Editing Ghost Hunt:Volume3 Chapter4 (section)

===4===



Naru ordered Lin-san to do something, and the latter went out to investigate. Me and Naru searched for Taka.

Once we had forcibly pulled her to the conference room during her class, we briefly explained the circumstances to the bewildered girl and asked for her cooperation.

“That’s fine with me, but… What can I assist you with?” inquired Taka in curiosity.

But Naru said, “Don’t you have any idea about that cursed seat?”

“I would have told you if I had any…”

“Then I’ll rephrase the question. The culprit has a grudge with a person who sat on that cursed seat. —Who was sitting on it initially?”

“I don’t remember who it was on the first term. On the second term, it was a girl named Murayama.”

“From what day and until when did she sit on that chair?”

Taka was wrapped in thought for a moment. “Um, we first changed seats on the middle of September. We change seats every 15th day of the month. So with summer break in between, I guess Murayama-san sat there from July 15 to September 14.”

Naru nodded and took a note of that. “She had an accident, didn’t she?”

"Yes.”

“When did Murayama-san get into an accident?”

"Um, I forgot what day it was, but it was two or three days before the seat change. That’s why at the beginning everyone thought nothing of it.”

“Right… The culprit has July 15 to September 14 with summer break in between… So two or three days before…would be the 11th or the 12th day. It might be during that time that the jufu was stuck to the desk. Since the series of accidents and illnesses started occurring on mid-September, the person who sat there before Murayama-san probably had nothing to do with it. Murayama-san must have done something to cause the culprit’s grudge.”

“…I wouldn’t say such a thing—” Taka tilted her head.

“How about another victim of an accident?”

“Nuh-uh…” Taka tilted her head thoughtfully more and more.

“Someone at least holds a grudge. It’s possible that the culprit only knows how Murayama-san looks like. Meaning, a teacher who’s not in charge of her class or a student from another grade may have that limitation.”

“About that, just a second… You see, Murayama-san sometimes comes in contact with teachers who aren’t in charge of her class, and she even gets involved with clubs and people from other grades at times. The strict Murayama-san also regularly visits the people in the literature club.”

Naru tapped his pen against the desk. “Well, how about the track-and-field club? Who has a grudge with that club?”

“…Track-and-field… I heard that they have a never-ending squabble with the softball club regarding who has the right to use the field. But then there’s a strong disagreement between the track-and-field and volleyball clubs. Because of that, the former seems to have a bad relationship with the volleyball club as well. And…” All of a sudden, Taka said, “The track-and-field club’s advisor is a realist.”

“…?”

“The advising teacher is the kind of person who doesn’t believe in things like spirits and psychic abilities. Consequently, all club members are non-believers as well. Sawaguchi-san has track-and-field as a club of her required curriculum. But track-and-field club members are mostly there in the curricular track-and-field, and it’s very likely that she was bullied by them.”

After Naru pondered for a bit, he asked for the name of the advising teacher. The advisor was the teacher who said on our first day that a ghost appeared in his car, and he was hospitalized due to an accident afterwards.

…Sawaguchi-san…

“Did Sawaguchi-san frequent Takahashi-san’s class?”

“…Yes. You see, during the Kasai Panic… That is, when the school was in an uproar since Kasai-san said she can bend spoons, she became greatly sought after. If they found her on the hallway or somewhere, everyone would drag her into a class. Sawaguchi-san was always found together with Kasai-san, so she had come to our class many times.”

“I see…” murmured Naru, and then he asked, “Is Murayama-san, who had an accident first, a non-believer of psychic abilities? Or is she a believer?”

“…She’s a firm non-believer.” Taka stared at Naru anxiously. “Which reminds me, when we took Kasai-san into our classroom and such, she spoke with extreme sarcasm for us to hear. She wasn’t sarcastic to Kasai-san and us only; even members of the biology club and Ubusuna-sensei were under fire as well. She clearly complained to us, who invited Kasai-san.” After saying that, she looked at me. “Mai… is this the cause? Is Sawaguchi-san the culprit? Or is it…?”

“…I don’t know.”

Sawaguchi-san didn’t come to school.  We heard she was persecuted by teachers and bullied by students and that in the end she dropped out of school after being absent.

She might have a strong grudge towards the people who attacked her. Since Sawaguchi-san wasn’t in school anymore when we arrived, we forgot about her. Even she could bend keys… Naru had said that ‘Superior psychics can be superior spellcasters.’ In that case, the culprit could be Sawaguchi-san…