Editing Ghost Hunt:Volume 5 Chapter 4 (section)

===4===

“Madoka… Yasuhara-kun!”

Naru looked stunned. 

As he looked on coolly, with a ‘heyo’, two people jumped in through the window.

“Good evening.” 

“I’m here~”

–2  people who looked completely unconcerned.

“Really… what are you guys thinking of?”

Naru looked at Yasuhara.

That’s true too. He clearly left this place because it is dangerous, if he came back then isn’t that a complete waste of effort?

However, Yasuhara looked completely unperturbed. 

“No, I’m here to report the things we investigated today.”

Mori-san grinned at Yasuhara.

“Yasuhara-kun, today was really too exciting.”

“That’s ~ right. It’s only because I was there.”

Yasuhara sniggered, pleased with himself.

“That is, first, when I went back to the city, I counted the number of chimneys.”

… Ai?

“I always felt it this was a little strange, but I couldn’t see too clearly from far, so after I met up with Mori-san I had her look at it again.”

Mori-san nodded.
“Yes. I took the car all the way up a near-by mountain. Then from there I used a pair of rented binoculars and carefully counted it out. In the end there are 20.”

Lin-san checked the number of furnaces there were on the computer.

“When I was investigating I felt there should be 10 or 11 of them.”

Lin-san backed up Yasuhara’s words.

“There are 11.”

… There’s one extra chimney…

“After that, if we look closely at it again, the chimney at the center of the house is very strange. The shape is round, and it’s also coarser than the other chimneys.”

That was a valuable clue. There was indeed something in that empty space. At the very least, a chimney. The places that can hide a suddenly jutting out chimney are very limited. The empty space did not extend into the third floor. If the chimney extended up from the second floor, it should be visible from the third floor windows. But there was only one side of one direction which was windowless. If there was a chimney, it could only be in that direction.

Naru immediately checked the floor plan. There was an even larger empty space to the north of the huge empty space. It extended from the second floor. At once we confirmed that was the position of the chimney. 

Mori-san appeared a little proud.

“The clever I properly took photos as evidence. They are currently getting developed, and you should be able to see them tomorrow. I had specially borrowed a long distance single lens reflex camera, isn’t that incredible?”

As she said that, Mori-san looked at Naru. Naru only replied with a cool gaze.

“Whatever~”

It was Bou-san who spoke instead.

“It’s incredible, very incredible. And then?”

Mori-san smiled and spoke.

“When I was doing all these, I let Yasuhara investigate in the city. He’s really good detective material.”

He~~

Yasuhara puffed out his chest.

“Whatever type of material needed, I have; because I am the genius Yasuhara.”

Smiling, he said,

“First, I tried going to the Miyama family. Furthermore, I also interviewed the near-by families, and tried my best to look for older people. Then, a few houses away, I found an eighty-two year-old old lady. She’s an energetic, still clear headed senior citizen. Thus I started asking her.”

Hu hu.

“The old lady was born around the time Mr Miyama Kaneyuki died. Yeah, there wasn’t much chance she knew Mar Kaneyuki, but I thought she might know something. Mr Kaneyuki was a capricious personality; when he was gentle he’d give others a little something, and appeared very warm. If he was in a bad mood he would hunt down other people and have his underlings surround them and beat them up; he was apparently this sort of person.”

… Hn~~

“Previously it was mentioned that Mr Kaneyuki was a mysophobic person; the old lady concurred. She said Mr Kaneyuki was extremely terrified of germs. And the family next door to the Miyama family wouldn’t careless take anything belonging to the Miyama family, not even a persimmon. Apparently they had tried before and was thus severely punished.”

“… So that’s the way it was.”

“This is about all I could get out of that old lady. Then, I let her introduce me to the old folk’s homes and community clubs in the city. Following that I tried going to those places. In the end, I heard various sayings, but the evaluation of Mr Kaneyuki was all bad.”

“.. He is a philanthropist, right?”

“That’s right; in any case the good works were done with all sorts of bad things on the sly, it was only a camouflage. That was what a lot of people thought.”

That’s unexpected…

“And then I found someone who claimed to be Mr Hiroyuki’s friend. It was an old lady; her husband was a friend of Mr Hiroyuki in his later days. According to her, Mr Hiroyuki hated his own father a lot. Apparently he practically never listened to his father’s words and he would get extremely angry if anyone were to speak of his father.”

