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HEAVY OBJECT:Volume9 Chapter 2

2015-09-06T19:23:43Z

91.117.172.159:

==Chapter 2: Guardian Deity of Talent >> Mountain Battle of Lost Angels==

===Part 1===

Long story short, they were back in the run-down Lost Angels motel.

Drawing a board game on the back of some paper seemed like a good idea at the time, but Quenser and Heivia began arguing over whether the paper die was warped or unfair and they ended up in a light scuffle.

Of course, Lost Angels had enough entertainment to last a lifetime (however short that might be), but…

“Oh, screw this! My stress just keeps building up and I don’t feel like heading out for some fun when there are criminals and spies everywhere.”

“This is still better than a Capitalist Corporations safe country. They have constant shootouts between ‘talent trafficking’ kidnappers and school PMCs.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t know? You can make a lot of money selling genius kids to corporations, so there are organizations that specialize in going after elementary and middle school kids. That’s why their school buses are bulletproof and are escorted by armored trucks armed with machineguns. The kidnappers use attack helicopters to go after them from the air. Makes you wonder how that can be called a ‘safe’ country.”

“And the big companies buy the abducted kids!?”

“With DNA tests, you won’t get a 100% match even with a sample from the same person. And when there’s even a 0.1% margin of error, it’s a job for the corporate lawyers. Even if the parents sue them and bring in pictures and hair samples, the lawyers will twist the truth with their words. They’ll make it so the kid is someone else who ‘just so happens to look a lot like them’.”

“Wow.”

“Of course, it helps that the big companies that control the judicial system and administration are the ones doing this. You’ve probably heard how the Capitalist Corporations very nearly completed a long-term civilian space travel project, but there’s talk that those kids were a part of it. Naturally, just like with the moon landing way back when, there are conspiracy theories that it was all a fake to frighten the other world powers. At any rate, the number of geniuses on their payroll is directly related to the technological power of a corporation, so that market isn’t going away anytime soon. It sure is scary to think about.”

That was when the door cracked open and Millia Newburg of the intelligence division entered with a smile.

“Hi there, everyone. I have a new member to introduce! C’mon in, transfer student!!”

“What? Did some idiot get drunk, pull off an officer’s toupee, and get demoted or something?” asked Heivia while removing his hand from his awful friend’s collar.

But Millia shook her head.

“In a way, this is even more interesting. Heh heh. C’mon already! We’re going to be roommates, so don’t be so shy!!”

She tugged on an arm and pulled someone into the dimly-lit motel room.

“…Wait,” said Quenser in a scratchy voice.

It was a brown-skinned girl with her long black hair tied back. From neck to toes, she was covered in a special skintight fabric. That green outfit with a nurse-like silhouette was most likely the same kind of Pilot Elite special suit that the Princess normally wore.

Green was the color the Faith Organization liked to use and Quenser only knew of one Elite who had recently been forced to leave the Object that was like a part of her own body.

“Tah dah!! It’s Putana Highball who piloted the Collective Farming! After we released her, she was placed against the wall and about to be shot for her failure, so I attacked and collected her because it sounded like fun!!”

“I-I’ll kill you!! I’ll slaughter every last one of you who took the Sarasvati, the Faith Organization, and everything from me!! Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!”

When he saw the disgrace of a former Elite starting to struggle and being restrained, Quenser Barbotage grew somewhat blue.

If something happened, he would of course be the first she killed.

“But she’s cute, so who cares!!”

“You’re pretty sinful yourself, you know that, Quenser?”

===Part 2===

However…

“Our job today is in the northern mountains. You each need to secure your own transportation and hurry there. Oh, and Quenser! Putana may be from the city, but I doubt she’s left the Faith Organization base much. Show her around Lost Angels while also teaching her our way of doing things. Teaching the newbies is a job for the old newbie. Heivia did the same for you, remember? Have fun☆”

“ ‘Teacher’, if you’re going to show me the way around Lost Angels, I’d like you to show me a lot more ‘shortcuts’ and ‘back streets’!!”

“Noooooo!! I’d always wanted a girl to invite me into an empty back alley, but not like thiiiiissssssssssssss!!”

In a supermarket parking lot near the run-down motel, Quenser screamed like a girl stopped by an old man wearing nothing but a trench coat.

The city of Lost Angels was as insane as ever. A nearby store was blown up, black smoke rose into the blue sky, and a '''Pizza Deliveryman''' ignored it while riding his scooter down the road.

“By the way, teacher, I have a question.”

“Wh-what is it?”

“Who was it that thought up the plan to steal my Sarasvati? From what I’ve overhead, it was an idea suggested by a normal soldier.”

“Ha…ha ha ha ha ha!! I-I have no idea what you’re talking about. That was a plan to steal a Second Generation Object, right? To think up that, you’d have to be a sexy genius from some new breed of human!!”

“Mhh… Come to think of it, you’re right. A normal person like you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Anyway, they were not out here to pick up some food.

A clattering sound made it clear Quenser was in the process of stealing a light off-road motorcycle.

“If I connect this…to this… Wow, Heivia was right! It actually started up! I can’t believe it. How cheap is this thing!?”

“No matter how complicated they make it, it’ll still get stolen, so I doubt anyone tries that hard. That motorcycle was probably stolen from another parking lot.

Starting up the engine was one thing, but Quenser could not drive a motorcycle.

After seeing a macho man quickly running over from a store with a handgun at the ready, Putana Highball hopped onto the seat and Quenser clung to her back. She must have made a mistake operating the clutch because the off-road two-wheel vehicle hopped up in a flashy wheelie.

This was a common sight in Lost Angels.

Dry gunshots rang out behind them.

“I see,” said Putana. “So this is why they call it the city of corruption.”

“Eh? What was that!? I can’t hear you over the wind!”

“Lost Angels is a part of the Faith Organization, but it doesn’t look like it, does it? Rumor has it it was a giant experiment to see what happened to people after they lost their faith. …And it’s making my skin crawl, so don’t cling to me like that, teacher.”

“Buhahhh.”

“Why are you sniffing at me so obviously right after I warned you!?”

“Nothing you say will change the fact that I’m in a good position here. So no matter how much you’ll hit me later, I’m gonna do it! Oh, your body is so soft and warm. Girls are the best!!”

That was when Millia Newburg’s familiar voice came in over the radio.

“Hey, there! Looks like you’re going at it already, so I’m glad to see you’re making progress with her training.”

With a deep roar of an engine, a motorcycle pulled up alongside theirs. Millia was driving, Heivia sat behind her with his arms around her waist, and neither of them was wearing a helmet. They had clearly had a rough ride because Quenser’s horrible friend was completely pale and did not seem able to enjoy the warmth of his beautiful commanding officer. He was clinging to her for dear life.

To prevent the wind from drowning her out, Millia was speaking through the radio despite how close they were.

“This is a good opportunity. How about we have a race to our destination in the northern mountains? We both have a guy loaded on the back, so the conditions seem fair to me. Think of it like a welcome party to get to know each other.”

“Your bike is the large kind used in professional races. I can’t hope to match those specs.”

“Finding the best ride is part of the challenge here in Lost Angels. Or are you afraid that a great Elite is going to lose to a normal soldier in a vehicle race because of a slight handicap like that?”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………”

“Oh, no!” shouted Quenser. “I think this Elite had too sheltered an upbringing to know when someone’s provoking her!”

The two motorcycles stopped side by side in front of a lowered railroad crossing barrier.

As a rusty freight train slowly passed by, Millia gave a simple explanation of the rules.

“The goal is our original destination and you can choose whatever route you like. The witnesses can be the luggage we have sitting behind us. Any other local rules necessary?”

“Only that we ban gunfire and running each other off the road.”

“Hah hah! Sounds like you’ve figured out how this city works!”

[[Image:HO_v09_091.jpg|thumb]]

The final car of the freight train passed by, a bell sounded like the clattering of an empty can, and the barrier lifted.

Intense acceleration immediately pressed in on Quenser and Heivia’s guts.

The scenery flew by and a blast of wind struck their entire bodies. The two motorcycles passed some cars waiting at a light, did not hesitate to drive right out into the traffic flowing like a river through the intersection, took a sharp curve, and started down the major road. Once again, the world was wasting all sorts of energy and the hands of the World Clock were moving ever faster.

“Abah. Abababababababah!?”

“Teacher, not so loud.”

Despite Putana’s casual tone, Quenser did not have it in him. If not for his overflowing passion for enjoying this girl’s body temperature for as long as possible, he would almost certainly have been thrown off already.

At first, Putana fell behind due to her inferior engine. She kept her position about ten meters behind Millia Newburg and used her superior off-road ability to switch between lanes and take the shortest route, even if by only a meter or ten centimeters. The way she took the inside of every turn to the point of just about hitting things was taking years from the lifespan of Quenser’s heart, so the World Clock was now the least of his worries.

An old man who had apparently been stripped of everything he owned was sitting in a daze on the roadside. He only wore underwear and the luxury car next to him had all of its bulletproof glass broken. Quenser was pretty sure he was the '''Jeweler''' famous for laundering, but from now on, he would have his hands full finding a cardboard box to sleep in.

Millia’s voice arrived over the radio again.

“How about we kill some time by reviewing the mission?”

“…!!”

Suggesting that in her spare time seemed to have stoked Putana’s competitive spirit.

The brown girl violently twisted the throttle lever and Quenser’s scream rose in pitch.

Up ahead, Millia moved into the opposing traffic to get around a slow-moving truck and she spoke calmly with cars zooming by on either side.

“Our job today is to support the 37th Mobile Maintenance Battalion. Specifically, we’re going to be supporting their Object, the Baby Magnum.”

“The Princess’s?”

“The northern mountains are considered a part of Lost Angels, but the other side of the mountains doesn’t fall into the safe country category. A battlefield country juts sharply in there and there’s someone there just asking for a nice heavy punch.”

While ignoring three lights in a row, Putana continued pursuit, but she was not closing in any.

More than just the difference in engine specs, Millia was a skilled driver.

“Our opponent is a Second Generation Faith Organization Object named the Flyaway.”

“Because it’s frivolous?”

“The name does have a meaning, but not in a good way. That’s why they want the Princess to blow it to smithereens.”

Putana’s control of the handlebars grew a little stiff when she heard the Faith Organization mentioned.

The distance between them opened up, even if by only a few meters.

Millia Newburg passed by a few cars as if shaking her butt in Putana’s direction.

“The simplest way to explain its fighting style is ‘always flee’. As soon as things get dangerous, it releases its main cannon and uses the reduction in weight to escape the battlefield.”

“Its main cannon? But isn’t that full of military secrets?”

“That’s why the main cannon is like a beehive made of large containers. It’s got a ton of large-capacity batteries and bug legs, so it can run around on its own for a bit even after being abandoned. It can’t fire without the reactor, but it can regroup with the Object or be picked up after escaping the battlefield. And if you try to stop it by firing on it, it’ll melt like candy. Either way, you lose your chance to get those secrets.”

“Another pain in the ass…”

“Agreed. The information we’ve gathered says it uses its beehive-like coilgun to scatter eighty percent of its ammunition in the first five seconds, abandons that main cannon, and uses it as a diversion to escape. And if it’s about to be caught, it won’t hesitate to send out the White Flag signal. …It uses that combination of surprise attack and retreat for months at a time while waiting for its enemy to be worn down.”

In an age where clashes between nuke-resistant Objects had become daily topics of conversation, the six or seven billion people on earth had not gone extinct due to a few ridiculous implicit understandings about the battlefield. The White Flag signal was one of those. If one of the Objects was destroyed or unable to continue fighting, that signal would be sent out to avoid a slaughter of the people in the undefended maintenance base.

However…

“The White Flag is supposed to be for emergencies, so if they keep using it like that…”

“Yes. They’ll create a situation where people are so fed up with it that they ignore it. This one idiot could easily ruin one of the rules of the battlefield. That’s why we have to settle this before it happens.”

There were a few different ways to do that.

1. Destroy it with a single attack before it could use the White Flag.

2. Obstruct its propulsion device so it could not escape after abandoning its main cannon.

3. Somehow prevent it from transmitting the White Flag.

Of course, if they could pull off #1 with no real preparation, this enemy would not have been a problem in the first place.

[[Image:HO_v09_096.jpg|thumb]]

“The battlefield is in the treacherous mountains I mentioned before and that’s where the Flyaway works best. It uses its eight legs with a static electricity propulsion device, so it almost seems to slide up slopes as steep as sixty-five degrees. If it wanted to, it could slip back and forth between this side and that side of the mountains.”

The Princess used a multi-role First Generation Object, so it was designed to work just as well in a desert or the Antarctic Ocean. However, that meant it did not specialize in any one environment, so she would be slower than the Flyaway on a mountain slope.

“To put it another way, would the Princess be able to take it out if its legs were dealt with?”

“I’m glad you catch on so quickly. No matter how special its design is, the Flyaway still uses static electricity to float. If we do something to the ground below its feet, we can still interfere with its movement.”

Lost Angels was a city of two million, but as they traveled north, the buildings gradually grew shorter and a wasteland covered in fine, orange sand grew more obvious. Looking down the path of tall metal towers carrying high-voltage lines brought a wall of treacherous mountains into view.

Those were the northern mountains.

The tallest of them was not even two thousand meters and there was no hint of snow.

Instead, a hydroelectric power station and a ropeway were visible on the slope even from the distance.

“We don’t need any mountain climbing equipment. There’s an observatory on the peak, so you can get up by winding road or by cable car. We can easily take our bikes up to the top, so don’t worry.”

“A winding road? So a series of hairpin curves? …That means I still have a chance!!”

Millia likely understood that as well, but she still needlessly opened up the throttle and produced an explosive backfire to provoke the new girl.

But all of a sudden, the mountains up ahead shook.

A great cloud of dust blew down from the mountains and there was nothing the puny humans could do even though they saw the wall approaching.

Their vision narrowed considerably like they were caught in a sandstorm, the bright sunlight itself was cut off, and the area grew as dark as dusk.

A stinging pain ran across their cheeks. They had no helmet visor or goggles to protect them, but they continued the race. After switching on the headlights, Putana opened the throttle despite the limited visibility.

“Ugh. Peh, peh!! What just happened!?”

“Damn, that was sooner than predicted. This must be what they call an unexpected turn of events. It looks like the Princess has run into the Flyaway!!”

===Part 3===

“…”

The Princess took shallow breaths inside the Baby Magnum’s cockpit.

Beads of sweat trailed down her relatively unexpressive face.

The alarms sounded quite distant.

She could hear someone’s voice in her ear, but it took her a while to comprehend the words.

“Prin…cess… Save your confusion for when you return safe and sound! It’s too soon to sit there in a daze!!”

The transmission from Frolaytia acted like a slap to the face and the Princess somehow managed to grab one of the countless levers again.

Her eyeballs and their pupils gave targeting instructions to the machinery.

Her target was the Second Generation Faith Organization Object named the Flyaway.

It looked like a massive eight-legged insect clinging to the steep slope.

Its main cannon was made up of moving containers, so it could be abandoned like a lizard’s tail.

But it was not exposure to that threat which had made the Princess’s heart race.

She felt no real danger from an Object that would have its main cannon crawl around as a diversion and escape after the first attack.

She heard a crumbling sound as the mountain slope broke away below her.

But there was something strange mixed in that was not earthen dust or broken rock. She also saw a curved metal rail and a few pieces of metal that looked like they had burst from within. Before they had been destroyed so spectacularly, they may have been advertised as follows in a Lost Angels pamphlet with some photographs to go along with it:

''Take a ride through the miraculous night scenery of Lost Angels.

''How about a midair stroll in the world’s fastest cable cars?

“…Ugh.”

The Princess clenched her teeth and groaned as she used her gaze to aim.

But before her seven main cannons could roar, the Flyaway crossed the mountain ridge and escaped to the other side of the mountain.

That other side was Lost Angels, a Faith Organization safe country.

Starting from the route it took, the Flyaway had repeatedly violated the rules of war, so it had apparently not cared too much when it fired either.

“Uph!!”

The Princess brought a hand to her mouth and just barely held back the urge to vomit.

No matter how many powerful Objects she had destroyed or gun-wielding soldiers she had killed, that was completely different from killing innocent civilians. This slaughter that left the bounds of what could be called “war” caused her consciousness to flash in and out.

Her eyes turned toward one corner of the large screen.

More than ten seconds had passed since the “accidental shellfire”, but the wreckage of the cable cars continued to fall from the cliff like it was rolling down a hill.

The Princess did not know how many dozens or hundreds of people had been onboard, but that movement made it all too clear that no miracle would allow them to return alive.

===Part 4===

“This is F-F-F-Flashtime News (à la a DJ’s scratch)!! Today’s headline: Legitimacy Kingdom vs. Faith Organization, Mistake in the Mountains? There’s been a great tragedy involving all eighty-nine cable car passengers. Not much investigation has been done since the place is still a battlefield, but the odds of survival are looking grim. And it seems the victims were mostly children here on a trip. Both sides’ PR offices are giving conflicting explanations, so there’s a fear the truth may never be known.”

With their mission put on hold, Quenser and the others had returned to the run-down motel.

Quenser gave an annoyed sigh as he watched the news playing on the old TV in one corner of the room.

“If they investigated the scene, it’d be obvious it was the Flyaway’s coilgun that did it.”

“This guy isn’t a representative of public opinion around the world. There was an '''Ice Cream Truck''' driving by outside, remember? This is a pirate broadcast sent out by that thing, so no one believes it. When he was pissed at the outcome of a race he’d bet on, there was an entire day where every channel was nothing but the asshole of a ‘beautiful’ bulldog. On that day, trying to watch some TV while eating was a mistake.”

“No one here is remotely ecological.”

“You mean that World Clock thing? If they put out a report saying the energy used by safe country wives in the living room had grown to ten times that used by the military in battlefield countries, do you think those virtuous civilians would believe it?”

There was no tension in Millia Newburg’s voice.

Heivia spoke up while sipping on some bland instant coffee that tasted like a chain store’s coffee diluted with muddy water.

“Regardless, we can’t ignore this forever, Quenser. The White Flag was bad enough, but now the bastard piloting the Flyaway has completely forgotten his table manners. If we leave now, the same thing will keep happening around the world.”

“Those mountains are his home turf, so he’s bound to get carried away. If we poke at him, he’ll respond, so it won’t be hard to get a rematch.” Quenser held a hand to his chin as he spoke.
“The Princess will deliver the finishing blow, but the problem is how to mess with the Flyaway’s footing. Also, he can slide along those treacherous slopes with his eight legs, so how can humans like us catch up to or cut him off. If we can’t stop him, not even the Princess can get a shot in.”

That was when a girl raised her hand.

It was Putana Highball who had remained perfectly silent all this time.

“I have an idea about that.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Given Millia’s approval, the Pilot Elite continued.

“I’ve heard of secret tunnels filling those mountains. Lost Angels is a safe country and the other side of the mountains is a battlefield country, so those tunnels allow people to lose any pursuit when they’re transporting weapons, drugs, dirty money, jewels, or anything else.”

“So there’s a network of hand-dug smuggling tunnels? That sounds like something Mustard Cowboy – that is, the Capitalist Corporations – would do.”

“The Legitimacy Kingdom doesn’t have any tunnels?”

“Azul Hive is based in the southeastern commerce port and we get our funding from there. We can bring in as many weapons and people as we want, so there was no need to make any tunnels,” explained Millia. “Now, let’s get back on topic. The tunnels through those northern mountains are probably based on the drug tunnels connecting the Capitalist Corporations’ main country to Central America. I didn’t want to get involved with something so complicated, but I guess we have no choice.”

While making those preliminary calculations, she weighed the risks against the benefits and found the benefits won out.

“It’s only a rumor, but those mountains are supposed to be as full of tunnels as an ant colony. They may be hand-dug, but I hear they’re big enough for a small motorcycle to drive through without issue. But if this is true, it’s one of the cornerstones of their business. They’ll have made it so we can’t easily grasp its full scope. In other words, it would take too long to enter the mountain with surveying equipment now.”

“Then what do we do?” asked Heivia with a frown.

Their bikini commander answered immediately.

“Let’s do this Lost Angels style. We’ll abduct a Mustard Cowboy leader and get the information we need that way. They’ll actually be a soldier eating on the taxpayer’s dime, so there’s no need to hold back. Plus, I happen to know the perfect target.”

She operated one of the military computers filling the walls and displayed what looked like a resume with an attached photo. But to be clear, this file had not been written by the man in the photo. It came from a list of dangerous people created using information gathered by the intelligence division.

“George Coral. Male. Age thirty-six. Five registered homes in this city alone. He’s a former leader of Mustard Cowboy who had made a name for himself in Lost Angels’s western financial district.”

“Former?” asked Quenser.

“He was purged after that incident with the stolen lightship focusing lens.” Millia sounded amused. “Technically, he’s still running around the city. He’s only a poor little lamb who had everything taken from him, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has Mustard Cowboy’s information. Attacking a current leader would mean starting a citywide war, so this should be far easier. It’s the perfect chance to get our hands on an accurate map of the smuggling tunnels.”

“That settles it then. If we sit around, he’ll be killed by Capitalist Corporations soldiers. You can’t get a dead man to talk, so it would be best to nab him ASAP.”

No one opposed Heivia’s opinion and several sets of footsteps moved toward the run-down motel’s exit.

Quenser looked over at Putana.

“What is it, teacher?”

“Well… Whoever’s piloting the Flyaway is a Faith Organization Elite just like you. I thought maybe you could give us a hint there.”

Putana looked like she was spitting on the ground as she answered.

“They’re a disgrace to the Faith Organization.”

===Part 5===

There were piles of trash even among the countless high-rise buildings of western Lost Angels. For example, there was a garbage dump at one corner of an intersection. A bearded man lay face up, practically buried in the piles of black garbage bags that were probably no longer used anywhere else in the world.

His former dreadful and impressive aura was gone. An '''RC Girl''' may have been flying a toy around because she held a remote control while looking up into the blue sky, but not even she paid the man any heed.

The man’s former subordinate gave an exasperated comment.

“You are still in the western area?”

“Shut up… This is my territory, my turf, my domain. Dammit, who’s swimming in that rooftop pool now? Is it Kenny? Or maybe Rob? I’ll find whoever it was that stole my stuff and fill them with holes.”

It may have been this unpredictability that had allowed him to live this long. He had been the boss, so they never would have thought to find him buried in a pile of trash.

That was all it was.

Once they corrected their image of him, he would likely be found by the Mustard Cowboy soldiers before the long hand of the clock made a full circle, receive a bullet between the eyes before it made a second circle, and be thrown out into the ocean before it made a third.

“It would be best if you left the city and quickly,” said his former friendly subordinate.

“Are you mocking me? Listen. I’m putting together a plan for a comeback. I’m not gonna die here. Why? Because it isn’t my time to die yet, goddammit! First, I’ll get my hands on a gun. I can just punch someone around here and take one!!”

“What do you hope to accomplish with a 9mm bullet?”

“If you want to know, then come with me. I’ll show you the kind of luxury you’ll never find in the tax-funded lifestyle of a soldier. C’mon!! If you’re looking for George Coral, he’s right over herrrrre!! If you’ve got a problem with that, then come face meeeeee!!!!!!”

As soon as the man stood on the top of the trash heap and gave a roar, something happened.

“Will do.”

With that casual comment, Heivia crashed a stolen four-wheel drive vehicle into the trash heap by the intersection.

He did so at full speed and without touching the brakes.

With a great crash, the piled-up black trash bags were knocked every which way like bowling pins.

George Coral, the kingpin at the top, flew through the air and slammed heavily into the vehicle’s roof. The group of '''School Trip Students''' crossing a nearby crosswalk in a line of boys and a line of girls all widened their eyes in surprise.

Heivia was filled with excitement.

“Ha ha! That tech-illiterate digital exhibitionist’s smartphone was a lot of help. I never thought we’d find the idiot this quickly!!”

A '''College Girl in a Monokini''' intentionally tripped in feigned surprise and made sure the friction with the ground slide her swimsuit down, but unfortunately, Heivia did not have time to go along with her exhibitionism. After reminding himself he could use the internet to see her changing any time he wanted, he focused on the task at hand.

After all, the man who had fallen on the roof managed to jump down as if rolling off the back of the vehicle and he had started making a run for it as soon as he landed on the asphalt.

He was getting away.

“What the hell!? The guy’s still alive and kicking!!”

“You hit the pile of trash, not him! Backup, backup! Run into him and break his hip. As long as you don’t kill him, we can still get him to talk!!”

Obeying Millia Newburg’s fairly cruel instructions, Heivia threw the vehicle into reverse with the tires screeching against the asphalt.

The shocked bearded man frantically changed direction and climbed onto the scaffolding of a building under construction.

Despite the sound of bending metal and of a heavy impact, the four-wheel drive vehicle missed its target.

George Coral was running up the scaffolding. He was well-built despite being a former leader.

“Oh, honestly! We can’t do anything in this thing!”

“We have to chase after him like monkeys? What a pain in the ass!!”

“No, we can leave this ‘aerial battle’ to the newbie. We’ll grab another vehicle and pursue on the surface. Whether it’s providing support or cutting off his escape, there has to be more we can do.”

As Millia instructed Heivia, she brought the radio to her mouth.

“You heard me, Putana! Chase him down in that off-road motorcycle you like so much!!”

As soon as she spoke, the roar of an engine passed over the four-wheel drive vehicle.

It did not pass “by” it.

The off-road motorcycle used the upward sloping road to make the kind of large jump seen at a circus, passed over the four-wheel drive vehicle’s roof, and landed on the scaffolding.

“Wow. I guess she is a Pilot Elite after all.”

“But why is Quenser clinging to her back?”

“He volunteered to keep an eye on her. He’d be too scared otherwise. He’s the one she would want revenge against, so I bet he doesn’t want to let her out of his sight to prevent any surprise attacks.”

The construction scaffolding was narrow.

The building’s wall and the pillars of metal pipes shot by at tremendous speed only fifty centimeters to either side. They easily drove up the long, narrow metal panels placed diagonally instead of stairs.

“Oh, god! Oh, god! Oh, god! Oh, god!”

“Teacher, why are you even on my bike?”

They were three stories up.

George Coral had relaxed once he had escaped the vehicle, but he stiffened in shock when he turned toward the engine noise behind him.

Putana Highball showed no mercy.

She safely drove through and blew away the professional soldier who had become a gang leader.

The bearded man’s arms and legs flailed wildly, but doubt and fear filled him as the shock of landing never came.

His muscular body had flown over the scaffolding and into empty air. He had broken through the net meant to keep people from falling, slowed down because of it, and finally fell to the ground below.

After confirming that, Putana opened the throttle of her off-road motorcycle and unhesitatingly jumped down from the building’s scaffolding.

A three-story freefall began.

As Quenser flew through the air, he felt a chill on his spine when he saw a '''Worker''' clinging to a telephone pole at eye level. That had reminded him just how high up they were.

The pressure in his stomach from the fall was different from that of simple acceleration, so the student let out a scream.

Putana pressed the back wheel down as she accurately landed the motorcycle right next to George Coral’s head where he had fallen ahead of them and did not get back up. She forcefully swerved around to turn the light motorcycle’s front wheel toward the bearded man’s head. With fine control of the brakes, she stopped at the last second as if lightly biting his head between the tire and the ground.

At this point, it was no different from pressing the muzzle of a gun against his forehead.

“Do as I say,” calmly instructed the girl. “Otherwise, I will splatter your brains on the ground here.”

“…”

Tears filled George Coral’s eyes and he heard two short horn blasts.

A station wagon stopped nearby.

He heard several doors open and close and then a woman in a bikini top and baggy cargo pants walked up with a smile on her face.

“There technically are Faith Organization police in this city, so hurry and load him up. …Now, then. How long a day this will be is entirely dependent on how patient you are, Mr. George Coral.”

“Uhh… You pieces of shit…”

The bearded man breathed out, his limbs went limp, and his eyes squeezed shut.

It seemed his return to stardom in Lost Angels was still a long way off.

===Part 6===

Quenser, Heivia, Putana, and Millia reported on their progress while taking the station wagon randomly down the large Grape Street.

“This is the microchip hidden in his necktie pin. He was also quick to talk since he feels no obligations to a group that threw him out. Thanks to that, we didn’t have to put on a raincoat and go stand in the bathroom with a knife in hand.”

Their information source, George Coral, was no longer in the station wagon, but not because they had fired a bullet into his head and chucked him from the speeding vehicle.

“What did he ask for in return?”

“An instant fake ID and a Capitalist Corporations brand handgun. I’m sure he’ll be found out within three days, but he probably plans to do something by then. And it’s hardly a problem for us if some infighting breaks out within Mustard Cowboy.”

Abandoning one’s morals brought a lot of possibility.

That was the best part about Lost Angels.

At any rate, they now had an accurate map of the smuggling tunnels through the northern mountains.

If they could take a shortcut through those mountains, even they could cut in front of the Flyaway’s path as it slid along the slopes.

They could strike back against that insane Second Generation that had blown away so many civilians.

Quenser spoke up while fiddling with his radio.

“Hi, Frolaytia? Our preparations are complete. How’s the Princess?”

“A little longer and I would have mixed a sedative into her tea. She’s about ready to give into her anger and start Armageddon. In other words, her head is boiling over. She’ll rush in the instant I remove the leash, but I have no intention of sending her in without a plan. Do you have an actual idea as to how you’ll trip that thing up?”

“Let’s meet and talk sometime.”

“What? Have you been so dyed by the intelligence division’s ways that you’re worried about someone intercepting the signal?”

“(No, that isn’t it.)”

“(Why are you whispering?)”

“(How should I put this? Um… There’s this girl real nearby who wants revenge on the level of a murdered parent, so I’m a little afraid of revealing any clever ideas around her.)”

“(In a way, you really are living the life of an intelligence operative, Quenser.)”

He gave a nervous look to the side received a puzzled look from the girl in a green special suit modelled after a nurse uniform.

===Part 7===

Even Lost Angels had the karaoke boxes that had originated in the Island Nation.

Of course, since they were essentially soundproofed, private rooms that could be rented by the hour, they were mostly used by the customers of the women who stood on the street corners in dresses that did not cover much of anything.

And that was why Frolaytia was in an extremely bad mood after meeting up there.

“Quenser… I don’t see an ashtray, so could you hold out your hands? Yes, like you’re scooping up water.”

“If you’re stressed out, why not sing a song!? This is a karaoke box, after all!!”

“Why did you bring me to this love hotel?”

“If a fancy officer showed up at the run-down motel, we’d be advertising that it’s an intelligence division hideout. The place would be blown away by a rocket or bomb the next day.”

Incidentally, Legitimacy Kingdom bodyguards had rented the two neighboring rooms while disguised as customers and a bulletproof SUV was casually waiting in the alley closest to the emergency exit. The defenses put in place for an officer were on an entirely different level.

Frolaytia grabbed a pitcher, poured a carbonated drink into a glass, and grabbed some fried chicken from a large plate of greasy foods.

“What are you planning to do here in Lost Angels?”

“As I said, we got an accurate map of the smuggling tunnels the Capitalist Corporations use. If we use them, we can sneak up on the Flyaway.”

After asking permission, Quenser reached for the same large plate as his commander and munched on some fries.

The onion rings must not have been very good because neither of them took any.

“He uses a static electricity propulsion device just like the Princess, so it’s possible we can stop him from moving using a weakness there.”

“Specifically?”

Frolaytia must not have liked how salty the fried chicken was because she dipped it in a small plate of mayonnaise.

If they used a giant charged sheet commonly known as a Floor Heater, they could pump in a whole bunch of power to mess with the static electricity letting the Object float.

However…

“We can’t rely on a large system like the Floor Heater. The tunnels were hand-dug and only a light off-road motorcycle can get through. They were made to let unregistered guns and drugs through, so we can’t hope for much.”

After Quenser shoved several fries into his mouth, Frolaytia took a sip of her carbonated drink and then spoke to the boy.

“Then what will you do? The battlefield covers the entire mountain range, so it’s a large area. Also, I’m sure he’ll be worried about his own footing. Is there really a way to trip him up without getting caught by his many sensors?”

“It’s only a theory, but yes,” said Quenser.

Frolaytia grinned and urged him to continue.

“Let’s hear it.”

“There’s something that can mess with his static electricity while also affecting a wide area. All we have to do is transport it through the tunnels and onto the mountain slope.”

“But what exactly is it? You already told me you can’t use the Floor Heater.”

“The tunnels are narrow, but if we aren’t transporting a ‘solid’, we can send quite a lot through at once.”

“You don’t mean…”

Frolaytia was surprised and Quenser placed a handheld device on the table.

It displayed a satellite photo of the mountains.

The slope was covered by several metal pipes that looked like water slides enlarged several dozen times over.

“There’s a hydroelectric power station…in other words, a dam. We just have to use a large pump to draw out the water and send it through the ant colony of smuggling tunnels. Static electricity propulsion devices can’t directly cross rivers or oceans, so they have to attach naval floats first. As the Flyaway gets carried away, we’ll create a fountain of water at his feet and turn the entire slope into a giant waterfall. That’ll stop him.”

“And if the Princess keeps enough distance to not get caught too, she just has to fire one of her main cannons…”

“That will be an issue of speed. After the first attack, the Flyaway will remove its main cannon to lighten itself. That means the Princess won’t have to think about evading anymore. If she can blast him before he realizes what’s going on and sends out the White Flag signal, we’ll win.”

It was nothing but a theory.

If the Princess and the intelligence division creating the waterfall could not work together, it would all go up in smoke, so it was a risky gamble.

However, a definite chance for success was beginning to form.

They would be able to strike back against the bastard who had sacrificed so many civilians.

“I leave the decision up to you.”

“Of course you do. I’m the maintenance base commander.”

Naturally, if the report was submitted under the name Quenser Barbotage, a battlefield student and therefore an amateur, the higher ups would not take it seriously. The Collective Farming incident had been a special case.

However, things would be different if it had the name of Major Frolaytia Capistrano.

“I hope you will ‘consider’ it.”

“Understood. I’ll give it some ‘thought’.”

===Part 8===

They began to move late at night.

Partway along the winding road up the northern mountains was a space that functioned as a rest area and a shop. It was a lot like a highway service area and it was likely supported by the people working at the dam and observatory.

Lost Angels’s nights were supposed to be covered in thick fog, but the mountains seemed to be an exception. The fog was probably a product of the cold mountain wind blowing down into the lukewarm ocean, but that humid sea breeze was absent here.

Millia Newburg was speaking with someone over the radio while sitting on the hood of a classic car (that she had of course stolen).

Perhaps to keep them awake, the car’s stereo was playing a pirate broadcast at high volume.

“This is F-F-F-Flashtime News (à la a DJ’s scratch)!! Lip Service, the attorney’s office well-known even within the Capitalist Corporations, is gathering attention by opening an online consultation service. The office specializes in family troubles, so they’re a must-have for fixing any trouble with future geniuses being sold to big companies AKA talent trafficking.”

She spoke to Quenser and Heivia who were filling their stomachs with the cold steamed chicken and salad pasta left in the cheap store.

“The team we sent ahead has taken control of the hydroelectric power station. We’re about to prepare the large pump. The travel team needs to switch over to the off-road motorcycle.”

“What’s the Princess doing?”

“She’s on standby. After getting carried away and starting the battle before we were ready last time, she’s being a lot more cautious.”

With that, all of the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers got moving.

They searched through the parking lot that had a number of cars and motorcycles parked in it even late at night.

“Putana, won’t you make yourself sick if you eat curry this late?”

“Teacher, I don’t understand how you can call something food if it doesn’t have more than eight kinds of spices mixed together.”

“I’m just thankful I can eat something other than rubber-like rations even though we’re at war. Hey, Quenser, whose ass will you be riding this time?”

“If I’m going to be clinging to someone’s waist, you should know I’ll choose the girl.”

“Teacher, that isn’t something to look so proud of. And please just get a license.”

While they complained, they stole motorcycles with practiced motions.

Having your means of transportation taken from you in the mountains late at night was a frightening thought, but the damage near the keyhole suggested these had been stolen already. That meant their “owners” had brought this bad luck upon themselves.

“I hate these hot nights and their lack of women. Maybe I should call out to one of those women on the street corners.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you. Spread your noble blood around like that and you’ll have someone killing you in your sleep decades down the line. It’ll be like a scene out of Whatever-It’s-Called Suspense Theatre.”

“My brain knows that, but…y’know, people sometimes have to follow their hearts. Like when I see that beauty in a dress over there with the horny-looking expression.”

“That’s a trap. You can tell from the location of the pelvis.”

Heivia did a spit-take, but Quenser ignored his intensely regretful friend and gave the '''Woman in a Dress''' a skeptical look. What was he(?) doing on this mountain road?

Before he could find an answer, Millia spoke up.

“Those of us on the transport team will go in the trucks. We have to carry the large pump and other equipment in ahead of time, after all.”

“Understood. Putana, keep some distance from the trucks. We don’t want to look like we’re traveling together.”

“Let’s have a few of the motorcycles go on ahead. It can’t hurt to make sure there isn’t an ambush waiting for us.”

With that decided, two of the motorcycles took the lead.

Quenser’s group watched as the trucks left.

Finally, with a roar of engines, the intelligence division’s travel team continued up the winding road in two lines of motorcycles.

They were wary, but fortunately, they did not notice an obvious attack or interference.

They did hear some dry gunshots in the distance, but that was normal in Lost Angels. A tow truck drove down the opposite lane with a luxury racing car in tow and a group of modified cars chased after that '''Car Thief''' disguised as a road service.

Quenser clung to Putana and she spoke without turning back.

“Don’t worry. I don’t feel any gazes on us.”

“Gazes?”

“The military satellites are also mostly focused on the city of Lost Angels, so they aren’t paying much attention to these mountains. Of course, that’s why they can’t blame anyone else for the cable cars being blown away.”

Hearing that made Quenser shudder.

He did not know how much truth there was to that, but he doubted it was a mere bluff or assumption. This girl could use her scopophobia as a weapon, so just how much of a threat to the Princess would she be inside an Object?

(I’m really glad we got rid of that possibility ahead of time.)

“Teacher?”

“Nothing! Did my smoldering gaze send a tingle down your spine, Putana?”

Before long, the group of motorcycles arrived at the hydroelectric power station partway up the mountain.

Millia Newburg gave them a casual wave from the parking lot.

“Let’s get started. We’re using Quenser’s idea. We’ll set up the pumps to draw the water from the reservoir, so you all lay out the pipeline in the smuggling tunnels.”

“Understood.”

Quenser and Heivia hopped down from the motorcycles and walked over to the back of the trucks, but Heivia frowned after opening the metal doors.

“What’s this? There’s only enough for one hundred meters! That’s not enough to get the water all the way through the mountain!!”

“How many trucks do you think we’d need to carry that much pipework around? We’d stand out too much if we did that and it’s all over if the Faith Organization gets suspicious.”

“Then what do we do!?”

“I’ve marked certain spots on the map. We’ll divide the ant colony of tunnels into the human pathway and the water pathway. We just have to cover up all of the branches from the water one to make it a single route. If we pour water in there like a flash flood, it’ll work just like a pipe.”

Quenser pointed his thumb back at the hydroelectric power station.

“Lost Angels’s power is unstable and blackouts are common, right? The data we have says the power company had started to add more turbines but stopped construction for a variety of reasons. There should be bags of quick-dry cement piled up like sandbags, so let’s borrow those.”

