Kenjaku’s original conception of the Culling Game looked very different from the one now.
Rather than establishing one enormous colony in Tokyo like he did now, his original intent was to create barriers in multiple locations such as Tokyo, Sendai, Sakurajima, and Kyoto, then supply the cursed energy needed for Tengen’s superimposition ritual through death games played inside each barrier.
There were several reasons why its purpose and progression differed so much from the current Culling Game.
The biggest reason was abandoning the 100-million cursed spirit plan, but there were others as well: the sluggish pace of progress, the players’ lack of quality aside from a few strong ones, and so on.
If overwhelming monsters like Kashimo Hajime or Higuruma Hiromi quickly pacified each colony, the game would stagnate, and the players would naturally lose motivation.
The last problem could be solved by bringing in outside personnel, but even that was not a complete solution.
In short, the Culling Game had ceased to be a "ritual" for creating 100 million cursed spirits and had become the "goal" itself...
because even Kenjaku himself found it rather "unfun."
So he revised the plan drastically.
He tied together the colonies that should have arisen all over the country and designed a massive battlefield in Tokyo.
He discarded the reincarnated sorcerers whose limits were obvious.
Then he dangled a 1,000-point reward and blocked rule additions, stimulating the participants’ motivation.
By cramming all those elements into one place, he had created a pretty convincing stage.
The few remaining reincarnated players did not betray expectations.
Unlike the awakened players, most of whom froze up when first confronted with an extreme situation, they did not hide their combative nature, and that breathed life into the game.
After fighting fiercely, they did enter a cold war, but if any opening appeared, they were all ready to tear each other’s throats out. Complex compatibility and superiority of power maintained a delicate balance, but eventually even that would break.
The awakened players, stimulated by those reincarnated ones, also entered combat mode, and in the process one "jackpot" emerged.
They had fulfilled their role splendidly.
Five rankers.
One colony.
It was a truly satisfying arrangement.
And now that the balance had been broken, the rankers, with one irregular exception, all began to move.
Watching all of it through the cursed spirit he had released into the Culling Game, Kenjaku smiled brightly.
"From here on out, it’s the climax."
"Hey, partner. I thought only I had the privilege of crossing the fourth wall!"
"I wouldn’t recommend saying that so openly. It kills immersion."
"That’s none of your business, Wi-fi!"
So he still hadn’t given up on that rotten gag.
Well, considering his technique, it wasn’t really something to butt into.
Even that was less a criticism than a light tsukkomi-style joke.
If he kept butting in and trying to teach him things for no reason, it might have a negative effect instead.
"It’s meaningless."
"No waaaay!!!"
"Get out."
-Clack!
He swung the guidebook that had appeared in his hand at the back of the man’s head, and an absurdly huge bump popped up on it with a boing.
No matter how many times he saw it, it was still a fascinating sight.
To think something could become real just because he thought it was funny. How interesting was that?
Their first meeting had been when he sent a few grade 1 cursed spirits to test the man, who had been fretting because he couldn’t earn points.
And the result had been a "jackpot" that popped out from an entirely unexpected place.
Even though he had awakened his technique less than a month ago, he had slaughtered every cursed spirit that charged at him with a single blow.
"Ooh! The points! Takaba Fumihiko is way too strong~~~!!"
"Hello?"
"Huh, huh?"
"You’re kind of interesting."
He realized it at a glance.
This was Higuruma-level. No, maybe even beyond that.
A new type he had never seen in a thousand years, with strength worthy of that rarity.
To put it a little exaggeratedly, he had the qualities of a destination the sorcerers of a new world should aim for.
Finding this guy had been pure luck.
If he himself hadn’t been proficient in comedy,
if he hadn’t shown positive motivation toward the Culling Game,
no, if he hadn’t abandoned the 100-million cursed spirit plan...
they would not have remained in a relationship like this.
"I’m going to need a doctor and a lawyer. That last blow massacred my brain cells!"
"Like a Jew in a gas chamber?"
"Hey, don’t do that!"
At the NG line that shattered every angle, the man panicked and shouted, Cut! Cut!
Kenjaku shrugged and turned his eyes back to the screen.
Beyond the flickering CRT display, a boy and an old man were facing off.
And he also caught sight of three people heading this way.
"Oh, that person is
number two and number three
, right!"
"Your reaction is way too slow, Jeff... no, Takaba."
They were trying so hard, so he should prepare a stage worthy of an audience role as well.
He was looking forward to the moment when the lead actors would finally be put on the chopping block in earnest.
The Culling Game had to continue.
After Ishigori’s death was confirmed, there was one sorcerer who moved first.
"Hoho... child, where are you in such a hurry to go?"
It was an old man dressed in a bizarre way, with his upper body bare.
