The god of the mountain

"Oh! Did you see that? Was that a fox? I think it was"

"Fox is my favorite animals you know? I do hate animals"

"What's your favorite animal Miko san?"

"Huh? Mmm... Badgers i guess?"

"Badgers! Good choice, what do you like about badgers?"

"IS IT SO HARD TO JUST WALK QUITELY!?"

In the late afternoon shadows, a group of four people is walking up a mountain. The group consists of two teenagers, a boy and a girl, a shady-looking man with far too many voodoo accessories, and a grandma.

A very weird group of people if you ask me

"We're not here for a picnic, you know that, don't you, Rom?!" the grandma scolded the shady-looking man, who persisted in talking nonsense along the way.

"Well, I am here for a picnic," the young teenage man replied, walking carelessly with his hands on his head.

Alongside him, his cursed spirit relentlessly dispatched every curse it encountered along the way.

"Okkotsu-sama, please take this mission seriously; the curse on the shrine is–"

"Not going to be a problem. Rika here could kill it with a punch," the teenager interrupted, stopping the grandma from her lecture.

"Is that gh– curse. Really that strong?" Rom asked to The teenage boy while pointing at Rika and he replied with a nod

"Yup, she is a special grade, same as me" Yuta replied

"Special grade?" the girl asked.

"It means to be strong enough to destroy a country. There are only four special grade sorcerers in the world, and I am one of them," he explained.

"A country?" the shady-looking man said in disbelief, unable to fathom the implication of one person being stronger than an entire country.

"Yup, for curses, there are 16 of them. I don't know if that was a coincidence, but it sure does look like there are 4 special grade curses for every special grade sorcerer," Yuta explained, and the others took in his words on how much of a coincidence that was.

"That can't be true; there is no way a human can be that strong," the girl commented, expressing her disbelief at the improbability of such a thing happening.

"Hmm, then maybe I can show you a bit?" Yuta looked back, smiling at the girl while closing his eyes in an attempt to make her drop her guard.

And suddenly, he disappeared.

Everything else also disappeared.

"Eh?" The girl let out a noise as she noticed the trees and leaves of the mountain were all suddenly gone, replaced by a clear blue sky.

She is in the sky.

"Uweeeeeehhhh!!!!!" The girl screamed in fear as she suddenly found herself up in the sky, while sitting on something.

"What the-!"

"Okkotsu-sama!"

The shady man and the grandma also get put on top of the thing as they all try their best not to fall off and die.

"Don't move too much; it will be a pain if Rika needs to catch you guys," the boy suddenly appeared in the middle of the group, sitting on top of the thing casually, as if they had not suddenly been put in the sky.

"You–" Miko caught eyes with Yuta, and he smiled back with a confident face that says "told you."

"It will be faster if we fly like this anyway. Go Rika! Get us to the shrine!" Turns out the thing they've been riding is Rika. The special grade queen of curses

"𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗻 𝗬𝘂𝘁𝗮𝗮𝗮𝗮!" The curse replied and flew into the invisible sphere aura on top of the mountain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They have arrived. Everyone breathes heavily as they step down from the curse's head, trying to find their footing after their sudden high-speed journey through the sky.

"Thank you for joining Rika Express; please write your experience on Yelp and leave us a 5-star rating for your comfortable journey," Yuta comically said as he tried to lead the girl down from Rika.

She is holding her mouth, her stomach churning after the sudden flight on top of Rika's head, while Yuta keeps laughing at her.

"Unfortunately, our airline does not provide vomit bags, so please use one of the trees over there to dispose of your lunch," Yuta said to the girl, pointing at one of the trees in front of them.

She quickly ran towards it, feeling her stomach almost burst, trying to suppress her vomit until she could reach the tree to hide her unsightly act.

"𝘉𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘦𝘦𝘨𝘩," she managed to reach the tree and emptied out her stomach on it.

She breathes heavily, the taste of vomit still lingering in her mouth as she wipes her mouth and raises her gaze.

And she sees another ghost.

'Why?' She internally asks the world why this thing keeps happening to her.

𝘽𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙩!

But the ghost's head suddenly explodes as a white claw grabs it and crushes it.

"Look at this place, completely filled with curses from grade 4 to grade 3. When was the last time a sorcerer ever cleaned up this place?" Yuta noticed the condition of the mountain, and it was filled to the brim with curses.

He mentally commanded Rika to clean up the place, and she did so swiftly.

"No one ever cleans this place. The Jujutsu sorcerers don't cover all ground, and unfortunately, this place is one of them," the grandma explained, looking a bit winded from the forceful flight she took along with the shady-looking man and the girl.

"Really? I thought we were quite spread out. But I guess that makes sense. There are only 9 students at Tokyo Jujutsu High, and Kyoto probably has the same number of students or less.

The total number of Jujutsu sorcerers is less than a thousand, so this kind of thing would happen," Yuta agreed with what the grandma said after calculating the number of sorcerers available in Japan. There is no way for them to cover all grounds.

