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

===Part 4===

To keep out of the rain, they gathered around a table on the second floor of a nearby hamburger shop.

The three girls each ordered a small soda plus some fries and nuggets which were normally considered sides. None of them ordered a burger despite how good they were, so did this not feel like their main dinner?

Or were they simply not hungry?

“That’s awful,” spat the online shrine maiden.

When she used her phone to search the date given as dialogue in the flimsy script, she found the records of an incident that had been buried by everything else going on in the world.

The reality spread out before her was far removed from the cheap and cheerful pop music playing inside the restaurant.

“What would happen if they aired this on TV as a documentary?”

It was about a girl of around ten.

With unnatural bruises on her sides and upper arms, injuries from being thrown down the stairs, a fractured right cheekbone, and a large burn across her back…

When the victim said nothing, the abuse tended to escalate.

She was the perfect example of that.

Abuse at the hands of the hundreds of residents of the entire high-rise apartment building…

“Do you know what stigmatized property is?”

“…Yes. Isn’t it an apartment or whatever where someone was known to have died in some terrible way?”

“Right.” Tsumugi confirmed Rainy’s reluctant answer. “The Apartment of Many Deaths is a haunted location where several of the rooms in the same building have become stigmatized property. Suicide, crime, murder suicide, fire – the cause of death varies. And it’s a bit of a chicken or the egg situation. Does living there make you unlucky, or do unlucky, troubled people end up living there because they can’t afford anything else?”

The online shrine maiden sighed softly.

“Here we go. The Threat Scapegoat was apparently born inside the Apartment of Many Deaths. Her mother went into labor before her due date and there wasn’t time to get to the hospital.”

The child born inside the strange Apartment of Many Deaths had become the Threat Scapegoat.

It was vaguely creepy.

A shared understanding of the occult led people to attack her to put their own minds at ease.

“This is crazy!” shouted the gyaru sister. “She’s just a normal person!!”

“Of course. Someone dies every day in a large hospital, so by this logic, everyone born in that hospital would be a Threat Scapegoat.”

But some had neglected to inspect the idea so carefully.

The devilish people who prioritized their own frustrations.

Tsumugi made a conscious effort to suppress her emotions.

“Bad things keep happening in the Apartment of Many Deaths, so ordinary cause and effect no longer apply for the people who live there. Even when they try to stay safe in the ordinary ways like making absolutely sure they lock their doors, people keep dying. But the apartment has large rooms for families, right? I know finding a home here is a challenge what with the online lotteries and waiting lists for anywhere halfway decent. Buying a lot means taking out a decades-long loan, so it can’t be easy to sell this stigmatized property and make enough money to move. They would end up in the red. So they can’t escape.”

“…”

“That oil lighter can defeat Malign Spirits. We know how it’s done, so it doesn’t seem like much. But for the people who don’t, the fear keeps growing and growing and they can never stop searching for an answer. Listen. The invisible threat of death lurks all around them, but there is one concrete rumor spreading around. You fight a ghost with a ghost: the cries and screams of the Threat Scapegoat can keep the unseen threat at bay.”

It pissed her off to even say it out loud.

Even a baseless good luck ritual like this could get someone killed.

The documentary reproduction drama greatly embellished the creepy rumors without touching on any of this. No thought was given to the girl’s psychological trauma, or to the danger of the confusion spreading beyond the apartment if this was aired on TV.

Yuhi frowned.

“What about her parents…?”

“At the very least, they’re turning a blind eye. I don’t know if they’re actively beating their own child, though. It seems like they’re afraid of being made into a target themselves.”

…It seemed obvious enough why the residents of the Apartment of Many Deaths were so unhappy. In the end, most happiness in life came down to your interpersonal relationships. Simply put, they’d brought it on themselves.

The kind of person who could indulge in a dark pleasure over doing these things would never be accepted by others and find happiness.

That said, Tsumugi had another question.

“While this is a major problem, does it have anything to do with Hasshaku-sama? If the extras were attacked one after another until work on the reproduction drama ended, it feels like there should be some kind of connection.”

Hasshaku-sama appeared regardless of time or place. There was no ritual for someone to summon her.

That should mean the Threat Scapegoat couldn’t actively summon Hasshaku-sama.

And then…

“I think I kind of get it.”

This came from the gyaru sister.

The online shrine maiden tilted her head, so Rainy smiled bitterly.

Maybe this was hard to imagine for someone who had decided all Malign Spirits needed to be exorcised.

But Rainy was different. After being bound by one once, she could see it differently.

“We know Hasshaku-sama doesn’t appear at any set time or place. And there’s no ritual for summoning her. That Malign Spirit simply finds a child she likes, lures them out, captures them, and takes their life.”

“And…?”

“You don’t get it, Mugikko? ''Doesn’t that mean she prefers certain kinds of people''?” said the gyaru sister.

But wait.

“Let’s say Hasshaku-sama was wandering around New Sea City when she decided on a new target. And what if the child that perfectly met her preferences happened to be known as the Threat Scapegoat? People are hurling verbal abuse at the girl, beating her with their fists, and not even her parents are helping. What would happen then? It’s starting to come into view, isn’t it?”

“Hasshaku-sama can mimic familiar voices…”

That meant she could speak with people. Rainy nodded at Yuhi’s comment.

“Right. So I bet I know what she said when she saw the girl.”