Chapter 168: The Most Evil Invention in History—Overtime
Emiya Shirou sighed with emotion. After all, he had quite a say in this matter.
Fujimura Taiga was Emiya Shirou's guardian after Emiya Kiritsugu's death. That being said, given Taiga's lively personality, while it was ostensibly her taking care of him, it was actually more often Shirou taking care of her. The main dynamic was that whenever there was a chance for a free meal, Fujimura Taiga would never miss an opportunity to run over to the Emiya household to sponge one off.
But as a teacher, she was... well, she was very energetic in her teaching work too.
Okkotsu Yuta, who practiced a power system based on Cursed Energy, was very sensitive to human negative emotions. After sensing no malice from Emiya Shirou, he understood that Shirou's complaint wasn't an ignorant gripe, but a sort of joking banter.
Thus, he followed up with a helpless smile and said, "There's no helping it. Gojo-sensei is just like that; he uses his own way to hold up a piece of the sky for us students.
Even at a time like this, Gojo-sensei still hopes we can stay in school rather than face the external problems alongside him."
Okkotsu Yuta spoke with deep feeling. Unlike Gojo's other students—whether it was the first-years like Fushiguro Megumi or the second-years like Zen'in Maki—they all benefited from Gojo's protection.
Even though, due to the manpower issues inherent in the jujutsu world, they had to go to the front lines to fight curses while still students, the tasks assigned to the students of Jujutsu High were generally not too difficult, provided there were no special circumstances—like the time information was deliberately withheld on a mission to eliminate Sukuna within Itadori Yuji. Supported by a complete logistics system, missions were basically within their handling capacity.
Furthermore, their missions to fight curses were more of an extracurricular internship and a part of their school curriculum, rather than a constant requirement to handle curse-related incidents.
In fact, unless there truly was no one else available in the jujutsu world, the students of Jujutsu High didn't actually have many opportunities to go out on missions to fight curses. To some extent, this was quite illogical.
As mentioned before, the number of sorcerers is small—very small. Especially since the descendants of sorcerers don't necessarily inherit their parents' talent; becoming a sorcerer depends entirely on innate ability. The only things that can be inherited through bloodlines are the techniques engraved upon them, like the [Limitless] passed down in the Gojo family or the [Ten Shadows Technique] of the Zen'in family.
In contrast, Japan is undoubtedly a major country with a large land area.
With so few sorcerers placed in a large country like Japan, where the mental pressure on the citizens is enormous enough to feed numerous curses... you can see the situation clearly from the "Bear-Eating Celebrity" incidents that occurred in Japan in 2025.
Even though there were factors like the terrible performance of the Japanese police sidearms, the mountain of reports required to fire a gun in the city, or the Hunters Association hunters losing their firearm licenses after helping to shoot a bear instead of getting a reward... a series of "pro-gamer moves" by Japanese politicians made a simple matter increasingly complex.
But at the end of the day, there were simply too many bears in Japan, and as a country with a gun ban, the number of people allowed to carry firearms was extremely small. The spirit of a certain "broad-minded" former Prime Minister made the Japanese higher-ups afraid to actually relax the gun ban, fearing another "Heaven's Judgment on the National Traitor."
This chain of events caused the bear sightings to escalate. Regardless, the bears in the mountains only attack nearby cities; they won't show up in highly urbanized Tokyo to hurt the "lords" living there.
In other words, given the scarcity of sorcerers, Fushiguro Megumi and the others should technically have had zero chance to actually study in a classroom. Instead, as soon as they became sorcerers capable of controlling their negative emotions to generate cursed energy, they should have been conscripted to fight curses.
Initially, Okkotsu Yuta couldn't understand this stark difference. It wasn't until he became one of only three Special Grade sorcerers in Japan and gained access to more information that he understood: it was Gojo Satoru, their teacher, who was doing the vast majority of their missions for them.
This was why, while most students at Jujutsu High didn't understand Gojo—even Fushiguro Megumi, who was adopted by him—Okkotsu Yuta alone understood him and always looked at things from Gojo's perspective.
So, upon hearing that Gojo planned to call him back, Okkotsu Yuta returned without a second thought and proactively took on the responsibility of demonstrating his technique to Emiya Shirou.
"It seems like it's different from what Gojo said. You wanted to go out and help, but Gojo restricted you with this excuse so you couldn't," Shirou said. Recalling Gojo's earlier words, he paused and then laughed. "I thought those shadows secretly following you guys were just 'props' Gojo brought in to match his story. I didn't expect them to actually be sneaks.
Sure enough, with things like overtime, even a sorcerer like Gojo can't help but become mentally drained to the point where he can't even sense an approach of this level."
"—Trace on! [Pseudo-Magician's Red]!!"
The life-detection flames, which can detect surrounding biological targets, were draped over Emiya Shirou from a Stand User's perspective. They transmitted the targets they sensed directly to him.
"...?"
Before Okkotsu Yuta, who had just heard Shirou's words and hadn't yet reacted, could say anything, it wasn't just the life-detection flames—even the combat flames released by [Pseudo-Magician's Red] were already being manipulated in Shirou's hands. He accelerated the release towards the direction sensed by his life-detection flames!
Rumble—!!
"...Eh? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why!!?"
"Don't worry, there's no one from Jujutsu High over there," Emiya Shirou continued, seeing Okkotsu Yuta's face change drastically. "After all, while my abilities are hard for you to see, an explosion of this magnitude is basically enough to wake up most people in the school."
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