Mahiru waved the flag a few times, decided it wasn't much fun, and hopped down off the platform,
pushing Miwa up to take over directing.
She'd gotten bored of it. There wasn't really much to direct anyway.
Everyone just had to keep hammering, and that was that.
Using Mahito to replace the old grinding tower — low efficiency, high cost — was actually an idea she'd had a long time ago; it had just been held back by a number of constraints.
For one, she couldn't find a reasonably intact set of Mahito "remains," so mass production wasn't possible.
For another, simply injuring Mahito without killing him didn't yield many points, so she'd have had to kill him over and over and revive him over and over.
But as time went on, the Culling Game's update turned out to favor her plan so perfectly, and the "undying" nature Mahito gained upon reviving fit her idea so well... At this point, it would honestly be a waste not to use Mahito to farm points.
It also let her make use of all those remains from Mahito's other clones that she'd been collecting.
Mahiru had designed many different kinds of cursed tools infused with Nobara Kugisaki's Cursed Technique — drums, wooden fish, cloth dolls to be stuck with pins, little paper figures to be cut with scissors...
These cursed tools could only target Mahito, no one else. At the same time, none of them packed much punch — a single hit couldn't inflict much real damage or suffering on Mahito. But quantity has a quality all its own.
One hit meant one point. Ten thousand people hitting it ten thousand times meant ten thousand points.
A single pinprick to Mahito's backside might just itch a little — but ten thousand people jabbing it ten thousand times added up to death by a thousand cuts.
As long as she kept producing and distributing these cursed tools, Jujutsu High's looming points shortage would resolve itself in no time.
[Netizen 1]: "Angel actually figured out a way to solve the points shortage! That's insane!"
[Netizen 2]: "Well, she's Angel. To this day, nobody's found anything she can't do."
[Netizen 3]: "Cracking walnuts and getting points out of it — isn't that basically rewriting the rules of the game? I really want to know how Angel pulls this stuff off."
[Netizen 4]: "Plus these cursed tools feel great in the hand — super stress-relieving. The more you smash it, the more addictive it gets."
Of course it was stress-relieving. They were literally pounding on a villain's soul, for real.
The moment Mahiru heard the update meant torturing people could also generate points, her mood had started blooming like a flower bud. Then she heard that no matter how much you hammered Mahito, he wouldn't die — and she was in full bloom.
Buddy, you couldn't be more perfect for this if you tried.
It was like he'd been custom-built to be their punching bag.
Before, if people wanted points, they'd had to go into a blind panic fighting Cursed Spirits — losing an arm or a leg counted as getting off easy.
Now? Light up a cigarette, sip some tea, kick back in a lounge chair, and tap a wooden fish while you relax — and the points just kept climbing.
No cost at all.
If you really wanted to ask where the cost of all this peace and quiet had gone, the answer was that your dear Teacher Mahito was carrying the weight for everyone else.
It almost made Mahiru feel like some kind of saint to humanity.
But that was just a joke. There was no way Mahiru could actually like Mahito.
In the original work, Mahito was the villain she'd hated most, down to gritting her teeth. Now, the thought that she could personally make Mahito suffer death by a thousand cuts left her feeling refreshed and invigorated.
"How are things looking right now?"
"Well... if you mean the points situation, all the districts under Jujutsu High's control have started scheduling regular point-generation activities... okay, it's basically plaza-dance drumming."
Miwa, dressed in an office-lady uniform and black-framed glasses, stood beside Mahiru like a little secretary. "According to our calculations, even after covering everyone's basic survival needs, the points being generated leave a sizable surplus."
At this rate, if the phantom Kenjaku didn't figure out a way to raise the prices in his shop, then within a few months to half a year, everyone across Japan would practically ascend together — and estimating the average level would reach Semi-Grade 2 was being conservative.
The phantom Kenjaku had to raise prices.
But raising prices wasn't so easy, was it?
If the phantom Kenjaku wanted to change the Culling Game's rules himself, he'd have to keep binding himself with all sorts of complicated Binding Vows — a genuine headache all around.
"Miwa, spread the word to everyone." Mahiru swung her legs. "Tell them to buckle down for a while — get as many points as they can and buy as much as they can before the phantom Kenjaku raises the shop prices."
"Oh, got it, understood..."
