Chapter 211

With Kenjaku's groundwork nearly finished and the Culling Game colonies lighting up one by one, Maki carries grim word about Tengen and Yuki to the rest of the group. They turn their attention to saving Tsumiki Fushiguro, unaware that their misfortune stretches further than any of them suspect.

As the colonies activate in turn and the pre-merger setup concludes, a handful of civilians sense something shifting around them while everyone else notices nothing at all. At noon on November 16th, Maki links up with Yuji and Megumi and reports, with unsettling calm, that Kenjaku has beaten Yuki and Choso and seized Tengen. Megumi is struck by how much Maki has changed in only a few days. No one can pin down why the merger has stalled, though the Angel suspects sorcerers resist it through cursed energy, and Maki notes that affected civilians have already made the news. Setting that aside, the group funnels all of its points to Megumi to focus on Tsumiki.

Kogane shoots down a no-cost exit rule and a substitution rule, but proposes a loophole: a player can depart by spending one hundred points to call in a replacement. Megumi reluctantly accepts and formally enacts the eleventh rule, then asks Maki to escort Tsumiki inside. Transferring points to her from outside is too risky, he explains, since skipping the participation declaration could violate the rules and cursed technique removal might kill her on the spot. At 3 P.M. Tsumiki is escorted in by Maki and Ijichi, the latter steady in his choice to become a player and reflecting that Gojo's blunt order long ago to abandon sorcery probably saved his life. Tsumiki strolls right up to Yuji and Megumi for introductions. Megumi hands her one hundred points and tells her to leave the game; instead, she instructs Kogane to add a rule opening free travel between colonies. Floored, Megumi demands to know the imposter's true identity.

Part of the Culling Game arc and collected in Volume 24, the chapter delivers the aftermath of Tengen's capture and puts Megumi's rule manipulation through Kogane on display. A large cast gathers in the colony, and the cliffhanger exposes Tsumiki as an imposter. A piece of trivia points out that the man shown on page two is the same waiter who walked away from his job back in Chapter 12.