novelVolume 3, Chapter?: Welcome to Zenmetsu Village (4)
| ← Ch.20 | Ch.22 → |
He shouted angrily back at me.
As I saw him raise that heavy wrench, I felt my throat dry up.
Is this it!?
But at that point, I finally realized something.
At some point, another elderly man had approached behind Hasebe Michio. He was horribly dirty and his clothes were nothing more than old rags.
"... I remember you."
"!"
Hasebe turned around in surprise when he heard the other man mutter at him.
However...
"I remember you!!"
A dull sound rang out.
The dirty man held a stone the size of a baby's head that he must have torn from the ravine wall. He swung it down toward Hasebe's head as hard as he could. Blood sprayed out and a bundle of hair was torn off, scalp and all.
A scream burst out.
The dirty man ignored it and slammed the stone down a second and third time.
"Stop..."
I had stood in utter shock for a bit, but the growing color of red brought me back to my senses.
The victor had already been decided. There was no point in going any further.
"Stop!! If you go any further, Hasebe will die!!"
"He..."
The man's arm was trembling.
He gripped the red dyed stone so hard I thought it was going to break.
Even so, he did not stop moving his arm.
He spat out his words while looking down at Hasebe Michio who had half sunken into the cold water.
"He yawned. He was bored. While slaughtering everyone in the village and stabbing a blade into each of the bodies to make sure no survivors were hiding below the corpses, he yawned from boredom!!"
It was a story from a world that defied imagination.
I wanted to believe this was nothing but the man's delusion.
But I had seen it.
This was not some eerie labyrinth. The scenery around us was the completely normal scenery in which dozens of people had lived, eaten, napped, and let their kids run around.
And all of that had been destroyed in a single night.
That was the truth.
"... Who are you?" I asked.
"Someone who they framed for all those murders, " replied the rag-wearing man as he dropped the stone in the water and his shoulders moved up and down as he desperately tried to catch his breath."All this time, I had been so sick of being unjustly called a murderer. But look at this? Now a part of me feels I should become a real murderer. I will become the monster they wanted me to be..."
"You really shouldn't, " I said."Surely you saw that Hasebe Michio's fate will be a miserable one regardless."
"..."
That comment caused the rag-wearing man to look away from Hasebe.
And immediately afterwards, something happened.
"Solved it."
I heard a voice.
It was a voice with no obvious source. It was as if I were wearing headphones. It was not my voice, Hasebe's voice, or the rag-wearing man's voice. It sounded like a small boy's voice.
"Solved it. Solved it. Solved the puzzle."
The voice sounded somehow mocking and also like it was singing a creepy lullaby that had some story behind it.
What?
What was that?
Before I could come up with an answer, the decisive moment arrived.
"That means you are no longer needed."
A soft and unpleasant noise burst out.
It came from Hasebe Michio who had halfway sunken into the cold water while only partially conscious.
His body grew darker.
No, that was not what had happened.
It was dozens if not hundreds of snakes as thick as a little finger. They slithered up from below the water and quickly covered Hasebe Michio's entire body.
It seemed the man no longer held any will to resist.
He did not cry out or scream.
As that eerie sound continued, that pure black "mass" clearly shrank in volume. The arms and legs sticking out from it turned at odd angles.
Is he being eaten?
That was what my instincts told me, but it made no logical sense.
Snakes ate their prey by swallowing it whole. They had fangs, but they could not bite off flesh. No matter how many snakes as thick as a little finger you had, it should have been impossible for them to eat something the size of a human.
But then what was I watching?
The volume of the mass within was visibly decreasing. It was like watching butter on a frying pan.
"Wait..." muttered the other man. He walked unsteadily toward the mass of snakes."Please wait! He is... That man is the one murderer who can prove my innocence! Please don't get rid of him!!"
"Watch out!! I don't think those are normal snakes! Stay back!!"
I tried to grab the rag-wearing man's arm, but he jumped at the mass of hundreds of snakes before I could.
He grabbed snake after snake and tossed them away as if digging through dirt to rescue someone who had been buried alive. The snakes must have had some objective or condition because they showed no sign of biting at the rag-wearing man. They focused only on Hasebe.
However...
"Ah... ah..."
The man's hands stopped moving.
His eyes were opened wide.
The next thing I knew, most of the snakes had vanished as if dissolving into thin air. And in the spot Hasebe Michio had been in were nothing but a single arm and a single leg floating at the water's surface. A few snakes remained eating them. The limbs shrank and ultimately disappeared. The snakes had eliminated every last trace that the man named Hasebe Michio had been here.
And after Hasebe disappeared, every last snake disappeared as well.
These black snakes were the same as the ones that had appeared in the hood of the rental car. These strange snakes had something like a gold ring around their necks.
"What is going on... ?" I muttered blankly while watching as the rag-wearing man's back drooped.
What had just happened?
What was going on in this village?
Part 25 (Hishigami Mai)
Um, who did what here again?
Kurumaya Nozomi was the one who had repeatedly stabbed Yamada Ken in the head with a glass shard. Sakai Haruka was the one who had cried out to stop her. Tanishita Hajime was the industrial spy desperately bluffing while waving around a toy handgun. Suzukawa Izumi was the young female prisoner. Gogan Sakura was the investigator on an unofficial undercover mission who held a real handgun and was trying to keep the situation from falling into chaos.
The change started with Tanishita Hajime, the industrial spy.
"Uuh... bah... ?"
I heard a muffled noise.
That questioning voice sound like it came from a mouth forcibly plugged by a gag.
"Gh.. bh. Gfh!? Ghh!! Gbgbh!!"
He suddenly held a hand up to his mouth and he doubled over.
Initially, he looked like the victim of poison.
But that was not the case.
What spewed from his mouth was a large number of snakes.
Snakes as thick as a little finger fell to the ground as if a faucet had been opened. He held a hand to his mouth, but the snakes slipped through the gaps between his fingers.
"Gyah!? Wh-wh-what is that!?"
"What is going on... !?"
The change did not stop at his mouth.
I heard a popping noise. Some foreign substance was flowing out like tears. More than ten snakes came from his eye sockets as if forcing their way out of his eyeballs. They came from his nose and ears as well. At this point, anyone could imagine what had happened. It was like snakes or moles moving through the dirt. Tanishita Hajime's head had to be filled with countless tunnels. There was no way he was still alive.
"Bh."
I heard another odd noise.
Tanishita collapsed sideways.
This did not look like a living human collapsing. It was more like someone had stood a branch up on its side and then let go.
"Gy-gy-gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!?"
The female jailer named Sakai Haruka let out a high-pitched scream and tried to run away. Who had done this? What had they done? How had they done it? What were the conditions? She did not know the answer to any of those questions, so she was simply trying to run as far away from the dangerous oddity as she could.
Ew.
The stomach of her work uniform swelled up like a beach ball. After that... well, I don't really want to explain it. There was a muffled sound and her entire lower stomach area became dyed a dark red. It was as if a water balloon hidden in her clothes had burst. Dozens of snakes wet with something red slithered out from the gaps in her clothes.
"E-ee!" groaned someone.
That was the limit of what they could do and it changed nothing.
Both the prisoners and the jailers collapsed as they were taken out by the snakes. Gogan Sakura may have held a real gun, but snakes even slithered out of the gun barrel. After her gun malfunctioned and blew her hand off... well, it wasn't pretty.
Silence fell over the area.
The snakes continued to slither around.
I did not think these were some strange parasites or aliens.
They were most likely Youkai.
Snakes. A swarm. A sudden appearance.
There were several candidates, but I could not be sure of anything yet. When it came to snake Youkai, I suspected the rulers of water, the ones related to ironworking which were derived from them, or possessing spirits.
"A-ahh. Ahhhhhhh..."
I heard the Sunekosuri's dumbfounded cry coming from the radio.
"Sunekosuri, I have no more need for you there, so come meet me here."
With that arbitrary instruction, I walked through the fog and cautiously approached the corpses.
I was keeping the optimum level of tension and burden on my muscles so I could move at any moment, but there was no sign of the snakes attacking me. It seemed the attack condition was something other than distance.
... Hmm.
They were scattered around a bit, but there were six corpses lying in the parking lot. The snakes were even wriggling around in the stab wounds in Yamada Ken's head. This spread the wounds by quite a bit, so the "contents" were spilling out.
I viewed each corpse in turn.
Yamada Ken.
The worst part was the stab wounds on his head. Instead of fresh blood, over ten snakes were slithering out. The pink contents of his head were spilling out, so it was blatantly obvious there was no saving him.
Sakai Haruka.
I did not want to take a peek inside her work uniform, but her disturbingly sunken-in silhouette told me she had ruptured within it. All of her insides must have been taken out as well because she smelled the worst of any of them. It was more than just the smell of blood. A lot of different things had mixed together inside her gut.
Kurumaya Nozomi.
I heard an occasional whistling sound escaping from her, so I initially thought she was alive. However, she was not. I could see snakes in her chest. Her lungs had burst from the inside. As the snakes came and went, they caused the remnants of her lungs to act as a pump. That was sending some air out.
