Overtime

The convenience store still had customers late at night.

The street outside was dim, and the lamps flickered as if they were undecided about staying alive.

"Help..."

Hurried footsteps came from the corner.

Misa Yonebayashi ran into view, gasping so hard her lungs felt torn.

Do not stop.

The words repeated in her mind. Her legs were heavy, her heart seemed ready to leap out of her chest, and every closed door and dark window pressed on her nerves.

She looked back.

The street was empty.

The pressure was not.

It was getting closer.

Misa shut her eyes and tried to run faster.

Then her foot slipped.

It is over.

As she fell, her life flashed before her: elementary school, graduation, work, overtime, more overtime.

So my life really was this boring.

If there is a next life, I refuse to be an office worker.

She hit the ground.

Nothing ate her.

"Miss," a dry voice said, "if you are unharmed, please do not fall in front of me. If someone sees this, it will be troublesome."

Misa opened her eyes.

She was alive.

The feeling behind her remained.

She scrambled up and looked toward the empty street.

Something was watching.

Why had it stopped?

Was it afraid because there were two of them?

She looked at the man who had spoken.

Blond hair. Stern face. Immaculate clothes. Beer and boxed meals from the convenience store in one hand.

For some reason, she felt she had found a fellow victim of society.

That was not the important part.

"There is a monster. We need to run."

She grabbed Kento Nanami's hand.

Nanami looked at her, then past her.

A humanoid cursed spirit stood in the street. Eyes covered its body. Its arms whipped on both sides like ropes. Two ugly eyes emerged on its face, then shifted elsewhere. Tentacles spilled from its mouth, and slime dripped to the pavement with a sour stench.

"There is nothing there," Nanami said. "You should go home."

He could smell the curse from where he stood, but Misa was a civilian. He had no easy way to conceal what happened if he fought in front of her.

"Woman," the curse crooned. "Mine. Woman is mine."

It lunged.

Nanami pulled Misa with his left hand and leapt back.

"Hold these. Bring them to the agency on the next street tomorrow."

Misa stared at the beer and boxed meals in her arms.

"Why are you still here? Run."

"I will bring them tomorrow."

Her footsteps fled into the distance.

Only then did Nanami face the curse.

The curse tried to chase her instead of him.

"I hate overtime," Nanami said. "In my eyes, overtime is worse than filth."

His eyes sharpened.

"And you just made me taste it."

A straight line appeared in his vision.

A black blade entered his hand and struck the curse at the seven-to-three point.

"Break."

The slime split apart.

The curse screamed, spraying liquid across the street. The stench became almost solid.

Nanami tightened his grip and prepared to finish it.

Then he felt movement at his feet.

The slime had climbed his trousers. Below the knees, his legs no longer obeyed.

He frowned.

A Grade 4 curse with this sort of ability?

"Woman. Mine."

The curse condensed its mouth tentacles into a thick whip and brought it down.

Another line appeared in Nanami's sight.

Too far to touch directly.

Still manageable.

The black blade cut. The whip split like jelly.

The curse rushed him.

Nanami's expression finally showed a trace of mockery.

If it wanted to die close, he would not refuse.

Black light flashed.

The curse's body broke. Its slime hardened like stone, then collapsed into dust. The foul smell faded with the wind.

Nanami looked at the blade in his hand.

This was a cursed tool.

Whatever its grade, he could not have afforded it on his own.

A motorcycle stopped beside him.

A mature woman's voice sounded near his ear.

"Hey, kid. What kind of woman is your type?"

The next morning, the agency was still closed when Misa arrived.

She stood outside with the bag in hand.

After running the previous night, the pressure had disappeared. Relief had come first. Then guilt.

Had the man survived?

She had taken leave from work, put on careful makeup, and changed out of her old business suit into a T-shirt and shorts. Her wheat-colored skin looked bright in the morning sun.

She did not fully understand why she was so happy.

She wanted to leave a good impression on the man who saved her life.

"Give me the bag."

"Here."

She handed it over automatically, then tightened her grip when she realized who it was.

Nanami.

Alive.

"Hello. My name is Misa Yonebayashi. Thank you for saving me yesterday."

"It is fine," Nanami said. "Yesterday, you were suffering from stress caused by overwork. I performed a backflip with you so your emotions would have an outlet. After you returned home, you felt better, correct?"

The agency door opened.

Nanami placed his things beside the desk for lunch.

Misa's expression moved from expectation to blankness.

Stress caused by overwork?

Compared to me, you look more like the real office worker.

Her makeup had been wasted.

"All right, then I..."

"So, Nanami, this is your type?"

Before Misa could say goodbye, a tall woman with perfect curves stepped in front of her. Yuki Tsukumo's eyes looked directly into Misa's face, bright and teasing.

Misa froze.

The look made something dangerous inside her heart tremble. Her face reddened. Her ears burned when Yuki leaned close.

"Do not be nervous. I will not eat you."

Yuki laughed and stepped away.

"Is your boss here?"

"Not currently. You may wait, or come back this afternoon."

"Then I will wait."

Yuki parked her motorcycle and entered the agency.

Nanami returned to work.

Yuki continued the question from the night before.

"So what kind of woman is your type?"

Misa looked between them, her mood sinking.

Are they dating?

"I will leave now. Thank you again for yesterday."

She fled the agency.

Yuki watched her go. "Your admirer left. You are not worried?"

"Protecting the weak is instinct. It has nothing to do with gender."

"Cold."

"If you are waiting for the boss, please do not interfere with my work."

Yuki received a phone call soon after and left with a sigh.

"Looks like today will not work. I will come another time."

Half an hour later, Toji rushed in.

"Nanami. Where is Ren?"

"I do not know."

Toji was not surprised. Every time something important happened, their boss disappeared.

"This has to be related to him. When he comes back, I need the information."

"How much will you sell it for?"

"One hundred million? Maybe two."

In Yashima's laboratory, researchers gathered around the experiment footage in excitement.

They had successfully manifested Susanoo near the sea.

Only for less than a minute.

Still, it was the first step of the God-Descent Project.

"Do not get carried away," Yashima said. "The first step is complete, but the true difficulty is still ahead."

He looked at the test tube in his hand, eyes feverish.

They had used the cursed womb Ren provided to manifest a god. The duration was short because energy was insufficient. Unlike the Divine Kingdom Cult, they could not sacrifice living people without restraint.

Even that minute consumed thousands of curses.

The next step was to study the cursed womb's energy source and make the manifested god sustain itself.

"Professor Yashima," an assistant said, "the laboratory's curse stock is nearly depleted. Do we request support?"

"No. Can our drug be produced?"

"The simplified rapid cursed-energy recovery drug can enter batch production. But like the God-Descent Project, it requires many curses as raw materials."

Yashima tapped the table.

"Set the second stage aside. Produce a batch of drugs first. We will use them to fill the resource gap."

In the past, he would have asked the higher-ups for resources.

Now he had a boss.

There were things he should no longer ask those people for.

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