Ms. Gojo thought she was dating an ordinary person's boyfriend.

Rin Furukawa is a curse master.

In this dark world divided by cursed spirits and sorcerers, he was not a big shot and made a living by taking on underground bounties.

Life was neither good nor bad; apart from occasionally having to avoid those sorcerers, it was actually quite comfortable.

Until recently, through a colleague's recommendation, he took on a task that could be described as "a windfall."

The task involves a pediatrician at a regular hospital.

He didn't know who gave him the order, and his colleagues kept it a secret, only referring to their employer as "that person".

That person was extremely cautious and never made direct contact with him.

Whether it was passing on intelligence or paying generous rewards, everything was handled through a third party.

Having worked in the underworld for so many years and taken on countless dirty and tiring jobs, this was the first time Rin Furukawa had ever encountered an employer so wary.

However, seeing that the other party was willing to pay readily and that the task was simply "routine surveillance" without involving any combat, Furukawa Rin wisely suppressed his excessive curiosity.

His target was a man named Sumi Kichikawa.

An ordinary office worker who would be easily lost in a crowd.

After only three follow-ups, Rin Furukawa was able to completely deduce the man's daily routine from the highly overlapping movements of the other party.

It's nothing more than working at the hospital, grocery shopping, and going home after get off work. Occasionally, I'll go out for extra purposes, like visiting a nearby bookstore.

Their lives were so monotonous that you could see the end of their lives at a glance, making them completely unworthy of surveillance.

Rin Furukawa even inwardly mocked that person's paranoia, wondering why someone would spend so much money to target such an ordinary doctor who couldn't even kill a chicken.

Until the night of the third tracking.

Rin Furukawa, hidden on a distant rooftop of a high-rise building, watched through binoculars as the man carried his everyday fresh eggs out of the supermarket.

Just as he was about to routinely record the other person's route, the man who was walking under the streetlights suddenly stopped and then... looked precisely in his direction.

Rin Furukawa swore that at that distance, it would be absolutely impossible for an ordinary person to see the figure on the rooftop with the naked eye.

However, when he looked through the lens of the high-powered telescope at those warm yet extremely cold black eyes, an indescribable sense of dread, like a cold, venomous snake, instantly shot up his spine to the top of his head.

His legs went weak, and he collapsed to the ground, unable to get up for a long time.

Afterwards, he recounted the incident to his companions in an underground bar, still shaken by the experience.

What I got in return was unbridled ridicule from my companions.

"Hey, Furukawa, are you hallucinating from taking on too many missions lately? You're terrified just from being looked at by an ordinary person without any magic?"

Rin Furukawa didn't explain, but silently downed a whole glass of cheap whiskey.

Only he himself knew the terror of feeling as if everything about him had been seen through.

Not long after, "that person" suddenly sent a message saying that surveillance was no longer needed.

And so, Rin Furukawa lost this cushy job with little work and high pay.

He has a fatal bad habit—gambling.

In less than half a month, the hefty bounty he had earned was squandered on the gambling tables of the underground casino.

That day, Rin Furukawa hid in the safe house, smoking and sighing at his empty wallet, wondering if he should go out and take on some work.

"Knock, knock, knock."

Suddenly, three slow, deliberate knocks came from outside the door.

His hand holding the cigarette suddenly stopped, and all the muscles in his body tensed instantly, as alert as a hyena that had smelled danger.

Because of his special status, he never revealed his residence to anyone.

This old rental house was something he had taken over after casually killing a slovenly bachelor half a month ago.

There was no record of him here, and no one even noticed that the previous homeowner had rotted in the sewer.

Therefore, there's absolutely no way anyone would come knocking on the door!

Rin Furukawa stubbed out his cigarette without making a sound.

He quietly moved closer to the door, intending to see what that reckless guy outside was up to.

After knocking three times without receiving a response, the person outside fell into a brief silence.

Just when Furukawa Rin thought the other person had gone to the wrong door and had already left—

"Bang!!!"

A deafening explosion suddenly erupted!

The reinforced security door, along with its frame, was kicked away from the outside by a terrifying force!