I saw a beckoning cat bottle cap doll poking out from her pocket, so she must have been the one who had placed them in the employee cafeteria.
Tanishita Hajime.
They came from his mouth, eyes, nose, and ears. Snakes pushed open every single hole on his face. The structure of his face had been utterly destroyed. It looked like a swollen fugashi.
Suzukawa Izumi.
Large numbers of snakes were coming from her mouth and nose, and her eyes were rolled back into her head. The number of snakes coming from her mouth must have exceeded the limit because her jaw had completely dislocated.
Gogan Sakura.
The explosion of her handgun had blown off her hand and tons of snakes were passing from her right ear to her left. You can imagine what had to have happened to the space between.
"Ahh, how could this happen?" groaned the Sunekosuri as he approached after exiting the factory."Annihilation... This is a complete annihilation! I thought Hyakki Yakou sent us here to keep this from happening!!"
"What? We were asked to investigate the phenomenon in the semiconductor factory and to eliminate it if necessary. Stop adding on extra objectives."
"Then if you had been asked to save everyone in the corporate prison, you would have done so!? Are you saying you could have done that with your superhuman abilities!? You could have saved them from this horrible situation!? There had to have been completely normal people with no connection to our world here!!"
"Sorry, but I don't accept jobs I know I can't handle."
You can get emotional if you want, but be careful because it's only any good for motivation.
And this isn't over yet.
"Sunekosuri, who do you think did this?"
"Eh... ?"
"Is some as yet unseen mystery character hiding somewhere? I suppose it's possible, but I doubt that's the case. If someone who could have killed us at any time had been watching from a distance this entire time, they would not have killed them at this time. And since they did not attack you or me, the culprit must not be viewing us from a god's-eye perspective, " I explained."In other words, this went just as planned. The mental pillar of the group, the head jailer named Itou Takeru, was killed in the cafeteria and then the top suspect, me, was blown up in the parking lot. One of the suspects panicked and used their occult power."
"Then one of them used theses snakes? But they were all annihilated!! Did they lose control of the Youkai!?"
"That would make this simpler, but I don't think so, " I said offhandedly."After all, one of them is still alive."
I cracked the knuckles of my right hand.
My body had been modified to specialize in fighting Youkai, but I could still crush a corpse's head or tear out its heart with a single hand. The human body held more potential for brutality than most people thought.
To put it bluntly, if I thoroughly destroyed each of the suspects' vitals, the incident would be resolved.
"W-w-wait a second!! But... they were... just look... it was a complete slaughter! How... what!?"
"Don't be led astray by the shock of the scene. Look at this rationally. Why did the culprit kill everyone? To keep the conditions equal so as to hide their identity. They wanted to be another victim just in case these irregularly released snake Youkai failed and left a survivor."
"Th-then..."
"That is also why the snake Youkai are still here. Normally, you try to hide your trump card. If someone can determine the identity of the Youkai, they will learn their weakness. But the culprit is keeping these creepy Youkai on the corpses. That is meant to keep anyone from directly touching the victims' bodies to check for a pulse or checking the pupils. When you see these grotesque corpses, of course you aren't going to want to approach the Youkai that did it. Who knows what they'll do to you."
I pointed at each of the collapsed figures in the parking lot one at a time.
Yamada Ken.
Sakai Haruka.
Kurumaya Nozomi.
Tanishita Hajime.
Suzukawa Izumi.
Gogan Sakura.
"There. That's the one."
Part 26 (3rd person)
In the Intellectual Village of Noukotsu Village, today was not just another relaxing day in the Jinnai household.
The household ran a sake brewery, so mid-September, which was harvest time for new rice, was the most nerve-racking time. This was the earliest step of the production process, so it determined whether they could make the start dash or not. No matter how much technology they had, a mistake here would prevent them from making the best possible product.
And so Jinnai Shinobu's father was constantly calling the city's rice farmers while Jinnai Shinobu's grandfather drove the electric light truck around to judge and select the rice. The grandfather had supposedly retired, so the importance of this time could be seen in the fact that he stood on the front lines.
However...
The financial issues of human society did not matter to the Youkai who lived for all eternity.
In the name of searching for what Shinobu had hidden in his room, the large-breasted and glamorous Zashiki Warashi found the high school boy's secret savings and the flat-chested and somewhat yandere Yuki Onna checked through his hidden porn magazines. However, they then found something unexpected. (Incidentally, a Youkai that protects the house and a yandere both tend to lack a sense of privacy. )
They found an old album.
"This was made with a service that makes high quality prints of the photos in a digital picture frame. That was popular a while back.... After all, digital data tends to get destroyed every few years."
"Oh, oh, ohh!! S-so this is full of this kind of photo and that kind of photo of Jinnai Shinobu during his younger days? Pant... pant... !!"
"You're starting to look a little damp overall. Are you sure you're not going to melt yourself by getting so fired up over this?"
The Zashiki Warashi and the Yuki Onna brought the album into the living room and opened the thick cover as casually as if they were reading a manga volume they had found while cleaning the room.
"This is Shinobu back when he refused to let go of his baby bottle."
"... What's this!? His hair is a different color!!"
"And this is Shinobu when he became a wild animal and leapt toward my breasts even when I tried to tell him his bottle was over there."
"That damn gigolo! He had that much talent that young!?"
A Nekomata muttered in shock a bit away from the two trembling Youkai.
"What are they doing... ?"
She had been speaking to herself, but someone replied to her.
It was Jinnai Shinobu's mother who preferred dealing with the accounting over actually making the sake. As she rapidly entered data into a spreadsheet program on the computer placed atop the low sitting room table, she spoke leisurely to the Nekomata.
"It can't really be helped. Half of Shinobu's problems with the Zashiki Warashi are his own fault."
"What do you mean?"
"Her laziness and her love of video games come from Shinobu's own actions."
This woman was not a frugal person who was stingy with money. Instead, she was a math fanatic who grew utterly absorbed in the fluctuations of the parameters. She grinned at the spreadsheet on the screen as she spoke.
"In fact, when I married into the family, that Zashiki Warashi almost never appeared where anyone could see her."
"... Really?"
"That's the standard for a Zashiki Warashi, right? You would see her shadow on the sliding door but would find no one there if you circled around behind it. If you left food in the altar room, it would mysteriously disappear." The Nekomata looked dubious as Jinnai Shinobu's mother continued speaking. Her fingers raced across the keyboard all the while."When Shinobu was born, she was still that elusive and eerie existence. However, Shinobu would excitedly go around searching for the Zashiki Warashi. When he was unable to find her he would grow tired and begin to cry. That's when we began to see her face poking out from behind a pillar. After that continued long enough, she ended up like this."
"It might be a bit too cruel to lay all the blame on that boy."
"Probably. Shinobu also gained some habits from her. For example, he always embraces his pillow or something while sleeping."
A smartphone then began ringing.
It was the phone (that actually belonged to Shinobu) which was placed in the chest of the glamorous Zashiki Warashi's yukata.
"What? You left on your trip but ended up stranded with a girl from your class? Shinobu, why are you calling? Are you bragging about how great your life is?"
"A-a rendezvous!? Don't tell me they're trapped in a mountain cabin and have to strip down naked to warm each other with their bodies!! Th-that is the role that a Yuki Onna should play as mountains and coldness are our domain!"
"I thought seeing a Yuki Onna approaching in that situation led to being stranded and freezing to death, " pointed out Shinobu over the phone."But that's not the point. Anyway, we've already contacted the fire department, so we should be okay. In the meantime, I have a few photos to send you."
"Are they erotic photos overflowing with youth?"
"M-making a fish print with the female body!? How twisted!!"
"Hey, could we try to get somewhere in this conversation?" asked Shinobu."We found a bunch of old kanji and can't read them. I thought maybe a Youkai who had lived a long life might be able to decipher them."
"Shinobu, that sounds like a huge pain."
"Once I hang up, I can call the card company and tell them I lost my credit card. If I do that, the smartphone, the game system's network play, and the laptop's internet will all be stopped. And what about the cable TV? I think the ones in my room and your room are both under my name."
The Nekomata sighed in exasperation when she saw the glamorous Zashiki Warashi prostrate herself in front of the smart phone with tears in her eyes.
The Zashiki Warashi gave a teary sniff and looked through the photographs she had been sent.
"Um... I think this one carved into a stone in what looks like a cave says... 'arrival of the water god'."
"Any idea what that means?"
"It means they are bringing a snake Youkai in from somewhere else."
"... Snake?"
With the obvious example of Yamata no Orochi, snake or serpent Youkai were often related to twisting rivers and the water damages that came from them.
"Then those are... no wait. I didn't get that feeling from them. It's the huge serpents like Orochi or Uwabami that symbolize rivers. The ones I saw were different..."
Shinobu was muttering about something, but the Zashiki Warashi did not pay too much attention because she did not know the details.
She focused on deciphering the old writing in the photos so she could end the danger of an internet annihilation.
"These few account books on Japanese paper seem to be related to a village ritual. They explain the cave. However, the paper is so damaged I can only read bits and pieces."
