Katsuo's five now.

The past years have been very peaceful, except for the occasional NB extermination and the teaching of children that he meets at the playground, that think that they are better than others, just because they are a little bigger, about life and the consequences of one's actions.

Katsuo doesn't know why but watching anybody inflict pain on others, because of trivial reasons or sometimes without reason at all fills him with a wave of righteous anger that can only be extinguished by making them understand by reason or by pain, the latter being the more common introduction followed by a combo of reason, that it's not alright to do that and tried to steer them back to the right path, of course, he knows that sometimes it's not entirely their fault, so he tries to be reasonable and understand why they are like that before teaching them a lesson.

Well, saying he totally doesn't know where it's coming from it's a lie, he knew that in his previous life he felt the same, but back then he didn't have the power nor the confidence that he has now, currently, he's not even afraid of bullets, but he knows that this kind of thinking can be poisonous in his interactions with normal people, so he tries to not use his powers on them unless it's absolutely necessary.

Besides that, his family was doing well and his parents are considering making a sibling for him, he was alright either way, after all, it's their decision, but he secretly wanted to experience being a big brother, seeing that he was an only child in the past.

The biggest changes in the past years were within him. He felt something incubating inside him and the more familiar he was with NE, the more obvious it was, and, a little while ago, it completely awakened, and when it did he was astounded, it was something like a program that autonomously controls NE in a highly complex way and outputs a miraculous effect.

When it first awakened, he was struck dumb, he felt like he received a powerful superpower out of nowhere and while he was probing it he noticed that he instinctively knew its name and usage conditions.

Its name was [Cursed Pill Creation], it had to be activated by pressing both hands in something with cursed energy, it couldn't be applied to something with more cursed energy than the user or failed when applied to something that resisted the technique to the point of breaking through it.

He noted that the energy he called NE, was actually called cursed energy, so probably, NB, were in fact, cursed beings.

He felt this setting very familiar, and as soon he tried to remember where this feeling was coming from, he remembered one of the anime he used to watch, but it was nothing conclusive, he remembered reading novels with similar settings, so unless he had conclusive proof, he wouldn't readily admit to something but he put this thought in the back of his mind and turned back to the technique.

He was very eager to test it.

Katsuo closed his eyes, carefully sensed his surroundings, and as if he caught something in his senses, he opened his bedroom window, put his hand together to carefully mold the CE that appeared between his hands.

After a while, it took the shape of a rope with a pinky's thickness coming out of his palm, and as soon it was formed its end flew out of the window and three seconds later, it was sucked back into his palm, returning with a bucket-sized cursed being firmly tied up, this cursed being was ball-shaped with eight tiny legs and eyes all over its back. It struggled while making grotesque sounds.

These past years he noticed that as these beings grew, they become more evil and dangerous but still as dumb as a rock, so, sometimes, he actively hunted the ones around his house. He once killed a lizard-like one the size of a motorbike. In their fight, if it could even be called one, this being stalked him, jumped at him with his open mouth as if to swallowing him in one bite, cracking the concrete beneath his limbs, before being sliced horizontally, by a hand wrapped in knife-like cursed energy. To him it was easy but to other people, it would be deadly.

Katsuo thought that if they grew unchecked, they could actually become a menace to society, but society was still peaceful, so he concluded, even though he was not completely sure, that there must be an organization that hunted them, and they probably had the same powers as his, as until now, only CE had a lethal effect on them.

He caught the ugly creature in his hand and tested his technique on it, he, for the reasons stated above, had no qualms about using CBs as lab rats.

He watched as his CE surrounded and entered the creature, and while it shrieked, most likely, in pain, it was slowly compressed and turned into finger nail sized grey orb and as it lay silently on his right palm, he instinctively knew its effects.

[Grade 4 Pill: Recovers a certain amount of cursed energy]

He carefully sensed the pill and seeing nothing wrong with it he popped it in his mouth, and his cursed energy was, in a few seconds, almost completely refilled.

Katsuo was so excited about its effects that it filled him with scientific spirit, and he spent the next days fishing for cursed creatures and turning them into pills.

The pills were almost all grade four and had a variety of effects: temporary increase in a physical attribute, stamina and CE recovery, minor wound healing (these ones had white color).

The only grade three he had was from using his technique in a table-sized CB, it was very hard to restrain and even harder to turn it into a pill, it took three attempts. It resisted the first two times but was too tired to resist the third and resulted in a darker than a normal pill with the following effect.

[Grade 3 Pill: Small permanent increase in reaction speed. Limit: 3 uses]

He consumed it and felt cursed energy spread through his body before feeling a tingling all over it, it's effects weren't very obvious, but his abrupt movements were more swift than before.

Knowing this, he made a few conclusions: first, his Cursed Pill Creation is very cool and powerful, but it has limits, it operates based on the quality of the CB turned into a pill, the stronger the CB, the higher the grade of the pill, the higher the grade, the better are the effects, certain pills have limits in use, it may be because of the ones using them, meaning, if the ones that consume the pill are too good, the pill won't have an effect on them, or it may have to do with intrinsic consumption limits of the pills, which Katsuo doubts it is, but he doesn't have enough info to conclude it yet, and the more important conclusion is that the most powerful CB he faced until now was only a grade three, what about those of higher grades? Does he have enough power to fight them?

'Probably not'

So his objective in the near future should be to double or even triple his efforts in getting stronger because one never knows when it will be needed.

" Kat-chan, your father and I will give you a present in 9 months!!"

"A baby sibling?"

"Kyaa, how do you know? My baby is so precocious"

Said Katsuo's mother while cupping her cheeks and tucking her knees in embarrassment.

'Too much information'

Thought Katsuo, while turning away from his mother.