Free wool for the taking — you'd be a fool not to shear it.
"That said, the points problem's only solved in the districts Jujutsu High controls. The areas that weren't under our control before — those are a different story." Miwa pushed her glasses up again.
She still wasn't used to wearing them.
All because Mahiru kept insisting that "black-framed glasses make you look more like a proper secretary," Miwa had ended up wearing them.
Even though she wasn't actually Mahiru's secretary.
The areas outside Jujutsu High's control obviously meant the region previously held by United States forces.
Mahiru had gone over there and flat-out crushed the United States forces.
Afterward, Yuta had led a group of Jujutsu High students over and rounded up every last one of the Beautiful Country's top brass.
A thorough investigation turned up plenty of dirty work by the Beautiful Country's forces.
They'd skimmed the life-sustaining points meant for civilians to buy Cursed Techniques and cursed tools for their own troops. They'd also forced huge numbers of ordinary people into unfair bondage contracts, restricting their use of their own system panels, limiting what they could say and do and where they could go, leaving them no choice but to work for them.
Among those enslaved, most didn't even know Mahiru had already come back to life.
That alone showed just how tightly the Beautiful Country's forces had kept their people locked away from information.
"Heh heh heh... We surrender. No complaints." In the interrogation room, the old general — dressed in a hospital gown, an IV drip in his arm — smiled with easy composure at the blue-haired girl before him. "So, what do you plan to do with us losers now?"
Mahiru sat across from him, swinging her legs, with Miwa and Mai standing at her side.
The girl spread her hands. "I'm just here to take a look at you. What happens to you next is up to Jujutsu High's leadership."
The old man laughed. "Don't lie to me."
"Oh?"
"How could I not know? The real decision-maker at Jujutsu High right now is you." The old man shook his head, still smiling. "Stop testing me."
Mahiru smiled too, dropping the act. "Then let's sign a Binding Vow."
"Oh? I assumed you'd kill me."
"You really are rotten to the core. Killing you wouldn't cost me a shred of sympathy."
"Then why not kill me?"
"Because we're short on people."
As much rotten, unconscionable stuff as the Beautiful Country's forces had done, objectively speaking — without them, and without Mahiru around, Jujutsu High wouldn't have been able to take on those four extra districts at all.
Jujutsu High was simply desperate for manpower.
Now that Mahiru was back and the points shortage was solved, everything was looking up.
But Mahiru would inevitably have to head back to the future world again at some point. Once she left, Jujutsu High would inevitably slide back into chaos.
So the most rational move for Mahiru right now wasn't to toss the Beautiful Country's forces into the ocean to feed the fish — it was to sign Binding Vow contracts and press every last one of them into forced labor.
So sparing them wasn't out of mercy — just that keeping them around still had its uses.
They'd once enslaved Japan's ordinary people as forced laborers — now Mahiru would turn it around and enslave them instead, a fitting punishment in its own right.
As for how to set up forced-labor contracts for this many people in a short time — Mahiru would find a way to do it through the Culling Game's system.
"Is that so?" The old man nodded after hearing Mahiru's reasoning, still smiling. "That's a truly rational approach — the optimal one, in fact."
"Don't get too pleased with yourself. People like you — the top brass we've rounded up — already qualify as war criminals." Mahiru crossed her arms and pursed her lips. "If you understand where things stand, sign the contract with me. You're first."
"Of course." The contract was signed in short order.
Once it was done, Mahiru stood to leave — she had other business to attend to.
But the old man called her back.
"Miss, I know you've already solved the points shortage. But I think I should point out another problem you're currently facing."
Mahiru turned back, frowning. "What?"
"It's an obvious problem, but you all seem to have paid it very little attention," the old man said. "You must have noticed — the chaos in your cities has reached a point that's hard to accept."
Something flickered in Mahiru's eyes. She knew exactly what he meant.
Japan was still in disarray right now.
It was outright warfare.
The phantom Kenjaku's update hadn't been entirely useless, admittedly. In fact, it had done a remarkably good job of stirring up the dark desires buried in countless hearts.
The various measures Mahiru had rolled out afterward had done a solid job of containing things — but even so, Japan was still in constant turmoil.
