Chapter 174

Yuta has already turned heads across the Culling Game, and slaying Dhruv Lakdawalla to shield a band of survivors only sharpens that reputation. The same act, however, stirs an unsettling threat that had been waiting in the wings.

From a distance, Uro and Ryu register that Dhruv has fallen and his roaming shikigami are fading. Each checks through their Kogane and learns Yuta is the culprit; Ryu admits he only slipped close to Dhruv because the man was busy with the newcomer. Both veterans grasp that with Dhruv gone, Kurourushi will surface next, which delights Ryu and irritates Uro. Yuta, meanwhile, gathers his civilians and means to march them north toward the barrier's edge, but a struggling mother and child change his plan, so he ushers everyone into the stadium that had served as Dhruv's base. A loud buzzing cuts him off, and a swarm of insects comes tearing through the streets.

Yuta snatches a fleeing man and leaps clear, yet the bugs strip the civilian's body before he can pull free, revealing they are real cockroaches charged with cursed energy. When the swarm wheels toward the others, Yuta calls out Rika, who shatters a bridge to crush and redirect it, then he pours cursed energy into his katana and erases the entire mass with one enormous shockwave. Watching, Ryu rates Yuta's output as ordinary but his total reserves as staggering, while Uro just finds the roaches revolting.

The chapter details Kurourushi as a special grade cockroach curse that stayed dormant because it matched poorly against Dhruv; freed by his death, the starving curse craves iron-rich flesh, and feeding fuels its parthenogenesis, driving it straight at Yuta. Pondering the colony, Yuta reasons that finite resources will eventually force a rule permitting movement between barriers, so his side needs a way to communicate and travel while keeping dangerous players penned in, adding two concerns to the rules Megumi already raised with Tengen, four in total. Unwilling to repeat Shibuya's toll or see his teacher kill his best friend again, Yuta vows to slay Kenjaku and gather four hundred points himself, just as Kurourushi unveils the Festering Life Sword, a cursed tool that blends life and death. Akutami's note apologizes for recommending an artist without checking the news first.