Posting this because some dude on reddit asked me to. Don't expect much.

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My daily life in Paris was not one of hardship nor suffering, that of a peasant if you will, but one of royalty in all but name. I was actually a descendant of royalty as well, Andre Louis XVII (17) Mur.

Why was I called Louis XVII? Well… once upon a time my mother, Elodie, had gotten pregnant while not married. And…

AHEM!

I was the heir of the Mur clan, one of the three big clans in France. The other two being the Amour and Eau clans. which alone made me practically royalty, at least in the French Jujutsu Society (FJS). But I was also a descendant of the Bourbon dynasty. The one where, although it pains me to say it, the far too many Louis came from. Up to XVI (16) in fact. The last king of the Bourbon dynasty and of France, if we exclude the faux king Napoleon.

But back to the main topic of my monologue, my daily life of royalty was about to get quite the upheaval. Well, not really. But at least I would be doing something that needed me to get my hands dirty for the first time in… 4 years now? Back when I was 12 and doing 'dirty work' on the regular.

Now that I had finally persuaded the current Mur clan head, the… unique? woman, to let me do some good for the french people. But of course the clan made me be fully decked out in DCTs and a BEB. All of the highest quality taken directly from the clan vault.

Honestly… I think the amount of DCT I had on me would be better suited for more threatening tasks that the other clan members had to do. Not exterminating some barely Moderate cursed spirits.

Hm.. I have this sudden urge to explain the French cursed spirit grading system. Oh well! Due to all things jujutsu related being weaker outside of Japan, while everything in Japan is stronger, the grading system of Japan does not work for the rest of the world. So each country, confusingly, has made their own grading system.

And the French one is as follows. Weak (W) Moderate (M) Strong (S) and Top (T). With Top comparing to a semi-first grade. Special and 1st grades barely exist outside of Japan. With the whole world following the Japanese grading system for that. With T grade being even rarer than special grade. With Japan having three special grade sorcerers at the moment, and a population of about 120 million, that means about 40 million Japanese per one of them.

While everywhere else needed about 100 million for a single T grade. 20~ million for a S grade, and 2~ million for a M grade. With W grade being too numerous and unimportant to count. France being lucky and having two T grades. The head of the Mur clan, and the head of the Amour clan. With me being a potential T grade. Making France incredibly lucky.

Oh, and for all other things that have grades also follows said system… in France.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I boarded the Metro and sat down in the only open seat, near a man reading a newspaper. Barely glancing at me as I sat down, the man continued to read unperturbed.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and began to fiddle with it. 11:35 AM, November 20th, 2012. Nodding to myself, I tapped on an app on my phone and began to play some stupid mobile game.

After playing on my phone until 12:05 PM, I had arrived at my stop. Getting off of the metro, I began to walk towards an evacuated, due to some excuse, section of Paris. Here was where several cursed spirits of M grade had spawned. At least that is what Le Voyant (The seer) had seen. A no doubt deadly threat to the regular populace. In fact, a person had already died to them.

But posing no threat to me, an top tier S grade. Not to mention the DCTs and BEB I had on me. This would be très facile (easy peasy).

Eventually finding where Le Voyant had seen the M grade curses, I entered into the evacuated building with no hesitation.

"Sortez des ténèbres, plus noires que les ténèbres. Purifier ce qui est impur. (Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure)"

A curtain emerged from the ground around me, completely covering the entire evacuated neighborhood. Cracking my knuckles, I started to wander around the neighborhood searching for the cursed spirits.

And after a few minutes of idly searching, the curses came to me. A swarm of a dozen M grade centipede curses and rapidly approached their seemingly harmless prey. And, if I did not have even a W grade BEB and no DCTs they would be a very deadly threat with their numbers. But, I did have a BEB and DCTs. Smiling to myself I grabbed a pendant from my necklace and chanted for a brief moment.

"Protect, destroy, overlap."

This, was the activation incantation for my BEB, aka Body Enhancement Barrier. BEBs were created way back in the French Revolution as a method to oppose the then dominant Bourdon dynasty. The fifth most powerful dynasty in all of Europe at the time.

The Bourbon dynasty was greatly weakened at the time, after a long internal struggle for the right to rule France, the weakest emerged the winners as the rest died in a surprise attack by a long time enemy of the Bourbons.

And in that group of the weakest, nobody inherited either of the three inherited cursed techniques. So, Napoleon being an opportunistic general that he was, gathered the scattered jujutsu sorcerers and made them into a group.

La Résistance.

La Resistance was just about on the same level of the weakened Bourbon dynasty, but with the Bourbon dynasty's many allies it wouldn't be enough. Here was where Napoleon showed his Jujutsu genius.

Hearing of the tales of something called a 'Domain Expansion' from Japan and learning its details, he decided to make his own. But after many months and years of trying he failed. Not because he lacked talent, but because he was born without enough raw jujutsu ability.