"Just tell me what you can read."
"The village's source of income came from gold dust collected in a river at the bottom of a ravine. There must have been a gold mine somewhere, but they did not have the technology to search for it or mine it."
"... I was wondering how that man bought that portable stove and gas cylinder."
"However, the amount of gold dust they could get was unstable. During years in which they found less, they did not earn enough to live off of which affected the stability of the village's entire society. They had a common ritual they would use to resolve their worries."
"A ritual?"
"You could call it 'thinning the herd' or 'leaving fewer mouths to feed'. The ritual was performed by taking any baby born during one of those difficult years and drowning it in the spring in that cave.... Simply put, they would leave fewer people to help resolve the lack of food."
Silence fell.
This was not a problem with the signal.
Shinobu did not know how to respond to this information that went well beyond what he had expected.
"From the format of this writing, this is something that happened over 100 years ago, " pointed out the Zashiki Warashi.
"Not necessarily, " groaned Shinobu."There were two graveyards in the village. That's probably because they had one for the normal villagers and one for the babies that had been killed in the ritual. Thirty years ago was the age of color television!"
No matter what anyone said or how they tried to deny it, what had happened would not change.
Occasionally, that village that seemed frozen in time would not have enough food.
To resolve that, they had continued to drown babies as if it was perfectly normal.
Even as televisions moved from black and white to color, even as bullet trains rushed around Japan, and even as air conditioners became a part of the standard household, it had continued. As if insisting that remaining unchanged was a virtue, they had continued to drown babies.
And if someone had not annihilated everyone living there, it would likely still be happening.
The victims of the incident had been human.
But there was no guarantee that they were all "perfectly innocent".
"This is the last one. The Japanese paper you found next to a broken jar.... Hm. This must be the snake Youkai you saw in the village."
"What is it?"
If it was a giant serpent symbolizing rivers, it would be the Orochi or the Uwabami.
But that was not it.
The Zashiki Warashi replied as if teaching a young child how to read a difficult kanji.
"Toubyou. It is a possessing spirit that comes as a set of 75 small snakes."
Part 27 (Hishigami Mai)
Yamada Ken, Sakai Haruka, Kurumaya Nozomi, Tanishita Hajime, Suzukawa Izumi, and Gogan Sakura.
"There. That's the one, " I spat out as I swung my arm forcefully down.
I aimed for the culprit's head.
But I missed.
My right hand smashed into the parking lot asphalt up to the wrist. The culprit who had been pretending to be dead had rolled to the side to avoid my arm.
"Tch. You idiot!!"
What the hell!? Why did my hand pierce the asphalt so easily!?
My body was specialized for anti-Youkai combat. If I forced myself to take on a metal panel or asphalt, I would smash my own flesh to pieces.
"Ah... ah..."
As the Sunekosuri let out a dumbfounded voice, I pulled my arm out of the smashed asphalt.
It seemed my attack had not been completely wasted.
A torn-off ear hung down from my index finger.
"How... ? But... she was... she was dead just a moment ago!"
"You dumbass. This wasn't like Yamada-kun's split head with the brains leaking out or Sakai-chan's gut that ruptured like a water balloon. If you had paid attention, it should have been obvious."
I threw away the ear as the figure stared at me and slowly stood up.
The piece of flesh struck the culprit in the chest where it slid down in accordance with gravity.
"Having so many snakes coming from your mouth that your jaw dislocates isn't enough to kill you. If the snakes were only in your mouth and had not entered your throat or organs, you could continue breathing through your nose, " I said to the culprit."Isn't that right, Suzukawa Izumi-chan?"
She was about high school age. As one of the prisoners in the corporate prison, she had been forced to wear unrefined workwear. Or so it had seemed.
However, the Sunekosuri was trembling and said, "Wh-what is that?"
"Don't ask me."
"Why is that girl's skin peeling off to reveal an old woman's face!? Who is she!?"
"Why don't you ask her?" I replied offhandedly before smiling."But the kind of person that disguises themselves as a beautiful girl tends not to be a decent person in reality."
Suzukawa Izumi, or the old woman wearing her skin, spoke in a hoarse voice with her face half destroyed.
"... Is that so?"
"There was a rumor of a free pass in the corporate prison and alcohol would occasionally find its way in. Whether the person using the free pass was a prisoner or a jailer, they were part of a group that wanted to destroy the corporate prison and they were using the alcohol as currency to negotiate and make deals with people. That way they could gather the items they needed for a Youkai or Package.... That was our theory so far, but it looks like the situation was actually a bit different."
"Eh?... Oh, I get it! If that old woman could disguise herself as Suzukawa Izumi... !!"
"She could disguise herself as other people too. A single person was using the free pass the entire time. By periodically faking her death and taking over someone else's face, she could continue taking action while escaping suspicion."
"..."
"I don't know how many people are cooperating with her outside the factory, but if she wanted to periodically leave, she must have had some equipment to make periodic contact. Maybe a server that uses a satellite to communicate. And it would of course work on a band that gets past the jammers."
The old woman said nothing more.
In the very next moment, a great number of small snakes unnaturally slithered out from within the fog.
Dozens of them appeared only a few centimeters from my face. I instinctually took a step back and gravity dragged the snakes down to the parking lot asphalt.
The old woman looked confused.
"Is it that surprising?" I asked with a scornful laugh."The snakes all came from within the others' bodies and wounds. The medium is likely the fog. When the victim breathes it in, you can call the snakes into their body to kill them."
"... Then there should be no way for you to avoid it."
"How naïve. You shouldn't think of me as having the same standards as the other creatures we call humans. I am extraordinarily powerful against Youkai and the like. I even have the ability to bite off Youkai flesh and digest it in my stomach. Once they're inside my body, there's nothing they can do. I can even purify all of this fog that reeks of Youkai." And I did not stop there."A normal human cannot kill a normal Youkai, but the same cannot be said when it is Youkai versus Youkai. That is why people in my business like to use Shikigami. Sunekosuri! If you don't want to die, bite apart all of the snakes appearing in your mouth!!"
Unpleasant noises began coming from the Sunekosuri's mouth.
A Sunekosuri was a Youkai without a violent side. All it could do was rub its head up against travelers' legs.
However, these snake Youkai were only as thick as a little finger and thirty centimeters long.
Speaking purely about size and ignoring their strength and special characteristics, they were like slightly hard sausages. That meant a small dog's teeth were enough to tear them apart.
"Ueh, uehhh!! Peh, peh! I-I hate creatures without legs! Woof woof!! Ubh!? Gehhhh!! Ow!! What is this ring!? Why is there metal mixed in with them!?"
He seemed to be having it tough since more snakes would appear every time he breathed in the fog.
He was continually biting them and spitting them out, so he did not seem in danger of having his stomach burst. I decided I could safely focus on the old woman.
"Since this was a snake Youkai related to the water in the fog, I assumed it was an Orochi or Uwabami, but it seems I was a bit off." I got to the heart of the issue as I glanced over at the gold ring-like objects the teary-eyed Sunekosuri was spitting out."The Toubyou. If I recall, it is a Youkai raised in a jar or pot that comes in a set of 75. In exchange for periodically giving them sake or a rice ball, they allow the master of the home to prosper by stealing gold, silver, and treasure from other houses. They are a stereotypical possessing spirit.... That must have been the characteristic used to make the 8000 people from the corporate prison vanish... no, to make the few of us here go missing. This Package automatically "steals" the people needed for the master's objective. That produces this spirited away effect."
"... You do not understand."
"What don't I understand?"
"The Youkai I wanted to use was not a possessing spirit!!"
She must have learned she could not directly target me from within, so the arrangement of the Toubyou changed.
Dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of snakes rained down around the old woman. They coiled around each other, bit into each other, became strongly intertwined, and branched off complexly. All together, they created a giant serpentine silhouette.
Wait. Wait just a second.
"You mixed in the characteristics of the Orochi!? Dammit. I should have investigated the abandoned village!!"
"This is closer to the form of the Youkai that should have been in the village. But your regrets are meaningless. My shrine was destroyed long ago. There is nothing left."
"So 'Suzukawa Izumi' was the survivor of Zenmetsu Village rumored to exist within the corporate prison."
"How long ago do you think I am a survivor from?" spoke the old woman in a whisper with her back to the giant branching snake."Would you believe me if I said I have been this old woman for over 100 years?"
"I see no reason not to. I have remade and swapped out everything from my fingertips to my internal organs, so it doesn't surprise me you can alter yourself like that. I don't really see the point, though."
"The Four Mountains village was created over 100 years ago as a treatment facility for those suffering from spiritual injuries or other serious harm related to Youkai. Although in reality, it was mostly a quarantine area people were abandoned in."
"Is there any need to explain this?"
"My objective was to enter the Four Mountains village, intentionally split the group so two powerful families were created, and maintain a constant state of internal conflict. Essentially, I was a spy meant to control Four Mountains. By taking the hatred pointed outwards and turning it inwards, the residents would not try to breach the walls of the village. If all went well, they would be satisfied with their extremely small cycle and extremely small society."
