The meal left everyone thoroughly satisfied.
You got what you paid for. Premium ingredients naturally tasted exceptional, especially when they were prepared by someone as skilled as Rentaro.
Gojo and Betty were relatively unfazed. Back in his own world, neither of them had ever lacked good food.
Rentaro and the others were a different story.
At first, both he and Kisara tried to restrain themselves and maintain some semblance of table manners.
But the moment the rich flavors spread across their tongues, all restraint crumbled.
Nothing they had been eating recently, certainly not bean sprouts, could compare.
Before long, they were devouring food with the same enthusiasm as Enju, happily cracking open king crab with one hand while grabbing Australian lobster with the other.
No one could really blame them.
Anyone forced to survive on bean sprouts day after day, rarely seeing a single piece of meat, would react the same way.
By the end of dinner, everyone except Gojo and Betty was leaning back in their chairs with rounded stomachs.
They had simply eaten too much.
"Phew... I haven't eaten this much in ages."
Enju leaned against her chair, rubbing her little belly with complete satisfaction.
Now that she was full, she had no energy left to argue with Betty or get jealous of Kisara.
"Tell me about it."
Kisara let out a small burp before hurriedly covering her mouth.
"This feels amazing..."
She smiled awkwardly at everyone around the table.
Gojo turned toward her.
"Miss Tendo, you're the president of a Civil Security agency, right?"
"Yes."
She nodded.
"Is something wrong?"
"I wanted to ask what it takes to become a Civil Security officer."
"If possible, I'd like to become one too, just like Rentaro."
"Oh?"
Rentaro looked surprised.
"You're interested in Civil Security work?"
"I am."
Gojo smiled.
"More specifically, I'm interested in the Gastrea."
After thinking for a moment, Rentaro shook his head.
"If you want to become a Civil Security officer, I'm afraid that's not possible right now."
"Why not?"
"There are a series of qualification exams. It's not just about strength. You also need knowledge of the law."
He paused.
"But your biggest problem is your identity."
Being an Unregistered Citizen made almost everything difficult, even in a world as chaotic as this one.
"Right."
Gojo slapped his forehead.
"I almost forgot about that."
"I'll have to trouble you to keep asking around."
"I can help ask as well."
Kisara smiled.
"I can't guarantee anything, but I'll see what I can find."
"That would be a huge help."
Gojo glanced at the clock on the wall.
"It's getting late."
"Thanks for having us over tonight. We should head back."
"We all have school tomorrow."
Rentaro smiled.
"If anything comes up, feel free to wait until we're back."
"Will do."
Taking Betty with him, Gojo left the apartment and returned to the room next door.
"School..."
He couldn't help laughing.
"It still feels strange hearing that. Being both a student and a Civil Security officer doesn't seem like a combination that should exist."
"As if you're not a student yourself."
Betty casually sat in front of the television and switched it on with practiced ease.
"Your school just happens to have almost nobody in it."
She kept watching the screen.
"This world really is interesting."
"I never imagined humanity's situation could become this desperate."
"Honestly, I'm curious about those Gastrea."
"Considering the level of technology this world possesses..."
She rested her chin in one hand.
"It's hard to imagine a group of carbon-based lifeforms pushing humanity to the brink like this."
Gojo looked out the window.
Night had fully settled over the city, yet the streets remained lively.
"Betty."
"Hm?"
"Want to go outside?"
"Outside?"
"Yeah."
He smiled.
"I want to see what's beyond those Monoliths."
She tilted her head thoughtfully.
"...I don't mind."
"Then let's go."
Gojo grabbed her hand.
After leaving the apartment, they found an empty area with no one around.
The next instant, both of them rose into the night sky and flew toward the edge of the city.
They traveled swiftly through the air.
Buildings streamed beneath them.
Before long, the bustling downtown district had disappeared behind them.
The closer they drew to the city's perimeter, the bleaker everything became.
From above, Gojo could clearly see the desolation spreading across the outskirts.
Ruined buildings stretched endlessly across the landscape, abandoned and forgotten.
Many still bore unmistakable scars left by fierce battles years ago.
The destruction had clearly been there for a long time.
Only the roads remained relatively intact.
They had likely been preserved so troops could quickly respond whenever large groups of Gastrea attacked.
Without usable roads, even the military wouldn't be able to reach the front lines.
Yet despite how deserted the outskirts appeared, despite the near absence of civilization, Gojo still noticed something.
People.
Small groups still lived among the ruins.
The scene reminded him of the Slums in the Royal Capital of Lugunica.
If anything, the people here seemed to have it even worse.
At least in the Slums, anyone willing to work could usually scrape together enough to survive.
There were no hordes of Gastrea lurking just beyond the city walls there, either.
"It looks like life here is even harsher than we imagined."
Gojo quietly looked down at the earth below.
Compared to Cursed Spirits, Gastrea posed an entirely different level of threat.
There simply weren't that many Cursed Spirits.
Nor were they contagious.
"You mean you're thinking about wiping out the Gastrea and protecting everyone?"
Betty looked sideways at him.
"Even if you brought Reinhard van Astrea here, he couldn't accomplish that."
"The Gastrea cover the entire planet."
Gojo chuckled.
"I wasn't thinking anything that dramatic."
"I was only saying this world makes me feel a little sentimental."
"What do you mean sentimental?"
"I'm compassionate."
"There's a difference."
As they talked, the towering Monolith finally came into view.
"It really is magnificent."
Gojo stared up at the colossal structure that stretched more than a thousand meters into the sky.
"Building something like this must've taken an incredible amount of work."
"Otherwise the first typhoon or earthquake would've knocked it over."