But Napoleon didn't give up. He decided that, if he couldn't do it all at once he would do it one step at a time. Contacting the members of La Resistance, he gathered them together. Telling them his plan, they brainstormed tirelessly for days and nights until someone had a eureka.

They had figured out how anyone could use a domain expansion. Domain Creation Tool(s) were just that. By putting a barrier in a small, usually worn object and then infusing it with a cursed technique, a Domain Expansion could be achieved.

Using this revolutionary (pun intended) tool, Napoleon and La Resistance managed to storm the Bourbon castle in one day. His GREATEST military achievement.

But where did BEBs fit into this? Well during the Napoleonic wars, he was outnumbered severely. So, taking inspiration from his own work, he decided to go with quality over quantity. Thus creating BEBs, a way to make his already elite task force even more elite.

And now, here I was using a T grade BEB, as already an S grade, on a bunch of M grade curses. Exactly as Napoleon would have wanted it. Except maybe replace the curses with a bunch of Russians.

One of the centipedes lunged at me at a speed no regular human could dodge if unprepared, luckily I was no regular human. In fact, the centipede's lunge looked more like a slow motion dive when the protagonist gets exploded.

Grabbing the centipede's face tightly, I swung it around at the other 11 centipedes. The centipede in my hands smashed into the others at an immense pace, destroying five of them in an instant. Including the one in my hands.

Shaking my hands of the rapidly disintegrating curse blood, I meandered over to the 7 injured M grade curses. Taking a deep breath, I opened my mouth wide and…

I bit into the closest M grade curse. Swallowing a mouthful of curse flesh, I continued to ravenously eat into the centipede until it was all gone. Rapidly moving to the next curse, I repeated the process until all of them were gone.

'Tasty'.

Licking my lips and then my fingers, I eventually stood up. Why did I eat curses? Not only because they were tasty, but because of the one of three inherited techniques of the Bourbon clan.

Gluttony. The technique that single handedly rose the Bourbons up from the ground and into greatness. While their two other cursed techniques only helped minorly.

Gluttony is a support type cursed technique that allows the user to eat cursed energy and store it. Once stored, the cursed energy can do two things. Be used by the user, or be given to another person.

With the first option, the user could either use Gluttony like a backup reserve or expel it directly through their mouth in a destructive beam of cursed energy. And the second option was just as I said. Simply giving cursed energy to others.

Now Gluttony may sound slightly powerful, but certainly not enough to make a dynasty the fifth ranked in a whole continent. Right? A whole continent was far too vast for such a simple technique to take over, right?

Wrong.

The main reason sorcerers in Japan were so much more powerful was because their raw amount of cursed energy was leaps and bounds higher. Additionally, the rate of civilians getting cursed techniques were much higher.

And the Japanese pinnacle technique was one of, if not, the most powerful pinnacle technique. Domain Expansions were no joke. And the reason everyone and their moms weren't chasing after their own Domain Expansions?

Because it was far too costly for 99% of sorcerers in Japan, let alone outside of Japan where everything was weaker. In fact, most of history altered because of the Japanese barriers. Damn the Japanese. Ever wonder how they beat back Russia and all colonization attempt? Even the Mongol empire?

Because of their damn sorcerers.

Shaking myself out of my blatant racism that most of the Jujutsu world shared, I began to think about Gluttony again.

Gluttony converted curse energy absorbed at about 50~ efficiency. Meaning if I eat a M grade curse, I would get 50% of its energy. And the storage had no limit. So basically, every Gluttony user was a walking nuclear bomb. And that wasn't an exaggeration.

You could see how Gluttony would remove the lack of raw jujutsu ability from the non-Japanese sorcerer's list of weaknesses. So basically every Gluttony user could use Domain Expansion with enough time, talent, and training. And even if they lacked the talent, who is to say their allies won't?

The Bourbon clan was allied with all of the top ten dynasties for this very reason. You are fighting a war, and you need more firepower to win it? Well, if you are talented enough we can basically give you a Domain Expansion.

A war fought with a user of Domain Expansion was completely different than ine without. That single person could change the tides of a war.

And that - Is why all the Bourbons were killed. It wasn't some rouge sorcerers that killed the entirety of the Bourbon clan. But all their allies. But now that another user of Gluttony has appeared?

Europe will face the might of TRUE Domain Expansions again. Not the faulty ones created by DCTs. The last Domain Expansion used in Europe was way back in WW2, Hitler himself using it. When Berlin was being taken by the join forces of the Soviet Union and USA, Hitler made a dying binding vow. Giving him enough strength to fight off the many T class and below jujutsu sorcerers. Until eventually his time ran out and we made a cover story of him killing himself.

That feat of a single Domain Expansion managing to kill several T grades while holding off the entirety of Europe's population of S and above grade sorcerers showed their immense power.

And that is why the moment it was revealed I had Gluttony AND barrier manipulation, it wasn't even a question if I should be heir. Disregarding all previous FJS politics. And even European Jujutsu Society (EJS) politics.