"Anyway! The shrine is right over there. Who wants to come with me and witness how a real sorcerer operates?" Yuta extended the invitation, and all three individuals expressed their interest in joining.

"Great, now let's get to it." Yuta extended his hand toward the invisible sphere, and with a theatrical flourish, it slowly shattered, unveiling a majestic stairway that ascended dramatically to the shrine.

"Too much flair for my taste," Yuta nonchalantly commented on the dramatic gate being opened by his cursed energy.

"So! Final question, are you sure you really want to come and see? This will be a fight between a special grade sorcerer and a grade 2 curse, so either it will be completely boring or something bad might happen, and there will be collateral.

Unfortunately, the only collateral will be you three, soooo, are you sure?" Yuta looked back at his group, and they nodded with a mix of excitement and determination, their eyes reflecting a blend of curiosity and bravery in the face of the unknown.

"Alright, you can't say I didn't warn you." With that last remark, they all walked through the gate and into the shrine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So uh.... What's your story? Why would you go to a shrine in the middle of a mountain for a wish?" As they walked up the stairs, Yuta decided to break the ice and ask the girl about her reason for searching for the guardian of the forest's help.

"Um.... I was suddenly able to see ghosts one day, and they have been bothering me all the time. So, I thought I can get rid of them by coming here," the girl replied, recalling how she just suddenly became able to see curses, and she couldn't stop seeing them until today.

"Right, so you want to stop seeing the ghosts, and your way of doing that is to wish for another ghost to stop you from seeing ghosts?" Yuta questioned, seeking clarification on the girl's intention.

"When you put it that way," she obscured her gaze, feeling a bit embarrassed by what she did.

"Hmm..... Your cursed energy is quite a lot... This should be enough for you to be a grade 3 or maybe even grade 2 if you can use them properly.

But you said that you suddenly 'able' to see curses? That's not how cursed energy works; you are either can see it or you can't." Yuta questioned the girl as he looked more closely at her cursed energy and found something wrong with it.

The girl squirmed, feeling uncomfortable as Yuta kept staring at her quite intensely, trying to discern what was wrong.

"You are cursed," he quickly diagnosed her, realizing that she is more or less in the same boat as him.

"What?" Miko said in confusion, shifting uncomfortably under Yuta's intense gaze as he scrutinized her cursed energy with a focused look

"You are cursed, kinda like me and Rika," Yuta elaborated on his statement, his gaze softening as he acknowledged the shared connection.

"You and Rika?" Miko asked again.

"Yup, do you know what spirit might've cursed you?" Yuta asked her the question, and she began to ponder on what spirit might have cursed her.

"Like Rika...." She pondered aloud as she kept trying to find any memory of any ghost that acts like Rika.

"Well, put that thought for later; we are here," Yuta said to the girl, informing his group that they have reached their destination.

The shrine.

"Alright, how are we gonna do this?" Yuta look back quickly and try to get them to do something other than being a silent observer

"You don't have a plan?" The shady looking man asked the boy

"Well, my plan was to go there and punch it until it dies, but I am guessing that since the three of you are supposed to be 'espers,' you must have a plan or something that might be better than mine.

Though my plan never failed before anyway," Yuta explained, expressing his straightforward approach while acknowledging the possibility of alternative strategies from the group.

"If you can exorcise the curse with your strength alone, then that might be better than my plan," the shady man said.

"And what is that plan of yours?" Yuta asked.

"My plan was to use the girl as bait and try to exorcise the ghost by myself, maybe by using some of my voodoo items," the shady man answered.

"Hmm..... I like that idea. The curse might try to hide if it senses my presence alone, so.... Yeah, let's do that.

Are you ready to be a bait, Miss Miko?" Yuta asked, turning his attention to the girl.

Miko felt the gaze of the group and nodded her head nervously, but she kept putting up a brave face.

"I am ready"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝙆𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙖 𝙆𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙖 𝙆𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙖

In front of a wooden shrine in the forest, two creatures that looked like a combination of a rat and a toddler stood menacingly, awaiting their "offering."

Both of them wore what appeared to be small Yukata, and they have human's hair for some reason

From the shrine's gate, a girl wearing an excessive amount of prayer beads could be seen walking towards them.

"Who made that thing?" Behind the girl is 3 people watching from nehind the gate, waiting for the real guardian of the forest to appear

"Me" the grandma replied

"It's trash, probably only enough to defeat grade 3 curses once and then it will break" Yuta is not pulling any punches

The grandma grumbles but she knows that on the eyes of a special grade like him, a thing that can only work on grade 3 once is equivelant to trash

"Heh, but our target is only grade 2 anyway, so maybe this will be enough" the girl keep moving forward, trying her best to not look at the two rat like curses as to avoid any direct confrontation whatsoever

And soon as she reach the middle of the shrine, their target finally show it self

The curse is atleast eight meters tall, maybe even ten if it was standing correctly, it has nine fox like tails. Very clasic for japanese curses, and it's head was shaped into a triangle with it's mouth being openable from 4 different direction

'That is not a Grade 2!' Yuta did a mental calculation on how strong is that curse and conclude that the curse might be a semi grade one

"We'll talk about this later grany, i am gonna need to save her now before your beads break!" Quickly realising the dangerous situation the girl is into, Yuta sprung into action

(Miko Pov)

'Close! It's so close! I don't think I can do this!' Voices rang through my head as I came face to face with the 'god of the mountain.'

