The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Volume2 Chapter 1

Status: Incomplete

Chapter 1: Jinnai Shinobu @ Clock With a Different Gear

Part 1

Even though it was midsummer, the early morning air was cool. When you lived in an old Japanese-style house, the outside temperature had a large effect on the inside temperature. I lived in a giant thatch roof house that’s only advantages were its size and age. In one room of that house, I held the replacement for the smartphone that had been destroyed in the previous incident.

It had just arrived from the service center in an early morning delivery.

I lived in an Intellectual Village that created an extremely high class brand name out of the rural area so that grapes were 30,000 yen a bunch and the water flowing through a nearby river was 300 yen a liter. But to obtain the proper feeling of the rural, the area had few stores. For that reason, quite a few different services were handled via online shopping. The delivery companies tried to distinguish themselves by adding on various additional services such as having their trucks function as supermarket-like food carts in case people felt like making an additional purchase when their package was delivered.

At any rate…

It seemed my smartphone had not been repairable, so they had taken the data out of it, added it to a new phone, and sent me that. It was a different model, so the smartphone’s body seemed a bit thinner than the old one.

But getting a newer version wasn’t a bad thing.

My index finger operated all the basic apps to make sure it was working properly. As I did so, I used the digital camera to take a picture of my own face.

Just as it made an unnecessary shutter sound effect, I heard a whisper from the Zashiki Warashi (long black hair, red yukata, and an incredibly glamorous body) who had entered my room at some point.

“Catching a glimpse of your household’s narcissism is more disheartening than I thought it would be.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s just that the camera’s settings seem off.”

I really was being super kind to so thoroughly explain what was going on to that glamorous Zashiki Warashi that never gave any fortune to her household and instead lazed around talking about pointless crap.

“Look, there’s something wrong with how it gathers the light. It took the gleaming of my blond hair as the standard and now my skin color is way off.”

“Maybe you’re a special exception, Shinobu.”

“Maybe. Okay, Zashiki Warashi, give me an awkward smile.”

I casually pointed the smartphone at the indoor Youkai and pressed the shutter button on the screen using my index finger.

“See? It took the red of your yukata as the standard. Your skin looks really rough.”

“…”

“Maybe I can manually adjust the values in my profile. …What’s this? By setting the camera to video mode for about 5 seconds in each photographing environment, the focus regulator will automatically detect the ideal values? But I already did-…ow! What is it, Zashiki Warashi? Why are you kicking me in the shin? …Ow, that hurts!”

I ignored the Zashiki Warashi who had fallen silent for some reason and left my room.

Hmm… Maybe that room was a bad environment.

With that thought, I walked down the long passageway and took random pictures in the living room and on the porch, but I didn’t see any difference. It kept taking the places with the brightest light or color as the standard which caused the rest of the photo to look terrible.

“Hmm…”

I aimed the lens away from the 20 meter long porch and to the large yard lying beyond it.

I had a feeling the large yard would be a more difficult environment to handle than indoors, but whatever.

The yard was large enough to actually play tennis in, but it had a lot of harsh ups and downs, mossy garden stones and stone lanterns, and trees too thick for me to completely reach around. There wasn’t much usable space left over. The old neighborhood gardener would groan every time he saw the place, but I had no idea what value there was in it.

About half the yard was covered by tall tree branches and the sunlight poured down through the gaps in the leaves. For that reason, it had an incredibly harsh contrast between light and shadow. Plus, the wind was shaking the branches, making it all move around a lot. I seriously doubted the camera could take a beautiful photo with its settings so messed up.

And then I found something odd sitting in the middle of the yard.

It was a round plastic kiddie pool.

As I already said, while it was midsummer, it was also an early morning with briskly cool wind. Getting in a pool at this time would only cover one’s body with goose bumps, but there were exceptions.

This exception was a Yuki Onna with slightly bluish hair and the general appearance of a 13 year old.

She had previously been a component of a Package, a criminal tool that used the power of a Youkai, but as you can see, she was completely carefree now.

That Yuki Onna usually wore a whitish kimono, but she was wearing a school swimsuit today for some reason.

…Why?

For one thing, I was the only student in the house, so you would never find a swimsuit for a female student here no matter how hard you looked.

As the Yuki Onna sat within the chilly plastic pool, her eyes vaguely wandered through the sky.

“…Sigh. An open air bath is nice every once in a while.”

Apparently, she viewed it as a bath despite the temperature. Which begged the question of what she thought about the bathtub we usually soaked in. My grandfather insisted on keeping the temperature really high, so this might be why she insisted she would never get in after him.

