[Kuse Ryu must be in the first group to leave]—Ruri's stance was crystal clear.
Although it sounded cruel, Ryu's life was indeed more valuable than everyone else's combined, especially in Ruri's eyes.
She was worried Ryu would get swept up in a heroic moment and insist on playing the role of the one who covers the retreat. Her master's past actions were far from noble, but no one could guarantee that a seventeen or eighteen-year-old boy wouldn't harbor a hero complex.
So, whether for personal feelings or because of her position, Ruri wanted Ryu to be on the first helicopter out. For that, she even dared to talk back to him—something that hadn't happened in the past two years.
"I've been locked onto. If you all move with me, you'll just become dead weight. Besides, it would be far too dangerous for me to be on the helicopter!"
Ryu composed himself, a flicker of anxiety in his eyes.
He had no noble, self-sacrificing sentiment. His refusal to board the helicopter was purely for safety reasons!
It didn't matter as much for Ruri and the others; if they left, they left. The Sukuna Demon wouldn't specifically target them. But Ryu had been marked. Once inside a vehicle as notoriously fragile and hard to control as a helicopter, his life would truly be out of his hands.
What seemed like the fastest and safest escape route was, for Ryu and Ryu alone, a gateway to hell!
If it had been a tank, he would have grabbed his friends and family and booked it long ago!
"Wait! Ryu-chan, are you going to go alone?"
Hearing the screams in the distance, Chika couldn't tell if they were from a wild beast or an evil spirit, but she understood the situation was urgent.
"The helicopter can make a round trip in minutes! Once we reach the main road, we can drive home!"
"I don't want to risk it."
No sooner had he spoken than the sound of rotors cutting through the air traveled from the distance, growing closer and reaching everyone's ears. The girls and the priest instantly relaxed, letting out a visible sigh of relief.
Ruri grasped Ryu's hand and said forcefully, "I understand your reasoning. Please, take care of yourself. Once we're out of here, we can assemble a team to deal with the monster's problem."
"It's fine. You all be careful when you leave. I'm really afraid of it cra—"
CLANG!
SHHHHK!
A series of brilliant, intense, crimson-gold sparks bloomed in the sky. Accompanied by the deafening sound of colliding steel, a helicopter lost its balance like a bird with a broken wing, spiraling downward. Its sharp rotor blades sliced through several large trees before it finally hit the ground—
BOOM!!!
A giant fireball illuminated a corner of the night sky, and the entire forest grew hot.
"—crashing."
"..."
"..."
"..."
Everyone was speechless, a single thought surfacing in their minds in unison:
What do we do now?!
Ryu was a bit calmer, but anger welled up inside him. Although he hadn't planned on getting on it anyway, this damn thing really had no intention of letting him go!
"If you had been on that... I... then even a hundred deaths couldn't atone for my failure!"
Ruri, who had just been trying to get Ryu to escape, covered her mouth, a look of lingering fear on her face.
She couldn't fathom how a monster the size of a wild boar could possibly threaten a helicopter hundreds of meters in the air.
"Did you foresee this possibility all along? Of course... Your instructions are always the correct ones!"
"This isn't the time for regrets."
Ryu's eyelid twitched, and he laughed out of extreme anger. "Looks like it really wants to have a go at me... Do you remember how to shoot?"
"Yes, Lord Ryu taught me. The memory is still vivid," Ruri replied, a little uncertain. "It's just been a long time since I've tried."
"Good, don't be nervous. But you need to be prepared. This time, your target won't be a paper circle."
Ryu pulled a lightweight Glock pistol from his pocket and glanced at the maid. Ruri instantly understood his meaning.
Not a paper circle... The target is human, or at least, something in the shape of a human!
But she had no time to hesitate. Ruri immediately took the Glock, deciding to set aside morality for the moment. Whatever happened, they had to survive this crisis first.
Seeing the two of them with a gun, the rest of the group grew extremely tense. The events of the evening had been chaotic and unsettling, and even now, they had no idea what danger lurked in the darkness!
"A handgun... give me one, too." Chika mustered her courage, but only received a shake of the head from Ryu.
Was she kidding? This wasn't some TV drama where you could just pick up a gun and use it!
For an ordinary person with no training, using a gun for the first time in a real combat situation, under high stress, the probability of making a mistake was far too high... The real world doesn't have friendly fire turned off.
Besides, Ryu hadn't prepared that many small handguns. His collection was filled with items that had a certain violent aesthetic.
For instance—
Ryu patted the 'melon' hanging from his belt, a sharp glint in his eyes.
He had been to a Cyberpunk-themed world. Although he hadn't been cybernetically augmented, which made moving around difficult and forced him to worry about being discovered as an anomaly by the 'corporations,' he had acted with caution and kept a low profile.
(People without any modifications were rare, but not completely unheard of.)
Fortunately, gold was valuable even in the future. Relying on this hard currency, he had carefully collected things of value while constantly worrying about getting double-crossed, and he had managed to acquire quite a bit.
Besides things like USB drives and chips, weapons and medical agents were top priorities. Most of them required cybernetic augmentation or a brain-computer interface to use. Compared to those high-powered weapons that needed a physical connection, disposable items like grenades, which had no usage requirements, were much more convenient and cost-effective for Ryu.
[Scorched Earth Grenade], [Pulse Bomb]!
