Internet Shrine Maiden Tsugumi-chan:Volume1 Epilogue

Epilogue: Malign Spirits Emerging from the Past @ New Sea City

More than 500km from New Sea City, in Kagurazaka, Tokyo.

More specifically, in a traditional Japanese restaurant.

They were not politicians. But as long as they remained in the restaurant, they could learn what was happening in a wide variety of countries. None of it was allowed outside the restaurant, but they were allowed to freely gather, organize, and make use of it while inside the restaurant.

That was their purpose as the restaurant’s managers.

High-risk cabinet meetings that had to be kept secret would be held in Nagatacho’s Cabinet Dark Room, but the high level of security meant foreign VIPs could not be invited there. Somewhere else was necessary. That limited it to meetings with other countries, but the restaurant was skillfully compartmentalized.

And that restaurant was fully managed as a space for meetings and discussions capable of directly influencing international politics. That naturally increased its influence.

(Things inside the country are looking a lot worse than outside.)

Someone breathed a short sigh in a space where only sanitized words could be found.

National Top Priority Case #015: The Nagatacho Leaders Case. …Using that name instead of the Cabinet Dark Room Case had kept knowledge of that room’s name and function from spreading, but no one in the political world could rest easy. The civilian mass media was one thing, but other countries’ intelligence agencies and analysis divisions would be gathering fragments of information. Because even the smallest amount of doubt remained that there was an intelligence risk, the Cabinet Dark Room was already losing its value even after the repairs were completed a few years after the incident.

Walls have ears. When using a room in the restaurant, you could occasionally hear those rumors on the other side of the thin Japanese paper barriers. And it was the foreign VIPs who would bring them up first.

“Let’s discuss New Sea City.”

This was in the kitchen at the very heart of the restaurant.

Not even current Diet members were allowed in that holy ground.

The only people there were a mismatched pair: an elderly man in a kimono and a blonde-eyed, blue-eyed woman in a tight skirt suit.

“Word of the Threat Scapegoat was leaked through mass media, but I still didn’t expect it to fizzle out on its own like that. I expected at least one of the two pursuing the two cases to die.”

“This proves that we can control things from here. So there’s that silver lining at least.”

“There is no silver lining here.”

“My apologies. My job is to provide damage control and attempt a recovery when a problem occurs.”

This was their usual back-and-forth. The woman made sure he did not expect a clever response from her. She did not make him go to the extra effort. Was that part of what she called “damage control”?

“…The plan was perfect.”

“Perhaps.”

“This bothers me. The way we set it up, at least one of the two should have died.”

“But, sir. They both survived, so we have no choice but to accept the result and attempt a recovery.”

The manager considered this in silence before responding.

“Could someone have given them a hint?”

Even if that were so, far too many people’s interests were tangled up in this. Including the bottom-rung workers, New Sea City was a national project involving tens of thousands. There was no way to identify the culprit right away.

The conditions tormenting the online shrine maiden were affecting these two as well.

Perhaps it was their own fault. The manager smiled thinly.

“At any rate, we must continue to keep an eye on them. We can control them, but only so long as they do not notice our actions.”

“Yes, sir.”

The secretary woman kept her head bowed deeply until the manager left. Then she raised it again.

Her slender fingers operated her phone.

She logged in to an online shrine site. She selected a nine-tailed fox avatar and entered the chat section.

The fox tail strap attached to the corner of her phone’s cover shook from the motion.

The tight skirt suit woman whispered to herself.

As if mocking the manager who thought he knew all.

“The plan is perfect, sir.”

The thick darkness was swept away.

By flames.

Pure white burial garb was enveloped in fearsome hellfire, but still she laughed.

The worst and most fearsome of the Malign Spirits, Hibashi-sama, was there even now.

They had returned to the usual detective agency.

It didn’t seem real that they were back.

The detective was apparently trying to reproduce a luxury coffee flavor with nothing but cheap products.

“Why do you shop at that bulk supermarket when you live alone? Now you have a ton leftover and you’re going to get tired of those beans long before you finish them.”