“Well, isn’t that nice. You’re suggesting we steal civil property like it’s nothing. You really have been dyed in the colors of Lost Angels, haven’t you?”

“Did you know cement has an expiration date? They’d have to throw those things out like box lunches at a convenience store anyway. Another nation’s military is disposing of it for them, so they should actually thank us.”

“Yeah, and readily making excuses like that is also part of the Lost Angels way of life. Let’s call this being ecological. That stuff would be wasted in the hands of those morons.”

The two idiots continued to complain as they smashed the lock to the giant storehouse next to the power station. The bags of cement looked a lot like bags of rice or flour, but they were a lot heavier.

The very first one just about crushed Quenser.

“You idiot! Quenser, don’t you know being frail is only a plus for sheltered rich girls!?”

“What is this…? Am I a slave being forced to build the pyramids?”

While Quenser groaned from the floor, the delicate-looking Putana Highball quickly placed three of the bags over her shoulder.

“Teacher.” Her expression was perfectly composed. “I think it’s about time we talked about what you owe me by this point.”

“Please no! If I do that with a genius Elite, I’ll end up buried in debt!!”

Quenser could not actually lift the bags of cement, so he ended up grabbing one by the edge and dragging it along.

They tied them to the back of their motorcycles with wire.

And of course, only those who could drive could sit in the driver’s seat.

“I really do think we need to talk about what you owe me.”

“No, wait. I don’t think you should judge a guy based on whether he knows how to drive a motorcycle or not. Even when I learned to play the guitar, it didn’t make me popular!!”

Heivia and Putana drove their off-road motorcycles into the smuggling tunnel, leaving Quenser and his complaints behind.

Millia came over to check on the boy as he spread a map on the hood of a car and checked the route with a military flashlight.

“Is everything going well?”

“Yes, assuming my calculations are correct, using the giant pump to pour water into this one point will split along a number of routes but ultimately turn the opposite slopes of these three mountains into a water slide. If we can lure the Flyaway in, we can seal off his static electricity legs. There’s no escape for him.”

“From here, we can’t tell what’s happening on the other side, so you tell us when to send in the water.”

“Understood.”

In less than an hour, Heivia and Putana returned.

“This guy’s been flirting with a beautiful woman while we were out there sweating and doing construction work. Just how much are you going to enjoy the Lost Angels way of life!?”

“Rewarding the slacker feels like a rebellion against society to me,” added Putana.

After waiting for the other off-road motorcycles to get back, Quenser, Millia, and the others completely sealed off the tunnel entrance after connecting the two meter wide plastic pipe running from the giant pump.

Millia clapped her hands.

“Okay, head to the other side of the mountains through another tunnel. It’s time for round two.”

“Got it. Hey, Putana, you heard her, so let me ride your ass again.”

Quenser hopped onto the back of Putana’s off-road motorcycle. Since he was researching cool ways to get on, he had likely gotten used to being treated as baggage.

As a jack of all trades, Heivia had no girl with him and he was muttering under his breath with a look in his eyes that suggested he was in serious need of some counseling.

“Maybe I should just throw away my license.”

“Listen, Heivia. You only score some points with their protective instincts if you ''can’t'' do it. If you ''can'' but you ''don’t'', you aren’t going to catch any girl’s heart.”

“Teacher, can I just throw you off now?”

Regardless, Putana and Heivia drove their motorcycles into a different smuggling tunnel hidden partway up the mountain path.

There were no lights inside, so they only had the unreliable illumination of their headlights. The tunnel was less than two meters wide and the ground was bumpy since it was hand-dug. Also, it had only been dug out, so there were no pillars or concrete to reinforce it.

Instead of an occult test of courage, it felt more suited for a frightening theme park attraction.

“This really feels handmade. It’s like a tunnel someone made for a summer project.”

There were concrete walls here and there, but they were probably what Heivia and the others had made from the quick-drying concrete.

The pathway for dozens of tons of water was on the other side of those walls.

After traveling about seven kilometers, they left the tunnel on the other side of the mountain.

They braked and viewed the mountain scenery from the tunnel exit.

“Looks like the Princess has gotten started,” said Heivia while still sitting on his motorcycle.

A low, heavy roar echoed around them like storm clouds approaching from the distance.

That was the sound of a static electricity propulsion device.

“Sounds like we’ve poked at the hornet’s nest well enough. That king of chickens is showing himself!!”

Something like a giant insect sat on the slope like a row of fangs belonging to some ferocious beast towering into the heavens.

That nuke-resistant insect had eight legs and a removable main cannon attached to its fattened spherical body.

It sent out the White Flag signal with reckless abandon and it had no problem making civilian sacrifices to get a shot in.

Quenser gulped and named the crazed insect.

“The Faith Organization’s Second Generation Object, the Flyaway!!”

===Part 9===

[[Image:HO_v09_131.jpg|thumb]]
Despite everything else going on, the main player on the battlefield was the Princess and the Baby Magnum, so Quenser held his radio in one hand as he waited with the others.

“The enemy falls back as soon as he fires his first shot, so to catch him in our trap, you need to delay his first shot as much as possible and lure him as far forward as you can. Don’t give him a chance to aim. Keep firing to force him to move left and right while you back away bit by bit. That will draw him over this way.”

“Understood, Quenser.”

“He believes he can escape no matter what, so he’ll get bolder. It shouldn’t be too hard to have him get carried away. If you’re confident enough, you can even pretend to slip on the steep slope. He should jump at that chance.”

“So I just have to ensure my safety while intentionally stimulating his greed? That should be easy.”

As Quenser spoke with the Princess via radio, Putana observed the boy from the side.

That Pilot Elite would bring about the conclusion, she held everyone’s lives in her hands, and everyone relied on her.

That should have been Putana’s place, too.

“Hm? What is it?” asked Quenser.

“Nothing.”

An ear-splitting explosion tore through the mountains.

The Baby Magnum’s coilgun main cannon had ripped through the air at supersonic speeds to create a sonic boom as it instantly flew toward the Flyaway.

Using that as its cue, the Flyaway also began to move.

The enemy Object moved in a small circle on the steep slope to avoid the shell and then approached the Baby Magnum.

Its main cannon was made from a honeycomb of containers and it creaked as it aimed.

It specialized in a spray of attacks that filled an entire surface.

To put it another way, it was a one-time attack that had to be held in reserve.

Or so they had thought, but it was acting oddly.

Explosive sounds burst from the Flyaway again and again.

Instead of its main cannon, it was firing smaller railguns and rapid-fire beam cannons that were of no use in an Object vs. Object battle.

“Wah!?”

“That bastard is destroying this mountain!!”

Quenser and the others frantically got down as a concerning crumbling sound came from overhead…no, near the peak of the mountain. A full-on landslide had apparently begun further down and a wall of dust completely enveloped and hid everything near the surface.

The Princess’s Baby Magnum was no exception.

All of the dirt flowed down the slope, the slope itself began to fall, and it all continued further and further down. That overwhelming current slowed the Baby Magnum’s movements. Staying put on the slope was the most it could manage and it could not keep up its sharp movements.

“Not good. The Princess has been stopped! If that thing gets close, she’ll be turned to Swiss cheese by its main cannon!!”

“But there’s nothing we can do. Even if six of her main cannons are blown away and the spherical main body is blasted open like an empty can, we’ll still win if she can move at the end. We need him to get carried away and get close. Otherwise, our trap won’t work!!”

The Flyaway approached further when it saw the Princess’s confusion.

It was now within range of its main cannon.

“Hey!”

“Not yet!! If he’s only on the edge of the effective range, he’ll just escape backwards once it starts. We need to lure him into the center of the effective range so he’ll be swept away by the water slide no matter which way he tries to escape!!”

The Princess could no longer put on an act.

Based on how much she was struggling, it seemed certain the Flyaway was going to win.

The Flyaway continued to advance.

It approached the vertical slope looking down on Quenser’s group.

“Okay.”

The student pressed his thumb down on his radio’s switch.

The shortened number sent out a sign to Millia Newburg and the others waiting on the other side of the mountain. That single button set the giant pump in motion, so dozens of tons of water would be sent from the reservoir and onto the slopes of the three mountains, turning them into water slides.

The running feet would be stopped.

“Okay!! Millia, do it! Now!!”

He heard a light click and then a low rumbling shook the entire mountain. The tunnel Quenser’s group had traveled through had been separated for human use, so the water would not flow through it. Still, the vibration of the water in the other tunnel reached them here.

However…

“Hey, Quenser, something isn’t right.”

“It isn’t making a water slide. It doesn’t look like any water is flowing out of the other tunnel exits.”

Quenser turned around in shock.

Small fragments were falling from the ceiling of the hand-dug tunnel there.

“Oh, no… Oh, no!!”

“Quenser, explain this,” demanded the Princess over the radio.

“The Flyaway’s bombardment caused the hand-dug tunnels to collapse! The impromptu pipeline for the water is full of cracks and is useless! Princess, change of plans. Fire your main cannon to the coordinates I’m about to-…”

He trailed off as the situation continued to develop.

“No, wait. If the water pipeline isn’t working, where is that rumbling coming from!?”

“The plan failed because the water did not follow the proper route,” said Putana. “That means…”

“Dammit.” Quenser’s face stiffened. “Is it flowing down this tunnel!?”

They did not have time to brace themselves.

A tremendous torrent of water burst from the mountain and mercilessly knocked them into the air.

===Part 10===

The fountain of water was much smaller than in the original plan.

It would not have been enough to stop the Object had it been caught by it, but it was more than enough to sweep away some flesh-and-blood humans.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

They rolled and slipped down. Quenser’s group fell down the giant slide along with quite a lot of dirt and rubble.

They were caught by something partway down the mountain.

If not for that, they may really have fallen all the way to the bottom of the cliff.

“Damn…it… What just happened?”

Quenser still could not move properly, but he reached for his radio. However, there was no response when he pressed the button. Whether due to the fall or the mud, it seemed to be broken.

(You’ve got to be kidding me.)

An ominously deep rumbling continued on the slope above and the Flyaway was still on the move.

It was the type to shoot once and then flee, so it did not have time to focus on something other than its true target.

(He’ll get away again at this rate. The Princess will be worn down if this ridiculous game of tag continues. We need to find a way to blow him away tonight!!)

He steadied himself by grabbing onto something like a broken pillar sticking out from the muddy slope, he looked around again, and he finally realized where he was.

“The cable car station?”

“Yup, the one with the one-way trip to heaven thanks to that slaughter of civilians. It’s a good thing the cable cars were stopped after the accident and no one was left inside the station.”

He heard his awful friend’s voice.

Still clinging to the pillar, he looked back and saw Heivia covered in mud.

“What happened to Putana?”

“I don’t know, but she’s wearing the same kind of special suit as the Princess, right? I doubt she would die so easily.”

At any rate, the two idiots moved from the unstable, muddy slope and into the half-destroyed station building.

Now that they could finally catch their breath, Heivia asked a question.

“What do we do now?”

“What we need to do hasn’t changed.”

“The water slide plan? That was a failure! There’s nothing we can do now that the tunnel for the water has collapsed!!”

“Are you sure? There’s still a chance we can pull it off.”

“You mean cause a landslide like the Flyaway did? But he was whizzing across the slope he made collapse!!”

“That’s not what I meant. Regardless, we have to move to where we can set this up.”

Quenser switched on his military flashlight and cut across the collapsed building.

He was searching for a maintained mountain-climbing trail, but he stopped before reaching the exit.

“There’s a staff room.”

“Hey, it couldn’t hurt to check for a map or something. The locals might have marked animal trails not on the official maps.”

The door was already broken and dirt from the landslide had gotten inside.

Everything was covered in mud, but they still found some documents.

“A business journal? No, it’s too small for that. A private journal, then? It’s not from the station staff…so the drivers? Did they take turns making entries in here?”

“That thing’s not going to tell you the secret to defeating that monstrous weapon. Quit getting sidetracked.”

“But this….”

Quenser frowned as he flipped through the pages.

Most of the pages were too covered in mud to open, but some were unharmed.

This is what they said:

''“May 1: They came by again. I can’t exactly complain when they’re giving me money, but with how much trouble this is, I wish they’d do it somewhere else.”

''“May 13: Today’s the day. I don’t know what the point of this is, but I’ll just do as I was told. I only have to send out the cars without anyone on them, so it’s not all that difficult a job.”

“What is this?”

They’re giving me money

Today’s the day.

I’ll just do as I was told.

I only have to send out the cars without anyone on them.

“Hey, Heivia. The story was that all eighty-nine cable car passengers died, right?”

“Hold up. Are you saying…?”

Suddenly, a transmission from an ally reached Heivia’s radio.

“I can’t get through to teacher’s radio, but is he there?”

“Putana?”

“I’m down below, but I seem to have found something unbelievable.”

Putana Highball was clearly a little bit shaken.

“No, maybe I should say it’s what I haven’t found.”

“Let me guess.” Quenser cut in from the side. “You’re at the site of the accident, but you can’t find the corpses that should be strewn all over the place. Is that it?”

===Part 11===

Putana Highball stood near the bent, twisted, and broken cable car rail.

Moving around her military flashlight was enough to spot the cars that had fallen and lost their connections.

However…

“Yes, that’s exactly it, teacher. I can’t find anything that might be corpses.”

The accident had occurred earlier that same day. With bodies covering a large area, it would take at least a day or two to recover them all.

Nevertheless, there was not even one in evidence.

In fact, there was not even a single bloodstain or possession of the deceased.

“That’s an area of suspicion,” explained Quenser. “If either the Legitimacy Kingdom or Faith Organization’s investigation team holds a press conference, their credibility will only be about 50/50. If they insist there were no bodies or that the people vanished, the other side will claim they stole the evidence and it will all end in a giant gray zone. Someone used that situation to pull off a large-scale kidnapping.”

“Then what happened to the people who were supposed to be on the cable cars?”

“Wait a second. Wait, wait. One of the computers here is still functioning. There might still be some surveillance camera footage on here.”

Putana turned off her military flashlight and held her breath.

The bottom of the valley grew pitch black, but she confidently sharpened her eyes.

(I sense a gaze.)

The gaze was sweeping about in every direction. She guessed they had noticed the light but did not know how many people were there. This gaze did not home in on her as if obscenely licking across her body.

(There’s just one of them. Probably a scout, or…)

She moved through the mud to avoid the gaze.

She circled around a cable car lying on its side and made her way behind the owner of the gaze.

She lightly tapped the metal surface with the back of her hand.

“!?”

She shined her extremely powerful military flashlight toward the person who turned around in surprise.

The beam of light seemed to stab into their brain and she aimed for the moment they froze in place. She took advantage of the high-capacity battery’s weight to use the flashlight like a club and beat them on the side of the head.

They groaned after collapsing to the dirt, so she beat them a second and third time to knock them out cold.

She fished through their pockets and found a cellphone, a wallet, and an ID.

“I found a Faith Organization scout,” she whispered into her radio. “However, he isn’t from the Garuda’s…I mean, the Flyaway’s unit. I think he’s from Viridian Edge, the Faith Organization gang back in the city.”

She also found a handgun, but it was the type with a maintenance chip contained in the grip cover. It had a GPS transmitter embedded inside. The transmitter required a special tool to remove, so she gave up on it.

Once the transmitter stopped moving, the main unit would quickly notice something was wrong.

Regardless, Putana checked the data on the cellphone.

It seemed he really was part of an intelligence agency. The machine’s default password lock was one thing, but the data inside was encrypted and there was nothing she could do. However, she could still see the filenames and a few terms stuck out to her.

“Nataraja?”

Back in the cable car station, Quenser and Heivia checked through the surveillance camera footage on the functioning computer.

They were most interested in the footage from just before the accident.

“Oh, goddammit,” groaned Heivia “There it is.”

The grainy footage showed several masked men walking across the cable car station’s platform. A few dozen people who seemed to be on a trip were being led outside the building with their hands up.

Lastly, the cable cars in question were sent out empty.

“It’s a large-scale kidnapping. But what for? Are they going to be making a bunch of ransom calls with helium voices?”

The masked men must not have expected this footage to remain.

It was possible the bribed worker…no, driver had failed to delete it to keep as a sort of “insurance”.

“We have no way of tracking down the masked men, but what about the kidnapped people? It looks like a lot of them are kids, but we can actually see their faces. Is there no kind of hint?”

“I don’t have any powerful facial recognition software if that’s what you’re asking. …No, but wait.”

“What is it?”

“These kids all have the same badge on their chests. Can you zoom in on that?”

“It’ll probably still be really grainy.”

Quenser did as he was told and Heivia fell silent.

After a while, the rich noble spoke up.

“These kids are probably from the Capitalist Corporations. They’re from California Biochemistry University. That school of geniuses loves taking in kids who skipped grades, so they produce tons of nine or ten year olds with PhDs. But while they do great in academics, the kids have no social experience, so people call them a twisted factory school.”

“Why do you know so much about this? Do you have a thing for genius girls or something?”

“It’s not unusual for the Legitimacy Kingdom’s royals and nobles to get genetic disorders unique to their bloodline. They can’t exactly let it get out, but it’s pretty common for people to be secretly funding projects to research their rare diseases.”

“In that case…”

“These weren’t just any old kids who were abducted. They’re all researchers with PhDs in the biochemistry field. Worst case, their heads might be packed full of technical data related to Pilot Elites.”

“Then this kidnapping wasn’t for a ransom.” Quenser gulped. “This is talent trafficking. Are they going to sell them on the black market as current or future talent?”

Talent trafficking.

Putana Highball recalled that dreadful word.

That form of organized crime was especially common in the safe countries of the Capitalist Corporations. Small children expected to be geniuses were abducted and they were legally recognized as someone else who “simply looks a lot like them” thanks to an army of corporate lawyers abusing the fact that a DNA test will not get a 100% match even with a sample from the same person. Afterwards, they were sold to a large company that wanted their talent.

There was an element of luck in whether the child would actually become a genius, but Putana had heard that made it a target for financial speculators.

(This was a case of talent trafficking?)

As she looked at the cable cars lying here and there, she felt anger scorching her nerves.

She did not know what the word Nataraja in “their” cellphone meant, but…

(Were they targeted by a local group while here on a trip? Or was the trip itself part of the kidnapping plan?)

She had no guarantee, but she felt she should assume it was the latter.

Capitalist Corporations safe countries had specialized school PMCs to completely guard the children from talent trafficking, but there was an opening as soon as they entered a country without that system.

Not to mention that anywhere near Lost Angels was an odd choice for a trip. It seemed likely it was chosen because it would make the children easy to abduct.

“Teacher.”

After some thought, Putana brought the radio to her mouth.

“I knocked out one of their scouts, so the main unit should show up soon. However, that also means their main unit is probably still nearby. If I check around here, I might be able to take out the talent trafficking group.”

“The main unit? You mean the abducted children might not have been taken away just yet?”

“It’s possible. For one, it can’t be easy to sneak out more than eighty people. It would be reasonable to assume they would wait until it was dark to start moving, don’t you think?”

“Understood, Putana. But you don’t have a gun, do you? We’ll head there and-…”

“No.”

A rumbling shook the mountains.

The Baby Magnum and the Flyaway were still battling on the steep slope. And since the surprise attack had failed, the Flyaway would have the upper hand on its home turf.

“You two head back up. If the Baby Magnum is taken out, we lose our escape route. Even if we did rescue the eighty or more people, it would be impossible to sneak all of them out without being caught by the Object’s sensors.”

“Putana…”

“Please go.”

The girl in a green special suit directly denied him as she stared into the darkness.

“I will be taking the credit today, teacher.”

===Part 12===

Quenser and Heivia both clicked their tongues in the half-destroyed station.

“What do we do, Quenser!?”

“Putana has a point. Even if we do rescue the hostages, they’ll be slaughtered just for being with Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers if we don’t take out the Flyaway. More importantly, we don’t know where Putana is and we’ll never find her if we just randomly search through the mountains!”

Also, if the cable car incident had been part of a talent trafficking plot, then there was a good chance the Flyaway was in on it. It was not clear whether he was leading the crime or if he had been paid off, but either way, he would try to erase the evidence if it fell apart.

“Dammit. Then let’s hurry up and deal with the problem up there. Without the Object’s anti-air lasers, we can have a helicopter sent in.”

They were reluctant, but every second they waited only worsened the situation.

Staying where they were would not improve things.

“Anyway, we need to climb back up to where we slid down. …Hey, Quenser. What’s that you’ve got there?”

“The driver’s journal from before.”

“What use is that now!?”

“Don’t be so sure it’s useless.”

“?”

They rushed from the station building and chose a relatively gentle route up the slope. All the while, they heard the intermittent rumbling of Object cannons.

The Baby Magnum was not the only one firing.

“Hey, something isn’t right.”

Heivia came to a stop and his cowardly fear – his proper fear of an Object – rose to the surface.

“The Princess isn’t the only one firing. In fact, it looks like the Flyaway is sending out the fiercer bombardment!”

“Why? The Flyaway’s main cannon is meant to be abandoned, right!? Isn’t that thing supposed to use all of its firepower at once and then run away!?”

===Part 13===

After Quenser and the others slid down the mountain slope, a lot had happened between the Baby Magnum and the Flyaway.

First of all, the plan to transform the three mountains into giant water slides had failed.

That meant the Flyaway had an overwhelming advantage in speed on the steep slopes.

In no time at all, it had taken up the ideal firing position.

The container main cannon attached to the front of the machine gave a roar and it sprayed a fan-shaped downpour of coilgun fire at tremendous speed.

The sounds of the air being torn apart mixed together and reverberated throughout the area like a high-pitched whistle.

The Baby Magnum’s spherical body was worn down, orange sparks surrounded it, and two of its seven main cannons were torn off and blown away.

“Kh!?”

But it was not crushed.

It did not break.

Even in that hopeless position, the Princess moved her machine around to use the smallest possible movements to avoid a fatal blow in the torrent of shells.

Her opponent’s container main cannon was mostly a one-use weapon.

No matter how close to death it brought her, she could strike back as long as she overcame this fierce attack.

Finally, that moment came.

The Flyaway released the container main cannon just like a lizard tail. With some ammunition remaining, it would wander around the battlefield using something like insect legs. That left the slight possibility of it reconnecting and firing again. While the enemy was worried about that, the Flyaway would make its escape. That was the cannon’s role here.

But firing the main cannon without a connection to the reactor was impossible, so the Princess could ignore it.

She quickly accelerated the Baby Magnum.

She approached all at once while the Flyaway fell back and fired its smaller cannons toward the mountain peaks. It was trying to create landslides to stop the Baby Magnum.

(The movement of the landslides doesn’t change. If I can predict the pattern and make course corrections, I can reduce the lost time.)

She kept at it and continued her pursuit.

The Baby Magnum slid into position at the proper distance and angle to kill the Flyaway before that other Object could cross the ridgeline and vanish.

But then the Flyaway’s front two legs bent sharply.

It looked a lot like when an innocent child twisted and ripped off an insect’s legs.

However, this meant something else entirely.

For one thing, those were not legs.

They had a muzzle on the end.

“A low-stability plasma cannon!? The Flyaway has two main cannons!?”

The Princess frantically switched over to evasive action, but it was far too late.

The Flyaway had more than one ideal strategy.

The first was to wear down the enemy Object by continually spraying shells and releasing its main cannon while abusing the White Flag signal to ensure its safety.

The second was to wait for the enemy to expect the first strategy and let its guard down when the main cannon was removed. Then, it would fire straight through its enemy with its second main cannon in a surprise attack.

The blinding beam of a low-stability plasma cannon flew toward the Princess at close range.

===Part 14===

Quenser and Heivia felt an unpleasant sweat cover their bodies when they saw the beam of light sweeping through the air.

“Dammit, what has the electronic simulation division been doing!? Their specs were completely wrong!!”

“Complaining isn’t going to help. Whatever the situation, we have to make sure the Princess wins!”

“But how!? He’s faster on these steep slopes and he’s firing a second main cannon even after abandoning his container one! This is getting worse and worse, so the Princess is just going to be worn down!!”

“And I’m saying we have to turn that around somehow. Come with me!”

The mountains shook ominously as the two of them worked at climbing the slope.

They felt an extra large tremor, so the Flyaway had probably damaged the Princess with its plasma main cannon, regrouped with its container main cannon, and started firing the remaining coilgun shells.

How far had the Baby Magnum been worn down?

Was the Princess okay?

Could they all leave this battle alive?

Heivia nervously turned toward the noise, but the student was not looking toward the Flyaway. He walked along with his eyes glued to the muddy driver’s journal.

“Wait, wait, wait. What are you going to learn from that thing!? There’s a horrifying monster right in front of us, you know!?”

“Shut up. And Heivia, hand over your radio. Mine’s broken.”

“Fine, but what are you going to do!?”

“That thing’s so full of secrets that we’d never have a complete idea of its systems if we checked over everything one by one. More importantly, the Princess might not last that long. It’s being a little forceful, but we have to move things along ourselves.”

“What can we possibly do after all this!? The water slide using the smuggling tunnels was a failure and he can whiz along the slope during a landslide! Can you really put together a way of defeating it like some kind of adlibbed recipe!?”

“Like I said, we’ll use this.”

Quenser gently shook the muddy journal and said more to Heivia who clearly did not understand.

“We’ll take them out with what they left behind.”

===Part 15===

“For example, people can sense light across their entire body. There was even an experiment that found shining a powerful light on the back of the knees could adjust the time people woke up in the morning. Because people have some faint sense of light even with their eyes shut, it is possible to prepare for in attack from any direction if trained properly.”

Putana recalled the words of the witch doctor who had examined her body.

“But that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening with you. A lot is still unknown about the process you use to directly sense other people’s gazes. When we line up a bunch of identical cameras, you can accurately tell us which ones are active, and that isn’t normal. Yes, yes. This is a truly fascinating case.”

Even the girl who used it did not understand exactly how it worked, but she did know how to use it as an Elite’s weapon.

“…”

Putana slowly closed her eyes in the almost pure darkness at the bottom of the valley.

The surges of invisible pressure were much like flashlights being rudely pointed this way and that. After estimating their locations and directions, she opened her eyes again and continued on while avoiding each one.

Not much had been done to keep rocks from falling into the valley, so some rather large ones were sitting here and there. She also saw some military-looking canopied trucks. They seemed to be ones that had blown a tire on the hard rocks. No one remained inside the trucks and there was no sign of the talent trafficking children stuffed inside the back. Instead, extra shotguns and light machineguns had been left behind, so they had apparently not had time to destroy them all.

(Are they still stuck here because of the blown tires?)

Putana weaved her way between the trucks.

She sensed several gazes, but one of them had an odd color to it.

She moved through the darkness to approach the gaze that trembled in fear and she reached an arm around from behind the person.

It was a boy of about ten.

“Mgh!?”

“Be quiet,” she whispered while dragging him behind a truck.

She turned the boy around to get a look at him and placed her index finger on her lips.

She then whispered a question from close by.

“Are you one of the children from the cable cars?”

“…”

The boy nodded again and again.

“They all went over there.”

“Over there?”

“To the Star. …They’re all going to get on the Star. I decided it was too strange and ran off at the last second, though.”

“The Star?”

She doubted the kidnappers could trick the children onto a car or airplane. They were young, but they were geniuses who already had PhDs. With that much involvement in the world of adults, those cold-eyed children would see nothing in that kind of farce.

In that case, was it some kind of metaphor?

What mattered was that this boy had parted ways with the other children.

“Did any other children escape with you?”

“No. They all happily continued on to the Star. And yet none of us has actually seen what it is.”

That was when the randomly searching gazes gained a singular focus like iron sand being sucked in by a magnet. An unpleasant sensation ran down Putana’s back and the gazes focused on the other side of the truck.

Whether a shadow or footprints, they had detected something.

Someone would be sent here to check, so she could not wait around any longer.

Still crouching down, she placed her hands on the boy’s shoulders and looked straight at him.

“Listen. You need to turn around and keep running in that direction. If you keep running in a straight line with the truck in the way, you will remain hidden from the hunters for a bit. Ignore any difference in height and keep running even if you have to climb over a hill.”

“Eh? But…”

“And then…”

Without letting him speak, she removed a hand from his shoulder and pulled out a card-sized firearm attached with reusable tape to her nurse-like green special suit.

It was a one-use flare gun.

“This will send a scramble signal to the white collars, Faith Organization navy experts that work with the Object rather than Viridian Edge. A unit commanded by the major won’t have been corrupted. After making it one hundred meters…no, two hundred, point this straight up and pull the trigger. The military satellite will detect the flash signal and the white collars will come to rescue you.”

“You aren’t running away?”

“I…”

Her way was cut off by Viridian Edge, the Faith Organization intelligence agency disguised as a gang, and the Clovers also known as white collars were also from the Faith Organization. As a runaway, she might as well have been surrounded.

However, she did not let that fact show on her face as she responded.

“I have something I have to do, so you go on ahead and tell them honestly everything that happened here. It would be bad to hide anything. Do you understand?”

“Yes…”

The boy seemed hesitant, but his small fingertips finally touched the flare gun.

He grabbed the grip.

“You’ll be okay, won’t you?” he cautiously asked her. “You’ll be safe, won’t you?”

She did not reply, but she rubbed his hair instead.

After pulling a pump-action grenade launcher from the back of the truck, she gave him a sharp command.

“Get going! Hurry!”

He left the truck as if struck by her words.

The sound of his footsteps gathered countless gazes in his direction, but Putana cut them off by moving out from behind the truck with the grenade launcher over her shoulder.

“Putana, Putana! I heard what happened from Quenser and Heivia. The smuggling tunnels have all crumbled or flooded, but we’re searching the routes for a way to send reinforcements to the bottom of the valley. Do you think you can last that long!?”

Millia spoke over the radio, but Putana paid little attention.

“There is no need. I will end it all before you even arrive.”

“Hold on. I thought Elites were supposed to be the steel queens of a clever and clean battlefield.”

A noise much like the removal of a champagne cork sounded behind her.

The burning of the chemicals in the flare scattered bright red light overhead and Putana Highball calmly responded with that light behind her.

“Not today.”

With a movement of her index finger, the girl used explosives to mow down the spies disguised as gang members.

The battle had begun.

===Part 16===

In the Legitimacy Kingdom, it was known as the Flyaway.

In the Faith Organization, it was known as the Garuda.

The male Pilot Elite inside that Second Generation Object’s fully-protected cockpit was irritated. He still had the upper hand against the enemy Object pinned to the steep slope, but that meant he had gone this long without getting a lethal shot in.

He had released his coilgun main cannon, picked it back up with the tube-shaped manipulator, and reconnected it.

After firing it again, it had no remaining ammunition. He could always abandon it, but he wanted to avoid any possibility of the technology being captured.

The low-stability plasma cannon disguised as the front two feet was only meant for close-range surprise attacks. Its power was far lower than the container one and he could not seem to get a clean hit in after the enemy just barely avoided the first shot.

It was probably about time to leave.

For one thing, it was strange for him to spend more than ten minutes on a single battle.

His enemy was damaged enough that he could easily escape even with the container main cannon.

The communication line to the maintenance base zone entered the back of his mind. He only had to press the button to contact them and the base commander would send out the White Flag signal. That was how it was set up.

However…

“Ksshh…kssshhh! Hey…ksshh…can you hear me, you piece of shit…ksshh!?”

“…?”

Someone had cut in over the radio.

It was an extremely weak signal with only the most basic encryption.

It was not the Faith Organization’s format, so it was probably from the enemy, the Legitimacy Kingdom.

“That sure was an awful thing to do: Bribing a cable car driver, kidnapping a bunch of children on an overseas trip for talent trafficking, and then placing the blame on us. You probably felt pretty safe because the back and forth between PR offices would leave it all a giant gray zone even if some evidence was found. …But did you really think it would turn out like that?”

The Object’s large-scale communication equipment could immediately locate the source of the signal.

Determining the exact location was hardly difficult in the empty mountains.

“We’ve got the driver’s journal and it seems the security camera footage was left behind. We already know what you did. The only question is how exactly to reveal it to the public.”

“The cable cars were empty. I didn’t actually kill anyone.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. If you look at how the cable cars work, they can’t be sent out completely empty. You might have saved the children since they were your merchandise, but you blew away the driver along with the cable cars. We’re going to make sure you pay for that.”

“He wasn’t innocent. He took our money.”

“Don’t act so righteous when you killed him to keep him quiet. Besides, if you hadn’t offered him the money, he never would have left the straight and narrow. You know what? That man you killed took the job to search for his daughter who had disappeared one day. He didn’t do it for the money; he did it so he could catch you people.”

“…”

“So as I said, we’re going to make sure you pay for that. You can’t stop us now. You can sit there in your nuke-resistant room trembling in fear as you wait for the lid to be peeled away, you villain.”

However, the Pilot Elite grinned.

The search was complete.

The signal was coming from behind some rocks at the top of a mountain approximately three hundred meters away.

He immediately aimed there and accurately fired the low-stability plasma cannon at the source of the signal.

In an instant, the entire slope boiled and whoever was sending the signal was vaporized.

===Part 17===

Putana Highball held a pump-action grenade launcher.

It looked like a fatter shotgun. She loaded a grenade by sliding the foregrip attached below the rest of the weapon and she pulled the trigger to fire. Instead of a bullet, it fired an explosive the size of a can of coffee. Once it landed, it scattered shrapnel and an explosive blast, creating a ten meter radius of casualties.

Each time she fired, the roughly-dressed soldiers flew through the air and even the military trucks spewed flames and tumbled along the ground. This weapon was far more powerful than a normal gun. Even if her opponent hid behind some rocks, she could fire the grenade in an arc so it landed beyond the rocks and turned her targets to mincemeat.

“Putana, you…traitorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!”

Someone yelled at her with blood covering their face.

Multiple handgun and submachinegun triggers were pulled at once.

Dry gunshots rang out again and again, but none of them reached Putana. She was not hiding behind cover. She instead twisted her body in midair like a gymnast or figure skater and slipped past every last line of fire.

No, it was not the lines of fire she saw.

She sensed the gazes of the ones wielding the guns.

She fought back with the explosives.

Small explosions occurred here and there, screams were drowned out, and lives were cut short.

(It will take at least ten minutes for the real Faith Organization soldiers to arrive after noticing the flare. I have to hold them back until then.)

She hid in the black smoke and fired grenade after grenade from the open ejection port.

She slid the foregrip and turned the muzzle toward her former allies.

Wind blew along the bottom of the valley and cleared away the smoke.

All of the gazes stabbed into her and bullets flew toward her with twice the intensity of before.

No matter who was firing them, bullets were bullets.

Putana fired her pump-action grenade launcher while constantly twisting around to avoid the gazes, but there were too many of them.

The dry gunshots were accompanied by heavy impacts in her ribs and just above her navel.

“Ha…ha ha! Take that, you disgrace!!”

“Kh.”

She clenched her teeth and pulled the trigger while doubled over. Whoever had gloated was blown to smithereens.

A Pilot Elite’s special suit was made to endure any climate or environment, but it also contained high-level protection against bullets and blades. A submachinegun scattering 9mm handgun bullets would not be fatal unless she took one directly to the forehead.

However, it was not as effective as the bulletproof vests in movies and dramas.

(Ow!! My organs are crying out. I can’t let myself get hit five or six times in the same spot!!)

The bullets would not pierce her body, but that was all. The shock of impact still propagated inside, so multiple hits could easily break bones or injure organs.

More importantly, if the damage locked up her movements, she would be hit again and again.

She would no longer be able to use her ability to accurately sense gazes as an attack.

(There’s no turning back. If I swallow the pain and take out more of the enemy, I can reduce the number of bullets coming my way!!)

She pulled the grenade launcher’s trigger some more.

Her repeated evasion and attack had almost become a pure attempt to crush her enemy.

[[Image:HO_v09_169.jpg|thumb]]

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

She yelled loud enough to cough up some blood as she wore down Viridian Edge’s numbers.

Or so she thought.

Just as a distant military truck seemed to shake, something fell from the back of the truck.

It was a mass of composite armor.

It used humanoid arms and legs and it wielded a weapon.

“A powered suit!?

The roughly-dressed spies had only needed to buy enough time for it to activate.

Putana clicked her tongue and released more grenades from her weapon, but the can-sized explosives could not destroy that armor even with a direct hit.

She could only watch as the powered suit leisurely pulled the cocking lever of its heavy machinegun.

It loaded the first round and aimed the muzzle toward her.

That weapon had enough destructive power to slice a bulletproof vehicle apart, so she would be turned to mincemeat even with her bulletproof special suit.

“!!!???”

She first jumped behind a military truck.

A moment later, a storm of bullets blew by and the entire truck was enveloped in explosives flames and blown away.

===Part 18===

The Flyaway blew away the entire mountain slope like it was crushing a bug.

The radio signal vanished, so no traces would remain of the soldiers accusing the Pilot Elite.

“Did you really think that would work, you idiot?”

Quenser laughed quietly as he hid on a different slope, far removed from the blast site.

He held a handheld device that had been linked to the radio sending out the “obvious” signal. The Flyaway had only destroyed Heivia’s radio which had been relaying the signal. The radio and the handheld device had been communicating via a laser signal, so that connection had not been detected at the same time.

“Wait, wait, wait. Tricking him’s all well and good, but what do we do now!? It might be true that we can catch him off guard now that he thinks we’re dead, but he’s too fast, heavy, and – most of all – solid! What can we do to fight!?”

“You don’t need to think that hard.” Quenser sounded cheerful. “After all, it’s already over.”

“What?”

Heivia’s confusion was immediately followed by the mountain slope being torn away. This collapse was much larger than the previous landslides. Almost the entire slope of a mountain slid straight down, along with the Flyaway that had fired on it.

“Wh-what the hell!?”

“Hint 1: These mountains are filled with smuggling tunnels made by the Capitalist Corporations. We used them as a water pipeline, but that failed. Now, where did that water end up? It had nowhere to go, so it would still be filling the mountain.”

Quenser raised a finger each time.

“Hint 2: Safe country cities sometimes experience landslides on a much larger scale than the hill or mountain should have allowed for. These are called deep-seated landslides. When an underground reservoir gathered on a mountain quickly exceeds its limits after a strong burst of rain, the entire slope can slide down.”

“Wait a second! You don’t mean…!!”

“Hint 3.”

Quenser bent his fingers down to clench a fist.

“That idiot fired a finishing blow when the mountain slope was already full of water. What do you think happens then?”

A frighteningly powerful landslide swept down, carrying the Flyaway with it. Its eight legs – or was it six if you removed the ones camouflaging its second main cannon? – used their static electricity propulsion devices to their fullest in an attempt to hold its ground, but…

“Hey, what’s going on? That damn insect is sliding right on down!”

“Of course he is. This deep-seated landslide isn’t just dry earth. I told you the mountain is full of water, remember!? The static electricity propulsion devices are weak against water, so there’s nothing they can do with this muddy landslide!!”

That was why Quenser had only needed to get him to fire a shot at his own footing.

He had only needed a radio to disguise his location and some kind of material to anger the Pilot Elite.

Even a journal left by someone no longer among the living had been enough.

“Did you look down on him for being a normal person? Well, you lost to that cable car driver you killed.”

The Flyaway gave up trying to stay put and instead tried to maintain some control while falling down into the valley.

However, it did not manage even that.

It wobbled and lost its balance.

“Have a nice long taste of muddy defeat!!”

Once it collapsed, it was over.