… Hn~

“According to some of what I heard, Mr Kaneyuki apparently had very frail health since his youth.”

“Frail health?”

“Yeah. Because of his frail health, he was frequently bedridden etc when he was young. And his frequent travels abroad, while said to be only travels, should be actually trips abroad to see doctors about the aches and pains he had at that time.”

… He~

“When he was little others said he wouldn’t live long, and in reality he died at fifty. However, according to Mr Hiroyuki, it would have been better if Mr Kaneyuki had died earlier in his youth. He had apparently said this before.”

I asked.

“If Mr Kaneyuki were to die in his youth, then wouldn’t Mr Hiroyuki have not been born?”

“Exactly, that’s a very shocking statement.”

Mr Hiroyuki must have really hated his father a lot.

“Then, there’s also such an incident. Mr Kaneyuki had 2 menservants.”

… My heart pounded very hard. What incident was it? I had a bad feeling.

“And there’s more, in that old folk’s home there was a person who claimed his grandfather was a gardener here. He said this building was very strange. He said that when he cleaned up and walked near to the main house, he would always smell a scent like that of a graveyard. Furthermore, every time he went here the maid was always a different person. That was what he said.”

“You said the maid was always a different person…?”

I felt a wave of dizziness. I felt like there was something icy cold caressing my back.

“Ooh. And then –? … Taniyama-kun?”

Yasuhara stared at my face. Chills ran down my back; it chilled me speechless. Masako stopped Bou-san, who was about to rise. She came closer to me. She gently reached out her hand, and stacked it on my shoulder.

“This person won’t do. She is unable to save you. All the people here are unable to help you – because you are already dead.”

Masako said that, and clapped my back.

“Come, come down. Don’t be afraid, and go towards the light. If you go there, you will definitely be freed.”

When Masako was saying that, the chill suddenly vanished.

“Hara-san.”

Naru asked; Masako smiled.

“It looks like the spirit here got attached to her. It’s all right. It’s already disappeared. Although I’m not sure if it has been cleansed or otherwise… you’re better already, right?”

“Yeah, thanks…”

What was that, just now…

Masako spoke.

“It definitely approached because we were chatting. Or it might be here right from the start. It looks like the spirit of the maid we were just talking about.”

When I heard those words, I immediately smelt the smell of blood. The sensation of a knife cutting through my throat. The wet warmth of blood drenching my face. The white tiles; the blood red stains.

“… It’s those two people…”

I said. Everyone was shocked.

“It’s those two people. Last night…”

They took me to the main house. I was dragged by 3 men into the main house. In a certain room in the main house they pulled me onto a surgical bed, and cut open my throat.

“It was those two people who killed me in my dream last night.”

My tears dropped down. I dreamt about the memories of the spirit. That person was murdered with that method. It was very scary. Very painful. To me it was only a dream, but to that person, that was reality. To make such terrifying memories, such painful memories, and then get killed…!

Everyone patted my back while I couldn’t help covering my face.

“… Is that the situation?”

It was Naru’s low voice.

“Are the spirits of the ones who was killed in that fashion lingering in this house?”

Save me, I don’t want to die, was what those spirits had said. Everyone all did not know that they had all died; continually wrapped in memories of terror and fear, they lingered in this house.

That’s too much; who exactly did those hideous things? … Yeah, I knew who the culprit was. Those men were the 2 menservants. If so, there should be a culprit who ordered them to do such. The culprit could only be Mr Kaneyuki.

Unforgivable. He put on the mask of a philanthropist, but could do such hideous, such cruel, and such tragic things.

Just at that time,

All the lights in the room suddenly were extinguished.

“… What?!”

With the slowly disappearing glow of the monitors, the room turned completely dark. After a sharp ‘bang’, the room was momentarily filled with noise. Somewhere beyond this room there was an intense sound. Then, in the distance, there was someone screaming.

“Do not move!”

When Naru ordered in a sharp tone, the lights all suddenly came back on. It was like they had stopped temporarily. Simultaneously, the noise also ceased.

I didn’t even have the time to say ‘what in the world was that?’. When the lights came back on, some blood red objects jumped into our lines of sight.

“Save me”

“Save me”

“I don’t want to die”

“It hurts”

“It hurts”

“I’m terrified”

Those were the countless words written in blood on the wall.