The heavy iron door, like a cannonball, slammed into the living room, grazing Furukawa Rin's nose and smashing the coffee table to pieces.

Rin Furukawa broke out in a cold sweat, but his instincts, honed from years of living on the edge, made him react without hesitation and rush toward the door!

No matter who it is, if they dare to cause trouble for Rin Furukawa, they should be prepared to die!

However, the scene was not as expected.

Rin Furukawa didn't even see how his opponent made the move; he only felt a blur before his eyes, and then a sharp, tooth-grinding pain shot through his wrist.

Immediately afterwards, an irresistible force struck, and his body was uncontrollably lifted into the air before being slammed hard against the solid cement wall!

"cough--!!"

As if his internal organs had shifted, Rin Furukawa suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood.

Before he could gather his magical power to counterattack, the surrounding air suddenly twisted strangely.

It was as if I was instantly enveloped by some indescribable barrier; the slight sounds of wind and distant traffic that were still outside the window were completely stripped away and isolated at this moment.

Absolute silence descended upon this cramped apartment.

【The Infernal Realm】

Rin Furukawa lay on the ground, trembling as he raised his head.

Against the dim light of the corridor, a man wearing a dark coat and gold-rimmed glasses casually stepped over the mess and into the house.

When he finally saw that handsome, gentle face—a face he had seen countless times in photographs—Furukawa Rin's pupils constricted sharply, and the fear in his heart overwhelmed him like a flood bursting its banks.

"It's you?!" he blurted out in disbelief, his voice cracking with shock.

"You... are you a sorcerer?!"

Sumi Kichikawa ignored Rin Furukawa's shock.

He slowly took off the pair of gold-rimmed glasses that actually had no prescription and were only used to disguise his gentleness, and casually put them into his pocket.

"I have a few questions for you," Sumire looked down at him.

Although Furukawa Rin was terrified, his ferocity, honed over years of experience in the black market, remained.

He spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, cursing through gritted teeth, "Go to hell! You think you can pry information out of me? Dream on! Go ahead and kill me if you dare!"

"Is that so?" Sumi Kichikawa lowered her eyes slightly.

"Then there's nothing we can do."

The next thirty seconds became the nightmare that Rin Furukawa would never want to relive in his life.

In the old apartment building, completely sealed off by the "Boundless Realm" and unable to let out a single sound, a chilling scream echoed.

In just thirty seconds.

"Stop, stop... I'll talk! I'll tell you everything!"

When Rin Furukawa broke down in tears, Sumi Kichikawa finally stopped.

He took out a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and slowly wiped the dust off his leather gloves. Then he pulled over a perfectly good chair and sat down gracefully.

Looking at the curse master curled up on the ground, weeping bitterly, Sumi Kichikawa shook her head slightly in her heart.

He had long suspected that this person couldn't stand it.

After all, he learned these interrogation techniques from a friend who was involved in organized crime during a past mission.

However, what Sumi Kichikawa found somewhat regrettable was that she had not ultimately learned the essence of that friend's teachings.

After all, his friend could, with a smile and through sheer verbal analysis, drive a well-trained tough guy to a mental breakdown and force him to his knees begging for mercy.

Ultimately, I still need to resort to some brutal physical means.

Meanwhile, Rin Furukawa, lying on the ground, was completely questioning the meaning of life.

Damn it! Who gave us the information that this was just an ordinary person?!

In just thirty seconds, this seemingly refined doctor used such bizarre methods to torture him to the point that he even had thoughts of reforming!

It's unbelievable.

"Great, it seems we can communicate normally now."

Kikawa Sumi put her glasses back on, placed her hands folded on her knees, and resumed her gentle and refined doctor demeanor.

Rin Furukawa trembled as he raised his head, his eyes filled with clear fear and absolute obedience, awaiting the interrogation of this terrifying monster.

Then, he saw Kikawa Sumi lean forward slightly and ask the first question of the evening in a tone that even carried a hint of humility:

"So, who is this sorcerer you're talking about?"

Furukawa Rin: "...?"

Furukawa Rin was stunned.