Like a snowball rolling down a hill, there was no stopping it. Whether on its main cannons or legs, it rolled and rolled, crushing its own equipment under its weight. The king of the mountain fell to the bottom of the valley in no time at all.

The Baby Magnum’s remaining main cannons and even its spherical body were heated to a glowing orange, but it still aimed those remaining cannons toward the valley bottom.

However, it did not fire.

The two idiots could guess what the Princess was thinking.

“Hey, do you think that guy is still breathing inside that cockpit?”

“Let’s bet on it. I’ve got one hundred euros on him being dead.”

===Part 19===

Struck by the explosive blast, Putana rolled along the ground. She managed to hold onto the pump-action grenade launcher, so she adjusted her grip on it and aimed at the powered suit while still lying on the ground.

However, she did not directly target it.

That would not have broken through its armor.

The military truck right next to the powered suit probably had plenty of weapons and ammunition piled up in the back, so she mercilessly fired an explosive into it.

A tremendous explosion occurred and sizzling pain raced across Putana’s skin even from a distance.

(I did-…)

As soon as she got up, her expression froze over.

The powered suit had been knocked onto its back, but it had not stopped moving.

It slowly got up with creaking movements. Its heavy machinegun may have been bent because it did not bother picking it up.

Instead, it rushed toward the brown girl.

“…!!”

She frantically adjusted her grip on the grenade launcher and fired toward the powered suit’s feet. When it flinched back, she detonated another military truck. However, it still was not enough firepower. The powered suit was not even knocked over this time. It continued moving closer and grabbed her in its giant hand. She was squeezed by fingers that could be used to demolish a building.

“Gah…ghh…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

“It’s too bad, Putana.”

Someone went to the trouble of talking through the speaker.

“I never was able to become a Pilot Elite, so part of me looked up to you. I can’t help but feel so very, very sorry for you as I wonder how you could have fallen so low.”

Putana wanted to respond, but her ribs were creaking, her diaphragm was blocked off, and she could not breathe properly.

But that was why the powered suit did not notice the “ending” approaching behind it even at the very last moment.

A massive landslide poured into the bottom of the valley and swallowed up the powered suit from behind.

The mass of mud and brown water swept everything away.

It had enough force to send the massive rocks and military trucks rolling along. The powered suit was no exception. It was knocked to the ground and then swept about in the water.

At some point, the pilot may have noticed that the powered suit had let go of its target.

However, there was nothing to be done. With no sense of up or down anymore, the puny weapon was swept away like a bug down the drain.

===Part 20===

Three minutes after the Faith Organization military satellite detected the optical pattern of the flare, fully-equipped soldiers rushed to the bottom of the valley.

They were the Clovers.

They were also known as the white collars and they were navy experts, so one might think they were unused to fighting in the mountains or anywhere that required wearing camouflage and firing handheld weapons. However, that was not the case. They were as well trained as any marines that specialized in landing operations.

Their pure white uniforms would have been too dangerous even in the middle of the night, so they wore black cloaks over them as they descended from a transport helicopter by a single rope.

“Putana’s signal came from here.”

They were surprised by the deep-seated landslide that had transformed the valley bottom into a muddy river.

As they climbed a little from the valley bottom, they found a boy on a slight hill.

They recognized what he held.

“That’s Elite equipment. It probably belonged to Putana Highball because she superstitiously preferred outdated models.”

“Then what happened here?”

The Clovers looked to the boy.

He kept his promise.

He honestly told them what had happened without hiding anything.

“Everyone was swept away by the river.”

===Part 21===

A splashing sound could be heard far downstream of the muddy river created by the landslide.

Putana Highball was using both hands to somehow crawl out of the water.

“Pant, pant… Ugh… Cough, cough!!”

She coughed the water from her mouth and caught her breath.

She then lay on the ground staring up into the night sky.

What would she do now?

A few options presented themselves to the brown girl.

She could find some way of contacting them or return to the run-down hotel on her own in order to meet back up with the Legitimacy Kingdom intelligence division calling itself Azul Hive.

She could also pretend she had been drowned in the muddy river and escape the surveillance of both the Legitimacy Kingdom and the Faith Organization.

No amount of work would bring the Sarasvati back, but that did not change the fact that the Legitimacy Kingdom group had been the ones to steal it from her.

On the other hand, she would lose their support if she turned on them. It was obvious what fate would await her if she had two world powers pursuing her at the same time.

Would she obey and live?

Or would she fight back and die?

She thought for a while, but she was suddenly interrupted.

Someone’s face jutted into her upturned field of vision.

“Glad to see you’re still alive.”

It was Millia Newburg.

She smiled and held out a hand.

“No matter how it happened, we took you in, so I’m not about to lose you here.”

“…”

At the very least, she did not feel the “gaze” of a military satellite.

How had the woman found her after she was swallowed up by the muddy river?

She decided not to think too much about that.

It seemed she had only one option left.

“The Flyaway has stopped moving. The Pilot Elite is probably soaking the cockpit like tomato juice from a juicer. Well, the rest is a job for the technology division. They’ll be taking it apart and bringing parts home while worrying the reactor was set to self-destruct.”

Putana grabbed Millia’s hand and unsteadily rose to her feet.

The woman’s (obviously stolen) motorcycle was stopped nearby and they both climbed onto it.

Putana wrapped her arms around the officer’s back as the motorcycle took off.

“Now, that settles that. I’ll admit Lost Angels is a worthless city, but it’s a huge plus getting to eat something other than soap-like rations while on a mission. Let’s drink as much as we can today!!”

“But I think today has already ended.”

“Then let’s keep drinking until ‘tomorrow’ is over. That’s two in such a short time! Two! And both of them were captured instead of destroyed. Of course, we can’t get conspicuous medals because we’re from the intelligence division, but we’ve done enough for the Legitimacy Kingdom to get a bronze statue at a school, don’t you think? No one’s gonna get after us if we have a bit of a party.”

“…”

Putana’s Sarasvati was one of those prizes.

The brown girl clenched her teeth a little and heard some static.

“Ksshh.”

It seemed to come from the headset on Millia’s ear.

She heard Quenser and Heivia’s voices coming from it.

“I found Putana,” said Millia. “I’ll take her back to the city, so you head to the restaurant ahead of us. The workers probably won’t be happy about how muddy you are, but they’ll warm up to us once we eat and drink and leave plenty of money for them.”

“Oh? So Putana didn’t run off? I’m surprised.”

“Does that mean she’s going to stick with us no matter what she actually thinks about us?”

The conversation was being held over the headset, so they must not have known Putana could hear them.

They had no idea that could change if she was pressing against Millia’s back with her arms around the woman’s waist.

“Hah hah!” laughed Millia. “Given her situation, she might not be able to survive any other way. I guess this was to be expected.”

“You heard her, Quenser. Aren’t you glad she isn’t some obsessive girl who’s willing to get revenge at the cost of her own life? Now you don’t have to live in fear anymore.”

“Yeah, I really am glad. I was seriously afraid she’d find out we’d been acting on an idea I came up with.”

Putana quietly bit her lip behind the commander where no one would notice anything.

When she spoke, it was only in her heart.

(I pretty much already knew that, you know?)

The rusty flavor of revenge spread through her mouth.

Her story was far from over.

<noinclude>{{HEAVYOBJECT Nav|prev=HEAVY OBJECT:Volume9 Chapter 1|next=HEAVY OBJECT:Volume9 Chapter 3}}</noinclude>

The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Volume6 Chapter 2

2015-08-24T13:02:19Z

91.117.172.159:

{{Incomplete|parts=5|tparts=16}}
==Chapter 2: Development@Uchimaku Hayabusa & Hachikawa Tomoe==

===Part 1 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)===

“Tarot Girls 22 here! First it was burgers, then it was gyudon, and now we have a brand new fast food revolution! The revolutionary restaurant Neko Manma is exactly what it sounds like! This bowl full of rice covered in exactly the kind of miso soup you want is a friend to the masses. And of course you can choose red miso, white miso, bonito broth, sea slug broth, pork broth, or seafood broth. As the Empress of the Major Arcana, I, Anemura Kaede, am rooting for this nostalgic yet new style of food!!”

An idol’s recorded announcement played on a loop to match the commercial playing on the restaurant’s TVs.

I copied the mascot’s cry of “Miso soup splash!” as I poured the shark broth on the steaming white rice in my bowl.

''Ahhh!! Working out of the office is so hard!!

Investigation Department 1’s chief was shoving all the worst jobs on me to repay me for acting without permission so much lately. Food was the only thing I had to look forward to, which seemed like a major red flag from a mental health perspective.

“Eh, ah, ahem!! ‘Uchimaku, take this file and get investigating. A coroner’s autopsy isn’t enough to determine whether the old folks who died alone in their homes and then mummified really did die natural deaths or not. Go reinvestigate everything to see if there was a crime involved.’ Detective, your colleagues really do hate you, don’t they?”

“Why are you here, Miss Compulsory Education? And how can you do such a spot on impersonation of the chief from this morning!?”

“That’s. A. Secret☆ By the way, detective, if you’re gonna eat at Neko Manma, you need to get the famous Miyazaki cold miso. Honestly, don’t you know anything? That’s the #1 dish here.”

“You’re kidding. Wouldn’t that leave you with cold rice?”

The twintailed Mystery Freak was pretty much wearing a swimsuit around town again. She suddenly appeared in the seat next to me and took a bowl. The one thing that was appropriate for her age was the scarf modeled after a character with a really long body. It was midday, so the counter seats were packed full and she used that fact to press up against me more than absolutely necessary.

“You aren’t going to find any new evidence in this reinvestigation. How many years ago did the first investigation end? How many decades ago did those old people die? Unless the blunt weapon or blade reached the bone, not even an autopsy would find anything at this point. You aren’t going to find any new witnesses or a murder weapon. There’s just nothing there.”

“The chief probably knows that and wants me to waste my time. To hell with him.”

If you were willing to live with a corpse, it might be possible to commit the perfect crime without dumping the body in the forest or ocean. As long as you didn’t illegally take money from their pension, it would be treated as a natural death and no criminal case could be made. And as long as the family living in the same house “didn’t notice”, it didn’t count as abandonment of a corpse. Of course, it would take twenty or thirty years of living with the stench of death to receive the benefits of mummification, so it was simply too frightening to imagine.

“What are you doing, Mystery Freak?”

“Well, my actions might overlap with yours, so I thought I should pop in to say hello.”

“?”

“Hey, hey. If you’re investigating the mystery of the old mummies, why not go on a date with me☆? Splitting up would be inefficient, so if we’re both going after the Ubasute Apartments, we might as well flirt along the way☆”

“Ubasute…Apartments?”

That unexpected term left me in shock.

“Uba” was rarely used to mean “old woman” in modern times, but it could still be seen in the name of a Youkai called a Yamanba.

Ubasute was the act of abandoning one’s parents in the mountains because you didn’t have enough money to support them or were sick of taking care of them. And the fate of an old person abandoned in the dark mountains was obvious. People argued about the ethics of euthanasia in modern times, but the concept of Ubasute made it hard to say the past was always better. The topic made my food seem completely flavorless.

I didn’t know what exactly this was about, but I knew where the name Ubasute Apartments had to have come from.

Meanwhile, the Mystery Freak spoke up while rubbing her head on my shoulder.

“Its official name is different of course, but over fifty old people have died alone there in the last three years and they were all immediately deemed natural deaths. Don’t they seem oddly unwilling to call it a crime? Are you feeling a little more motivated now?”

===Part 2 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)===

Sugamo was known as the Old Lady’s Harajuku, but it was slowly changing. Trees had been planted here and there to add a little more green to the scenery and residential areas were popping up for old people who wanted a peaceful life. Of course, land was always at a premium, so the apartments tended to be in high-rise buildings.

Ikebukuro was nearby, so it might have been something like Daikanyama was to central Shibuya.

“That’s not an apartment building. These days, graveyards are built in high rise buildings too.”

“Seriously? Well, at least I can’t imagine any ghosts or offering thieves showing up there.”

“And that tree over there is a grave tree. They get a whopping fifteen applications for every open spot. …But I feel like a lone tree standing in the middle of a park would end up withering away from all the things people would do to it.”

We spoke back and forth as we made our way to the investigation site on foot.

The Ubasute Apartments in question were outside the aforementioned residential area.

Around twenty identical buildings were squeezed in together like bookcases in a library. The buildings themselves looked old, but they seemed properly maintained and didn’t feel unclean. Still, their overall atmosphere was somehow different from the other places. The area had a lot more trees than elsewhere, so the apartment buildings seemed to poke out from a thick forest. Just by blocking the view and the road gave the entire place a sense of rejection.

“Is this really the only way in?”

“It certainly is inconvenient.”

The brick-paved road was narrower than a farm road and it meandered back and forth. The road itself was quite bumpy because tree roots were pushing it up from below.

I doubted you could get a scooter through, much less a car.

We continued down the awful road for two or three hundred meters as if going for a picnic…no, for a light hike. If the path had been straight, it wouldn’t have been half that long.

Finally, the manmade forest cleared up and an impressive form stood in our way.

We had reached the Ubasute Apartments.

The closest building’s entrance was a lot like a school’s main entrance or a hospital’s visitor’s entrance. According to the plate set up there, the official name was Wankashi Camp Apartments.

As I read that name, I heard a slamming. I looked up at the six or seven story building and saw one of the many windows slam shut.

No, it wasn’t just one.

After that first one, that sound of rejection continued from all over. It was just like when a meeting had fallen silent and someone cleared their throat.

“Now that’s what I call a warm reception.”

“I don’t care as long as they don’t drop a flower pot on us from the balcony. …Anyway, what are these?”

Several metal buckets were sitting around here and there. They were dented and filled with dirty water. Were they full of rainwater?

Then I noticed an old man in a track suit watering a flower garden with a watering can. After using up the water in the watering can, he grabbed one of the buckets from the ground and poured its contents into the watering can. Filled with that much water, the bucket had to be quite heavy.

The Mystery Freak immediately jumped at this chance.

“Hey, mister.”

“What?”

The old man sounded incredibly suspicious, but he didn’t refuse to talk altogether.

Enbi used that to her advantage and pushed further.

“That looks tough. Why do you collect the water in buckets?”

“The buckets gather rainwater. This is the most efficient way.”

…''What?

“Mister, but wouldn’t it be easier to use the faucet?”

“Water is valuable. Kids these days might not get that, though.”

He then asked us a question with the refilled watering can in hand.

“What are you two doing here? I didn’t think door-to-door salesmen would visit a place like this.”

''Let’s see. Where did I put my police badge?

I checked through my pockets and finally pulled my ID from my back pants pocket.

“I’m from the police. I’m here today for, well, additional investigation on some people who died alone.”

“You’re a police officer?”

He clearly frowned and gave me an even more skeptical look.

“Don’t the police normally work in groups of two?”

“Not always.”

Police officers in dramas were sometimes mocked for acting alone, but it was pretty common in reality. If there was a rule forcing us to work in pairs, we’d be spotted right away if we tried to tail someone. It would completely undermine the concept of a plainclothes officer.

“But it certainly isn’t normal for one to be working with a teenage girl.”

“That is very true. I am well aware of that fact and I have nothing to say in my defense.”

“I don’t care how kids dress, but at least cover up your midriff. You’re only hurting yourself doing that.”

After spitting out those words, the old man started toward the building with the empty watering can in hand.

“Um, uh…”

“My name is Tayama Sunao. You can check around the apartments if you want.”

“I’d like to speak with the manager, so do you know where they might be?”

“No. In fact, haven’t seen them in a while.”

Tayama-san didn’t even turn back our way.

“Oh, and while I don’t care what you do, don’t use the elevator.”

With that, he really did vanish into the building.

The Mystery Freak and I exchanged a glance.

“What should we do?”

“Whatever we can. We don’t really need his permission.”

I pulled out a cellphone equipped with a police SIM and called up the file for this job. I decided to check the rooms of the deceased old people and then ask around at the neighboring rooms.

I walked through the large apartment grounds based on the file.

As we made our way through the closely packed buildings, the windows slammed shut around us. They were rejecting outsiders, but they weren’t ignoring them. The buildings were filled with countless eyes and I could tell they were all focused on us.

These were the Wankashi Camp Apartments, aka the Ubasute Apartments. According to the Mystery Freak, more than fifty people had died alone here in three years, but the closest such room was on the sixth floor of Building 3.

The building had nothing as fancy as automatically locking doors, so we walked right in. The first floor was not part of the living area. Instead, it seemed to be focused on recreation. A lobby for chatting was filled with benches and a large room was lined with health equipment. We passed through that area and climbed the stairs.

“Hey, Mystery Freak, why’s this place known as the Ubasute Apartments anyway?”

[[Image:Zashiki_v06_138.png|thumb]]

“I’m sure you can guess. It’s an inexpensive option for old folks to live alone. It made waves online for being so incredibly cheap in the city center. The problem is no one knows how to contact the real estate agency.”

“…?”

“Don’t ask me. I’m only repeating the rumors.”

We discussed the case as we climbed the stairs, but the Mystery Freak was already worn out by the third floor.

“Wait, detective… I’m tired…”

“How!? You have to climb three or four flights of stairs at school, don’t you!?”

“My school has elevators. So how about we use the ones here? That old man’s not looking.”

It was true the apartments had seven stories. And twenty buildings, too. If we had to go up and down the stairs that many times, it would be about as much effort as some light mountain climbing.

The Mystery Freak walked right past the next flight of stairs and entered the hallway. There, she pressed the button to one of the four elevators.

“Look, it isn’t even malfunctioning or anything. The light came on, so…”

But Enbi was cut off by another voice.

“Hold iiiiit!! Didn’t anyone tell you not to use the elevator!?”

The roaring voice sounded like a nearby lightning strike.

“Hyah!”

The Mystery Freak jumped and I looked over to find an old lady in an apron poking her head out from a door and giving Enbi a devilish glare. She stomped over, grabbed the Mystery Freak’s hand, and pulled her away.

It almost looked like she was moving her away from the elevator door.

“Honestly. Don’t you give any thought to your safety? …And what kind of outfit is that!? A young girl shouldn’t be walking around in public with her midriff showing!!”

“If that dense man would finally give in and have his way with me, I wouldn’t have to dress like this to seduce him! And it’s already October, you know!? Even I know wearing a swimsuit now is weird!! This scarf is a decoration! This is the surefire sexy swimsuit scarf! Tah dah!!”

“If you know it’s weird, then why don’t you stop!?”

I shouted back with my skin crawling, but no one was listening.

At any rate, the old lady seemed to have taken that conversation at face value.

“Hm? The population has grown to 150 million, but there are still traces of the Immoral Ten Year Project meant to increase the birthrate? How sad. If that scarf is fur, I might faint.”

The apron old lady sounded angry, but she didn’t seem to have all that bad an impression of us. It may have been that she was scolding us instead of angry with us. And her issues with the Mystery Freak’s clothing seemed grounded in worry for the girl’s safety, not her own displeasure.

Tayama-san from the flower garden may have been the same.

In that case, why were they telling us not to use the elevator? I had initially thought it was a way of telling us we were uninvited guests, but that didn’t seem to be the case.

“So what are you two doing here?”

“This doesn’t explain her, but I am a police officer. …Um, this is hard to say, but I’m performing some additional investigation into the death of some people who died alone.”

“Oh.” She readily answered without seeming displeased. “You mean ''Akasabi-san''. That isn’t entirely unrelated to me.”

“?”

''Akasabi-san?

I was confused, but the old lady also seemed confused.

“Is that not it?”

“Well, the investigation has only just begun, so I don’t know any of the details yet. But if you’re willing, could you tell me about this Akasabi-san?”

“That’s fine. Besides, whoever you ask, you’ll end up talking about Akasabi-san. That’s just how well-known the story is.”

===Part 3 (Hachikawa Tomoe)===

I had completely forgotten we had school off after the midterm exams, so I had no real plans despite the day off. With nothing else to do, I decided to visit “his” grave since I’d been putting it off for quite a while.

That was because my mom had gotten remarried. My new dad was nice and I had no real complaints about our new family, but it was still hard to talk about “him”.

Well, since I was able to dig up those old memories, maybe I had finally managed to come to terms with that incident involving a Jinmensou and my friend Mio.

I left home on the pretext of going shopping and boarded the train to Sugamo. I had to wonder what my mom thought when I left in my beige blazer-style winter uniform despite having the day off. I chose some random flowers at the florist by the train station and walked to the graveyard with the bouquet. It was a weekday, so it must have been a strange sight to anyone who didn’t know about our post-exam day off. Still, I wasn’t stopped by a police officer. The big city really could be cold.

On the way, I spotted a middle-aged man and woman arguing at the main gate of what seemed to be an elementary school.

''The man looks like a teacher, but who’s the woman?

“Please calm down, ma’am. Just calm down a little, okay?”

“Shut up!! I know they did it! Who else could have? You suspect them deep down too, don’t you!?”

“Like I’ve been saying, there’s no way to be sure.”

“But they brought a weapon to the school that other time… If you aren’t going to report this, I’ll do it myself. But if I do it, you might just be found complicit in this!!”

…''What in the world is going on?

The woman returned my curious look with a sharp glare, so I made a rapid exit. I had no concrete dreams for the future, but I had a few clear ideas of what I ''didn’t'' want to be. A housewife who only caused trouble without doing any housework was one of those. If you didn’t do any housework and didn’t have a job, you were just a grown-up shut-in.

I regathered my thoughts and continued toward the graveyard.

High-rise graveyard buildings and grave trees had become common in recent times, but “he” had prepared himself a stone grave on the grounds of a Buddhist temple. And he had done it long before he died. He had pretentiously said a policeman never knew when he was going to die so he had dealt with that ahead of time, but I doubted that was the real reason.

The buildings and grave trees had people to look after them, so the family didn’t have to maintain the grave. I was pretty sure he hadn’t liked the sound of that.

He tried to keep a composed appearance, but he could actually get pretty lonely.

I set foot in the temple’s graveyard while messing with my cellphone, but I found someone was already there.

The man was a police officer just like “him”.

I was pretty sure his name was Sotobori Gaku. His most noticeable features were the solid build of a judo ace and an extremely intimidating face. He also had plenty of scars. Of course, he was a professional who fought day and night against ''large criminal organizations'', so he had probably given himself that look on purpose.

He had arrived ahead of me, so the grave was already clean and the withered flower and old offering had been replaced with new ones.

He smiled bitterly when he saw me.

“What’s this, Tomoe-chan? Are middle school girls so attached to their electronics that they can’t put them down in a graveyard?”

“I’m playing this for ‘him’. It’s Tarot Girls 22’s new song. …Honestly, can you believe a man of his age was supporting some teenage idols behind his daughter’s back? That man really loved his fads.”

“Eh? What? Really!? I’ll never be able to think about him the same way again!!”

“Ah ha ha. And he’s not going to drink that sake you brought as an offering. He would act cool and go along when his colleagues went out drinking, but when he got home, he’d start vomiting into the toilet.”

But despite what I said, I wasn’t confident I knew who he really was either.

He had lost his life during the Jinmensou incident involving my friend Mio, but I hadn’t noticed a villain had taken his place until the very, very end.

If the detective named Uchimaku hadn’t saved me, that villain probably would have killed me.

I separated my bouquet’s flowers and placed them around the grave as offerings. Then I held my hands together in front of the grave.

Thanks to my mom’s remarriage, I was now part of the Hachikawa family, so I didn’t know if I would end up in this grave engraved with the name “Toujou”. Still, I thought I should at least be allowed to pray for the deceased.

After I reopened my eyes, I asked Sotobori-san a question.

“Hey, what kind of person was ‘he’ to you?”

“A detective.”

His answer came without a moment’s delay, but he must have thought that wasn’t enough because he scratched his head and said more.

“Being a police officer is an occupation. If they didn’t pay you, no one would do it. But once you keep at it for five or ten years, it starts soaking into every part of you. That’s what I mean when I say he had brought being a detective to the level of a lifestyle. Even if he had been fired for some reason, I doubt he ever could have escaped that way of living.”

“…”

“That’s just how it is. You may not like to hear it since he was always neglecting you, but Toujou Miyabi lived the life of a detective to the very end. If he didn’t have steadfast convictions, he would have stopped before he was killed.”

''Honestly. Does that mean he grew up or that he never grew up?

Sotobori-san here and Uchimaku-san who had saved me may have been the same.

And speaking of Uchimaku-san…

“H-hey. You know Uchimaku-san, right? What’s he doing now? He seemed a lot like ‘him’, so is he doing well?”

“Ohhhh, I see.”

“Wh-what?”

“That guy only seems to attract the ones who ‘aren’t quite there yet’. If they just had another ten…no, even just five more years, he would have had a man’s idea of heaven waiting for him.”

“Wh-what are you trying to say!?”

“Let me ask you something instead, Tomoe-chan.”

Sotobori-san grinned as he pulled a cellphone from his pocket.

“I know Uchimaku, so I naturally have his phone number and email address. So what are you going to do, Tomoe-chan? This is the perfect chance if you want his address.”

''They really are kids! The police are nothing but children!!

“Wh-what? What are you-… I don’t, um, want…”

“This might be your one and only chance, you know? Over thirty million people move through Tokyo every day, so surely you aren’t thinking you’ll just so happen to miraculously bump into him again without putting any work into it yourself.”

“Uuh…”

I looked away from him.

''Damn, I can feel the heat in my cheeks. I know what this means, so why can’t I stop myself from holding out my cellphone!?

My voice was barely audible as I announced my surrender.

“Please…give it to me.”

“Sure thing. …Y’know, this means I’m giving a grown man’s address to a man’s daughter right in front of his grave. I hope he doesn’t start haunting me.”

“Sh-shut up. That isn’t what this is about! And I don’t care if he does show up as a ghost! That would probably make things a little livelier around here!!”

My argument was losing any coherence as I held the cellphone close to my chest.

''I-I have it.

''But what am I supposed to do with it!?

Sotobori-san then turned his head as if he had noticed something.

“Now, then. I can’t intrude any longer, so I’ll be going. It’s probably been a while for you, so take your time.”

“?”

I gave him a puzzled look as he waved and left, but I soon realized what this was about. Someone else was approaching through the graveyard.

''Toujou…Midori-san.

She was ‘his’ younger sister. That made her my aunt.

“Long time no see, Tomoe-chan.”

I didn’t know what to call her, but I finally smiled and called her the same thing I had the last time we had met.

“It's nice seeing you again, Aunt Midori.”

===Part 4 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)===

The old lady in an apron we met in the Ubasute Apartments was apparently named Nezu Yuki. We didn’t want to stand around and talk, so she showed us to her apartment.

It seemed to have been designed with a family in mind because it had a fair number of rooms. It was all well-maintained, so it looked old yet clean. However, the size of the apartment made it feel a little lonely for an old woman to be living their alone.

Also, the lighting was oddly dim, but it wasn’t enough to make reading difficult. She probably just wanted to save electricity.

“I won’t serve you any tea. I’m out of tea leaves.”

She was also incredibly blunt.

“Well, this topic will kill your appetite anyway, so it may be better this way. Anyone who could eat while discussing Akasabi-san couldn’t be human.”

“So who is this Akasabi-san?”

“Probably one of the people you’re investigating.”

Nezu-san sat at the kitchen table with a groan of effort. The Mystery Freak and I decided to sit in the opposite seats.

“Akasabi-san was one of those who died alone, but the situation was a little different from the bedridden folks without anyone looking after them who dried up, collapsed from a sudden illness, and weren’t found by anyone. Akasabi-san was trapped inside.”

“Trapped inside?”

''In where? And by who?

If a third party was involved, it wouldn’t be a natural death. That was more than enough to be a crime.

But when she saw the sharp look in my eyes, Nezu-san waved her hands in front of her face.

“Hear me out first. I’m talking about the bath door. It had apparently already been old and rattling in its frame, but at some point the door seems to have soaked up enough water to expand. That kept it from moving at all. Akasabi-san was trapped inside the bath.”

“Oh, I get it. So they were trapped inside all on their own.”

Nezu-san nodded at the Mystery Freak’s comment.

“Regardless, they couldn’t get out. At first, they apparently didn’t feel much danger since they were still inside their own house. …But that doesn’t change the fact that they were trapped inside. And people die if they don’t have anything to eat. After realizing the danger, they banged on the door, but it was no use. They couldn’t use the phone and no one showed up after they shouted from the small window.”

“You mean…?”

How would that have felt?

No one ever thought of their own home as a dangerous or deadly place. The trapped person might laugh at what had happened, but as soon as they realized it’s no laughing matter, everything they thought they knew would be turned on its head.

“There was some bathwater left in the bathtub. Drinking that was enough to stay alive, but only stay alive. Their strength faded as the days passed and they lost the strength needed to break down the door or even shout out the window. This continued for a week or two. …They couldn’t even die. They knew they were going to run out of strength eventually, but they extended their suffering. They probably wished they hadn’t had that lifeline so they could have just given up. I heard the bathtub plug had been pulled out by the time the body was found.”

It was an unimaginable story.

Had their thoughts on life and death been turned upside down along with everything else?

In that small world, living had become suffering and death had become a salvation.

“But apparently the dampness of the bath hadn’t completely vanished. Finding a naked corpse would be disturbing enough, but the group that found Akasabi-san apparently saw a pile of bright colored mold covering the entire bath. The corpse was curled up in the center of it all and I hear the mold had turned it to mush like severe athlete’s foot covering the entire body.”

''She was right about this not being a topic to discuss over tea.

I was a detective and seeing crime scenes was a part of the job, so I was fairly accustomed to seeing corpses. But this was different. There was no malicious trick yet someone’s life had been carelessly lost. It felt so empty because the only solution was to accept that these things happened.

“Everyone in the apartments started talking about how we didn’t want the same thing to happen to us, so we started worrying about how the bath doors fit in their frames.”

But if this woman’s story was true, there was no crime involved. It wasn’t something a police officer like me needed to investigate any further. …If it was true no one else was involved, that is.

A drowning could be disguised by letting the corpse mummify or decay. Strangling them could leave a rope mark around the neck or break their neck, but nothing of the sort remained if they were drowned. The mold would have caused the corpse to decay in an extremely short time, so what if someone had intentionally set the room temperature and humidity to promote its growth?

I pulled out my cellphone to find this Akasabi-san on the list of those who had died alone, but then the Mystery Freak spoke to Nezu-san.

“Hey, ma’am, I have one question about this famous Akasabi-san.”

“What is it?”

“Which room did they live in?”

It was an obvious question and the old Nezu Yuki-san gave a clear answer in a tone that seemed to ask why we were asking something so silly.

“That’s the thing. Everyone will point to a different room if you ask them. Well, I’m sure one of them is the real one.”

===Part 5 (Hachikawa Tomoe)===

It had truly been a long time since I had visited a relative’s house for fun.

Toujou Midori-san’s house was near the graveyard. It was a small house, but I thought it was amazing enough to have your own home in Tokyo when the country’s population had grown to 150 million.

“Sorry. Takkun would have wanted to play with you, but she’s still at school. She’s probably only just getting back from her field trip. Would you mind killing some time with your aunt instead?”

“Takkun, hm?”

Despite the “kun”, Takkun wasn’t a boy. The girl’s name was Toujou Takumi-chan and that had been shortened to Takkun. I couldn’t quite remember how old she would be, but I was pretty sure she would still be in elementary school.

We watched TV in the living room and I had a meaningless chat with Midori-san. She would complain about how the beautiful had all the luck since the Tarot Girls 22 could have a scandal but come out of it more popular because it made them seem “more human”.

At some point, Midori-san changed the subject.

“Come to think of it, Tomoe-chan, did you see anyone strange on your way here?”

“Strange?”

I remembered the woman throwing a fit at the elementary school, but that didn’t seem to be what she was talking about.

“There’s an apartment complex just outside of this area and the old people that live there, well…”

“What about them?”

“I guess you could say they get angry easily and, well, they’ve been causing a lot of trouble in the area lately. But as long as you weren’t caught up in it, it doesn’t matter.”

She seemed hesitant to speak, so she was clearly choosing a softer way of putting this.

''Hmm…

It might have been forcing my own image or role onto them, but I felt like old men and women should be living in big rural houses. The old folks who would snap angrily at anyone and got so obsessed with the horse races honestly seemed to be wasting their time and it felt kind of sad. It was too painful to watch when they started shoplifting because they wanted attention or started stalking any young woman who so much as smiled their way.

Of course, old people were human too, so there were good ones and bad ones. They had their own thoughts and some would always be filled with shallow desires no matter how long they lived. That was probably all it was.

“Anyway, I’m glad to hear you didn’t see anything like that, Tomoe-chan.”

That was all Midori-san said.

We watched TV for a while longer and she commented that they got the seasoning wrong on the cooking show and told me how many times a certain actress had been married. At some point, I realized quite a bit of time had passed.

Toujou Midori-san checked the clock and tilted her head.

“Oh? She should have been back by now.”

“Maybe she went to a friend’s house.”

“I tell her to send an email when she does that.”

I decided not to mention how restrictive that rule sounded to me.

I stood up from the table.

“Then I’ll go check at her school.”

“Eh? You don’t have to do that. It would be meaningless if you just missed each other.”

“Ah ha ha. To be honest, I just wanted an excuse to go jogging. You’ve been having me eat so much that I can’t even calculate out how many calories I’ve had.”

With that said, I put my shoes on in the entrance, but my aunt still looked troubled.

“Tomoe-chan, I know you’re on a diet, but don’t force yourself. They said on TV some female athletes get irregular periods.”

“I’m not working myself that hard, so don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”

I opened the front door with a bitter smile.

As I did so, question marks danced inside my heart.

''I know they might be causing trouble, but was Midori-san really the type to bad mouth people like that?

===Part 6===

===Part 7===

===Part 8===

===Part 9===

===Part 10===

===Part 11===

===Part 12===

===Part 13===

===Part 14===

===Part 15===

===Part 16===

<noinclude>
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|-
| Back to [[The_Zashiki_Warashi_of_Intellectual_Village:Volume6_Chapter_1|Chapter 1]]
| Return to [[The_Zashiki_Warashi_of_Intellectual_Village|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[The_Zashiki_Warashi_of_Intellectual_Village:Volume5_Chapter_3|Chapter 3]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Volume6 Chapter 1

2015-08-17T13:38:46Z

91.117.172.159:

==Chapter 1: Introduction@Jinnai Shinobu & Yonsesaki Hiro==

===Part 1 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

In the end, I didn’t get even a wink of sleep.

“You idiot! You complete moron!! I told you this was your fault! It hung up because it mixed up the signals from my room and yours after you messed with the router’s settings!”

“Ahem. You can blame it all on the video lagging while I was playing my FPS.”

“You aren’t getting out of this by pouting your lips. Oh, honestly. It didn’t record that foreign drama because of this… What happened to that terrorist after he jumped from the dam!? There’s no way he’s dead!!”

“Shinobu, listing past regrets isn’t going to change anything. Think of it as the beauty next door asking you to hook up her digital recorder. It sounds like a lovely memory now, doesn’t it? Yes, and you spent all night with her.”

It was true that Zashiki Warashi didn’t often come begging me for help with her hands clasped together and tears in her upturned eyes. Just how addicted to entertainment was she? The real problem was that her description had made my heart skip a beat. If she found out, she’d have me doing her bidding for the rest of my life!

By the way, her room was filled with the sweet smell of incense. Once I finally got the internet connection working, the cable broadcast returned to the flat screen TV. When I saw the dry early morning news playing, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

“Disconnection education or trauma disconnection is the idea of optimizing the brain’s network of synapses using the fact that heavy mental stress will block some of the circuits in the brain. The experts have admitted this provides extraordinary improvements in calculation speed, but at the same time…”

It was just too dry. Given the time, it was too early for breakfast but too late to get some sleep. Even if I washed my face and set my hair, I’d still have some time leftover.

It was mid-October. After finishing with my face and hair and putting on my winter school uniform, I had a little extra time on my hands, so I decided to play with the Nekomata, a relatively sensible Youkai.

“Nekomata-san, Nekomata-san.”

“What is it now? Why are you bothering a lady as she tries to eat?”

She sounded a little annoyed, but that might have been because my Western cuisine loving mom was in charge of the cat food today. The can of tuna cat food cost a little more than the human food, but this Nekomata much preferred the “cat rice” my grandma made by putting miso soup on leftover rice.

Giving that cat rice to a normal cat would be deadly with all the salt and the green onion, but this was a Youkai. Things must have been different for her.

The Nekomata devoured the can of food despite her displeasure, so I sat in front of her and asked about something.

“It’s been two or three months since we met, hasn’t it?”

“Munch, munch. What about it?”

“Then I think it’s about time we brought our communication to the next level.”

“?”

“Let me touch your tai-…”

“I’ll kill you, brat.”

She didn’t even let me finish.

''Don’t think I’m going to give up! I’ve got nothing else to do!! And I’m going a little nuts from the lack of sleep!!'' (←Yes, I was well aware that was the cause.)

“C’mon, c’mon. Just a little, okay? Let me touch your tail just a little. Do it with a normal cat and it would scratch your hand with a cross counter, but I can talk it out with you since you understand human language!!”

“If you know I won’t like it, then don’t force me to put up with it! You sure are impudent for an M!!”

“Oh, come one! You’ve got two tails and I’m only asking to touch one! Quit being so stingy!!”

“How stupid can one brat be!? Would you agree to have one of your balls crushed just because you have two of them!? And I called you an M, so how about you at least deny it!?”

As we argued, my spine tingled as an intense gaze reached it.

For one thing, the gaze came from somewhere unusual.

“Wh-what? The ceiling? Gh!?”

“…”

When I looked straight up, I saw a square hole removed from a corner of the ceiling like something from a ninja mansion and I saw two eyeballs peering down from it.

The succubus that lived in the attic was observing our exchange. With round goat horns, bat-like wings, an arrow-shaped tail, and her micro-bikini, she was (from a purely visual perspective) a wonderful housemate, but…

“Master, if you want to play with a tail, you can always use mine!!”

“Why do you sound so excited!?”

“Because I’ve been so bored living in the countryside!! There’s no stimulation from young men and women here!!”

The Western demon slipped down from the ceiling.

“Look, look. If you want to touch a tail, you can try mine out as much as you want. If you like, I can moan erotically every time you poke it which should leave an impressive bulge in your pants before you head off to school! In the world of imagination, of course!!”

“Oh, sorry. It doesn’t work if I know it’s an act.”

Besides, I already knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to love on that cat’s tail! I had to see if it was as soft and fluffy as I imagined it was!!

But the Succubus pouted her lips.

“Boo. You’re too cold, master. Maybe it would be more effective if I messed with you instead. I could use the arrow on my tail to thrust right on in from behind.”

“Wait! Wait!! You’re doing what to where!?”

I was already panicking, but that was when yet another deadly Youkai wandered in.

This yandere marriage hunting Youkai was the Yuki Onna.

“Nope! Back right on up!! I’m not letting you make this any more complicated! And you don’t even have a tail!!”

I prepared myself to flee at a moment’s notice, but the Yuki Onna was acting oddly.

Her face was as red as a boiled octopus, her kimono was practically falling off of her, and she was swaying back and forth.

''Hm? Huh? Was her kimono always this baggy???

“Haphew… Trying to take a morning bath was a mistake… I-it was practically boiling after your grandfather took his bath…”

The freezing chill that usually hung around her had vanished.

''What’s going on here? Did that hot bath weaken her? And she still looks soaking wet.

