Volume 1, Chapter 4: Regarding the Slaughter Part 24-28

This chapter is updated by wuxiaworld.eu\nPart 24 (Zashiki Warashi - Yukari) \nThe diagram of the hotel? \nHotel diagrams had to be all over the place. For example, on the inside of every room’s door. If I recalled correctly, they provided escape routes for guests in the case of different disasters. They were not required by law to be posted there, but it seemed to be standard. \nAnd other than those escape route maps, oftentimes other diagrams would be posted to show the way to the restaurant and other services. \nBut… \nThose diagrams did not need to be perfectly accurate. For example, the escape route maps only needed to show the way to the emergency exits. It could omit portions of a long hallway and things like that. Diagrams and maps that were precisely made would probably be rare. \n“The diagram at the front desk?” \n“That’s right. A huge diagram was hanging on the wall behind it. If something that corresponds to the hotel is being used as a part of the Package, it has to be that.” \n“But you have no idea how many hotel diagrams there are in the building. What about the escape route maps or guide maps? There might be a diagram in the pamphlets. What makes you so sure the diagram at the front desk is the one?” \n“I think Hyakki Yakou knows a lot of things about this situation that we can’t see. And it probably goes even beyond what I am imagining.” Shinobu grinned as he headed for the elevator hall. “But there is one thing not even Hyakki Yakou can see. I was affected by the Zashiki Warashi Package. And that Package shows you an ominous future. And that is why a complete amateur like me knows something Hyakki Yakou does not.” \n“You saw something in the future?” \n“I noticed something that seemed odd and it might be the true crux of this issue.” \n“So you’re saying anything good that happens from here on out is thanks to me.” \n“I would rather bow down to Hyakki Yakou than say that.” \nWe rode the elevator down to the first floor. No workers were at the front desk when we arrived. And sure enough, a giant decorative diagram of the hotel’s first floor covered the wall behind it. It looked like someone had framed a wooden board covered with paper. \nOh, dear. \nWhen I drew closer, I noticed something was splattered here and there on the diagram. I could see red dots of what looked like blood. It may have corresponded to what was happening in the hotel. \nHowever… \nIt would be too naïve to think breaking that diagram would resolve the situation. That was like trying to stop a precise time bomb with a karate chop. \nAll the more so since this Package had been assembled by Hyakki Yakou. \n“So what drew your attention to this diagram?” \n“In the prediction the Package gave me, this was not the diagram I saw,” said Shinobu. “I didn’t take much notice of it at the time since I was finding corpse after corpse of people I knew, but I remembered it once I had calmed down and thought back on it. The diagram hanging here was not this one.” \nShinobu climbed over the front desk and headed for the back wall. He reached for the large diagram that seemed to be covering some kind of painting and removed it. \nAnd behind it was… \n“This is…” \n“This is a diagram of our house,” said Shinobu. \nThat’s right. It was a diagram of the Japanese-style thatch roof house that I currently protected. \nSo is this what Shinobu saw in that vision? \nBut it turned out that was not right either. \n“This isn’t what I saw either.” \nHe then removed that diagram. And below it was a third one. This one I had a feeling Shinobu did not recognize. Most likely, none of the hotel’s guests would recognize it. Of all the people here, I was probably the only one who knew what it was. \n“…That’s Hyakki Yakou’s old headquarters.” \n“So it’s going backwards. Zashiki Warashi, this is your history. If I removed this one, I would probably find the diagram of the house you protected before it. And when we go forward through history, the diagram on top was for this hotel. Do you see what that means?” \n“They are trying to move me from your house to this hotel?” \n“I have no idea if they can make you do it against your will, but given what Hyakki Yakou wants, that is likely their ultimate objective. You might be stripped from our house when you are completely drawn into the Package.” \n“But this…” \n“So you noticed?” Shinobu spoke slowly as if rearranging the information in his head on the fly. “You are a Youkai that wanders from house to house. And you are thought to control the fortune of the house you currently reside in. But that isn’t accurate. The house a Zashiki Warashi leaves will decline. Even after the Zashiki Warashi has abandoned a house, the Zashiki Warashi’s effects remain. In other words, you are still directly having a negative effect on Hyakki Yakou. I have no idea where Hyakki Yakou’s headquarters are, but if we have something that can directly interfere with you, then we can attack Hyakki Yakou’s headquarters no matter where they might be. Just like they tried to interfere by putting