Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume1 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 7===

Shiroyama Kyousuke could not believe his eyes.

This was due to a fifty-by-fifty centimeter cardboard box about fifteen centimeters tall. It was stuffed full of Incense Grenades just like an industrial box of drink cans.

“Lu-san, this is way too many. How am I supposed to carry all these!?”

“Divide the extras up between your cruiser and coin lockers. It’ll be a pain coming back here every time you run out, won’t it? More importantly, how about you replace your Blood-Sign’s tip? You don’t want to complain about poor maintenance if you’re attacked without warning.”

Lu Niang Lan messed with the laptop on the used goods store counter while recommending him all sorts of equipment. That included a short-bladed knife for handicraft work, fine waterproofed sandpaper, and instant glue.

Meinokawa Higan’s eyes opened wide when she saw it all. They all looked like tools for home carpentry or summer projects, so she could not imagine how they could help in a summoning ceremony that could reach even the ancient gods.

“U-um, that…”

“Yes?”

Kyousuke pulled his Blood-Sign from his back, placed the knife blade a few centimeters from the front, and pressed down with his body weight. After a dull popping sound, the entire tip came off.

A piece of wood as soft as cork rolled along the floor. They were generally made from valuable sacred trees, but something of that level could be grown in a greenhouse if one knew how.

“That Repliglass Blood-Sign…i-it’s for practice, n-not combat, right? Um, they use them in Government, don’t they?”

“I think it’s officially known as a Quad Motors Phosphorus. It’s for beginners, so it doesn’t have any outstanding features yet is still better than average overall. Adding my own customizations on top of it is the most effective method. Plus, a custom-made one using rare materials is a lot harder to replace if it gets damaged.”

Kyousuke answered her while carving off the bits of the tip still stuck to the Blood-Sign. Then he used the instant glue to attach a new piece of wood. He traced the blade across the side of the Blood-Sign to get rid of the glue that oozed out and the wood that stuck out too far.

Just seeing his practiced motions was enough to give Higan the general idea that he had been doing this for a long time.

Then Lu Niang Lan spoke up while operating the laptop.

“Oh, there we go, there we go. Found it. This looks fishy to me.”

“You found something, Lu-san?” asked Kyousuke while rounding off the surface of the newly-attached tip with the fine sandpaper.

The China dress beauty removed the laptop screen and held it out toward him. He took it and Higan peered in from the side.

“U-um, is this…an occult site?”

“It’s a collection of urban legends,” said Lu Niang Lan. “You can’t take these things too lightly.”

Higan did not seem to know how to respond and Kyousuke asked a question.

“Do you not use the internet much?”

“Well…my sister told me this is what, um, stole our god’s place in the world.”

Higan may not have been entirely wrong there.

“Isn’t it more accurate to say people assumed gods could appear in or descend to our world whenever they wanted, but it turned out the conditions and locations were quite limited?”

Shiroyama Kyousuke and his fellow summoners used an Incense Grenade to create an Artificial Sacred Ground before performing the summoning ceremony. That implied the existence of natural sacred grounds that did not require the “artificial” clarifier.

They could be unexplored regions like deep valleys or thick rainforests and they could be temples, sanctuaries, or cathedrals designed by human hands. It had to be more than someplace hidden from human eyes where people were forbidden to enter. They had to naturally fill people with a desire to stay out. Someone could easily peek inside one if they could, but they would never think to do so. People would decide they would be happier not knowing if the alternative was exploring somewhere like that. It was in those places the gods would appear.

“Well, the internet is certainly convenient, but being too convenient can be a problem,” said Lu Niang Lan. “You can easily search for satellite photos and you can freely explore 3D models of the pyramids. That’ll have really limited the number of beds the gods like so much.”

“Although if they’re really one of the mystical locations spoken of in our field, people will avoid digitizing them or viewing that data even if they have the technical capabilities,” said Kyousuke. “What really happened is we revealed just how few true sacred grounds there were in the first place.”

“There are a fair number of partial ones, but in those, the ''exit'' gets clogged up and it turns into a haunted spot. Although if monsters like the Kuchisake-Onna show up, that gives us more work to do.”

People no longer feared the darkness.

Or rather, they had forgotten the darkness existed.

That was a dry fact, but it meant they had no choice but to use whatever was available to them.

“Summoners and vessels aren’t perceived properly by normal people and you can even trick cameras and sensors in some situations,” said the modified China dress beauty. “But that will sometimes leave behind incomplete witness data.”

Shiroyama Kyousuke scrolled through the page and saw a list of various rumors.