"... Was that really necessary?"
"But the gold dust in the river gave them the foreign currency they need to contact the outside world. Then when the possessing spirits were brought in, they decided to spiritually arm themselves. That was 30 years ago. This caused the Kuroyama Electronics Group to view them as dangerous. The child drowning going on at the time left the underground water impure, so it was banned for anyone to drink it. Due to the timing, this intensified their opposition of the corporation that wished to use that underground water for the semiconductor factory."
It happened as I tried to make a surprise attack during a pause in the conversation.
"That was why the Kuroyama Electronics Group planned to take the initiative and annihilate the Four Mountains village."
The old woman's hand moved.
"They had yet to complete the Toubyou Package that covered the entire Four Mountains area. It was left behind unfinished."
She held a container filled with water, sake, or some other liquid. She buried that hand in the branching Orochi behind her.
"That is why I overwrote the Toubyou Package with the Youkai and ritual that village was originally meant to have."
And she pulled her hand back out.
As if that were their cue, the giant serpent all too easily scattered apart.
"Originally, the serpent was nothing more than the scabbard."
The old woman held a sword in her hand.
Instead of a single-edged katana, it was a double-edged sword from an older era.
The old woman spoke quietly as she casually lowered that sword that emitted a brilliant light as if it were shining in the sun.
"Its true nature is the production of a sword. The name of the sword that appeared after the defeat of a serpent branching into eight was Kusanagi."
... Not good!!!
She seriously has the ability to illegally access and forcefully draw out the power of one of the Three Sacred Treasures by following the diagram of defeating Yamata no Orochi!? This has gone well outside the realm of anti-Youkai!!
By the time I realized I had completely misinterpreted how much distance I needed from her, the situation had already begun to move.
A fearsome slash assaulted me like a flash of lightning.
Part 28 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)
As I watched on, Hasebe Michio, a man deeply involved in the past slaughter of Zenmetsu Village, was eaten by a great number of snake Youkai.
The mysteries had only grown, but remaining there would not have helped.
I grabbed the arm of the rag-wearing man who seemed to be a survivor of Zenmetsu Village and urged him to get out of the ravine river and up onto land.
The cliff was only a few meters tall and it was not completely vertical.
There were uneven protrusions sticking out that we could grab or use as footing, so an amateur could easily climb up in exchange for further muddying our clothes.
"Are you okay?" asked the mystery freak once I had crawled up.
I lay collapsed on the ground catching my breath as I answered.
"Hasebe was devoured by snakes."
"I can only imagine that is a figurative description, so could you be more specific?"
"I mean it literally! They were in the rental car's hood too, remember? It was those small snake Youkai. A group of them suddenly attacked Hasebe!!"
"It shouldn't have happened, " muttered the other man blankly. His entire body was trembling."Those Youkai aren't dangerous like that! They don't indiscriminately attack people and cause them to vanish like a Tengu does..."
"We don't even know your name!" I said to cut him off."Who are you!? You didn't call out to Hasebe or me. You called out to those snake Youkai. You told them to stop. Do you know something about them!?"
"Those are..." The rag-wearing man trailed off, but nervously continued."They are a possessing spirit known as a Toubyou. In the past, the more influential members of the village bought them from a merchant in the Shikoku area... We managed somehow by gathering gold dust, but this small village was so cut off from the outside world that it had no stable source of food. It did not even have electricity or phone lines. It was cut off and kept at a distance! And so..."
"You borrowed the power of a possessing spirit Youkai that could steal whatever you needed from others' houses?" said the mystery freak, finishing the man's sentence for him.
The man averted his gaze a bit.
"The annihilation befell the village just before the Package was completed. It shouldn't have been functioning, but it seems a preliminary framework of the Assembly was in place. That is why those snakes will listen to what I say to a certain extent. If I periodically give them rice balls and sake, that is. I just need the pot and stove to cook the rice."
To a certain extent.
That may have been the payment for leaving the framework abandoned.
Borrowing the Youkai's power may have been convenient, but it was like crossing a completely unmaintained suspension bridge day in and day out.
It might be fine today.
But what about tomorrow? What about the day after? What about a month from now or a year from now?
Wouldn't your foot eventually break through a damaged board?
"Toubyou are raised in earthen jars or pots, right?"
"Yes. But getting the Toubyou to take root in Four Mountains would have been all for naught if an outsider who hated us or a traitor among us broke the jar. That is why a larger framework was prepared in addition to the jars underneath the houses."
"... ?"
"Four Mountains itself. In other words, a large area of land that is surrounded by mountains. The assembly of the Package was adjusted so that would function as the 'jar' the Toubyou live in. But this project was put together by the rich influential group, so I do not know the details."
An unpleasant feeling raced up my spine.
That meant the entire basin area functioned as the snakes' territory.
And the snakes had the ability to steal whatever items their master wished from the world outside that giant "jar".
It was as if we had been hiding within the beast's den. No matter how hard we tried to escape, those Youkai would easily capture us. And even if we did escape their den, our safety was not guaranteed. The Toubyou was a Youkai that travelled outside its jar to steal various items.
"Whatever the case, I think we can assume those Toubyou are deeply related to this incident."
"By the way, detective, what are you going to do about Hasebe Michio? Will the police accept 'he suddenly disappeared due to a Youkai's power' as an answer?"
"My head hurts... Well, we found that bag with a rusted blade and some money in it. I just have to use that to prove Hasebe was involved in the attack on Zenmetsu Village."
"The Toubyou is also a Youkai that causes illnesses in those obstructing the prosperity of its house, " said the rag-wearing man almost in a groan."But they are not powerful enough to kill. What was that we saw... ? I've never seen the Toubyou do that before..."
"At any rate, I want you to come with us. Cases involving Youkai can be difficult to handle, but I need you to write an affidavit."
Under current law, Youkai could not be judged directly. Or rather, locking them up had little meaning when they had no lifespan, and there was no way to execute them since they could not be killed.
And so...
This man had been built into the Toubyou Package and held the authority to control it, so it was possible he should be viewed as the culprit behind Hasebe's disappearance (or murder).
However, that man had shouted for the Toubyou to stop while they were devouring Hasebe.
I simply had to hope that would be considered in the courtroom.
"No..."
The man uttered a word of refusal.
The mystery freak frowned and all of my muscles tensed slightly. I slowly sat up from where I had been lying exhausted on the ground.
Is he going to run off in fear of being arrested?
I grew cautious, but the situation went well beyond my expectations.
"It seems I have already reached my limit."
For an instant, I could not grasp what he meant.
But shortly thereafter...
"Solved it. Solved it. Solved the puzzle."
That creepy lullaby voice returned.
When I looked back at the rag-wearing man, his expression was crumpled into something that looked like a smile yet also looked like he was crying.
And when I lowered my gaze, I saw what looked like wriggling black ropes mixed in with the dead grass. They had wrapped solidly around both his ankles.
Those aren't ropes.
They're snakes!?
"That means you are no longer needed."
It was as if giant crocodile jaws grew out from the ground and swallowed the man.
A mass made up of dozens if not hundreds of snakes assaulted him.
Part 29 (Hishigami Mai)
A stick-like object spun through the air as it flew in an arc.
It spun and spun.
Yes.
I still felt no pain, but I could tell. That spinning object was my right arm. That spinning arm had been mercilessly severed at the shoulder.
Immediately afterwards, I kicked the Sunekosuri up into the air and caught him in my left hand. I forcefully bit into the right arm spinning through the air to grab ahold of it.
I then recalled the layout of the semiconductor factory and ran with all my might toward its emergency exit.
I heard a great crash.
God dammit!
I seemed to have misjudged my strength due to the tension. I pulled my ankle out from where it had smashed into the parking lot asphalt and then I continued running.
In the meantime...
"..."
The old woman swung Kusanagi three times.
Three meter long slices appeared in the surrounding fog and equal slices appeared in the neatly lined up vehicles. Several explosions soon followed. I swung my upper body around to avoid it while charging with the speed of an artillery shell toward the factory's emergency exit that I could see clearly through the slices in the fog.
I ran into the steel door shoulder first.
The two hinges and the deadbolt broke simultaneously, the door bent into a V-shape, and I rolled into the factory.
Before I stood back up, I spat the right arm out of my mouth and onto the floor.
"Gh... !! Pant, pant... Dammit. That damn old woman!!"
"A-are you okay!?"
"My body has been thoroughly modified. The wound hasn't started to rot yet, so I can reconnect it with my kit."
A cold sweat covered my body.
Dammit. How could a man-made object catch up to my bodily control!?
"But that kit is in the trunk of our car. As long as that old woman is out there, heading out to the parking lot is suicide."
"C-can't you run out there while evading like before?"
"Do you really think I was evading that?"
Uuh... This feels terrible.
It's because monsters like this sometimes appear with no warning that you can't take this business lightly.
"I've been sliced up good. I didn't dodge even one of them. It's just that the cuts were so sharp the damage hasn't caught up yet. If I don't do anything, my entire body will fall apart into tiny blocks within 10 minutes."
If that happened, there was no saving me.
