“Training ground?”

Yuan Shanxiao looked at everyone trailing behind the long-legged Gojo Satoru, who seemed to care for no one. He quietly moved closer to Zen’in Maki. “What’s the training ground?”

He saw the girl who had practically attacked him the moment he stepped through the door on his first day—Maki, always decisive and tough—looking unusually serious. There were even beads of sweat on her forehead as she gripped her cursed tool tightly. Still, she answered Yuan Shanxiao’s question though her voice sounded dry and strained as if she was gritting her teeth.

“It’s… the place where Teacher Gojo usually trains us.”

“…Salted pickles,” came a muttered voice.

Yuan Shanxiao turned his head and saw a white-haired boy who had just returned from a mission today, covering his mouth with his collar. This was the student he hadn’t met yet—the one with the cursed speech technique, according to Maki’s earlier introduction. His name was Inumaki Toge.

Yuan Shanxiao had already greeted him earlier, but now hearing the boy’s cryptic words, cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

“Sounds dangerous.”

Zen’in Maki, “Roe!”

“…It really sounds dangerous.”

Zen’in Maki: …

Wait, how did he even understand that?

Zen’in Maki was confused.

Zen’in Maki was baffled.

But soon, Zen’in Maki let it go.

Inumaki also played along with Gojo.

Anyone who could get along with Gojo was in a special category of their own.

……

Yuan Shanxiao felt a bit more nervous after hearing Inumaki’s words. He clenched his fists, noticing that his palms were sweaty, and his legs were trembling slightly. His voice wavered as he asked, “…Are there cursed spirits?”

Zen’in Maki glanced at him. “No.”

She then patiently explained, “It’s just physical training, fighting against Teacher Gojo. But he—”

Before Maki could finish, Yuan Shanxiao let out a long breath, patting his chest in relief. A pale smile spread across his face, full of (survivor’s) relief.

“As long as it’s Teacher Gojo, that’s fine.”

Zen’in Maki: No, wait.

Anyone who’s okay with Gojo Satoru is definitely not normal!

Yuan Shanxiao, now reassured that he wouldn’t be facing any inhuman horrors, felt a lot more at ease.

It’s just sparring with Gojo—at worst, he’ll get beaten up, but it shouldn’t be anything too serious, right?

……

Five minutes later, Yuan Shanxiao was clinging to the ceiling beams in the training room, refusing to come down.

“Come down, Xiao.”

“No…” Yuan Shanxiao clung to the beam, shaking so much that his hands had turned white. “Teacher, why don’t you come up here instead?”

“Come down, Xiao.”

“Respect your elders, Teacher—you should come up first…”

Below, the white-haired teacher hands in his pockets was in a rather good mood. “Come down now, Xiao—”

“After all, cockroach cursed spirits… can fly really high, you know—”

And before Yuan Shanxiao could take another glance at Gojo, he turned his head and saw a deep red cockroach cursed spirit filling his entire field of vision was charging straight at him. His body went ice cold, and it felt like his soul had left his body.

It’s so fast—aaahhh!!

This teacher—

“Didn’t you say you’d be the one sparring with me?!”

Yuan Shanxiao screamed at the top of his lungs as he ran for his life, teleporting from place to place.

“Where’s the honor in this?!”

Ahhhh!! I can’t open my mouth, these little cockroaches will fly right in!! Ahhh!!!

The serrated legs on their feet—or whatever those spiky things were—were longer than his fingers, aaahhh!!

Yuan Shanxiao felt like dying, but he also felt like someone else should be the one dying instead.

But he couldn’t afford to die. He feared that before he could finish killing himself, the cockroaches would already be crawling all over him.

“My technique should let me die quickly.” Yuan Shanxiao muttered with his eyes shut tight, though he didn’t dare keep them closed for long, because—

When he opened his eyes, the massive compound eyes of a giant insect filled his vision—

So red.

So big.

So…

I want to die—

So many legs! And serrated, too!!

Ahhhh God, what kind of person could fight a cursed spirit like this?!

Yuan Shanxiao made several attempts to rush toward Gojo.

Half of him was hoping for, Teacher! save me, I’m weak and helpless!

The other half was thinking, Forget it—if he won’t save me, then we’ll die together, aaahhh!!

However Gojo Satoru, unafraid of cursed spirits or insects. Easily dodged the boy’s desperate lunges thanks to his superior mastery of his technique.

Gojo Satoru: …

Finally, Gojo couldn’t help but smile in satisfaction. Over the past few days, he’d finally perfected the skill of dodging someone trying to cling to his legs.

He watched the boy’s disheveled black hair and saw those gray-green eyes usually hidden, lit up with anxiety and terror. Gojo’s smile slowly faded as he spoke in a low tone.

“Exorcise the cursed spirits, Xiao.”

Gojo pulled down his sunglasses, his serious blue eyes locking onto the figure of the panicking but impressively agile boy.

“You can’t keep running.”

But Yuan Shanxiao lost in his fear didn’t hear a word.

Gojo sighed softly and pushed his sunglasses back up, his eyes hidden behind the dark lenses.

“I’ll release even more cockroach cursed spirits into the room. If you don’t exorcise them, the number of cursed spirits will only increase. Even if you have your teleportation technique to escape, the space you can flee to will become smaller and smaller. Eventually, you’ll—”

Yuan Shanxiao’s consciousness was almost entirely disconnected. He was running purely on instinct now.