these red dots on the hotel diagram.” \nHis reasoning may have been sound. \nWhen based in the laws of Youkai rather than the laws of physics, his reasoning may have been sound. \nBut… \n“That won’t work.” \n“?” \n“That will not work here. We do not have enough here to strike back against Hyakki Yakou.” \nYes. \nI knew of a fatal weakness in Shinobu’s escape plan. \n“Hyakki Yakou’s headquarters were lost long ago. It was the thanks they got for making too many enemies. They are likely using some completely other place for their headquarters now. In other words, you will not find the heart of Hyakki Yakou by heading back into the past. Hyakki Yakou’s heart lies in the future, so it is out of our reach. Most likely, Hyakki Yakou plans to transfer me to this hotel and then hang a diagram of their new headquarters over the hotel diagram to transfer me there!” \nI did not look at Shinobu’s face when I told him that. I had a guess what his expression would be, but I did not look. After all, if that was the only hope we had and if that was the trump card Shinobu and the one who gave him the information had, then the only fate left for us was… \nVwah!?Why is…he…here!? \nMy consciousness began to break apart. It was coming from the right of the front desk. The hallway leading away was now wrapped in a dim darkness. The lights were still on, but it was now too dark to see far back into it and the area was wrapped in a clearly odd atmosphere. I was a Youkai so I could not be killed easily, but what I saw there made even me tremble. It felt ominous. I was fearful. I had felt this feeling before. I knew it well after the time I had spent in that place. \nHyakki Yakou. \nAn existence even more deviant than a simple deadly Youkai. \nThe woman who had stabbed a man with a fork had maintained her camouflage even after taking action. That was frightening enough, but this was on a completely different level. This was a mass of fear that gave one a new idea of what “pure” fear was. \nAs sweat soaked my body, I heard a simple electronic tone. It was as if someone had been waiting for that moment. It was coming from the object in Shinobu’s hand that looked like an unrefined cell phone. Shinobu must have had an idea who it was from because he looked nervous as he answered it. \nI heard a young girl’s voice come from the device. \nBut was it really a girl speaking? \n“I see you have made it to the core of this issue.” \n“Thanks to you.” \n“You probably have only a few minutes until the Illness Magic user reaches you. I do not care what you do until then, but you cannot reach me no matter what you do to those diagrams.” \n“So I take it destroying the hotel diagram will not destroy the Package.” \n“If you do that, you will only cause the hotel to come crumbling down with you inside. But the frame is sturdy and the glass is bulletproof, so destroying it would prove difficult.” \n“What if I destroyed the diagram of Hyakki Yakou’s old mansion?” \n“That mansion burned to the ground long ago. It is possible you might damage some unrelated building that has been built on the land since, but it will not reach me.” \nThat was right. \nThe final piece of the puzzle was not in the hotel. \nShinobu needed the diagram of Hyakki Yakou’s current headquarters. But it was not here. Once the Zashiki Warashi…that is to say, me…was fully drawn into the Package, my residence would transfer to the hotel. Then they just had to hang up the new diagram to complete their plan. And Hyakki Yakou had no reason to bring that final diagram here at this stage. \nBut… \n“I just have one last question,” said Shinobu. \nHis tone of voice cut through my fear and made me frown. It did not match the situation. He seemed to have some hope left. \n“In your Zashiki Warashi Package, you take the abilities of a Zashiki Warashi to keep adults from seeing her and to inform people of coming fires or other dangers to the household, and you have rebuilt them so that they will show people images of ominous predictions of death, right?” \n“Yes. Due to the circumstances, we can only show them. We cannot see them as well. However, that tragedy of yours is set in stone. Whatever you saw, it had to have been an ill omen.” \n“And it was. The current situation is at a high enough difficulty level that even that woman’s safety is unclear. This has been made so anyone would lose no matter what they do. So I believe what I saw in that vision. If I do not stop this, it will definitely happen. But that wasn’t my question,” said Shinobu. “Does this Package of yours only work once?” \n“What?” \n“The hotel diagram is only of the first floor. And I didn’t see any illusions like that after heading into the elevator. What I want to know is: will I be forced to see that prediction again and again as long as I stay on the first floor of the hotel?” \nI could not figure out what Shinobu was getting at. \nI could not see how seeing horrible visions over and over would help him escape this crisis. \nDespite the present danger of a Hyakki Yakou member approaching, I focused on Shinobu. \n“Dammit. It’s all twisted