Satoru Ryomen POV
I stood up looking around the burning surroundings "this place looks a bit like Fuyuki but in hell," I muttered to myself "whatever I suppose I should try finding where Mashu ended up."
My ears suddenly started to twitch as the sound of a knife flying through the air caught my attention.
I tilted my head to the right letting it pass by me completely unfazed by the sudden attempt on my life "seriously?" I asked looking over to the dark figure with a skull mask "you will die here!" the cloaked man shouted his giant left arm spasming.
The cloaked man bounced around me at unnatural speeds.
Blue lines resembling cracks appears around my eyes the moment I reinforced them.
I allowed my hands to slip back into the pockets of my pants with a small, excited grin "I have some time to kill so I can play around with you a bit, come on show me what you can do."
The man tossed more knives at me all of which I calmly dodged.
Seeing this the figure came up close to do a round house I leaned out of the way with a hand placed behind my head
"Tch, you're fast," I said, "but so sloppy."
My right leg shot up smashing into his ribs mid-spin.
The skull faced man was sent flying back like a ragdoll, crashing through a pile of burning debris with a strangled grunt.
He wheezed stumbling out of the smoke with his black cloak torn, revealing that grotesque mutated left arm more clearly.
It twitched and flexed like it had a will of its own.
"How!" he spat blood flecking the edge of his mask "a normal human shouldn't be able to keep up with a heroic spirit!"
I rolled my neck cracking the vertebra with a calm shrug "hmm? Me keep up with you? Sorry but it's not that I can keep up with you but rather a fact of you not being able to keep up with me," I explained with a calm shrug.
"Tch! Let's see how you handle this then...ZABANIYA!" the cloaked figure's giant arm stretched out towards where my heart was.
I grasped said offending appendage that was damn near close to touching my heart "what were you hoping to achieve with this thing?" disgust was visible on my face "Cleave," I calmly said.
The arm that didn't explode or even make a sound.
It was just split in half and cleanly off the shoulder.
the chunk of flesh hit the ground with a wet, heavy thud writhing like a serpent.
The skull-faced assassin howled in agony stumbling back, clutching the stump with his remaining hand. His mask cracked slightly as veins bulged around his eye sockets, madness and disbelief bleeding through.
"Impossible... my noble phan-" whatever mad ramblings he was going to say were interrupted by me appearing in front of him and grabbing his face.
I lifted him in the air before slamming him hard into the ground leaving spider webbed cracks in the ground.
The skull faced man let out a choked gurgle of pain.
I walked around him hands back into my pockets "oi what's the matter? You're not finished already are you?" I asked bending over to look at the man with a mocking smile.
The man struggled trying to force himself up "there we go that's it! Ore Gambare, Gambare," I encouraged slamming my right reinforced foot into his skull which broke through the concrete.
The crunch beneath my heel was... satisfying.
The bastard's skull cratered into the cracked asphalt with a wet crunch his spasming body twitching once then going still.
I straightened brushing the imaginary dust from my purple jacket and casually rolled my shoulder "tch! Is that it? Man, I thought I'd get at least five minutes outta you," I grumbled placing a palm over where his chest was.
Whatever this guy was.
He wasn't an ordinary person or mage.
My innate sensing technique was picking up something malicious located in his heart
"Switch Open," I muttered the aria for my circuits.
Using the analysis spell a blueprint of its heart appeared in my mind's eye revealing the organ but also a thick chunk of mud warped around it.
My brow furrowed "what in the ever-living fuck is this?"
With a twitch of my hand I forcefully opened up the corpse's upper cavity with a thin Dismantle slice.
A pulse of putrid black sludge oozed out from the inside.
Thick.
Tar-like.
Bubbling.
Alive.
It reminded me of a cursed spirit or more specifically... of a mass of overlapping curses but this wasn't just a singular malediction.
It was a culmination of dozens, hundreds maybe.
Each drop of that writhing black ichor screamed with different malevolent signatures rage, envy, despair, and hate.
The stench of karmic backlash and spiritual degradation hit my nose like a hammer.
"How interesting," I muttered while analyzing it through the body instead of actually touching it.
"Contamination origin is unknown. Magical frequency unstable... negative alignment, cursed resonance confirmed...magical core signatures resemble tainted mana but this isn't natural. This was manufactured alchemically modified... no rather I should say this was conceptual corruption..." the words escaping from my mouth began to turn into a bit of a ramble.
"I do believe I've figured out this thing works each unit of this mud had three layers to it. First is a conceptual curse which was a denial of the target's existence a subtle rewriting of "I am" to "I am not." The second was an emotive curse which r amplified self-loathing and despair making the victim want to give up, corrupting their emotional resonance. Lastly a binding curse which warped around the soul's ecision-making process, hijacking it with compulsive hatred," my voice gained a tinge of excitement.
While I disliked the moonlit world at large, I still had my love for magic.
Yes I know the idiots at the Clocktower and Chaldea use the term magecraft but to me magic was magic. Doesn't matter how it was supposed to be learned or the kind of mindset you needed to have.
What I am currently looking at is a replicating curse web.
A virus made from thought and sin.
"So if that's how the main curses inside the mud work then it should be easy to remake into individual or combined spells," I stood back up scratching my head "but of course I'd need some subjects to try them out on-" right at that moment though the sound of someone screaming rang through my ears.
"That voice sounds familiar," I followed the sound until I came across two familiar females.
The Director and Mashu who was now dressed in leather and wielding a giant shield to bash up a bunch of skeletons.
"There you are Mashu!" I called out walking over to the duo.
Both of them turned to face me "ah Senpai I finally found you," Mashu said with relief in her voice.
"Seriously of all people it had to be this slacker who's contracted to you Mashu," the Director complained with irritation.
-end of chapter one-
The MC has the capabilities to enhance, improve spells once he studies the original spell in action.
Much like Sukuna who was able to enhance his own Dismantle and Megumi's Shikigami.