Editing The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village:Volume5 Side B (section)

===Part 22 (Jinnai Shinobu  — Day 10/03 23:45 - 23:58)===

I could only watch.

Hishigami Mai’s body tilted. She had taken several bullets to the back and she was limply collapsing to the ground. Only after seeing that definite loss of life did I realize she too was a human just like the rest of us.

She could fail and she could make mistakes.

No matter how much she showed off and how full of herself she was, there was no guarantee she could keep her promises.

“It’s over now,” said the miniskirt maid, far too easily. “Didn’t I tell you? Whether you do anything or not is your decision, but it will not change the outcome.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

It was no use.

How was I supposed to fight this?

I wouldn’t have stood a chance against someone with a normal gun, yet this woman was using a Youkai power and had overwhelmingly defeated even Hishigami Mai. What could a normal high school boy do against a true monster like that?

“Once I have you, I can overclock the Amanojaku.”

She slowly but surely walked toward me.

“That will correct the twisted path and return everything to normal. We will be able to reach the blue light for your sake and for your country’s sake.”

Was it all over?

I could not stop the CIA. They would misuse the Usuhiki Warashi Package, spread fear around the globe concerning the exported Japanese financial systems, place all of the blame on Japan, and buy Japan at a vastly reduced price while claiming to be assisting its recovery. Was this leading to that future?

I just about gave up, but then some oddly muffled gunshots were directed toward the maid’s back.

“…?”

“''You showed your back, didn’t you?''”

I heard a voice.

It came from Hishigami Mai who was collapsed on the slope. At some point, a small handgun with a suppressor attached had appeared in her hand.

“You can connect all ‘paths’ and manipulate their encounter rate, but for some strange reason, you never showed your back. Yet if you could simply determine my attacks wouldn’t hit, that shouldn’t have mattered.”

The maid slowly turned around.

It didn’t seem Mai could get up, but she showed no sign of caring.

“That means your back is the exception. Wasn’t that your Achilles’ heel? The Ubume is said to be a collection of the women who died in childbirth and their persistent desire to at least protect their child. An Ubume cannot exist as just an Ubume. There must always be a symbol of the child. They ask a passerby to hold their baby and kill them by the baby’s ever-increasing weight, but it’s said they leave and stop trying to kill the victim if they sense any danger to the baby.”

“You…mean…?” I muttered without thinking.

Mai responded with a smile on her bloody lips.

“The Ubume appears holding her baby, but since your back is your weakness, ''are you carrying it on your back''? It might be a paper doll shaped like a child and it may just be stored inside your maid outfit to make it look like you’re carrying it, but it would be deadly for you if it were damaged. The Ubume will always keep her baby safe even if it means abandoning her fearsome power, so you’ve lost your special ability. You can no longer connect paths and manipulate the encounter rate!!”

More muffled gunshots continued and the miniskirt maid could only let them hit her.

But…

I clearly saw the woman smile.

“No,” I muttered as I spoke what I could instinctually sense. “She wasn’t relying on the Ubume. She’s been fixated on another Youkai from the beginning! So…!!”

“Yes, I was using – and truly wanted to use – the Amanojaku.”

The maid slowly aimed her handgun at Hishigami Mai.

The bullets had definitely hit her, yet there wasn’t a single red stain on her miniskirt maid outfit.

“''That Youkai can replace everything with lies. That is why I deceived you so easily.''”

It happened far too quickly.

As several bullets struck her, Hishigami Mai transformed. The face that symbolized her transformed. It splattered apart like a jigsaw puzzle thrown to the floor.

There was nothing I could do.

The situation had suddenly gone two steps too far for me to even feel fear or sadness.

I forgot to even scream and simply spoke in a daze.

“You mean you only made it look like you were using the Ubume in your tactics? And all so you could misuse the Amanojaku’s lying trait?”

“Yes. It was really just an elementary illusion. I was a little let down when it looked like I was going to win without having to use this, so I’m glad I was able to use everything I had stocked up.”

