Chapter 170 - New! Max Elephant vs. House

"Shing—"

Receipts swirled through the air like moths. Reggie stood on an abandoned billboard one floor up, pinching a yellowed receipt between two fingers.

"See that, kid? This is my Cursed Technique — Contract Reproduction."

"One order: boning knife!"

Five gleaming knives. Cold light ran along each blade as they shot straight for Megumi Fushiguro's face. Megumi sidestepped. The edge grazed his cheek and buried itself in the wall behind him. Reggie laughed and flung another receipt.

"Anything listed on a receipt, item or service, I can make it real!"

"Another one: reinforced steel security door!"

A heavy security door materialized directly in front of him.

"Bang!" Megumi's whip kick slammed into it. The dull impact rang out loud enough to shake the walls.

The door caved inward. Reggie used the recoil to dance neatly out of range. Megumi's expression went flat. No. Wait. What the hell is all this? Think about other people's techniques. Idle Transfiguration. Maximum Technique: Meteor. And this maniac just casually shouts, Reinforced steel security door!? With that much heart?

He'd always figured Yuji and his old man were the dumbest fighters alive, brawling their way through a world full of flashy sorcerers with nothing but their fists. But compared to this guy? They were practically sophisticated. Megumi took a slow breath. Close combat ability? This guy barely scraped Grade 1.

But the receipts. Too many receipts. He could pull out anything, gasoline drums, kitchen knives, random bits of junk. Annoying. Middling threat level. Conclusion: low tier. Megumi made his call fast. This alley was too narrow. He needed open ground to finish this in one shot.

He didn't bother with words. He turned, planted his feet, and sprinted hard toward the abandoned gymnasium at the far end of the block. Draw him out.

"Running?" Reggie watched Megumi's retreating back and laughed. "You really think you can get away?"

He tore off a long receipt.

"Another one, Yadea electric scooter!"

Megumi opened the First Gate. His speed spiked instantly, leaving an afterimage. He covered nearly a kilometer before he even felt the wind change. That should be far enough. He glanced back.

Where'd he go? Megumi blinked. The street behind him was completely empty. He narrowed his eyes and looked further back. In the distance, Reggie was straddling a pastel pink electric scooter. That wasn't even the worst part. The idiot was carefully, methodically buckling his safety helmet. Megumi's deadpan was starting to crack. Traffic rules. In a life-or-death fight. During the Culling Game.

Could you maybe respect the battlefield just a little? He watched the scooter, top speed thirty kilometers per hour, maximum, inch forward at a pace that defied all urgency. Megumi pressed two fingers to his temple and rubbed. He had no choice. He released the First Gate and throttled back, terrified that if he went any faster he'd lose the idiot entirely. Ten minutes later. The abandoned gymnasium.

Megumi stood in the center of the court, picking at his nails out of sheer boredom. Reggie finally wobbled in through the entrance on his pink scooter.

"So this is the grave you picked for yourself?"

Reggie pulled off his helmet and swung a leg over the seat. "Decent scheme. But against my absolute advantage, there's nowhere for you to run."

Megumi twitched the corner of his mouth. No more games. Cards on the table. Wasting time on an idiot like this was a straight-up offense against youth. He clasped his hands in front of his chest, fingers interlaced. Cold black Cursed Energy poured out from under his feet like ink flooding the ground.

"Domain Expansion."

"Chimera Shadow Garden."

Dense black shadow swallowed the basketball court whole. The grin on Reggie's face went stiff. What, A powerhouse who can open a Domain? Terrifying!

"Don't think that's enough to beat me!"

Reggie roared and slammed his hands together into a seal, dropping into a defensive stance.

"Hollow Wicker Basket!"

A dome of pale light spread open beneath his feet. He locked his eyes on Megumi.

"Didn't see that coming, did you? Trying to use a Domain's Sure-Hit Effect to kill me? Modern sorcerers, still too young!"

Megumi stared at Reggie crouched inside that basket, coiled and ready. The atmosphere became very, very awkward. This idiot genuinely couldn't tell this was an Open-Barrier Domain? Megumi sighed. His hands kept moving. He called two Shikigami up through the shadows. Two toad tongues, each as thick as a barrel, erupted from the darkness behind Reggie. Slap.

They shattered the meaningless barrier of light and coiled around Reggie's legs and torso, hoisting him off the ground.

"What?!" Reggie thrashed in a panic.

"Eight Gates, Third Gate: Gate of Life."

"Open."

Green chakra steam exploded from Megumi's body. He bent his knees slightly. Then he shot upward like a shell, closing the distance to Reggie in less than a blink. A merciless straight punch hammered into Reggie's jaw. The crack of bone rang through the empty gymnasium. Then the storm: elbows, knee strikes, whip kicks. The beatdown had started. Ten full seconds. Reggie hit the floor and vomited blood.

It was only then that it clicked. This was an Open-Barrier Domain. He'd panicked himself into a Simple Domain against a brat whose technique didn't even have a Sure-Hit Effect. Furious and humiliated, Reggie jammed a hand into his pocket and wrenched out a crumpled ticket. A hot spring package. Premium bathhouse. Full suite. The ticket burned.

A massive vat of sulfur-reeking hot water appeared from thin air and dumped directly over his head. White steam rose in a curtain. His broken bones and bruises knitted closed at a visible rate. Reggie dragged himself upright, wiped his face, and threw his head back laughing.

