Editing Ghost Hunt:Volume4 Chapter1 (section)

=== 6 ===

With Yasuhara's group leading the way, we made our way to that classroom - 3-1.

The classroom was located at the first floor of the West Block. Ryokuryou High School's compound is shaped like the character “コ”, to the north is the gymnasium; the staff rooms and student canteen are adjacent to each other in the North Block; turning a corner is the East Block consisting special classrooms; turning another corner is the South Block with normal classrooms. A turn away from the South Block is the West Block. It is a 3 level facility with only classrooms. 

Once the door opened, a weak odor slammed into my senses. It was a hateful stench, like the smell of something rotten. 

Yasuhara entered the classroom, and turned to look at us.

"I practically can't smell the stench anymore, what about you guys?"

Naru nodded.

"And it's not a very strong smell, but there definitely is an odor."

The monk opened the classroom's windows.

"Even after opening the windows, the stench does not dissipate."

Squinting, Naru scanned the room. Touching each table, he moved around the room.

"There is no place where the stench is particularly strong."

Yasuhara nodded.

"It is like that. Although we have carefully searched for the source of the stench, the whole classroom stinks."

Naru nodded, and then he suddenly stood still. He turned to look towards Yasuhara's group surrounding the door.

"Has anything strange ever happened here?"

"Strange things?"

Yasuhara tilted his head. Naru's expression was severe.

"Like summoning, this type of thing."

Naru studied everyone's faces; the crowd started murmuring.

"Isn't he talking about Worikiri-sama?"

"That is..."

Addressing the various softly squabbling voices, Naru said, "What is it?"

Yasuhara represented the crowd to reply.

"Recently... That is to say, from the start of the second semester, Worikiri-sama has been popular. Is that it?"

With that last line was directed to the girls behind him.

The girl nodded nervously.

"Not just our class, it is popular throughout the school - Worikiri-sama, Gongen-sama and what not."

Worikiri-sama...?

"What is that?"

Although I directed my question at the monk, he turned to look at the girls.

"I have it with me, it has not been used." a girl piped up. She retrieved a piece of paper from her desk.

"This."

Ah!

On the paper were the Fifty Sounds. This is... Kokkuri-san...

<!--[tl/n: the Fifty Sounds probably refer to the fifty phonetic alphabets in Japanese. Imagine a hiragana or katakana table.]-->
The monk appeared to think so too.

"Isn't this Kokkuri-san?"

The girls went into an uproar. The girl who handed us the paper looked at us, highly dissatisfied.

"As if. Your supposed Kokkuri-san is summoning a fox, right? At the center there is an illustration of a Torii... I've heard that Kokkuri-san is very dangerous, and shouldn't be done casually. For this, look."

She pointed to the strange symbol in the center of the page. There were words arranged into a circle with the words "Yes" and "No" on either side. The repeated word "鬼(Oni; Demon)" arranged in a circle and the checkered pattern within left a strange impression. 

"Worikiri-sama is summoning a god. It is very accurate in predicting love matches etc. Gongen-sama is..."

While she spoke, the monk snatched the paper without warning.

"Watch it!"

"How does Gongen-sama appear?"

The monk had crushed the piece of paper into a ball.

"Gongen-sama is a summoned god. Because it is a god, it can help us solve problems etc..."

The monk threw the paper ball. It hit the wall before dropping into the rubbish bin.

"What? Is there a problem?!"

The girl looked uneasily at the monk.

"Gongen-sama. Tarou-san. Hitofude-sama. Cupid-san. They are all aliases for Kokkuri-san."

"Eh!"

The exclamations came not just from the girl who handed us the paper.

"What you were doing was well and truly Kokkuri-san. It is the same thing regardless of what you name it. You casually summoned spirits, and treated them as toys."

"How could it..."

The monk looked furious.

"Even the uninitiated is capable of summoning. Summoning a spirit can be done by anybody, but to send a spirit back needs practice. Don't do it anymore."

"But... everyone says that if it is Worikiri-sama then it isn't frightening, and it does not matter..."

"That's bullshit. It's because you all do this type of stupid thing that these strange disturbances occur!"

Seeing the monk's face, the girls were immediately dejected. 

"Really, here and there is all like this. In the class where the black dog appeared, there were also people playing this type of sick games. They probably summoned a low level wondering spirit<!--(浮游灵)-->. The mass poisoning must have been the fault of something similar."

"But! Worikiri-sama is very popular throughout the school!"

"Goodness... This fellow is really lucky, the school building has yet to collapse."

The girls lowered their heads.

Naru interrupted.

"You said it is very popular. How high is its popularity?"

The girls made eye contact with each other.

"The truth is that in school, everyone has been doing it."

"Amongst those present here is there anyone who has not done it?"

Including Yasuhara, not a single person raised his hand.