To survive, I would need to finish things with the old woman and retrieve my kit from the trunk of the car in the parking lot all within the time limit.
To be honest, the situation was not good.
"Wh-what? Then... is there... anything I can do!?"
"Don't panic. The situation may be bad, but it isn't impossible."
The worst possibility was the old woman hiding. If she simply waited for me to come out into the foggy parking lot, the 10 minute time limit would be over in no time.
But I was certain that would not happen.
My body may have been sliced to pieces, but I had protected the Sunekosuri.
The old woman would actively attack in order to finish off that cute canine Youkai.
However, I left that unsaid as I continued the conversation.
"Well, fortunately this is a cutting edge semiconductor factory."
"Eh? Oh, I get it! That old woman is using the fog. This factory is perfectly sealed off and sterilized!!"
"Now that she's drawn out Kusanagi, I don't think she needs the fog."
"Then..."
"Just come with me. We're going further in."
I grabbed my severed right arm with my bloody left hand and walked further into the factory with the Sunekosuri close behind me. The production line visible beyond thick glass was made up of nothing but conveyer belts and various robot arms. It seemed to truly be an automated factory. It was a bit surreal to see it still pumping out products like normal despite the situation. Even if humanity was wiped out, it would likely continue making electronic parts no one would use.
"To get to the production line, we have to pass through two layers of doors for the sterilization process... Sunekosuri, will a rural-loving Youkai like you be okay surrounded by so much precise machinery?"
"Not really, but I doubt you'll listen if I complain."
Good enough.
We entered the sterilization room between the two layers of doors. A warning sign warned of flammability, so it likely used an ethanol spray and ultraviolet light for quick drying.
You were meant to wear a spacesuit-like outfit when entering, but this was no time to worry about that.
I ignored the error message on the control panel and kicked open the second door. I then stepped into the production line area that was so clean that every form of life was killed down to the microscopic level.
"Wh-what are you going to do here?" asked the Sunekosuri.
The area was large, but it had so much production machinery that it felt like a labyrinth.
"That old woman's Kusanagi sliced right through all of the cars in the parking lot. I doubt anything in this labyrinth will protect us, " he continued.
"I know that. In fact, you shouldn't even be thinking about standing up to Kusanagi which is linked to Yamata no Orochi. Our power is only effective against Youkai and things derived from Youkai. We can't defeat an ability that enters the realm of the gods like the Three Sacred Treasures."
I glanced around the production line and noted the positions of a few thick pipes.
"But even if that old woman primarily uses the Orochi, it's still affected by the Toubyou.... And that's just a Youkai. That power falls within our world, so we can stand up to it."
"So you are going to fight back using the characteristics of the Toubyou?"
"Exactly."
I was a Hishigami woman. Thanks to the ridiculous superstition that we invited in misfortune, we were detested by our great Zaibatsu family that was passed down the male family line and was well-known around the world. In other words, the women born to the Hishigami family could not continue on without possessing specialized skills and characteristics that allowed them to battle an entire Zaibatsu on their own. And for me, those skills had been honed in actual battle.
Did you think you were the only special one around, old woman?
"Just like the fox or dog Youkai, the Toubyou is a stereotypical possessing spirit. They will attach to and cause illness in those who get in the way of their house's prosperity, and they will steal valuables from other houses to help their house prosper. And they will spread to a spouse's house if you get married."
"While raised, they are put in earthen pots and jars and are periodically given rice balls and sake. And the one common rule among almost all possessing spirits is..."
I trailed off.
The giant semiconductor factory had been sliced diagonally.
The walls were sliced.
The production line was sliced.
The two layers of doors for sterilization, the conveyer belts, the robot arms, the thick metal pipes, the electronic control system, the lights, the floor, the ceiling, the tempered glass, and everything else were all sliced. Kusanagi had cut down everything like mowing over grass.
My upper body had been sliced through again, but that no longer mattered. As long as I could retrieve the kit from the rental car's trunk within the time limit, I would manage.
The difference in speed between the factory falling apart and my body falling apart was due to the moisture and oils along the slices of my body holding everything together somewhat. Not that the reason mattered so long as I could move.
Thanks to the sliced pipes, a clear liquid began spraying across the production line area.
A single figure stepped forward amid it all.
It was the old woman with Kusanagi hanging from her right hand.
"What are you after?" she asked.
"What would you do if I told you?"
"Is it the ethanol for sterilization? If you ignite it, you can likely envelop me in flames, but you underestimate me if you think that will kill me."
"True. For one thing, the name Kusanagi comes from it being used to cut down flaming grass to escape harm. It would be difficult to kill you that way."
I heard a splashing sound.
It was the sound of the old woman stepping forward.
The liquid flowing from a severed metal pipe had already spread out across the floor of the production line.
"What did you want to do here so badly that you were willing to switch faces constantly?"
"I had to correct a mistake."
"That isn't an answer."
"It does not matter if you do not understand, " said the old woman as she wiped off her face with a hand.
The liquid pouring down from above must have bothered here.
She then said, "Let us finish this."
"Not a bad suggestion." I shrugged."But it is already over."
"... ?"
For an instant – just an instant – the old woman looked truly confused.
And then...
She realized it.
"... You swallowed some, didn't you?"
"Wait... This water. Is this the pure water used in the semiconductor factory? Wait, but that means... !"
"It is the underground water from the Four Mountains area.... I didn't do too much research concerning Zenmetsu Village, but the villagers and the corporation were arguing over the use of the banned underground water, right?"
The old woman was not listening.
She brought a hand to her mouth and frantically tried to spit out the underground water that had entered her body.
Instead of water, a great amount of small snakes came from her mouth.
"Gh... bh... !?"
The sounds coming from her mouth were no longer words.
The snakes had clearly left her control as more and more slithered out.
"Wh-what is going on... ?" asked the Sunekosuri while looking flustered.
"The Toubyou are a possessing spirit Youkai that protects its house. But a lot about how the Toubyou distinguished between someone of Four Mountains and an outsider is actually still a bit of a mystery. After all, it seems Zenmetsu Village was a group brought in from outside to quarantine them. And yet the Toubyou were able to distinguish between their family and outsiders. That means they must have used some distinguishing factor." I raised my index finger."Was it the people who gave them rice? Was it any baby born in the village? Were the people bound to the Youkai in some sort of ceremony?... But that raises questions about a certain incident. Why were the residents of Four Mountains living in Zenmetsu Village so opposed to the semiconductor factory being built? Or more accurately, why did they refuse to allow it to use the underground water?"
"Y-you don't mean..."
"It was who drank the underground water of Four Mountains.... I think that was what was used to distinguish between the Toubyou's 'family' and 'outsiders'." I then pointed my raised finger at the old woman who was suffering as she coughed up more and more snakes."A standard characteristic of all possessing spirits is that they will provide some form of benefit if used correctly but will bare their fangs at their own master if used incorrectly, used without respect, or used cruelly. This old woman focused more on the Orochi than the Toubyou, so she tried to eliminate as much of the Toubyou side from within her as she could. In other words, she treated it cruelly.... She had likely been careful not to drink any of the underground water so that she would be deemed an outsider despite being a resident of Four Mountains."
"And the village's underground water was used for the semiconductor factory's pure water?" muttered the Sunekosuri blankly."B-but! Doesn't that mean everyone in the factory could have used the Toubyou? They were using Four Mountains' underground water like it was normal."
"No. The underground water is the foundation of the semiconductor production. It wasn't used for the standard water. You saw that water server in the employee cafeteria, right? The jailers obviously used it, but they did not get angry when the prisoners used it too. The prisoners here have no human rights, so the use of water brought in from elsewhere must have been the rule here."
"Cough... cough!!"
I heard the old woman repeatedly try to clear her throat, but it was too late.
She could not defeat the Toubyou unless she was prepared to cut open her own stomach with Kusanagi.
"By drinking the underground water, you are now considered the master of the Toubyou. And due to your continued use of Kusanagi which denies the existence of the Toubyou, they have bared their fangs against you as a master who treats them cruelly.... Unfortunately for you, your fate has already been sealed. There is no saving you now."
"Th-this is why... I was... cough... opposed to using... possessing spirits..." replied the old woman through all the snakes. And, "So prepare yourself... With no one left to control it... gh... the Package will spread damage around... uncontrollably. It will now possess such power... that you can only call it inexhaustible..."
"... Are you saying the Toubyou and Orochi are not done for yet?"
"Didn't I tell you?" The old woman whose name I still did not know smiled."Those were not the Youkai... I originally wanted to control..."
A sticky sound drowned out everything else.
The woman collapsed to the ground and the snakes slithering from her mouth enveloped her body. The Sunekosuri let out a frightened cry. As we watched, that lump made up of hundreds of snakes gradually shrank.
Eventually, every single snake disappeared, leaving nothing behind.
Not even the old woman's body remained.
Part 30 (Jinnai Shinobu)
To be honest, there was nothing left for us to do once we contacted the fire department.
We only had to wait for rescue to arrive.
... Or so it should have been.
"Dammit..."