People everywhere were using Cursed Techniques to commit crimes — a world at war, plain and simple. Those in the know understood this was still Japan; those who didn't might have mistaken it for Batman's Gotham.
Worst of all, the point-farming wooden fish Mahiru had made and distributed to more and more people — that kind of easy access to points was liable to stir up even more people's dark desires.
Things might get even more chaotic going forward.
"So?" Mahiru turned halfway back around. "What are you getting at?"
"Nothing much. Just giving you a heads-up." The old man smiled.
Mahiru gave a short laugh. "Well, thanks for that." She turned and walked off.
Walking outside with Mai and Maki, the girl found her mind still turning over the question the old man had just raised.
She had to admit — the old man was right.
Now that the points problem was solved, the most glaring issue left was the current state of chaos.
At its core, the problem was that there just weren't enough people.
Or rather, too few people with real combat strength, too few capable of taking part in management.
It wasn't that Mahiru and the others hadn't considered recruiting people to help maintain order. It was just that everyone was too weak right now.
Practically everyone was stuck at Grade 3 or Grade 4 — Grade 2 sorcerers were as rare as phoenix feathers.
Everyone's talent had a ceiling.
Even ordinary people who'd gained a Cursed Technique through the Culling Game or Mahiru's Idle Transfiguration were still weak. Only a tiny handful ever reached the level Mahiru had in mind.
The girl was thinking it over carefully now.
Was there any way to effectively produce a batch of people with Grade 2 Sorcerer-level strength, capable of keeping the peace?
"...Oh."
Come to think of it, there actually was one.
"What's the method?" Miwa asked curiously from the side.
Mahiru didn't answer directly, muttering to herself instead. "Well, in that case, I suppose I'll have to make a trip back to the past world."
"...You're going back?"
"Because I need to find someone and borrow his Cursed Technique."
"Borrow a Cursed Technique...?"
Yeah, borrow a Cursed Technique.
Borrow Suguru Geto's Cursed Spirit Manipulation.
Once she'd decided, she moved straight to planning and action — pulling out her phone, marking off the calendar, working out the day she'd head to the past world.
But then, suddenly, Mahiru's phone rang. The number calling was an emergency line.
"There's been a serious incident." Ijichi's voice was urgent. "Yuta and Miss Tsukumo are both unavailable — Mahiru, do you have time right now?"
With him putting it like that, how could she not have time?
Mahiru immediately headed for the location he'd given, where the emergency was unfolding.
And there, she found someone she never expected to see.
"Hey, Cursed Spirit — took me long enough to track you down. You know where Sukuna is, don't you?" The boy, arcs of electricity crackling all over his body, sat perched atop a small mountain of wrecked cars, a long staff over his shoulder, looking down with brazen arrogance—
"Sure, you screwed me over once before, but if you take me to see Sukuna this time, we'll call it even between us. How about it?"
Uh.
"Hajime Kashimo?" Mahiru said, startled.
Why him, of all people? She hadn't seen this guy in ages — not since before the battle where Satoru Gojo got sealed, back when she'd used Hajime Kashimo to power the entire city.
She'd nearly forgotten he existed.
"What on earth are you playing at?" Mahiru said, at a loss for words.
"I want to see Sukuna."
"If you've already tracked your way to me, then you must know Sukuna isn't even in this timeline right now."
"But you can cross between different timelines. I know that much."
"You know I can cross between worlds, but you don't know I can't bring anyone along?"
"Ha, you can't bring someone along when you cross over? You think I'd believe that?" Hajime Kashimo grinned, looking thoroughly convinced he'd seen right through her. "The woman who can do practically anything, and she can't manage to bring someone along across worlds? Do you take me for a fool?"
"Uh—"
"Fine, say you really can't do it. Then I'll give you a week — go figure out how to bring someone along across worlds." The boy tilted his head back, looking down his nose at Mahiru, eyes brimming with arrogance. "Make an enemy of me, or take me to see Sukuna. Those are your only two options."
The blue-haired girl's brow twitched, her blood pressure ticking up. She'd been exhausted and swamped these past few days, on top of all the disgusting garbage the Beautiful Country had pulled — her mood was already bad enough, and now Hajime Kashimo actually dared to threaten her?
She laughed, more from anger than amusement.
Where'd this "almighty being" crawl out of — looking to get his ass kicked, is that it?
____
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