around. I can’t figure out the order of events. It’s just like back then. The Zashiki Warashi prediction is coming again.” \n“What good does that do you?” asked the girl over the phone. “What help can you get by seeing a future that you cannot avoid? As I said, you cannot stop us with just the diagrams in that hotel. You are missing one crucial piece. What do you hope to accomplish?” \n“It wasn’t this one,” cut in Shinobu. \nThe force behind his words did not merely bring him to the same level as this person from Hyakki Yakou. It brought control of the conversation to him. \n“The diagram I saw in the vision wasn’t of the hotel. But it wasn’t the diagram of Hyakki Yakou’s old mansion either.” \n“What…?” \n“The diagram I saw was for a special V-shaped passenger jet called a flying wing! After it was all over, that diagram was placed over the others! That final piece may not exist here now, but it will be there in the future. And I saw the future!!” \nThe pen used when checking in was sitting on the front desk. \nShinobu snatched it up and brought the tip directly to the surface of the front desk. \n“I only know the broad details right now. I can’t make a detailed diagram right now. But if I see that scene again, I will acquire your weakness! By drawing it on the desk, I can bring the diagram of that flying wing back to the present!!” \n“!! The Illness Magic!!” \nI distinctly felt something approaching through the dim darkness spreading through the hallway. But something held it back. It was being stopped by something. \nIs someone standing up to that monster!? \n“You said this hotel would collapse if I destroyed the hotel diagram! And you said a new building constructed on the same land might be destroyed if I destroyed the diagram of Hyakki Yakou’s old mansion. So if I have the diagram for that flying wing, I can make your airplane break apart in midair!!” \nThe girl was shouting something, but Shinobu did not seem to be listening. \nHis body lurched forward. \nHis eyes were following something that was very clearly not there. \nPart 25 (Jinnai Shinobu) \nAnd… \nI once more faced that tragedy that I had never wanted to see again. \nPart 26 (Jinnai Shinobu) \nI had returned. I had returned to that place. I had returned to that time. It was such a horrific scene that I could feel sweat unnaturally pouring from my body, but I did not have time to care. I gripped the pen and faced the front desk. \nI had to finish before this fresh fear left me. \nI had to drag that flying wing diagram from the future and into the present!! \n“That is impossible…” I could hear the girl’s voice coming from the satellite phone. “Even if you have the information from the diagram, an amateur cannot draw it well enough free-hand! You do not have the time needed for that!! One of our top 5, the Illness Magic user, will reach you soon. You will be eaten into and destroyed before you can finish!!” \n“Hey, just to be sure: you drove the proper owners of that thing out and no one but the Sakoku faction of Hyakki Yakou is onboard, right? The real girl ran away somewhere, right?” \n“What are you-…?” \n“Also, I hope you’re flying over the ocean right now. I would really like to end this without getting any innocent people involved. I heard you were circling around above the Pacific Ocean, so hopefully that was accurate.” \n“Illness Magic, the contents of the prediction do not matter. Eliminate the uncertain factor right now!!” \n“Will that tragic future finally arrive or will I put a stop to everything here? Let’s see who is faster, young lady.” \nThe tip of the pen raced across the desk. \nAt the same time, I noticed a strange black spot appear on the end of one of the fingers on my right hand. It spread in no time at all. This was the Illness Magic. This was what managed to defeat that monstrous woman. At first, I felt no pain, but I then felt something rising up from the depths of my stomach. I was unable to keep it down and it spewed out all at once. \n“Cough cough!! Cough cough!!” \nIt was not vomit. \nI had never eaten anything that red! \nThe Zashiki Warashi shouted something, but I could not make out her words over a tremendous ringing in my ears. My sense of balance ceased to function properly. But it did not matter. It did not matter what happened. All that mattered was that I had to force that weakness to appear in the present! \n“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!” \n“Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!” \nAs silent changes assaulted my body, I focused everything I had on my right hand. I moved it quickly but accurately. To draw that answer that existed only in my memories into the real world, I had to keep my unnatural headache and feeling of intoxication from wiping it from my memory. I had to get as close as possible to the full picture of that flying wing!! \nI could feel a straining noise. