Chapter 13

  I had exactly fourteen million eight-hundred and seventy-six thousand two-hundred and ninety-five Juchū to my name.

  It still didn’t feel like enough. Kamakiri took up a million of them, after I had made the plunge to make it nominally battle-ready. I hadn’t vowed to lock them into the merged Juchū yet, which would give the creature a minor boost in power. I could still draw bugs from it in a pinch.

  As for my second creation…

  It was a legless ball of black carapace the size of a fist with two extremely long antennae, stretching three feet each.

  In theory, this object was supposed to extend my range at the cost of every other capability. By reducing its Control and Parasitization statistic to zero, I had boosted its Sense Expanding capabilities—conditionally. It didn’t have the ability to sense the physical world at all. In exchange, it could theoretically extend the range of my cursed energy perception, and thus my effective range.

  I had poured a million Juchū into it. Tentatively, I called it a ‘Daughter Bug’.

  My third merged Juchū was not really anything special. It was just a big dragonfly the size of a dog. It would carry the Daughter Bug to the edge of my range.

  000

  Five hundred yards.

  The Daughter Bug was… disappointing. Expensive, for one. I clearly hadn’t stipulated enough Binding Vows.

  And its radius? Five hundred yards and change.

  On my second go, I reduced the durability to very little. It would be as fragile as tempered glass. In human terms, that wasn’t fragile at all, but in terms of jujutsu, that might as well have been rice paper.

  I also stipulated that if it were to die, I would lose all invested Juchū forever—and I would have to Reproduce more to make up for that loss. Then I had locked its form, such that I could no longer scrap it for Juchū anymore. Nor would I be able to make overly complicated changes. If I came up with a new and more efficient design, I still wouldn’t be able to recover the Juchū from this Mark One Daughter Bug.

  It was a shortsighted sacrifice, but my sight was short for a reason. I needed results yesterday.

  The new range had extended.

  Three miles.

  That was… an improvement. I was in range of Kaga City, finally. Almost ninety percent of it. But I could do better.

  Initially, in trying to brainstorm a solution to widening my range, I had entertained the idea of simply going five miles in the direction of the city and staying there. I would still be in range of the clan compound and the city.

  I had shot that idea down for several reasons. For one, I needed to be constantly available to the Hibana clan at a moment’s notice in case of anything. If I couldn’t simply appear the second some incident took place, then my carefully crafted veneer of omniscience would falter, and thus the social reform wouldn’t be as impactful as I wanted it to be.

  Then another idea had occurred: I could just use a vow to turn my spherical range into a cone-shape pointed towards Kaga city.

  That was equally untenable.

  Unfortunately, in the wake of Iemon’s warnings, I knew that an omnidirectional ten-mile range would be for the best, in case of an attack. I had gutted the clan utterly. Now, I was its primary defender. My actions had consequences, and this was one such consequence. And I refused to let the Hibana pay the price for my leaving them defenseless.

  They deserved many things, but being slaughtered by rivals was not one of them.

  Still… that idea, of manipulating the shape of my range, had promise…

  I led my Juchū to the extended range to get a good view of the city. Civilization at last. The city was modest and not very developed, but it had a charming and rustic vibe to it. Traditional architecture, not many cars. Greenery blending in with the urban sprawl.

  And a smattering of Fly Heads over the skies.

  Fly Heads were the least of all cursed spirits. They didn’t even meet the requirements for the Dog-rank, making them weak enough to be almost entirely harmless. They spawned in droves seasonally and occasionally provided sustenance to stronger curses, or they would merge together to form strong curses. One theory stated that half of all common curses were the result of Fly Heads merging together.

  They were as much of a problem as pollution was. An abstract enemy that was difficult to address.

  Even the Juchū I had brought to Kaga City were heavily outnumbered by the Fly Heads a hundred to one, even though they were a hundred thousand in number. According to our clan’s data, there were billions upon billions of Fly Heads in Tokyo depending on the season.

  I latched onto the Fly Heads where their stubby, insectile limbs couldn’t reach and began the Parasitization process.

  Within minutes, the infested Fly Heads had died as all of their cursed energy—every single erg—had been Parasitized. I had thoroughly underestimated the weakness of these creatures. I was completely certain that if I tried to Reproduce into one of them, they couldn’t nourish the equivalent of a single egg sac.

  That was fine. There were more than enough for me in the sky to create some Mother bugs for the bigger curses that I sensed down in the city. Mostly Dog-grade and a few Wolf-grades.