He even forgot the excruciating pain in his body and just stared blankly at Sumi Kichikawa sitting in the chair.

The man kicked down the security door, rushed in, and started beating him without saying a word. He also used some unknown barrier to seal the place off so that not even a fly could get out...

He almost thought this person was some unknown righteous sorcerer acting on behalf of heaven.

After all that, it turns out this person doesn't even know what a sorcerer is?

In the cramped living room, the deathly silence seemed to have frozen into ice, leaving only the nauseating smell of blood sticking and melting in the nostrils.

Rin Furukawa slumped against the wall like a lump of mud, his bones screaming in excruciating pain as if they were falling apart, but he didn't even dare to utter a single extra breath.

He could only stare intently at the man sitting elegantly in the chair before him with a look that was a mixture of fear, bewilderment, and utter absurdity.

Sumire Kikkawa, the man whom he had recently categorized as an "ordinary doctor," was now processing the insane truth about the inner workings of this world that he had just been forced to reveal.

"so……"

Sumi Kichikawa pushed up her gold-rimmed glasses, the lenses reflecting a cold white light.

His tone was calm.

"The negative emotions that overflow from ordinary people—jealousy, fear, resentment—when these filthy things come together, will give birth to a monster called a 'cursed spirit'."

"Those known as 'sorcerers' extract their own negative emotions, transform them into magical power, and use this power to exorcise them. Is that my understanding?"

Rin Furukawa's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty, and he nodded frantically, "N-that's right..."

Sumi Kikawa tapped her fingertips lightly on her knee, lost in thought.

"Fighting poison with poison, using negative emotions to combat the products of negative emotions."

He sighed softly to himself.

A distorted world that gains power by constantly tearing apart souls and chewing on pain.

His deep black phoenix eyes drooped slightly, concealing the turbulent darkness within them.

"Take me to see it," Sumi Kichikawa suddenly said.

"...Huh?" Rin Furukawa was stunned.

"I said, take me to find the cursed spirit." Sumi Kichikawa stood up and slowly smoothed out the wrinkles on her trench coat.

"Since there are different levels, let's start with the lowest level."

Rin Furukawa's face turned pale instantly.

He instinctively shrank back: "No, no, I can't go through them one by one like this—"

He didn't finish his sentence.

Kikawa Sumi tilted her head slightly, her dark eyes behind her glasses quietly watching Furukawa Rin.

Although there was no murderous intent in his eyes, it instantly brought back the agonizing thirty seconds that Furukawa Rin had just endured.

"I...I understand! I'll take you there!!"

Rin Furukawa scrambled to his feet and pulled out his phone, opening a secret forum known only to those within the black market.

With the connections and intelligence network he had built up over the years, he quickly identified several locations suspected of being inhabited by cursed spirits.

They first came to a dark, abandoned alleyway.

Several deformed fly heads were perched here.

Just as Furukawa Rin was about to remind Kikkawa Sumi, she saw the man in the trench coat walk straight past without even stopping.

The moment Kikawa Cheng approached, those low-level cursed spirits vanished silently into the air, like snowflakes meeting the blazing sun.

Rin Furukawa seemed rooted to the spot, staring intently at the empty corridor, his back instantly soaked with cold sweat.

When exorcising a cursed spirit, some residual curse power will always remain.

But just now... there was nothing.

That cursed spirit was simply "deleted" as if it had never existed!

They then arrived at an unfinished building.

A massive, multi-eyed, level-two cursed spirit roared and pounced.

Sumi Kichikawa didn't even take off her glasses.

He merely sidestepped the attack, delivering a simple yet terrifying side kick that slammed into the cursed spirit's neck.

"boom--!"

The massive body of the level-two cursed spirit instantly smashed through three load-bearing walls, turning into a sky full of purple blood and filth, and died completely.

Pure violence.

The ultimate physical salvation.

Rin Furukawa hid behind a load-bearing pillar, trembling with fear.

Kikawa Sumi stood there, lost in thought.

Just as he thought, as long as the power is attached to the limbs, then physical attacks are also effective against these monsters.