There was supposedly a giant server for an online casino below the amusement park and anyone would be able to add in some malware if they located it. There was supposedly a human trafficking organization walking boldly through the crowds by mixing in with the official costumed characters. Like that, most of the rumors were the standard fare.

But he frowned when he saw one of them.

''~The Carnivore Girl~

''In an accident at Block Z’s zoo, a girl fell into the lion’s cage. She died and the lion was shot by the zookeeper, but she continues to wander this world in search of the person who pushed her in so she can feed them to the lion’s ghost.”

“Um, isn’t this talking about Aika? She generally holes up in her apartment, but she apparently goes out late at night to go for walks or bathe in the moonlight with that wild animal of hers.”

“I really wish she would stop calling herself a shut-in when she can go to the convenience store on her own. But you understand now, don’t you? Summoners and vessels aren’t properly perceived by normal people, but they can’t control how that perception shifts out of place. That’s why partial information like that will pop up from time to time.”

Lu Niang Lan tapped at one point on the screen and the text enlarged.

“But this is different. Someone’s been spreading information for damage control. And on a pretty large scale. This is on the level of the Cyber Force’s high-speed parallel servers.”

“??? Um, uh, wh-what do you mean?”

The modified China dress beauty smiled and answered Meinokawa Higan’s question.

“It means there’s a rumor containing some kind of dangerous truth that warrants this. Not that just anyone could tell by looking at this screen☆”

Lu Niang Lan belonged to Illegal, which was (according to Government Middleman Aika) a collection of criminal organizations. That was why she could acquire anything one might need. And that included the software or specialized groups needed to accurately analyze the “flow of data” on the internet that could not be fully grasped even by a company worth billions of yen that managed both the advertisement and search business.

“When Illegal is manipulating stock prices or dabbling in the kind of land speculation that doesn’t require any violence, then we’ll purposefully spread rumors online like this. But this one has nothing to do with us. And yet it has a very Illegal smell to it. Guard of Honor might be doing something while making it look like our doing.”

Shiroyama Kyousuke and Meinokawa Higan looked to the screen again and read the rumor in question.

''~Terror of the Part-Time Empire~

''Toy Dream 35 is a city of adults’ hopes and children’s dreams, but it is apparently putting a lot of effort into training its part-timers. If a part-timer treats a guest poorly and ruins the dream, their superiors will take them away. Recently, a black-haired girl in a shrine maiden outfit was seen being chased by men in work uniforms.”

“U-um, is this, um…”

Higan grew flustered and Kyousuke spoke for her.

“This is a city of costumes, so the shrine maiden outfit alone isn’t a sure thing. But since it matches your sister’s description, I think it’s worth pursuing.”

“By the way, this rumor has been blocked three times in just the past few hours. That is, from eleven at night to one in the morning. Where the ‘shrine maiden part-timer girl’ appears has been all over the place, though.”

“Wait. You mean…?”

“Yes, she’s being seen more often. Almost as if she’s purposefully making appearances.”

“Hm,” said Kyousuke as he stopped to think for a moment.

He did not know what route she was using, but Meinokawa Renge had apparently safely escaped the harbor area and was traveling between blocks. She should have been able to hide if she had a secret route like that, but she was purposefully showing herself from time to time.

If Guard of Honor was trying to block the information, then the information on her location was reaching them each time she appeared.

Why would she do something so dangerous?

After some thought, Kyousuke looked over at Higan who was staring at the laptop screen.

“Eh? Eh? Um, do you need something?”

“No,” was all he said.

Meinokawa Renge was putting herself in danger to draw Guard of Honor’s attention toward her and away from her sister Higan.

“Lu-san, I get that Meinokawa Renge is purposefully letting people see her, but is there a pattern to where and when she shows up? To put it more bluntly, where will she show up next?”

“Eight next morning in Block G.”

“Eh? Wait… Um, how do you know that?”

“Well, I’ll admit three data points is too little information to say for sure, but this city has twenty-six blocks from A to Z. If you convert the letters to number, compare them to her past appearances, and do a biiit of calculation, a simple pattern shows itself.”

“Material is summoned by spelling out the name with the Blood-Sign… I guess that ''is'' a summoner-esque dying message.”

Kyousuke tapped at the edge of the flat screen where the time and date were displayed.

“It would be difficult to get to the current point from here, so we’ll just have to wait until eight in the morning.”

“With that much time, the odds are good Guard of Honor will notice the pattern too.”

“U-um, uh, what does that mean?”

Higan was almost in tears and Kyousuke gave a simple answer.

“It’ll be a race to reach her first, like a game of beach flags.”