Honestly, the firepower of these things couldn't compare to large-caliber artillery, but even a ghost should be affected by 'fire' and 'electromagnetic waves'!
Right now, the Sukuna Demon was, at the end of the day, just a lingering remnant of a soul. Its main body was suppressed within the mountain, unable to move, and even after possessing something, it didn't dare touch Nishikida Kagetatsu's sword. Its claim of being immortal was just a bluff based on the fact that ordinary guns couldn't harm a spiritual body; it was definitely not truly invincible.
Of course, whether the grenades would be effective was up in the air, but Ryu wasn't a hoarder-type player. Special items were meant to be used when needed!
—He could always just whale for more later!
"Um, excuse me..."
Just as Ryu was secretly deliberating and planning how to deal with the Sukuna Demon, Yotsuya Mieruko, who had been standing at the edge of the clearing with no presence, looking like she wanted to say something all this time, finally couldn't hold back any longer.
"Although I don't really know what you encountered at the shrine, it seems like it has no intention of letting us go. Evil spirits of this type are very persistent. If it memorizes your 'scent,' it will find you even after you leave this place."
"...Yotsuya-san?"
Mieruko drew everyone's attention. Ryu, on the other hand, felt slightly ashamed. This JK had been a low priority for him, and he hadn't given much thought to her safety.
Looking closer, he saw that the two from the board game club were also there, looking terrified and clutching a small mikoshi for dear life.
After all, from their perspective, there were all sorts of inexplicable explosions, bloodcurdling screams from the dark, and several priests from their group had vanished without a trace... Heh, these people were usually so eager to seek out urban legends, but now that they've run into the real thing, they're as docile as little white rabbits~
"Mieruko-chan, do you know a lot about this stuff?" Chika looked at the pale-faced, utterly useless priest, then ran to Yotsuya Mieruko's side full of hope. "Do you have any good suggestions?"
"No... I just... um, I have something to say to Kuse-senpai."
"Hm?"
"Um... this might be hard to believe, but... Kuse-senpai's guardian spirit asked me to give you a message."
"Guardian spirit? What guardian spirit!"
Ryu subconsciously turned to look behind him and actually saw a vague, shadowy figure. But perhaps because it was too close to his face, he couldn't see its full form.
Since when did I have such a big lump of a thing behind me—the man's hair instantly stood on end.
"Mieruko-chan, are you joking? A guardian spirit?" Chika's mouth fell open. "Do we have guardian spirits too?"
"No... not everyone has one. I can just see them sometimes, and I usually don't say anything."
Because some evil spirits can disguise themselves... Mieruko had fallen for that trick more than once.
But guardian spirits were easy to distinguish. Their energy signature was different from that of怨念, or resentment; it was more like a 'conviction,' with a completely different aura from an evil spirit. Only a very few people were blessed with such fortunate protection.
Mieruko, for example, didn't have a true guardian spirit, which was why she was plagued by evil spirits. If she had a powerful spiritual bodyguard, common small fry wouldn't pose a threat at all.
She had once seen a male high school student on the street who had two guardian spirits at the same time: one was a British gentleman with a pipe and hat, and the other was a tall, slender figure with a crow mask, holding a long scythe.
At the time, that person had entered a police-cordoned crime scene. Despite the numerous resentful spirits around, none of them could even get near him. They were reaped one by one by the tall, slender figure, completely powerless to resist.
This scene had left a very deep impression on her, and for a while, she had even considered trying to meet him to see if he could solve her problem.
But she later noticed that the tall, slender figure would still play with its scythe even when there were no evil spirits around.
It would listlessly observe the surrounding crowd, occasionally extending a finger as if counting, as if waiting for their remaining time to run out...
Subconsciously feeling it was somewhat dangerous, Mieruko ultimately chose to keep her distance.
Later, a thought randomly crossed her mind:
Maybe the tall, slender figure wasn't a guardian spirit, but simply found it more efficient to stay by that person's side—the image of a corporate slave driven mad by performance quotas, choosing to slack off just to get by, inexplicably appeared in her mind.
Then one day, she saw in the newspaper that the high school student was a very famous detective.
And now, Mieruko saw a guardian spirit on Ryu as well!
When they first entered the mountain, it was still very blurry, so much so that even with Mieruko's 'vision,' it was hard to see clearly. It just seemed like a wisp of smoke. Later, it was the ferocious face of a Rakshasa, but now it has become clearer:
An ancient samurai in a coarse cloth kimono and wooden clogs, with a blurred face!
Normally, for her own safety, she would never speak up even if she saw something, but now that lives had been lost, her kind-hearted nature wouldn't let her stay silent any longer!
"A samurai?"
"Yes! He's very anxious. He wants to talk to you, but you can't hear him at all."
"No wonder I kept feeling like there was a mosquito buzzing in my ear... I see, a samurai, huh~"
Ryu mused, "What does he want to say?"
"Hah!"
Mieruko took a deep breath. "You absolutely cannot let the Sukuna Demon escape. Once it obtains a physical body and leaves this place, it will definitely come back to break the seal and reclaim its main body. When that happens, the entire Kanto region will be plunged into disaster!
Most of its power is sealed within the ancient sword enshrined at the shrine, but you must not draw that sword, or the Sukuna Demon will be able to break the seal right now.
So he can't help much at the moment. He can only tell you the Sukuna Demon's weakness. The rest is up to you."
"...Huh? I'm the one who has to fight the Sukuna Demon?"
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