  With a bit of elbow grease, I could completely clean the town up of curses.

  In the meanwhile, I could make a sprint for Kanazawa city.

  Three miles translated to four point eight kilometers. According to our clan’s maps, which were in the metric system, the distance between Kaga City and Kanazawa City, the capital of the Ishikawa prefecture, was fifty-three kilometers.

  And the area of a circle with a radius of four point eight units was seventy-three, the unit being kilometers.

  I could, theoretically, create a Daughter Bug with a range the shape of a rectangle one kilometer wide and seventy-three kilometers long, all the way to Kanazawa, where I could then plant yet another Daughter Bug with an omnidirectional range.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But why make the range shape one kilometer wide, anyhow? Why stop there? If I made the range even one meter wide, wouldn’t that multiply the length by a thousand?! Seventy-three thousand kilometers would be enough to almost wrap around the Earth twice!

  This was…!

  000

  …not how Jujutsu worked, apparently.

  While building my range bridge to Kanazawa city, I discovered that while manipulating the range was possible, the total area of my range was not a constant value by any means. It wasn’t written in stone. The price I had to pay to extend my range past three miles was higher than expected.

  Making the range bridge one meter wide, I had managed to stretch my range to a whooping… eighty kilometers.

  This range was in the shape of a cylinder with a radius of fifty centimeters. It had to constantly aim, with pinpoint precision, at a Daughter Bug strategically located at Kanazawa for me to gain a view over the city, and that view was conditional on how well the cylinder kept its aim. If anything shifted it, I would lose the range, and thus every bug I would have already stationed in Kanazawa. They would just dissolve into cursed energy. I would have to regenerate them with the Reverse Cursed Technique, which was a hassle.

  And if I lost a Daughter Bug that way, I couldn’t regenerate the lost Juchū with positive energy. I would have to Reproduce to make up for the loss.

  My harvest from Kaga city had netted me eight-hundred thousand new Juchū through Reproduction of weak cursed spirits, and my savings were ample enough that I could simply create more Daughter Bugs rather than placing all my effort and trust into such a thin range.

  The next stop after Kanazawa? Toyama city. A population comparable to Kanazawa, which was already far more highly populated than Kaga.

  But I would be gambling more Juchū than I was comfortable with on making this range bridge to Kanazawa. I just had to hope beyond hope that it would pay off.

  000

  As Iemon sat upon the clan head’s chair, moved there by attendants, he caught sight of Teira-sama standing by on the side, wearing a less ornate kimono than usual. Her cold stare still unnerved him as always—as did the Swarm Queen’s Antennae lodged into her skull.

  “They’re only a mile away now,” Teira-sama told him as she stepped closer to the throne. Iemon nodded.

  He glanced up at the Antennae, and to break the tension, he gave a slight grin. “I must ask—but do they hurt?”

  Teira took a moment before answering. “No, not really. The Antennae feel like a part of my skull now. Part of my brain, too. I believe one of the conditions of the Antennae is that I can never remove them without dying. In exchange, they’re quite secure. It would take considerable force to damage them, or… stir my brain, I suppose. But I suspect that they are my greatest weak spot.”

  Teira had flourished into such a competent curse expert as of late. The secrets of the Juchū technique that she continuously seemed to suss out were a sight to see. She could merge her Juchū into even stronger and larger creatures. She must have learned these secrets from the secret historians. That, and her inexplicable and transcendental ability to multitask.

  No, but that was something more innate to Teira. From the first manifestation of her ability, she had treated every Juchū battle like a joke. In retrospect, it didn’t feel like she had improved from then, so much as she had simply been given more tools to reveal the full breadth of her innate talent.

  Millions of Juchū all controlled concurrently with perfect precision, where even the great Hibana Kenzo of the edo period had fifteen thousand before he had hit his human limit.

  Where would Teira’s lie?

  Eventually, she would have to hit it, and then she would be forced to depend on the curse expertise of the other clansmen. Teira had been diligent in rewarding the highest point-scorers in the clan with Juchū for aiding in her agenda, creating a robust system of incentives and disincentives. In Iemon’s eyes, Teira had done an excellent job of executing this one-woman crusade of hers—and she had even stopped clamoring for executions as of late!

  It had taken time and patience, but Iemon felt like the young girl was finally beginning to get a handle of her homicidal tendencies. Although… she was far too eager to show up in person for corporal punishments and finger-cuttings, betraying a sadistic desire to see her clansmen suffer.