All was lost now.

Every single chance of victory had slipped from my fingers.

“Whether you do anything or not is your decision. Who will you rely on now? That Zashiki Warashi and the local miners? Or maybe the detective who is only now carelessly entering the forest with a girl? They will arrive here eventually regardless, but all of them will die once they do. That is how this is set up.”

It felt like she was reading from a book of prophecy.

And an extremely cruel one that went on and on about all sorts of destruction yet never mentioned a way to stop it.

Anyone who met her would die.

And at this rate, it was only a matter of time before a whole lot of people approached this monster.

“So choose for yourself. ''At what stage do you want this to end?'' At Hishigami Mai’s death, at the annihilation of the Zashiki Warashi and the others with her, or at the detective’s discovery of all the corpses? You have options, but you cannot undo your previous choices. So choose for yourself when you will step down.”

“…”

My mind went entirely blank.

After all, there was nothing I could do. What could I possibly do? It was obvious that struggling and resisting any longer would only increase the number of deaths. It was plain as day. So what was I supposed to do? My right temple itched. Was my best option to follow the Singer Song Liar story while ensuring everyone survived so I could at least regain the country decades later? Was that really the best option? Could I really accept that?

“You are free to choose whatever you want,” said the maid. “But there is only one result. No one can escape the Amanojaku. You understand that, don’t you?”

She seemed to be tempting me, soothing me.

She made that bold and triumphant announcement while completely looking down on me.

But…

''No one can escape the Amanojaku?

“Wait.”

''What are we dealing with here?

''Both my Singer Song Liar story and this miniskirt maid’s power come from the Amanojaku. That’s a single Youkai. This isn’t about the Usuhiki Warashi, Kechibi, or Ubume anymore. If everything is ruled by the Amanojaku alone, I can turn this all on its head by finding a way to defeat that Amanojaku. I can still turn this around!!

''Think.

''You have to think.

''What is the Singer Song Liar story anyway? Sticking a Youkai in a fantasy is too simple and vague. If it was built into a Package, there has to be some kind of concrete, physical system. The Amanojaku is a contrarian Youkai that answers any question with a lie. It commits small pranks like reading traveler’s minds to mimic them and surprise them, but it’s also known to commit great crimes like killing a princess, wearing her skin, and taking her place. To include an Amanojaku, there must be a huge symbol of a lies. It has to be a concrete, physical, secure, and sturdy symbol of lies and not something easily shaken or erased like an automatically-generated story.

''Think back to the Singer Song Liar story and what happened in reality.

''Think back to everything presented there, seen there, and heard there.

''Goldmine Island. A small island off of Kyushu. The temperature is twenty eight degrees. It’s a mining island originally known as Heavy Cruiser Island. It’s now the stage for a new casino policy, but the profits aren’t evenly returned, creating friction between the locals and the entertainment companies. The locals claim the companies are mining deep below the island with work ships and that’s why there’s no more gold in the mines. The locals thoroughly hate the casinos. The pineapple-like tropical trees have some red and yellow from the few maple and gingko trees still mixed in.

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Oh, I get it.”

“?”

I had finally found it.

I had found the symbol of lies and the system prepared to store the Amanojaku.

And of course, the entire Package would cease to function if that was destroyed. It would all disperse and her plan would fail.

In that case, I had no reason to hesitate.

I would reveal the lie.

I would defeat the Amanojaku using the truth.

I would turn everything on its head.

I would end it all in just a few words.

And so I spoke those few words to the woman of lies who ruled everything here.

“''This island isn’t in its original location. It was artificially moved from its original coordinates''.”

I clearly heard the sound of cracks running through glass.

“You slowly moved Goldmine Island far from its original location, but moving it wasn’t your goal. You wanted an environment where everyone was unknowingly being deceived. It was all for your symbol of lies, the Amanojaku!!”

