The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Volume1 Chapter 3

Status: Incomplete

Chapter 3: Regarding Hishigami Mai

Part 1

Hyakki Yakou.

I may have used the name on Zashou Island, but I did not actually belong to the group. I do not like going to the effort of explaining the annoying details of an organization’s structure, and what does it matter if someone I am about to kill comes to the wrong conclusion?

“Excellent work,” said a dignified voice.

The speaker wore a kimono and sat at the back of a tearoom that smelled of old-fashioned incense. Just hearing that, you might think it was an organization ruled by the elderly and left behind by the times, but the person wearing the kimono was a girl of about 10.

You could say the girl was a decoration.

She was a symbol of the downside of putting too much focus on bloodline.

When the previous generation was sent to an early grave, the leader became a child that was softer than a crab after molting. It was remarkable how the Hyakki Yakou’s situation had so quickly shifted in a dangerous direction. There were rumors that a true conflict would occur soon and that rebellious elements were gathering from within the organization.

Nevertheless, the girl’s express remained unchanged.

The fact that she had been forced into a situation where she had needed to gain such control over her expressions at her age made me pity her.

“You will be paid in the usual fashion.”

“Sure thing.”

“Once you have confirmed receipt of your pay, are you willing to take on another job?”

“If I can take a three day vacation and the pay will be suitable for the job.”

All the jobs I got were utter shit. They were consistently as low as they could get. But I would do any job as long as I was paid. That was how I lived my life.

I had less of an issue with this young lady’s jobs because they still had a bit of “softness” left.

For one thing, any professional would call it suicide for a VIP like her to meet someone like me face-to-face rather than using a middleman. It almost made me pity her that she had no aide loyal enough to stop her.

“What is the job?”

“Read this.”

The girl slid an envelope filled with documents toward me. I was still standing, so I stepped on the envelope as it slid along the tatami mats and then kicked it up. When I checked on the contents, I also found several pictures and a map with some marks on it.

“Shirakido City?”

“It is a rural city in Shinshu. The name is gone due to consolidations, but the area was one known as Ubasute Village. In fact, not even the original buildings of that village remain.”

“Yeah, the map only shows a dam.”

“That dam is set to be demolished,” said the girl softly. “The dam was constructed to develop the land for a normal rural city rather than an Intellectual Village. The old and extremely depopulated village ended up underwater. Anyway, it seems the recent fall of an influential person had an effect on the local government.”

“So they’re destroying the dam and restoring the sunken village?”

“Those in favor of turning it into an Intellectual Village have been quite active. We have no intention of interfering with that, but we fear that the process of restoration could bring something out from the depths of the water. Something that must not see the light of day.”

“You mean a Youkai?”

“Yes, and on a level that requires the involvement of Hyakki Yakou.”

Does that mean the Public Security Intelligence Agency has already gotten involved and suffered losses? They can be prideful, so they must have lost at least 4 or 5 men to be willing to ask Hyakki Yakou for help.

As I thought, the girl created a very serious mood.

“We need you to determine the details and then eliminate the threat if necessary.”

“Will you take care of any necessary expenses?”

“We will.”

The girl’s voice grew stiff.

When I said “necessary expenses”, I was not referring to money. I was asking if I could get unrelated people involved in order to approach the core of the case.

I had no intention of being sloppy enough to leave behind any trace of my involvement, but having some insurance in case I did took a large burden off my mind.

And that meant I had one more thing I had to check on.

“This job includes reconnaissance and destruction. Can the necessary expenses begin in the reconnaissance part of the job? If so, it is possible some of those expenses will only lead to dead ends.”

“I was prepared for that from the moment I decided to hire someone outside of the organization.”

“Excellent.”

She had the cutest responses.

I knew it put a burden on her, but I couldn’t help but do it sometimes.

I threw the envelope of documents back at the girl and turned around.

“Do you not need the documents?”

“I have already memorized them.”

I left the tearoom.

Antiquated design. An old-fashioned interior. A strange stillness. Everything about the place created an atmosphere that Youkai would like. I walked through an area like that and headed outside.

