Chapter 128: Culling Game-24
There was a man.
A man everyone called a genius.
"Higuruma, you’re really smart~ What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I don’t know. I’m currently ten years old. It’s still a time when the range of choices is wide, so isn’t it a little cruel to make me decide already?"
"Ah.... I see, then?"
"I’m joking, teacher. I wanted to try acting like an obnoxious brat."
The man, extraordinary from childhood, never failed to place first on exams.
Wherever he went, he won awards in a row. Contrary to the common notion that a smart mind meant a weak body, he was also physically strong.
His family and acquaintances all praised and lauded him until their tongues went dry, but the man felt nothing in particular from it.
Share information, store it, and use it at the proper time.
Most of what could be done in school was easily accomplished through nothing more than these simple tasks.
In fact, he couldn’t understand why other people found such simple, mechanical repetition so difficult.
That didn’t mean he lost interest in life, or got bored and fell into becoming a mad scientist or anything like that.
If that happened, wouldn’t it be too obvious and stale a routine? The world was still vast, and the man knew well that it was impossible to define every phenomenon that occurred within it.
At the very least, he only tried to correct the "wrong" things that happened within reach of his own hands.
As his mind gradually matured, his interests went beyond simple academic pursuits and turned toward the systems that defined society as a whole, and the workings of human emotion.
The young man, born with an inherently just and good nature, realized what he had to do within that world.
The thing best suited to him, with his extraordinary mind. A profession many people admired, and one that could make full use of his abilities.
A legal professional.
"You didn’t seriously get in straight out of high school, did you? Please tell me you did."
"Sorry to disappoint you. I entered as the top student."
"Aaaagh!! You fraud!!"
He entered the University of Tokyo Faculty of Law as the top student straight out of high school.
After graduating, he passed the bar exam in one shot.
After getting his name on the Iwate bar association roster, he began his career as a public defender.
Public defenders were poorly paid and often saddled with cases that had little chance of winning.
He knew that, but he only watched as other classmates with lower grades than him got hired by law firms and grinned smugly.
Even though he had countless options laid before him—prosecutor, defense attorney, even judge—he insisted on being a public defender.
To take the hand of those clinging from the lowest place.
Of course, it wasn’t easy.
There were many cases he won, but there were more that he lost.
That was because Japan’s legal system was structured to heavily favor the prosecution.
Moving with limited budgets and personnel while facing prosecutors who could throw taxpayer money around, winning was hard even for a genius like him.
But he never gave up.
Even when he took on reckless criminal defenses and failed to secure suspended sentences, earning the defendants’ resentment,
even when he defended defendants whose alibis were shaky and got slammed by public opinion,
no matter what people around him said, he quietly did what he had to do.
"I sentence the defendant, Ooe Keita, to life imprisonment."
About ten years passed like that.
For the first time in his life, he ran into a problem he couldn’t solve on his own.
It was also the moment when his mind, which had seemed like it would never waver, finally reached its limit.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
This trial was guilty from the very beginning.
Why.
I swore I’d keep my eyes open, at least for myself, so why...
Now I understand.
Everything was wrong.
Everything I had believed in, the human heart,
the law.
-Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Higuruma-san...?"
"Everyone, return to your seats."
It begins again.
"Hey, lawyer! Wake up!"
At the sharp voice that stabbed at his ears, Higuruma Hiromi opened his eyes.
What was strange was that even after opening them, it was still pitch-black, and he couldn’t see anything.
"Is it still night? Why are all the lights off?"
"How about taking off that fucking sleep mask first?"
"Ah."
It must have been so comfortable that he’d momentarily forgotten to take it off.
As he fumbled off the sleep mask, he saw Uro’s distorted expression.
He didn’t know what had happened while he was asleep, but judging by the way her legs were trembling, she looked extremely uneasy.
"What is it?"
"That guy came."
He came.
The disaster that devoured rankers.
Rank 2 had arrived.
"I see."