"Shinobu-kun, are you okay?" asked Madoka as she peered over at me.
I was unable to provide a proper response.
My thoughts were on what had happened decades ago.
There was a collection of small villages made up of small shacks reinforced with plywood and galvanized sheet iron. In addition, there was a group of larger houses surrounding a cave. The events had occurred in that now-abandoned village.
They had regularly committed infanticide to ensure they had enough to eat. In the twisted tiny society of that village, no one had questioned it. Not only would they selfishly kill them, but they had cruelly kept their graves separate.
The information revealed by the Zashiki Warashi was too heavy for a high school boy born in this age.
"... That's insane, " I muttered without thinking.
I felt something heavy in the bottom of my gut like when I took a nap directly after eating instant ramen. It had been there since I had learned that information and I could not imagine how long it would stick around. It was possible it would be there for the rest of my life.
"You were not directly involved in this, Shinobu-kun."
"I know that."
"And the tradition ended decades ago."
"I know that too"
Madoka was speaking so indifferently it was possible the information was already nothing more than an entry on a list of dates for her.
"And no matter how much it bothers you, is there anything we can do? If not, worrying about it is meaningless."
"... Perhaps."
I felt some distance between myself and this financial monster who could convert anything into numbers and handle it dryly. When I had given into my anger and beaten down that middle-aged man, she had looked at me with such cold eyes.
However...
It was true there was nothing I could do.
It sounded coldhearted, but it was the truth.
"... The rescue team sure is taking its time."
"Yes, it is."
"You often hear that it's best not to move around at times like this, but..."
"What do we do if they just leave us here, Shinobu-kun? Can you tell the difference between edible mountain plants and inedible ones?"
"An Intellectual Village is a carefully-maintained artificial natural environment. Don't look to me for actual survival skills."
I recalled there being an "edible plant app" that analyzed a photo of the plant in question, but my smartphone was currently in the Zashiki Warashi's cleavage. I could always send the photos to her to analyze, but I had also remembered seeing reviews saying its results could be unclear due to shadows in the photo.
And as someone who had always had his parents cook for him, I wouldn't know what to do even if I was handed a bunch of edible mountain plants. We would probably end up eating half-cooked grass.
"If it comes down to it, we might have to rely on the human ability to survive for a while on water alone."
"Geh. Isn't that not actually true? I think you at least need some salt and minerals..."
Suddenly...
We heard a man scream beyond the fog.
Madoka and I exchanged a glance.
"What was that?"
"The fog is too thick to see from here."
It sounded surprisingly close by. We were near the edge of a cliff, but it was possible the wealthy area of the village was only a few meters down.
But at the same time, those snake Youkai known as Toubyou were slithering around below.
If we remained where we were, the rescue team would arrive. We had no reason to put ourselves in any more danger.
However...
"Hey, Shinobu-kun."
"What?"
"What if that scream was from the rescue team?"
"..."
That possibility was too horrible.
I sighed and climbed down the short cliff to check on the scream.
Part 31 (Hishigami Mai)
After watching the final moments of the old woman who controlled Kusanagi, I opened the trunk of the car parked in the parking lot and pulled out the kit used to repair my body. Most of the cars had exploded after being caught up in the Kusanagi attacks. The area had become a sea of flames as if a napalm bomb had been gone off, but it had not reached my car.
"Y-you really are going to reconnect your right arm, aren't you?"
Rather than sounding relieved, the Sunekosuri looked at me with a disturbed look in his eyes.
"This is half of the reason I am so valuable. I am more durable than a normal human and I can use all sorts of strategies to fake my death. I'm perfect for taking on the ninja-like role of crushing a giant organization after leading them astray with false information."
"I-I cannot believe you can sew your body together with makeup equipment..."
"That's just how the kit is disguised. Having a full set of skin-colored materials and precision tools is convenient."
I temporarily sewed together my upper body that was on the verge of falling to pieces and returned the kit to the cosmetic pouch.
"Damn her. She cut through my breasts three or four times. Did she have some kind of grudge against breasts?"
"You don't have to show me. And you don't have to trace your fingers across them either."
"What? Oh, stop blushing, Sunekosuri-chan. And are you the type of canine Youkai that is still aroused by human nudity?"
"Please do not stand there looking puzzled with those out in the open! Hurry up and cover yourself!!"
You do know the world I live in, right?
My environment isn't kind enough to let me opt out of fighting if I'm attacked while changing.
Even after mending my body, my workwear was still torn to shreds. I put them in my bag and changed into a tank top and hot pants.
"Okay, we've had a short break, so let's go investigate the abandoned Zenmetsu Village."
"Eh? B-but wasn't that old woman the culprit behind all this?"
"Probably. But the changes have not completely stopped. After all, this corporate prison was supposed to have 8000 people between the prisoners and jailers. I see no sign of them returning."
Of course, it had actually been the few of us who had disappeared, not those 8000.
"Now that you mention it..."
"The culprit is dead, but the Package she used is still running. If we don't do something about it, we can never return."
"Th-that's terrible! Only the culprit could know how to do that! Why did you kill her!?"
"Sunekosuri-chan? Try to think back and remember whether that was any time to get greedy."
I tossed the canine Youkai in the car's passenger seat, sat in the driver's seat, and turned the key.
We left through the main gate that no one was monitoring and drove down the sole road. After a while, we came across an abandoned rental car.
"What's this? Do they have to flirt everywhere they go? And have they started to naturally attract misfortune too?"
I parked our rental car near this other one and got out, carrying my equipment and the Sunekosuri. Walking through a forest wearing the ridiculously revealing outfit of a tank top and hot pants was suicide, but I could mend my body even if it did get destroyed. Right now, I needed to force my way through.
"Wh-what is this? I am surrounded by nature, but I do not feel very comfortable..."
"That's because the Kuroyama Electronics Group has a surveillance network spread out all throughout here. Unlike an Intellectual Village which is maintained down to the very foundation, the stench of machinery must be quite strong here."
But I'm not detecting any hint of insects or wild beasts. Is that because this is the territory of the Toubyou and Orochi? They needed to preserve the quality of the underground water, so they wouldn't use any pesticides.
We made our way out of the forest and into a run-down abandoned village.
"Where should we investigate?"
"That Kusanagi woman mentioned something about a shrine. Let's try to find that. If we can find the roots of her techniques, we should be able to interpret what has been set up over the Four Mountains area."
As we walked around through the fog, we came across an area where the wealthier villagers had gathered. We found some ruins there that had likely been the shrine in question.
However...
"Th-this does not look like it crumbled after rotting away."
"It was destroyed by someone."
The village here was jokingly called Zenmetsu Village. That was due to the slaughter that had occurred over 30 years ago.... But this looked older. It had been destroyed and left to rot before the annihilation had occurred.
Now.
I was a bit worried about pushing myself since I was only temporarily sewn together, but using force was my only option. I pushed away a portion of the mountain of rubble that had piled up on the floor.
"It looks like they just applied a lot of power to the outside to destroy it. The inside is almost untouched. Any writings are probably intact, too."
"Did you just casually do something amazing? You did, didn't you!?"
I ignored the Sunekosuri's question and entered the hole in the pile of rubble I had created. As expected, I found a statue of the snake deity enshrined here, bundles of Japanese paper covered with old writing, and other items.
Hmm.
From what I could see, the old woman's real name seemed to be Kawabata Megumi. She had said she had been an old woman for over 100 years and I doubted this was the name of a descendent.
Everything in the old bundles of paper looked meaningful, but one was mostly an account book. I tossed it aside for the moment.
"This seems to list the records of the village. It's filled with a lot of personal opinions, though."
The Four Mountains village had been started as a forced quarantine for those suffering from spiritual harm thanks to Youkai. Of course, it was done in the name of healing them.
The members of this shrine had been sent in to monitor and guide the people so they would not take any actions that would be dangerous to the outside world.
The shrine had split the members of the village into two factions below two different influential families and intentionally robbed them of the ability to battle the outside world by having too much internal conflict.
However...
The members of the shrine had only wanted to efficiently maintain their control over the Four Mountains village. They had not wished for the villagers' deaths.
When social unrest had occasionally reared its ugly head due to lack of food and less gold dust, the villagers had begun killing their babies. The shrine had tried to put a stop to it but had failed.
When the villagers had tried to buy the Toubyou from outside, the shrine had interfered to stop that as well... And that was where the records ended.
In all likelihood, their role as controllers had been revealed and the villagers had branded them traitors and destroyed the shrine.
Humans are easily deceived, but not many of them like being deceived.
To correct a mistake.
This was why that old woman had stayed here in Four Mountains. The records were the most thorough in the section concerning the drowned babies. She may have given up trying to justify the infanticide and had instead tried to keep track of all the children who were killed before being given a name and then to properly mourn for all of them.
The village itself had been destroyed, so it would have been incredibly difficult to know who had given birth to who. However, it was possible the Kuroyama Electronics Group had a division or a report hidden away somewhere that they had used to ensure they had slaughtered all of the villagers and to ensure no information leaked out.
Honestly.
Once again, it's that kind noise that ends up killing a professional.
