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

Sumire Kikkawa quickly realized that Gojo Satoru's verbal statement of "no longer caring" and his inner feeling of "not being angry anymore" were two completely different things.

In the following days, Gojo Satoru's workload visibly increased dramatically.

Sometimes when Kikawa Seisei wakes up in the morning, the spot next to him is already cold; sometimes it's late at night before he hears the faintest sound of the door opening in the entryway.

More often than not, the two wouldn't even see each other for an entire day. Gojo Satoru was rarely seen, and the messages he occasionally sent back were pitifully short, either saying he was "on a mission" or "on his way to the next mission."

At first, Sumi Kichikawa didn't think much of it.

There's never much of a pattern to work in the world of sorcery. When things get busy, it's common for Gojo Satoru to be away from home for ten days or half a month at a time.

Moreover, they had spent so much time in the other world a few days ago. Although time hadn't passed much in Tokyo, the mess that had piled up was still there.

Perhaps it just happened that we happened to be there at the same time.

With that in mind, Sumi Kichikawa continued to prepare Gojo Satoru's meals every day as usual, and also left a light on for him at night as usual.

But a day passed, then two days, and Gojo Satoru was still so busy that he couldn't catch a glimpse of anyone.

It wasn't until the morning of the third day, when Sumi Kichikawa sat at the dining table and looked at the empty chair opposite her, that she belatedly realized something.

Gojo Satoru might not actually be too busy to come back.

He was simply unilaterally and deliberately reducing the number of times he met with himself.

Once this thought popped into my head, all those seemingly ordinary details from the past few days suddenly took on a different meaning.

It's not that Gojo Satoru doesn't have time to reply to messages; he's just deliberately prolonging the intervals between replies. Not every mission requires the dignified "strongest" to personally make the trip; it's just that he'd rather accept it than turn it down.

Even when he occasionally returns home, he can precisely time it to perfectly avoid any possibility of the two of them being alone together.

He did keep his promise, neither pressing for details about the origin nor getting angry at Okigawa Sumi again.

But the anger in his heart had clearly not subsided at all.

Kikawa Sumi sat quietly at the dining table, looking down at her phone screen.

The message displayed above was sent by Gotsuka Satoshi half an hour ago: "Lots of tasks today."

Looking at this line of cold, lifeless text, Kikawa Sumi felt a little lost for a moment.

If it were someone else, he could simply corner them and explain things clearly and thoroughly.

Whether the other party is angry, questioning, or even drawing their sword, he has hundreds or thousands of ways to calmly deal with them.

But that person just happened to be Gojo Satoru.

He cared too much about Gojo Satoru, and he knew perfectly well that he was completely in the wrong in this matter.

He was the one who concealed it first, and he knew that Gojo Satoru would be terrified, yet he still chose to remain silent.

Now that Gojo Satoru clearly doesn't want to see him, he doesn't even have the confidence to go to his door with a clear conscience, fearing that if he pushes open the door, he will be met with the other party's indifferent gaze.

But he really couldn't stand just waiting like this.

Having lived for so long, Sumi Kichikawa had never known that being deliberately ignored would feel so heart-wrenching.

Everything in the house was exactly the same as usual, but traces of Gojo Satoru were everywhere: shoes lying haphazardly in the entryway, a coat casually draped over the sofa, and even the refrigerator was stuffed with that person's favorite sweets.

But I just can't see others.

The more Kikawa Sumi thought about it, the more suffocated he felt. Finally, he slammed his phone face down on the table with a "thud," and the temperature around him seemed to drop as his face turned cold.

Deep within its consciousness, the system, which had been quietly observing the commotion for a long time, finally couldn't help but sneer out:

[When you were refining your own essence back then, weren't you feeling incredibly free and exhilarated?]

It paused deliberately, its mechanical voice carrying a scornful, almost obnoxious tone:

Now look what happened, your wife left you because of you.

Kikawa Sumi sat there expressionlessly.

The next second, a power of emotionless rules crashed down like a mountain, cleanly and decisively sealing off all channels through which the system could transmit sound.

Just as the system was about to continue its taunting, it was caught off guard and forcibly muted on the spot.

A sudden, deathly silence descended upon the depths of my consciousness.

The system was stunned for a moment, then began to struggle frantically. The entire ball of light flickered violently with anger, clearly protesting against this simple and crude act of covering its mouth.

Sumi Kichikawa didn't even bother to glance at it.

Although my ears were finally at peace, the nameless anger in my heart showed no signs of abating.

And when Sumi Kichikawa is in a bad mood, it's only natural that someone else will suffer as a result.

So, after only a few days of relative leisure, Rin Furukawa unexpectedly received a summons from this top-tier figure.

Upon meeting, before Rin Furukawa could even exchange a pleasantry, he heard the person in front of him coldly utter, "Find the cursed spirit for me."

Rin Furukawa stood there, stunned: "...What?"