"What do you mean, I see—hey! Hurry up and get ready! We’re both going to die if we slip up!"
"I know, so stop rushing me."
Leaving Uro stomping in place, Higuruma leisurely changed clothes, finished dressing, and sat down in a chair.
No matter how much she badgered him, Higuruma remained calm, and soon Uro also regained her composure and waited for the enemy who would soon come looking for them.
"Annoying as hell, but this guy’s skill is real."
The plan was simple, but the preparation was perfect.
After matching up with him a few times, she had reached the conclusion that Higuruma’s power could be trusted.
Unless the opponent was some common-sense-defying monster like Sukuna, there was almost no way to escape his technique.
-Creak
After waiting a moment, a man she had never seen before opened the theater door and came in.
Long bangs covered half his face, and he had a slender build.
Strictly speaking, he had a frail-looking impression, but the enormous presence radiating from him was not something to ignore lightly.
"That guy is....!"
"Rank 2!"
Tense, they raised their cursed energy as if they were about to enter battle.
They intended to activate Higuruma’s technique the instant he did anything foolish.
Just as they made eye contact with the man, who was looking around, and waited for him to open his mouth,
"Ack, a pervert!"
Yoshino Junpei spotted Uro Takako’s outfit and recoiled in shock.
---------------------------------------
He was old enough to know what he was doing.
That is, a healthy teenager who used the secret tab function suspiciously often, locked his door when he was alone in his room, and kept his mother from coming in.
And now that he’d recently climbed the stairs into adulthood, he could no longer be called innocent.
That didn’t mean he was used to seeing a woman’s naked body, though.
"Who are you calling a pervert!"
"Uh, well. Could you at least put some clothes on?"
Even Higuruma thought Uro’s outfit was obscenely lewd.
Her genitals and nipples were obscured by distortion, but every other part of her was shamelessly exposed.
It was somehow even lewder than being completely naked, something that stirred a man’s lust to boiling point.
If he weren’t as self-restrained as he was, another man might have seen her and charged in with a "Yowza! Take responsibility!"
He had once told her to at least wear some clothes, but even that was uncomfortable to her, so she quickly took them off again.
When he asked why, her answer had been truly absurd.
"What’s the point of clothes when you’re fighting?"
"What does fighting have to do with your exhibitionism?"
"Anyway, I’m just going to get stripped by my ability while fighting, so why wear clothes that’ll just go to waste?"
He had wanted to ask whether everyday life was completely outside the discussion, but he held it in. Whether she walked around naked or in a micro bikini, it wasn’t his problem.
Aside from the fact that he had nowhere to look during conversations and it was awkward, honestly, it wasn’t bad.
No man hates seeing a beautiful woman with a great body walking around half-naked.
"You are a lewd pervert, though. A shameless exhibitionist. If it were me, I’d have given up defending you for public indecency at this seriously obscene level."
"Why are you doing this too...? More importantly, you left an opening by getting flustered. Why aren’t you attacking already?"
"Wait a second."
If anything, this was an opportunity.
As originally discussed with her, he would have deployed his technique the moment they opened the door and came in.
But now that he had actually met the Rank 2 in person, and confirmed that he was a young boy who probably hadn’t even gotten his ID card yet, he found himself a little interested.
"He looks pretty immature. That guy really crushed Ishigori and Dhruv?"
The power he felt was formidable, but there was something sloppy about him, like getting flustered after seeing Uro’s naked body.
No matter how he looked at it, he seemed far removed from the terrifying monster Uro had been insisting on all this time.
Fighting was unavoidable, but maybe they could talk first.
"Heeey. You there. Are you Rank 2?"
"Huh? Ah, yes."
"What are you doing all the way out here?"
Junpei thought about how he should answer that question, then decided to simply be honest.
"I’m trying to gather 1,000 points."
"Administrator privileges? What are you planning to use that for?"
"I, no, we want to end the Culling Game."
For that, we need the points you have.