Just like a Package, it had to have taken a system using hundreds of people to maintain that Kusanagi. That was why it had been worth it for her to have the prisoners work for her on the promise of a jailbreak.
"What's written here looks like a conflict between the Orochi and the Toubyou. Is there nothing else?"
As I read through various bundles of paper, I finally found one discussing the ceremony for the shrine's rituals.
What's this?
It was one of the two influential families that had brought in the Toubyou. The other family had been researching a completely different Youkai, but they had moved toward the Toubyou when their original one seemed too dangerous.
That meant a non-serpentine Youkai had to have taken root in the village as well.
Hm.
Hm, hm, hm... Wait a second!!
"This is very bad, Sunekosuri!! If this is true, it's much worse than the Toubyou or the Orochi!! At least in a certain way!!"
"Eh? Eh? Wh-what are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about-... !!"
I trailed off because I had heard a man screaming in the distance.
I left the ruins of the shrine, but the fog was too thick to see very far. However, I recognized the voice.
"That detective."
"Why are you calmly observing the situation!? Something happened to someone you know, right!? Then you need to go check on him!!"
Hm.
I don't actually have any obligation to go that far.
If the information on that shrine's rituals was accurate, it did not matter if you were a professional or an amateur. What mattered was gathering accurate data on what was occurring in the Four Mountains area. And to do that, I might need to ask that detective and my sister some questions.
"I have no choice. Sunekosuri, let's go mix together our business lives with our personal lives a bit."
Part 32 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)
"Shit! Shit! What the hell is going on!?"
"Don't, detective!!"
The rag-wearing man had supposedly been controlling the Youkai known as Toubyou, but he was now being swallowed by a lump of hundreds of the snakes.
I frantically tried to save him, but the mystery freak grabbed onto me from behind.
"Let go, you idiot! At this rate... !!"
"It's already too late!! Even that man who held the right to control those possessing spirits was taken out. Those snake possessing spirits will never act kindly to a complete outsider like you!! If you approach, they'll swallow you up as well!!"
"But!!"
It was not that I had all sorts of dreams about the job of police officer. This man had seemed suspicious and I did not believe everything he had told us. But was it okay to just let him die? I was not going to let someone else die before my eyes!
I could hear no screams.
The lump of snakes that had been so large was visibly growing smaller and smaller. That meant the rag-wearing man at the center was losing volume.
"The assembly of the Toubyou Package was incomplete from the beginning! It should be more surprising that it functioned up until now than that it failed now! The engine is already spewing smoke. If you get in the car, you will only be caught in the explosion! There is no safe area!!"
Finally, the snakes began disappearing before our eyes as if they were dissolving into the fog. Just as before, no trace was left of the man who had been enveloped by them. He had completely disappeared.
It was due to this lack of blood or a corpse that I was assaulted by a faint chill.
There was no hint of dignity here.
There was nothing left to bury in a grave. It was as if even the victim's death was being covered up.
That was when I heard someone walking through the dead grass.
"Uncle... ?"
I recognized the voice.
I turned around and found my nephew Shinobu and... someone else. I recalled seeing the girl during the incident in that Fuuka Village hotel.
The mystery freak let out a surprised voice next to me.
"Oh, if it isn't Madoka."
"What are you doing here, Enbi?"
As the two girls spoke in high-pitched voices, I heard more footsteps coming from yet another direction.
This time, it was...
"Oh? If it isn't the detective and my little sister."
"... Th-this group gives me a very bad feeling."
It was the mystery freak's sister, Hishigami Mai, and a Youkai that I was fairly certain was a Sunekosuri. As a Youkai, it would dislike me, so its identity did not really matter to me.
Mai held a bundle of old Japanese paper she must have found somewhere. She spoke in a tone of utter annoyance.
"Is this everyone left? If not, this could be bad. We have no time."
... I think there was that man at the tollgate, too.
"Hey, wait. Do you know what's going on in the Four Mountains area? What do you mean there's no time?"
"How much do you know? If you haven't figured out the Toubyou yet, this is going to be quite a lecture. If you've reached the Orochi, I'll be a bit impressed. And if you've figured out the Youkai beyond that, I'll hug you and bury your face in my tits."
"The Youkai... beyond that... ?" said my nephew Shinobu in a doubtful voice."Also, that's the first I've heard of an Orochi being involved in addition to the Toubyou. And you say there's some other Youkai involved here, too!? What is it!?"
"The Toubyou was nothing more than a convenient gimmick. It was only the means to an end. It was used for the assembly involving the real Youkai."
"Assembly? Onee-chan, is someone trying to create a Package using the power of some Youkai?"
"Something like that, " replied Mai clearly."The Youkai behind this incident is a bit of an exception. Even when no Package is being created out of human malice, this Youkai still needs to be constructed by human hands. What is being assembled is the Youkai. It is being made into a form that can naturally exist."
"Wh-what do you mean?" asked the Sunekosuri with a tilt of its head.
... I see she still doesn't tell her allies the details of her plans.
"The traditions surrounding a Youkai hold important meaning, but this Youkai alone is different. The assembly becomes the true form rather than the Youkai itself." Mai waved the bundle of Japanese paper as she arrived at the core of the issue."The Aoandon. Have you ever heard of the mysterious existence that appears once the Hyakumonogatari has been completed?"
Part 33 (Hishigami Mai)
Now then.
Now then, now then, now then.
The detective, my sister, and the others likely could not read the old writing on the Japanese paper, so I had to explain it all to them.
"The Hyakumonogatari?" Jinnai Shinobu frowned."That's the thing where you light 100 candles and blow out a candle each time you tell a ghost story, right?"
"I've heard an alternate method that includes having 100 wicks in a single paper lantern... But wait. Is the thing that appears at the end a Youkai? I thought a ghost was supposed to appear in the dark room."
"Technically, there is no real answer, " I readily replied."Some say a supernatural phenomenon will occur such as a poltergeist or strange noises, some say the ghost of a dead human will appear, and some say a Youkai will appear. It is also unclear if it ends with nothing happening or if everyone there will be cursed.... However, a certain famous Youkai artist consolidated it all into a single existence known as the Aoandon. Nowadays, the Hyakumonogatari is ruled by the base structure of it being a Youkai that is a female oni with pale blue skin."
"... Um, I don't quite understand."
This comment came from the girl I was fairly certain was named Kotemitsu Madoka.
She was a monster in the financial world. It was unfortunate she had no connections in the occult world, but as far as assets were concerned, she likely had the power to hire someone like me.
"Are Youkai really that vague? You make it sound like a Youkai came to be because someone drew an illustration of it..."
"It varies from case to case. Youkai like the Zashiki Warashi or Yuki Onna won't be shaken so easily, but some Youkai have their role added on afterwards like the Nurarihyon." I shrugged."The Aoandon is a special Youkai that can only appear when people tell ghost stories. Tsukumogami only become Youkai after years of being influenced by their environment. It seems the Aoandon has replaced that with 100 ghost stories. Just like Tsukumogami are prepared by their environment like wine or cheese, it is possible the Aoandon's characteristics can be tuned up by gathering high-quality ghost stories.... Simply put, it's a Youkai that can be easily altered by human hands."
"And you're saying that's related to what is happening in Four Mountains?" cautiously asked the detective."A prisoner disappeared from his transport vehicle and a swarm of snake Youkai attacked... How is an Aoandon related to that?"
"It's at the core of it all." I waved the old Japanese paper around."The person who caused all this... I suppose you could call her the culprit... Anyway, that old woman caused all this in order to make a certain wish of hers come true. But it would have been difficult by any normal means. That was why she got her hands on a Youkai that's characteristics could be freely remade like clay. She used it to acquire the occult power she wanted."
"And that was?"
"As I said, the form and abilities of the Aoandon can be shaped by the nature of the 100 ghost stories used. The old woman simply had to regulate the situation such that the Aoandon with the power she wanted would appear."
However, this was different from creating a Package that built a Youkai's power into it.
She was twisting the Youkai itself in a convenient direction.
In the past, I had run across someone who had tried to alter an Umbrella Obake and a Lantern Obake to create a controller for all Youkai in Japan like the Nurarihyon. This was something similar.
"Wait, onee-chan. But you need 100 ghost stories for that, right? I don't know anything about that. Has anyone told any scary stories? Or has it been someone other than us?"
"That area was altered. You could say the creepy ghost stories have been simplified quite a bit. They are all written here."
"?"
"The curving writing looks really old, so it looks like something from hundreds of years ago, right? But these were written quite recently. Although, I think it used a form of thoughtography to automatically write it rather than have someone physically right it out."
"... What does it say?"
"Question 1: Why does Shinobu-kun cling to the girl next to him while he naps? Question 2: Rumor has it the junction was created for the sake of a gigantic semiconductor factory. Is that really true, though?"
"Eh... ?"
Jinnai Shinobu was left speechless.
Kotemitsu Madoka also looked surprised, so these were likely puzzles related to them.
"Puzzles, riddles, Q&A.... It seems that is what is being used as the smallest form of the stories. In other words, once 100 puzzles have been answered in the Four Mountains region, the Aoandon Youkai will appear in the real world with a physical body. This is the womb created in preparation for that."