His mind was too terrified to process anything, driven by pure survival instinct as his fear pushed his thoughts deep inside.

However when Gojo mentioned “more cursed spirits”, Yuan Shanxiao’s dilated, gray-green pupils suddenly contracted.

[Zzz… Zzz…]

As Gojo continued speaking.

“You’ll definitely—”

I can’t take it anymore…

“—come into contact with the body of a cockroach cursed spirit.”

Cockroach?

Cursed spirit?

No—

Yuan Shanxiao’s pupils shrank to tiny slits.

[Zzz… Fear Value: 15%]

Gojo noticed that the boy had stopped moving. Though his head was lowered, obscuring his expression, at least he wasn’t running anymore.

Relieved, Gojo began guiding him, playing into the boy’s temperament.

Like a seductive spell.

“Listen to me.”

“Xiao, I’m the strongest. You can trust me.”

Trust.

The flapping of cockroach wings drew closer.

“You can only achieve true safety by eliminating what you fear.”

A temptation.

That disgusting, icy sensation hadn’t yet touched his skin. But the cold wind made it feel as if the boy was already sensing it in advance.

[Fear Value: 37%. Would you like to consume it?]

Yuan Shanxiao’s eyes snapped open.

His normally delicate, almond-shaped eyes which always hidden behind his messy bangs were now wide open.

His gray-green pupils narrowed into vertical slits, instantly taking in everything around him in 360 degrees and feeding the information back to his brain.

Everything that terrified him, everything in his surroundings, was abstracted into clear data.

There were no grotesque, giant cockroach-like cursed spirits, no people, no beams.

In a split second, the world before his eyes seemed to dim, revealing a three-dimensional grid.

The nearest cursed spirit was 18.95 meters away from his space and would arrive in 1.57 seconds.

There were 17 cursed spirits in total, with coordinates as follows (in meters, with him as the origin point):

[17.5, 24.8, 90.7]

[16.7, 23.2, 10.6]

[…]

In short… I have to eliminate them all within one second.

The optimal path would be…

Network node order…

Path pre-set parameters…

Path pre-set complete.

Everyone watched in stunned silence as the boy remained still, while the antennae of a cockroach cursed spirit brushed against his back.

Everyone gasped.

It wasn’t that they were scared of the cursed spirits themselves—having been on numerous missions, they were used to cursed spirits of all shapes and sizes. Insect-like ones were actually among the more basic types.

But after spending just a little time with Yuan Shanxiao, they’d all picked up on his deep-seated fear, and they could imagine how badly he’d break down if he really came into contact with one of those cursed spirits.

Especially the few who had seen firsthand the extreme lengths Yuan Shanxiao went to in order to avoid ordinary bugs earlier in his dorm.

So, the sound of their collective gasps filled the room.

Panda even reflexively shut his eyes and covered his glasses.

Zen’in Maki pursed her lips tightly, knowing that this was Gojo Satoru’s deliberate training, but still preparing herself to “rescue” the boy—at the very least, to catch him if he fainted and fell from the air.

But—

In a single moment.

As if in a single breath.

All the sounds vanished.

The buzzing of the cursed spirits’ wings, the eerie noises from their mandibles and thoraxes—

In an instant—

It was as if everything disappeared at the same time.

The only sound left was the wind passing by their ears.

When they opened their eyes, all they could see was a flash of golden light. It flickered briefly, and then again—and again. Perhaps it wasn’t just one beam of light, but several, or maybe many beams crisscrossing.

But it was too fast to follow.

It was so fast that the only trace left was a brief flash of light before it disappeared into the wind.

All they could see was that the scattered cursed spirits in the room seemed to be simultaneously pierced by something.

And then, they exploded in an instant.

In the midst of a downpour of cursed energy, the pale and weak-looking boy collapsed in front of Gojo Satoru.

The white-haired teacher smiled and was about to say something.

But then the boy suddenly extended his hand behind him.

The cursed spirit that Gojo had specifically arranged for a sneak attack barely showed its head before it was pierced by a spatial attack.

Not bad.

His combat instincts were top-notch too.

Gojo couldn’t help but smirk.

But then he noticed something off—the boy’s pupils were still unfocused, and his gray-green eyes looked like a stormy sea, rolling aimlessly.

Hmm?

No.

“Xiao?”

“Are you okay?”

[Fear Value cleared.]

With a thud, Yuan Shanxiao collapsed to his knees.

Through the faint ringing in his ears, he vaguely heard Gojo Satoru’s voice.

Was he saying something?

Oh, it sounded like concern?

It’s fine. It’s all okay now.

Everything’s okay.

Nothing matters anymore.

So Yuan Shanxiao raised his trembling hand, the kind of shaking you’d see from someone so frazzled they’d drop half their food at the cafeteria window and as pale as a vampire, tried to reassure his teacher.

“I’m fine.”

He thought. He wouldn’t remember—

Just one centimeter away, maybe not even a centimeter, that cockroach cursed spirit had almost touched him. He felt dirty all over.

He was fine. It’s just that—

“Don’t worry, Teacher Gojo.”

“I’m just going to die for a bit.”

With that, the boy collapsed forward, his hands crossing over his stomach as his forehead hit the ground with a reassuring thud.

Gojo, who had been about to help him up: ……

He casually retracted his hand, pretending that nothing had happened.

“…Ah, the youth.”

He can just drop dead whenever he feels like it.