“Roasting them in a frying pan changes the flavor and I can even mix in some instant powder if need be.”

The online shrine maiden sighed softly as she accepted a mug in her hands.

…Seeing his poor lifestyle was actually a relief for Tsumugi. Because it told her Detective Hisame Kouga was not an otherworldly superhuman. He was a fellow human being with small but ordinary flaws and weaknesses.

“Tsumugi? Do you not like it? Maybe this one was a little too sour. That might be from the instant powder…”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

He could feel concern over these little things. From beginning to end, he hadn’t changed at all.

After taking a sip, she stuck her tongue out to protest how hot it was, but then she gave him a look that said to get down to business.

Hisame Kouga held a mug in one hand and rested his weight on the desk instead of the chair.

“The Malign Spirits appear to be boosting each other’s strength.”

That was the sense he had gotten during his brief time working with Hasshaku-sama.

This was new information because Tsumugi had only ever thought about destroying the Malign Spirits.

“Boosting each other?”

Still standing, Tsumugi tilted her head and Hisame Kouga nodded.

“Calling it a resonance may be the best term. It’s not a hierarchical thing. It’s like equal beings boosting each other.”

This was the first she had heard of this.

The online shrine maiden blew on her mug a few times and asked a careful question.

“…So I can’t defeat Hibashi-sama now, but if I defeat the other Malign Spirits in New Sea City, it would weaken the resonance and lower Hibashi-sama’s strength?”

“Maybe.”

The detective pulled some chocolate out of the fridge.

With a cocoa content of more than 80%, the chocolate acted like a cardiac stimulant and wasn’t sweet at all.

It too was cheap, but he likely wanted to add a piece to his coffee for flavor.

“Malign Spirits are rare enough that we don’t have a very large sample size to work with, but I’ve never heard of a resonance between them before.”

“Hibashi-sama herself has been spoken of since ancient times. She’s supposedly behind all fire-based disasters from the Honnouji Incident to the Great Kantou Earthquake.”

“This phenomenon has never been seen before, so it can’t be a trait of Hibashi-sama herself.”

“Then what is it?”

“Something else is causing it. Maybe the location?”

They fell silent.

New Sea City was a brand-new city built less than three years ago.

“…If someone set this up, who do you think it would be?”

“Tsumugi, look at this on a larger scale. Who was it that constructed this collection of megafloats in the ocean more than 500km south of Tokyo?”

Hisame Kouga placed a thick stack of papers on the desk.

The stack of printed pages had a cover page: National Top Priority Case #015: The Nagatacho Leaders Case.

“The day of the incident, the main topic of discussion in the Cabinet Dark Room was a bill related to reforming the capital.”

“…”

“The question was whether or not to give the green light for constructing New Sea City. But an unprecedented incident ended the cabinet’s discussion early, the damage spread widely across Nagatacho, which is the center of the national government, and the Diet didn’t return to session until more than 40 days later. It was a highly abnormal event even when looking at all of modern history. And the construction had begun before the unexplained chaos had died down. Without any official approval. Who gave the small snowball the first push sending it down the snowy mountain? Three years have passed since the city’s completion and still we don’t know.”

There was something there.

Even a youth walking by the train station could tell you that much.

And the time had come to dig deeper into what exactly that something was.

“Do you know what the last job the Kagebarai Tanebi Shrine accepted was?” asked Tsumugi. “Purifying a construction site. The plan was to pray for the safe construction of New Sea City and placate the local god. From a boat.”

“…Yeah.”

“But it never happened. No, some unknown person took over the job for us, so they would have had a chance to set up something paranormal that would affect the entire city. You knew that, which is why you took me in. As the only surviving shrine maiden. Your nose didn’t fail you there. This is all linked together.”

A human culprit had unleashed Hibashi-sama to burn down the Kagebarai Tanebi Shrine.

The full scope of National Top Priority Case #015: The Nagatacho Leaders Case still hadn’t been revealed.

These two, who each carried a great darkness, exchanged a glance.

They were finally taking their first true step forward.

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