, wearing a magnificent kimono with a haori embroidered with his family crest, and a sword-shaped magical implement at his waist. His face was handsome and refined, but his brows carried an air of condescending arrogance.

He is Zen-in-no-ji, the eldest son of the Zen-in-no-ji family.

To train its members, the Zen family requires each member to perform a monthly exorcism of cursed spirits. However, to ensure that family members do not die in vain, an additional sorcerer is always sent along as a backup.

In the past, it was always members of the family who assisted Zenin Naoya, but due to the attack on the members of the General Headquarters, everyone in the General Headquarters was on high alert and requested a large number of people from the three main families to increase defenses. The Zenin family did not have enough people to assist Zenin Naoya in completing the mission.

Therefore, the General Headquarters selected accompanying sorcerers from elsewhere for this mission.

"So you're the assistant sent by the Directorate General?" He slightly raised his chin, his gaze sweeping over the girl in the college uniform in front of him, and his brows immediately furrowed. "...Really, why did you have to send a woman?"

The girl didn't speak, but stared indifferently at the abandoned factory, her black pupils reflecting no emotion.

Not even a look was given to him.

"Hmph, how absurd." He sneered and flicked his sleeve. "What skills could a mere woman possibly have? But I heard you've already been promoted to the first rank, so you do have some ability."

"If you know what's good for you, our Zen family might be willing to take you in as a retainer."

The girl remained silent, walked straight past him, and headed into the factory.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" His face darkened, and his voice rose several decibels. "Do you know who you're talking to? We, the Zen family, are—"

"So noisy." Zhu Yu interrupted him rudely, her tone calm but tinged with doubt, "Who are you?"

Zhu Yu didn't expect that just because he was staring at the mission location for a while, the new NPC would inexplicably start chattering beside him and even ask him somewhat angrily if he knew him.

It's a bit noisy.

I glanced at the top of his head—[???]

So who is he?

The NPC seemed even angrier after the words were spoken.

Zenji Naoya stood rooted to the spot, his haori trembling with rage. No one had ever dared to ignore him like this before!

She's still a woman!

"You—" Zenji Naoya's face flushed crimson, his fingers gripping the hilt of his sword tightly. "You ignorant woman! How dare you—"

Before he could finish speaking, Zhu Yu's figure had already walked towards the dark entrance.

He was abandoned by a mere commoner sorcerer.

His fingers left pale marks as he gripped the scabbard.

That rude woman—how dare she turn her back on him?! The Zenin family's reputation, its noble lineage passed down through generations, and its unshakeable status as one of the three great families—were all worthless in her eyes, like pebbles on the roadside.

What's even more infuriating is that she didn't even bother to refute him, as if even offering him a sarcastic remark was too much of a waste.

His pupils suddenly contracted, and a dark flame of anger ignited in his eyes, as if lava were churning within his dark pupils. Veins bulged on his forehead, and the blood vessels at his temples throbbed, as if a blunt knife were repeatedly scraping against the inner wall of his skull.

"Stop!" The voice he forced out was distorted, and the flapping of wings of startled birds flying from the bushes drowned out his final words.

The breath squeezed out from between his teeth carried the stench of blood, his jawline taut to the point of being almost ferocious. His hands, hanging by his sides, clenched tightly, his nails digging deep into his palms, yet he felt no pain—compared to the surging rage within him, this pain was utterly insignificant.

Da da da--

Her shoes clattered on the brick floor, the sound of her footsteps rhythmic and crisp. The distance of a few feet felt like an entire Milky Way. He watched helplessly as her figure disappeared around the corner.

"Good...very good..."

The cursed sword was drawn three inches from its sheath, its cold light like water, reflecting his distorted image—reddened eyes, bulging veins, where was the composure of the eldest son of the three royal families?

Being completely ignored is more suffocating than being confronted; it's like punching a ball full of power into cotton, leaving all the frustration stuck in your chest.

Zenji Naoya stared at the spot where she had left with a sinister look, but in the end, he followed her.

*

Zhu Yu suspected that the NPCs in this team were not very smart.

He wouldn't tell us his name when we asked, and even though we were about to start a raid, he still hadn't automatically followed us.

Have I encountered another NPC who's just slacking off?

The key objective is to "protect the lives of the mission targets and provide assistance when necessary."

Protect safety → Directly eliminate the cursed spirit, solving the problem at its root.

Zhu Yu nodded in strong agreement.

There were two cursed spirits in the abandoned factory. She randomly chose the lucky one and tracked it down.

This cursed spirit is very good at hiding; it always manages to dodge before she can find it, causing her to miss her target.

Zhu Yu: Are you playing hide-and-seek?

The cursed spirit hid in a corner on the second floor of the factory.

The second-floor walls were covered in stains, like dried bloodstains, winding and twisting all the way to the ceiling. Through the broken glass windows, the last rays of the setting sun slanted in, turning the shards of iron and discarded parts on the floor a dark red.

Too lazy to play a chase with the cursed spirit anymore, Zhu Yu directly controlled her supernatural power, instantly releasing a large number of vines—

The ground trembled, cracks spread rapidly like a spider web, steel frames snapped like fragile biscuits, and the entire floor collapsed in an instant. The cursed spirit lurking in the shadows didn't even have time to scream before it was torn to pieces by the wildly growing plants.