''So that means…oh?

''Are her deadly below-zero defenses not working right now?

''And she’s still intent on marriage?

''Huh?

''So what would happen if I let her take control of the situation and we ended up on the floor together?

“…”

I, Master Gentleman Shinobu, cleared my throat and stood up from the tatami mats.

I put on my best gentlemanly look and spoke.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to lay out a futon over there to help nurse the overheated Yuki Onna back to health.”

“Getting her drunk and taking advantage of her? You really are the worst.”

“That is ''not'' what I’m doing!! Removing her violent side just barely brings her into the acceptable zone. …But wait. What is this? Is she melting or shrinking? Where did those small yet promising breasts go!? Now, I’m even less sure, but I bet this weakened state is only temporary. The second I do anything, she’ll probably make a full recovery and freeze me! So for today, I’m just going to keep an eye on her!! Damn, if only her chest was still there!!!!!”

“Oh, c’moooon, master!! If you’d only told me, I could have let you use all sorts of cheats to get any girl to fall in love with you. How about it? To get you started, I’ll let you try one out at the low, low price of only one year from your lifespan!”

“I said I’m not doing anything today!! And I’m not interested in that right now anyway! Now, Nekomata, just let me touch your fluffy tail!!”

“Don’t turn that Succubus’s attention my way. Stick with the Yuki Onna.”

“Is it just me or are you leading me in that direction even as you look down on me for doing it?”

“And now your muscular dad is standing right behind you. So how do you plan to explain your way out of this one?”

''Eh? No, wait!!

“You’ve got it all wrong!! Eh? Wh-why are you clenching that gigantic fist as hard as rock!? They were the ones leading me astray! I was only trying to nurse her back to health, so it
would be wrong to only hit me!!”

===Part 2 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

After the great panic that morning, it was time to leave for school.

“Oh…ohhh…ohhhhh…”

I groaned and rubbed the top of my head as I plodded along the usual path to school. After my dad’s fist dropped, the Youkai and demon fled like they were hit by the shockwave of a meteor strike. The Zashiki Warashi hadn’t even been in the same room, but she still spent a while hiding under the tea table (without realizing her butt was sticking out). Honestly, there were too many questions about the way that man scared Youkai.

''Hmm.

''This winter uniform’s collar is too stiff!! I know I’m probably just not used to it after not wearing it for so long, but it’s still bothering me!!

And then…

“Today’s lunch is sukiyaki! What an age we live in.”

“First years, don’t leave the sidewalk.”

“PE’s so boring now that swimming lessons are over.”

''What’s this? What’s this?

It felt like there were a lot more little kids than usual.

When I gave the backpack-wearing group a puzzled look, a sporty classmate of mine named Tarou spoke up after joining me from another farm road.

“You hadn’t heard, Jinnai? A bunch of city kids were invited to the elementary school. It’s an entire year of kids from some city school. They’re calling it a cultural exchange and it’s making things pretty cramped for those of us in the lodging group. I want permanent residence in this village so bad. I don’t want to be a servant to some brats.”

“Yeah… Who knows how much it would cost to stay in an Intellectual Village inn.”

“Your place doesn’t accept guests, so I’m pretty jealous. Of course, that wouldn’t leave anywhere for me. Some places take in about twenty people in one house. That really makes you feel like a maid. I don’t know if it has to do with the genius kid boom they’ve been talking about, but those city kids see right through anything you try to get by them. They’re so not cute.”

It was easy to tell which ones lived here and which ones were from the city. One group looked shocked whenever a Youkai showed up and the other group ignored them completely.

“There’s a 30% chance of rain today. I must protect my master from a sudden downpour!”

“The sun sets quickly once autumn begins, so it couldn’t hurt to have a lantern!!”

An Umbrella Obake and a Lantern Obake with a single eye and a large tongue sticking out were carefully guarding a boy of about ten from either side.

''Let’s see… That boy in the blue sweater and beige pants is Yonesaki Hiro, right? Didn’t I meet him during that stuff with the Shichinin Misaki?

“Jinnai, is there any kind of Youkai you want?”

“With them, I really don’t think it’s about what you want.”

After all, you suddenly find them living with you! That might have had something to do with how my Youkai-loving mom kept taking them in, though!!

“Eh? But wouldn’t you love to be like Taira no Masakado or Takiyasha-hime? Don’t you dream of being completely untouchable as the ultimate Youkai tamer?”

“I think they dealt more with vengeful spirits than Youkai. And no thank you. That always ends with having your physical body taken over.”

“But our school has a bomb shelter dungeon. You’d have to be crazy if that doesn’t get your imagination going!”

“That’s just part of the disaster infrastructure in case a typhoon or landslide isolates the village. After all, an Intellectual Village is so reliant on online shopping that we’d starve with the roads cut off. All you’ll find in that shelter are sleeping bags and canned biscuits.”

“If you go to the very bottom, there’s gotta be a half-naked spring spirit girl with wet, see-through clothes!!”

We continued our discussion all the way to our high school.

The classroom was filled with activity before homeroom because first period was PE. My school had a general understanding that the boys changed in the classroom while the girls changed in the locker room. I couldn’t have been the only one who shed tears of blood that it wasn’t the opposite, allowing me to “accidentally” open the door to that world of pink.

“Have you heard, Shinobu-kun? We’re running a marathon for PE today. Can you believe that? And after I was up until four in the morning trading and drinking health drinks.”

“Madoka, you really need to get some common sense. They split up the boys and girls for PE, so… Whoa!? Our summer wasn’t over after all!!”

“Thank you for the reaction I expected. Can I hit you now?”

My classmate, the eccentric beauty named Madoka-chan, was squirming and rubbing her thighs together, but that was obviously because of the red bloomers she had changed into for PE. And while her hair was short, it was cutely tied on either side.

“Honestly, I thought we were finally free of this now that autumn is here, but they said track suits aren’t allowed for the marathon! We have to run outside the school grounds dressed like this. Can you believe that!? I know Intellectual Villages create a high-quality agricultural brand name by intentionally reproducing the original scenery of Japan, but they didn’t have to bring this back with it! It feels like using your computer’s recovery point and bringing back a virus you thought you’d already dealt with!!”

Angry Madoka was speaking faster and a lot more than usual.

''Hm, I see. Since she’s so isolated with no connections to our other classmates, I bet I could improve her bit by bit a lot like with shock therapy. Grin, grin.

“Sigh. Never mind. Shinobu-kun, you don’t hold back when you have a chance to look, do you?”

“By the way, we’ve known each other since April, so that’s over half a year. Isn’t it about time we ended up back to back in a hot spring after we unexpectedly find out it’s a mixed bath?”

“Keep up the perverted jokes and I’ll have my armed guards snipe you.”

“Oh, no fair! You’ve got two breasts, so can’t I grope just one of them!?”

“Shinobu-kun, that makes no sense. You have two eyes, but does that mean you don’t mind if I jab my finger into one?”

“If I can give up an eye for near-permanent access to one of these breasts, you can call me Mr. Eyepatch!!”

Madoka’s expression immediately grew flat as she gave up on thinking.

She then snapped her fingers.

“Heyyy, Whatever-Your-Name-Is Nagisaaa.”

“You!! You’ll call in Nagisa when you don’t want to deal with something now!? Couldn’t you find a less horrifying way to get smarter!?”

It may have been good for Madoka to have some interactions with some other classmates, but that didn’t make it any less frightening. If Nagisa’s yandere thought processes infected Madoka, the power of money would turn her into an even greater monster!

At any rate, it was time for an appearance from Japan’s #1 girl when it came to carrying a chainsaw in the pale bluish light of the full moon.

“What is it, Shinobu-chan? Are you recruiting the people you need for a love spell? Eh heh heh…”

“No! I have no plans for any insane ceremonies involving muttering magic words while cutting your wrist to pour blood into a handmade box lunch!! Bye!!”

I raised a hand and made a full speed dash from the girls in bloomers.

''Nooo!! The guys are supposed to change in the classroom, but that’s a lost cause now. I have to stay away from this area for a bit, so I might be stuck changing in the bathroom!!

As I shed tears and a youthful sweat, I ran down the hallway and collided with my nervous homeroom teacher who suddenly appeared from the stairway.

“Wakyaaah!?”

“Bfh!? Y-you’re kidding me? Why do you have toast in your mouth at school!?”

“I know we fell into a heap here, but if that hand keeps creeping silently toward my chest, I’ll scream!!”

''Tch. She noticed.

''And come to think of it, how does that cliché even happen!? If I really grabbed her breast with my full weight on her, I think I’d either sprain my wrist or break her ribs!!

“No, wait. If I fall down normally from the initial hit, roll on the floor to change position, and reach out my hand, I can ignore my weight and the potential energy. That means it might be possible to get a nice feel in without worrying about the risks of the fall. But I can’t pull that off right away. It’ll take some commitment. Maybe I’ll start by getting the judo team to help me practice my falling technique. Mutter, mutter…”

“Um, Jinnai-kun?”

I suddenly noticed my homeroom teacher with teary eyes beyond her glasses as she sat on the floor closely guarding her chest with both hands.

''Oh, dear. Did I frighten you, young lady?

“Heh. Not to worry, teacher. Not even I would treat a virgin roughly. I know how to contain myself, so please relax.”

“Wha-!?”

“I mean, that necklace came as an extra in the fashion magazine Autofocus, didn’t it? It costs less than two hundred yen! And isn’t that magazine’s primary demographic middle school girls? If you’re still seriously consulting that at your age, it makes some things pretty clear.”

“Wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-!?”

My homeroom teacher’s entire face grew beet red and she began waving her hands around for some reason.

There was no sign left of her previous fear.

''Hah hahhh. This is what happens when Jinnai Shinobu, shock therapy master, is on the case!!

“Mutter, mutter. It’s true Ram-chan wrote that it’s an all-purpose piece that anyone from children to adults could-… N-no, you’ve got it all wrong!! The thing is…um…It’s certainly not true that I have no experience whatsoever at my age!!”

“What’s wrong with that? It’s a beautiful thing. It’s perfectly fine. In a way, it’s rare find.”

“You’re attacking me with that ‘in a way’, aren’t you!? You added a silent laugh in your heart, didn’t you!? I’ll have you know that I spent my college days in the big city of Tokyo! Every day and every night was spent in melted in someone’s arms like ice cream on a sunny day!!”

“Do go on.”

“And it goes way beyond just lovers! It was…um, is it called friends with benefits? I still have some of the addresses from back then. Yes, yes. And it involved all sorts of things that I could never tell a high schooler like you about. You’d be left amazed that those things could be used like that! O-oh, it’s such a shame. I can’t think of a good way to explain to you just how obscene and splendid my weekends are. Ah ha ha ha ha.”

“Do, do go on.”

She meaninglessly thrust her chest out proudly and waved her hand as a fan to combat the sweat pouring down her entire body.

But was she aware of the new threat approaching from directly behind her?

“Ahem! …Tanioka-sensei, care to explain just what you were talking about there?”

“Eh? Ah? Eeeek!? P-principal!?”

“I prefer not to invade on others’ privacy, but I believe I just heard something unbecoming of the holy profession of an educator and I’m not quite sure what to do about it.”

“A-ahhh!! That’s not it at all, principal! Kh, but if I deny it all here, Jinnai-kun will think-… Waaah! How am I supposed to explain this!?”

“No need to worry. You can explain everything in the soundproofed student guidance room. …Of course, this is the first time in my long time as a teacher that I’ve heard of a teacher needing to be scolded in there.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!? J-Jinnai-kun, see you later!!”

I waved a hand as my nervous homeroom teacher was dragged away by the back of her neck with tears in her eyes.

With an entirely serious expression, I pulled out my cellphone.

“Good, it can record audio. Good, it can record video.”

After checking its functions one by one, I too made my way toward the student guidance room.

''Now, then. It’s time for some sleazy desire! If she’s being questioned over what she said, she’s definitely going to be asked if she’s a virgin or if she slept around like crazy. We can’t have that! I simply can’t allow that kind of sexual harassment to happen behind closed doors in the constitutional state of Japan! In the name of having audiovisual records of the outrage, I, Jinnai Shinobu, must do my part to ensure the smooth execution of fair and impartial justice. More specifically, I want to see her face when he asks her and makes her squirm!!!!!

In the end, I got a little too carried away and the principal found me almost immediately.

I ended up sitting in the student guidance room right alongside my homeroom teacher.

===Part 3 (Yonesaki Hiro)===

Today’s walk to school was a little more exhausting than usual.

The kids from the city for the cultural exchange kept asking questions and my throat was sore just from answering them all. I had the umbrella and lantern helping me, so the other kids must have had it even worse.

“There’s a 30% chance of rain today. I must protect my master from a sudden downpour!”

“The sun sets quickly once autumn begins, so it couldn’t hurt to have a lantern!!”

The kids from the city were extremely interested in the umbrella and lantern that kept pestering me. They grabbed at and tugged on the two Obake.

To me, those kids were the strange ones.

For one thing, the color of their backpacks wasn’t normal. Instead of red or black, they all had different colors like sky blue or emerald green. They said some of them could swap out the cover for another color based on their mood that day.

Their clothes were the same. To describe what each one of them was wearing would require using four or five brand names you heard about on TV.

“Have you seen Corundum’s new color? I don’t think I could put that on my nails.”

“Also, Kanade-chan really is going to use her spring boots during fall too.”

“That drinkable perfume apparently doesn’t work. Mi-chan from Class 2 collapsed from it.”

Listening to their conversations made me feel a little embarrassed. I chose my own clothes too, but only from the online stores my mom said I was allowed to use. It made me feel immature.

The local kids and I had to explain everything to the mature-looking city kids. It all felt unbalanced, so I had trouble relaxing.

I was already feeling isolated and it didn’t help that the girl walking next to me was especially mature-looking even among the city kids. She felt like the center of both her class and her entire year.

“An Intellectual Village has lots of Youkai, right?”

Her name was apparently Ranzono Sachi-chan.

Her long, chestnut hair had fluffy curls with enough volume to make her already small face look even smaller. On the side of her head, she had a…what do you call those? It was a white rose accessory. Her slender, doll-like body was covered by a white turtleneck sweater, a reddish jacket with the front open, a black miniskirt, skintight jeans, and chocolate-colored boots. She also had a leather belt loosely wrapped around her waist. According to the others, all of her clothes were from a fashion magazine that middle schoolers read.

And that wasn’t surprising.

“Heh heh. A nostalgic coloration wouldn’t be bad. Wearing an actual kimono would be out of the question, but combining the amber brown of wood with red Japanese paper could make for a decent coloration.”

“Will you make it in time for the next issue?”

“Probably not, but I can do what I want for the issue after that. Heh heh. I’m a model and a writer, so I can absorb plenty here and bring it to everyone else.”

That was the gist of it.

On the day Ranzono-san and the others arrived, my classmates had already gotten their hands on enough information to have gathered the fashion magazine Autofocus that middle schoolers read. Middle schoolers seemed out of our reach and even they looked up to Ranzono-san, so knowing the person pictured in the magazine would be standing with us and breathing the same air as us had filled the class with excitement.

Ranzono-san herself was very aloof and did not seem nervous when everyone focused on her. As she peered inside the lantern from above and opened and closed the umbrella, we arrived at the wooden elementary school.

She commented on the schoolyard.

“I see you can play soccer outside in rural schools.”

I had always had trouble speaking with girls, so I had no idea what to say to a celebrity who seemed to be from a different world.

I managed to work out a safe answer.

“Are schools in the city different?”

“We don’t have a schoolyard. We only have the area inside the fence on the rooftop.”

I didn’t see any real sparkle in her eyes when she said that, so she might not have been all that interested in sports.

The PE outfits the city kids had were so much cooler than ours. They had called them…um…spats, was it? They were streamlined and cool like the swimsuits designed to make you swim fast or an F1 racer. They were so much better than our rectangular shorts.

But I wasn’t sure what to do when Ranzono-san didn’t say anything.

I just wasn’t any good at speaking with girls. I only went with the safe and harmless things that everyone had asked and everyone already knew the answer to.

“How do you become a model for a magazine?”

“Heh heh. I’m a model and a writer. They contact you. Anyone’s fine as long as they’re active online. It’s entirely based on merit, so they treat me just like an adult and I design the layout for a magazine middle schoolers read.”

“Middle schoolers, huh?”

That seemed like such a distant world. It felt as far off as the moon. I knew people had gone there, but I couldn’t picture myself standing there.

In other words, Ranzono-san was standing on the moon like that.

We could all tell she was hopelessly out of reach for rural kids like us and it made perfect sense that she was the leader of the city kids. We were all obsessed with talking about “the moon”.

“Hey, is it true Intellectual Villages are full of rare Youkai?”

“There are plenty like the umbrella and lantern, if that’s what you mean.”

“Hmm. I was thinking of something bigger. Like an Oomukade or Tsuchigumo.”

“I wouldn’t know about that… I do know an ''older boy'' who knows a whole lot about Youkai, though.”

“I see.”

“But you know a lot for a city kid.”

“Heh heh. I did a lot of studying.”

The chirping of a small bird interrupted us. I looked over but didn’t see an actual bird.

“That’s an Okuri-Suzume,” said Ranzono-san with a smile.

“?”

“An O-Ku-Ri-Su-Zu-Me. Heh heh. It’s a small bird Youkai that no can see. Its voice is supposed to inform people of coming danger.”

She was so smart. She could study, she could do sports, she knew lots about fashion, she played the piano during music class, and she seemed good at cooking during home ec. It felt like there was nothing I could do better than her. I had thought Youkai knowledge would be the one thing, so it was embarrassing having her explain one of them to me when I actually lived in an Intellectual Village.

Our conversation ended there.

I worried that I should say something and that staying silent would be bad, but I couldn’t find anything to say.

We simply walked toward the school entrance in silence.

As time went on, I realized something.

''This doesn’t feel all that bad.

It was just like the umbrella and lantern that were always with me. There was no reason to keep playing catch with our conversation like shoveling coal into a steam engine. Simply giving ourselves over to the flow of time while walking side by side was plenty relaxing. It felt somehow meaningful.

“Hm? Did you say something?”

“No, nothing.”

It felt like I could get along with her after all.

I certainly hoped I would be able to.

===Part 4 (3rd person)===

The Umbrella Obake was sticking upside-down into the umbrella stand to one side of the elementary school’s entranceway. His large tongue was sticking out and hanging down due to the pull of gravity.

“…”

“U-Umbrella!! This trial is necessary to protect Hiro-sama! So stick with it for another five hours!!”

“Heh. A lantern like you could never understand the grudge of an umbrella left behind like this! Ahh, ahh. I know all too well how a cheap plastic umbrella must feel!!”

The Tsukumogami seemed worked up, but they were really just bored. They were worried about Yonesaki Hiro of the family that owned them, but there was nothing they could do during school. If they tried, the teacher would throw them out. That of course meant they needed to supply themselves with a way to pass the time until school let out.

Today, the lantern carried a teen fashion magazine named Autofocus in her mouth.

“Now, let’s see here. The bonus magazine gives twenty ways to ensure your love comes true.”

“What can a lantern like you learn from a magazine for humans?”

“I am a lady, you know!? I worry about looking after my skin!!”

“And I’m asking how that magazine will help a lantern!”

As they argued, the umbrella moved his single upside-down eye to stare at the magazine’s pages with the lantern. He was a man(?) at heart, so he doubted it would interest him much. Still, he needed some way to pass the time.

But…

“What are all these stripes? I thought a fashion magazine would be filled with models posing in colorful clothing.”

“These are called barcodes or matrix codes. They’re also called AR markers. Basically, you can hold up a cellphone or smartphone to see images or videos of the models.”

The umbrella looked to the magazine that had codes filling the boxes that would normally hold pictures.

“How strange. Then why not look at it all on the internet in the first place?”

“They apparently did that at first. It was only after setting up a successful online business that they decided to enter the paper magazine industry.”

The lantern only knew so much because the children had been talking about little else. Model and writer Ranzono Sachi gathered enough attention to drive out all other conversation. Hanako-san and the statue of Ninomiya Kinjirou had to be crying.

“They scout people without asking about age, qualifications, education, or work history. You can be a scathing critic on a blog, a frequent user of ratings sites, a popular commenter on an SNS, or a creator on a video sharing site. You only need some accomplishments online. Human jobs certainly have changed a lot.”

The internal staff may have been the only exception because the magazine filled with black and white codes included a few actual pictures of posing models.

Although based on their sensibilities, the AR and video codes may have been the main draw while the normal pictures were only meant to fill space.

The model wearing winter boots a little early was Ranzono Sachi.

“They’re pushing her as their top model, but she’s also part of their internal staff. She’s probably easy to use when they need to fill some holes in the magazine.”

“Kids sure have it tough. There are plenty of things they can’t do once they grow up, so I feel like they should make the most of being a kid while they can.”

“Yes, Umbrella, but you mustn’t say that in front of Hiro-sama. At their age, nothing irritates them more than being lumped together with everyone else by saying what they should or shouldn’t do.”

“Hmm.”

“Also, they’re only using the right person for the job. Unlike us, humans only have a short time to live. They don’t have time to have an outsider blocking their freedom and holding them pointlessly in place.”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”

===Part 5 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

The principal got even more heated up than expected in the student guidance room, so – to make a long story short – coffee sprayed from his mouth like a poisonous fog and it poured all over my nervous homeroom teacher.

However, she had no real change of clothes with her, so she had been forced to borrow the “last resort” from the infirmary.

In other words, she had a dead look in her eyes as she stood at the front of the class in a PE outfit.

She wore fiercely red bloomers.

“Um, so when it says ‘spit’ here, it refers to a folk belief at the time. The story of Tawara no Touta slaying the Oomukade with an arrow he had spit on ended up spreading far enough for people to falsely believe that all Youkai had a weakness to saliva…”

She continued her lesson in monotone while looking just like a robot printing a long trail of paper from its mouth.

''Hmm, my heart is throbbing from guilt.

''Still, it was the principal who made the finishing blow and, more importantly, this is some nice eye candy! I never knew how nice my teacher looked from behind as she wrote her boring notes up on the blackboard!! Yahoo! And while Madoka-san and the others are wearing short sleeve shirts with their bloomers, adding on the track suit jacket is pretty nice, too!! But only the jacket!!'' (←Important emphasis)

But then something interfered.

I heard a chirping small bird fly in through the open window.

“Hm, what? Did something come in!?”

“Is it a sparrow?”

“I don’t see anything? Did it get behind something?”

The class grew noisy, but then I saw a small bird’s footprints on the paper of my open notebook.

It was the same bizarre scene as an invisible man stepping in some mud.

“An invisible bird Youkai? Is this an Okuri-Suzume or something?”

“Oh, honestly!! Jinnai-kun, can you please give it a rest!? If you have some business with a Youkai, take it out in the hall!! Out!!”

“Eh? I don’t have any control over it!!”

I had no idea what was going on, but the invisible Okuri-Suzume was chirping something in its high-pitched voice.

No, now it was clearly speaking in human language.

“Trouble, trouble! Hiro-chan is in trouble!”

“Who the heck is Hiro-…”

“(Wham!!)”

“Ow!? You idiot, don’t peck at the back of my head! My scalp! My scalp!!”

“Hiro-chan is Hiro-chan. Yonesaki Hiro-chan!!”

''Hm?

''Yonesaki Hiro?

“Hiro-chan is in trouble. Boy, the time has come to stand up!!”

“Why do I have to-…”

“The Okuri-Suzume is a Youkai that warns of coming danger, but we originally could only warn that the Okuri-Ookami was coming. I tried to change that, but I keep having to work in symbols of the Okuri-Ookami. I tried to warn Hiro-chan directly, but it didn’t get through to him.”

“Again, why me?”

“All of the Youkai around her say Jinnai Shinobu is an Okuri-Ookami!! So I tried speaking to the Okuri-Ookami. And just as I thought, humans can understand me when I’m near you!!”

“Bfh!? Please try not to destroy my social life with some bizarre misunderstanding!!<ref>Idiomatically, an Okuri-Ookami refers to a man who feigns kindness to get a woman to let her guard down enough for him to attack her.</ref> L-let’s discuss this further in the hallway, Okuri-Suzume!!”

“Hiro-chan is in trouble!”

To drive off the Okuri-Suzume that did not care at all about the circumstances of human society, I stepped out into the hall.

''Which Youkai has been spreading half-truths about me!? I’d bet anything it was that Good-for-Nothing Youkai!!

But for now…

“What exactly is this about? Why is Yonesaki Hiro in trouble?”

“Save Hiro-chan! Before that deadly Youkai eats him!!”

“If an Okuri-Suzume is going nuts, has an Okuri-Ookami shown up?”

While the term Okuri-Ookami was often used in reference to a certain type of human, it was originally a type of Youkai.

It was a wolf that appeared on dark roads at night and followed travelers around. That alone would cause no harm, but if the traveler tripped, it would attack and eat them.

But…

“No, this is a different Youkai.”

This thing was invisible, so I had no way of knowing how it was acting.

Regardless, I heard it continuing to speak.

“It’s an Oomukade. An Oomukade is after Hiro-chan, so he’s in trouble!”

===Part 6 (Yonesaki Hiro)===

Classes for the day were over.

After cleaning the classroom and lining up the desks, the end of my right pinky finger itched a little. It didn’t look like anything had happened to it, but something might have irritated it.

Meanwhile, Ranzono-san was looking in her hand mirror in a corner of the classroom. She was staring at it with a serious look on her face, patting a hand across her face, and stretching her cheek with her fingers.

“What are you doing? Everyone’s already gone.”

“Oh, nothing.”

I called out to her and she quickly put the mirror in her backpack. She might not have wanted anyone to see her maintaining her looks.

The city kids and the local kids had all gone wherever they wanted to play, so it was only Ranzono-san and me. We naturally ended up leaving the school and walking home together.

''Huh?

''Am I forgetting something?

I clenched my hands trying to fill the blank in my mind, but it wasn’t working.

At the same time, Ranzono-san spoke to me.

“Would we be able to see a ton of Youkai if we went to the mountain?”

“The rice has already been harvested, but you should be able to see a Kappa if you go to the fields.”

“Is that so?”

I had said the fields, but she looked to the paddies for some reason. ''Some adults were gathered'' in the distance, but I couldn’t tell what they were doing from this distance.

“The Yamawaro – those are Kappa that have come up onto land – help with the work in the mountains. They mostly help the lumberjacks, but they apparently also help in the paddies and fields nearer the mountains. I’ve heard they’re something like migrant workers.”

''Youkai, Youkai. …Hmm, it’s on the tip of my tongue.

I still couldn’t remember whatever it was, so I gave up. That was when my cellphone gave high-pitched ring. This was different from the usual ringtone. Even someone as high-tech as Ranzono-san didn’t seem to know what this was because her eyes opened wide.

We both peered down at the screen.

“It looks like a local message, but it doesn’t usually make this loud a sound.”

“Heh heh. There are emergency alerts, aren’t there? So what is it? Did someone spot a deadly Youkai?”

When an unfamiliar deadly Youkai appeared on the way to or from school, the school would tell us to be careful, so this kind of alert had to be an absolute last resort.

I checked more closely and read the message.

“Warning!! An Oomukade has been spotted. This Youkai is not from Noukotsu Village, so caution is needed. Be very careful if you run across it. One: do not approach it. Two: if you run away, it will chase after you. Stay put and see what it is doing. In the off chance that it approaches even further, a weapon with spit on it is said to be effective.”

I tilted my head.

“An Oomukade? What kind of Youkai is that? Is it just a big centipede?”

“…”

“It’d be pretty scary if it’s poisonous. It might be best not to get near the mountain.”

“No,” said Ranzono-san.

She pouted her lips in a somehow childish way that was the complete opposite of how she had acted before.

“The Oomukade isn’t a bad Youkai. There’s a story about it eating a clan of dragon gods, but doesn’t that mean it never actually ate humans? The humans just chose to side with one type of Youkai and then decided to slay the Oomukade.”

“Hm?”

“Like I said…!!”

Ranzono-san seemed irritated, but something else was bothering me more.

I hesitated to bring it up, but finally did.

“Ranzono-san, do you have something on your face?”

I looked up at her from below.

When I did, I could tell it was only a grass seed stuck to her. It had probably been blown there by the wind.

That was all it was.

But a moment later, Ranzono-san pressed the back of her hand to her cheek as if trying to tear it away.

I was left speechless.

Meanwhile, she frantically pulled her hand mirror from her backpack and checked her face. She had done the same thing while we cleaned up afterschool. She touched all over her face and even pinched and pulled at her skin.

“Here’s fine. No problem here either. Where? Where is it? Where is it out of balance? I thought I was fine after getting through PE without issue…”

She was muttering something under her breath, she was breathing heavily, and her eyes were rolling around in her head.

What was going on?

She may have misunderstood what I meant, so I tried speaking to her again.

“You have a grass seed near your bangs. Want me to get it for you?”

“Eh? Ah!?”

A blank look came over her as the previous horrified one vanished entirely.

She didn’t seem to know what to do with the mirror in her hands, so she fidgeted her fingers, grabbing and letting go of the device.

For some reason, her maturity had completely vanished.

“Where? Where is it???”

“Here.”

I ended up grabbing it for her.

Touching her nice-smelling chestnut hair made my heart race a bit.

“You couldn’t see it in the mirror?”

“Well…”

What had she been checking, anyway? What had she been so focused on that she had completely overlooked that obvious grass seed?

It seemed strange, but I didn’t have time to ask.

We had reached a fork in the farm road and she took the branch that didn’t lead to my house.

“I-I’ll be going now. See you tomorrow, Yonesaki-kun.”

“Sure.”

She nearly ran into a blonde-hired high school boy walking down that path, so she gave a quick shriek and jogged off toward the house she was staying in.

The high school boy looked back with a puzzled look and muttered something.

“What was that? ''Was it what they call a Twelve?''”

===Part 7 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

I thought about the girl who had rushed off a moment ago.

She had worn a miniskirt, jeans, a turtleneck sweater, a jacket, and a white rose corsage on the side of her head.

She was probably one of the city elementary school kids here for the cultural exchange Tarou had mentioned.

''I’m impressed she can do that.

''I’d never be able to live with such a constrained lifestyle.

I was half impressed and half shocked, but then the boy left all alone called out to me.

He was Yonesaki Hiro, the elementary school boy who had been involved in the Shichinin Misaki incident.

“What are you doing here?”

“Nothing, really. …By the way, where are the umbrella and lamp that are always with you?”

“Ah!?”

He frantically turned back the way he had come, so he really must have simply forgotten.

As soon as I started feeling sorry for those one-eyed Youkai, they came rushing up the farm road at tremendous speed, as if my feelings had summoned them.

The Umbrella Obake and the Lamp Obake’s comical eyeballs locked onto me instead of Yonesaki Hiro.

“Stranger danger!!”

“Time for punishment!!”

''Dfah!?

''D-did those things really just tackle me at full speed!? The lamp’s one thing, but that closed umbrella jabbing into my solar plexus seems like it could be pretty dangerous!

They turned toward their master while ignoring me as I held my gut and groaned.

“Are you okay, master?”

“Honestly. Going home on your own is far too dangerous after an Oomukade alert was sent out.”

Yonesaki Hiro tilted his head as if he did not understand what they were talking about.

He then opened his mouth and asked a question.

“What’s an Oomukade?”

He seemed to be asking me more than the umbrella or lamp.

''Don’t tell me he thinks I’m a Youkai Buster who can handle any kind of Youkai after I dealt with that Shichinin Misaki incident.

At any rate…

“It’s a giant centipede Youkai. Their size can vary a lot, but the bigger ones are apparently long enough to wrap around a mountain seven and a half times. You don’t often hear it, but they supposedly get their power through weird rituals like waiting for one hundred years or climbing a waterfall.”

“What does it do?”

“I don’t know. It depends on the time and the situation. Some say they can deflect any attack, some say they’re wrapped in lightning, some say they cause storms, some say their one hundred legs glow like torches, and some say the poison in their bodies can be used in rituals. The most famous one is the one that appeared around Lake Biwa and ate the dragon god clan. That one was then slain by a warrior. If they can eat dragon gods, I assume they can eat humans too. The dragon gods supposedly walked on two legs and looked like beautiful men and women.”

“Hmm.”

Yonesaki Hiro only gave a vague response and fell silent.

''As a high schooler, I may not be one to talk, but kids these days are a pain to deal with.

The umbrella and lamp caused an uproar of their own in his place.

“We saw some damage from the Oomukade on the way here! The support for a roadside solar power generator was broken. If it had hit someone, there would be nothing they could do!”

“And in the paddies, the wall of a pump shed was broken. They say small fires and crimes against small animals are the harbinger of a major crime, so this is kind of scary. Tremble, tremble.”

''Hm?

''They saw signs of it too?

“I came from that way and I saw a few things like a tree fallen by the candy shop or a broken fence at a house.”

“See! It really is a deadly Youkai! And one dangerous enough to eat other Youkai!!”

“Yeah, but isn’t this a bit strange?”

The umbrella, the lamp, and Yonesaki Hiro all turned toward me.

''Hm, that caught his attention more than I thought. I just don’t get what makes kids tick.

“I mean, the fallen trees and broken walls are scattered across the village from one side to the other, right?”

“What about it? That just shows how far the Oomukade’s rampage has spread. No one else has that much strength.”

“I heard they found centipede bite marks. Doesn’t that settle it?”

“But,” I added. “How does an Oomukade gain its strength?”

“Isn’t that obvious? One hit from its giant body would bring down a house or even a castle, so…”

After complaining so much, the lantern trailed off.

Yes.

“The Oomukade is big. Even if this one isn’t big enough to wrap around a mountain, it has to be way bigger than a Zashiki Warashi or Yuki Onna. You’re saying that deadly Youkai travelled from one end of the village to another, spreading destruction on the way? Then someone would have seen it somewhere. But I haven’t heard anything about that.”

“The only thing anyone has found is destruction seemingly caused by an Oomukade,” muttered the lantern. “No one has seen the Youkai itself.”

Yonesaki Hiro then cut in.

“Then maybe this wasn’t done by an Oomukade.”

“No! On the way here, I heard the villagers talking. The bite marks and leg scratches on the broken support were definitely from a centipede. A human could never do that!!” The umbrella opened and closed as he spoke. “And the stories about an Oomukade’s size vary quite a lot. That vagueness means its size isn’t fixed. It’s possible it can change its size.”

“That’s right,” added the lantern. “If it can shrink itself, it could sneak around, destroy things, and hide itself again. This is very dangerous!”

“…”

They had a point. If it could change its size, my doubts were meaningless.

Still…

“But why would the Oomukade sneak around like that?”

“Eh? Because it doesn’t want to be noticed, right?”

“Why wouldn’t it?” I immediately responded. “Youkai can’t be accused of a crime even if they kill people. And since the Oomukade can eat other Youkai, it won’t be punished by other Youkai either. If it was causing trouble, it wouldn’t need to hide. It would show up without hiding and leave without hiding. So why didn’t it do that?”

“Ukh…”

“B-but some humans are even more frightening than Youkai!”

''Oh, do you mean people like Hyakki Yakou?

“If it was afraid of people like that, why would it cause so much trouble in the first place?”

“Ah.”

“It would take the risk if it has a reason worth doing so, but is destroying wooden walls and solar power generators really that important? What does that accomplish? None of this is making sense.”

Of course, I had no obligation to side with a Youkai I’d never met.

But a few things were bothering me.

Was there really an Oomukade here? And if there was, was it involved in this destruction?

And whether it was the Oomukade or just someone making it look that way, what was it supposed to accomplish?

What would anyone gain from knocking down trees and destroying walls?

And most importantly, the Okuri-Suzume had said Yonesaki Hiro was in trouble. It had said an Oomukade was after him. That Youkai warned of danger, so that wouldn’t be a lie. In which case, what connection was there between Yonesaki Hiro and the Oomukade?

Was there an Oomukade here or not?

Was the Oomukade involved in this or not?

The current situation was a combination of those four possibilities, but with the Okuri-Suzume’s “prophecy”, I knew the answer would ultimately lead to an Oomukade harming Yonesaki Hiro. So how did this all fit together to reach that answer? Even if I had cheated and learned the final answer ahead of time, if I misread the situation leading up to it, it was still possible I could fail to stop it.

''What a pain.

“?”

Yonesaki Hiro tilted his head and looked up at me.

To be honest, I had no real reason to get too involved with this kid, but since Youkai had no rights, their testimony could not be used in court, and they could not be charged with crimes, I couldn’t just call the police and leave this with them.

Which meant I had to figure out what was happening in the village whether it involved an Oomukade or not. And until I had enough information to get my mind working and figure out what would happen next, I had to run around gathering that information.

I was beginning to seriously hope people wouldn’t start calling me the Youkai Detective.

===Part 8 (Yonesaki Hiro)===

I went back home with the umbrella and lantern.

My home was a used goods store and would fix just about anything except for electronics. It could be a broken rice bowl, a paulownia dresser, a stained hanging scroll, a pocket watch, or anything else. That was why we had a lot of “object” Youkai like the umbrella and lantern.

The house itself was a Youkai called a Mayoiga.

“I’m hoooome.”

I called out as I opened the front door and a bunch of different furniture approached. There was a tea table, a different kind of lantern, a pot, and even a teapot. Just like in an American anime (Were they called cartoons?), they shook like gelatin and the tea table and chair’s legs easily bent to move them around.

“Hiro-chan!”

“Welcome home, Hiro-chan!!”

“For a snack, there’s a donut made from pancake batter! It has plenty of caramel sauce and chocolate sauce!!”

I removed my shoes and walked down the hall with the furniture following me around. Lots of eyes appeared and blinked on the sliding doors and I saw a translucent humanoid figure peering out from behind a folding screen, but none of them meant any harm.

I washed my hands in the bathroom, rubbed my eyes, and felt the itching in my fingertip growing. It felt like the pinky was having difficulty bending. I tried to remember where the bug bite medicine was.

It must have not been able to wait because a table approached from the kitchen carrying a donut on a plate. It couldn’t get through the door, so it got caught.

“Ahh, Hiro-chan, Hiro-chaaan!”

I dried my hands and approached the lamenting table.

As I had the table back up from the doorway it could never fit through, grabbed the donut, and took a bite, the plate spoke up.

“It seems we have a newcomer.”

“A newcomer?”

“It’s a Fuguruma Youbi. Your mother is looking over it in the workshop. It’s an antique, so it should be an amazing Youkai.”

''Fuguruma? What kind of tool is that?'' I wondered with a tilt of the head.

I didn’t want to get in the way of my parents’ work, so I decided to watch some TV with the furniture. I used the remote to flip between the cable TV channels, but most of the news was about Tokyo and most of the dramas were set there. It seemed so far away.

“Medical Camp in Nakano, Tokyo, has gained some recent attention due to a capital injection from the major distance education company Ganesha, but the consumer living center seems worried about the rise in anonymous data related to Medical Camp’s unique disconnection education theory.”

''Hmm.

TV was directed at housewives in the evening, so it wasn’t that interesting. Nothing stood out to me. I checked around and finally found a show for someone like me.

“Are even idols moving from TV to online videos? New music videos get over thirty million views in just twenty four hours and a fourteen-year-old’s tweets can affect stock prices! This middle school esper girl is all the rage right now! It’s PSI_ver_RAIN!!”

The buzzer indicating a visitor rang, so I placed my half eaten donut on the plate and headed to the front door. A girl of about my height stood there in a kimono.