What I exited was not a Japanese house you would expect to find a Zashiki Warashi living in.

It was a giant V-shaped flying wing that was reminiscent of a stealth bomber. That large passenger plane was the highest-class aircraft available for personal ownership and it was that girl’s mobile base.

Amazingly, she also had eight generation 4.5 and generation 5 escort fighters, two large transport planes filled with the equipment and materials needed to maintain them, and a single aerial refueling craft. The flying wing had an antenna on top that looked like a giant plate and it could function on the level as any airborne warning and control aircraft, so she could break through territory controlled by a small air force if necessary. If its armaments were changed out, it could probably carry out a bombing mission.

“The fighters have to remain up above the clouds with the slow-moving flying wing for long periods at a time, so I heard they installed kitchens and bathrooms on the fighters. I wonder if that’s true.”

Officially, a group of instructors from a flight school that hired retired pilots had been brought in to test out the latest models from aerospace defense companies, but it must have required a lot of influence to force that explanation through. Those fighters were masses of national secrets, so it was not normal to let someone land them and their maintenance parts and equipment at airports around the world regardless of whether the airport belonged to an allied nation or not. In other words, Hyakki Yakou had enough trust or threat of violence to silence the complaints of a developed nation with nothing but a glance.

However…

“How sad,” I muttered as I walked down the stairs and onto the runway of the bayside international airport. “Spending so much money on something like this just tells everyone you would be in too much danger if you remained in one place.”

Part 2

I was within mountains covered in conifer trees. You know, the type of mountains you can find anywhere. It was the type of rural area that earned many a hateful gaze because of all the cedar allergies it would surely cause every spring. I was driving through it in a rental car I had borrowed under a false name.

I was headed for a run-down pension.

It was all an attempt to not stand out, but the unfashionable cars and lodging I always had to choose were difficult to put up with. It may have been in response to that kind of camouflage that, in their time off, hit men and spies wore showy outfits that looked like your average person dreaming of being someone from a movie.

When I arrived at my room, I did a sweep for cameras or bugs and then tossed my small bag onto the bed. I opened a case and pulled out some makeup equipment. I then opened a small hidden space and assembled the nonmetallic parts hidden within.

I ended up with a handgun small enough to fit in my palm and a suppressor that looked about three times as big. I was aware the suppressor completely ignored the small size of the actual gun.

That was when a child-like voice called out from below.

“Quite a strange piece of equipment you have there.”

“Reality doesn’t work like a Hollywood movie. Simply adding a suppressor to the barrel is not enough to completely silence the gunshot. The caliber was brought down this low in an attempt to keep it as quiet as possible.”

“And is that really necessary?”

“How should I know? It’s my job to investigate and find out. But it’s best to have it around if 100% safety cannot be guaranteed. Not that I’ve ever been in such a situation before.”

If you were in a situation where you had to rely on something like that in Japan, you had more or less lost already.

It was important to only begin a fight once you had prepared an environment where you did not need something like that.

“Shirakido City is…or rather, the ruins of Ubasute Village are 5 kilometers from here. This whole thing seems suspicious, so be careful,” said the voice.

“…One question.”

I hid the small handgun and the suppressor in my boot. My boots were like a type of trick art. There was a difference between how they looked and how much space there actually was. I was dressed like a stupid tourist with a tank top and hot pants on. The outfit was fairly revealing, so it had few places to hide a weapon.

At any rate, I lowered my gaze.

I lowered it down to the level of the voice I had been hearing.

This was not just at a child’s height. I could not have spoken from that height without pressing my cheek flat against the floor.

“What are you?”

“What do you mean, what am I? I am a Sunekosuri. I am a Youkai. Have you never heard of a Sunekosuri?”

“You look like a small dog.”

“I am a Youkai that looks like a small dog.”

I knew that much, but my question was as to why the young lady of Hyakki Yakou would send something like that to me. I cast a doubtful look down toward the canine Youkai that was already wrapping around my ankle.

“What can you do as a Youkai?”

“That is not something I expected to hear from an agent even if you are a free one. A Sunekosuri rubs its cheek up against the shins of travelers. Like this: Rub, rub.”

