Chapter 146
In the end, Kiriya accepted the lunch Syr had made for him.
Since the Goddess of Beauty wanted to keep playing this little game of hers, he saw no harm in playing along.
Because the cheerful tavern maid known as Syr Flover was, in truth, Freya—the Goddess of Beauty and the head of one of the strongest Familias in Orario.
Freya’s charm was so overwhelming that she usually avoided appearing in public.
If she walked freely through the city as herself, there was every chance she would send half of Orario into chaos.
But as the goddess who ruled over love and beauty, Freya had never been content to remain trapped at the top of Babel forever.
She longed for heroes.
More than that, she longed for brilliant souls.
Watching them struggle, grow, and slowly reveal their true beauty was one of her greatest pleasures.
The problem was finding a way to experience the lower world without causing a disaster every time she stepped outside.
Then, by chance, she met a young girl named Syr Flover.
From that moment on, both of their lives changed.
After offering the name "Syr Flover" to Freya and taking the new name Horn for herself, the girl awakened a unique transformation magic—Vana Seith.
It allowed Horn to take on Freya’s appearance perfectly.
Her face, voice, and presence became indistinguishable from the goddess herself.
The only thing she could not reproduce was Freya’s divine charm.
Other than that, she might as well have been Freya in the flesh.
The transformation was so complete that even another god standing directly in front of her would struggle to tell the difference.
It was nothing short of a miracle.
With that arrangement in place, Horn could assume Freya’s identity and remain at the Familia’s headquarters, while the real Freya lived under the name Syr Flover and worked at the Hostess of Fertility.
There, she became the tavern’s beloved waitress while quietly searching for souls that caught her eye.
As for whether Horn might ever betray her, Freya had no concern at all.
She held complete authority over the connection between them.
With a thought, she could link herself to Horn and act through the other body whenever she wished.
So the girl who had offered Kiriya that lunch was no ordinary human maid.
She was Freya herself.
After watching him from afar for so long, the Goddess of Beauty had finally lost patience. She wanted to step closer and become part of his life.
In the past, Kiriya would have treated that as an enormous threat.
One careless mistake could have left him helplessly charmed, reduced to another simp willing to abandon everything for her.
Now, however, things were different.
With Mirror Calm protecting his mind, his confidence had risen considerably.
Even if Freya eventually abandoned subtlety and tried to charm him by force, he was no longer defenseless.
And if he truly could not win, he could always take Hestia and leave this world.
He could grow stronger somewhere else, then return when he was ready to settle the score.
For now, though, there was no reason to make an enemy of Freya while they were still getting along.
His real priority was becoming stronger.
If he had the power of a Six Paths-level shinobi in his normal state—no, even Madara’s strength before becoming the Ten-Tails’ jinchūriki—he doubted there was a single adventurer in Orario who would dare raise their voice at him.
Which meant his Sharingan could not remain stuck at two tomoe forever.
The Mangekyō Sharingan.
The Eternal Mangekyō.
And eventually, the Rinnegan!
Those were the heights Kiriya intended to reach.
"Sharingan... I really hope that world has what you need to evolve."
Kiriya murmured to himself as he looked up at Babel towering into the clouds, then stepped inside.
He traveled through the Dungeon until he reached the 30th Floor.
After confirming that no one had followed him, he activated his world-travel ability.
...
When his vision cleared, Kiriya found himself standing on the rooftop of a building.
He looked around.
Below him were a football field, a running track, and several school facilities.
In the distance, one of the buildings was clearly marked as a classroom block.
There was little doubt about where he had arrived.
A school.
"So this is the world of Jujutsu Kaisen."
Kiriya looked up at the blue sky and listened to the distant noise of traffic. Car horns, engines, and the faint smell of exhaust filled the air.
For a moment, nostalgia crossed his face.
Before his transmigration, he had lived in a modern world much like this one.
Unfortunately, he could never return.
His system could only take him to worlds connected to fictional stories. His original home was not among them.
The melancholy passed quickly.
Kiriya had not come here to dwell on the past.
He activated Energy Perception.
Almost immediately, he sensed several large figures appearing on the rooftop and slowly moving toward him.
"Hm?"
Kiriya widened his eyes.
His senses clearly told him there were several hulking creatures nearby, each close to two meters tall.
Yet the rooftop looked completely empty.
"So without cursed energy, I can’t normally see cursed spirits?"
He considered that for a moment, then activated his Sharingan.
The world sharpened instantly.
The approaching creatures appeared clearly in his blood-red eyes.
Several pale humanoid things were shambling across the rooftop. Each had two arms, two legs, and a single enormous eye for a head.
Thick stitched seams ran down the front of their bodies from the neck to the waist, making them look like pale carcasses that had been cut open and crudely sewn back together.
Kiriya stared at them with open disgust.
"Wow. You’re impressively ugly!"
But beneath that disgust, excitement flashed in his eyes.
The moment his Sharingan saw the cursed spirits, it sent him a clear signal.
Hunger.
It was like a traveler dying of thirst suddenly spotting a clear spring in the desert.
Like a starving man standing before a feast.
His eyes wanted to consume them!
While Kiriya was still absorbing that discovery, the cursed spirits tore open the stitched seams along their bodies
Thick red tongues, each wider than his thigh, slithered out.
"Come inside..."
"Come inside..."
Their voices were broken and slurred.
Their slow walk became a jog, then a full sprint as they charged toward him.
"Perfect! Let’s see whether you’re really the meal my eyes seem to think you are."
Kiriya coated both hands in chakra.
"Assuming chakra can exorcise you in the first place."
He slipped easily past the first cursed spirit’s attack and drove a fist into its body.
Boom!
The force exploded from within.
Most of the cursed spirit’s body burst apart instantly.
What remained could no longer hold enough cursed energy to regenerate, and it soon collapsed into smoke before fading away.
Kiriya’s eyes lit up.
"So chakra works!"
His theory had been correct.
"Now then... what happens next?"
He stood still and waited.
Through the Sharingan, he could see traces of cursed energy drifting through the air like black dust.
Among those remnants floated something different.
A tiny strand of blue energy, fine as a thread of hair.
It was clear and pure, like freshly melted snow from a mountain spring.
The hunger from his Sharingan grew much stronger.
Kiriya no longer hesitated.
Following his instincts, he reached toward the blue light.
The instant his fingertip touched it, the energy reacted.
It shot toward his face as though pulled by an invisible force and vanished directly into his blood-red eye.