NOVEL NEXT Chapter 20: Chapter 20
Toji opened his eyes.
Despite having fallen asleep on the sofa instead of his bed, his head felt surprisingly clear. It was the first deep sleep he had enjoyed in a long while.
He felt a weight and warmth on his legs. Glancing down, he saw Zoro sprawled out across his legs, deeply asleep and snoring softly. Beside Zoro, in a baby crib, Megumi was quietly breathing in his sleep, making tiny, gentle sounds.
It was an unusually peaceful scene. Toji watched quietly, trying not to make any noise.
The phone rang.
Zoro's eyes flickered open, and he quickly surveyed his surroundings. Meeting Toji's gaze, Zoro's green hair received a gentle pat.
"Go back to sleep. I'll take the call and come back."
Toji got up from the sofa and walked away. He opened the balcony door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him. Although the sound was muffled, the balcony door was made of glass, allowing Zoro to see Toji from inside the house.
Checking the phone, it was Shiu Kong calling.
"Why."
["Why? Whyyy?! After killing a person and a curse in broad daylight, in the middle of Tokyo, and leaving the cleanup to me, you ask 'why'?"]
Toji wasn't the one who had killed, but there was no need to correct that. Listening to Shiu Kong's irritated voice, Toji rubbed his ear with a finger.
"It was just a curse anyway."
["Yeah, just a curse. And we were tracking it through Tokyo's jujutsu circles!"]
"Circles," Toji's lips curled into a smirk.
"Then let them find it. I'll handle it anyway."
["I've already done that. Didn't have time to clean everything up anyway. Just roughly messed up any traces that could indicate who killed it. It's a miracle it hasn't caught the sorcerers' eyes yet."]
When curses die, they don't leave a corpse but disappear, whereas the bodies of cursed users are clearly visible even to non-sorcerers. Getting caught would have been troublesome.
["By the way, what tool did you use? There was nothing but the residual traces of the cursed user and the curse."]
While not as overt as a sorcerer's main power or spells, tools do leave some residual power or traces. The absence of such traces was curious.
Toji shrugged nonchalantly.
"Who knows."
["Well, you have no reason to tell me, do you?"]
["This one took a lot of effort, so I'll need to charge a lot."]
As if he was trying to swindle money. Toji's lips twisted into an amused smirk.
"I have something to say to you about that."
[Hmm?]
"The nanny you recommended has been neglecting her duties."
Before falling asleep yesterday, Toji had asked Zoro about the possibility of changing nannies. He saw no reason to employ someone who blatantly disregarded Zoro.
But the response he received was astonishing.
"She's the best we've had so far."
"...What?"
"She's not the first nanny. She's either the seventh or eighth."
"The nannies have been changed?"
"The first one was driven away by me, but all the others left on their own."
"..."
This was news to Toji. He was unaware both of Zoro driving away the first nanny and the frequent changes thereafter.
It made sense, though, since Shiu Kong had been handling the finances for the nanny out of Toji's fees, and he also found the nannies. Shiu Kong gave Toji the contact information for the first nanny, but he hadn't provided contacts for any that followed.
If a woman who avoided even making eye contact with the child was the best nanny they had, it was evident how unsuitable the previous ones had been.
Toji clenched his teeth.
"If you're taking the money, you better be responsible for the value."
[Wait, Toji. That, uh, how it happened was....]
"Forget it. Be prepared for the next time we meet."
[....]
"...Ah, there's one thing I want to ask. The grade of the cursed user and the curse we killed, what were they?"
Shiu Kong sounded puzzled in his response.
[Shouldn't you know better, having dealt with them directly?]
If Toji had directly confronted them, that would be true. However, by the time Toji saw them, they were already defeated, making it impossible for him to gauge their strength.
"Forget it, just tell me their grades."
[The cursed user who died was at least Grade 3. He was judged to be Grade 3 before escaping from the Tokyo Jujutsu High. It's been over 10 years since then, so it's possible his abilities could have improved.]
"Was he originally associated with the High?"
[Yes. He was a student at Tokyo Jujutsu High, but in his third year, he killed a fellow student sorcerer and stole the curse that the student was subjugating, then fled. The curse you killed was that one.]
"And the grade of that curse?"
[Grade 4. But this curse could uniquely absorb a part of the cursed energy of whatever cursed power it consumed, so by the time you killed it, it wasn't Grade 4. Given that the cursed user had been active for over 10 years, it could have been Grade 3 or even Grade 2.]
"..."
[Toji?]
"End call."
[Wait, then next time I see you—]
Click.
Toji hung up the phone and was lost in thought. The cursed user was at least Grade 3, and the curse was at least Grade 4, likely around Grade 3.
So, what grade would Zoro be, having faced both and emerged unscathed?
'He didn't just defeat them; he was without a single injury.'
Could a Grade 3 sorcerer defeat another Grade 3 sorcerer without any injuries? Especially when being jointly attacked by a Grade 3 curse?
How the fight went down was unknown. The cursed user could have made a mistake during the battle, or the curse might have turned on its summoner due to losing control.
Clearly, Zoro had fought them alone and won, without sustaining any injuries.
'Does that mean he's at least on the level of a Grade 3 sorcerer?'
Maybe even a Semi-Grade 2 or Grade 2 sorcerer. It would be difficult for a Grade 3 sorcerer to fight another Grade 3 and emerge completely unscathed.
In Zoro's case, there was more to consider than just his grade.
A Grade 3 sorcerer? That's possible. Even among non-sorcerers, there are those who can reach that level of jujutsu power. Plus, Zoro carries the blood of the Zenin family. Being a Grade 3 sorcerer would be common in that lineage.
The issue was his age.
'Yesterday was his fourth birthday.'
The age at which a sorcerer child typically manifests their technique is between four to six years old. Even if Zoro miraculously manifested his technique on his fourth birthday, utilizing it to defeat an enemy, especially a Grade 3 cursed user, was an entirely different matter.
...It was also unclear whether Zoro was a sorcerer in the first place.
Toji recalled the moment Zoro's hand and the blade turned black as he slashed across the cursed spirit's abdomen with a bone. He brushed back his hair that had fallen over his forehead.
There was only one person who could answer all these questions.
Toji opened the balcony door and stepped back into the living room. Receiving a calm and unreadable look from Zoro, Toji cautiously began.
"...I have something I want to ask."
Zoro shrugged, a signal to proceed.
"Your... 'power.' The way your hand and the blade turned black—"
"Haki."
"...What?"
"It's called Haki, that ability."
Zoro jumped off the sofa.
"I thought you might know, given who you are."
Murmuring to himself, it seemed Zoro was considering whether this power was unknown here. He then quickly added,
"Let's go out when the nanny arrives. I'll show you."
What Haki is, and what it can do.