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from my bones, my muscles, or my internal organs. An unpleasant sweat flowed from my entire body and I felt such a chill that I lost all sense of temperature. My legs grew unsteady beneath me and I felt like I was standing on the deck of a rocking boat. I could not stop the blood from coming out of my mouth. It was coming out so quickly I thought an entire organ was going to come up with it. My right hand shook. My strength on the pen faded. The pen fell from my hand. My final weapon slipped from my grasp. \n“It is over,” said whoever it was that used that girl’s voice. “You had a chance, but you simply do not have the skill. Hyakki Yakou’s Illness Magic user is reliable. He is so reliable that counting on his success is not a gamble. That is the difference between a pro and an amateur. Your trump card is not enough to overcome his reliability. No matter what.” \n“…Not…necessarily…” I forced out the words while primarily focused on catching gasps of air through all the blood. “I do not need the pen.” \n“…?” \n“Did you really think I could draw an accurate enough diagram by free-hand? Keep in mind, I’m just a high school student. I’m not an Itako and I cannot use automatic writing. There’s no way I could actually pull that off. And…” \nAs I spoke, I pulled out my true final weapon from where it was tucked into the Zashiki Warashi’s obi. \nIt technically belonged to me, but the Zashiki Warashi always used it as a music player. \n“The 21st century is quite convenient. You can acquire an accurate diagram without drawing it out free-hand.” \n“You don’t mean… A smartphone…no, the digital camera!!” \n“I saw an accurate diagram of the flying wing hanging here in that tragic future. So naturally you must have a copy prepared somewhere in the hotel, right?” \n“Illness Magic… Fall back, Illness Magic!!” \n“That’s right. The Illness Magic. That diagram is the cornerstone of your plan. You cannot allow it to be altered or damaged in the slightest, so you would leave it with the strongest person you had. You didn’t want it getting destroyed before the plan was complete! That made things simple for me. I had to make the Illness Magic user rush things so the boss character carrying the flying wing’s diagram would let his guard down! I had to get him to come forward and step into the danger zone!!” \nOf course, I was just a high school student. \nNo matter how much I made him rush things, I could never hope to win against someone who sounded like they belonged in an RPG like this Illness Magic user. I would likely be unable to make him falter for even an instant. I would only end up transformed into some gruesome corpse. \nBut… \nSomeone else was there. \nWhen I had started to draw the decoy diagram, the Illness Magic user had oddly stopped moving when he started to come to stop me. It had been as if something was preventing him from approaching. There was definitely something there. It was that monstrous woman who seemed more suited to appearing in an RPG than your average Youkai. She was the only one who could stand up to that Illness Magic user. \nAnd so I just had to shout. \n“You don’t have to defeat him… Just snatch it away from hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!” \nI heard an odd rumble in response. \nThe dim darkness filling the hallway wavered unnaturally and I glimpsed something white. \nIt was a large sheet of paper that had likely been rolled up. \nIt was a diagram. \nA diagram of a flying wing. \nA diagram of Hyakki Yakou’s headquarters. \nIt quickly disappeared into the dim darkness like it was a ship sinking into the ocean at night. But before it did, I had held out the lens of my smartphone and the phone sent out several quick flashes of light. I took an accurate photograph of the diagram. \nI lightly tossed the smartphone toward the wall behind the front desk and the long headphone cords wrapped around the fixture meant to hang the frame from. \n“All I need is an accurate diagram hanging against this wall. It doesn’t have to be the copy the Illness Magic user has, right?” \n“Wh-wha-…?” \n“I’ve created your weakness,” I said slowly to make sure. \nThat smartphone had been expensive and I was unsure how much longer my backup phone would last, but it had to be done. \nMeanwhile… \nThe girl was at a loss for words. A complete loss for words. She had constantly had control of the situation as the leader of a group that neither human nor Youkai could hope to oppose, and yet she was at a loss for words. \nThat told me all I needed to know. \nThe enemy’s reaction when seeing my actions told me more than my own actions had. \nNow… \nIt was time for me to finish things. \n“Fall down to the depths of the earth, Hyakki Yakou!!” \nI swung the heavy satellite phone as hard as I could and slammed the bottom of the device into my own smartphone. The second device was completely smashed. Or more accurately, the flying wing diagram displayed on the screen was completely smashed. \nI heard violent static come from the satellite phone. \nAnd I doubted it was simply due to the impact breaking the phone. \nPart 27 (Hishigami Mai) \n“Cough!? Cough cough cough!! Cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough cough!?” \nUgh, I thought I was going to