“What…are you talking about?”

“You tricked everyone here!! You threw us all inside a giant lie! That allowed the Amanojaku to use its full power and that made my story so tremendously effective!! That’s all it was!!”

“Ridiculous. Do you really think we could do that? Even if it’s a small island, how much mass do you think that is?”

“The amount of mass doesn’t matter. As long as you can achieve buoyancy, any object will float. There’s been talk of strange work ships stopping at the island since the casinos were first invited in. They would secretly carry out huge amounts of dirt and sand, so people thought they were digging up gold without permission.”

The locals hadn’t been wrong, but they had only been looking at it from their interests.

“But they were doing something else. They were creating a spider web of tunnels deep below the island and filling them with a foaming substance like polyurethane. If they separated the island from its roots with a bunch of explosives, Goldmine Island would float up like a life preserver!”

To put it more liberally, it was like floating the entire island on a giant kickboard.

As the casinos arrived, the beaches had apparently rapidly shrunk. Everyone had accepted it as sea level rise due to global warming, but that probably wasn’t it.

After spending more than a year slowly moving the island a few kilometers, it had been sunk down and affixed to a “new base” prepared on the ocean bottom. And they had done that by removing the foaming material.

But it had rocked in the waves while being moved. And when it was affixed to the new base, a height difference of a few centimeters to a few dozen centimeters could have been introduced. That would have made it look like the ocean level had risen and the beaches had shrunk.

The miniskirt maid tensed her lips.

“Nothing that ridiculous could have happened. What about the airplane pilots? Or the ship captains? How could we have fooled them? How could we guide them to Goldmine Island’s supposed new location!?”

“These days, no captain navigates with a sea chart and compass in one hand. They’re entirely reliant on the electronic control and digital display, so you just have to fake those numbers. If the island was moved bit by bit in a circle around a central point without changing the actual distance, the pilots just looking at the numbers won’t know that the numbers have been swapped out and that they’re being guided in a different direction!!”

Someone who ''determined directions by looking at the moon or stars'' may have noticed something was off, but no one captained a ship or piloted an airplane with those primitive methods anymore.

And while it would be a lot of trouble to swap out those numbers, that made sense too.

The Amanojaku was a Youkai of lies and it would answer any question with a lie. When the ships and airplanes sent out their “questions”, the navigation equipment would “answer” with false data, guiding them to the island of lies.

That setup had to have been quite comfortable for the Amanojaku.

“GPS systems are reliant on America, so you in the CIA can easily make changes to all the map apps and car navigation systems that use it. The same goes for airport control and ship navigation systems. Even if the equipment itself is made in Japan, the software inside is all made in America. It wouldn’t be difficult for you to swap out the numbers for this island that everyone was looking at.”

If someone had dived down to the ocean bottom, ''the terrain around the island may have looked completely wrong.

That would have turned Goldmine Island’s surroundings into a demonic area of sea. After all, the actual coordinates and the data were completely different. If one was using older means of determining direction or a navigation system that didn’t rely on America, it was possible two ships could head to the same coordinates and never find each other even as they spoke over the radio or phone. That was to be expected when their ideas of the “same coordinates” were so different.

“But you failed. I saw through it. I used the truth to break through your world of lies! This is no longer a world running on lies. By bringing in the truth, the conditions you need to keep the Amanojaku will have crumbled. That power won’t last much longer!!”

“Don’t… Don’t be ridiculous. We were not doing anything like that. Your method of refuting us was wrong. Your incorrect deductions won’t do anything to the Amanojaku’s power.”

“Really?”

''Then why are you cutting in like this?

''Are you panicking?

“Yes, really!! No one on Goldmine Island has noticed anything off. And even you have no proof of any of this, do you? Do you really think you can force this onto someone else when you can’t even convince yourself!?”

It did indeed hurt to have her point that out.