  Michiko’s death had rattled her severely. It was Iemon’s hope that in another year, the aftershocks of her loss would finally calm down, and they could get started on raising a new generation of competent Juchū experts. Teira had lended Iemon the book that she had been given by Mori Tachi, and if even half the claims made about ancient Juchū experts were true, then the clan was looking at a golden age of prosperity ahead of them—in spite of Gojo Satoru’s haunting presence.

  In the meantime… the girl needed some kind of hobby. Too much sorcery would only turn her into more of a monster. He would have put in an order for more of those American songs that she liked to listen to by now if it wasn’t for the fact that the clan was still on lockdown. Teira had yet to make a decision on who to send out to recover essential goods from civilization. The more obedient women were too ill-suited for navigating the outside world, and the men were too much of a flight risk at the moment, according to her analysis. Iemon wasn’t disinclined to agreeing—the current stock of social points were worrisomely low among the male population. Very few of them had lost any whatsoever, and none had gained any. That was a problem that required time to rectify.

  At this rate, Iemon would have to do the shopping himself, and he… despised the idea of going into the world in his current state. Despised it to the point that he had to force himself to not work himself up about it, or he might slip and say something he’d regret to his wife.

  Finally, the envoys of the Shiba clan arrived in their signature ornate red and white kimono. There were eight of them, all well-built, all experienced curse experts.

  And all eight of them would be enough to subjugate the currently-weakened Hibana clan, as long as Teira-sama didn’t intervene. She was presently out of sight, keeping hidden as they had planned amongst each other.

  “Greetings, clan head,” the man at the front stated. Shiba Kenta. Iemon knew of him, though they had never spoken before. “Prepared for our arrival as ever.”

  The Shiba clan had sent word of their arrival, and then they had arrived seven hours too early. Probably just to test the Hibana clan’s readiness. Teira had spotted them from miles away, and they had been fully prepared to receive them.

  “Greetings,” Iemon nodded to them. “I’m Hibana Iemon, the one-hundred and third head of the Hibana clan. I suppose you’re here to inquire upon why we have taken an unexpected break from meeting the demand of our clients.”

  “Indeed,” Kenta stated. “But first thing’s first. Let us share a drink. We’ve brought with us a home-brewed concoction from our hometown.”

  “Of course,” Iemon grinned thinly.

  000

  As they shared drinks with the crippled Hibana head, Kenta was constantly analyzing his surroundings. The Hibana clan had changed since last he had been here. Where were the elders? Where was Sosuke? Even their curse experts were completely absent to his senses. He had been led into the clan’s core courtyard by a group of female attendants, and on the way, he had only really seen females around, and a scant few men scampering about—some of them with bandaged hands on their right hands.

  It was obvious that this violent takeover had cut them down to a bare nub. They were useless now. What ill timing. Not disastrous by any means, however. The Shiba clan could do without their information-gathering capabilities. They had such capabilities of their own, after all, in case of this exact situation.

  Initially, the higher-ups of the clan had suspected that the Hibana clan were preparing for some kind of hostile action like raising their rates, or worst case, mounting an attack against a fellow Association clan. That still wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility. Seriously, where were hell were the curse experts?!

  But seeing Iemon in the state that he was in, and seeing their men scampering about like beaten dogs, even that felt outside of the realm of possibilities.

  As they continued drinking and eating the food provided by their servants, Kenta was more and more certain that there was no attack incoming.

  The Hibana clan really had crippled itself for one reason or another. What idiots. Was becoming the leader of ashes so important to this Iemon? Or had he simply been a survivor of some other usurper’s insane gambit, now tasked in picking up the pieces of a shattered clan?

  “But seriously,” Kenta put down his glass. “We don’t need much, Hibana-sama. And we are indeed prepare to pay you extra should price be a concern. Even triple, should you require it!”

  “Please, please, Kenta-san. I would never shake your illustrious clan down when our rates are already as high as they are. To do so would be shameless!”

  Kenta sighed.

  It was true, then. They weren’t able to complete any jobs.

  “In the next Association Summit, we will explain our situation,” Iemon vowed. “And then, provided that we overcome our hurdles in a timely fashion, we will continue to provide you with reliable, accurate, and fast service—our pride and joy.”

  That was a shame.

  If they weren’t able to provide their services now, and required years to recover their ranks of curse experts, then…

  They weren’t strong enough to protect their lineage anymore.

  “Of course, Hibana-sama.”

  The one-hundred and third, and last clan head smiled ingratiatingly.