Betty barely spared the Monolith another glance.
"I think those are much more interesting."
She pointed into the darkness beyond.
Gojo followed her finger.
Far away in the endless night, countless silhouettes swayed back and forth.
Narrowing his eyes, he focused on the distant figures.
They were Gastrea.
But unlike the spider-like Gastrea they had encountered earlier that day, these creatures looked completely different.
The monsters wandering outside the Monoliths possessed grotesque appearances beyond imagination.
Many had limbs, organs, or features stolen from entirely different species.
They looked as though someone had taken countless animals, mashed them together like clay, and stitched the result into living flesh.
Even after reading Rentaro's book, Gojo would've struggled to imagine the Gastrea Virus could create creatures like these if he hadn't seen them with his own eyes.
"Betty."
He continued watching the monsters.
"If this virus appeared in your world, do you think people could deal with it?"
She frowned thoughtfully.
"Can these Gastrea reproduce?"
"Reproduce?"
Gojo recalled what he'd read.
"I don't think so."
"They don't seem to multiply naturally. They only spread through infection."
"In that case..."
Betty nodded slowly.
"I don't think they'd be that much of a problem."
"You're pretty confident."
"From what I've seen, these Gastrea don't possess especially unusual abilities."
"If we're comparing threats..."
She looked toward the darkness.
"They're probably still less troublesome than the Great Rabbit."
"If the Great Rabbit starts multiplying, it spreads much faster than these creatures."
"And if something like this really happened..."
She shrugged.
"Forget Reinhard."
"The members of the Witch Cult alone would already be difficult enough for the Gastrea to deal with."
"Take Regulus, for example."
"I seriously doubt he'd suddenly change his taste in women and start collecting Gastrea as wives."
Gojo laughed.
"When you put it that way, they really don't seem harder to deal with than the Witch of Envy."
"My world, though..."
He became thoughtful.
"That would probably be a real problem."
His world's technology lagged far behind this one.
There were Jujutsu Sorcerers, but their numbers were far too small.
Even the strongest among them couldn't decisively end a global catastrophe.
At best, they could influence isolated battles.
They couldn't change the course of a worldwide war.
Once their Cursed Energy ran dry, infection would claim them like anyone else.
Even adding every mindless Cursed Spirit into the equation probably wouldn't be enough.
"Come on."
Gojo smiled.
"Let's fly farther out."
The two continued deeper into the wasteland.
With the Limitless Cursed Technique protecting Gojo, ordinary Gastrea couldn't even touch him.
As for Betty, she was a Great Spirit.
A virus meant nothing to an elemental lifeform.
The farther they traveled from the city, the stranger the Gastrea became.
Their bodies grew increasingly enormous.
Their appearances even more twisted.
Gojo watched them with obvious curiosity.
"The book said these things regenerate incredibly well."
A tiny blue sphere formed above his fingertip.
"I wonder exactly how strong 'incredibly well' is."
Blue condensed into existence.
The glowing orb traced a graceful arc through the sky before shooting toward the distant swarm.
The gigantic Gastrea had no chance to resist.
The overwhelming attraction pulled them violently across the ground, dragging them together as though they weighed nothing.
"BOOM!!"
The thunderous explosion echoed across the empty wasteland.
Countless Gastrea were crushed together by Blue.
The sounds of shattering bones and tearing flesh rang out continuously.
In the blink of an eye, a crimson path stretched across the earth.
Severed limbs and mangled flesh carpeted the ground, filling the air with a nauseating stench.
"That should be enough."
Gojo hadn't attacked with lethal intent.
The Gastrea's weak points were their heads and hearts.
This had only been a test.
He slowly descended toward the battlefield with Betty, observing the monsters from close range.
The heavily injured Gastrea lay scattered across the ground, unable to move.
Weak growls escaped their throats.
Even so...
Their wounds were already healing.
The speed wasn't comparable to Reverse Cursed Technique, nor was it on the level of the Sin Archbishop of Lust.
But it was still remarkably fast.
The largest Gastrea, those whose immense bodies clearly marked them as higher-ranking specimens, regenerated especially quickly.
Their recovery speed was almost comparable to that of weaker Cursed Spirits.
That alone was astonishing.
Cursed Spirits weren't living creatures.
They were manifestations of humanity's negative emotions.
As long as they still possessed Cursed Energy, they could continuously regenerate.
But these monsters were different.
They were flesh-and-blood organisms.
Yet the Gastrea Virus alone granted them regenerative abilities bordering on an Authority.
It was absurd.
"No wonder these things put humanity under so much pressure."
Gojo watched the wounds rapidly close.
"Ordinary bullets can't stop their regeneration."
"Unless you destroy the brain or heart instantly, or obliterate the entire body at once, they'll simply recover."
Betty continued observing the writhing monsters.
"Are there stronger classes of Gastrea?"
"I'm not entirely sure."
Gojo searched his memory.
"I don't think these are among the strongest."
"According to the book, once a Gastrea reaches Stage Three, even if you cut off part of its body, the severed piece can regenerate independently or reattach itself because the cells respond to one another."
"Stage Four is even worse."
"The only way to kill one is to erase it completely, leaving nothing behind."
"As for Stage Five..."
He looked toward the darkness.
"There are only around a dozen of them in the entire world."
"They regenerate at the molecular level."
"Even if you throw one into extreme cold, a vacuum, or magma thousands of degrees hot, it'll regenerate once it adapts to the environment."
"The book says only weapons made from super-grade Varanium can actually kill them."
Betty frowned deeply as she watched the mangled Gastrea continue knitting themselves back together.