"Find all the cursed spirits you can find." Sumire looked up at him, her deep eyes devoid of any warmth. "Anywhere except Sendai is fine."

—Gojo Satoru is on a business trip in Sendai today.

Rin Furukawa was naturally unaware of the intricacies behind this strange instruction.

All he knew was that the big shot in front of him was in an extremely bad mood today.

Although his face still looked expressionless and his tone was flat, the cold, hard aura around him, which seemed to freeze the air, was far more terrifying than when they last met.

Rin Furukawa's alarm bells rang instinctively. He didn't dare ask another question, nodding repeatedly, cold sweat dripping down his face: "I understand, I'll look for it right away!"

He had been in the world of sorcery for many years. Although his strength wasn't top-tier, his intelligence network was extremely extensive. Before long, he had revealed all the known locations of nearby cursed spirit lairs.

Rin Furukawa originally thought that it would take at least ten days to half a month to clean up so many locations.

But after he actually started working with Susumu Kikawa, he realized that he had underestimated the skills of this big shot.

Traveling? No time is needed at all.

As soon as Rin Furukawa uttered a place name, the surrounding scenery instantly reassembled under the distortion of the power of the rules. One second they were standing on the bustling streets of Tokyo, and the next they had stepped into a gloomy abandoned building hundreds of kilometers away.

The way Sumi Kichikawa deals with cursed spirits is so fast it's chilling.

No matter what level of the cursed spirits they are, or how large their numbers are, under the absolute suppression of power, they can hardly last even a single exchange.

Many times, Rin Furukawa didn't even see how the big boss made his move before the cursed spirits that had been entrenched in the area for many years were already reduced to ashes, leaving only the lingering remnants in the air.

Immediately afterwards, Sumi Kichikawa would turn her head and look at him expressionlessly.

"Next."

Rin Furukawa could only swallow his shock and, in a trembling voice, announce the new location.

In just half a day, the two of them had already trampled over countless locations like a ruthless bulldozer.

Rin Furukawa went from being shocked and terrified at the beginning to becoming completely numb.

He even had a strange feeling that, apart from Sendai, which he had deliberately avoided, all the cursed spirits he knew in Japan would probably be slaughtered by this grumpy boss today.

They fought until the afternoon before finally stopping.

That's all for today.

Hearing this heavenly pardon, Furukawa Rin breathed a huge sigh of relief.

After a long day of intense activity, the fierce and cold aura emanating from Kikawa Sumi finally dissipated somewhat.

Although his complexion was still not good, at least he was no longer like the demon who could crush everything around him, including the air, at any moment, as when we first met.

It seems that physical venting is quite effective.

Just as Rin Furukawa muttered this to himself, on the way back, Sumi Kichikawa's phone suddenly vibrated in her pocket.

Kikawa Sumi took out her phone and looked down at the screen.

It was a text message from Gojo Satoru.

I can't make it back today, I'm not going home.

Sumire Kikawa abruptly stopped in her tracks.

Rin Furukawa watched in horror as the temperature around the big boss, which had finally eased up, dropped back to freezing point at a visible speed.

It was even more oppressive and terrifying than when we first met this morning.

Rin Furukawa immediately stopped breathing, wishing he could shrink into a crack in the ground, fearing that this living Yama might change his mind in a fit of anger and force him to conjure dozens of cursed spirits out of thin air to kill him.

In fact, after going crazy all day with the idea that "stealing all of Gojo Satoru's work would leave him with nothing to do," Sumi Kizawa's mood was indeed greatly relieved.

He figured that if he cleared up all the tasks in advance, that person would have no reason to continue wandering around outside.

But before he even stepped inside his house, Gojo Satoru had already given him a death sentence—he wasn't coming back that night.

Sumi Kichikawa stared intently at the few words on the screen.

How far is Sendai from Tokyo?

Even for tasks ten times farther and a hundred times more troublesome than this before, Gojo Satoru would still push open the door in the middle of the night, then throw herself heavily into his arms with a straight face, and complain in a drawn-out tone about how tired she was from the whole day.

Today, however, they coldly said, "I can't make it back in time."

It's not that I don't have time.

She's clearly still angry and has no intention of coming back to see him.

Kikawa Sumire put away her phone with a calm expression and did not reply.

The frustration that had just been suppressed instantly plunged back into an even deeper abyss.

The thought of opening the door tonight to find the room empty again, with no familiar warmth on the other side of the bed, made his chest feel like it was stuffed with a wad of water-soaked cotton, heavy and painful.

Amidst his lingering anger, an uncontrollable surge of grievance rose within him, a feeling that even he found unfamiliar.

Beneath this sense of grievance lies an intense longing for that person, a longing born from days without being able to properly embrace them or hear them speak.

Kikawa Sumi lowered her eyes, her whole body radiating a chill that seemed to freeze into frost.

He began to think of five points.