I thought today would flow by just as ordinarily as any other day.
But. That expectation of mine shattered into pieces overnight.
"This doesn't make sense..."
I suddenly felt drowsy, so I simply closed my eyes and opened them. Before my eyes, a quiet village stretched out, and in my hand, I was holding some kind of Japanese sword.
And my face reflected in the blade was... the face of an old man who looked to be in his 70s or 80s, no matter how you looked at it.
But. This face was one I knew very well.
Takamura, the strongest in the world of the manga Sakamoto Days.
That's the name of the character I've possessed now.
To roughly explain what kind of person he is:
In a word, just as his title of 'world's strongest' suggests, he's simply an incredibly powerful person.
He slices through buildings with a single sword stroke, and against Gaku, a member of the Slur group with the strength to almost single-handedly annihilate the Killing Association's Kanto branch, he toyed with him without taking any damage whatsoever.
And in the latter part of the story, he fought against top-tier strong characters from the series, including the protagonist, overwhelming all of them and killing two.
Of course, in the end, his body is torn apart and he dies at the hands of a character named Kei Uzuki, who had formed Takamura's personality within him, but anyway, he showed more than enough before dying.
That roughly covers the explanation.
Possessing someone is a good thing, I guess. In reality, I was worn down by relationships, academic stress, and so on. At least here, I can live doing whatever I want to my heart's content.
Even if this were the Sakamoto Days world, I'm the strongest anyway, so anyone who comes to disturb my happy life, I can just kill them all, or if I want, I can just run away myself.
But the problem is, this isn't that place.
'What are those...'
While walking and thinking about this and that for a moment, before I knew it, there were monsters in front of me, so grotesque they were hard to describe, just sitting on the ground.
Soon, as soon as those monsters turned around and spotted me, they charged at me with incredible speed.
"W-wait!"
While I was flustered, the monsters started getting closer and closer to me.
At this rate, I'd die pathetically less than 5 minutes after possessing this body.
That's when it happened.
I don't know when I did it, but I had drawn my sword and was blocking the monsters' attacks with the scabbard.
It wasn't a defense I did on purpose. My body just moved automatically.
But. The monsters' strength was so great that the scabbard was gradually cracking.
"Ugh..."
If this continues, the sword will break.
I gave up on defending, lowered the scabbard, and immediately kicked the monsters away to create distance.
Even though I got a bit scratched up in the process, it didn't hinder my movement.
I succeeded in creating a gap of about 10 meters, but the monsters immediately started chasing after me again.
It was a dangerous situation, but ironically, now was the perfect moment to attempt an attack. Their bodies were perfectly overlapped, right now.
'Can I do it?'
I doubted whether I could actually pull off that incredible sword strike I'd only ever seen in the manga.
But now wasn't the time to worry about that.
I took a breath. And then, I prepared to draw and strike.
From the scabbard, drawing the sword takes about 0.5 seconds. And then.
Swish!
Along with the sound of cutting through the wind, a sword strike of immense power cleaved the monsters' bodies in half.
'...Did I really do that?'
It was such an absurdly powerful attack that I couldn't help but think that.
The aftermath of this single attack caused all the surrounding houses to collapse.
It was a real relief there were no people nearby.
Probably, no one on Earth would survive being hit by this.
I sheathed my sword and quickly got away from the scene.
But. I didn't know at the time.
That there was someone secretly watching this scene.
"Oh... Not bad at all."
"Lord Sukuna, it's been a while since you've given such an evaluation. You seem quite taken with him."
"No. I'm just a little interested."
The man called Sukuna said this with a sinister smile.
"Uraume. Bring Shinmukai and Hiten."
"Are you going to fight?"
"Yes. I'm curious... just how satisfying that guy can be for me."
The man known as the King of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna. And his sole close associate, Uraume.
They have begun to move.