As soon as he finished speaking, Uro’s expression turned fierce.
"Ha! So in the end you’re just saying you’ll kill us and take our points. Is there any need to hear more?"
"If you put it that way, I don’t have much to say... but before that, I thought maybe we could at least talk."
"Talk about what? You think we’d be persuaded and die quietly? How naive."
"No. I’m not hoping for that. I just want to figure out whether you’re people worth respecting."
People worth respecting?
At the ambiguous wording, Higuruma and Uro tilted their heads.
In the end, if they were going to fight, win, and kill, what did respect matter?
"It’s a little hard to explain, but think of it as settling a grudge."
"A grudge?"
"The woman over there seems like a reincarnated type, and you’re an awakened type, right?"
"Yeah."
"You both must have reasons for participating in the Culling Game, right? You entered the game prepared to risk your lives. I want to know those reasons."
What it was they wanted so badly that they would take other people’s lives to achieve it.
Whether that reason was truly desperate enough to give their all for, and whether it carried a firm will.
Depending on how they answered, his attitude toward them would change.
Ishigori had a clear goal worthy of respect.
Dhruv was simple evil, not worth respecting.
It was arrogant, since he was judging them by his own standards, but he had long since moved past the armchair debate over who had the right to judge.
Beyond good and evil, he was simply acting according to his convictions because he wanted to.
"If you have any lingering regrets from your previous life, I’ll do my best to accommodate them."
Junpei’s finger pointed at Uro, then slid past her to point at Higuruma.
"And if you have a wish you want to reach even if it means leaving your old society behind, I’ll hear that too."
Kind, and yet cruel words.
They were also unbelievably absurd.
Higuruma and Uro let out a laugh at the same time, as if they had planned it.
"You’ve really lost it."
"They say true sorcerers are all a bunch of broken-headed lunatics. I guess I’m one of those too?"
"It’s not just that."
-You’re disgusting.
Flames blazed in Uro’s eyes.
"There’s no such thing as someone who can completely understand another person. You think I’d believe you can understand our darkness just because we exchanged a few words? Don’t say shallow things, it pisses me off!"
"Who said anything about understanding? I only said ‘respect.’ I’m just asking because I want to hear it. If you don’t like it, you can ignore me."
Though if they brushed off his hand, he would show no mercy.
From that point on, Uro’s inferiority complex exploded.
How dare he. How could he say such a thing.
A brat born in the comfortable, safe modern world.
Someone who had worked in the shadows all his life, been pitifully used, and now said he wanted to empathize with my life.
Not only was that not something he could do for her, it would be a miracle if he didn’t just make it even more miserable.
That was enough of listening to this nonsense about respect and whatever else.
"Higuruma!"
"Yeah."
Higuruma had already finished preparing to deploy his technique.
"Domain Expansion."
"!!"
Chūbuku Shishi.
That was the first reason Higuruma was special.
His technique had the unusual characteristic of having a domain as its default state.
This domain, burdened with countless restrictions and focused solely on the process of "trial,"
"You can’t counter-domain it!"
Unless the opponent was a domain of the same kind as [Coffin of the Iron Mountain], or a miraculous domain like [Malevolent Shrine] that didn’t erect a barrier.
It boasted an absolute advantage in domain battles.
Before anyone could do anything, a courtroom-like stage was formed in an instant, and behind Higuruma, standing on the bench, a bizarre object rose up.
Judge Man, wearing a white mask with stitched-shut eyes, appeared to deliver judgment.
"Looks like we can’t settle this with words anymore."
Higuruma, holding a hammer, wore a somewhat irritated expression.
Up until now, he had wanted for nothing.
He had taken interest in the system known as the Culling Game, and he was very satisfied with the current situation in which it continued.
Junpei, who was trying to break this peace and touch his painful memories...
he didn’t like him very much.
"This is..."
"Have you ever killed someone you didn’t like?"
He was feeling better than expected.
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