die. \nBut something must have happened since the “invasion” had ended before the Illness Magic could destroy me from the inside out. I placed my hands on the floor and coughed up a pool of blood, but that was all. That was the end of it. It looked like the Illness Magic had left my body. \nIn the very end, that kid had made things easier for himself. I had just meant for him to do his best free-hand to draw the flying wing diagram out of his vision of the future. But thanks to him, I had been forced to directly steal the diagram from that monster. \nThe dim darkness faded away slightly. \nI forced open the one eye that I could not see out of thanks to the blood flowing over it, and called out into the remaining dim darkness. \n“You aren’t going to continue this?” \n“I see no reason to.” \n“You could kill me to take revenge.” \n“I act based on reason, not emotion.” \n“I have to ask. What caused you all to so hurriedly throw together this coup d’etat?” \n“MI6, the CIA, and the European Security Force.” \n…Dammit. So that’s it. \nI had forgotten about that. \n“So the people putting together a system to use Succubi in Europe had you that scared? I looked into it, but it was a failure. I believe I even sent in a report.” \n“The system itself may have failed, but the network built up around that failure still created a community built around the Succubus. The officials in control of the plan were completely charmed by her. Depending on how you look at it, this is an even greater threat. A demon has built this up using the power of a human organization.” \nI see. That is very true. \n“But in that case…” I said. \n“What?” \n“Couldn’t you interpret this infighting within Hyakki Yakou as having been caused by that Succubus? Just like our movements were controlled with those hotel lodging tickets. …And it must have been done cleverly enough to keep any of you from catching on.” \n“…” \n“This new community would have a plethora of reasons to want the old Hyakki Yakou to be crushed.” \n“I suppose you could see it that way.” \n“Where are you going?” \n“My priorities have changed. It seems there is someone else I must defeat.” \nAnd that was it. \nThe dim darkness completely disappeared now. The hallway was now illuminated like a normal hotel hallway. I could see clearly all the way to the wall at the end of the hallway. It looked like the Illness Magic user had truly left. \nNot that he would be able to simply leave with no trouble. \nHe surely understood that and that may have been why he decided to leave me be and find an escape route as quickly as possible. Or perhaps he was looking for something of enough value to get Hyakki Yakou to forgive him. \n“Are you okay!?” \nJinnai Shinobu came running over with the Zashiki Warashi with him. He must have received a bit of the effects of that Illness Magic. For someone with no defenses, he had done well to withstand its effects mentally. It was possible he had what it would take to thoroughly remodel his body like mine. \n“…N-not so much. If this incident continues any longer, I might seriously be in trouble.” \n“I settled things with Hyakki Yakou. Their coup d’etat is over. The real girl will probably deal with the rest.” \n“That isn’t the end of it.” \nDammit. \nI had a feeling it would come to this. Don’t claim it’s over when you haven’t done anything to deal with that!! \n“Hey, Jinnai Shinobu-kun. What did you see in your vision of the future? Were you spewing blood everywhere and dying after being attacked by some strange form of the occult?” \n“Eh? Well…” \n“You weren’t, were you? If you had, you would have been more cautious about dealing with the Illness Magic user. I don’t know what you saw, but it was more of a collection of different deaths, wasn’t it?” \n“But I avoided that future, so the present will be different, right? …Right? Are you saying that future is still going to happen!?” \n“The riot police…” muttered the Zashiki Warashi. “Uchimaku Hayabusa mentioned it. A portion of the riot police are surrounding this hotel and cutting off all communications in order to assassinate the Hishigami sisters who keep butting into the police’s turf. They are waiting for an opportunity to interfere and eliminate those sisters that they cannot normally handle.” \n“Tch. Jinnai Shinobu-kun, does that match what you saw?” \n“Not really… What I saw didn’t seem at all related to Youkai either though. It was more like…something from a splatter film. It didn’t look like something carried out by an expert marksman, that’s for sure.” \n“The riot police can get away with it more easily by making it look that way. They probably secretly secured a serial killer to take the fall for it. …It’s possible the deaths in the prediction were actually caused by the Illness Magic user, but the corpses were later altered to look more gruesome. That would be why you saw it as something caused by a serial killer.” \nEither way, this was bad. \nThanks to the Illness Magic user, Jinnai Shinobu and I could not move. The detective…well, he could not handle this on his own. He would be overwhelmed by a group like