-Kugugugu
A black crow shikigami circled rapidly around the old man’s body, and a little farther away, a giant naked mole-rat shikigami was rapidly approaching from this direction.
Since his cursed energy wasn’t fluctuating, both shikigami seemed to be autonomous.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Dorub Rakdawaara. I am the king who ruled this archipelago long ago."
Rank 3, Dorub Rakdawaara.
He appeared before Junpei.
"...Third place?"
"Have you burdened yourself with an excessive amount of karma? Then obediently become the stepping stone for my ascension."
A new enemy had appeared right after they had barely held Ishigori’s funeral.
He was also a reincarnated player, but the atmosphere was completely different from the fight just now.
As if he had no intention of hiding it, Dorub’s murky eyes gleamed with killing intent.
"Dorub Rakdawaara, 123 points... Ishigori-san also said to kill him on sight."
According to Ishigori, he was a vicious man who slaughtered indiscriminately without distinguishing friend from foe.
Junpei did not distrust him, but he still needed to confirm it for himself.
There was a mission that had come to mind while fighting Ishigori.
The role he had here was not merely to collect 1,000 points.
He had to understand more deeply the meaning of struggle and bring salvation as a sorcerer.
He needed to know why this person fought.
"Dorub... can I call you that?"
"Do not speak my name so casually, lowly child."
Was that the fate of a sorcerer who could not age gracefully?
He tried to start a conversation, but all he got back was a reaction of disgust.
He had suspected it, but as expected, they would not be able to communicate well.
"Why did you participate in the Culling Game?"
"Wouldn’t you pity me? I still have many unfinished tasks, so it is not yet time for me to rot away."
"What exactly are these tasks you’re talking about?"
"Conquest. Nothing but conquest. It is only right that weak, inferior commoners be ruled by the superior me."
Junpei was at a loss for words at Dorub’s utterly calm babbling about something straight out of the feudal age.
He no longer wanted to indulge such a shallow, third-rate villain’s ideology.
Unlike Ishigori, whose motives had been somewhat complicated, this one was so simple that it was almost a relief.
"Are you done with your last words?"
"I was going to come find you anyway, so thanks for coming here."
"Hoho, you flatter me."
As cursed energy began to rise from Junpei’s body, Dorub stroked his beard with a satisfied smile.
He was the oldest among the Culling Game participants and the second reincarnation, having lived during the Yayoi era, around the 2nd century AD.
The first reincarnation had been a coincidence, beginning when the curse left behind by his lingering regret after death mutated.
That was when he met Kenjaku, made a contract with him, and joined the Culling Game as a second reincarnation.
That was not the only remarkable thing about him.
His background from the 2nd century. A soul worn down through two lives.
Dorub Rakdawaara’s mind was now closer to a curse than to a human.
"I look forward to hearing what kind of screams you’ll make."
He had no reason, no belief.
A rational mind existed, but he was a shura who lived only by instinct and enjoyed slaughter.
That was Dorub Rakdawaara’s final destination.
Unlike Ishigori, who had committed more slaughter yet still retained his own convictions and chivalry.
He was undoubtedly an irredeemable villain who had to be killed as soon as possible.
There was no room for compromise with that man.
And once he realized that, Junpei no longer hesitated.
Accelerating in an instant, Junpei threw a punch with enough force to blow his head apart on impact.
The fist flew right up to the old man’s face, then was blocked by something hard.
-Caw, caw!
The object that blocked Junpei’s fist was the crow shikigami that had been circling Dorub just moments ago.
The crow cawed as if mocking him, then vanished from sight in an instant.
-Slash!
"....!"
"Hohoho."
The crow moved at invisible speed, slicing through the air.
The moment Junpei’s armor touched the faint afterimage it left behind, it was shaved away.
Then Dorub snapped his fingers with a click, and cursed energy exploded along the invisible path left in the air. Junpei’s body, fully exposed to the attack, was knocked backward by the shock.
'A slash? An explosion? No. That was just cursed energy discharge.'
Dorub’s technique made the trajectories of his shikigami his own domain.
He controlled two autonomous shikigami, and only Dorub could see their trajectories.
The naked mole-rat handled size and power. The crow handled speed and automatic defense.
Under the protection of those two shikigami, he had taken the lives of countless people.
"Entertain me more."
Dorub possessed an extremely powerful technique, but he was at a disadvantage against Ishigori.
That was why he had chosen to begin the full-on battle only after Ishigori’s death.
He had waited nearby for his natural enemy to die, looking for an opening.
Of course, that calculation also included the assumption that his opponent would have been worn down from fighting Ishigori.
'As long as I avoid that shameless girl...'
then truly conquering the Culling Game and rebuilding his empire was no dream at all.
Within it, he would live on as an immortal absolute ruler.
As Dorub was thinking that, something fell onto his shoulder.