However, this level of cursed spirit is still too weak, and it's impossible to test anything.

Sumi Kichikawa frowned slightly, turned to look at Rin Furukawa, and said, "Next."

Finally, there was a Level 1 cursed spirit dwelling in the basement of an abandoned hospital.

This cursed spirit already possessed rudimentary intelligence, and the pressure of its cursed power made it difficult for Furukawa Rin to breathe, almost causing him to kneel on the ground.

However, Sumi Kichikawa, who was standing in front of it, simply pushed up her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

"This is only level one," Sumire Kichikawa muttered to herself.

The grotesque monster that seemed to be made up of countless human faces suddenly attacked Sumire Kikkawa with astonishing speed, leaving almost no afterimage.

Kikawa Sumire remained calm and unhurried. He took off his cumbersome trench coat and casually tossed it onto a nearby discarded oil drum.

Beneath the white shirt, the smooth, muscular lines were faintly visible.

Then, he reached out and grabbed the protruding bone spur of the cursed spirit that had somehow appeared before him. With a sudden burst of strength from his waist and abdomen, he leaped into the air.

In mid-air, he twisted his waist and slammed his right leg down like a taut steel whip!

"boom--!"

The ground trembled violently, and spiderweb-like cracks spread outwards.

The cursed spirit let out a shriek, and dozens of sharp limbs came stabbing at it like a storm.

Sumi Kichikawa's figure blurred instantly.

With incredible flexibility, he dodged all attacks, stepped on the cursed spirit's limbs to propel himself up, and instantly closed in on it.

With a single punch, he shattered half of the cursed spirit's head. In an instant, the Infernal Realm shrank into a narrow space, trapping the cursed spirit inside and blocking its supply of cursed power.

[Prison Realm: Purification]

The once arrogant level one curse spirit froze instantly.

Its immense magical power, which it was so proud of, collapsed like a burst dam, and its entire body crumbled into a sky full of black ash in a violent twist.

The whole process took less than a minute.

Furukawa Rin slumped to the ground, staring at the man standing in the center of the black ash, slowly wiping his finger bones with a pure white handkerchief. Only one thought remained in his mind:

Thank God! Thank you for admitting defeat!

This isn't a doctor, this is a beast in human skin!

"Level one... seems to be about this level." Sumi Kichikawa tossed away the stained handkerchief, turned to look at Rin Furukawa, her dark eyes still burning with an unquenched rage.

"Is there anything more advanced than this?"

Rin Furukawa swallowed hard, shaking his head frantically and tremblingly, "N-nothing! The next level up is 'Special Grade'! But Special Grade cursed spirits are all calamity-level existences, and extremely rare. They're not something you can just find whenever you want! Please spare me!"

Kikawa Sumi pondered for a moment, concealing the murderous intent in his eyes.

It wasn't that he was afraid of the Special Grade, but he didn't fully understand Gojo Satoru's situation yet. If he caused too much of a commotion, it might implicate Satoru.

"You're right, let's call it a day for tonight."

Sumire Kawakawa nodded and walked up to Rin Furukawa.

Just as Furukawa Rin breathed a sigh of relief, he saw Kisakawa Sumi suddenly raise her hand and lightly tap the air with her fingertips.

A line of icy blue light instantly pierced into Rin Furukawa's chest.

"What...what did you do to me?!" Rin Furukawa exclaimed in shock, clutching her chest.

"A little bit of insurance."

Sumire Kikkawa smiled gently, but her eyes were chillingly cold.

"As long as you don't tell anyone about tonight's events and obediently act as my intelligence source, it won't flare up. But if you try anything funny..."

He paused, then gently placed his long, slender fingers on Furukawa Rin's chest.

"Your heart will shatter like that cursed spirit just now. Do you understand?"

Rin Furukawa's face turned deathly pale, and he lowered his head in despair: "...Understood, boss."

After leaving the hospital, Rin Furukawa mustered her courage and finally asked Sumi Kikawa before she left, "Who... exactly are you?"

Kikawa Sumi glanced back at him, her tone flat: "Just an ordinary pediatrician."

Furukawa Rin: "..."