Editing The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Volume2 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 3===

The Sunekosuri trembled in fear.

Nevertheless, I swung the baby-sized rock down onto the head of the man with a camera hanging from his neck. He had been simple to spot with the suspicious mannerisms only a pro could spot.

“Okay, that’s 7 of them. I’d say this is a decent attempt to make it look like a large rock fell on him from that stone wall. Not a bad job at all. People really shine when they put in enough effort to work up a sweat.”

After disguising the circumstances, I took the poor victim’s cell phone and searched for personal information. Of course, if he was in the same situation as me, he would not have acquired any important data yet, and someone with any sense would not bring any private information to this sort of workplace.

Once I was done, I returned the phone to the corpse’s pocket and the Sunekosuri spoke up in a trembling voice.

“Wh-why…Why do people like you never try to work together to defeat the evil demon king?”

“Because we are all each other’s enemies.”

Plus, I had never before seen a boss of pure, unadulterated evil.

It was our job to kill them regardless.

“Not only can I not see what Akki Rasetsu is up to here, but I have to worry about another free agent stabbing me in the side. I need to complete some basic preparations before getting down to work.”

If possible, I would have liked to kill all of them, but I did not know how many of them there were. I had taken out a decent number, so I figured it was about time to turn towards Akki Rasetsu.

“U-umm, what are you going to do now?” The Sunekosuri looked up at me. “Unlike other Intellectual villages, Kyoto is gigantic. It seems it would be considerably harder to find an organization hiding here than in a small village.”

“It’s simple, it’s simple. I just have to find a starting point.”

“?”

I crouched down and wrapped an arm around the Sunekosuri to begin speaking privately.

I whispered, “Whether it’s a giant city or a small village, the first step is to gather the phone calls and emails being sent around. The technology used isn’t all that high level.”

“I-I see. But wouldn’t people like this encrypt their communications?”

“Of course. But would people making normal phone calls or sending normal emails use high level encryption? Think about it in reverse. The ones encrypting their communications are the first to suspect. If I start there, it shouldn’t be hard to run into Akki Rasetsu. But then,” I paused for a second, “Akki Rasetsu will know this. And so they will use encryption software to send decoy data all over the place. They can just use the programs for wangiri calls or spam emails to send out a whole bunch. They send out blank messages that would take hours to decrypt and have them endlessly loop through servers throughout the city.”

“Then how do you distinguish the real ones from the decoys?”

“I search on foot.”

I stuck my hand into the small pink handbag I was carrying over my shoulder.

The Sunekosuri must have been expecting a handgun because his entire body flinched.

“Huh? A video camera?”

“This alone isn’t enough to find Akki Rasetsu within the crowds.” I pressed a switch on the video camera to begin recording mode. “But when people acquire a fake name and identity, they must also prepare a new driver’s license. Those driver’s licenses have an IC chip in them. The IC chips give out information when brought near a certain device just like train passes at the automatic turnstiles at a subway station.”

The Sunekosuri still did not seem to understand, but I was wonderfully pretty in my willingness to patiently explain it all to him.

“If you up the output of the card reader next to a convenience store register, you can check the data on all the cards around you. I have a strengthened reader in my handbag.”

“O-oh.”

“So when I approach the target, it will suck out the information from the IC chip in their driver’s license. Ones that’s data has been illegally altered will leave traces of that in the code. If I find someone with that sort of suspicious license at one of the places sending out encrypted data, I have reason to be very suspicious of that person. Then again, it’s possible some group other than Akki Rasetsu is hiding here, so I will need to do some additional investigation afterwards.”

“W-will this really lead you to them so easily?”

“The strengthened reader can only read IC chips from a range of a meter. If I use the footage from the video camera along with the time the data was sucked out, I can probably narrow my target down to about 10 people. Then I just need to investigate those people. One of them will be the man using the false identity.”

To put it simply, I would be using the video camera and strengthened reader to search out someone working in some shady business.

And so I had to wander around Kyoto.

I spent over three hours going from Gion to Kawaramachi, cutting down Shijou Street, and finally walking around the Katsura Imperial Villa.

Everywhere I went was filled with tourists.

I wonder why foreigners like dressing up as samurai so much. If a Japanese person went to Europe and were asked if they wanted to dress up as a prince, I think they would refuse.

After gathering a certain amount of data, I boarded the subway and returned to the inn.

Just to be sure, I checked for bugs upon returning and then began comparing the video footage and the card data taken from passersby.