When he confirmed what it was, his expression cracked.
"....!"
-Plop, plop
The crow shikigami that should have returned was horribly mangled.
As if something had torn it apart and eaten it.
-Bwooooo!
When he looked up at the wailing sound, the giant naked mole-rat was being sucked somewhere.
"No! Come back!"
He didn’t know what was going on, but he could not lose the last one too.
He shouted in a panic and tried to reclaim his cursed energy, but the mole-rat was absorbed completely faster than he could do so.
For the first time in 1,800 years, despair spread across Dorub’s face.
Then a voice came from above his head.
"Die, Dorub Rakdawaara."
-Like the countless people you have killed, when you die, you too shall be alone.
With that emotionless pronouncement of death as the final thing he heard, his vision was dyed blue.
Meanwhile, another sorcerer watching from afar.
"That stupid old bastard! What are you doing, not even draining his strength properly!"
As soon as Dorub died, she fled immediately.
"Damn it, damn it!"
The woman biting her nails irritably was wearing nothing on her body.
Wavering air barely covered her groin and breasts, taking on the shape of clothing that was worse than nothing at all.
Unusually, the whites of her eyes were black and her irises were gold. Her name was Uro Takako.
Like Dorub, she was the number 5 ranker, watching and waiting for a chance after hearing that Ishigori had died.
"Damn it, where the hell did some monster like that come from?"
Seeing him hunt rankers, it was obvious his goal was 1,000 points.
There was no way someone like that would ignore her, with her 100 points.
Even if she begged, he would never spare her, and considering the power that had vaporized Dorub in one blow, she would be doomed if she fought him head-on.
When she thought of her death as a foregone conclusion, cold sweat trickled down her back.
"No. I’m not going to die...!"
She had finally gotten a second chance.
At last she could live openly under the sun.
There was no way she was going to waste it this pathetically.
As Uro desperately worked her brain to survive, she decided to swallow her pride just once.
There were only two people who could at least stand against Yoshino Junpei in this situation.
One was a battle maniac who acted before he thought, so he was out. The other, the one she could at least talk to...
-Swish
After flying for a long while, Uro headed to a theater in Ikebukuro.
It was the base where a ranker of her level lived, and also a place tied to some rather unpleasant memories for her.
Suppressing her discomfort, she opened the door and went inside, and one person was caught by her perception.
"Why did you come here? I said I wouldn’t fight as long as you didn’t come at me first."
"I came with a proposal."
"Oh?"
Interested by her words, the man in a neat suit rose from the darkness.
Incongruous with his outfit, he was holding a large tub of jelly that looked like something kids would eat.
"What are you doing?"
"Eating an entire tub of jelly in one sitting. I was reenacting something I couldn’t do when I was young. My mother always slapped me on the back for it."
'Crazy bastard...'
"Did you just think I was crazy?"
"N-no."
"It’s fine. As long as you don’t say it out loud, it doesn’t count as an insult."
The man with the striking four eyes could make fairly amusing jokes with a deadpan face.
Considering his job before getting caught up in this death game, that wasn’t all that surprising.
"Sit down first."
The man handed a chair to the hesitant Uro and sat himself on a suitable bump in the floor.
"So, the main point?"
"Ishigori and Dorub were both killed by one person."
"You mean the new number two."
"That guy is definitely gathering 1,000 points. We’re next."
Uro’s argument was simple.
They should cooperate and, when Yoshino Junpei came looking, take him on together.
Considering this man’s technique, the two of them working together would probably have good synergy.
"What about Pikachu?"
"Pikachu...? Oh, you mean Kashimo. Don’t worry about that crazy bastard. He’s after 1,000 points too, so there’s a good chance he’ll clash with number two before he clashes with us. He’s obsessed with one-on-ones, so that guy would be a tastier target for him."
"Anyway, I understand."
"You’re accepting?"
"What can you do for me?"
At the question of what she could offer in exchange for cooperation, Uro’s eyebrows twitched slightly.
She had to somehow move this man’s heart.
Just as she resolved that if necessary she would even roll this body around to survive—
"I’m joking. I don’t really expect anything in return. Public defenders are used to dirty work and low pay."
"Really...?"
"Oh, and next time you come for counseling, wear some clothes. If you’re trying to seduce me, I’ll politely decline. Lawyers are prohibited from having personal relationships with clients."
He teased her about the way she went around with only the intimate parts of her body covered by her technique, and Uro’s face turned bright red.
The man gave a faint smile as she nodded silently.
"I’ll do my best, then."
{Player Rankings}
1st. [Kashimo Hajime - 390 points]
2nd. [Yoshino Junpei - 308 points]
3rd. [Higuruma Hiromi - 117 points]
4th. [Uro Takako - 100 points]
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It was the moment when an alliance between third and fourth place was formed to bring down second place.
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