Editing Internet Shrine Maiden Tsugumi-chan:Volume1 Chapter6 (section)

===Part 4===

The detective had to be acting rationally.

Tsumugi wouldn’t catch up if she simply followed his trail.

She had to work out what he was thinking and try to get ahead of him.

She knew she could do it. Because she had been watching him closer than anyone for quite a while now!!

“I’m back.”

The online shrine maiden left the building containing the detective agency and regrouped with the gyaru sister and straitlaced sister in the shadowy streets. The sisters were both dressed and geared up for a trip to a haunted location. They appeared to be carrying a large quantity of fireworks.

They would begin soon.

None of them said it aloud, but the tension in the air said it for them.

“We will stop Hisame Kouga here,” began Tsumugi. “We can’t ignore the Threat Scapegoat either, but that’s no excuse for allowing a Malign Spirit to indiscriminately attack living people. We will stop him before this gets any more complicated. Do you two agree with that goal?”

In other words, they were going to save the lives of all the abusers in the Apartment of Many Deaths even if it meant attacking the detective who was trying to protect a child he had never met before all this.

That was the choice they were making.

“Yes,” agreed Yuhi. “A decent guy like Hisame-san doesn’t need to ruin his life for human garbage like them. So let’s go knock some sense into him. Saving that child and committing crimes aren’t the same thing.”

Yes, they couldn’t let the simple emotion of it delude them.

Emotions had the strange power to forcibly bridge the gaps in flawed logical connections.

Tsumugi had one main concern.

(I don’t actually know if Hisame Kouga is pretending to be Hasshaku-sama to threaten the extras, or if he’s ''taken an even larger step'' into this side of things. I can’t just hope for the best here.)

The gyaru sister frantically spoke up.

“B-but New Sea City’s crazy big, right? It’s a metropolis with tens of millions of people if you include the tourists, each megafloat is kilometers long, and there’s so many of those crammed together. There’s no way we can search the entire city by foot. How are we supposed to find Kouga-san!?”

“He’s a detective – an expert at finding things – but that means he can also become an expert at severing the thread of information and covering his tracks. If you ask me, finding him is going to be a challenge if he’s abusing his well-honed skills.”

Tsumugi listened to both sisters’ thoughts in silence.

The variety show calling itself a documentary had been forced to stop filming when the extras – who were the least strictly guarded of the cast and crew – had been threatened. Searching out new extras probably wouldn’t work. At the very least, filming would not continue for the sketchy reenactment drama that would further attack the Threat Scapegoat.

The detective had started by preventing that TV program from airing and increasing the number of people who feared or found amusement in the Threat Scapegoat.

So that part of his plan had ended.

Hisame Kouga was no longer targeting anyone connected to the TV program.

If he had already set up his hunting ground, then he only had to enter it and go wild.

So what would his next priority be?

The online shrine maiden raised a shout.



“The Apartment of Many Deaths. …He plans to attack the residents who are directly harming that child!!”