“Here, here, here, and here too. There are a lot of suspicious people in this city.”

“A-are they all from Akki Rasetsu?”

“Characteristic traces are left in the driver’s license IC chip data. The ones with the same traces are probably all from the same organization. Let’s see, let’s see, let’s see. There are 4 patterns here.”

“Kyoto really is a city of Youkai, isn’t it?”

“Yes. And that means plenty of shady organizations gather here.”

“How are you going to find Akki Rasetsu from this?”

“I’ll look into each of the 4 patterns. Okay, this is the encrypted communications data flying around near these suspicious people. I just have to decrypt it and…boom! Found it!!”

“H-how did you do that so easily?”

“If each email or phone call took hours to encrypt, they could never get any work done. Even if the security is strict to begin with, the people on the scene will soon find ways to simplify things to make them easier to use.”

Normally, this kind of simplified encrypted data would have numerical traps woven in that could never be solved such as pi. I had no idea how skilled these groups were, but the organizations based in Kyoto tended to do poorly when it came to intelligence issues.

I sifted through the data based on what I had found.

“Pattern 1 is a small revenge-for-hire group, Pattern 2 is ''a large criminal organization'' selling weapons, and Pattern 3 is an Urashima group that wishes to be taken to paradise.”

“So is it Pattern 4?”

“Yes, that’s Akki Rasetsu.”

I double-checked the faces of the people I had picked up with my video camera and compared them to the fake names and photos from the driver’s licenses. I then checked the lodging information at the inn to see if any rooms were rented out under those names.

Then all I had to do was cast my net across the inn’s phone lines and any nearby Wi-Fi routers to easily gather Akki Rasetsu’s encrypted communications data.

I headed out to take care of that work and returned to my room once I was done.

“Oh. I already found something.”

“Did you already find data related to Akki Rasetsu’s headquarters or the details of their project?”

“It’s nothing that great. These are just subcontractors, so they might not have been told any of those details.”

As I spoke, I compiled the fragmentary information I had acquired from multiple phone calls and emails.

“It seems they are secretly monitoring a girl by the name of Amemura Ryuu. She’s clearly involved somehow with Akki Rasetsu’s project.”

“Do you know who this Amemura Ryuu girl is?”

“I’m checking on that now.” It was all going so well I felt like whistling. “She lives in Kyoto. She’s 11 years old. She’s female. She attends a local elementary school and her grades are above average. She has violin lessons on Wednesdays and dance lessons on Mondays and Fridays. No records of serious illness. She has slight atopic allergies and has issues with ticks. She has received the flu vaccine this year. She has a filling in one of her right back teeth from a cavity treatment. Her father is a stay at home dad and her mother is the secretary for the president of an assembly of small- to mid-sized corporations known as the United Hive. Her personality is shy and reserved but very curious. She has to think about it for a moment before agreeing to be someone’s friend.”

“H-how did you find all that information?”

“The residence registry, electronic medical records, and school grade reports are all kept in the cloud. If you have decent skills, you can gather all that information as easily as surfing the net.”

But that meant I had no way of determining things handled directly such as the amount of allowance she received.

“And this beloved daughter has a child’s cell phone with an alarm function. …GPS functionality can be both good and bad. If you steal the identification code, someone like me can determine her location.”

“…Wow.”

“Okay, let’s go make friends with Amemura Ryuu-chan who seems to be deeply related to this project.”

I left the inn and walked through the cityscape that seemed to turn the idea of Japan into nothing but a tourist attraction.

The foreigners in kimonos and ninja outfits stood out like sore thumbs as I walked along the unpaved road. I walked slowly and casually through the streets while obeying the traffic lights that were made to be quickly removed when a period drama was being filmed.

“But why has this Amemura Ryuu girl been marked by these shady people?”

“That is what we’re trying to find out. Youkai that only children can see are quite popular, so it might be related to that.”

But it seemed a bit odd that they had not abducted her if she was so deeply related to the project.

“Um, how are you going to approach her? She is a small child. She will probably treat adults like us as outsiders.”

“I have an idea. …But come to think of it, Sunekosuri, you could probably just run up to her given how you look.”

“Do not make fun of me! How can you say that about a dandy like me!?”

As we spoke, we approached within 50 meters of Amemura Ryuu-chan’s location. She was inside a children’s park that did not fit in with the period drama roads. Kyoto went to great lengths with its scenery, but it seemed they could not eliminate things like this and the traffic lights from before.