Its face was ragged, its mouth opened up, revealing a jagged set of sharp teeth going all the way to its insides.

'𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵' 𝘽𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠

'No! Sunglasses of light!'

'𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘭𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳' 𝘽𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠

'Why!?' One by one, my charms and protection beads all break from the intense pressure that the god of the mountain exudes.

'𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨?'

'𝘞𝘦𝘭𝘭. 𝘐𝘵'𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘦, 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘮 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘣𝘶𝘵... 𝘚𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨'

'still better than nothing' finally, all of the prayer beads break and i fall to the ground as i surender my fate

"A ah.. my legs are so tired of walking the stairs" i unconciously said, days of trying to ignore supernatural entities such as this have made my mind react on instinct regarding this kind of creature

It opens it's mouth, preparing to swalow me whole and i close my eyes in fear

𝘽𝙖𝙢!

But suddenly the god of mountain was propelled by something

Or someone

I open up my eyes, thinking that the sorcerer must have save me and i can feel his embrace on my body

"𝗛𝗵𝗲𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗼𝗼𝗼~" But what i see is his ghost instead

'eeeeeeek!' these days i have become used to scream internally

"You okay there girl?" In the distance i can see the sorcerer cocking up his fist, preparing himself to fight against the god of mountain while grinning excitedly

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So you are the bad genie, huh? I admit, I expected either a beautiful blue anime girl or just the normal standard genie, but you completely threw my expectations through the roof," I said nonchalantly in front of the nine-tailed fox creature as it tried to pull itself back up.

𝙆𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙖 𝙆𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙖 𝙠𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙖

The two rats underling of the curse seems to be unpleased by my sudden interuption of their meal,

Ah who cares. What can they do anyway?

They outstretched their hands, palms directed straight at me as if they were trying to shoot me with something.

'oh this is not good' 𝘽𝙤𝙤𝙢!

A grenade-like explosion suddenly emerged from my shoulder, sending me flying a few meters back as I tried to outrun the explosion.

"A curse technique, so you two are at least grade 2, meaning that the other one is probably grade 1," I steadied myself after the explosion, inspecting the damage to my own body and realizing that it did nothing.

"So what? You can shoot explosions? No, I don't see any beam or projectile being thrown. Maybe you can create explosions?... That might come in handy." I smiled at the rat curses, feeling no sense of fear in my heart as I looked at the grade 2 curse, seeing it only as a way to get stronger.

'you know the drill Rika'

"𝗙𝗼𝗼𝗼𝗿𝗿 𝗬𝘂𝘁𝗮𝗮𝗮𝗮!" The two rat curses look at their back in panic as they hear Rika's voice screaming from their back

𝘾𝙝𝙤𝙢𝙥!

And one of them get eaten

The other quickly tried to aim it's palm at Rika, attempting to explode her like it did to me, but I swiftly kicked the curse in its face, instantly crushing its skull and head.

"Good job, Rika. Now only the big guy is left," I praised her, acknowledging Rika's swift action.

The towering presence of the god of the mountain intimidated everyone who laid eyes upon it. It growled at me in annoyance, but instead of cowering, I chuckled defiantly.

"Alright, how would you like a taste of your own underling?" I outstretched my palm, directing it at the god of the mountain, and grinned at it madly.

And with a sinister smile, the god of the mountain exploded from the inside.

'Its curse technique makes me able to compress anyone's curse energy and make it explode from the inside.

This doesn't work on me because my curse energy is too overflowing to be kept inside my body alone and instead becomes a blanket of protection for me.

But this curse doesn't have that' I explained, reflecting on my unique immunity to the curse's attack.

The god of the mountain let out a horrifying screech as its neck was obliterated by my attack. Strangely, even with its neck destroyed, it continued to scream in agonizing pain

The curse's mouth began to open, or rather, it seemed to peel itself from the mouth, extending all the way down to its tail.

What emerged was a strangely human-like face, adorned with bells attached to its hair and numerous ones on its stomach.

"So it's phase two huh?"

~~~~~~~~~ To be continued ~~~~~~~~~

Heyyy. How is it going? I found out that it will be faster if i instantly edit every paragraph i make to chat gpt instead of. You know just make 3000 words and edit it later

So here you go, next chapter. I hope you enjoy it and if you do, leave a stone and comment so i have more motivation to write

Anyway, See you later!