I couldn’t see the curtain Akari should have put up.
Before that, there wasn’t a single person on the street.
An obvious abnormal phenomenon.
It seemed I had been swept up in the mysterious disappearances that had been occurring at this PC café.
"This is creepy."
Even if it was a little removed from the city center, this had been a lively street with at least some foot traffic, a place that felt inhabited. Being left here completely alone, without the slightest sign of anyone else, felt strange.
"Is this what they call the Backrooms? No, maybe it’s a little different."
Even though I could handle whatever might jump out at me with cursed energy manipulation, the peculiar chill in the air had me talking to myself for no reason.
But that was that, and this was this. I was in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen. Urban legends of that sort had long since been explained here as phenomena caused by cursed spirits.
It seemed reasonable to assume this was something like a cursed spirit’s innate domain made manifest. But how had it happened in an instant like this...?
"The computer?"
Come to think of it, the computer had turned on the moment it became 4:44 p.m.
A technique that used computers as a medium? Whether it was techniques or cursed spirits, everything got modernized with the times, but I wished they’d show up in patterns that were easier to figure out.
I returned to the café and smashed the computer in Room 4, the one that had served as my entry point into this domain.
Crunch.
Sliiide.
I blinked for a moment, and the broken computer had returned to normal.
Hypothesis one: this computer was merely part of the domain, so it restored itself even if destroyed.
Hypothesis two: this domain itself had copied the outside world exactly, so anything destroyed here would quickly return to normal.
Either way, it was safe to understand that this computer had nothing more to tell me.
The monitor, without so much as a scratch on it, seemed to be mocking me as though it were saying that this entrance was one-way only and I should look elsewhere.
-
I explored the surrounding area.
This domain seemed to be modeled after an area with a radius of roughly ten kilometers centered on the PC café that served as its entrance. And it repeated endlessly.
It probably worked by automatically sending you back inside the barrier once you got close to its edge. I’d seen something similar in the original story.
Infinite barriers or domains didn’t exist in this world. Unless it was Unlimited Void.
And—
Overtime, overtime, oooverrrtiiime.
Ican’tgohoomewhyisthismyliiife.
For some reason, low-grade cursed spirits were wandering around inside this innate domain.
"At a glance, they’re around Grade 3 or 4? They’re not dangerous by any means, but..."
If there were survivors inside this domain, they would pose a serious threat to them.
I concentrated cursed energy in my legs and strengthened my kicking power.
Overtime?
I kicked off the ground and shot straight toward the cursed spirit.
Oooverrrtiiime?!
Gyaaaargh.
Two cursed spirits down. The cursed spirits that collided with me were crushed into pulp and vanished.
I’d figured as much, but taking out a few trash cursed spirits didn’t dispel the domain.
For now, I’d make eliminating cursed spirits while searching around my first priority...
Tap tap tap tap.
"Footsteps?"
I heard footsteps from not too far away.
They were getting fainter, so it felt like whoever it was was running away.
They didn’t sound like a cursed spirit’s footsteps. It seemed to be a survivor, so I should catch up with them, if only to question and protect them.
"Pant, huff, pant!? Eeeek?!"
"Wait, don’t run!"
The owner of the footsteps was a girl.
Maybe she was wary of me, because she sped up again. This wouldn’t do. I’d have to leap ahead and cut her off in one go—
Screeeeeech!!!
"Aaaaah!"
"Watch out!"
A cursed spirit burst out from around the corner and pounced on the girl.
I immediately rushed in and smashed the cursed spirit.
Perhaps her legs had given out, because the girl collapsed to the ground and stared at me with wide, startled eyes.
"Whew..."
"Ahhh..."
"Are you okay?"
"C-c-could you possibly be f-from the Paranormal Management Headquarters?!"
No, what the fuck was that supposed to be?
She was still trembling, yet she was looking at me with hopeful eyes, and I was beginning to lose track of what was going on. Had some weird urban-legend story crossed over into Jujutsu Kaisen?