Just as I took one step into the park…

I felt an unpleasant feeling run down my spine. I could instinctually tell that something bad was about to happen. This was the same sort of premonition that anyone had, but oftentimes these situations were set up so it was too late by the time you felt that premonition.

“? What is it?”

“…Oh, I get it.”

The Sunekosuri was unable to understand the situation with his limited information.

Three or four children were gathered at a covered bench in the park. They were playing handheld game systems rather than on the playground equipment. I doubted kids these days would want to play out in the hot sun, so they had likely done so reluctantly to avoid their parents who always yelled at them for doing nothing but play video games.

And…

The girl named Amemura Ryuu was not among them.

However, the kid’s cell phone GPS signal was still pointing to this park.

Which meant…

“Not good! Someone swapped out the ID code of the signal!”

I did not have time to check my surroundings.

An agile kick suddenly flew at my side.

“Bfh!?”

The kick had not been intended to do damage; it had likely been meant to put pressure on my diaphragm to keep me from crying out and to knock me into a nearby thicket. Someone quickly moved to climb on top of me after I was knocked behind cover.

My hand instinctually reached for my boot.

I pulled out my small suppressor-equipped handgun.

''Shit. By the time I grab this, I’ve 80% lost!!

As expected, the attacker swung up an arm before I could take aim with the handgun. Something long and narrow was held in that hand. I would have laughed out loud had it been a knife, but it was not. The object held between the index and middle finger was…

''A magical charm!?

“…!!”

I pulled the trigger without aiming. I thought I would hit the attacker somewhere on the torso, but not even one of my three shots hit. Even at such close range, my arm was shaking too much to aim properly.

I could tell something was eating into my body.

''This is…illness magic?

''Illness magic!?

“Damn you. I had heard you disappeared after the coup d’etat in Hyakki Yakou, but what are you doing-…ghbgbh!?”

My mouth filled with dark red blood before I could finish speaking.

''Not good. This deadly illness is beginning to spread throughout my entire body!!

This was just about the worst opponent for me. I could not defeat him in a head on fight. After all, he was the type powerful enough that the most difficult thing for him was ''keeping the damage of his attacks from spreading too far.'' And yet he had kicked me behind this thicket before attacking. He must not have wanted to do anything that stood out too much.

In that case…

I gathered strength in the hand holding my small suppressor-equipped handgun. However, aiming it at my attacker would do no good. As such, I held my arm out horizontally while lying on my back. I placed my arm along the ground to keep it from trembling, peered through the sight, and somehow managed to take aim.

I took aim at the forehead of the Sunekosuri nervously looking our way.

And I pulled the trigger.

“Gyahn!? By-byaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The bullet struck the Sunekosuri in the face and he began writhing around on the ground.

He let out a scream as loud as a police car’s siren, but as a Youkai, he did not seem to have lost a single drop of blood.

“…Tch.”

That was the first I heard of the attacker’s voice.

The illness magic left my body. I stopped coughing up blood.

The attacker quickly moved away from me and tried to flee, but I used what weak strength I had left to grab his arm.

I would lose in a straight fight here, but I would never know when he might attack again if I let him go.

And so I needed to finish this. But by using some method ''other than violence.

Meanwhile, the children who had been playing handheld games approached the Sunekosuri.

“What is it? What is it?”

“Are you okay? Did someone draw eyebrows on you?”

“This isn’t a dog. I think it’s a Youkai.”

If the children saw us, we would kill them.

The Sunekosuri knew the etiquette of those like us, so he ran off in the opposite direction with tears in his eyes in order to draw the children’s attention.

Meanwhile, I spoke to the attacker.

He was one of the five most powerful official members of Hyakki Yakou.

He was the man known as the Illness Magic User.

“…Cough, cough. Were you the one who swapped out the GPS ID code?”

“What if I was?”

''Thank goodness.

If he had decided to simply kill me, it would have all been over. I was truly grateful.

He was likely trying to work out if I had an ulterior motive just as I was of him.

When the gloomy Illness Magic was not wrapped around him, he could be seen wearing a black combat outfit like a SWAT member. He carried countless magic charms instead of countless magazines. He had been walking around dressed like that in Kyoto where cameras were everywhere, so it must not have seemed too strange to people. I wondered if people assumed it was some form of cosplay since this was a tourist area.

He had a muscular body and short hair that was easy to wash. However, his face was very gloomy. It made him look like he himself was wasting away due to some illness.

