Editing Internet Shrine Maiden Tsugumi-chan:Volume1 Chapter5 (section)

===Part 1===

According to the phone propped up in the hermit crab acrylic charger stand, it was 10 at night.

Inside the detective agency’s nap room.

The online shrine maiden was seated on the bed in her underwear with her arms around her raised knees.

Her long black hair spilled down past her cheeks to her shoulders.

The girl was staring at the memos attached to the back of the electric curtain.

“Hibashi-sama”

“Spotted on New Sea City” “Confirmed!”

“Defeat the source to revive religious corporation status” “And receive industry acceptance” “First step toward shrine’s restoration!!”

It was no longer a matter of “surely”, “probably”, or “most likely”.

She was clearly making progress.

After all, she had actually encountered ''her''.

Hibashi-sama.

The only known Quintuple Dread Star. That ultimate Malign Spirit was rumored to be behind every fire-involved disaster, from the Honnouji Incident to the Great Kantou Earthquake. ''Looking just at the officially confirmed numbers,'' she had taken over ten thousand lives.

She was the cause of the fire that burned down Kagebarai Tanebi Shrine, where Yahirodono Tsumugi had worked.

It was her.

Now that she had been found, all that remained was to defeat that woman in burial clothes.

That was why Tsumugi had come to New Sea City in the first place.

But…

“''How''?”



In the office on the other side of the wall.



The space smelled of cheap coffee. Maybe it still needed to be broken in or maybe this was just what you got with a cheap one, but the air conditioner bought at the bargain price of 19,800 yen wasn’t very effective.

Hisame Kouga faced his laptop on the table.

He was using a free talk app to speak with a current police detective who worked for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department over 500 kilometers away.

Ganou Gouwan. The man was Kouga’s former colleague.

“I’ve uploaded the progress report to the usual server. You decrypt it yourself. It will automatically delete after you download it once, so be careful.”

“Thanks again.”

“Stop. Do you have any idea how many times you saved my ass? Whenever the bullets started flying, you would take the lead while I stayed in the back providing covering fire.”

“I was just showing off. What you mean is I was always making a mess of things and causing you trouble, right?”

“Maybe so, but without you we never would have solved that kidnapping case or that robbery case. You’ll save anyone as long as they’re still alive, right? The chief was always yelling at us both, saying your excessive support of the victims would only get us killed, but there were hostages who wouldn’t have survived if you hadn’t been so bold. …Besides, you even played matchmaker and introduced me to the prettiest woman in the world. I’m thankful. If my wife hears I didn’t repay my debt to you, she’d never speak to me again!!”

He was a useful partner in a number of ways because he drew a very simple line dividing enemy from ally.

As the private detective downloaded the file on autopilot, he used his spare mental resources on something else.

He found himself thinking.



Hibashi-sama was ultimately a ritual that followed a set process.

That meant the Malign Spirit would not act on her own.

During the Vanishing Canal case, the entire yakuza group had been burned to death because their estate’s nameplate had been removed.

And since the Quintuple Dread Star had made an appearance…some human villain must have carried out the ritual.



“So…it eventually comes down to revenge, huh?”

“It’s understandable.”

“…Will this really act as a shortcut to restoring the burned-down shrine, though?”

“Don’t ask me. But if the shrine was destroyed by the Malign Spirit, it’s reputation can never be restored unless the survivor slays the Malign Spirit herself. That’s what the girl’s job is, right? So if she wants to truly regain people’s trust and restore the shrine, she’s just gotta do it. Even if she’s up against Hibashi-sama.”

The detective sighed.

He had once dreamed of a future where she would calm down after restoring the shrine…

He looked up at the ceiling from his chair.

“This isn’t going the way I’d hoped.”

“She’s not a pet robot. Being unpredictable is a lot more human and cute, don’t you think?”

Ganou Gouwan was a muscular gorilla of a man, but he was powerless with his wife who was two heads shorter than him. Fortunately he seemed as madly in love with her as ever and it sounded like he was still enjoying his married life.

“Also, you need her since you have no spiritual sensitivity at all. You haven’t just been introducing her to the Malign Spirit cases you think she’ll like. You told her what she needed to restore the shrine’s religious corporation status and you taught her everything she needed to know to blend into ordinary society after spending too much time living at the shrine. That was all payment up front so she would help you with that one case eventually, right?”

“Even so. If she could peacefully restore the shrine, I had planned to just watch on and not interfere. There are other ways of making up for my lack of a spiritual sensitivity.”

“Liar. It’s not that easy. There might be one or two in a classroom who can vaguely ‘see’, ‘feel’, or ‘know’ things, but that’s nowhere near the level needed for a shrine maiden who physically battles them and exorcises them. The oil lighter you got in that case isn’t all powerful. The other girls who’ve been helping out are only still alive because she’s been looking after them, right? Including using herself as a shield. Her talent is on another level.”

The detective worked his laptop to extract the downloaded compressed file.

The National Diet Building, the Prime Minister’s Residence, the Cabinet Office… When a cabinet meeting was too high risk to be held in even those important buildings, a government facility with far greater security than any of those publicly-recognized buildings had been created in secret. The Cabinet Dark Room. The flames and death that had erupted within there had caused too much chaos for anyone to stop and had ultimately brought all ordinary Diet activities to a complete halt for more than 40 days.

The title of the file displayed on the screen read as follows:



Progress Report Concerning National Top Priority Case #015: The Nagatacho Leaders Case