"Hahahaha! See that! Premium healing spa voucher! As long as I have tickets left, I recover infinitely, you cannot kill me!"

Megumi stood at a distance, green steam still drifting around him. He glanced sideways toward a dark corner of the Domain. Round Deer was there, massive and unhurried, dozing with its eyes half-shut. He almost felt bad about not mentioning that he had a Reverse Cursed Technique capable of pulling him back from a single breath of life.

You've got a handful of foot-massage parlor vouchers. What exactly are you so proud of? Reggie, seeing Megumi stay silent, started backing up while tearing tickets off himself and flinging them into the air. Flowerpots, frying pans, fire extinguishers rained down like hail, throwing up visual clutter. Then Reggie's eyes went sharp. He felt something from the shadows under his feet, an abnormal drag, a pull.

And it wasn't just working on him. It was working on Megumi too.

"I've got it!" Reggie stabbed a finger at Megumi.

"The shadows in this Domain have massive gravitational force! And you — as the caster — you have to bear that same gravity to maintain it! If I keep piling weight onto you in here, your own technique will crush you!"

He bared his teeth and ripped open two car-purchase receipts.

"Two more, Toyota Corollas!"

The cars assembled in midair and came down with a howling rush of wind, slamming into Megumi's Domain. Megumi's footing did grow heavier under the combined weight.

"Hahahaha! I've seen right through you!"

Reggie was laughing hard enough for tears.

"The Domain you're so proud of is your own grave!"

Megumi looked at him the way you look at someone who just said something very stupid. This gravity? His mind flipped back to those lightless mornings. That idiot old man in the green tracksuit, stopwatch in hand, bellowing at him to summon Max Elephant, the thing was the size of a small mountain, hoist it onto his shoulders, and crank out five hundred frog jumps.

One second slow and the old man's foot found the back of his head. Two broken-down cars. Child's play. Reggie watched Megumi hold steady and his eyes went cold.

"Not enough? Try this."

He reached into the deepest layer of his paper-coat and pulled out a yellowed property deed.

BOOM!

The light above the basketball court died. A two-story traditional Japanese wooden house, two hundred square meters of it, materialized from nothing and came crashing down toward Megumi's position with the force of something collapsing from orbit.

Reggie pointed from the safety of the clear zone and shouted: "That house weighs fifty tons! Let's see what you do with this!"

Megumi watched the house descend toward his head. The corner of his mouth twitched. Reggie saw his jaw clench and got even more pleased with himself.

"Can't hold on? Just surrender."

Megumi held it together for a long moment. Barely kept from laughing. Fine. You want to play weightlifting? Let's play. He released his hands, let the cars drop, and snapped through a seal.

"Max Elephant."

BOOM!

A colossal ancient elephant descended from above. Reggie screamed as it pinned him flat to the ground. Gravity like that had no business existing. Even his bones sounded like they were screaming.

"Damn you!"

Reggie spat blood and snarled through clenched teeth. "I refuse to lose a strength contest to some little brat!"

Pinned under the elephant's leg, he clawed at the tickets on his body with every finger he could still move. Stone blocks. Solid oak desks. They crashed down. Then typewriters. Coffee machines. Tables, chairs, stools, everything short of the kitchen knives and cutting boards, and really only just short. Reggie's hands blurred, adding weight after weight to Megumi's Domain, desperate to tip the scales back.

Megumi's face got darker with every item. He thought about Shibuya. That deep-sea leviathan stretching over a hundred meters. The sky-swallowing wall of molten fire. The abyssal thing that blocked out the light. And now? A house. Two cars. Tables, chairs, pots, pans, and bowls. What in the actual hell. Are you cosplaying Jackie Chan right now? Megumi covered his face and exhaled.

He was tired. Time to end this.

"Eight Gates, Fourth Gate: Gate of Pain!"

"Open!"

The green steam turned solid. A physical gale blasted out from Megumi's body. The shadows under his feet tore apart like paper in the shockwave. All that gravity Reggie had been so proud of: it simply did not apply. Megumi flickered. He cleared the furniture pile in a single movement. His fist, the size of a sandbag, materialized in front of Reggie's face. One punch.

BOOM!

The shockwave pulverized every last ticket on Reggie's body into fine powder. The force sent Reggie tumbling more than ten meters. He hit the ground and stayed there, spread flat like he'd been poured out of a bucket. Done. Megumi released the Gate, dispelled the Domain, and walked over slowly. Reggie lay face-up staring at the ceiling, somewhere deep inside an existential crisis.

"Hold on, man..."

A mouthful of bloody froth spilled from his lips, his voice barely audible.

"You're this strong... so why did you run?"

Megumi looked down at him, hands in his pockets, tone completely flat.

"My old man always said: even a lion goes all out for a rabbit."

Reggie groaned. "A lion for a rabbit? You used a cannon on a mosquito."

"Hand over your points."

Megumi didn't kill him. Honestly, he felt a little sorry for the guy. A conjuration ability that broken, it had real potential. Never mind missiles or fighter jets. Even a drone swarm could tear through a battlefield. But in the hands of this ancient sorcerer who'd somehow missed the entire twenty-first century, it had been thoroughly, catastrophically wasted. He collected the points.

Megumi shook his head and sighed, with genuine feeling.

"Getting old really does make everything sad."

He turned and walked away. Reggie lay there listening to that pitying exhale. His eyes rolled back. He passed out cold.

➤ Next: Hiromi Higuruma