The mission ended sooner than expected.

People always exaggerate cursed spirits. They say they're horrific, or that they look like they could swallow a whole city. But when you actually get there, most of them are just clumps of human residue, barely holding a decent shape.

This one was no different.

He lightly rolled the black sphere in his hand. Even on the building's rooftop where there was almost no wind, the sphere was subtly trembling. As if something inside was breathing.

"It's weak, but... the form is unique."

Muttering that, he sat back against the building's railing. Rather than feeling like a mission was accomplished, it felt more like one annoying task had been cleared. He rolled the black sphere within his palm.

————————————————

Click.

Entering his dorm room, he placed his bag neatly on the rack next to his desk as usual and began unbuttoning his school uniform to change. Then, he suddenly remembered the small cursed object he had collected at the mission site and hadn't consumed yet, so he rummaged through his pants pocket.

Once his palm caught the cursed spirit orb, he pulled it out and stared down at it quietly.

"It doesn't seem like it'll be very useful."

The sphere was small enough that swallowing it wouldn't be much trouble, and if it turned out to be a spirit lower than Grade 4... he could just get rid of it.

Thinking of it as just another routine task of absorbing, swallowing, and subjugating a spirit, he slowly opened his mouth and swallowed the small orb. Because of its size, swallowing wasn't an issue. It even tasted less like a rag used to wipe up vomit. If anything, it almost tasted sweet.

Feeling the sphere pass perfectly down his throat and be absorbed into his body, he closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again, slowly extending his palm toward the floor. He twitched his fingers slightly. It was a motion that was almost like a reflex whenever he used Cursed Spirit Manipulation.

Black energy spread slowly from his fingertips.

The air in the room felt subtly weighed down. Very faintly, but clearly enough to be felt.

Usually, the form appears immediately at this point.

A shape forms as if coalescing, and a cursed spirit crawls out from within, or it lunges forward to attack from the start.

But this time, it was a little different.

The form was far too small compared to a normal cursed spirit.

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly without him realizing.

'...It's small.'

The black energy stopped on the floor. It scattered like smoke, and something slowly revealed itself from within.

It was a person.

To be precise—

It was something that looked like a person.