“So you set up this trap to hunt down anyone trying to find Amemura Ryuu. Who do you work for now? Hyakki Yakou? Or Akki Rasetsu?”

“I am a free agent.”

“So you knew the order came from Hyakki Yakou and decided to go along with the charade, is that it?”

He had sided with the rebel faction that had caused that coup d’etat because he had thought it was best for Hyakki Yakou as a whole. Even though the coup d’etat had failed, he was likely still working to help the organization.

Really now.

And he had even tried to claim he had been acting out of logic rather than emotion.

Then again, I doubted the Illness Magic User would be allowed back into the organization so easily after what he had done.

He was probably trying to indirectly obey Hyakki Yakou’s orders by taking their jobs as a free agent.

He specialized in great destruction in a straight fight and he was loyal to a single organization through and through. He may have thought he was a samurai or something. He was heading down the path of the defeated samurai while I was more like a ninja, so we simply did not get along.

“So I take it your enemy is Akki Rasetsu. In that case, we have no reason to kill each other.”

“That is no reason to let you live either.”

“Stop it. Disposing of the body would be a pain. This has been going well so far, but that is only because those kids were so focused on their games they weren’t paying attention to their surroundings. After the Sunekosuri made such a racket, do you really think you can carry a body out without them noticing? And you were the one who got those children involved, I might add.”

I heard him click his tongue.

He really was the samurai type that always walked the proper path.

If it was me, I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill my enemy.

“Since you set your trap around her, am I right in assuming you are trying to find Akki Rasetsu’s headquarters from one of their agent’s hanging around her rather than from Amemura Ryuu-chan herself?”

“Someone who looks like me approaching a child would become a major incident.”

''I see.

''So he is aware how grim he looks.

He was, after all, a pure combat-obsessed idiot who would kill thousands or even tens of thousands to carry out his mission. He would cut out any waste or gentleness from his plans. Not even a soldier from ''a large criminal organization'' would be able to look him in the eye, much less a child.

“However, you have found no useful information, so you’ve been forced to continue laying traps, right? I’d say there is no way of approaching Akki Rasetsu’s project other than making contact with Amemura Ryuu-chan.”

“Are you saying you can manage that?”

“I’m an expert at that. Just watch. I don’t like being indebted to anyone, so I’ll share my information with you just this once to make up for sparing my life here.”

I reflected sunlight off the body of my cell phone to give a sign to the Sunekosuri and then I left the children’s park.

Walking with the Illness Magic User would make me stand out, but I had no choice. I bought a wide-brimmed cowboy hat from a nearby souvenir shop and put it on.

“…What are you doing?”

“I’m Hatman, you idiot. Most security cameras are located above. Wearing a wide-brimmed hat like this will at least keep my face from being recorded.”

The Illness Magic User’s magic charms did not fall under the Swords and Firearms Control Law, so he had no reason to be afraid of police questioning. Also, that samurai would face anyone head on, so he never tried to hide who he was. But the situation seemed quite fatal to a scout and spy like myself!!

As we walked, the Sunekosuri approached while weaving between people’s legs in the crowd.

''Ahh, if he can head for us that directly, we must really stand out. Sob.

“H-how could you do that!? How could you suddenly shoot a person in the head with a real bullet!? That is completely unacceptable!! Woof woof!!”

“Shoot ‘a person’ in the head? …But you’re a dog, right? Well, a canine Youkai.”

“Is that really the first thing you have to say!?”

“Sorry. I’ll listen to all your complaints in the inn’s bath.”

“Please don’t! And you aren’t sorry at all, are you!? Anyway, how far have things progressed?”

“Hishigami Mai-chan has leveled up! Illness Magic User-chan looks like he wants to join your party!!”

“Eh? I thought he had deserted Hyakki Yakou? Have you already made up with him?”

The instant the Sunekosuri asked that puzzled question, the Illness Magic User gave him one hell of a glare. The canine Youkai cowered down and began trembling.

“C’mon, stop that. Don’t scare such a pretty Youkai.”

“You shot me in the face!!”

“Can we get to the topic at hand?” asked the Illness Magic User disinterestedly. “To approach Akki Rasetsu’s project, we must approach Amemura Ryuu. But she is a minor who views someone even 1 year older as an outsider due to the school year system. She is also quite wary. How do we approach her?”

“We just have to satisfy a few conditions. You can just relax and watch a pro at work.”