the riot police. My little sister was the intellectual type, so it was out of the question to ask her to fight. Kotemitsu Madoka was an unknown factor, but she probably would have played a bigger role during the issue with Hyakki Yakou if she was at all useful. \nThat left the Zashiki Warashi and Sunekosuri as our biggest hopes since they could not be killed easily. \nBut… \n“Zashiki Warashi, do you think you can handle this?” \n“Do not expect any kind of battling or action from me. And I refuse to act as a shield either.” \n“That’s what I expected. And I really doubt I can expect anything out of the Sunekosuri.” \nA Youkai’s testimony could not be used in court, so even if the riot police found they could not kill the Zashiki Warashi and the Sunekosuri, they would just ignore them and head into the hotel to slaughter the rest of us. That meant our situation could be summed up with the word “bad”. I did not want to die yet and I did not want to get my little sister involved in all this. \nWhich meant… \n“Jinnai Shinobu-kun. Where is the satellite phone I lent you?” \n“It’s mostly broken.” \nFrom the look of the phone he handed me, he had certainly not treated it as one should treat a borrowed item. If we survived this, I decided I would send him a bill. \nI checked over it and discovered it could still make calls. \nThat was fortunate. \nIt was finally time for the final character to redeem herself. \n“Young lady,” I said into the phone. \n“What is it?” \n“I assume you have noticed that the situation has been resolved. While I would rather not have you steal Jinnai Shinobu-kun’s victory, I have a request for you if you have retrieved command of Hyakki Yakou.” \n“Tell me what you need.” \n“Take care of the riot police outside.” \nThose magic words showed their effects quite quickly. \nPart 28 (Jinnai Shinobu) \nThat had been a terrible trip. \nI hadn’t had time to try to get it on with Madoka, the Zashiki Warashi seemed to be planning some kind of unpleasant surprise for Christmas Eve (I had a feeling she was going to make some announcement I would be unable to refuse despite knowing it was a trap), I had never gotten a chance to approach that mystery freak girl, and her older sister had been too frightening to approach!! \nAnd yet with Hyakki Yakou and that Illness Magic user, I had way too many opportunities to come into contact with things I did not want to!! And even now that I had returned to my thatch roof house, I did not feel comfortable at all!! I had no idea when that kind of threat was going to appear again!! \nSo much bad had happened and yet no good had happened whatsoever. \nThe moment the Zashiki Warashi returned to her own territory, she folded one of the living room cushions in half and used it as a pillow. \n“It’s only when I get back that I remember how boring it is here,” she said. \n“Don’t just lie around. Help me carry in this luggage.” \n“I doubt it would help with this boredom, so I’ll pass.” \nIn the end, I was forced to carry in her luggage as well as my own. While I did so, the flat-chested Yuki Onna and the Nekomata ran out from farther in the house. \nI was right. That Nekomata won over my granny so she can stay here. \n“…Do you have a souvenir for me? …If not, let’s get married…” \n“I heard they have a local melon-flavored pet food there.” \nEh? How can they possibly expect a souvenir? \nThose two may not have known, but it was a miracle I was even alive. \nIn fact… \nMaybe that whole incident would have been easier if I had brought along those legitimately deadly Youkai… \nBut the group in Hyakki Yakou that carried out the coup d’etat had probably guided us such that it didn’t turn out that way. \n“Shinobu,” said the Zashiki Warashi as she pressed a massager belonging to my mother against her calf. (By the way, god, does it mean I have a dirty mind if the sight of a girl holding an electric massager gets my heart racing?) “Do not try to use Youkai to solve all of your problems. That would set you on the path to becoming like the people you saw.” \nShe may have been right. \nThat woman, Hyakki Yakou, and the Illness Magic user. \nAll of them probably began with nothing more than a thought similar to mine. In most old stories, fortune given by some strange person or creature only gave you happiness if you were unaware of it. \nSh*ta-Kiri Suzume, Hanasaka Jii-san, Tsuru no Ongaeshi, and Kobutori Jii-san. \nYou could benefit from those things, but it would turn to tragedy if you got greedy. \n“Happiness comes to the honest” was not just a nice saying. \nIt was a coldhearted sign telling you those that did not know right from wrong would get their comeuppance. The people I had met may not have received any kind of obvious punishment, but that just showed how far from the normal path they had strayed. \nI did not want to become like them. \nIt did not matter if doing so would give me the power to stand at the center of the issue. \nI would rather stay on the outskirts of the issue to the very end. \n“Then again, Shinobu, all that would happen if you were honest is I could have more fun