However, she was definitely a Youkai.

Based on the aroma wafting from her, she was a Furutsubaki.

She had to be way, way older than my grandma.

“I’m here to pick up the item we left here.”

“?”

“Is the pocket watch left under the name Jinnai fixed yet?”

She was blunt and hard to understand, but I checked around and did find a pocket watch labelled “Jinnai”. I handed it and the memo from my grandpa to the Furutsubaki.

“Um, this says the mainspring was broken, so he replaced it. It won’t be worth as much as an antique, but it says to forgive him.”

“That’s fine. The Jinnai grandfather received it from his father as a coming of age present, so all that matters is that it runs.”

The Furutsubaki took the pocket watch that had a chain attached.

I assumed she didn’t need anything more, but she suddenly started sniffing.

And then she stepped toward me.

''Th-that’s really close!! A girl’s face is only ten centimeters away!!

“You’re in love, aren’t you?”

“Eh? Weh!?”

“A Furutsubaki has the ability to seduce humans, so we can understand their feelings. But be careful. The scent sticking to your arm is a detestable one…no, a monstrous one.”

“…”

“But I am also jealous. The standard way for a Youkai to repay someone is to marry them, but I’m not sure what to do with mine since half the time he’s filled with lust and half the time he’s completely clueless.”

The Furutsubaki seemed to lose interest because she turned away. Without looking back, she left with the pocket watch in hand.

The name Jinnai reminded me of that older boy who seemed to be investigating something.

That reminded me of the uproar over the Oomukade.

I thought back to that comment about a detestable or monstrous scent, and worry filled my chest.

I felt like something was happening without my knowledge.

Once this day ended, the next day would arrive. And then I would be able to see my friends and acquaintances again. However, whatever this was felt like it would overturn that basic fact.

For a while, I thought blankly about what the Furutsubaki had said, but…

“Hiro-chan.”

“What is it, Hiro-chan?”

“It seems our master is in love with someone. (Worry, worry.)”

“Umbrella!! We must not interfere with an issue of succession. Keep this a secret from the head of the family!”

I quickly turned around and the furniture peering out from the cracked-open door scattered like baby spiders.

===Part 9 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

I always got needlessly excited when we had Salisbury steak for dinner, but that had to be something imprinted on me as a child. And there was no stopping it when they had a fried egg on top. I knew I had to have a really cheap heart to be won over by something like this, but there was nothing I could do.

“Can I really win Jinnai Shinobu’s heart with something like this?”

“Ram-chan said so, so it has to be true. Autofocus’s bonus magazine gives twenty ways to ensure your love comes true.”

The Yuki Onna and the Furutsubaki (small) were already whispering some dangerous things in the living room. They had some kind of fashion magazine opened up on the floor. I had never seen any of those magazine romance questionnaires hit the mark, but they were free to believe it if they wanted to.

“Mh, how about this? ‘A Super Simple Ice Bath☆The Low Temperature Diet!!’.”

“It also mentions the ‘stranded on a snowy mountain’ effect which outdoes even the suspension bridge effect. Mhh!!”

''Uh, oh!! That writer probably just wrote some random hundred-word article, but I can feel my death approaching already! I need to get out of here before disaster strikes! There’s also that Oomukade stuff, so I was already thinking about heading out to check around the village tonight!!

“Now, then.”

“Shinobu, why are you grinning with a flashlight this late at night? It’s creeping me out. Are you on your way to drill a hole in the wall of your school’s shower room or locker room?”

“What!? I haven’t even snuck out yet and I’ve already been caught!?”

If she told my dad or grandpa, I could easily get locked in the storage shed, so I explained everything to the Zashiki Warashi to get her on my side. The Good-for-Nothing Youkai in a red yukata gave a sigh of utter exasperation.

“Seemingly meaningless destruction, an Oomukade no one’s seen, and a warning from an Okuri-Suzume saying that Oomukade is going to attack Yonesaki Hiro? …Sigh. Shinobu, that’s not enough to know an Oomukade is really sneaking around at night. In fact, is one involved at all?”

“That’s the question. But if it’s willing to attack during the day, it might be out at night, too. And if it doesn’t show up at all, I’ll know it’s only showing up during the day. I just have to narrow down the possibilities like that.”

Afterwards, I snuck out of the thatch-roof house without telling my parents.

You might think I was surrounded by silence, but the night was actually really noisy with all the different crickets everywhere. The growth of brand-name crops may have been directly related to light because streetlights had been intentionally excluded from the farm roads. The area was filled with a thick, ink-like darkness.

The night was long, but I had to decide where to check first.

I didn’t know if there really was an Oomukade in the village or where it would attack next if it was. Even in a small village, could I really find anything by searching around randomly?

“Well, it’s not like I could come up with any good ideas anyway.”

I started by checking on the sites of the damage.

I checked the roadside solar power generator, the wall of the paddy pump shed, the house’s fence, and the large tree near the candy shop.

They all looked like they had been hit by a truck or by demolition equipment.

“Is this the centipede bite mark?”

The fallen tree had been moved to the side of the road for the time being, so I checked the break. Prepared to see some disturbing things, I used my cellphone to search some bug-obsessed sites and this did resemble the “bite marks” I found there. Although this mark was much, much bigger.

So was it really an Oomukade?

But at the same time, I tilted my head.

As mentioned during the day, the damage was scattered throughout the village instead of focused in one area. Moving from one to the other like this required going back and forth through the village.

And…

“There are cameras, aren’t there?” I muttered as I looked up at the traffic signal.

Intellectual Village grapes cost thirty thousand yen a bunch, so there were surveillance cameras everywhere to protect those brand-name crops from boars and vegetable thieves.

I didn’t know how big this Oomukade was, but if it had gone back and forth through the village, it would’ve been caught by that network of cameras somewhere.

Or did it have some way of keeping itself from being seen, like the Okuri-Suzume?

A normal Oomukade was not invisible.

If it had gained that ability, this wasn’t just a Youkai acting on its own. Someone would have had to forcibly twist the Youkai’s traits and swapped them out to create the desired effect.

In other words, a human would be involved.

I hadn’t considered it since there was no apparent profit or planning, but could this be a criminal Package?

“…”

I instinctually turned off the flashlight.

It was as if I had realized how dangerous it was to reveal my location.

At the same time, a Package required dozens or even hundreds of people. I doubted that many people would gather together to knock over a tree on the side of the road.

Had they messed up the assembly?

Or was there some great benefit still hidden?

And how was it all related to Yonesaki Hiro?

No amount of thinking was going to reveal the answer and that meant I didn’t have enough information. With that in mind, I raised my head again.

“…?”

I saw a figure moving unsteadily down the dark farm road.

However, it was quite small. They probably only reached my chest or stomach.

And then I saw what it was.

===Part 10 (Yonesaki Hiro)===

The lights were out as I sat up in my futon. A mixture of itching and pain crawled across my right hand. The itching that had begun at the end of my pinky had slowly spread, but I didn’t have time to worry about that now.

My blanket and pillow moved on their own.

“What is it, Hiro-chan?”

“What is it, young master? Can you not sleep?”

It would be impossible to leave without anyone noticing. I felt a weight in my chest when I lied and said I had to use the bathroom, but I left my room in my pajamas all the same. I walked down the dark hallway and made my way to the front door. That was enough for the furniture to fidget, but they seemed to be letting me do as I pleased.

“My master, you’re going, aren’t you?”

“Are you going, Hiro-chan?”

“Yes.”

Unlike the older Jinnai boy, my way of getting to the answer was probably cheating.

Instead of gathering the pieces of the puzzle one by one and calculating it all out, I reached the answer through vague intuition.

I began to make a strange connection between Ranzono-san’s odd behavior and the uproar about the Oomukade.

The older Jinnai boy might settle everything eventually like that other time, but that scared me this time.

I was afraid getting my peaceful life back would mean Ranzono-san would disappear.

The lantern and umbrella were waiting at the front door.

“If you’re going out at night, it wouldn’t hurt to have a light.”

“As an umbrella, it is my duty to protect you from any disaster that might pour down upon you.”

I nodded, put on my shoes, and grabbed the two of them.

I then opened the front door and ran out into the dark outside world.

===Part 11 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

The figure swaying along the pitch black farm road was probably only in elementary school, so it was clearly unusual for them to be out this late. I was too far away to tell what they were wearing or even if they were a boy or a girl.

Why was it I didn’t immediately turn on the flashlight and shine it on them?

An invisible tingling tension stopped me from taking that normal action.

“…”

What was this?

What was I so afraid of?

It was an issue of the atmosphere. This was clearly a small child, but they didn’t seem at all harmless. Unpleasant sweat poured down my back as if I’d spotted a tiger, a bear, or another large carnivore in the mountains.

Meanwhile, the small form made a turn at an intersection dividing up the paddy fields, so it wasn’t like they were approaching me after noticing me. I hesitated for a moment, but I decided to follow them.

Their pace varied and their head swayed back and forth, so they didn’t seem to be looking in any set direction. Did they even have a destination in mind?

As if to answer that question, the figure came to a sudden stop.

It felt like they had been on their way somewhere but had given up.

We were near some vending machines set up next to the farm road. I was pretty sure they had recently been put in at the request of some people who had succumbed to heatstroke during the residual heat of September. Five vending machines for drinks and bread were lined up below a metal roof to keep off the rain.

Just like with an automatic door, the fluorescent lights were rigged to show off the products when someone approached.

When I saw what was illuminated by those bright white lights, I just about screamed.

They were only between 130 and 140 centimeters tall. Their frame alone wasn’t enough to tell if they were a boy or a girl, but they were likely a girl since they were wearing a skirt. She may have been aiming for a kind of gap appeal because she wore a sports brand track suit jacket with a frilly miniskirt. I could guess this was probably an elementary student.

The problem was the face.

The neck up had transformed into a giant centipede with countless squirming legs.

''What?

''What…in the hell…is that!!!???

I stared in shock as the head – the centipede – stretched out. The bizarre movement was like an even more grotesque version of a Rokurokubi.

“Oh…oh…”

I couldn’t tell you where it was coming from, but it gave a strangely distorted groan. Before long, the number of centipedes grew. It looked like a giant tropical flower now.

“O-oh….oh…ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Destruction followed.

It looked a lot like the headbanging often seen along with hard rock music. The young upper body moved violently back and forth and the countless centipedes (which were now longer than the body was tall) snapped like whips. They slammed into the vending machines. A violent wind blew through in the instant of contact and it struck me in the face. No, that wasn’t it. Was the wind compressed as it wrapped around the centipedes? After I heard metal bending and electrical sparks flying, the fluorescent lights died. Sometimes the centipedes constricted their target with their body, sometimes they bit into them with their massive jaws, and sometimes they compressed them like the wind. Even as a silhouette, the destruction continued. The vending machines were supposed to be solid metal boxes, but they were crushed like balled up tissues and finally torn into several pieces. All that remained was the sound of the wind crushing them further.

Was this the source of it all?

Was this how the Oomukade’s damage had crossed from one end of the village to the other without any people or cameras spotting it?

Was the Oomukade hidden inside the children’s bodies?

Or…

“Ahh, ahh. So the secret’s out.”

A heard another girl’s voice from directly behind me. Before I could turn around and shine my flashlight, the girl shined her own light on me. I covered my dazzled eyes with a hand and tried my best to see who it was.

It was hard to tell through the light, but the short silhouette looked like another elementary student. Her long chestnut hair was curled and all of her clothes were brand names from the city. She wore a white turtleneck sweater, a reddish jacket with the front open, a black miniskirt, a loose belt around her waist, tight jeans, and chocolate-colored boots. I didn’t have any way of checking, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t from the village. She would be from the cultural exchange group Tarou had mentioned. One look at the white rose corsage on the side of her head was enough to know she wasn’t like the other kids.

She giggled and spoke.

“We’ve finally managed to ''bring them out'' whenever we want, but a lot of us don’t know how to use them. Well, it’s just something you have to learn through practice. This probably wasn’t the best time for the trip. We have a proper training ground back home.”

She showed no concern about the size difference between an elementary student and a high school student.

Or even that I was a witness to what was happening.

After all…

“Do you have a Package that lets you fuse an Oomukade with your bodies?”

“Heh heh. What if we do?”

I heard a footstep in the grass. No, it was more than one. When I switched on my flashlight and pointed it all around me, I saw twenty to thirty children surrounding me on the farm road and the already harvested paddies.

“Why would you do that? And wait. Who put it together!? Assembling a Package takes dozens or even hundreds of grown adults with specialized knowledge!”

“If I said we’d done it ourselves, would it hurt your pride as a high schooler?”

And more importantly…

She was shining a bright light on me, but what was it? She wasn’t holding a flashlight!

The chestnut hair girl seemed to be their leader and she swung her small right hand horizontally

A sticky sound followed and the arm transformed from the shoulder down. It became a giant tentacle-like object made of countless intertwined centipedes. The light came from the centipedes’ legs. They were glowing like a torch’s flame. No, that wasn’t all. I could see some irregular movement inside her clothes, too. The movement inside the pants below her skirt was completely ignoring the joints of a leg.

Was this to gain physical strength? To gain a special power? To become something beyond human?

Whatever the reason, I couldn’t imagine what kind of mind could accept something like this with a smile. Nevertheless, the rest of the kids surrounding me also transformed their arms and legs into centipedes. They all showed off their strange tentacles with some spreading wide to either side like wings and some hanging down around their neck like jellyfish tentacles. However, that was not the problem.

Each time the many centipedes wriggled, a gust of wind blew out. It was said the Oomukade could control storms, so were they controlling the wind or the air pressure? And the winds they produced seemed to have different effects. Some cut, some crushed, some dried out the plants, and some shook the dirt and rocks.

And this was not just a lone madman like with a serial killer. They all shared the same insane obsession.

“I’m sorry, mister.”

The chestnut hair girl spoke while her many “legs” wriggled about.

“We still haven’t reached the end. And until we do, we can’t have anyone getting in our way. So I’m sorry…but we’ll have to silence you.”

At that moment, a thick presence almost like an invisible wall rushed toward me.

I frantically looked around, but I was completely surrounded and there was nowhere to run. And based on the destruction I’d seen around the village, those centipedes had enough power to break a thick tree truck or bring down a shed’s wall. Would they crush me under their giant bodies or would they cut through me with their gusts of wind? I didn’t know the actual method, but this was no different from having cars rushing toward me from all three hundred sixty degrees.

I didn’t even have time to think it was pathetic I was losing to elementary school kids.

Pure fear rose from my gut and I could tell my legs weren’t working properly.

It was just like running out onto the road and seeing a truck’s bumper filling my vision.

And then something struck me in the side.

An unpleasant sound burst out, my feet immediately left the ground, and I flew through the air.

===Part 12 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

My mind was sent flying.

A neverending floating sensation came over me.

I even forgot how to link my memories in a sequential order.

“…?”

But once I questioned why I still wasn’t dead, I finally realized what had happened.

A centipede had indeed hit me, but I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t even scratched.

The centipede that had rushed toward me first was not one of the kids led by that chestnut hair girl.

“''Oomukade!!''”

I heard the girl’s shrill voice from the darkness behind me.

“''Why are you getting in our way!? We’re your friends!!''”

The giant creature looked more like a dragon than a bug.

Countless legs carried it across the already harvested rice paddies.

Its head was reminiscent of the front of a train and its extremely bizarre jaws held my body.

It almost seemed to be taking me away from the children.

“Are you…the original Oomukade!?”

“How much of this do you understand?”

“There’s been a lot of damage caused by centipedes in the village, but it was actually done by those kids from the city and they’re only drawing out your power. Is that right?”

“I will give that fifty points. That is merely the result and you have yet to reach the true issue. I just hope we can find somewhere quiet to speak.”

“Even though you’re on those city kids’ side?”

“''Because'' I am on their side. Do you think I want them to be using my power and traits?”

The Oomukade said nothing more.

Footsteps that sounded like they were cutting through the grass and the low rumbling of violent gusts of wind were enough to know we had several pursuers. We were moving faster than your average car, but they were keeping up. I could see quite a few lights following us like will-o’-the-wisps. I no longer felt any inclination to shine my flashlight on them. I did not want to know what change had come over their bodies to pull this off.

“Looks like we need to lose Sachi’s group first.”

''Sachi? Is that one of their names?

''No, more importantly…

“Wait a second. What’s that light? On the road through the paddy field!!”

I immediately found the answer to my own question.

This light was much softer than my flashlight. I was pretty sure it was a Lantern Obake and a small form was vaguely visible in its light.

“I do not recognize that child. He must not be part of Sachi’s group.”

“That’s Yonesaki Hiro. He’s a kid from the village!!”

This was bad. The chestnut hair girl had said she would kill anyone who saw them. Yonesaki Hiro would be no exception. His eyes opened wide when he saw me and it was obvious what would happen if the centipedes caught him.

''This is dangerous.

''This is so dangerous, but I have to say it, dammit!!

“Oomukade, don’t worry about me! Leave me around here and take that kid with you!!”

“But…”

“Hurry!! I can manage on my own. The umbrella and lantern with him can’t stand up to the power of a Youkai that can eat dragon gods!!”

He hesitated a little.

But then the jaws holding me loosened and I fell toward the paddies that seemed to be quickly flowing by below me. I clenched my teeth to bear with the pain as I rolled again and again and I heard the Oomukade speak as it lifted its head like a cobra.

“Don’t die. I will need your help for Sachi’s sake.”

It didn’t wait for me to reply to or question that.

The Oomukade whipped up the wind and used the spring-like power of its entire body to jump over and collect Yonesaki Hiro. I somehow managed to get up and ran in a different direction.

For better or for worse, the kids seemed to pursue the much more noticeable Oomukade. I could see the leg lights they were using as illumination and the blowing wind heading in that direction. This was not quite what I had expected, but Yonesaki Hiro wouldn’t be killed that easily if the original Oomukade was helping him.

But what was I supposed to do? If I returned to my thatch-roof house, I would just be attacked there. There were at least a few dozen of them, but if every single kid from the city was involved, the number jumped to over one hundred. I was outnumbered, but they were relying on the occult. Since they were using a Package built around that Oomukade, I only had to destroy that system to rob them of their power like I had thrown a breaker. Once they lost the centipede power, they were nothing but powerless kids. It didn’t look like there was any other way of escaping this alive.

“What do I need to do that?”

I needed information and time to think, so I decided to hide somewhere or hole up somewhere.

I looked around and spotted a large building.

''The school, huh?

That would be better than standing in the middle of the paddies like a scarecrow, so I pulled my aching body along to run there.

When I got closer, I realized it wasn’t my usual high school. It was the elementary school I had graduated from long ago. But this was no time to be picky. It was all over if I was caught, so I climbed the metal fence, ran across the schoolyard, and ran up to the entranceway of the high-tech wooden school building that had air conditioning and internet access.

I didn’t have time to check whether it was locked.

I swung down my flashlight to break the door’s glass and I unlocked it from inside. That might have sounded an alarm at the security company, but that was actually a good thing.

I stepped inside.

Schools could be frightening places at night because it felt like a ghost was going to show up, but this was hardly the time to worry about that.

But then I heard the high-pitched sound of shattering glass coming from somewhere else.

“Don’t tell me they’re already here!”

I felt a squeezing in my chest, but the person who broke through the hallway window was Yonesaki Hiro who had been held in the Oomukade’s jaws. The umbrella and lantern accompanied him.

The original Oomukade itself shrunk in size to only a few meters long and entered the hallway.

“Wh-what is going on!? When did this village turn into a kodoku jar!?”

“There’s nothing we can do! If only we could contact the mortar or armor back home.”

The umbrella and lantern were left to speak back and forth as the Oomukade spoke up.

“This is not good. Sachi intentionally guided us here.”

“What do you mean? What does Ranzono-san have to do with this?”

Yonesaki Hiro sounded nervous and the Oomukade twisted around toward him.

“Sachi comes from the city, so she has never been in the mountains at night. She also doesn’t know much about this village, so she probably decided she would have the easiest time in the school because it is built a lot like those in the city. She intends to finish you all off here.”

“City schools and rural ones aren’t exactly the same. Intellectual Villages rely on online shopping so much that we’d be isolated if a typhoon or landslide cut off the road. We have far more shelter equipment,” I cut in. “The elementary school is like the house of bricks from The Three Little Pigs. It has the toughest disaster infrastructure. There should be a large-scale tornado shelter underground. Do you think that steel door can hold up against them?”

“I doubt it. Centipedes burrow through the earth, so hiding underground would only be taking this onto Sachi’s home turf.”

“I see. But we should still be able to use it.”

I brushed a hand through my blond-dyed hair and asked about something more important.

“Sachi? Ranzono-san? To be honest, I don’t know that much about this situation, so can you explain how everyone’s involved in this? Otherwise, I can’t grasp the big picture of this Package.”

“Ranzono Sachi is the queen of her community. She stands at the top of every category around her: her class, her year, and her entire school.”

“She’s a girl from the city. She’s really smart. She’s athletic, she’s fashionable, she can play the piano, and she can cook. She works as a model and writer for a fashion magazine and middle schoolers around the world look up to her.”

“A fashion magazine?”

“It’s called Autofocus. You’ve never heard of it?”

''A magazine for kids? Come to think of it, the Yuki Onna and the Furutsubaki (small) were looking at that.

The umbrella and lantern opened their large mouths and spoke.

“Ohh, I saw that too! It was filled with these weird things called barcodes and matrix codes!!”

“I heard it was originally a web magazine, but it was successful enough to head back to the original paper format. That made it feel more linked to the internet than absolutely necessary, though.”

''I see. So that’s what this is about.

A model was one thing, but it was impossible for an elementary student to write for a magazine. Before even talking about talent or skills, the Labor Standards Act prevented them from working.

When it was only on the web, she had probably been treated as someone updating a blog as a hobby rather than a job. Just like the prize exchanges for pachinko parlors, they probably gave her some “allowance” in a somewhat separate place. They may have been working around those issues for the physical magazine, too.

More importantly…

“Autofocus, hm?”

“What about it?”

“Well… They were gathering attention by creating a dream team from well-known figures on the internet, but that means they were gathering people who they’d never even seen before, right? Nothing says all the harsh critics giving everything one star on review sites actually know what they’re talking about. They have to have seriously tried to recruit some kid claiming to be a well-known worker somewhere or, even worse, a bot that only posted automated text.”

I didn’t know if this had anything to do with the centipede Package, but I needed to get an idea of who Ranzono Sachi was since she seemed to be the mastermind.

For some reason, Yonesaki Hiro pouted his lips.

“That’s not what happened here. Ranzono-san really is, um, mature and fashionable. There’s no one else as, well, pretty in my class.”

“What?” I frowned. “Sorry, but are you seriously saying that?”

“Eh?”

He sounded confused, but that may have been because I sounded more exasperated than insulting.

“Just so you know, it’s only natural they look perfect and mature. After all, they’re Twelves.”

“What’s a Twelve?”

“Kasane_12 or Twelve for short. Simply put, it’s a kind of trick art used on people. If you place white paper and black paper next to each other and look at them from a distance, the white paper will look closer to you. They use tricks like that with the colors of their outfits to give the illusion of an hourglass figure and they use makeup and their hairstyle to make their face look smaller.”

The name of course was based on the traditional Japanese twelve-layer robe. But despite the designer’s intentions, the term was now mostly used as an insult. It was seen as a misogynistic fashion that made the girl look pretty by covering her in so much makeup and clothing that they could barely move.

“Her looks…are fake?”

Yonesaki Hiro was dumbfounded.

The Oomukade twisted awkwardly next to him and remained silent.

“It’s kind of like covering their entire body with a thin layer of special makeup. So if they get sweaty and the makeup comes off, it would apparently be far worse than losing an eyebrow. I’ve heard the perspective of their face would be thrown off and they would look something from a game of fukuwarai. They have to constantly check their face in a mirror, so it has to be a restrictive way to live.”

“I see. So that’s why she freaked out when I said something about her face.”

The boy seemed to remember something.

Hearing that, the Oomukade finally spoke again.

“That is why Sachi…no, all of the Kasane_12 children are doing this.”

“I still don’t see it. What do the centipedes have to do with special makeup?”

“It is possible the fear of becoming a centipede has been numbed by the centipede’s venom, but at the very least, Kasane_12 was the initial cause.”

The deadly Youkai said to eat even other Youkai sounded troubled.

“Here is a hypothetical situation for you. Kasane_12 optimizes their looks, but those looks will completely fall apart if it fails. Now, what if they did not what to do this themselves? What if it was forced onto them by their parents or other adults? Just how much pressure do you think they would be under then?”

“Ah.”

“People praise Sachi. They call her beautiful and they gather around her. …But that is not her true self. They are all looking at the false outer layer and none of them are truly looking at her, praising her, or showing any kind of concern for her. Isn’t that more than enough to destroy a growing personality?”

The girl and the centipede.

She was breaking the boundary between the beautiful and the ugly and mixing them together.

She hated and wanted to ruin what it was everyone praised about her.

The situation was slowly coming into focus.

Adults made Packages for simple money or fame, but this one was based on the values only held among these cornered kids.

“This is my fault,” confessed the Oomukade. “It was wrong of me to feel sorry for her. It was irresponsible to try to cheer her up. That was what placed the final crack in the dam of her heart which she was only just barely keeping in balance.”

===Part 13 (Ranzono Sachi)===

“Sachi-chan, why are you smiling?”

That casual comment led me to realize ''my face was falling apart.

I was not allowed to sweat carelessly, I was not allowed to shed tears carelessly, and I was not allowed to let the rain hit me carelessly. When I went outside, I always had to have a mirror on hand and I had to constantly check my face no matter where I was.

And I could not quit either.

My status and the expectations of me were still on the rise. No matter how much I told people I couldn’t do anymore, they kept pumping in more and more expectations. The higher I ended up, the greater the damage if I fell. There was no way I could land safely anymore. The expectations of my parents, my friends, my teachers, and even of complete strangers were just too heavy. A single mistake and I knew unbearable pain would press in on me.

I lived in a soft living hell, like being strangled by luxurious silk.

That was when I found it.

It was a spot of green seemingly cut off from the hustle and bustle of the city. It was the remains of a shrine that seemed almost buried by the buildings around it. It was like the secret place in the donkey ears story.

I found the Oomukade there.

No, a Tsuchigumo and Nue were there too. The Youkai were all so strange looking.

To be honest, I was scared at first.

But despite not looking remotely human, they didn’t seem to care, joked with each other, and worked together to pick the fruits in the trees. I was jealous when I saw them.

I didn’t take long to start fitting in.

In that world, your looks didn’t matter. Those friends would look at who you were on the inside.

I had gained something that should have been normal. I felt like I was regaining myself after I had started to fade away. They truly did save my life.

And yet…

“Sachi! Why would you get anywhere near those creepy things!?”

Something set foot into my world.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Sachi-chan. We’ll call a famous expert for you.”

Something brought unwelcome help into my world.

“It looks like they are affecting her. But not to worry. I can handle this easily.”

Something approached with a smile after catching the scent of money.

If the Oomukade, Tsuchigumo, and Nue had seriously resisted him, they could have torn that fraud of a medium to pieces, but they didn’t.

When I arrived at the usual place, gasping for breath, nothing was left. They had not even wanted to harm the person coming for them, so they had given up their home. That was how it seemed to me.

But…

But…

But…

I simply could not allow it to end like that.

What had the Oomukade done? What was wrong with a Tsuchigumo being ugly? Was a Nue’s inhuman appearance any reason to proudly rob them of everything they had? They understood human feelings, they could communicate using words, and they had enough of a heart to care for even those who opposed them, so why did they have to be treated like that?

What was beauty?

What did it mean for the beautiful to exterminate the ugly?

If that logic actually held up, then it was obvious who should truly be exterminating who.

Everything needed to become the same.

Everyone needed to become centipedes.

Humans were not beautiful or ugly. It only came down to whether they hid it or not. In that case, I just had to drag it all out into the light. If everyone looked the same, we would finally be able to compare who we were on the inside. If we did that, we humans were sure to realize just how inferior we were.

If I had lost sight of my true self inside the cocoon of the manmade Kasane_12 and I had become a mere doll, I may never have had these feelings. I would probably have become a disturbing empty shell that only gave the answers that would delight the adults and live up to my parents and teachers’ expectations.

But I had regained myself. Those kind Youkai had brought me back.

So I couldn’t bear it. I would use myself for their sake.

I would use myself up to the very end.

===Part 14 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

“It comes down to an issue of affinity. As humans grow, they come to hate bugs. There is nothing cruel about it; it is completely normal. Sachi just so happened to develop that later than others. That allowed her to fit in with us, but the adults around her would not allow it. I had predicted she would be pulled away from us, but it seemed to be quite a shock to her. Her hatred did not die down, so it continued to quietly burn within her and she ended up building this Package with the other children.”

The Oomukade’s story was strange, but it was not that I couldn’t understand it.

That may have been because I lived in an Intellectual Village full of Youkai.

Then again, I didn’t exactly like giant spiders or roaches. If a rhinoceros beetle was flipped over and I saw its soft belly, I would flinch back. It didn’t feel quite the same when I could speak with it like with the Oomukade, though. If you could tell them to go away and they would, there wasn’t anything to be afraid of.

“I had no direct contact with the children other than Sachi. After we left, she must have spread her story to others with similar worries. Unfortunately, the ones who haven’t seen us probably had an easier time glorifying us in their imagination. We aren’t creatures meant to be looked up to after all.”

The Oomukade had said it had been wrong.

It had said cheering her up had been irresponsible.

But…

“I think you have that a little wrong.”

“?”

“It’s true you messed up, but that doesn’t mean the beginning was wrong. The problem was the ending where you vanished without saying a thing and left it all unsettled. Accepting Ranzono Sachi when she was in such a bind was clearly the right thing to do. Who knows what might have happened to her otherwise. It scares me just to think about it.”

“At the very least, this would not have happened to her.”

“You’d rather she was a soulless teacher’s pet? She might have even hung herself. I’m betting you took on the seeds of this trouble because you saw those possibilities in her future.”

“…”

“If ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are the only options, then you pulled the lever toward ‘right’. You did something you can be proud of. And if Ranzono Sachi still hasn’t been saved, it means she derailed from the ‘right’ track. All you have to do is help her recover. If the train is brought back on track and carries her to the goal, then this will all work out. That’s the best possible option, right?”

The Oomukade remained silent for a while.

[[Image:Zashiki_v06_096.png|thumb]]

But finally, it looked between me and Yonesaki Hiro and dropped its raised head. To put that another way, it bowed toward us.

“I must ask you again. …Will you help me save Sachi...and the rest of those children? I need to save them before they cross the point of no return and really do kill someone.”

I didn’t even need to answer. I had been the one trying to get this going.

For some reason, Yonesaki Hiro held out his small clenched fist, so I lightly clenched my own fist and pressed it against his.

That was when the umbrella asked a question.

“But could those small children really assemble a Package? They might have the dozens of people necessary, but still.”

“Those children had another worry besides Kasane_12. It is commonly known as a manmade genius project. A business that acts more like a seminar than a cram school artificially remakes the structure of their brains. I believe the business was known as Medical Camp.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. That’s the thing they call trauma disconnection, isn’t it? They apply pain to close off the unnecessary synapse connections, ''leaving only the connections for academics and other lessons''. It’s been showing up on talk shows and the online news, so it’s more of a gray area than anything fully illegal.”

If what I’d heard on TV was accurate, the man who founded the business was constantly moving between countless different businesses. He had made all sorts of crazy seminars and cram schools that would drag kids in and lock them in bomb shelters as “punishment” if they stopped showing up.

“I had thought Ranzono-san was amazing because she was great at school, sports, fashion, music, and cooking, but it seemed strange to me,” said Yonesaki Hiro, another kid. “How did she fit all that into only twenty-four hours a day? …But I was wrong. There was no way she could fit it all in.”

Those children had been fully remade, inside and out, for the convenience and vanity of the adults.

They were robbed of any sense of self and were displayed by their parents as a medal or a trophy.

The Oomukade’s group had definitely been right to accept Ranzono Sachi. If things had continued without their intervention, she would have met a fate worse than becoming a creepy stuffed human trophy.

“That means they gathered their genius minds together and used them to assemble a Package better than any adults could have.”

“In that case…” I chose my words carefully. “This Package turns people into centipedes, so the core has to be the Oomukade. You must have had your power and traits stolen without even knowing it. But the components have to be something else. The Package would have been assembled from things those city kids could get their hands on.”

“But since they’re from the city, wouldn’t the core be outside the village?”

“Even if it is, the leader must have some kind of controller. Otherwise, one of the other kids could overthrow her. …It must be really close by. This is the elementary school, so we might find a hint here. What would Ranzono Sachi be free to bring in and use here?”

As I wondered about that, I also went over the traits of the Oomukade at the source of the Package.

–The Oomukade is a large centipede Youkai.

But it wasn’t explained why it was so large or violent.

–The Oomukade can eat other Youkai such as a clan of dragon gods.

But it wasn’t explained whether it ate them due to hunger, hatred, or whatever else.

–The Oomukade is immune to normal blades, but it is weak to weapons with human spit on them.

But it wasn’t explained why human spit was effective.

Those unknowns were very important. One could substitute in any parameters they wanted when assembling the Package. A clear weakness made a safety device easier to add in, so this was actually a pretty easy to use species.

“Um, since it’s Ranzono-san, wouldn’t it be this?”

“?”

I heard a rustling sound as Yonesaki Hiro pulled out a magazine larger than A4 size.

''That’s Autofocus, but…huh? Where did he pull that from?

“You can find them all over the school. It’s a big fad right now. This one was on top of the shoe lockers.”

“That helped us out too. Heh heh.”

First the Yuki Onna and now the lantern. The magazine seemed pretty popular with Youkai.

I placed the magazine on the floor and flipped through it with my flashlight in one hand. Despite being a fashion magazine, it barely had any photos. It was all barcodes and AR marker and it was real pain having to hold up my cellphone every time.

“That’s some odd taste. Well, maybe she was forced to do it for work.”

“Eh? But…”

“Did you think a model in a fashion magazine was some kind of god that’s always right? These are really just fancy banner advertisements. She wears the clothes from the makers and brands affiliated with the editors so they can sell as much clothing as possible. That’s how this is set up. They don’t introduce things because they’re the latest trend; they introduce them to ''make them'' the latest trend. Apparently, some magazines make more from the money the clothing makers give them than from selling the magazine.”

“…”

“If I use a more modern word like ‘affiliate’, do you get why Autofocus would recruit well-known online figures? You can reference the magazines if you want, but don’t just accept what they say at face value.”

Including Ranzono Sachi, they had about twenty dedicated models of various types.

They were all wearing some pretty forced outfits that were supposed to make you want to click the banner ad for a shopping site, but Ranzono Sachi seemed a little different from the rest.

There was definitely something odd about her.

While the other models were clearly playing their part with dollar signs in their eyes, I couldn’t sense any obvious benefit for her. I couldn’t figure out why she was wearing those mismatched clothes.

“I don’t believe you.”

Yonesaki Hiro pouted his lips a little. It looked like he had more of a problem with me saying these things about Ranzono Sachi than with the facts themselves.

“Ranzono-san really is the center of her school. She’s in some unreachable place like the distant moon and everyone wanted to hear the things she says. You can say those things all you want, but she still seems perfectly mature to me.”

I just about told him distinguishing between what you wanted to think and the truth was the sign of maturity, but then I froze up.

''Wait a second.

“The Oomukade is an enlarged centipede. Its threat grows with its size.”

“What about it?” asked the Oomukade.

“And Ranzono Sachi’s group is turning their own bodies into centipedes. They’re turning themselves into a special being that grows more powerful the larger it grows.”

I pointed at the magazine on the floor and the umbrella gave an “ah” of realization.

“She’s a model and writer for a fashion magazine. She’s an unreachable existence like Kaguya-hime on the distant moon. …She is in elementary school just like our master, but she’s also a celebrity that with a clear line drawn between her and the other children.”

“They two fit together. The Oomukade is an enlarged centipede and that city girl has enlarged her status with the magazine. Do you think Ranzono Sachi used Autofocus ''to make herself seem bigger'' and therefore combine with the Oomukade?”

“B-but…” The lantern cut in. “What about the other centipedes with her? I believe she is the only one directly connected to Autofocus. How did the centipede power infect those other children as well?”

“Did they reference Autofocus? Did they read it? No, that isn’t it. They have to make themselves look bigger. There has to be a trigger for that. If it applies to more than just the actual writer…”

I had no guarantee here and we had not time to gather evidence.

I could only present my theories.

“There has to be a condition for her gallery to make themselves look bigger. Are they doing it through Ranzono Sachi? Did they follow her fashion to stand on the forefront of their own classes? Yes, they didn’t question those mismatched outfits, chose their clothes on baseless information, and felt a misguided pride in it all.”

Otherwise, Ranzono Sachi wouldn’t have any reason to wear those mismatched outfits in the magazine.

If her success through Autofocus was the trigger, then she would have worn proper outfits. That would have been the way to increase the number of centipedes.

“Wait,” said the Oomukade. “If that is the case…”

“Yes. The centipede transformations won’t be limited to her class or year. This might have spread throughout Japan. A lot of them are probably hiding it because they’re afraid of revealing something so grotesque.”

Yonesaki Hiro seemed bothered by something and he hid his right hand behind his back.

That caught my interest, but I didn’t have time to ask about it.

I heard a clattering like a sudden downpour striking the roof. Each individual sound was a leg and they spread through the darkness like a ripple. Knowing they were approaching from outside the window was enough for a chill to run down my spine. Storm-like winds blew against the glass and several points of light turned toward us.

It had to be a group of centipedes large enough to envelop the surface, but I didn’t have the guts to shine the flashlight toward it. In fact, I couldn’t imagine how a human being could transform into something that would make noises like that.

“Ranzono-san and the others are here!”

“What should we do?” asked the Oomukade. “As sturdy as this school is, it has a lot of windows and they will completely fill the building at this rate.”

“W-we need to hide somewhere!”

“No,” I cut in. “Just running isn’t enough. Oomukade, Ranzono Sachi shouldn’t think you’re a definite enemy yet. That means you can maintain an ambiguous position without running or hiding. Can you stay out here as a scout?”

“I can, but wouldn’t I be more useful to help you fight?”

“No. …Yonesaki, right? You come with me. I need to know the layout of the school. I don’t want to find out they’ve made additions or changes since I graduated.”

“Wh-what are you going to do?” asked the umbrella while glancing out the dark window again and again.

“I’m going to spit on an arrowhead.”

“What?”

“That’s how you defeat an Oomukade. But now that we know how Ranzono Sachi has set up the process using the fashion magazine, I obviously don’t mean it literally. If I get my hands on that arrowhead, we might be able to turn this around.”

“What exactly should I do to help Sachi and the other children?” asked the Oomukade.

“I’m going to do something, but afterwards, I want you to see if they’re ''using cellphones''. You can tell us by… yeah, let’s do it like a fake medium. For yes, do nothing. For no, go on enough of a rampage for the noise and shaking to reach us. That’s what I’ll use to decide what to do next.”

Our opponents were getting close. If they rushed into the school building before I could take action, it was all over. I didn’t have time to explain everything, so we parted ways with the Oomukade and ran through the dark building.

“Where are we going?”

“That’s what I need to ask about. Do they still have a device in the faculty room that looks like a giant fridge?”

“A fridge?”