If my story were a novel, ninety percent of its readers would obviously be here for a Jujutsu Kaisen parody. If I threw in some trashy crossover setting on top of that, the readers would all leave. It couldn’t be that. Besides, urban-legend stories already had plenty of successful novels—
No, let’s stop trying to figure that out.
"No. I’m affiliated with Jujutsu High."
There really could be a third party out there, and the girl in front of me might be connected to it, so I deliberately made it clear that I was affiliated with Jujutsu High.
The girl hesitated before continuing.
"Um... so you’re not from the Paranormal Management Headquarters?"
"What even is that? Stop stuffing weird settings into a perfectly normal world."
"S-s-settings!? Eek!"
The girl’s face abruptly turned red as if she had suffered an enormous humiliation.
After taking a quick look around and confirming there were no cursed spirits nearby, I decided to enter the café beside us and continue questioning her there.
I poured a glass of water at the café and set it in front of her.
After taking a sip, the girl seemed to calm down, and her trembling eased.
"Feeling calmer?"
"Yes..."
She looked a little unhinged, but she was the first survivor I’d found. She could be the key to solving this case.
"I’m going to ask you questions one at a time. What you said earlier has made things confusing, so I’d appreciate it if you answered only what I ask."
"Okaaay."
"Your name?"
"I’m Kitano Minami."
Kitano Minami. Good. She was cooperative.
I concentrated cursed energy in my right hand and kindled it like a flame.
"First question. Can you see this?"
"S-s-s-see what?"
"Okay, so you can see it just fine. You must’ve seen that monster earlier too?"
"Yeees..."
Judging from how she reacted as though she could see it while pretending not to, she had probably been acting like she couldn’t see them so people wouldn’t think she was weird.
Exposure to the curse inside this domain could make someone see them temporarily, but it appeared she had been able to see them from the start.
"Why did you run away at first?"
"B-because I thought you were a monster. You saw them too, Mr. Administrator. I didn’t think anyone could defeat monsters, so even though you looked human, I thought you had to be a monster..."
"Uh, sure. My name is Zenin Daisuke. Don’t call me by some weird title like Administrator."
"Yes. Mr. Zenin."
She really was out of her mind.
"How long have you been trapped here?"
"Um... about six months, maybe?"
"You’ve been here a long time. How did you eat all that time?"
"I went into empty convenience stores or shops and made do with whatever I found. For some reason, they would get restocked periodically. There was a hotel nearby with open rooms, so I slept there."
Was the food being replenished based on the same principle as the computer I broke earlier getting restored?
"Tell me everything you remember about when you first got trapped here."
"I was browsing the internet at a PC café to kill time."
"It was around 4:44 p.m.?"
"Oh! How did you know? That’s right."
So the triggers really were the time and the computer?
For my next question, I was going to ask what that paranormal whatever was—
"I saw an article called [Net Gate to the Underworld] on the [Urban Legend Management Headquarters Site Wiki], and it looked interesting, so I tried following it! Then I got dropped into this other world where nobody was around! At first I panicked and flailed around, but once I more or less sorted out food and somewhere to sleep, this place was actually pretty livable! Then sometimes people like you would appear, or monsters would appear, and—"
"Uh, what?"
"If urban legends are real, doesn’t that mean the Management Headquarters must be real too? I might get recruited someday, so I shared survival tips for this place with the people who got caught up in it, and we traveled together so they could survive! But then everyone collapsed at some point..."
"Stop. I told you to answer only what I asked, didn’t I?"
The girl covered her mouth with both hands and nodded up and down.
Too much information had suddenly come flooding in, and my head was starting to hurt.
So,
1. Kitano Minami had entered this domain by reading an internet urban-legend site and following its instructions.
2. That Urban Legend Management Headquarters nonsense was the name of the site.
3. There were other survivors besides Kitano Minami, and they were currently unconscious.
And when I entered this domain, I hadn’t even touched the computer. I entered the moment it became 4:44.
The other survivors had probably done the same. Which meant—
the most suspicious person right now was this girl who seemed out of her mind?
"Thanks to your little ramble, I now have a mountain of additional questions. First, take me to the people you said collapsed."
"Y-yes!"
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