teasing you. …But you aren’t bad when you are like that. How about you go back to being a baby, Shinobu?” \nThat figured. \nI was not dealing with a Buddha like in the story of the Kasajizou. I was dealing with Youkai. If you were hoping for any kind of favor, you would only receive harsh retaliation. If you were trying to subjugate them, they would provide an overwhelming counterattack. If you tried to act indifferent, they would come to you. If you tried to accept them naturally, they would have no qualms about tricking you. \nI could not use them. \nIf I forgot to show them the proper respect, they would snap at me. \nAnd yet when they occasionally decided to help someone on a whim, they could save someone who had only run across them by chance. \n“…I wonder if there is any way to just get along with Youkai.” \n“That would certainly make this easier.” \nSuddenly, my overall small granny walked in. \n“Shinobu, Shinobu.” \n“What is it, granny?” \n“A package arrived for you. It is too heavy for me to carry in.” \n“??? Zashiki Warashi, did you order something on the internet again?” \n“I bought a folding bicycle on your account.” \n“Why were you using my computer for that!? O-oh, no! My credit is going to plummet!!” \n“But I would think a folding bicycle would be fairly light. It shouldn’t be too heavy to carry.” \nI headed for the front door and found a giant cardboard box. The Zashiki Warashi was right about one thing: it didn’t look like it was a folding bicycle. It was much too big for that. The box was large enough for a fair-sized washing machine. \nAnd it was not a box from an online shopping site. \n“Did my uncle send me something? Does it have a label anywhere?” \nI looked closely at the top of the box. \nAnd then… \nWith a loud ripping noise, the top of the cardboard box tore open from the inside. Something shot out of the box and struck me on the chin. \nThe world spun and my sense of balance was thrown out of order. I thought it was some kind of overly enthusiastic jack-in-the-box, but it was not. When I took a step back while holding my chin with one hand, I could see what had struck me. \nIt was a head. \nIt seemed a woman had been hiding in the cardboard box and her upper body had shot up out of the box. \nBut… \n“Ahh, I’m exhausted. Hm? Huh? I can’t get out… Well, I don’t need the box anymore. I’ll just rip it apart.” \n“Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait!!” \n“You look like you’re wondering why something shaped like a human was packed into this box.” \n“That’s not the main issue here!” \n“But there are some things in this world that look like humans but are not humans.” \n“That isn’t it either!! In fact, I know that all too well since I already have 3 Youkai living here!!” \n“…Then why do you look so confused?” \nThe “thing” tilted her head in puzzlement and I pointed at that glamorous beauty. \n“You have spiraling goat horns on your head, bat wings on your back, and a pointed tail!!” \n“I don’t think I could be any more stereotypical of a demon.” \n“We already had our hands full with Japanese monsters!! We don’t need you suddenly expanding the setting with a Western one right at the end!!” \nAlso, I was shocked to see my granny was only grinning in amusement at this Succubus’s arrival!! \n“My specific race is Succubus. I make sure to evolve daily to match the needs of the current age. As proof, I am wearing the classic of the sexy swimsuits, the micro bikini. But I can switch over to a PE outfit or a maid uniform depending on your personal tastes. Your options are endless!!” \n“Nnhh!!” \nAs my veins protruded on my temple, the Zashiki Warashi whispered to me. \n“Shinobu, if you just accept this and everything it implies, you will probably die.” \n“Yes, it would be too much to manage… But I suppose it was too convenient for only the Japanese islands to be full of these strange exceptions. It does make sense…but isn’t this the kind of thing Hyakki Yakou is supposed to deal with!?” \n“I’m actually on the run from Hyakki Yakou. Using the desires of some officials in Europe, I was about to take control of an international agency in the EU when I was defeated. They were really playing dirty. They sent Illness Magic in to take advantage of a weakness to the historic bubonic plague.” \n“Stop, stop!! Not only is that probably full of information that will put my life at risk to hear, but I can’t possibly comprehend it all at once like that!! It’s all too sudden!!” \n“Not necessarily.” \n“What?” \n“Have you heard of an organization called Saishi Kajin?” \n“I think they came up in the issue related to Hyakki Yakou. Weren’t they absorbed by Hyakki Yakou?” \n“It was an art research group made up of strange people who were working to create the ultimate beauty. The ultimate beauty they wanted to create would surpass the barriers of time period and cultural region. They intended to have this beauty sit on a throne as an empress while they devoted themselves to her.” \n“…Wait…” \n“Oh, you’re a quick one! I think I can expect great things from you, master!! Just between you and me, that sounds a