'Say what? You 're heading off to

China? '

The flabbergasted expression on Kinji 's face indicates that this is something that he had

not

expected at all. Beside him, Kirara 's sputtering is no better.

Which is fair. Shiki hadn 't expected this, either.

Overseas assignments ' aren 't

rare,

exactly. The formation of cursed spirits in this world isn 't a phenomenon that 's solely limited to any one single country. Wherever humans live, negative emotions will undoubtedly exist as well, simply as a natural byproduct of people going about their daily lives.

And when negative energies gather and coalesce together, they eventually condense into

curses.

There 's nothing that regular humans can do to combat the threat posed by powerful cursed spirits. Curses can only be properly exorcised through use of techniques powered by cursed energy, or cursed tools. Without either option, there 's no method of reaching a proper resolution '