“Intellectual Villages are reliant on online shopping, so we’d dry up in no time if a typhoon or landslide blocked off the road through the mountains. So just in case, we have ample disaster infrastructure. Especially in the community center, the schools, and anywhere else a lot of people can take shelter inside. …And the elementary school is the best of the best. It has water, food, sleeping bags, and everything you need to sleep over here. I’m interested in one of those things.”

We didn’t have time to worry about locks, so I kicked down the door to the faculty room.

I pointed my flashlight at what was inside.

“An emergency wired communications server and a large-scale antenna tower. These are to maintain the communications infrastructure.”

Ranzono Sachi’s ability to make herself look big was reliant on the fashion magazine Autofocus. And Autofocus was filled with barcodes and AR markers, so you couldn’t tell what was inside just by looking at it.

She had to be using the magazine and the website together to gain allies from her fans around the country. With the support of those online friends, she thoroughly turned herself into a celebrity. For her, one hundred legs was nothing.

But if her communications were cut off, what would happen to Kaguya-hime on the moon? If she fell to the earth, she would be no different from any other child. Without her fans and online friends, she would be nothing but a human being. Wouldn’t I be able to tear out her hundred legs then?

I opened the door to the switchboard and worked on it while I explained all that.

The umbrella groaned and spoke up.

“The Oomukade’s weakness is a weapon with spit on it. You could switch that around to say it’s weak to ''being spit on'', can’t you? You’re going to isolate Ranzono Sachi to rob her of her celebrity status and then you’re going to reject her clothing. That will remove her power as a centipede.”

I was calling it Operation Emperor’s New Clothes.

However, there was no guarantee it would go as well as the picture book. A failure would mean being decapitated in the public square.

“B-but, you’re messing with the spare server for emergencies, right? The Intellectual Village is filled with a spider web of countless pieces of communications equipment, so destroying one or two of them isn’t going to bring it all down.”

“I don’t have to destroy them,” I corrected. “When the Zashiki Warashi messed with the router’s settings, her signals got mixed in with those from my room. That shut down communications from both rooms and it took until morning to get it all running again.”

“?”

“This is the same. Causing a malfunction will create more trouble than physically destroying it. I’m messing with the spare server’s settings to send out a bunch of data that intentionally interferes with the village’s normal lines. That will bring down all communications.”

I flipped a switch.

“Okay. That just leaves the wireless communications. If I have the emergency antenna tower send out the same frequencies used for cellphones and wireless LANs, I can seal off the communications by force. If this works, it will tear the centipede legs from Ranzono Sachi. This is Step 1. We’re finally stepping up onto the same stage as her.”

===Part 15 (3rd person)===

Late at night in the sanatorium, day trader Kotemitsu Madoka was facing her computer wearing her red bloomers (perhaps for good luck). She let out a scream when the connection suddenly died.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

===Part 16 (3rd person)===

As Ranzono Sachi watched, many children used the light of their centipede legs to break the windows and enter the high-tech wooden school building. Violent wind was blowing down the hallways. However, no one would have thought these were human children anymore. A lot of them were more centipede than human now. Some had gathered centipedes to form great wings and others had half their body completely covered like a hermit crab. Of course, not all of that would be effective. Even if they transformed their arms, they wouldn’t be able to secure the lift needed to fly. They still had enough of a heart left to care about how they looked, but that was gradually fading away. They would become a formless swarm of centipedes. They would be nothing but centipedes. They used slicing wind, crushing wind, wind that corroded with oxidation, and wind that produced electricity. They found plenty of new things to fascinate themselves.

After the soldiers leveled the ground, the queen would continue forward. But that ended when Ranzono suddenly came to a stop.

A familiar deadly Youkai showed its face through a broken window.

“Oomukade!!”

She briefly forgot everything and called its name with a high-pitched voice appropriate for a girl her age.

She ran over, spread her arms, and jumped toward the large head.

“You big dummy!! Don’t worry me so much!! Our centipede transformation has progressed enough to harm your skin and a lot of the kids can’t control their power, so this is really dangerous!”

“…”

“But don’t worry. Heh heh. It’ll all be over soon. Once the transformation crosses a certain line…once this night is over, it’ll all come tumbling down like when the water in a cup passes the limits of its surface tension. All of Japan will become like us. No one will be hurt by the phony ideas of beauty and ugliness and the world will be a kinder place.”

“…”

The Oomukade decided shaking its head here would not reach Ranzono Sachi.

She looked down at her smartphone. Instead of the actual phone, she was using a free texting service limited to 100 characters. More and more word balloon windows opened to tell her what those in the school were finding.

Then she looked back up.

“Oomukade, you’re acting as a spy for the ones trying to escape, aren’t you?”

“So you noticed.”

“Heh heh. I know everything about you. And I don’t mind if that’s what you’re doing. Even if we’re enemies, we’re still friends. I believe you’ll eventually know I was right.”

Noukotsu Village’s wired and wireless communications should have been down, but as far as the Oomukade could see, the children had constructed a personal communication network using the special kind of service used for wireless keyboards and printers.

Its range was only fifty to one hundred meters, but they could exchange data without being monitored because it did not require going through a server or cellphone tower. Its misuse in America for terrorist plots and drug trades had led some to argue the maker should limit its abilities.

“Wait here.”

Ranzono Sachi shut her eyes while embracing the Oomukade’s head as if to offer herself up to that great maw.

“I’ll create a place for you, so let’s talk about more stupid stuff together afterwards.”

“Sachi.”

“But first, I need to get rid of the people standing in our way.”

“Sachi!!”

The Youkai shouted, but it was too late.

It tried to close its jaws to restrain the girl’s body, but she slipped away. With a truly bizarre sound, she quickly made her way into the dark school building. The sounds and movements she made would not have been possible using two human legs. The pants below her skirt bent oddly and the two centipedes sticking out of her skirt wrapped around each other. But even that was not enough. The countless legs were likely cutting at the air to create a violent wind that propelled her forward. She moved like a nimble snake and it reminded the Oomukade of the stories found in the East and the West of grudges transforming girls into monsters.

As soon as Sachi stepped into the hallway through the window, static came from all of the school’s speakers. A high school boy’s voice followed.

“Hi!! You’re Ranzono Sachi, I assume. I have no intention of letting you kill me, so I think I’ll put up a useless fight now!!”

(…)

Sachi operated her small screen with her thumb to instruct the others to find the broadcast room and break into it.

Meanwhile, the voice continued.

“I saw the magazine you’re in. And the clothes you’re wearing now. Why are they so mismatched? White shows up the best, so if you wear red over white, it makes the inside portion look bigger and makes your chest look bigger. The black skirt is probably meant to make your waist look thinner and it matches the chocolate color of your brown boots. But the jeans are clearly unnecessary. I can’t figure out why you would add blue into the mix. The arrangement of colors is a mess.”

(Is he trying to destroy the centipede Package by attacking what makes me “look bigger”?)

Her smartphone received a response.

It was from the boys who had broken into the broadcast room, but they had not found anything.

“No one was there. The lights weren’t even on.”

“Is there any other broadcast equipment? Check the gym or anywhere else the school would gather.”

Not knowing how to respond would give this boy more time.

Ranzono Sachi looked down the dark hallway and the boy’s voice stabbed into her ears whether she liked it or not.

“For one thing, the curls of your chestnut hair are really soft and honestly more suited for some high-class girl. The white rose corsage matches that perfectly, yet the combination of a miniskirt and jeans is obviously more of a street outfit. Your belt is wilder and butts heads with the hair. They don’t go together, yet they don’t have enough of an impact for gap appeal. It just looks like a failed outfit to me.”

(But that isn’t enough. Heh heh. It’s supposed to be a wrong. They’re supposed to know it’s wrong but still do it because I told them to. That’s how I make myself ‘look bigger’. So pointing out my mistakes won’t ruin my enlarged status!)

The girl gave a fierce smile in the hallway of broken glass.

More and more text message responses reached the centipede queen.

“No one in the gym.”

“I doubt there’s any other broadcast equipment.”

“There’s a door leading underground. It might be the kind of tornado shelter I’ve seen on TV.”

One of Ranzono Sachi’s eyebrows shot up.

She operated the device with her thumb.

“That would be the gym-sized shelter in case of a disaster. It probably has broadcast equipment to prevent a panic and to organize personnel. Tell me where the door is. It’s time to attack.”

A rumbling much like TV static filled the school.

===Part 17 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

Tarou had called it a bomb shelter dungeon, but it was really just a big warehouse filled with stacks of cardboard boxes. The boxes all contained canned food and sleeping bags. They were stacked two or three stories tall, so they formed perfect walls, turning the large space into a labyrinth.

Something was surrounding us from all directions on the other side of the walls made from stainless steel.

Something was scraping at the walls with ferocious speed. No, it was scraping through the walls. It was probably that wind. The deluge of sound reminded me of a heavy downpour. The tornado shelter walls were meant to withstand a tornado with wind speeds of one hundred meters per second, but they quickly crumbled and large holes appeared.

Something like clumps of black seaweed poured in along with intense blasts of wind. Most of them had lost their human forms. The arms and legs sticking out through the gaps just barely let me know what they had originally been. And that wasn’t all. The weird wind that wrapped around the centipedes may have been sharp enough or powerful enough to kill someone without ever touching them.

The only one who still looked human was Ranzono Sachi because she had complete control of her transformation. When she walked in, the swarm of black centipedes split to the left and right to make a path for her.

“Heh heh. I suppose this would be checkmate.”

The antennae of the countless bugs focused our way.

The lantern and umbrella stood in front of Yonesaki Hiro and tried to puff themselves up, but it was plain as day what would happen to them if an actual clash began.

“The Oomukade calls in storms. The lightning and steel-like toughness both originated from control of air pressure. That gives me plenty of options. I could bite you and fill you with venom, I could constrict you with its large body, or I could crush your eardrums and organs using great wind pressure from every direction. Oh, but…”

As soon as she said that, Ranzono Sachi casually swung the centipede she had as an arm. The creature was wrapped in a whirlwind of orange flames.

“Heh heh. That might start a fire. Like with diesel.”

''Dammit, I really don’t have any time left. Underground really is the centipede’s home turf!!

Still, my only option was to smile as I held the emergency broadcast radio microphone.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. Your brand is already falling apart. Using fashion magazines is fine, but you can’t accept everything they say. The people around you will be figuring that out before long.”

“But I’m not going to wait around for that. So die to help me create a free and kind world.”

She snapped her fingers and the seaweed-like darkness rushed in from all directions.

===Part 18 (Yonesaki Hiro)===

I saw darkness rushing in.

The lantern shouted something in my ear and the umbrella opened up to protect me.

But I was fine. There was no need for that.

After all, I too had ''looked up to'' Ranzono-san.

I gave a horizontal swing of my right hand that was still itching.

That was enough to transform it from shoulder to fingertips. I gently pushed the lantern and umbrella out of the way and forcibly swung my insect arm like a whip toward the approaching centipedes.

A clump of air exploded like it had contained a bomb and the sea of centipedes flew apart.

Ranzono-san looked surprised.

“What…?”

“I’m the same as these kids. I thought you looked cool when I saw your pictures in Autofocus. Or would you rather I said you looked cute? But either way, I looked up to you. That let the centipede power infect me.”

The many scraping sounds came from my one hundred legs. Those were a part of me now. I didn’t just strike with them. I sliced through the wind, controlled the air, and produced small storms.

“And even if that older Jinnai boy revealed everything, I still think you’re cool. After all, I also ''decided I want to be a Youkai'' once. But I relied on the adults, let them manipulate me, and that was the end of it. I can’t believe someone could put together all this on their own and manipulate the world of adults like you’ve done. I think we should look up to you for caring for your friends so much. I’d get mad if someone was mean to the umbrella or lantern, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you how much I’d actually be able to do. But you found an answer! And a great enough one to reject the world of adults! So!!”

More than one centipede extended from my shoulder now. More and more heads grew like Yamata-no-Orochi. I clenched and opened them like a giant hand and wind wrapped around them.

“I won’t lose. If it was the power of my feelings for you that gave me this centipede transformation, then I won’t lose to the rest of these kids! I won’t be shaken!”

“Wha-?”

“I know more good things about you than even you do!!”

“What are you saying!?”

She may have been angry because her face grew red and she charged toward me. The legs in her pants transformed into long centipedes and moved like snakes. Lots more centipedes burst from below her skirt. She beat the air with them, built up the wind, and produced flames. I responded by stepping forward. The other kids between us were knocked out of the way as our giant centipedes moved like muddy rivers and collided. Tearing at the ear created vacuums which exploded and blew everything away. My wind wrapped around Ranzono-san’s flames.

As we fought, I gradually learned more about the centipedes. It wasn’t the size or shape that mattered. Nor was it creating fancy-looking winds or flames. The older Jinnai boy had said Oomukade venom was used to make curses.

Curses had to be about feelings.

The Oomukade was a Youkai that grew larger when filled with feelings, so this was a battle to see who could turn the most powerful feelings toward the other and who could pour those feelings into the other.

“What could you understand about me!? My face is fake and my heart was torn to pieces, so there’s nothing of myself left! Looking up to a doll like me and innocently following me is the same as obsessing over a corpse! You don’t understand anything about me!!”

“If you can hate yourself like that, it means that you have a self. You’re trying to dirty yourself for the Oomukade, so you must care about your friends! And that means you can’t do this. A heart that cares for its friends would never decide it’s okay to hurt your classmates or parents. You’ve only frozen over and numbed yourself!! If you stay numb and follow through with this, you’ll definitely come to regret it!!!!!”

The centipedes moved in accordance with my will and created countless forms. They punched as a giant fist, they surrounded themselves in swirls of wind and flames, they stabbed like spears, and they exploded again and again. As time passed, it became clear who had the advantage.

Unsurprisingly, Ranzono-san was more powerful. And not just in how well she used the centipedes. It didn’t matter if she could shoot fire at me. The feelings, the curse, and the centipede venom at the base of it all were much, much more powerful and heavier. That was just how intense her feelings for her friends were.

“Heh heh. Is that all you have? You can’t stop me!!”

“…Maybe not.”

''But have you forgotten, Ranzono-san?

''I don’t have the lead role here.

''There’s an older boy who knows a whole lot about Youkai behind me.

===Part 19 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

The scene before my eyes reminded me of the Okuri-Suzume’s words that had been the start of this whole affair.

(Hiro-chan is in trouble. Save him before the Oomukade eats him, hm?)

Was this what it meant by “eat”?

In all honesty, Ranzono Sachi was dangerous. Compressing air and creating explosive flames using dust was completely insane. I wouldn’t even be able to stand up to Yonesaki Hiro who was facing her alone using wind as his weapon.

And there was no need to give into sentimentality here. I only had to make use of the time he had given me.

“Don’t make me laugh, you brat!! You’re making yourself look bigger? You’re making yourself bigger than any adult? No matter how much you stretch your back, a kid’s still a kid. Do you really think you can beat a high schooler!?”

“!!”

Ranzono Sachi had been about to push Yonesaki Hiro back, but she seemed to realize something and came to a complete stop.

Yes. I was using the microphone even though she was right in front of us.

“It might’ve been easy to feel proud when surrounded by other elementary school kids. Autofocus is mainly read by middle schoolers, so you might have them beat, too. But I’m in high school, the step above that. When I look down from above, I can see your flaws immediately!!”

My argument may have seemed inconsistent or like I was refusing to admit defeat, but there was a reason for it.

Yonesaki Hiro had said a few things to me before coming here:

''“But you might be able to finish off Ranzono-san.”

''“To us, a single grade difference feels like an infinite barrier. The gap between elementary school and middle school feels as distant as the moon from the earth. Ranzono-san is on that moon, but you’re even higher.”

''“Ranzono-san’s status is in the world of middle schoolers, so it won’t reach you. The words of a high schooler hold a lot of weight, especially about fashion.”

''I haven’t let go of the microphone because it’s not you I’m speaking to.

I was speaking to Ranzono Sachi’s hangers-on, believers, gallery, and online friends who were filling the entire school grounds.

It didn’t really matter what I said.

I just had to use the difference in age and school level to build uncertainty.

After all…

“Spit on its own is meaningless. No matter how much you spit on someone, it isn’t going to damage them. It only works as the Oomukade’s weakness if you ''use some other tool'' as well to make it an arrowhead with spit on it.”

In other words, the act of “spitting on” the weapon meant something had to be carried to the centipede.

But then what was that?

“Oh, no.”

Ranzono Sachi had the answer, not me.

Yes. It was the cellphones and smartphones they had been using to contact each other!

===Part 20 (3rd person)===

“Oh, no.”

Ranzono Sachi quickly pulled out her smartphone.

She had built in a safety measure. If there was a split in the group, she had prepared an “arrowhead” to rob a member of their centipede power.

She tried to quickly block all of their addresses, but it was too late.

The text messages arrived.

“He’s saying our plan is going to fail.”

They came from other members of her own group.

“Will this really work?”

They seemed to be doubting her.

“I had thought this was a problem from the beginning.”

It was like they were spitting on her.

“This is a high schooler that’s saying it.”

It was like they were spitting on their weapon and firing it at the centipede.

Dozens or even hundreds of text message complaints rushed toward Ranzono Sachi, their leader.

She did not even have time to scream.

The giant centipede her arm had become burst apart. A slender, feminine arm appeared from within. After that, the darkness surrounding her began to burst, bit by bit. The objects that no longer looked human reverted to being boys and girls.

“Ah…ahh…”

Her vision wavered and a voice escaped her.

She had been a step away from a world where she was free to smile with the Oomukade and the other Youkai, but now it was growing eternally distant.

“Ahhhhhh!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

“Now, that would be checkmate.”

The absolutely unreachable being that was a high schooler spoke into the microphone again.

As if it had been waiting for this moment, her friend the Oomukade poked its head down from the stairs leading to the surface.

“It doesn’t matter how many of you there are. We’ve got a high schooler who might as well be on the moon and a real deadly Youkai. …Now, what will you do, elementary school kids? Do any of you still want to take us on?”

===Part 21 (3rd person)===

Jinnai Shinobu and the others climbed the stairs to the surface where some police cars waited. Instead of the old man from the village’s police box, several police cars had been sent in from the next rural city over.

But that was not because they knew about the trouble caused by Ranzono Sachi and her group.

“Illegal trespassing, property damage, violation of the Radio Law, and, um, what else was there? Anyway, messing with the antenna tower stood out too much. That even affected the next town over. Well, just pray you don’t get kidnapping, abduction of a minor, or some other perverted charge tacked on there as well, high schooler.”

“You’re kidding!! You’re handcuffing me!? And why is it all on me!? How is a human supposed to destroy the walls of a tornado shelter!?”

There was no system to charge the Youkai themselves with a crime, but it was possible to charge Ranzono Sachi’s group that had misused one’s power. If he could prove he had been under attack by dozens of individuals and that he had been fighting to protect Yonesaki Hiro, his actions would qualify as justified self-defense or an emergency escape and the charges would be dropped, but that was another story.

Ranzono Sachi had been taken into custody by uniformed police officers and Yonesaki Hiro ran over to her with the umbrella and lantern following him.

She looked away from him, but he clearly heard her speak.

“I did the right thing, so I’ll try again as many times as it takes. I’ll keep at it until our beauty and ugliness have melted away and we all become the same.”

“Then I’ll stop you as many times as it takes. I know the real you can’t do something like that.”

The exchange sounded something like Izanagi and Izanami from Japanese mythology.

Just as the police officers began to carry the girl toward a police car, Yonesaki Hiro said one more thing.

“Ranzono-san! Can I ask you just one more thing?”

“What?”

He breathed in and then out.

He looked her straight in the eye and asked.

“''Will you show me your face?''”

He did not mean it literally. She was a Kasane_12. Human trick art was used to thoroughly alter the impression she gave people, so that question had special meaning for her.

In fact, her eyes opened wide.

Then she smiled just a little. She covered her face with her hands and moved them like drying it with a towel after washing it. It looked like a scene from a classic ghost story where a Nopperabou would appear.

Finally, she moved her hands out of the way.

She exposed the unadorned face that her classmates, neighbors, and even parents had rejected.

She then asked a cruelly ironic question.

“''Am I pretty?''”

And this time, Yonesaki Hiro’s immediate response caught her completely off guard.

“Yes. Very.”

<noinclude>
===Notes===
<references/>
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|-
| Back to [[The_Zashiki_Warashi_of_Intellectual_Village:Volume6_Prologue|Prologue]]
| Return to [[The_Zashiki_Warashi_of_Intellectual_Village|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[The_Zashiki_Warashi_of_Intellectual_Village:Volume5_Chapter_2|Chapter 2]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Volume2 Chapter 4

2015-07-13T22:56:32Z

91.117.172.159:

==Chapter 4: ??? @ The One Who Covers Up a God==

===Part 1 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

''I need to head toward cover. I need to head toward somewhere with plenty of places to hide behind and protect myself.

Fleeing toward the mountain with that in mind may have been a mistake. I was being led toward an area with no people where illegal violence could be employed without issue.

''What is going on?

''How could this happen?

I was in the Intellectual Village known as Noukotsu Village. Packages involving Youkai would occasionally happen here, but it was still an easier place to live than the city. That remained true even if the rural scenery was faked by various types of technology.

And yet…

“Shinobu!!”

I heard my uncle’s shout make its way through the gaps of the forest’s trees.

But I did not respond. I couldn’t!

Several people were tied up in ''this messed up situation'', but each person’s survival was based on the same condition: ''To survive, you must kill one of the other participants.'' It was a simple, clear, and unavoidable rule. Both my uncle and myself had been closed in by that framework.

In other words…

My uncle and I were destined to try to kill each other.

And when it came down to pure violence, a normal high school student like me did not stand a chance against a professional police detective like my uncle. He likely outdid me in pure unarmed combat, but he might also have a handgun.

I could not trust anyone.

Given the situation, we could no longer work together.

However…

I still did not want to kill my uncle and the others. My mind stubbornly worked to find a way to get around the rules, find a loophole, or otherwise reach a conclusion where no one had to die.

But then…

The true disaster that arrived was enough to make me forget all about the rest of the horrible situation.

“''Shinobu!! Don’t go that way! She’s coming!!''”

I had forgotten to wonder why my uncle would be calling for me in this situation of mutual suspicion. When I thought about it, letting the others know his position in this thick forest would only put him at a disadvantage.

And then something happened.

A sound exploded out from my body as if something solid had been knocked out of place.

I had been struck from behind. I tried to turn around, but my head would not turn like I told it to. I twisted my waist around while lying collapsed on the grassy-smelling dirt and managed to roll onto my back. Only then did I catch a glimpse of who had attacked me.

It was a woman with the sort of Japanese paper used for calligraphy forcibly pasted all over her body. She was like a monster created by spell words congealed into a human form. Something had been skillfully written on the Japanese paper with black ink, but the papers were so crumpled up to perfectly match the lines of the woman’s body that the words were distorted.

I could not read what was written on them.

I somehow managed to squeeze out a voice while barely breathing at all.

“…Hishigami…Mai…?”

If that monster was taking part in this killing game where blood was washed away with blood, then it was much too obvious who would win in the end.

This paper-covered Hishigami Mai crouched down as if to peer at my face. Her hands reached out for my neck. I tried to twist my body around to escape, but I could no longer move properly.

She mercilessly brought her hands in as if to strangle a chicken.

And then my heart literally stopped beating.

===Part 2 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)===

After finally getting a day off, I visited an indoor fishing pond that had opened in Ikebukuro. Even when I had lived in Noukotsu Village, I had preferred playing by the river instead of the mountain.

The fishing pond’s greatest feature was its large tank for migratory fish that functioned like a lazy river at a water park. The pond’s tagline was “the leisure spot where you can catch a bluefin tuna”. The tank ran through a donut-shaped circuit in a building the size of fair-sized aquarium and the customers paid to fish in it.

The reception area was one floor below and the inside of the tank could be seen through tempered glass. The tuna I could see swimming through it were only about 70 cm, but they still technically qualified as a small type of bluefin tuna.

According to the smiling receptionist girl, “If they were any larger than this, normal fishers would have difficulty catching them. Even if you are wearing gloves, there would be a danger of losing a finger to the line.”

Any tuna you caught would be prepared for you in the facility’s restaurant and (if you were willing to pay) you could still eat tuna if you did not catch one, so I had not eaten anything despite this being my day off. As I drank some vegetable juice to tide over my empty stomach, I rented a fairly thick fishing pole and some spear squid for bait and headed in for the challenge.

“Hey, detective.”

“What? Why are you here even on my day off, mystery freak? Don’t you know that people need to periodically perform maintenance on and refresh their minds?”

“Heh heh heh. Now I get a fishing pond date with you. …But what’s with that vegetable juice? Aren’t you drinking that as an excuse rather than for your health or its nutrients? Are you trying to look good?”

“Shut up. Let me enjoy my time alone.”

“C’mon, detective. They may be small, but these are bluefin tuna. Do you really think you can eat one all on your own if you catch it? Look around you. It’s nothing but families and couples.”

“Shut up! It really hurts if you point it out!! I didn’t expect it to be like this before I got here!! I thought fishing was a man’s pastime. How casual has it gotten!?”

“Oh, look at your pole, detective. Something’s tugging really hard.”

That was a fishing pond for you. I frantically grabbed the fishing pole that was beginning to bend like a bow. Of course, the reel was electric and had a specialized program installed and a young instructor lady came running over when she saw I had caught something, so I did not actually need any real strength or skill to battle the tuna.

As the instructor reached for the fishing pole from behind me and gave me some literally hands on advice, the mystery freak glared at her.

“This system is not suited for couples. I just hope I don’t hear any of the same rumors as from those parks and amusement parks with famous ponds.”

As I ignored her nonsense and battled the tuna (or rather, enjoyed a recreation of battling it), something huge burst from the surface of the water with a splashing noise.

“Hyah!?” shouted the instructor woman in surprise.

She grabbed onto me from behind for some reason and the look in the mystery freak’s eyes grew even sharper.

I was surprised too.

But not because I had caught an unexpectedly large tuna.

This was not even a fish.

Hanging from the line was a girl wearing a short kimono and hagoromo who looked like something from an ancient picture book.

“G-gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?” I cried out as if I had done something horrible.

The girl in question’s expression did not change despite having a thick fishing hook in her mouth with her entire weight pressing down on it. She remained perfectly expressionless.

''Wait…

“She isn’t bleeding? Wait, the hook isn’t even piercing her mouth?”

“Oh? She isn’t human,” said the mystery freak as if remembering something. “She’s a Youkai…or rather, a manmade Shikigami. I don’t know too much about that, so I couldn’t tell you how it works. But what I do know is she belongs to my sister. She’s the Deadly Dragon Princess.”

“She’s Mai’s?” I said in confusion.

The Deadly Dragon Princess gave little reaction. She simply swayed back and forth while hanging from the end of the fishing pole with the spear squid in her mouth. And for some reason she made the V-sign with both hands while still perfectly expressionless.

“But this is odd,” said the mystery freak.

“Everything about this is odd. I can’t think of a single thing about this that isn’t odd.”

“That’s not what I mean. My sister has a habit of saying she has ''100% lost'' if she has to use the Deadly Dragon Princess.”

''That monster woman said that?

I had never sensed the slightest weakness from Hishigami Mai, so I could not imagine her ever facing a situation she could not handle.

“It’s twue,” added the Deadly Dragon Princes while being dragged up onto land by the electric reel.

She had likely meant “true”, but she was talking while chewing on the squid.

It was raw and still had its guts inside, so she was quite the wild “person”.

Eventually, the Deadly Dragon Princess spat something out like used gum. It was the powerful hook used to land 200 kilogram tunas, but it had been horribly crushed.

“Detective, the hook is tied into a bow.”

“Now that’s a powerful kiss I want to avoid at all costs.”

The Deadly Dragon Princess ignored our exchange and spoke with the expression of someone following a program.

“''Hishigami Mai has lost.'' I have been instructed to pass on an emergency message.”

“She lost…?”

“Yes.”

“What are you supposed to tell us?”

“It is quite simple.” With no change of expression, the Deadly Dragon Princess grabbed another spear squid from the cooler I had rented. “After she lost to them, an organization known as Akki Rasetsu took control of Hishigami Mai’s physical body. She has become their puppet to use as a weapon. If you wish to save her, you must head to the Intellectual Village known as Noukotsu Village.”

I sighed and covered my face in my hands. While looking over at the Deadly Dragon Princess who was eating my squid without permission, the mystery freak revealed an unnecessary piece of trivia.

“That’s your hometown, isn’t it, detective?”

“Why do you know my personal information?”

===Part 3 (???)===

A certain rest stop was located near an ordinary rural city.

The area’s economy had fallen into a slump so the public transportation facilities such as buses and trains had declined. This naturally made private automobiles a necessity to live in the area. Nothing could be seen but long runway-like stretches of road that naturally obstructed travel and further stagnated the economy. The stereotypical cycle of decline had kicked in.

An old black foreign car was parked at one end of a parking lot large enough to hold a soccer match on. It was a famous car from the ‘60s known as a Hitman Tuxedo, but a car like that would violate the exhaust standards if it was used as is on public roads. For that reason, the inner workings had been remade into a sanitary hybrid car. This was another of the classics businesses that also gave new life to old houses. The president of the custom workshop had claimed it took a lot of doing to produce such a deep noise of exhaust from such a thin engine. He had said the experience made him feel like an expert craftsman of brass instruments.

A man and a woman sat within the car.

The woman had her hair tied to either side of her head and was wearing a pink camisole, hot pants, and jacket. She was named Saijou. The muscular man had a blonde pompadour, wore a tank top and work pants, and had his shirt wrapped around his waist. His name was Nanjou.

Saijou Ai and Nanjou Kakeru were the two new leaders of Akki Rasetsu after they had taken control of the organization from the old leaders.

And…

''A human sized piece of luggage'' was lying in the leg space of the backseat.

“Toujou-san is dead.”

“Yes, he is.”

One portion of the blue sky was blocked out by a long, narrow trail of smoke as if from a chimney. But in reality, this black smoke was coming from the remains of the prisoner transport vehicle carrying Toujou. It had been blown to smithereens while travelling along the highway.

They had not wanted to use something as flashy as a bomb in a country like Japan, but the vehicle had been armored. Anything that could be disguised as a natural accident would have no guarantee of killing their target.

While sitting in the left-side driver’s seat, Saijou nervously tapped her index finger on the steering wheel.

“And Houjou-san was hung from a tree after his project in Kyoto failed.”

“Does it really matter?”

“What do you mean?”

“Nature will decide the size of the organization. This is no different than how smaller groups of friends naturally form within a school. Those old idiots tried to expand the size of the organization to achieve their objectives, but they went too far. That causes internal rifts and makes it hard to come to agreement over anything. If you radicalize around a single objective, it is only natural for the organization to be automatically trimmed.”

“Eh? Then the same goes for Toujou-san and Houjou-san?”

“Both of those were accidents, but the organization would have grown more condensed either way. In fact, regulating the number of people will improve the purity of our focus on a single goal. …We had become fat and bloated like Hyakki Yakou. They have 100 members at the level of leaders alone, which is just stupid. And I hear not even a third of them can even use the occult.”

“I see,” said Saijou with a less than satisfied expression.

She did think a problem existed as far as the percentages were concerned, but that was still 30 people who could wield the occult on a level feared as a natural disaster and with an exclusive shrine constructed toward suppressing their power. Even by the standards of their field of work, having that many of such people gathered in one group was not normal.

But she changed the subject instead of pursuing that further.

“What should we do next?”

“Houjou was an idiot who couldn’t even protect himself, but he did give us an interesting report. ''He found some interesting Youkai we can use in the Intellectual Village known as Noukotsu Village.''”

“I kind of liked Houjou-san.”

“Well, you both work in similar ways. Not to mention that ''you managed to make Hishigami Mai your own after picking her up injured in Kyoto.'' He was the one that did that damage, so you should at least thank him. Not that it has anything to do with me.” Nanjou looked in the rearview mirror to observe the backseat. “Speaking of which, is this really safe?”

“''Mai-chan'' will be just fine. Her entire body is bound by Kosode no Te.”

“That’s a kimono Youkai that curses anyone who wears it, right?”

“Exactly. I made plenty of copies of one and attached them all over ''Mai-chan''. The controller is running properly, so there is nothing to worry about.” Saijou casually turned the conversation back on track. “So what are we going to do? Should we head to that Intellectual Village Houjou-san visited?”

“Well, if we find the Youkai he spotted, we should be able to assemble what we have been hoping for.”

Saijou spread out a paper map to check on the location of Noukotsu Village. She did not use a convenient GPS system because she did not want a third party using it to track their location. This hybrid Hitman Tuxedo was not a rental car or stolen car she was willing to abandon.

“Oh, right,” said Saijou Ai as she looked at the map like a father reading the newspaper at the breakfast table.

Nanjou Kakeru frowned and asked, “What?”

“You said those old men, Houjou-san, and Toujou-san were purged in the automatic adjustments to the optimal size for the organization, right?”

“What about it?”

“In that case, isn’t it a bit odd for Akki Rasetsu to have two leaders left? It seems to me just the Saijou group or just the Nanjou group would be enough.”

“…”

“…”

The sound of something soft being crushed exploded out within the car.

Saijou Ai pulled out a sleeping bag, stuffed a human-sized mass inside, and threw it into the backseat.

She then said, “It’s getting a bit crowded back there, but bear with it, ''Mai-chan.''”

That famous ‘60s car called the Hitman Tuxedo let out its low rumbling one could feel in the gut as it left the rest stop’s large parking lot. The black foreign car smoothly began its journey to the Intellectual Village known as Noukotsu Village.

===Part 4 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

''Noukotsu Village is a bit of an ominous name, isn’t it?<ref>Noukotsu refers to the process of placing someone’s cremated remains into a funerary urn.</ref>

That thought about my hometown came to me thanks to a slightly belated summer greeting postcard. It had come via ridiculously expensive airmail.

''Couldn’t they just send an email?

Oddly enough, the postcard was addressed to the Succubus rather than the Jinnai household. It just outright had “Succubus” written on it. And the sender was…unknown. It just had a weird string of numbers in that field.

At any rate, I made my way up to the attic and asked the micro bikini-wearing demon.

She smiled and replied, “It’s from an old friend. She’s an old demon, so she likes old systems. Of course this is an age where quantum computers could soon be a reality, so I’m amazed she thinks a simple numerical replacement for the letters while be enough to hide her true name. …But I wonder how she figured out I’m here.”

“Hm. So who is she?”

“Tselika Wien Alpha Chely-…wait, stop that! Asking for a demon’s name will not end well for you. This is no fairy tale!”

It seemed the world of demons had its own problems. There was no point in asking further, so I quickly changed the subject.

“So where is this picture from?”

“A place not far from Paris. They have some wonderful catacombs there…”

The Succubus looked spellbound with the idea, but I was not entirely sure what catacombs were.

After reading the text, she handed the postcard back to me in disinterest. I walked down the long hallway and to the western style living room where I found the glamorous Zashiki Warashi lying on the floor watching TV with the Yuki Onna. There was a TV in her room as well, but it was hard to resist the draw of this larger screen.

They seemed to be watching a rerun of a quiz show.

“The topic is Australia’s circular farms. These green plains look quite mysterious in the middle of the vast desert. Now for your question. What percentage of the world’s wheat is grown on them!? You have three possible answers and those of you at home can play along with your terrestrial digital remote controls!!”

I tossed the postcard into a postcard storage box no one used much anymore. As I did, the overall flat Yuki Onna spoke to me expressionlessly.

[[Image:Zashiki_v02_361.jpg|thumb]]

“Listen to this. They’re horrible. They’re all so horrible…”

“What happened?”

“They have been using the remote to take part in the quiz game, but they won’t let me have a turn.”

“Isn’t this a rerun?”

“And that untidy Youkai lying there always says the answer right before the host does…”

“Like I said, it’s a rerun.”

''But what fun is it to watch a quiz show if you know all the answers already?

“The answer is the biggest option: 25%! Surprising, isn’t it? But the people of Australia think it is not enough. There are a some problems such as cyclones and an outbreak of locusts, but with some help from Japanese technology…”

The Zashiki Warashi must have grown tired of teasing the Yuki Onna because she made me her new target.

“Shinobu, I want a popsicle.”

“What?”

“Carry me.”

I had no choice but to take that indoor Youkai to the kitchen by rolling her along the floor like a metal drum tipped on its side. This did some interesting things to the hem and collar of her Yukata, but she did not seem to mind showing off that much skin.

She calmly said, “We just can’t win with numbers alone, can we?”

“Are you talking about Australia? They use large scale farming where the seeds are sown from an airplane. A country like this where you have a hard time finding land where the horizon is visible has no chance of winning. Due to the race for the lowest prices, the beef, rice, and onions in the gyudon you buy will probably all come from Australia.”

However, it was hard to manually manage such vast amounts of farmland, so I had heard they would rent a farming infrastructure with technicians included that used precision equipment made in Japan and Korea. This created a strange situation where the Japanese were importing crops grown by other Japanese in foreign countries.

After complaining that the Zashiki Warashi got a yogurt despite saying she had wanted a popsicle, my overall small granny entered the kitchen.

“Shinobu, Shinobu.”

“What is it, granny?”

“I think there are more trees in the yard than usual.”

“…What?”

“I do not really understand, but it might be a Youkai.”

I was not sure what she meant, so I had her and the Zashiki Warashi wait in the kitchen while I headed for the yard.

I put on a pair of beach sandals and stepped off of the long porch.

“What is this giant tropical looking tree?”

There was indeed an extra tree. It was obviously a different type of plant from those around it and it was growing right in the middle of the small path between the parking spot and the yard, so it could not have been more in the way. Anyone would notice a tree growing here.

This out-of-place feeling and strange sense of caution I felt for an unfamiliar plant likely came from living in an Intellectual Village. Just as stocking a river with black bass could destroy the river’s ecosystem, a living thing that did not fit the village’s colors was a scary thing.

And then some cat-sized creature poked its head out from behind the mysterious tropical tree.

But the creature’s face was oddly stern.

“Good day. I am Shisa.”

“Eh? Shisa!?”

“This Chinese banyan tree is Kijimuna. He is my friend.”

“Wait, wait! Let’s go through this one at a time. Is a Shisa even a Youkai? I thought the term Shisa referred to the statues themselves and not some creature they were modeled after. Y’know, like the Komainu at a Shinto shrine.”

It was also possible this was technically not a Shisa but a Tsukumogami of a Shisa statue, but I had no way of knowing which it was.

However, the Shisa did not seem the type to listen to what people said.

“I am from Okinawa, so I have never seen snow. I heard from some travelling Youkai that I could find a Yuki Onna if I came here. Have her make it snow.”

“Hey! What the hell happened to our household’s privacy!?”

“Here is some awamori as a gift. Give it to your parents. …It is not for children, okay?”

Having said that, the Shisa (?) jumped up onto the porch and entered the house without permission. He was so bold about it that I let it happen without thinking.

After being left behind, I looked up at that tree that was a type of mangrove.

“If you’re a proper Youkai, you won’t mess with the ecosystem of the normal plants around here…will you?”

The branches shook, making a rustling noise, but I did not know if that was a yes or no.

“At any rate, you’re kind of in the way here, so could you head further back in the yard while you wait?”

After more rustling, it began moving. But rather than walking on legs, the movement was more like all of its roots were snakes.