lot like the community based around desire that sprang up around a Succubus in Europe!!” \n“That was your organization!? Also, don’t call me master! It affects me more than I’d like to admit! So you had your organization be enemies of Hyakki Yakou and then be absorbed by them to affect their balance of power? So the one behind that coup d’etat was…!?” \n“I come from Western European culture, so I of course had nothing to do with the creation of that purely Japanese organization. But Saishi Kajin failed to create the beauty they wanted. I will admit to showing them a bit of a dream while they were so disheartened, though.” \nSo you took over that empty shell of an organization!? \nIf that European community, or whatever it was, had also been quietly causing trouble for Hyakki Yakou, then she had put pressure on them from both within the country and without! \nShe had slipped through the darkness and gaps in large but not overly powerful organizations to freely draw out the power they had. I was not accustomed to Western monsters, but that way of thinking may have made her a lot more dangerous than the straightforward methods of Hyakki Yakou. \n“…Wait? Th-then was the person claiming to control the Sakoku faction of Hyakki Yakou…” \nShe had been in the form of a girl. \nShe had acted on the desire for political power. \nShe had robbed a large organization of its calm and then taken control. \nAnd I had sensed something off about the girl (?) claiming to be from the Sakoku faction while I had spoken to over the satellite phone. \nShe had spoken in general terms as if she did not understand the details of Hyakki Yakou. \nYes. \nIt was as if someone from outside of Japan had been speaking of things within Japan based on secondhand knowledge. \nCould it be? \n“W-wait a second!! So was that leader of the Sakoku faction you too!?” \n“No, no. That’s reading too much into it. I can’t split into two like a planarian. If I could do that, I wouldn’t have to run away like this. In Europe, I created a community based around desire, the European Security Force, and went around winning over high officials from allied nations. That was one of those officials.” \n“You’re still the one behind it!!” \n“Yeah, but Hyakki Yakou was the one that interfered first. One of them came to see what I was doing, so I decided to check them out. They looked weak enough, so I gave the order to work our way in deeper. I pulled out too late and ended up being utterly defeated, though. It really is a bad idea to underestimate your enemy.” \nDespite having caused such mayhem, the Succubus spoke about it like it was nothing. It made my skin crawl. \nShe controlled pure desire. \nShe took the complex human psyche and took control of the very base. \nFor that reason, she had the ability to swallow up the various systems made by man, whether they were an individual’s personality or the very institution of society. \nWhen I thought about that, it sent a chill down my spine. \nI was feeling a danger signal that my instincts would not let me ignore. \n“Anyway, I was a character involved in all of this, so how about you reach out a loving hand to help me. More specifically, Hyakki Yakou proved more of a threat than I thought and I can’t seem to escape them, so shelter me here☆” \n“No! Don’t say that like it’s nothing! If they find out you’ve come here, I’ll be in danger too!! And why did you choose my house!?” \n“Well, my network in Europe, the European Security Force, was attacked and destroyed by Hyakki Yakou.” \n“Okay.” \n“That left only my connections in Japan, but I lost control of Saishi Kajin when they were absorbed by Hyakki Yakou. They were only meant as a disposable organization anyway.” \n“And!?” \n“So the only connections left to me were the people involved in that incident.” \n“So!?” \n“And of those people, you seemed to have the weakest defenses.” \n“That’s allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!?” \nShe has no real plan! She has no guarantee of having escaped!! And if Hyakki Yakou attacks here, we’ll be wiped out too! \nI did have two deadly Youkai and a Zashiki Warashi, but that group seemed like they could lightly toss aside all standard knowledge about Youkai, not to mention humans. To be blunt, I saw no way we could win!! \nI started imagining I could hear sounds like scraping claws coming from all the shadows in the gaps between the walls and furniture, behind pillars, and in the hole for smoke to escape from the Japanese fireplace. Meanwhile, the cause of my fears, the Succubus, was doing nothing but smiling. \n“And so I’ll be moving in☆” \nWhether you wanted it or not, “they” would come. \nAnd they brought either fortune or disaster with them. \nIt was looking like things were going to be very bad indeed if I did not quickly find a way to get along with them. \nNotes \n1. ↑ Kaikoku means “open country” and Sakoku means “locked country”. Sakoku primarily refers to the extreme isolationist policies of Japan during the Tokugawa shogunate with Kaikoku being the opposite.

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