"Let ordinary people become aware of the existence of cursed spirits, and create a barrier that allows normal people to see them?"
Inside Dagon's domain, Kenjaku—half-kneeling on the ground—received Makima's order and began to think it over seriously.
"Creating a barrier that allows ordinary people to see cursed spirits isn't difficult. However, if you want to maintain it for a long time, and for its range to cover an entire city—or even a whole country—then it will require an enormous amount of resources."
Barriers that allow ordinary people to see cursed spirits were not unheard of; at the very least, Kenjaku knew of several. However, such barriers usually had limited range and temporary effects. To meet Makima's requirements—granting an entire nation's population the ability to visually perceive cursed spirits—would require massive modifications to existing barrier techniques. The scale of the project could even be described as designing a completely new barrier from scratch.
Moreover, even if such a barrier could be designed, deploying one that covered an entire country would be extraordinarily difficult. At the very least, Kenjaku alone could never manage it; a vast amount of resources would be needed to sustain the barrier's consumption.
"You don't need to worry about resources. I will secretly divert the jujutsu world's resources to support it."
Makima was unconcerned about the massive resource consumption. At this point, nearly all of the jujutsu world's upper echelon was under her control. Frankly speaking, with the wealth of these elites, Makima effectively held more than eighty percent of the jujutsu world's resources in her hands.
Deploying a nationwide barrier would indeed consume tremendous resources, but even that paled in comparison to the deep coffers of the jujutsu world's leadership.
"In that case, all that's needed is time. Additionally, if you want to deploy a barrier on this scale, Tengen's existence must also be dealt with."
Thus, under Makima's orders, Kenjaku threw himself fully into the work.
As for Makima, after leaving the curse faction's base and returning to the Headquarters, she began devising a plan targeting Tengen.
Although Tengen held an extremely high status within the jujutsu world, high status did not equate to great combat strength. Aside from possessing abnormally vast cursed energy, Tengen's actual fighting capability was unremarkable.
Therefore, with careful planning and no miscalculations, Makima leveraged her identity and, without drawing any attention, easily brought Tengen under her control. She then instructed Tengen to secretly assist Kenjaku in designing the barrier.
...
In the blink of an eye, half a month passed.
On this day, every sorcerer within Japan suddenly sensed an unusual fluctuation of cursed energy.
High in the sky—thousands of meters above ground—a transparent barrier appeared, expanding outward with Tokyo as its center.
Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka, Nagasaki, Fukushima, Sendai, Hokkaido…
Very quickly, sorcerers in nearly every city across Japan witnessed the scene of the barrier's expansion.
An unknown barrier had enveloped the entire nation of Japan in a short span of time!
The jujutsu world immediately fell into chaos. The upper echelons urgently convened a meeting to discuss countermeasures.
In the end, the decision was made to dispatch a group of elite sorcerers to attempt to destroy the suddenly deployed, ultra-large unknown barrier, while another group was sent to seek the opinion of the jujutsu world's foremost barrier master—Tengen.
Unfortunately, neither side achieved satisfactory results.
The sorcerers who attempted to destroy the barrier discovered that it was completely untouchable. It neither hindered entry or exit, nor did it seem to have any effect whatsoever on sorcerers themselves.
Meanwhile, the response from Tengen was equally discouraging—there was nothing that could be done. Regarding this barrier that had suddenly enveloped Japan, even Tengen could not come up with a viable solution in the short term.
Thus, with no way to resolve it for the time being, and since the unknown barrier appeared to have no immediate effect on those inside, the jujutsu world—aside from assigning a group of sorcerers to monitor the situation at all times—could only choose to let the matter rest.
Tokyo, inside the villa.
"So this is your plan?"
Now that the plan had officially begun and its feasibility had been confirmed, Makima explained everything to An Xora.
"Using Kenjaku and Tengen—the two most accomplished barrier masters in the jujutsu world—to design a barrier that allows all ordinary people in an entire country to see cursed spirits, thereby causing widespread sightings and making the existence of cursed spirits public."
"In doing so, it's like someone living in an ordinary world suddenly discovering that ghosts and monsters truly exist. In the short term, this will inevitably cause massive panic, leading to a surge of negative emotions and, as a result, the birth of a large number of cursed spirits."
"Still… there's actually no real need to do things this way, is there? There are much simpler methods."
An Xora rubbed his chin as he spoke.
If the goal was to gently yet effectively stimulate a surge in negative human emotions, there were plenty of options—especially for Makima. By controlling the national leadership, she could easily extend legal working hours, raise taxes, abolish holidays, increase prices, and so on. There were countless ways to meet the requirements An Xora had previously mentioned. Why, then, choose the relatively troublesome route of publicly revealing cursed spirits and inducing fear through direct sightings?
"If I had to give a reason," Makima said after a moment's thought, leaning against An Xora,
"it would be that I believe such a world would be more interesting for my master."
"After all, this world no longer poses any danger to us. Compared to a stagnant, unchanging world, I think my master would rather see a completely new one."
"So I chose this method—to let ordinary people learn of the existence of cursed spirits."
"The next step will be to change the way the jujutsu world and jujutsu sorcerers exist in this society—to transform sorcerers into a profession that operates openly within the public eye."
"That does sound a bit like the hero system in One Punch Man."
Hearing Makima's explanation, An Xora admitted that his interest had indeed been piqued.
Previously, the jujutsu world and sorcerers had always operated in the shadows; ordinary people had no knowledge whatsoever of cursed spirits or sorcerers.
Now, judging from Makima's intentions, she planned to first make cursed spirits public, then bring sorcerers into the public eye as well—turning them into an openly recognized profession wielding supernatural power.
Typically, when a minority group possessing special powers is made public, there are only two possible outcomes in most worlds: one is being dragged off for dissection and research, and the other is attaining extremely high social status.
With Makima around, the former was clearly impossible—meaning only the latter would occur.
"Before the barrier fully takes effect, it will still require some time—about seven days."
"After that, ordinary people within the barrier will gradually gain the ability to see cursed spirits."
"At most half a month, and everyone within the barrier will be able to directly perceive cursed spirits, just like 'Windows.' Depending on individual constitution, over time some may even permanently acquire spiritual sight."
"That will be when this world truly begins to change. For now, it still needs a bit of insignificant time to ferment."
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