Editing Ghost Hunt:Volume 5 Chapter 4 (section)

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When the four of us returned to base, Naru, Lin-san, Ayako and Masako had returned. For some reason they wore tense expressions.

“What’s up?”

I opened my mouth to ask; Ayako turned to look at me with a solemn expression.

“Great, you guys are back. – Someone has disappeared again.”

Disappeared?! Again?!

“Who is it?!”

Bou-san asked.

“She’s called Fukuda-san.”

“How old is she?”

The significance of Bou-san’s question was perhaps only understood by the people from the Mansion Interior Exploration Team.

Ayako was also slightly stunned.

“Her exact age isn’t clear. 25, perhaps; about that old.”

“She is the girl from Minami Psychic Research right? Is she that young lady?”

“Yes…”

As expected…

Naru wore a shocked expression.

“And then?”


Bou-san told everyone what John had said; Naru sank into deep thought.

“So that’s how it is…”

Naru mumbled, and then he raised his head and turned towards Yasuhara and me.

“The two of you must never be on your own.”

… Yeah.

Then he turned towards Ayako.

“Matsuzaki-san, to what extent can I trust on you?”

“What the heck is this question of yours?”

“Now isn’t the time for arguments. Whether it is Mai or Yasuhara, right now we need the two of them. However, this place is very dangerous. To what extent can I rely on you?”

Ayako replied very resentfully.

“If it’s exorcism… you can count on me for something of this level.”

“Understood.”

Naru looked around at us.

“Matsuzaki-san and Hara-san must never act separately. Can the two of you cooperate with each other?”

“I think so…”

Ayako nodded; Masako asserted:

“If it’s Matsuzaki-san, I don’t feel comfortable.”

“What is the meaning of this?!”

Naru gently raised a hand towards Ayako, then gazed at Masako with his deep eyes.

“Hara-san. Basically I don’t trust anyone besides the members here. Reliable people are few and far between. However one puts it you are also a psychic; if this is the case then you should at least be able to protect yourself.”

“… Yeah.”

“Yasuhara-kun completely does not have any ability to protect himself. To protect him we need an extremely reliable person.”

“Yes…”

Seeing Masako nod, Naru spoke. 

“Bou-san and John cannot leave Yasuhara-kun’s side. You must never let him out of your sight.”

The so called extremely reliable person, refers to the two of them…?

“Please wait a moment.”

Lin-san spoke loudly.

“Are you saying I am to protect Taniyama-san?”

“Exactly.”

“Just let me put this clearly. You aren’t even able to do exorcisms, are you?”

… That’s right too. Naru is purely metapsychology researcher.

“Then your position is practically identical to that of Yasuhara-kun. You need protection.”

“Lin, I’ll find a way.”

“I’m not joking. I’ll be very worried if you say it like this. Let me take care of Naru’s protection.”

After finishing that forcefully, Lin-san looked towards us. 

“Takigawa-san will protect Yasuhara-kun. Taniyama-san will then depend on Brown-san.”

“It’s too much for Bou-san alone.”

“Hey hey, Naru-chan.”

“I’m not belittling you. I’m only saying that there’s the possibility that this place is dangerous to this type of level.”

“If that’s the case, then it’ll be solved if one person goes back. I’m not capable of letting Naru be alone. If something happens to you, how should I explain to the Professor?”

Professor?

“Please consider the feelings of your parents too.”

“Lin.”

“You haven’t forgotten the fact you are only a 17 year old child, have you?”

Naru glared at Lin-san solemnly.

“If you’re dissatisfied with me, you may go back.”

“Please don’t misunderstand. Of course, I can go back.”

Lin-san’s expression turned even more solemn.

“I’ll be very worried if you’ve forgotten. I did not come to look after you. I’m here to monitor you.”

… Mon, monitor?

Suddenly, Yasuhara stoodu up.

“Let me withdraw then.”

“Hey, young man.”

“There shouldn’t be any more problem if only I withdraw. I’m only the head of ‘Shibuya’, who later left everything to the investigators. If I withdraw with this explanation there shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

This is what we’ll say.

“I will go to Suwa to be Mori-san’s assistant. I personally also have some outstanding issues.”

After thinking deeply, Naru nodded his head.


Substitute Head Yasuhara left this mansion on the car with a staff member running errands in the city. The other psychics purposely loudly made cutting remarks that he was running away.

While we were made fun of by the people we met, we conducted the search for Fukuda-san. Despite our thorough searching, as expected, we couldn’t find a trace of Fukuda-san.

She said she wanted to go out for a stroll then she left the base used by Minami-san and his team. After that she never returned. Coincidentally there was a member of the staff cleaning the hall at that time; he didn’t even see her leave the hall. She only disappeared; that’s the only explanation.

Minami-san was thus in an extremely awkward situation. The other psychics derided Minami-san with, ‘haven’t you summoned you helpers’, ‘Regardless of the others, when your own assistant has disappeared, you should let us see the abilities of the Professor right?’, ‘Your other helpers should have arrived already, right?’ and the type. 

We looked at this disturbance; in the end we couldn’t stand it and returned to work. We carefully completed the remaining measurements. At dusk, after we wound up the measurements, we discovered an unexpected truth.

“The structure of this house is elevated in the middle.”

Lin-san said while generating the sectional diagram of the house.

We understood that the ground of the first floor of the house sloped gently towards the center; the area around the center was about 2 meters higher than the periphery.

Bou-san tilted his head.

“Why in the world would they build this type of house?”

Exactly.

“Repeatedly renovating, hence producing things like level X?”

Naru coolly shot back.

“… If that’s the case?”

“I feel it wasn’t intentionally done like this. This type of house is definitely constructed like this for some purpose.”

“Purpose…”

John tilted his head too.

“What was this house like right at the beginning?”

Naru nodded and retrieved a printed out diagram.

“From the finish of the windows, the rooms are all built around the small structure in the middle. Extending further outwards, the rooms become gradually larger; up to this point it is clear-cut…”

Bou-san sighed a huge sigh.

“That, as expected it’s still the huge empty center portion that is suspicious. At first, there is clearly no courtyard; it’s also too strange that the ventilation is good up to the second floor. The question is where exactly is there a path to go in…”

Naru flicked at the diagram.

“If there isn’t any path to begin with?”

Ai?

“If there’s no path… if that’s the case, hey.”

“What if that piece of empty space isn’t actually a hidden room, but a sealed room?”

Ah…!

This is it, the common scenario from horror movies: the scenario where after a wall is destroyed a sealed room lies beyond it, and there’s something there. Although the empty space was too large we only considered the possibility of a hidden room; there was always the possibility that empty space was not accessible to people…

“We’ve also tried searching for a path. This is an ancient and filthy house, of course we would think that as long as we could find the path or something, we would definitely know if the people who disappeared had used it before. Dust that had been disturbed, footprint – we would depend on this type of things. – Regardless of how we search here, I don’t believe things like paths exist here. Not to say the building is added to outwards from the center; I can only believe that it was added to in order to hide something in the center.”

“… Correct.”

Bou-san finished and gazed at the ceiling.

“But, what exactly is hidden? Could it be… the execution room?”

“What it is actually like, whether something like this exists or otherwise – after we investigate the other side of the wall we will find out.”

“Are we really doing this? Knocking through the wall?”

“Of course. I’ve already obtained Ohashi-san’s understanding.”

Bou-san looked completely defeated.

Just at that time, as usual, someone knocked on the window.