It may have gotten into a turf war with the Furutsubaki in the back of the yard because it began that odd rustling again. (By the way, the Furutsubaki would occasionally transform into a beautiful woman, but it was not the type that killed people. My Youkai-loving mom hand picked it up from somewhere.) But before I could focus on the two Youkai trees, I heard a commotion coming from the thatch-roof house.

In fact, the Yuki Onna ran out barefoot into the yard with Xs for eyes.

“Wh-what is this all of a sudden!? You’re making everything too hot!! I don’t know who you are, but I think we are horribly incompatible!!”

“I am Shisa.”

“I was not asking for your name!”

“I want to make an igloo. Make it snow.”

The Shisa (?) continued to not listen to anything anyone said as the Yuki Onna scurried over to cling to me.

“P-please do something about him!!” she begged me.

''Yeah…

''But…

“Apparently, he’s never seen snow before, so he came here all the way from Okinawa. Can’t you at least make it snow for him?”

“Kh… By any chance do you have a fetish for being NTRed away from people? A-and an animal fetish…?”

It seemed the Yuki Onna had made an incredibly rude misunderstanding, but she was in no state to be corrected while she was being chased around by that symbol of summer. She was running around the yard with the hem of her white kimono trailing along the ground behind her.

''If she really can’t stand being around him, I need to create a way for them to talk this out…

But as soon as I had that thought, my cell phone rang. This was a brand new model because my old one had broken after being soaked in water.

“Eh? What do you need, uncle?”

After a short exchange, I frowned.

“I see. So you’re on your way here?”

===Part 5 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)===

Unfortunately, there was no way I had any paid leave left.

However, the Shikigami sent by Hishigami Mai did not care in the slightest about the problems of a working man.

“Please begin searching for Hishigami Mai right away. If you do not, I will kill you,” said the Deadly Dragon Princess bluntly.

No matter how unreasonable this seemed, I had no chance if it came down to a competition of physical strength. And I could hardly go into work with that Deadly Dragon Princess tagging along 24/7. I was ultimately forced to lie and say my wounds from the Jinmensou case had reopened.

Of course, I didn’t have any paid sick days left either, so this was eating away at my already low pay.

At any rate, I travelled to Noukotsu Village.

As I stepped out onto the platform of the village’s one unmanned train station, I looked up at the midsummer sun and grimaced.

“…So I’ve come back here yet again.”

The first problem facing me was the combination of having a lot of luggage and the station’s lack of a bus stop or taxi loading area. However, I had called Shinobu ahead of time, so the real question was who would be sent to meet me. My older brother was a man who focused 100% on his work, so he would never leave his brewing facility. With any luck, my old man would come pick me up in his car, but…

“Well, there’s not much chance of that happening. I guess I’ll just walk to the house.”

“S-so I will finally get to greet your parents, detective!?”

“What are you doing here, mystery freak?”

The girl-shaped Deadly Dragon Princess was clinging to my back and silently eating some squid snacks, but I had not noticed Enbi until she had spoken to me on the platform. Had she tailed me like a true mystery freak?

She lightly waved her index finger back and forth and said, “For once, my sister is actually in a real pinch. This is actually more my issue than yours, detective.”

“Then do something about this Shikigami. And while you’re at it, how about you stay away from me too?”

But I was not even sure if the village even had an inn. Even if it did, I did not know if Enbi could afford it. That meant keeping her from traveling with me would force her to sleep on the streets. Forcing a teenage girl to do that for my own personal reasons went against everything I believed a police officer should be. And of course, thinking that way was falling right into the mystery freak’s trap.

As I held my head in one hand, I dragged my travel bag along and walked toward the ticket gate.

I was already feeling irritated when I heard the grating high-pitched voice of a female announcer coming from some TV.

“Blueprint of a Hit is on at Thursday at 7:00!! This week we will approach the secrets of Daikawara-san, the producer of the beautiful Onmyouji girls unit Seman Stars! We will reveal the trick to coming up with the group’s novel ideas such as the skillful blend of idols and spiritual mystique as well as the unique fan service of giving individual fortune tellings instead of a simple handshaking event! Don’t miss it!!”

I looked over to find the mystery freak had turned on the 1seg TV function of her cell phone.

“Wow, this is really is the middle of nowhere. There are almost no TV channels. All the commercial broadcasting is covered by a single local station.”

“You can order any show you want to watch over satellite or the internet.”

“What do you think of Seman Stars? Don’t you think Tarot Girls 22 is cuter?”

“There are too many of them, so I can’t keep track. Add in the backups and there are 56 of them, right?”

Sitting around at the empty station forever would do no one any good, so I began walking along the paved road with the Deadly Dragon Princess still clinging to my back. The mystery freak would stick with me whether I said anything or not, but I was having trouble deciding whether that was convenient or presumptuous.

The midsummer sun was so hot that I seriously began to wonder if it was not a mirage I was seeing and the road was really melting. Nevertheless, I continued to walk across the asphalt and toward my family home. The distance and heat must have been too much even for the mystery freak because she said nothing as we walked.

The Deadly Dragon Princess was clinging to my back and forcing her entire weight onto me, so my strength was being worn down quite quickly. It reminded me of poison damage in an RPG.

“Ahhh!! Detective, are there no cafes or family restaurants around here?”

“Give it up. This village only has a sweets shop. If you need a rest, there’s a bus stop with a roof not far up ahead.”

“This is horrible! Is this really part of Japan!?”

“I moved to the city to get away from this, so complain to someone else.”

As soon as we finally arrived at the bus stop, the mystery freak practically flung herself onto the bench but then started writhing around on top of that natural frying pan that had been heated by the sun.

“Hgywaaaaahhhh!?”

“Your problem is that you’re the type of mystery freak whose brain stops working altogether when you don’t have a case to solve. Why couldn’t you at least guess that the angle of the sun can still let it reach the bench despite the roof?”

“U-uuhhh… This is just cruel. ''There’s water so nearby yet I can’t drink it.''”

“Huh? ''What is this doing in an Intellectual Village?''” I muttered as I approached the object.

And that turned out to be a deadly mistake.

===Part 6 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

Despite emphasizing how soon he would be here over the phone, my uncle never arrived. I frowned and called him back a few times, but I couldn’t reach him.

“What is going on?”

Had he run into some kind of trouble?

Noukotsu Village had an extremely slow train schedule. Counting both directions, only 5 trains came through in a day. One of those should have arrived at the station already. If my uncle had been on that train, he should have arrived in the city by now.

“Hmm… Maybe I should go down to the station to check.”

I had hoped someone would go with me, but the Zashiki Warashi’s policy was to refuse to do anything that would be too much of a bother and the Yuki Onna did not want to head out into the hot sun. As I looked around in search of someone to rope into going with me, the Nekomata turned away from me.

''Is this because of how Youkai naturally hate my uncle so much?

“Oh, that’s right. We’ve got a demon in addition to these Youkai.”

And so I headed up to the attic using the steep and narrow wooden stairs that were practically a ladder.

The house was quite large and the attic was not divided into individual rooms, so it contained a decent amount of space. However, it had a dank and stuffy impression due to not being a proper living space, so it was not a place I liked going to.

But Youkai and demons tended to like places humans found uncomfortable, so it was quite well liked by them.

“The answer is #3: 50 countries!! The worldwide agricultural revolution focused on Australia is known as the International Plantation Project. Vast land is used to grow the specialties of countries the world over, such as Brazilian coffee, French grapes, and German potatoes. The standard is to use circular farms, but some crops use a combination of perfectly enclosed plant factories and megasolar facilities…”

It seemed the Succubus was watching the same quiz show rerun the Yuki Onna had been. I could hear the voice of the announcer who was known as the trivia king.

While standing on that steep ladder-like staircase, I stuck my head into the square attic. For some reason, the Succubus was sitting with her legs spread in an M-shape as if waiting for me. If I had been careless, my face would have run right in the center point of the M.

“What are you doing?”

“Just watching TV. Why do you ask?”

It seemed that sitting like that was as natural to her as sitting in the seiza style or cross-legged. After I explained the situation, she rolled backwards with her legs still spread in an M-shape. The movement somehow reminded me of a dead cicada.

“Demons prefer the darkness and Succubi rule over the night and dreams!! Why would you ever think I would go on a healthy walk under the midsummer sun!?”

Apparently, my uncle’s nature worked long range and was just as effective on Western monsters as Eastern ones.

I ultimately had no choice but to head for the station alone.

As soon as I stepped outside, I was reminded just how unbearable the direct sunlight was. For an instant, I considered taking a page out of those Youkai’s book and turning right back into the house, but I managed to resist.

I borrowed the Zashiki Warashi’s electric stickboard and took off down the farm road that was barely wide enough for two light trucks to pass each other.

“There are no stores on the way, so there’s almost no chance he took a detour.”

I raced alongside rice paddies filled with rice plants swaying in the wind as I took the shortest route to the train station. Someone must have been hunting down some dangerous animal because I heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the mountain. The old man who lived next door would sometimes share some boar meat with us, so I did not find it to be an unpleasant sound.

And then…

“?”

I spotted something sparkling on the side of the road. I ignored it, but I saw something else reflecting the sunlight a bit further on. After spotting three or four similar objects, I started to think it was strange.

''What are those things?

They were objects I had seen on TV.

But…

“A cat-repellent water bottle?”<ref>In Japan, putting out filled plastic water bottles is thought to keep stray cats away.</ref>

I stopped the electric stickboard to check. The label had been removed from the plastic bottle and it was filled with water. I had often seen them placed in front of urban houses on TV.

But they were rarely used in Intellectual Villages.

For one, there was no scientific or zoological evidence they worked. Also, filling a round plastic bottle with water allowed it to function like a lens. When placed under the sun, it could easily start a fire.

Intellectual Villages thoroughly regulated their environment with all sorts of technology, so they had ways of more efficiently and effectively keeping stray cats away.

After all, this was where a bunch of grapes cost 30 thousand yen. When you could almost say that money did grow on trees, you would never protect those trees with mere superstition.

“What is this doing here?”

In my confusion, I approached the cat-repellent water bottle to get a closer look.

And then…

“No, Shinobu!! If you approach that, you’ll be caught in it too!!”

There was nothing he could have done.

By the time I heard my uncle’s voice, I had already been caught in the Package.

===Part 7 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)===

''Shit.

''Shit, shit, shit, shit!!

I had been so focused on being caught in the Package myself and searching for a way to escape this Youkai that I had been unable to stop a new sacrifice from appearing. And this was my nephew Shinobu. What rules did any supposed god use to run this world?

I frantically ran over to Shinobu but felt a dull pain run through my right ankle.

It felt like wooly caterpillars that a mere touch from would cause a rash had broken through the skin and burrowed into my body. It hurt, it itched, it was uncomfortable, and it filled me with revulsion. The negative feelings seemed enough to cover up the pure pain.

It was a string.

It was painfully clear that a spider’s web had burrowed inside me.

“Uncle, what is-…!?”

Shinobu trailed off as his face twisted in pain and he frantically crouched down to hold his right ankle with both hands. He was obviously experiencing the same symptoms as us.

I shouted into the distance.

“Mystery freak, there’s a water bottle over here too! We missed one!! Shinobu has been caught in the Package!!”

Hishigami Enbi and the Shikigami named the Deadly Dragon Princess approached. Those two, Shinobu, and I were the current group caught in the Package. If possible, I did not want anyone else to be added to that group, but…

“What is going on, uncle…?”

“It’s a Jorougumo. Someone has set up a Package using that deadly Youkai,” I replied in a bitter voice.

Once we had understood the details of the Package to a certain extent, we had started by gathering all of the water bottles set up around the village. Everyone who approached them would be caught inside the Package, but the mystery freak and I were already caught. Touching the bottles could not cause any more harm to us. We had hoped to retrieve them all before someone else fell victim to them, but that had not happened.

The mystery freak explained the situation to Shinobu.

“A Jorougumo is generally known as a Youkai that transforms into a beautiful woman during the day and sucks human blood as a giant spider at night. But this one seems to be a slightly different type. This is the Jorougumo said to appear at the Jouren Falls. The cat-repellent water bottles are a trap meant to apply the situation of ‘taking a rest next to the water’ to the target. ''Anyone who spends a certain amount of time near one of the bottles is designated a target.'' The bottles may even have actual water from the Jouren Falls inside.”

Simply passing by was no problem. However, if you stopped, the danger shot way up. We had not actually tested this, but the entire village would have been caught if the target simply had to approach within a certain distance.

“What exactly does this Youkai do?”

“It wraps its spider web around the ankle of any travelers resting near the waterfall and drags them into the waterfall basin to kill them. In the story, a traveler cut the web wrapped around his ankle and tied it around a tree stump to escape.”

Shinobu looked at me.

I shook my head and replied, “We’ve tried it. The web is invisible, but we can grab it. However, nothing happened even when we tried to tie it to the bus stop sign, the bench, or anything else. We even went to the mountain and found a stump, but that didn’t work either. We can remove it temporarily, but it reappears back around our ankle before long.”

Technically, it dug into our ankle in this Package instead of just around it.

“So they’ve altered that portion,” commented Shinobu.

The mystery freak sighed and said, “We don’t know who did this, but it is obvious what they are after. Either everyone caught dies or they must fight each other to the death. The person behind this wants us to make that ultimate choice.”

“What? I don’t know what the time limit for this is, but don’t we just have to find what has been designated the ‘stump’ and reattach the web to that?”

“The problem is what that ‘stump’ is,” I cut in. “The mystery freak wrapped her web around my ankle as a joke, but that was the only time it did not reappear on her. …It was kind of awkward, so she reattached it to her ankle.”

“…Wait. You’re kidding.”

“The bastard that assembled this Jorougumo Package has cruelly set the other participants as the ‘stump’.”

As a police officer, this situation made me click my tongue, but it would have been unfair not to explain it.

“In other words, we have two options. We can wait until our time is up and all die, or we can force our web onto another participant before our time is up. Those are the only two options.”

“I doubt there is a limit to the number of webs someone can have forced on them, so one death would be the best we can hope for,” added the mystery freak.

Naturally, no one wanted to be thrown into a deadly game of musical chairs.

That would decide who the sacrifice would be by a truly primitive method. In other words, all the participants would try to kill each other, forcing all the damage onto the weakest one.

Shinobu looked back down at his ankle and said, “By the way, how exactly will we be killed once our time is up?”

“We don’t know. Since the story is about being dragged into a waterfall basin, drowning or falling from a great height would make the most sense, but the Jorougumo is a bloodsucking Youkai. And since the stump was pulled from the ground and dragged into the basin, being crushed to death may also be possible.”

The only question was what the criminal wanted from this.

A rural area like an Intellectual Village had few main roads, so it would not be hard to catch someone in the Package by setting up the water bottles along those. However, it would be difficult to catch a specific target.

Was this nothing but indiscriminate murder?

Packages were developed by groups of dozens or even hundreds, so it seemed unlikely one would be built around the pleasure of an individual.

“I have a question,” said Hishigami Mai’s Shikigami all of a sudden. “A web has been attached to my ankle as well, but can this Jorougumo kill a Shikigami?”

“I’m not a specialist, so I couldn’t tell you,” replied the mystery freak. “But if this was assembled under the assumption that it would be killing humans, the damage set to drown or crush the victim might not be enough to kill you.”

“I agree. And with that settled…”

“?”

We all focused on the Deadly Dragon Princess.

The Shikigami then said, “''All of you can attach your webs to me. That will allow you to escape this danger. Even if my core structure is destroyed, I can be remade if you manage to rescue Hishigami Mai.”

The last resort.

Once it was suggested, there was no point in rejecting it.

If time ran out with the webs still around all of our ankles, we would all die. The Package was put together to kill every last one of us. Denying that last resort would only increase the number of victims.

For that reason, the Deadly Dragon Princess’s view was not wrong.

It was not wrong.

However…

“We can’t, uncle.” As expected, my nephew Shinobu spoke up. Even if it was being idealistic, I felt he should be proud of still being able to say that here. “There has to be another way! A Package is a much larger system than it appears, so there are a lot of gears that can be removed. If we can find one of those, we won’t have to make this choice like the criminal wants us to!!”

“But we have no way of knowing if we will succeed before time runs out. In fact, we do not even know the full scope of this Package. We have not even narrowed down who the suspects might be. If we begin gathering information now, we will never finish in time.” The mystery freak’s words stabbed at him coolly. “From the state of our ankles, the detective and I only have about 10 minutes left. The time limit meaning our deaths may be after that, but the web digging into our ankles will be too much for us soon. This strange itching is spreading so much it feels like my ankle is suffering necrosis.”

“…”

“Shinobu, don’t worry. The limit will clearly come for us first. If worst comes to worst, you can attach your web to one of us. You at least can survive this.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to say!!”

I knew that he was trying to correct a fundamental mistake.

But we did not have time.

“We of course want to do whatever we can too. But think about what could happen. We are the first wave and you are the second. If you wait around until the entire first wave is gone, you will be the only person left. Once that happens, ''you will have no one to attach your web to.''”

Shinobu gritted his teeth and looked over at the Deadly Dragon Princess.

That monster looked like a slender girl.

“I will be fine,” she said to Shinobu expressionlessly. “No Youkai is used in my construction. I am a Shikigami designed from the ground up with organic material. If my physical body is destroyed, it can simply be exchanged for anoth-''ghh.''”

She misspoke at the end after biting her tongue.

Or so it seemed.

A slender and lithe arm pierced through the Deadly Dragon Princess’s back and out of the center of her chest.

''What?

''Who did that?

''When did they approach?

I belatedly realized that asking those obvious questions was getting my priorities out of order.

If what the Deadly Dragon Princess had said was accurate, she was a Shikigami, an artificial Youkai, created by Hishigami Mai.

Normal methods would never be enough to kill her, so how had a human killed her barehanded?

“According to my sister,” Hishigami Enbi’s lips trembled as she spoke, “the Deadly Dragon Princess is a model case for a potential enemy. She assumed she would be able to stand up to most any Youkai if she redesigned her own body so she could defeat it with a single punch.”

That means…

The most likely candidate for who had destroyed the Shikigami in a single strike was…

“Hishigami Mai!?” shouted all three of us almost in unison.

The attacker pulled her slender arm out from the Deadly Dragon Princess’s back and casually tossed the wreckage to the side. The Deadly Dragon Princess had said she would be fine if she was destroyed, but I had no way of knowing how true that was.

And I could not even focus on her battered form.

Every nerve in my body refused to let me look away from the attacker.

The attacker was indeed Hishigami Mai. I recognized the bloody arm and the hair that had been damaged by direct sunlight. However, I had never seen that look on her face. And half of her body was covered.

Covered in what, you ask?

Covered in Japanese paper used for calligraphy. Or perhaps you would call them magic charms. At any rate, about half of her body was covered with Japanese paper with strange writing on it. We had not exchanged a single word, but it was obvious that Mai was not her usual self. It was possible she could not even hear us. She looked like spell words congealed into a human form.

The Jorougumo Package had been unbeatable enough already.

And now the trump card we could use as a last resort had been destroyed.

Plus the enemy that now faced us was the worst possible enemy I could think of.

“We can’t win,” I calmly analyzed. Neither Shinobu nor the mystery freak attempted to argue. “Don’t try to fight her!! Our top priority is finding a way to escape this Jorougumo Package!!”

To make sure we were not all killed at once, we ran off in three different directions.

Hishigami Mai would likely pursue one of us.

This was like a game of musical chairs.

If we wanted to survive, we had to choose at least one person to die.

A much more direct, obvious, and horrible choice than the Jorougumo Package had presented itself.

===Part 8 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

In the end, I was cornered before I had been able to resolve anything.

This was Hishigami Mai.

She was the worst possible person I could think of to have as an enemy. I had run toward the mountain to get away from her.

But that may have been a mistake.

Then again, there may not have been a correct answer when it came to confronting that monster of a woman.

“Shinobu!!”

My uncle called from somewhere.

He must have run after me because he was worried about me. Or so I thought at first. Doubt came soon after.

The final trump card that had existed ever since my uncle and that twintailed girl were caught in the Package was now gone. That Youkai(?) known as the Deadly Dragon Princess could no longer be given all of our webs. To escape the Package before the time limit, my uncle, the twintailed girl, and I had to force our Jorougumo web onto one of the others.

It was possible he had changed his plan.

My uncle and the twintailed girl had fallen into the Jorougumo Package before I had. That of course meant they had less time than me. They might want to force their webs onto me “for the moment” since I had more time.

If we then found a new way out of the Package, that was fine.

But what if we did not find one?

Once all the webs had been temporarily forced onto me, the only option would be my death.

“…”

I did not respond to my uncle’s cry. I couldn’t!

I could not decide whether I should hold my breath and stay where I was or run off at full speed despite the noise it would make. When it came down to pure violence, a normal high school student like me did not stand a chance against a professional police detective like my uncle. And he might also have a handgun.

If he shot me in the leg, my options would drop considerably.

''I can’t risk agreeing to my uncle’s compromise.

But just as I thought that….

“''Shinobu!! Don’t go that way! She’s coming!!''”

“Eh…?”

I had grown so lost in my suspicions that it took me too long to realize what my uncle meant. And my enemy did not overlook that mistake.

A sound exploded out from my body as if something solid had been knocked out of place.

I could not turn my head around to check behind me, much less continue standing. The best I could manage was twisting my waist around as I collapsed to the grassy-smelling dirt.

Only once I was lying on my back did I catch a glimpse of who had attacked me.

It was that monster of a woman who had half her body covered in Japanese paper or magic charms.

Somehow, she did not seem all there. It looked like she was sleepwalking.

“…Hishigami…Mai…?”

She gave no response.

She crouched down as if to peer at my face and her hands reached out for my neck. I tried to twist my body around to escape, but I could no longer move properly.

She showed no mercy.

She brought her hands in as if to strangle a chicken.

And then my heart truly did stop beating.

===Part 9 (???)===

Something out of place was mixed into the gentle atmosphere of Noukotsu Village. Saijou Ai hummed as she looked at her cell phone and leaned against the side of her black luxury car known as a Hitman Tuxedo.

The text on the screen was short, but absolute and accurate.

“Jinnai Shinobu: Confirmed dead.”

“Uchimaku Hayabusa: Confirmed dead.”

“Hishigami Enbi: Confirmed dead.”

The possibility was incredibly low, but it was possible Hishigami Mai could have left Saijou’s control and was now sending false information. However, that may have been worrying too much. And Saijou Ai held the core of the Jorougumo Package.

She wore a glove that appeared to be made of a thin silk.

Technically, it was spider silk woven into the form of a glove using the same techniques used for making violin strings.

It had originally been made along with the Jorougumo Package for a perverted nouveau riche old man who wanted to play the gamemaster in a killing game. The spider web glove that stuck to the palm reacted to the emotional disturbance of the game participants and reproduced them as virtual feelings. Basically, it let the wearer “feel” the death agonies of the players.

The perverted old man had absolutely loved the idea of holding people’s invisible souls in his hand, but he had ended up taking part in the game as a player after he failed to pay the ''fairly expensive'' rental price.

At any rate, the glove could be used to check on the progress of the Package by seeing who was dead and who was still alive. The Jorougumo would continue hunting its target until that target was dead.

All feeling had left the glove.

It was receiving no response from any of the players.

The arrival of the three emails had matched perfectly with the disappearance of the feeling.

This confirmed that Hishigami Mai was still under Saijou Ai’s control and she had quickly killed every player, including her own sister.

But…

“Really, it could have been anyone,” muttered Saijou Ai casually.

She had merely needed to cause a commotion within Noukotsu Village. That had been the point of the Jorougumo Package that forced people to kill each other, and that had been the point of Hishigami Mai.

She had actually wanted to get more people involved and use the Jorougumo Package to ''alter the atmosphere of the entire village'', but this was enough. A diversion was meant to be abandoned anyway. As long as the true objective was achieved in the meantime, everything would work out in the end.

Her specialty was not sneaking deep into enemy ranks like a ninja from the Sengoku period. She instead created a flashy commotion and moved along in its shadow. Houjou and Toujou had often said she was like a stun grenade, but they were dead now.

“…”

Someone approached slowly as if sleepwalking.

Hishigami Mai looked to be in a horrible state with half of her body covered in magical charms that looked like Japanese paper. Technically, they were not charms but Youkai represented in textual form. Saijou Ai was well known among certain enthusiasts as a calligrapher who created nothing but ominous works.

Her methods were similar to Houjou’s as he sealed power within Youkai art. It was said that kanji had been originally created by simplifying pictures, so this was not too surprising.

She had created hundreds of Youkai curses which were now robbing Hishigami Mai of control of her body.

The blood splattered on Hishigami Mai’s body symbolized how far she had fallen.

That was the blood of those who had once been her companions or family.

This further confirmed what the emails and the Jorougumo glove had said.

She had shown no mercy.

She had slaughtered all of them and returned to Saijou Ai.

Saijou’s commands were absolute.

No matter how much of an expert Hishigami Mai was, she could not escape this curse.

Saijou waved at her.

“Are you done?”

“…Are you?”

“I swiped them while you were having your fun, Mai-chan.”

Something banged on the inside of the Hitman Tuxedo’s trunk. Two Youkai that had been living in Noukotsu Village were contained inside.

“An Umbrella Obake and a Lantern Obake. …I doubt many people in Japan know just how important these Youkai are, but ''Youkai that have no set purpose are quite rare and are quite valuable.''”

There was a Youkai known as Nurarihyon.

This Youkai was known as the leader of every Youkai in Japan. However, that characteristic had mostly been created by humans.

It had originally been a type of ocean Youkai, but no one had known what it did.

And it could be freely remade into almost anything because its role was not decided.

In other words…

Depending on the situation, the Umbrella Obake and Lantern Obake could be remade in the same way.

They could be remade into a controller that could command any Youkai in Japan.

“And on top of that, the Umbrella Obake and Lantern Obake are Tsukumogami. They are the type of Youkai that gain power the longer they are kept as possessions. That means I can make them change in convenient ways if I arrange their surrounding environment correctly. You could view it like a storehouse for wine or cheese.”

The Hitman Tuxedo’s trunk had already been remodeled for that purpose. The Umbrella Obake and Lantern Obake stored within would likely become Youkai controllers in about half a year.

Once a single trivial problem was dealt with, that is.

“Mai-chan, may I ask one last task of you?”

“Ask me anything.”

“A child named Yonesaki Hiro lives in this Intellectual Village. Kill him. The Umbrella Obake and Lantern Obake only have value as neutral Youkai that hold no purpose, but it seems they have taken on the role of protecting their family. The purity of the final product should rise if that is completely destroyed before the assembly begins.”

“Understood,” she easily and readily replied.

Her killing techniques were valuable enough for Hyakki Yakou to frequently hire her. If she obeyed this command and used those techniques to their fullest, it was obvious what would become of Yonesaki Hiro.

Once Yonesaki Hiro was killed by Hishigami Mai and they escaped from Noukotsu Village with the Umbrella Obake and Lantern Obake, Saijou’s objective would be complete.

The ultimate objective of Akki Rasetsu – which was now only Saijou Ai – was to perfectly fuse a human and a Youkai. She wished to obtain a physical body that was not bound by a lifespan and could ignore the laws and systems of the human world. However, she needed to create a controller to safely and surely gather plenty of sample Youkai. It was the bare minimum to ensure she was not killed by her own prey.

“I will be going then.”

“Finish this quickly.”

“Of course.”

Saijou Ai did not make a habit of seeing puppets off.

She turned away from the pathetic loser and began thinking about her upcoming path to success.

And then…

Hishigami Mai’s slender arm mercilessly stabbed into Saijou Ai’s side.

===Part 10 (Hishigami Mai)===

“…Hh…Gh…?”

I heard an odd voice.

What was it she found so confusing? The fact that a giant hole had just been opened in her side or the fact that the slender arm of a lady could do that?

Or was it that I, Hishigami Mai, was not under her control?

“B-bghh!? Cough cough!! Wh-why!? Ngh…bheh!?”

''Disgusting.

''You don’t even hear noises like that when cleaning bath pipes.

“Saijou-chan, was it? Y’see, I thought there was something beyond Houjou in Kyoto. I figured I would hear plenty of information if I purposefully let myself be taken into the enemy ranks. I’m disappointed at how little depth I found. A controller for all Youkai? Transplanting an Umbrella Obake and Lantern Obake into the Nurarihyon method? That’s much too shallow. If this is all that’s left of Akki Rasetsu, I feel sorry for the old leaders you went to the trouble of purging.”

I had of course made sure to tie up the loose ends before enacting this plan. I had sent the Sunekosuri to tell the Illness Magic User to help the Amemura family ''move to a new home''.

“Hh…bh?”

“I had expected you to easily believe I had been defeated as long as I released my precious Deadly Dragon Princess to help out…but to be honest, this was too easy. If you’re going to control my body, at least test it out with some sexual harassment.”

''C’mon, I’m going to the effort of explaining it to you.

''Don’t pass out yet. You have to hear me out.

“B-bfhh!! Cough cough!! Gygybh!! Hhy? Why? Y-you were…byhbh!? My Kosode no Te…were perfect…!!”

“Yes, yes. The Kosode no Te. That’s a kimono Youkai that curses the wearer, right? Even if curses are difficult to avoid or defend against, it is relatively easy to deflect them into a different direction. Surely you know that the foundation of curse countermeasures is to deflect them back at the user, right? I was so covered in this Japanese paper that I was able to send the curses at each other, causing them to cancel out each other’s effects.”

“Jhbbh!?”

“So of course, I was never obeying your orders from the beginning. Yes, I stopped Jinnai Shinobu-kun’s heart. The same with the detective and my sister. …But I resuscitated them after exactly 20 seconds. The Jorougumo Package excludes anyone who dies. ''And it does not track what happens to people who have been excluded.''”

''Thank you for falling for this so wonderfully.

''But you can never survive in this world if that is all you have.

“If you really want to kill me, you either have to place the routes of the curses so I cannot calculate them or send in an overwhelming amount of curses like the Illness Magic User does. Get it now?”

“Bshbh!? Grgrh!! Gbhghchghrhbhjfbhfhjbhchbhrhfjdhcyehfhgyfjchhdfy!!!???”

“Those were some horrible curses and they have been running nonstop this whole time. The excess power has been building up like a bowstring being drawn. Let’s just say it won’t even leave behind a corpse.”

I began removing the cheap magic charms attached to my body while paying no heed to Saijou-chan who had been ''sucked up'' down to the last drop of blood.

''Wait, this is bad. If I take these off, I’ll be naked. Um…Let’s see. Oh. There’s a blanket in the backseat of this ugly car. A gun too.

''Now then…

''It’s Hishigami Mai-san’s turn now.

My job would have been so much easier if defeating a smalltime villain like her was enough to bring an end to this incident.

===Part 11 (Hishigami Mai)===

I retrieved the Deadly Dragon Princess Shikigami I had released as decoy information needed to convince the enemy I had really lost. I then returned her to her “original world”.

''Hmm, I did a nice job of destroying her. I need to make sure to fix her later.

From what I had caught a glimpse of while pretending to be controlled, it seemed that Shikigami had taken a liking to that detective. I had commanded her to stick with him, but she had gone farther than that. It was possible he had lured her in with her favorite food.

I had already resuscitated the detective, my sister, and Jinnai Shinobu-kun, so their lives were not in danger.

They arrived wanting an explanation, but I still had other things to do. I opened the trunk to Saijou-chan’s ugly foreign car.

Inside I found…

''Ohh, what’s this!? They’re so cute!!

“Bwahh!! Wh-what is going on!? Why would you suddenly lock us in here!?”

“It is too hot in here! Especially with this Umbrella in here too!! …Wait. Who are you? Wh-why are your eyes glittering as you stare at us!?”

The Umbrella and Lantern who each had a single comical eye were shouting about something or other.

''Oh, how wonderful.

''It’s the same as with that Sunekosuri. It scares me how I lose all self control when I see these cute harmless Youkai.

As I watched the Umbrella and Lantern hurry back to their home, I said, “Now then. Time for the real problem.”

“What? I thought you defeated the person behind this. Did they get away???”

People sometimes made that mistake when I did not even leave a corpse behind.

But that was not the issue here.

“I pretended to have my body controlled to enter the organization named Akki Rasetsu. From what I saw and heard, it seems they were being supported by someone.”

“You mean like a patron?” asked my sister.

“No, nothing so well-defined. More like someone who was observing Saijou from afar and secretly eliminated any dangerous elements that might have gotten in Akki Rasetsu’s way. Akki Rasetsu probably had no idea this was happening.”

I doubted a group too dimwitted to notice the threat I posed could have detected “them”.

The detective frowned and said, “What does this ‘someone’ want to do?”

“I don’t know, but they definitely thought Akki Rasetsu’s project would benefit them. They snuck in this far for some clear objective, so they are not going to remain silent now. To be blunt, they will likely attack this Intellectual Village in place of Akki Rasetsu.” I glanced around the area. “Northeast, west, and south-southwest. Somewhere between 700 and 1000 meters away. I sense a few people watching us.”

“What?”

Jinnai Shinobu narrowed his eyes and stared into the distance to answer his question, but that careless action only made me sigh.

“It’s no use trying to see them from here. If you turn such obvious focus in their direction, they will hide. And if you do spot them, they might blow a hole right through the center of your body with a sniper rifle, so be careful.”

“…”

“Do you have any guesses as to who they are?” asked my sister.

“They seem like soldiers to me. From the way the unit is deployed and the way they hide themselves, I would guess SAS. I could narrow it down further if I could intercept their transmissions.”

Jinnai Shinobu looked confused.

“What’s SAS? Some kind of space defense force?”

“They are a British unit. However, they are seen as the standard for special forces, so plenty of other countries emulate them. They even have official lectures for the troops of countries allied with England, so this alone is not enough to know what organization is behind this.”

Of course, this was connected to the occult, so it was unlikely that this SAS-style special forces unit would be our only enemy. My guess was this enemy was on the level of an entire nation and so they could freely use special forces to support their project.

The detective sighed and said, “What are they doing here? If we figure out who they are and learn what they are after, could we use that to fight them off?”

“That is what I’m about to try.”

With that offhanded comment, I pulled out a device that looked like a cross between a cell phone and a radio.

It was my usual satellite phone.

My little sister frowned and said, “Who are you going to contact with that?”

“Hyakki Yakou, of course. They have the most information of this sort.”

===Part 12 (???)===

Hafuri, the girl of about ten who was the current head of Hyakki Yakou, sighed when she answered the phone. The tearoom in the flying wing cruising at an altitude of 9000 meters was still enough for that slight movement of air to be seen as a definite flow in the room’s atmosphere.

“I had thought it was odd for it to be suggested to destroy the living environment of Noukotsu Village by disseminating hydrogen sulfide and making it look like a volcanic eruption. It seemed too forceful to simply put an end to Akki Rasetsu’s project to take control of any Youkai in Japan. I did not like the idea of slaughtering those innocent villagers when it is our role to protect them.”

“Hmm.”

“That means a few of the 100 officers that took part in the meeting may have realized who is hidden behind this incident.”

“Do you have any guesses who that might be? It should be someone who can freely use SAS-style special forces.”

“''A witch most likely,''” replied Hafuri.

“That’s what I thought. That is the most likely option for a foreign force. The real question is ''what type of witch is it?''”

“Not a European or American one. They would have no reason to attack Japan. They confiscated most of our documents when we lost the war long ago. With all that detailed information, they would have no reason to sneak in and try to steal any data now.”

“So it’s a witch from somewhere else?”

“Witches have scattered all over the world, but we can narrow it down quite a bit since she is using SAS-style special forces. …And there just so happens to be one major country not in Europe or America with special forces based on the SAS.”

“''I see.''”

Hafuri scratched her chin with the same small hand holding the phone receiver. The main problem was that some of the 100 officers knew about this. And that they had brought forward that ridiculous plan to destroy the Intellectual Village in response.

“The 100 officers may have chosen a rather forceful method of eliminating this person behind Akki Rasetsu,” she said.

“No, we need to assume the worst goes much deeper than that.”

“What do you mean?

“Hyakki Yakou’s meetings with the 100 officers are not contained to the flying wing, right? They use the internet and speak without showing their face. That prevents others from influencing their opinion, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then ''it is possible some of the real officers have already been killed and replaced with someone else entirely.'' Perhaps they are the ones behind Akki Rasetsu and they are having Hyakki Yakou take action to ensure their plan progresses smoothly. You lost a lot of the commanders in the confusion of that coup d’etat recently and had to replace them, so it wouldn’t have been that hard to take advantage of the situation.”

“True.” Hafuri gave a slight nod. “We have special software that can remove their anonymous state. The 100 officers do not know about it. We will use it to investigate this.”

“This is a group that uses decoys on top of decoys to hide their identity, so that alone may not be enough.”

“Then what do you say we should do?”

“Lay a much flashier trap. I’ll help you with that.”

“What should we do first?”

“For now, ''approve the plan to destroy Noukotsu Village.'' I’ll fill you in on the rest after you do.”

===Part 13 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

We left the foreign car used by the person from an underground group called Akki Rasetsu and walked back to my thatch-roof house. It seemed the Hishigami sisters intended to use it as their home base for the moment. Mai was only wearing a blanket for some reason, so she borrowed a yukata. The way she wore it still did not leave much to the imagination, though.

Just as I was hoping everything was settled, Hishigami Mai told us something unbelievable.

“What!? You had her give the go ahead for a project to slaughter everyone in the village!?”

“Don’t get so upset. This is a trap. We can’t fight back until we uncover the enemy. We must be defeated if we want to eliminate every enemy from this Intellectual Village, right? You just have to turn a blind eye to the slight risks involved.”

“So who is this enemy?”

“A witch strongly influenced by western methods. ''Probably an Australian one.''”

“Why would someone like that do this? Is she trying to steal brand name fruit seeds from the Intellectual Village?”

“What they want is something more occult,” replied Hishigami Mai offhandedly.

She then grabbed the remote control for the television at one end of the Japanese-style living room and turned it on. She changed the channel to an afternoon talk show.

“Australia’s circular farms are having a large effect on the grains market, but recent cyclones and an outbreak of locusts has caused serious damage to their wheat crop. This has caused unrest to spread through the futures market and…”

“Come to think of it, they were talking about this on the quiz show rerun the Yuki Onna was watching. What about it?” I asked.

“Natural disasters and outbreaks of pests are stereotypical forms for divine punishment. Even Japan’s ancient documents record several such incidents. With these incidents causing great damage in Australia, it is not too surprising that some have decided to put together a countermeasure.”

“What does that have to do with Japan?”

“Australia is part of the new world just like America. But that is technically just what the Europeans decided to call it after they destroyed the cultures that already existed there. This of course angered the native god of the slighted land. This situation could easily lead to natural disasters, but the Australian government that ignored the older culture for so long has no idea how to pacify this god. After all, they have no scriptures to act as a manual.” Hishigami Mai spun the TV remote around in her hand. “Akki Rasetsu, the organization I was dealing with, was looking for a method to control Youkai and gods. This Australian witch may have thought she could use that, but I think that was just a digression. ''Her true goal lies elsewhere.''”

“…?”

“It’s simple. Witches worship demons to borrow their power. …So what exactly are demons? There are two types: the pure species of demons and the altered forms of gods from other religions that have been registered as ‘evil gods’ by the world’s largest religion which uses the cross as its symbol. Witch rituals come from those old religions as well. In that case…”

Nothing she was saying really clicked in my mind.