When the dust settled, the second floor of the abandoned factory had been completely demolished.

[The player successfully killed...]

[Congratulations on leveling up! Lv.69 → Lv.70]

The missing experience points were successfully added.

Chapter 129 Unlocking the Spell

Along with the upgrade notification sound, there was also—

Congratulations on unlocking the spell!

Please extract your surgical technique keywords.

After the game update, some changes were made. The game development team stated in the update notes that: in order to enhance the players' enjoyment of the game, the descriptions of the skills that players draw will be blurred, allowing players to explore the effects of the skills on their own.

Has it become so vague that only keywords remain...?

Zhu Yu pondered for a moment, took a bottle of water from his backpack, washed his hands, and found a relatively clean spot on the second floor, which was full of ruins.

——Extraction

*

The decaying steel corridor suddenly twisted into a gaping maw.

The moment Zenji Naoya stepped through the gate, he sensed something was wrong—it was too quiet, so quiet that he could hear the rustling of his own sleeves. He deliberately sped up, trying to catch up with the rude woman, but all he could hear was the sound of his lonely footsteps echoing in the empty factory.

"Playing tricks..." He chuckled and pressed down on the hilt of the knife, only to find his hands covered in cold, damp sweat.

The window said that this time the cursed spirit was only level two, and he could handle it.

The ceiling suddenly collapsed.

The steel bars were twisted into a pretzel by an invisible hand, and the hundreds-of-pounds-weight ventilation duct came crashing down on his head. Fortunately, he reacted quickly and tumbled awkwardly into a pile of rusty iron barrels.

Suddenly looking up, I was met with a pair of blood-red vertical pupils, and sticky black liquid was dripping from its mouthparts.

The cursed spirit's massive body pressed down like a dark cloud, its six barbed claws slamming into the ground, causing the entire factory floor to tremble.

The cursed spirit opened its mouth and shot out a stream of black liquid, which grazed his haori embroidered with gold thread and instantly corroded a charred hole.

This is a specially made haori (feathered robe) that can withstand attacks from level two and below cursed spirits.

The fact that the Cursed Spirit's attacks can now penetrate the Feather Robe's protective effect indicates that the Cursed Spirit is at least at the Quasi-Level 1.

Cold sweat trickled down his spine and into his lower back. He suppressed the panic in his heart and swung his spell tool at the weakest joint of the cursed spirit.

The cursed spirit let out a piercing shriek, its claws sweeping across like scythes.

He quickly rolled away to dodge, his clothes were ripped open with a gruesome tear, and a burning pain shot through his shoulder—as his flesh tore open, the wound, imbued with a cursed aura, was visibly eroding his body.

It's still too much of a stretch to be considered a top-level candidate.

Zenji Naoya leaned against the rusted steel frame, panting heavily, his expression grave. Each attack from the cursed spirit carried a suffocating sense of oppression; the cursed power permeating the air pressed against his chest as if it were a tangible force.

His attempts to cast the spell were futile, only further enraging the cursed spirit.

Sticky tentacles split from the cursed spirit's body, precisely wrapping around his ankles and lifting him upside down. In a dizzying moment, he saw himself being dragged up from the ground like a dead dog, his hair even brushing against the accumulated sewage on the ground.

The spell tool slipped from his hand and fell to the dusty ground, the tassels hanging from the hilt of the sword scattering helplessly.

With a sharp "crack," the tentacle lashed out at the cursed artifact. In the instant the fragments flew, he saw the menacing fangs in the cursed spirit's gaping maw and smelled the scent of death.

Time is stretched into thick, sticky sugar threads.

At first, I could still hear my own rapid heartbeat, but later even that sound was swallowed up by the thick silence.

No, no, no, no, no—

I don't want to die in a place like this!

We must not rot like a rat in this place where only moldy spots are willing to visit!

Why me?!

And those people—those stupid, mediocre, damned bastards—can still breathe clean air and walk in the sunlight?

He suddenly became insanely jealous of those who were still alive; it was pure hatred.

Someone come quick...

Darkness began to creep in from the edge of vision.

The cursed spirit's sharp teeth were already pressed against his throat, and the icy touch made his blood freeze.

"save......"

The cry for help was stuck in his throat, turning into a desperate sob.

A sour taste rose in my throat, a burning sensation from bile reflux, or perhaps the taste of despair fermenting in my stomach.

He didn't want to die—

Suddenly, light cleaved through the darkness.

Someone is approaching.

Her expression remained calm and composed; she merely raised her left hand, her fingertips tracing a line in the air.

The cursed spirit suddenly froze.

Its enormous body began to glow with a soft white light, which spread from its heart and gradually enveloped its entire body.

It lowered its head slightly, slowly closed its eyes, and a sense of peace appeared on its originally ferocious and terrifying face.

Immediately afterwards, the barbed claws and sticky black liquid of the cursed spirits became transparent and illusory under the white light.

Zenji Naoya stared blankly, his unfocused pupils straining to focus, and he saw the outline of the figure beside the white light—its edges shimmering with an indistinct halo, like a redemption that had torn open a crack in another world.