I wasn’t a forensics expert and I didn’t have time to call one in. If this miniskirt maid silenced me, she would probably be able to reach the Amanojaku almost immediately and that would determine the future. This country would fall into ruin.

That meant I had to do something with what I had here.

I had to prove this was an island of lies using what I had at my disposal.

“We’re currently farther north than Goldmine Island’s original location, aren’t we? Whether it’s five or ten kilometers, it has to be enough to make the island’s mere presence here a lie.”

“What are you saying?”

“My cellphone says the temperature is twenty eight degrees. Just like a tropical island, the temperature has fluctuated between twenty five and thirty degrees over the past week. This is a warm enough night to forget it’s October.”

“What’s your point?”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

I pointed, but not at the miniskirt maid.

I pointed at the tree behind her.

“''The maple trees are turning red.'' But if this midsummer heat was constant, they never would have started changing color!! It’s possible to place dry ice at the base of a tree to make its leaves change color early, but I can’t think of a single logical reason to do that on a tropical island like this. That means the maple trees are changing naturally!!”

“…”

“But why!? Why is there a difference between the temperature on the screen here and the color change in the leaves? That’s because Goldmine Island is supposed to be south of here where it’s warmer and the trees haven’t started changing color yet! When falsifying the data to fool the locals, you had to swap out the meteorological data like temperature and humidity, didn’t you!? And that’s why the leaves have started changing color several days early!!”

From the very beginning, I had thought this island was “chilly”.

When I had checked my cellphone and seen the lie that it was twenty eight degrees, I had just assumed it was due to the low humidity and the night wind.

“There’s a huge difference between the actual color of the leaves and the temperature shown on the screen here!! This proves that the island was moved from its original location and that we’ve been thrown into a giant lie!!!!!”

Multiple gunshots rang out and dark red holes opened from my chest to my navel as if I had fallen victim to a giant sewing machine.

She may have tried to silence me before I made the decisive statement. She may have decided she could include “Jinnai Shinobu” in the system as long as my brain or heart remained.

My body tilted to the side and a rusty flavor rushed up into my throat.

There was probably no saving me.

But make no mistake.

All I needed was the strength to move my trembling lips.

Her power was a collection of lies. No matter what she accomplished, it was nothing but a house built on sand.

If the lies were revealed, it would all disappear.

I just had to use the truth to break the many tragedies she had created.

“''It was all…lies. This is the truth!!''”

With that, I heard shattering glass and our surroundings entirely changed.

They were overwritten.

The many holes in my gut vanished. The corpse with the smashed face returned to Hishigami Mai’s lovely form.

It had all begun with a lie, so no matter what was piled on top of it, it would all come tumbling down once the foundational lie vanished. It was just like a tree trunk and branches. No matter how long the branches were, if you took an axe to the trunk, the entire tree would fall.

That was what had happened here.

“Ah…ah…”

The miniskirt maid glanced around.

She seemed to be thinking about how to recover from here, so I spoke.

“Checkmate.”

“Don’t act so full of yourself! You’re just an amateur!! Just because I can’t control the Amanojaku doesn’t mean that you can defeat me here. I can vanish for the moment, rebuild my foundation, and return it all to normal!!”

“Yes, you can escape right now, but without the Amanojaku Package, we won’t do what you say. You can’t take over the Usuhiki Warashi and you can’t buy Japan. So is there still any reason to fight?”

“!!”

“So that means you have a choice. ''At what stage do you want this to end?''”

I repeated the same question she had asked me earlier.

“Defeating me and continuing on would be easy. I’m just a normal high school boy. But a more powerful enemy will show up next. Will it be my detective of an uncle? Or if he isn’t enough, will it be the skilled agent that even Hyakki Yakou fears? How far can you get now that you’ve lost your power?”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………!!!!!!”

“So let me say this.”

I gave my final notification to the woman whose throat had to have gone dry.

“Jinnai Shinobu, Uchimaku Hayabusa, or Hishigami Mai? Which one do you want to settle this with you!?”

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