"S-so that's it, " groaned the detective."Four Mountains is stained with a gruesome history thanks to Zenmetsu Village and the Kuroyama Electronics Group. And it has Youkai in it, too. If people begin chatting here, the essence of creepy and scary stories will naturally be mixed in. By throwing a set number of people in here, they will create creepy puzzles and then answer them all on their own."
There was of course the corporate prison in addition to Zenmetsu Village.
I held up my index finger and twirled it around.
"The Toubyou were a convenient gimmick for creating this puzzle-solving story. You could say they are the ones pulling the strings behind the scenes. Those snake possessing spirits steal the necessary items from others' houses, so they could be used for all sorts of things. For example..."
They could send those needed for the puzzle-solving to this alternate space.
If someone was having difficulty solving the puzzles, they could place an object nearby to act as a hint.
The appearance of the Toubyou themselves could be used to periodically raise the tension and create an atmosphere of needing to solve the puzzles to survive.
Then again, the Toubyou were possessing spirits that took the actions someone desired. It was difficult to think they had the will needed to act as the mastermind behind it all. It was an even more unfitting position than having the final boss be a computer with a heart.
As I explained it all, Jinnai Shinobu began speaking while almost in a daze.
"So it isn't that we were separated from our classmates. Our classmates weren't wandering around the forest as well. Madoka and I were the only ones needed for the Hyakumonogatari, so we were sent into some other space?"
"Dammit. So that's why we found only Hasebe Michio in the forest and the police officers guarding him were nowhere to be found. And once someone was no longer needed to solve the puzzles, they were devoured by the snakes."
It was all to complete the Hyakumonogatari as quickly as possible.
It was all to bring the Aoandon Youkai into reality. The Toubyou were nothing more than errand runners.
More people were not needed, so they had not been called onto the stage.
The complete lack of bugs and wild beasts was because animals were not needed to solve the puzzles.
To tell the Hyakumonogatari, the Toubyou had taken only those in Four Mountains who had been automatically judged to be useful. They had taken those people to "somewhere else".
"Then how do we end all this? Can we give up on the Hyakumonogatari and leave Four Mountains? Or do we have to defeat the person who wants the Aoandon?"
That was the tricky part.
I sighed and said, "I have already defeated the culprit. However, the Hyakumonogatari-based assembly is still running. That means it is running on autopilot like a passenger plane without a pilot."
The autopilot alone could not necessarily make a nice landing.
It was possible that old woman's final words were now acting as a curse.
The Toubyou, the Orochi, and now the Aoandon.
"And I doubt the culprit who wanted to complete the Hyakumonogatari would have created a stage that would let the puzzle-solving participants escape. The Toubyou are powerful enough to drag us from reality and into some other place. This might be a dream, an illusion, some different coordinates, some different phase, the past, or the future, but it doesn't matter.... Those snake possessing spirits can steal whatever is necessary, so they might automatically warp us right back into Four Mountains if we leave."
"Then what are we supposed to do?" asked Jinnai Shinobu with an audible gulp."Can we not leave until the Hyakumonogatari is complete? But that means the Aoandon will appear!"
"Yes, it does. It looks like our only option is to have it appear and then defeat it. At any rate, our top priority is destroying the balance that prevents us from leaving the Hyakumonogatari stage. And to do that..."
I trailed off.
My next words never came.
I had realized something.
Shit! I just realized!! God dammit!!
I see! I see! So that's it! I should have questioned it more when my hand and leg broke through the asphalt too easily when fighting the Kusanagi woman at the corporate prison or when I moved the ruins of the shrine barehanded so easily!! Even if my body has been altered, it should only be effective against Youkai!!
"Onee-chan, what is it?"
My sister's voice was cut off by a rustling sound.
It was the sound of the dead grass. However, this was no footstep.
It was the sound of small snakes slithering.
"This is bad. As I guessed, it looks like the completion of the Hyakumonogatari had something like a time limit."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"Look around you."
The Sunekosuri let out a cry of fear before the detective could.
There were snakes.
A mountain of snakes.
The next thing we knew, everywhere we looked in all 360 degrees was filled with a tremendous amount of snakes. It was not that everything had been covered up by a giant swarm of snakes. It looked more like the landscape was made out of a giant mass of snakes.
In fact...
That may not have been wrong.
"Uuh!? What is going on? The ground is soft!!"
"Hey, detective, that man said the entire basin of Four Mountains functions as the Toubyou's jar, right? Does that mean... !?"
"Everything we saw – the ground, the mountains, the forest, the run-down buildings – was all... all..."
The detective looked down.
He likely regretted having done so.
The ground had transformed into a giant black carpet created from tons of snakes weaving around each other. The dead grass had turned into a collection of small, narrow snakes that looked like tubifex worms. If we had gone to the village, we would likely find the silhouettes of the buildings made out of snakes.
"Is everything here made from the Toubyou!? Everything but the people needed for the puzzle-solving was fake!?"
"It looks like the stage was made to destroy itself if the Hyakumonogatari was not completed within a given period of time. That may have been one of the conditions for creating the Aoandon. If the Aoandon with the abilities the culprit wanted was not created, it would all reset like this."
"Reset... ?" Jinnai Shinobu frowned."You just said reset, right? This isn't just cleaning up after slicing us to pieces, is it!?"
"If my estimation is correct, " I replied with a slow sigh. I gave the worst possibility I could think of."This is probably not the first time we have attempted the Hyakumonogatari."
"Wha-... ?"
"From the fact that they can drag us to this 'alternate location', it is clear the Toubyou have been assembled in a convenient way. Their ability to steal whatever is necessary may go beyond simply manipulating distances and coordinates. It may allow them to grab objects from the past or future on the timeline."
If the Aoandon was not completed, they would destroy everything and return it all to the initial point.
In other words, it was constructed in an eternal loop that would never end until the objective was complete.
"We have to go through that life-or-death situation again? Can't we do something!? Isn't there anything we can do other than watch this destruction happen!?"
"Tell me everything you know!! Let's share our information. We are still here because there are still some puzzles remaining that we are supposed to solve. That means we have to share our information to solve them all. If we don't find all 100 puzzles and solve them all, we can never escape Four Mountains! Our greatest weapon is inside our own heads!!"
At some point, the thick fog had disappeared.
I looked up at the blue sky that had appeared behind it, but then I grimaced.
In the sky, a pure black mouth opened wide.
No. It was all Toubyou. This went beyond just dozens or hundreds of them.
Were hundreds of millions if not billions of those snake Youkai monitoring us while creating a dome over the false Four Mountains area!?
When Jinnai Shinobu, the detective, and the others looked up into the sky as well, they were all left speechless.
Meanwhile, the black gradually ate into the blue of the sky. Over half of it was covered by snakes already.
"Well, " I muttered without thinking.
As if the surface tension of the liquid in a cup had passed its limit, a portion of the black sky crumbled.
"This chapter was a failure..."
Trying to think about evading or defending was useless.
Snakes literally poured down like a waterfall as they fell right onto our
Part 34 (Jinnai Shinobu)
"Ah!?"
I woke up.
I could feel an unpleasant sweat all across my body. My heart rate had increased to dangerous levels. For a moment, I was unsure where I was and it took me a bit to distinguish up from down and left from right.
... I'm on the bus.
It seemed I was on a tour bus driving down the highway.
"Hey, hey, Shinobu-kun."
I heard Madoka speaking from next to me.
I thought she would also be uneasy due to being unable to keep up with the sudden change. However...
"Is this where I am supposed to ask 'Shinobu-kun, why do you cling to the girl next to you while you nap?'"
Wait...
Wait!!
I remember this conversation.
Isn't this just before we entered Four Mountains!?
"Jinnai, we're almost to a zone simply filled with noteworthy things."
That was my classmate known as the Love King.
Just his face was peering over the seat in front of me and he was saying the exact same things I had heard before.
"We're almost at Four Mountains. The scenery will change once we leave the tunnel."
Unlike the Love King, Madoka likely understood.
I exchanged a glance with her and it was clear that we were the only two enveloped in tension.
Which meant...
No, not again.
Once we passed through the tunnel, the bus driver, the guide, our classmates, and our homeroom teacher would all disappear and we would have to solve the puzzles of the Hyakumonogatari in that abandoned village filled with countless Toubyou.
Mai had said that had not been the first time. In that case, it must have been the fact that we had made it to the very end that we "remembered" this time.
There were 100 puzzles.
There were 100 answers.
Until they were all gathered and the Aoandon was born, we would have to repeat this again and again.
I began to panic, but I could not think of any way of escaping the situation.
Meanwhile, the tunnel approached like the mouth of some great monster.
The tour bus was swallowed up.
It did not matter how many times it took.
It did not matter if it lasted for all eternity.
Until the Hyakumonogatari was fully completed, Zenmetsu Village of Four Mountains would be waiting for me.
Notes
1. ↑ Zenmetsu means "annihilation".
2. ↑ He's thinking of a shide.
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