“What else?”

“That’s all.”

“Do you have the ability to steal the life energy of those travelers so they collapse or to send their sense of direction out of whack so they are suddenly headed in the wrong direction?”

“Please do not think that every Youkai in the world has some cool and useful ability.”

That was when I snapped.

“Oh, I can’t stand it!! You’re just so damn cute!!”

“Eee!? W-wait a second!! Don’t pick me up! I am called a Sunekosuri because I rub against shins! If you make me rub against your cheek, I will become a different kind of Youkai!!”

“Okay, okay. Then I’ll make you into a Paizuri Youkai.”

“Let’s go with the cheek as a compromise! I have my dignity!! If I started being called by that name, I would seriously consider suicide!!”

I continued loving on the canine Youkai for a bit as he protested with every hair on his body standing on end. Afterwards, I straightened out my hair and tank top that were both covered in puppy fur.

“Okay, now that I’m refreshed, it’s about time I headed to the ruins of Ubasute Village.”

“…Heh…heh heh. Well done weakening a real Youkai in just a few minutes. I can see why Hyakki Yakou does business with you…”

And so I left the unfashionable pension, got in the unfashionable rental car, and headed for the unfashionable ruins.

The sloping ground around the winding mountain road was covered in cedar trees. The annoying cries of cicadas and mating calls of wild birds grew louder and I became wrapped in the boring atmosphere of the countryside.

“That must be the dam…It’s ruins, too?”

“Both the village and the dam are ruins, so it can get a bit confusing.”

I stopped the car in a small space along the mountain road that was meant for attaching chains to the tires. From there, I observed things from afar.

A giant concrete construction stood between two mountains. That was the dam. However, the massive amount of water it was supposed to be holding was gone. At the bottom of the empty reservoir were several half-rotten Japanese houses.

“They’re really thinking about restoring that? The foundations and central pillars have gone soft. And the roofs and walls are gone.”

“They were thatch roofs and mud walls, so it isn’t surprising that submerging the houses underwater did away with them.”

Not much time must have passed since the water had been removed because the ground was still muddy. It was a dark mud. The roads must have been paved before the area became the bottom of a dam reservoir, but you could no longer tell which parts were the ground and which parts were the road. Everything was completely covered in mud.

Several vehicles were parked around those constructions that were hard to call either ruins or simply abandoned. A family 4-door car was surrounded by construction equipment.

I pulled out a pair of binoculars and checked the face of the car’s owner.

“That must be a scholar staring at that diagram. To go that far, it looks more like they’re investigating an ancient kofun tomb than restoring an old village.”

“I wonder why they are so insistent to restore that village? There is no sign of the old residents returning.”

“With Intellectual Villages, it isn’t always logical. You could call it a religion that worships the rural or a sect that reveres nature. They are put together by those who wish to find value that exceeds any scientific findings.”

“?”

“Basically, it’s a collection of those thoughts along the lines of ‘things weren’t like this in the old days’ or ‘everything would be perfect if we could go back to how it used to be’. Of course, rural areas are not void of problems and there were crimes and social problems in the times people refer to as the ‘old days’. These people have the ability to forget everything inconvenient to their belief.”

“But is that all they are after? If so, I doubt Hyakki Yakou would have called you in.”

“That is what I need to investigate.”

“What if this is related to some deadly Youkai?”

“Mummies are sold at auctions. I hear oni and mermaids can get crazy high prices. I wonder why humans love making medicines out of Youkai so much.”

“…You agents are scary…”

The Sunekosuri began trembling, but I did not have time to pay it any heed. My instincts wanted me to rub him against my face and roll around with him, but I had to find a clue of where to start before the sun set.

“If Hyakki Yakou is taking action, this must be more than a simple Package.”

“Are you going to carry out some old-fashioned investigation? Y’know, keeping an eye on what they do and listening as they chat inside of restaurants. The information you get might be fairly random, though.”

“I haven’t seen a restaurant yet, so the only meal options might be catered bentos and food at the inn. I have a faster method.”

“Wh-what is with that daring smile?”

“I just need to tear down these stable circumstances.”

Notes

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