I put on the beach sandals sitting on the porch and headed out into the yard.

I figured it would fail again, but I still casually pointed the camera’s lens at the Yuki Onna and took a photo.

Oh? It actually took a nice picture this time?

Hmm…What is going on???

“And an open air bath of course comes with peeping toms. Eh heh heh heh heh heh heh…”

“Oh, is that so? Well, it’s almost time for breakfast, so get to the altar room.”

In my household, the custom was for the family to eat in the living room and the Youkai to eat in the altar room. This was simply because those were the only places where everything could be set up, but once the meal began we would often move around and meet up. This meant the family and the Youkai often did eat together.

These days, the Zashiki Warashi and others tended to come to the living room, but I couldn’t remember how it used to be. I had a feeling I might have taken my dishes to join the Zashiki Warashi in the altar room.

Anyway, the Yuki Onna spoke while blankly staring up from the plastic pool.

“Oh, right. There are some apple sherbets inside the refrigerator. You can have one for dessert if you like…”

“? Did you buy them at the sweets shop?”

“…I am a Yuki Onna. I can make any fruit into sherbet. I can even do it with human flesh.”

“Hmm. Then I guess I’ll take one. Thanks.”

With that, I was about to leave, but for some reason the Yuki Onna twitched within the plastic pool and brought her small hands to her reddened cheeks.

“…F-flattering me like that will not get you anything other than my vagina!!”

“I don’t need that!!”

As I frantically tried to hold her in check, I heard another voice coming from up in one of the yard’s huge trees. What looked like a white cat was standing on one of the branches covering the sky overhead. But it had two tails. It was a Youkai known as a Nekomata.

“Honestly, what are you doing so early in the morning? You’re louder than the cicadas.”

“What’s wrong, Nekomata? Did you climb up into the tree but can’t get down?”

“Are you making fun of me?” asked the Nekomata before easily jumping out of the branch.

To my surprise, she landed on my right shoulder and then jumped down to the ground.

I aimed my smartphone’s lens at her and took a photo. The quality was better than the Zashiki Warashi’s but worse than the Yuki Onna’s. It seemed to be averaging out, but I had no idea what factors the quality was based on.

The Nekomata gently waved her two tails.

“The old woman said she could not sleep because the cicadas were too loud. I do not know if abnormal weather has caused some kind of change to the magnetic field or what, but those fools are singing even in the middle of the night. I made sure to get rid of some of them.”

“Hmm. I was so fast asleep I didn’t notice at-…Waahhh!!!??? There’s a huge pile of dead cicadas in the corner of the yard!”

The pile was about as large as a campfire. She must have been doing it for my granny’s sake, but it would be best if my granny didn’t see this while gardening. I decided to get a shovel and bury them after breakfast.

The Nekomata must have thought she had done a good deed because she proudly headed for the main entrance of the house.

“You had better not cause any trouble for the old lady either,” she said. “No matter how inept you are, surely you can at least do some weeding. We can’t have her out toiling under the sun.”

“Actually, grandpa and granny believe their health will deteriorate if they aren’t out working up a sweat every day. If you do the cleaning or weeding for them, they’ll actually get mad at you.”

“…Oh? Well, I suppose those two do look stronger than a weakling like you.”

It was true I knew I could never stand up to grandfather in a fistfight. The Zashiki Warashi seemed afraid of my dad, but my grandfather would clearly be the more painful opponent. I couldn’t exactly imagine my grandmother ever punching anyone, but she could easily carry around the laundry basket at her age. If she got serious, she could probably draw out quite a bit of strength.

“Hey, wait, wait, Nekomata. Don’t just go in. When you come in from outside, you’re supposed to wipe your paws off with a cloth, remember? In fact, is there really any point in you having our house as your home base? It’s not the same as with the Yuki Onna who uses the cold room we use for tsukemono.”

“That’s just a needless annoyance. In our world, this is normal.”

“I thought you didn’t want to cause any trouble for my granny?”

The Nekomata fell silent.

Hmm, I might have found a way to control her.

I picked up the obedient white feline Youkai and wiped her paws off with a cloth lying on top of the shoe shelf in the entrance.

And then the dripping wet Yuki Onna approached me from behind.

“…Wipe me off too. Make sure to get into every last unspeakable nook and cranny. Heh heh heh heh heh.”

“This cloth is too small, so just give it up.”

Part 11

Back to Illustrations

Return to Main Page

Forward to Chapter 2