Everything in front of me vanished again, and a new world took shape from nothing.
Or maybe I'm the one taking shape inside it?
I still don't know which is closer to the truth.
I've become something like a drifter between worlds ...belonging to none of them, remembered by none of them, leaving without a trace worth mentioning. I keep asking myself what the last world was trying to tell me. Am I supposed to be learning something from all of this? Or is my role just to keep watching these bad endings play out, one after another?
I entered the Precipice because I wanted to change what happened. Not watch similar versions of it , versions that fall short of the original in every way.
And the emptiness in my chest grows a little more with each new world. I don't think I'll find anything that satisfies me. These worlds don't differ much from the one I first watched same tragedies, same losses, just wearing different faces.
Then the message appeared, same as always:
— Welcome to the Forty-Eighth World —
Would you like to view information about this world?
[ Yes ] [ No ]
I pressed [ Yes ] without thinking.
...
Information extraction failed.
Would you like to try again?
[ Yes ]
...
Attempt failed.
Skill failed.
Reporting error...
Report submitted.
I stared at the blank screen.
What's happening now?
Then a new message appeared — in a format I'd never seen before:
— Special Mission —
"Explore the World"
Reward: Unknown.
Time remaining before departure:Unknown
I looked at the message with half an eye.
Am I a light novel protagonist now too?
Sure. I didn't think things could get more absurd than they already were ... but here we are.
Four days. No world info, no context, no map. Just "explore."
Thanks a lot, System.
I started walking.
The first thing I noticed the buildings.
Old. Wood and branches and clay. No glass, no asphalt, no sign of any civilization I recognized. The roads were dirt and narrow, and the people were dressed in something close to ancient Japanese clothing.
Am I even in Japan right now?
I stopped and tried to piece things together from what I could see. The architecture, the clothes, the way people moved , everything pointed to a historical period far removed from the jujutsu world I knew.
What happened here that turned things out this way?
No answer came. The world scan had failed and given me nothing.
Then I heard the screaming.
Close. To the left.
I moved without thinking.
I found a group of men carrying swords , swordsmen, clearly all of them closing in on a single person.
One of them shouted:
— Michizane!!
And immediately reinforced his blade with cursed energy. The output was massive ... on par with the Grade 1 sorcerers I'd seen before.
I looked at the person surrounded by them.
He didn't draw his sword.
He just stood there. Perfectly still. Like what was in front of him wasn't worth the effort of moving his hand.
Then
In a single moment.
He released cursed energy from his body ,not as a directed attack, but as raw pressure in every direction. The air shook. The ground slowly cracked beneath their feet, and the shockwave spread until it reached where I was standing.
I felt it even through Causality Reversal. This energy isn't normal.
Everyone dropped.
But they got back up.
Despite everything, they got back up. And when they did, they released everything they had all at once.
Then I heard it ...
— Domain Expansion —
That exists in this era too?
But before the barriers could form !
He drew his sword.
One motion. In a single instant, he read the flow of their cursed energy before the expansion could complete, and cut through their throats before the barriers had a chance to take shape. Their energy scattered. The technique dissolved as if it had never begun.
That kind of reading, that kind of speed ... it doesn't belong to an ordinary person!
I stayed where I was.
Who is this person?
The name " Michizane " felt familiar in a way I couldn't quite place. But my memory has been getting muddled lately. Names overlap, timelines blur, and the worlds start looking alike in ways I never noticed before.
He gripped his sword and flicked the blood off it with a single downward motion. His expression was... empty. No triumph, no satisfaction, not even exhaustion. Just a quiet blankness in the eyes of someone who has done this hundreds of times.
But then
He slowly knelt to the ground. And whispered, barely audible:
...May your souls rest in peace.
He stood and left.
I followed.
He led me through narrow dirt paths until he entered a small village. At the entrance, a wooden board hung with old script carved into it:
— Sugawara Clan —
I stopped completely.
Isn't this the original bloodline of both the Gojo and Okkotsu clans?
I stood there staring at the sign as everything in my head went quiet.
If this was true ... if the Sugawara clan still existed like this ...then that meant this era is...?