The expression on my face must have made that clear.

Hishigami Mai winked and gave me a further hint.

“They are especially skilled at twisting polytheistic religions. And what structure is created by the gods of this country?”

“You don’t mean…”

“It’s a stereotypical situation. A witch that wishes to use a god for her own purposes would find Shinto or Buddhism to be almost irresistible. That said, the process of turning a god into a usable demon does weaken the god a fair bit.”

“So this witch’s group wants to reconstruct a god of this country into the form known as a ‘demon’? So this is just like a Package where people build a Youkai into a system that makes use of one of that Youkai’s properties?”

“Exactly. That is why they want to slaughter everyone in the Intellectual Village by disseminating hydrogen sulfide disguised as volcanic gases. The most common reason for the downfall of gods the world over ''is the destruction of the land they rule over.'' By devastating an area of land within Japan, the witch’s group can affect the god in that area.”

“…But is it really that easy?”

“Old gods will naturally change into fairies and Youkai with the passage of the era. And that is especially true for polytheistic gods. That is why gods are enshrined in large temples and shrines to ensure they do not change form. But regardless of how difficult the method is, these are still gods we are talking about. They are the largest pillars supporting their cultures. If they fall, it could even cause damage to diplomatic relations.” Hishigami Mai shrugged. “Once a god has been turned into a demon, it can be used to suppress the old god wreaking havoc in Australia out of anger. …That will simply cause even more friction with the ancient culture, but the government only wants to protect the current system of society from further economic damage. They feel this is worth the risk. If they did not feel the situation was that dire, I doubt they would have ever contacted this witch in the first place.”

“That explains the government’s reasons. What about the witch?”

“The witch has something else to gain from this. ''And we can use that as a trap.''”

===Part 14 (Hishigami Mai)===

This village would soon become a battlefield.

However, the flow of time in the thatch-roof house felt so slow you would never have guessed it. A Zashiki Warashi with excessively large breasts was flying a small toy modeled after an autogyro around the room to chase after a Yuki Onna who was running all over the place to avoid it. A Keseran Pasaran that looked like a white furball was floating around near the ceiling. It was curiously trying to approach the autogyro, but it could not keep up with the toy’s speed.

The scene made it seem ridiculous to bring up the terms “Hyakki Yakou” or “agent”.

What I saw before me was likely something I could never obtain as long as I immediately chose brute force as a means of resolving Youkai-related problems.

But then I spotted a familiar face among the Youkai.

The Youkai seemed to notice me as well and walked over. It was a white Nekomata that was overflowing with elegance.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I’d rather know why ''you'' are here. Is this the territory of a former ace of Inga Ouhou?”

Inga Ouhou had been a revenge group with three Itako leading it. They would give form to the residual thoughts of the dead to hear their voices and punish their murderers. I believe the organization came about due to displeasure with the current laws that disallowed Youkai testimony or evidence obtained via paranormal means from use in court. …But then the three Itako had started accepting money to freely alter what the dead told them. At that point, they became nothing more than an assassin group.

The Nekomata’s master had been killed due to that cheating despite being a top member of Inga Ouhou. When I had been sent in to resolve some issues Hyakki Yakou was having with them, the two of us had destroyed the entire organization in just over two weeks.

I was left with one primary question.

“You have enough power to destroy an entire organization, so are you not going to use that power to help Jinnai Shinobu-kun?”

“I try not to rely on my power too much. My direct power is no more than that of a Doberman. I merely have the added bonus of being able to ''transform into the person I bite to death.''”

That was why she did not fight her enemies head on. Instead, she would sneak into a group of enemies and slowly cause more and more victims. Her strategy was perfect for destroying a large organization from within by spreading doubt and suspicion. I quite liked her means of fighting.

“But the strength of a Doberman seems reliable enough for a normal high school student who can only arm himself with a bat or box cutter. Plus, blades and handguns are not enough to kill you.”

“There was a recent commotion in which a small lost boy fell into a flood control reservoir. He is the kind of idiot who jumped right into the water to search for that boy, but he still had no intention of involving the Yuki Onna or myself.”

“…”

“But it does not seem he has some admirable goal in it such as preventing any danger from approaching his ‘family’. He has no problem running to the Zashiki Warashi for help. …Basically, it is an issue of degree. If he asked a deadly Youkai like the Yuki Onna or me for help, things would get a bit ''messy''. And once things get ''messy'', there is no guarantee it can be neatly cleaned up.” Despite looking like a cat, the Nekomata formed an obvious smile as she spoke. “His reasons are nothing more than the irrational stubbornness of a child, but that does not mean it is always okay to make such a ''mess'' by sending in something like me. That is the way I see it. And so I will remain the cute pet that soothes the family. I will fool no one and I will kill no one. Understand?”

Having said that, the Nekomata walked off somewhere else. On her way, she chased after the light of a pen-shaped laser pointer Jinnai Shinobu was holding. She gave several cat punches to an empty wall.

''Chehh…

I meaninglessly felt as if I had lost. I thought I had met a fellow killer for the first time in a while, but now I felt like I had spotted an old classmate pushing a stroller with her husband.

I grabbed a broom leaning against the wall, walked out into the hallway, and banged the handle against the ceiling partially to release my anger.

“Hey!! I know the Succubus from the European Security Force is up there!! If you want to live, start cooperating!!”

I then heard a lot of banging that was clearly not coming from the broom. It almost seemed like the attic was shaking.

''You idiot. Did you really think Hyakki Yakou didn’t know you were here? The young lady has only been overlooking you out of respect for Jinnai Shinobu who did so much to quell Hyakki Yakou’s internal strife at that hotel in Fuuka Village.

The best thing to use against a western witch was a western demon.

With the final piece gathered, it was finally time to set the trap and settle this.

===Part 15 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

The final battle began smoothly.

It began with a comment by the glamorous Zashiki Warashi who was walking around using my smartphone as a music player as usual.

“Shinobu, you just got an email about an active volcano warning. Do you know what that means?”

“…That’s it!! That’s the camouflage warning on the notification network!!”

Even if it was only a decoy warning to make the hydrogen sulfide look like volcanic gases, it was a complete joke. They had obviously timed it so no one would make it out in time even with a car. And if we did move faster than expected, the SAS-style special forces would obviously do something to handle it.

Hishigami Mai brought her large satellite phone to her ear.

“This is going just as expected. Young lady, you’re flying right over us, right? ''Jump down at the last second before the hydrogen sulfide is disseminated!!''”

I walked out to the thatch-roof house’s porch, put on my beach sandals, and walked out into the large yard. I looked up into the blue sky and spotted a large V-shaped passenger plane called a flying wing. Several smaller planes were flying around it to protect it.

Something was dropped from the flying wing.

At first I thought it was a bomb, but it was not. It was a girl wearing a kimono and a parachute.

Hishigami Mai had run outside with me and she now shouted into the satellite phone.

“Okay, good! Any member of Hyakki Yakou that puts the bloodline first will work to protect your life no matter what. In other words, they will do whatever they can to stop the hydrogen sulfide plan so you will not be killed. But the members of the Australian witch’s group mixed into the 100 officers will not care about that. ''The ones who insist on continuing with the plan are our enemies.'' Have all of them restrained!!”

I heard a low rumbling noise.

It did not belong to a gasoline engine. It was the engine sound effect added to electric cars as a safety measure.

It came from my grandfather’s light truck, but my uncle was the one sitting in the driver’s seat.

“Hey! The truck’s ready!!”

“Understood. Everyone get in!! The witch’s group will have noticed the young lady floating down. She is the leader of Japan’s largest Youkai organization. Plus, she has plenty of information from ancient books. I don’t know where the witch’s group is hiding in the village, but they will jump at the chance to take her hostage. They will definitely want some of Hyakki Yakou’s documents as supplementary material for their project to control a god!!”

I was worried, so I spoke up without thinking.

“Hey!! What exactly is a witch!?”

“Instead of using a Package that builds a Youkai’s power into a system, they bring a portion of a demon’s power into themselves. While a Youkai might be able to handle one, a witch’s powers are incredibly effective against humans. And as much of an oddity as I may be, I have not left the category of a ‘human’. ''In a direct fight, we would probably be fairly evenly matched.''”

As I said before, my uncle was sitting in the light truck’s driver’s seat. The twintailed girl was in the passenger seat. Those were the only two seats, so Hishigami Mai and I climbed into the back of the truck.

“Okay, let’s end this. Let’s crush the witch’s group that will have gotten greedy and gathered at the young lady’s landing spot!!”

===Part 16 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

My uncle drove the electric truck down the narrow farm road with rice paddies on either side. The twintailed girl in the passenger seat followed the path of the parachute with binoculars.

“Oh, dear. …She’s being blown away! She’s going to end up on the mountain at this rate, detective!!”

“That’s better than landing on a private farm. If she gets caught on one of the high voltage nets to keep out intruders, it’s all over.”

It was all I could manage to hunker down enough so as not to be thrown out of the truck as it bounced around.

Hishigami Mai seemed perfectly calm next to me. She hummed while pulling a handgun with a suppressor out from the chest of her yukata.

“Hey, can we really handle this entire witch’s group at once like this?”

“Leave it to me. If I am right, they will almost certainly fall for this trap. They are an annoying force to handle head on, but as long as…you do not…face them…head…on…”

“?”

I frowned as I started having difficulty hearing her.

I then smelled a sweet aroma.

And just as the light truck turned onto the mountain road to pursue the parachute…

I suddenly lost all feeling from my surroundings.

The next thing I knew, I was wrapped in some kind of fog. I looked around while standing. And then something else occurred to me. Why was I standing? I had been hunkered down in the back of the truck to make sure I was not thrown out.

Where was I?

Had I been dragged out of that truck racing along well above the speed limit?

Who had managed that without harming me at all?

“It is a simple magic circle. It is not even worth calling a barrier,” said a female voice. “Now, if you were able to predict I would head toward an even better target if one appeared, why did you not realize ''I would change my target again if one even more important than Hyakki Yakou’s leader showed up?''

''Eh?

''You can’t mean…

“This was all to attack me!?”

I was not given enough time to take action based on the caution welling up in my chest.

Something moved with tremendous speed, ripped apart the thick fog, and ''forcefully grabbed my collar.

Yes. This “something” had a hand and five fingers with which to grab at me.

“Gah…ghhh…!?”

I was lifted up. My legs dangled down in midair. It may have just been the excessive thickness of the fog, but that motion was all it took for the ground to disappear from view below me.

However, the sight that lay before me was so strange that I did not particularly care about being lifted up.

What had grabbed me was a giant tree.

However, it had countless arms stretching out in place of branches, hands blooming in place of flowers, long, narrow legs wriggling along the ground in place of roots, and smooth woman’s skin in place of bark.

Someone was leaning up against the creepy trunk that curved like a woman’s waist.

This person was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman wearing a simple shirt, a miniskirt, and a raincoat despite the weather. The look in her eyes was hidden by the wide brim of her hat. The various individual items could be bought anywhere, but the silhouette they all created together reminded me of an existence I had seen in picture books.

Namely, a witch.

“Horrible, isn’t it? I’m sure you understand the general situation, but unlike European witches, we live in an environment that makes using traditional demons difficult. I had no choice but to take the methods used to turn old gods into evil gods and use them to turn a Japanese Youkai into a demon. That was enough to force some magic out of it.”

“This is…a Youkai…?”

I could feel my face stiffening as I looked at the grotesque tree before me. I had lived in this Intellectual Village for a long time, but I had never seen a monster like this. Nor had I ever heard of one from my grandparents.

But the blonde-haired, blue-eyed witch smoothly said, “Yes. Haven’t you heard of a Furutsubaki?”

“That’s a Japanese camellia tree that has built up great power over the years. They can transform into a girl, but they don’t turn into something this messed up!!”

“No, they don’t. Japanese Packages simply borrow the skills of Youkai, but Western witches ''distort the physical body of their object of worship into something else entirely.'' We give them a form much easier for a human to use.”

“You’re…kidding…”

“About what? What is needed to efficiently control an existence that exceeds humanity is not flexible negotiation skills or plentiful offerings. ''You need to remake their hardware into a form that must do what a human tells it to.''”

An unpleasant feeling ran down my spine.

I had subconsciously decided Packages that assisted in crimes were horrible, but this went well beyond that. This was the same as deciding to give someone 20 eyeballs in order to more efficiently extract tears from them. Just how much suffering and humiliation did one endure while having one’s face and form twisted in order to wring out every last drop of power?

This was the symbol of a culture.

This was overwriting and covering up a paranormal existence.

Was this why witches had been shunned throughout history?

Even as that lifelike arm grabbed at my collar so tightly I had trouble breathing, I forced out a few words.

“Why are you…targeting me…?”

“''I said I prepared this because I had no other choice, remember?'' It all comes down to that. I do not care about the economic damage the Australian government is so concerned about. I want to make a contract with a powerful being and borrow its power. I was originally planning to turn an old god into a demon and borrow that, but I found something much more interesting in this Intellectual Village. Something even more interesting than a manual on turning gods into demons or the leader of Hyakki Yakou.”

“You…don’t mean…”

I immediately thought of the secret base in the attic.

This witch was actually after…

“A Succubus. She is a traditional European demon. Compared to a forcibly distorted local god, she is much more certain and holds much less danger of causing any problems with my rituals. Would you choose the genuine item or an emulation? That is what this comes down to.”

“Then why didn’t you directly target our house? As soon as Hishigami Mai left, you could have easily abducted the Succubus!!”

“No, that wouldn’t work. Remember when that Succubus arrived? She used a delivery service, right?”

“How do you know that?”

“I have some of my people in the highest levels of Hyakki Yakou.”

I was not sure that totally explained it, but it was possible Hyakki Yakou really did know everything that had happened.

“The package label functioned as a sort of contract. The package was sent to Jinnai Shinobu, so the Succubus inside became your possession. But you could say that was the same as her taking you hostage. If anyone wants to damage or abduct the Succubus, they must first kill you. She predicted that Hyakki Yakou’s leader would be unable to eliminate ''the normal person who she owed a debt to thanks to the coup d’etat'', so she used that condition as a shield.”

“…”

''That goddamn demon!! I’m seriously going to punch her after this is over!!

“Anyway, you are in the way of any new contract with that Succubus, so I need you to die. I will retrieve the Succubus afterwards. And of course, I will slaughter anyone who gets in my way.”

''Not good.

''Not good, not good!!

I had been worried ever since someone like this entered the Intellectual Village, but now she was targeting my house.

But what could I do? That creepy “branch” was still holding me up in the air by my collar. Was there anything a normal high school boy armed with only his wits could hope to do against a witch who Hishigami Mai had said she would be evenly matched against?

Her eyes were covered by the wide brim of her hat, but the witch’s lips twisted into a smile.

“Oh, and do not think Hishigami Mai will come to save you. The magic circle isolates this space. I mixed in the oil of the Furutsubaki to pour demonic power into a ceremony that defines the scope of a temple using incense, but it should be enough. At the very least, no one will be able to break in for 12 hours and it has been made so no one will even notice anyway.”

“Wait…a second…”

“I didn’t really need to go this far to kill a single amateur, but I want to keep this information away from Hishigami Mai until I have secured the Succubus. I am not going to take my time and kill you over 12 hours, so do not worry.”

“''That’s not what I meant,''” I muttered. “''If this is really so secure, then who is that behind you?''”

“?”

The witch looked confused and turned around.

And she found…

===Part 17 (Succubus)===

Now then, time for the true protagonist to make an appearance.

''Oh, nice. Not bad getting western black magic to run this well using a Japanese Youkai.

''Then again, it’s a bit like seeing an American’s idea of a ninja boy.

The witch leaning up against the hideous tree frowned when she saw me.

“…How did you get here?”

“Is it really that surprising? Isolating a space using incense sounds good and all, but you basically used the exact same structure as a ceremonial ground for summoning a demon. ''None of this does a single thing to keep a demon out.'' I didn’t even have to try.”

“So you know what I am about to do?”

“Let’s just say ''I came here because I knew.''”

My master, Jinnai Shinobu-chan, then began kicking his legs around and shouting while being held in midair by the Furutsubaki’s branch.

“Stop!! Don’t worry about me! Apparently she’s more powerful than Hishigami Mai!! You came to my house to escape from people like that, right? Then don’t try to fight her!!”

''Oh?

I had not expected him to try to cover for me. It almost made me feel sorry for binding him with that contract as insurance against Hyakki Yakou.

However…

He seemed to have overlooked the fact that ''I had never said I was there to save him.

“So, Miss Witch. ''When do you plan on making this new contract?''”

“Eh…?” said a surprised voice.

It did not belong to the witch; it was my master’s.

“As soon as I kill him.”

“Then I suggest you do so quickly. You should not underestimate Hyakki Yakou’s tracking skills. I do not know what route you plan to use, but you do not want your way back to Australia to be blocked, do you?”

“…You have no attachment to him?”

“This was just a temporary home. Blending into a culture that actually has witches should make things a lot easier. If I have a chance to leave the country, I need to take it. Especially now that Hyakki Yakou and Hishigami Mai have reached this village. That is what I truly think.”

My master looked so dumbfounded he may have forgotten he was dangling in midair and having trouble breathing.

As a demon, it was quite an exciting expression to see.

“What...? Eh? Why…?”

“Did you think we were family? Come on now, master. You may know I am Succubus, but you do not actually know my personal name.”

“That is an important factor in making contracts, so that is not surprising. A demon will not reveal her name unless she truly trusts someone,” added the witch as if to rub salt in the wound.

But…

“Miss Witch, Miss Witch. If you know your history of the witch hunts, you should be fairly suspicious of any wonderful opportunity that practically falls in your lap.”

“Your point?”

“I will prove to you that I am telling the truth. ''I will kill him myself.''”

“…”

With the sound of a bat being swung, my master was thrown to my feet. He began coughing, but more confusion could be seen in his eyes than suffering.

But that did not change what I had to do.

“How about a riddle, master? Question 1: What is this in my hand?”

“An…ice pick?”

“I am glad your family likes its alcohol so much. I was surprised they drink both eastern and western varieties. Now, Question 2: What will happen if I stab it into your gut?”

“…”

Well, I doubt many people would be able to calmly answer that question.

Luckily, he was able to see the answer firsthand.

I stabbed it right in.

===Part 18 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

“Cough!? Cough!! Cough cough!! Cough cough cough!?”

“Now then. As there is no saving him, let’s hurry up and make this contract. Do you have everything prepared?”

The ice pick sticking out of my body seemed to cause my brain to numb over more than it did fill me with pain.

The difference between what I thought my body should look like and what I saw before my eyes caused a fundamental error in my thought process.

''I’m going to die?

''I’m going to die so simply and easily?

“Do not worry about that. More importantly, there is one piece of information I must know first: ''Your true name.'' To form a contract with you, I must know your personal name. Simply knowing you belong to the Succubus species is not enough.”

“Hm. About that,” said the Succubus with a troubled expression.

She was no longer looking at me. She was acting like I was not even there, like I was no longer human. The way I had been cast aside like a piece of rotting meat told me all too well what my fate would be.

“Unlike in Hollywood movies, demons are not free to be as evil as they wish. I cannot reveal my name in this situation. My contract with my temporary master, Jinnai Shinobu, still remains.”

“Even though you stabbed him in the gut?”

“Yes, even though.” The western European Succubus shrugged. “Making a contract with a demon is like walking across a dangerous tightrope. The slightest opening in your method of using the demon can easily lead to the demon killing you.”

“And that is what happened here?”

“However, if a demon betrays their old master and reveals the information needed to create a new contract despite the old contract still existing, they will simply be breaking the old contract. I have no pretext for acting freely, so I will be unable to remain in this world if I disobey those rules.”

“That boy has been fatally wounded. Can’t we just wait until he dies?”

“The contract between a human and a demon does not end upon the human’s death. After all, the demon is usually trying to obtain the human’s soul after death.”

“Then how can I make the new contract? I need your name to perform the ritual.”

“It is simple.” The Succubus raised her index finger. “I am afraid of breaking my contract by teaching you my name. However, it is often shown in fairy tales that ''demons are weakened when a human learns their name against their wishes.''”

“What do you mean?”

“I stabbed Jinnai Shinobu to act as bait. Some Youkai act automatically upon sensing danger to their family. Not that anything can be done now that he has been fatally wounded.”

Some sort of form slowly appeared beyond the extremely thick fog.

It was a glamorous female Zashiki Warashi with long black hair and a red yukata.

She held some small piece of paper in her hand.

It was the summer greeting postcard that had come by airmail.

The witch frowned.

“A demon like you is one thing, but how did this Japanese Youkai enter my magic circle?”

“My name is connected to me. If she travelled along the line connecting it to me, she can travel through this fog.”

The Zashiki Warashi looked different from normal.

I had never seen that good-for-nothing Youkai looking quite so expressionless.

“Where is Shinobu?”

“It is too late.”

“Then maybe I should just hold onto this.”

“We can just take it. Go ahead, Miss Witch.”

With the sound of a whip cracking, one of the Furutsubaki’s arm-like branches shot through the air and snatched the postcard from the Zashiki Warashi’s hand.

The witch looked down at the white, heavily-decorated writing.

''What? But that’s…

“Hm. A simple numerical replacement.”

“''So have you stolen a look at my name? Then let us get this contract over with. What will you do about the temple for the ceremony?”

“We can use this. Not the Furutsubaki itself though. It is said a wooden pestle or mallet can transform into a human form. A lot can be done with the oil of the tree.”

“Oh? So you didn’t just scatter it around as incense to create this ceremonial ground. You also drank it to remake your body.”

“What is needed to summon a demon and make a contract is a temple to draw a set flow of power into, a protective circle for the witch, and a summoning circle to call in and fix the target in place.”

“What were you going to use for that last one?”

“This.”

“A pocket watch?”

“It can also be used as machine oil.”

“This does not seem to have anything to do with time. Do its gears create a precise combination of circles that you pass the Youkai’s…no, the demon’s power through with the oil?” continued the Succubus.

I had no idea how dangerous the amount of blood I had lost was.

“Then let us begin.”

“Do we need a written contract?”

“No, with this much preparation, a verbal contract should be enough. And it would be a pain to calculate out all the values while writing it out in the alphabet. More importantly, are you sure you want to make a contract with me?”

“Why would I not?”

“A Succubus may be a traditional demon, but we are not all that powerful.”

“If I recklessly tried for something beyond my ability, I would simply destroy myself. You should know that better than anyone.”

“I see. Fine, then.”

“Then…”

“Yes, let’s get started.”

My consciousness wavered.

A ringing in my ears exploded in my head every so often like the crashing of waves. I could not hear their voices properly.

“…ng…w……ed………f………ri……b……………s……………h……………gh……s………e……”

No obvious light or noise exploded out.

No pentagrams or hexagrams appeared.

It simply felt like the situation had begun to roll down a hill. I felt a “flow” that no one would be able to stop once it started. Some sinister power seemed to be pushing us in that direction.

“This is a story from 1403 in a small walled city that relied on trade,” said the Succubus suddenly. She was not looking at me. I could not tell if she was trying to speak to me. “My old master was a court scholar who produced high-class horses for royals and nobles. …He had originally been a magician that more broadly worked with living creatures and their souls, but he was required to produce more obvious results in order to earn a living.” The Succubus spoke amid the fog, amid the ceremonial ground created by the witch. “My old master specialized in getting animals to breed. One day, the king came to him with a request. He wanted a means of treating infertility. Whether the king left behind an heir or not could directly influence the rise or fall of nations in that time, so it was a major issue.” The Succubus spoke amid that sweet aroma, amid the spell-chanting of that witch who had built a protective magic circle throughout her entire body by taking the oil of that Japanese camellia tree into her own body. “My old master tried every method available to him, but none of those ‘normal’ methods were of any use. He had nowhere left to turn. That was when he learned that an Incubus and a Succubus are actually the same existence and the Incubus attacks women using the sperm taken by the Succubus. He attempted to use that as a means of resolving the king’s troubles. …And he was taken to be executed two weeks later.” The Succubus spoke as that dark ritual continued, as she claimed victory using that pocket watch given the power of the Furutsubaki in the form of machine oil. “Officially, he was blamed for borrowing the power of a demon, but…in reality, it had more to do with certain influential groups that did not want the king to have an heir. And so my old master was burned at the stake. I was unsure what to do, so as an emergency measure, I stored just his soul in my womb to prevent it from deteriorating.”

That was her reason. A simple high school student like me had no way of knowing if it was possible or not. Was it possible because she was a Succubus that ruled over dreams and mating? Or was it possible because of the skills and knowledge of this “old master” she spoke of?

However…

I still did not know what result this “reason” would produce.

That lack of knowledge disturbed me.

She had taken control of the international European agency known as the European Security Force, she had picked a fight with Hyakki Yakou, and now she was trying to make a comeback in Australia. To go that far, the Succubus had to have some sort of powerful vision for the future within her.

And one step of her plan was about to come to an end.

The contract between demon and witch was about to be completed.

“For the above reasons, the veil of great ignorance shall occasionally prove that the door of unknown possibilities stands open. By intentionally twisting the structure of a former goddess of fertility and the shrine maidens that followed her, I shall connect a twisted power to myself. The witch Marguerite Steinhols and the demon Tselika Wien Alpha Chelydia Lumidrier now enter into an honest connection that crosses this honest world.”

The instant she stood on that new stage, the Succubus narrowed her eyes with deep emotion.

She then muttered a few words to me where I lay collapsed on the ground.

“Well, it may be hopeless for a demon to hope to be right…but was this perhaps wrong of me?”

“…How should I know?” I spat back, but I was not sure if I actually managed to get the words out.

''Dammit.

Normally after being betrayed and surprised like this, more resentful words would well up within me, but surprisingly, nothing came.

“That isn’t something you should ask me,” I said. “But if you felt any hesitation toward accepting this, maybe you should try a different method next time.”

I did not know how she had interpreted my words, but it seemed the Succubus smiled slightly.

And then…

The upper body of the witch who had given the name Marguerite Steinhols suddenly lurched forward.

“Gh…gh…?”

With her body doubled over, the witch brought her right hand to her mouth. A dark red liquid spilled from between her fingers.

“Wh-what? The ritual did not fail. I completed the contract with the demon. So what went wrong…!?”

“Hm, I wonder what it could have been?” said the Succubus.

The witch looked over at her and then her body froze in place. A smile filled with much more obvious evil than before could now be seen on the Succubus’s face.

It was as if she was looking at some prey she had caught in a trap.

“The ice pick… That’s it! The ice pick! Unlike a normal blade, the wound is small. You could easily stab it into him without hitting any organs or arteries!! That means you-…!!”

“Of course. I am my master’s pawn. Really, you should have noticed something was up when I left the ice pick inside him. ''I did that to make sure he did not bleed too much.''”

“So you decided to stay with your temporary household. Ghbh!? But the contract was a success. Did you forget that I can now order you to finish off Jinnai Shinobu!?”

The witch swung her right hand and completed a complex and detailed motion with her fingers.

However…

“Nothing…happened?”

“Looks that way.”

“It can’t be… Was there some defect in the ritual? No, the ritual itself succeeded. I can feel I have entered into a contract with a demon!! ''So why do I have no connection with you!? What demon am I connected to!?''”

“As you know, you need a demon’s true name to enter into a contract with it.” The Succubus clapped her hands together in front of her face and tilted her head. She continued speaking with that mocking gesture and a mocking smile. “''But do you have any way to check if that is actually my name?''”

“What…?”

[[Image:Zashiki_v02_440.jpg|thumb]]

Marguerite looked down at the postcard in her hand.

She was double checking the string of numbers on it representing a name.

But…

“Unlike the side with the picture, the side of the summer greeting postcard with the writing is heavily decorated, right?” The Zashiki Warashi finally spoke up to answer this simple question. “I covered it with quick-drying glue and sprayed flour on it. I then rewrote the original text but with the sender and receiver fields ''reversed''. Surely you are smart enough to understand what that means.”

“You were tricked into thinking another demon’s name was mine. That is what happened. The real question is whether a witch who thought a Succubus would be a nice, safe option will be able to control a great demon that ''just barely did not rank on the level of a demon that symbolizes one of the seven deadly sins''.”

“Ahh!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

She let out a tremendous cry.

And then a rumbling noise drowned out even that cry.

I doubted it was just due to my hazy mind that I did not know what was happening. I focused my entire mind on averting my gaze from something I must not see. I could instinctually tell this was something I was not meant to see. I was so weak I did not want anyone or anything to view me as an enemy, so the great intimidating atmosphere that ruled the entire area for a short while almost seemed a blessing.

Something had failed.

And as a result, something had happened to the witch.

Finally, I suddenly realized I was lying face up on the midsummer mountain road. The fog was gone. The witch who had produced the fog was also gone. Everything was back to normal. Everything except for an old Japanese camellia tree growing unnaturally above the asphalt.

The Zashiki Warashi and Succubus stood nearby.

Those members of the occult had easily deceived that witch who had fully used the intellect that was a human’s greatest weapon.

While leaning up against the Japanese camellia tree, the Succubus smiled and said, “She is not dead. Demons wish to make human souls their personal possessions, so we make sure not to destroy those souls. Of course, she will probably be begging for her life after spending 5 minutes in the same place as that monster.”

“…Why?”

“Are you asking why I saved you?” said that demon so readily so as to not let me imagine just what was whirling around within her heart. “That is what I asked about before. With my goal so close at hand, was it wrong of me to do this?”

===Part 19 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)===

The parachute fell and a kimono-wearing girl of about 10 was caught in the tree branches. We brought her into the back of the light truck and fled as quickly as we could. However, the SAS-style special forces Mai had mentioned never came. I had no idea what was happening.

And…

At some point, Shinobu had disappeared from the back of the truck. I was extremely worried about him, but Mai just kept saying I would know where he was soon enough.

It seemed she had used him in one of those traps or conspiracies she loved so much, but that only made me more worried.

Currently, Mai was talking with someone over her satellite phone.

“Yes, yes. Oh, so it worked? Right, right. So you haven’t killed them. Then get the names of the rest of the witch’s group from them. Once we have that list, we will overlook you as promised. Your wanted status within Hyakki Yakou will be removed.”

I glanced into the rearview mirror and asked, “Who are you talking with?”

“You don’t want to know,” said the mystery freak from the passenger seat.

After hanging up, Mai began speaking with the girl of about 10.

“What about the special forces acting on the witch’s behalf?”

“Hyakki Yakou controls the sky here. We have eight Generation 4.5 and Generation 5 fighters. They are multirole fighters, so they can easily attack ground targets. I doubt even a pro can stand up to them with only rifles and shoulder-fired missiles. They should quickly retreat across the mountain.”

“We should have the witch’s list before long. We can use that to at least handle anyone within Japan.”

“The ones that have taken root in Australia will be harder to eliminate, but we will apply as much pressure as we can.”

“This has worn down Hyakki Yakou’s 100 officers once more. Why don’t you use that to force it through?”

“Conflicts between organizations are not that simple. But I suppose all we need to do is prepare a situation in which the Australian government will abandon the witch’s group.”

“Do you have any ideas how to do that?”

“Australia’s large scale circular farms are having problems with cyclones and insect outbreaks, so what if we help them properly pacify this god? Instead of trying to turn a god into a demon, we can help them honor and revere the god.”

“I see. Once they have another way, the government will lose any reason to cover for the witch.”

“An excessive supply lowers the value of things. We call this the North Wind and the Sun method.”

This girl who was talking about things just as dangerous as Hishigami Mai was frightening me to the point of feeling chilled, but who was she?

“Don’t worry about it,” said Hishigami Mai when she saw me glancing nervously in their direction. “This is all over. Once we return to that thatch-roof house, everyone can go back to their peaceful everyday lives.”

===Part 20 (Jinnai Shinobu)===

If only it really could have ended there.

Unfortunately, the world was not that kind.

I had vodka splashed on my stomach and a huge piece of gauze wrapped around it. After receiving that love-filled Succubus-style first aid, I somehow made it back home.

The Nekomata immediately said, “Your father wishes to speak with you. I think he wants to lecture you.”

“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!”

While I was receiving that lecture (that included a fist or two), it seemed the situation continued to develop. My uncle, the twintailed girl, Hishigami Mai, and the kimono-wearing girl had used a large transport helicopter prepared by Hyakki Yakou to quickly leave Noukotsu Village.

“They said a helicopter is the most relaxing.”

“S-so what? I don’t see how that could be true.”

Also, that kimono-wearing girl and Hishigami Mai were one thing, but why had my uncle left on the helicopter prepared by Hyakki Yakou? I guessed he must have been very busy with his work.

That evening, I chased around the Succubus a bit after she said going to the hospital would do nothing to help. I then had that Okinawa-born thing call out to me from the yard.

“I am Shisa.”

“Hm? What happened to your friend? That Kijimuna thing.”

“He is fighting with the Furutsubaki over his place in the yard. I was surprised when a second Furutsubaki suddenly appeared.”

''Well, it would have been a nuisance if it had stayed on that asphalt mountain road.

I followed the Shisa’s gaze and expected to find some trees moving around violently, but instead found three small kimono-wearing children fighting. It seemed to be a traditional competition to see whose Youkai transformation ability was the best.

“I had the Yuki Onna make it snow and made a snowman and igloo. I have no regrets. If I do not return soon, my family may grow worried.”

“I see. They aren’t going to think the decoration on their house’s roof was stolen, are they?”

The Shisa ignored my worries and called out to the Kijimuna still fighting in the yard. The Youkai ran over to the Shisa while still in the form of a small child.

The Shisa said, “Goodbye. Visit us if you are ever in Okinawa.”

I watched the Shisa and Kijimuna walk away. With the sunset behind them, it was a somehow lonely scene.

The Succubus (now wearing a T-shirt) called out from behind me.

“Having somewhere to return to sure is nice.”

“You may be trying to make it sound nostalgic, but I don’t want to let something as dangerous as you back into the European Security Force.”

“Heh heh heh. I will take that to mean you want me all to yourself.”

We chatted as we returned to the Japanese-style living room.

“Are you really okay with this?” I asked.

“With what?”

“Well…I’m glad you saved me, but didn’t you want a large country filled with plenty of witches where you could do whatever you wanted?”

“Given their situation, it was not a very attractive invitation.”

“Come to think of it, I understand how the witch’s group knew you were here due to having people inside Hyakki Yakou, but how did you know what was going on in Australia? You’ve been in the attic the whole time.”

“Oh, that. I am the demon that controlled the European Security Force. I constructed a defensive network for any potential enemies from various areas of the world: North America, South America, the Far East, Eastern Europe, etc. In the process, I had them investigate Australia because it holds the most influence in Oceania. …Anyway, due to various circumstances, Europe and North America have no reason to want the occult techniques of Japan, so I figured it was probably Australia this time.”

“Hm. So why was it not an attractive invitation?”

“They had taken on various burdens to make up for how far they had fallen behind.” The Succubus waved her arrow-shaped tail back and forth. “For example, this witch used a Furutsubaki she had turned into a demon. But where did she get the Youkai?”

“Eh? Once she arrived in Japan, I would assume.”

“She would not have made it in time. Remaking a paranormal existence may sound simple enough, but even at the quickest, it takes three years. If she had been hiding in Japan that long, Hyakki Yakou would have noticed.”

“But Japanese Youkai can only be found in Japan.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” The Succubus grinned. “Have you heard of the International Plantation Project that uses circular farms and plant factories in Australia’s deserts? It’s famous enough to even be used on quiz shows.”

“I saw it on that rerun you and the Yuki Onna were watching. What about it?”

“Each individual farm has a special environment prepared for it so that it can produce the special crops of another country, but that is just a front. Preparing a special environment sounds innocent enough, but what if that ‘environment’ included aspects of the occult?”

“You don’t mean…”

“Just think of them as the occult version of Chinatown or Little Tokyo. The Furutsubaki was likely forcibly brought over from Japan to be replanted and then grown on one of those farms in the desert. They make a farm for each Youkai or fairy and regulate the environment specifically for them. …Although, this occasionally causes some bugs and they transform into some strange UMA or crop circle.” The Succubus gave a simple smile. “It seems Hyakki Yakou mistakenly viewed the natural disasters as the anger of the land’s god, but that is not what is happening. Gathering ''convenient parts of the occult'' such as fairies, Youkai, and spirits from around the world and preparing a spiritual foundation for them has created conflicts and repeated accidental activations that have ultimately led to the natural disasters.”

This was not the same as a carefully-regulated Intellectual Village. That was artificial land that Youkai would find uncomfortable. When I imagined those circular farms spread out across the desert, it gave me a horribly cramped impression.

“That country’s government wanted the blessings of sacred land, but their techniques could not keep up with their desires. This was like something unpleasant beginning to live in a church or temple that had fallen into disarray due to lack of maintenance.”

An inescapable prison.

A demon that could not leave the magic circle that summoned it.

That was what the idea made me think of.

“For a demon like me, it may have been like inviting me into a birdcage. I would have a decent living environment and plenty of food, but nothing else. Now do you see why it did not sound like much fun? With that little freedom, ''I doubt I would have a chance to achieve my goal.'' …But with such a heavy blow to their grains market and the failure of the witch’s project, their government will likely run crying to Hyakki Yakou to quickly fix it all for them.”

“…”

Her goal.

Had what the Succubus said after stabbing me with the ice pick been true? Or had that been nothing more than another act to ensure the witch named Marguerite Steinhols let down her guard?

Also…

If she was going to deceive that witch, couldn’t it have been after killing me? For example, she could have pretended to go to Australia but disappeared after leaving Japan. After escaping Hyakki Yakou, she could have created a new kingdom like the European Security Force.

“Do you find it strange?”

“…Um.”

As a demon, she may have been good at noticing negative emotions because the Succubus seemed to have read my doubts from my expression alone.

She then said, “My old master spoke a few words just before he was burned at the stake. I am merely obeying them.”

“What did he say?”

“I will keep that a secret. It is not often you find something more important than a contract.” The Succubus grinned. “Well, I just wanted to lay the trap at the time, but it would have left a bad taste in my mouth if I killed you after those words.”

At that point, the glamorous Zashiki Warashi entered the room. She must have been playing video games in my room because she still had the 3D goggles on.

“Everything has smelled very Western today.”

“Oh, is that so? Well, whether Japanese, Chinese, or Western, it can kill me just the same.”

“I was talking about dinner. Something seemed off, so I peeked into the kitchen. As usual, your mother has been stirring a pot for hours creating some kind of sauce.”

“Not good!! That isn’t Western; it’s a new invention! And her inventions have never turned out well!!”

“…Yes. And I think she has started to suspect she has left the path leading to a success. But she seems to be desperately hoping she can fix it by adding more seasonings. I am going to force my way past this even if I have to insist that I will simply make myself a sandwich for dinner.”

“Simply? I can’t even imagine you making a sandwich, you good-for-nothing Youkai. And from what you’ve said, she has grown desperate to not waste all the effort she’s put into this. I doubt she’ll listen to what we say when she gets this stubborn.”

“In a case like this, it is more effective to place out the proper ingredients without the target noticing and wait for the target to notice on her own. Now then, leave this to the demon who specializes in temptation.”

And so a human, a Youkai, and a demon began putting together a strategy to avoid that night’s crisis.

It may have seemed a complete waste, but we did not see it that way. No matter who it was putting their heads together, an “incident” of this level was just perfect.

In fact…

Those gigantic incidents we had been dealing with before were what did not belong.

===Notes===
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