Volume 1, Chapter 4: Regarding the Slaughter Part 21-23

This chapter is updated by wuxiaworld.eu\nPart 21 (Jinnai Shinobu) \nWhile I waited for the elevator in the elevator hall, I messed with the satellite phone the woman had given me. \nIts antenna was extremely thick and the body was unrefined. It looked more like a large radio transceiver than it did a cell phone. 0015. After I entered the number she had told me would unlock it, I could tell it was quite easy to use. You could make calls and send emails. That was it. It did not even have a memo function. However, she must have been the type to delete any kind of records because the mailbox was empty. \nI opened the address book and found a few numbers. \nNone of the names looked like names of people. Nor did they look like the names of corporations. They looked more like names of groups or organizations, but I did not recognize any of them. \nI moved the cursor to one of them. \nThe name for the number was Hyakki Yakou. \nThe last of the “characters involved”. \nEven with this satellite phone, I doubted I could contact them repeatedly. If they hung up, it would likely all be over. It all came down to the first call. If they thought I was of little consequence, this last thin strand of hope would disappear. \nBut… \nI had never met this person (?) listed as Hyakki Yakou. \nAnd… \nIf I had some connection with someone I had never met, I could only think of one place that connection could come from. \nAfter all… \nIt did not necessarily stay in one place. It had no clear owner. The possibility of having it leave you was always there. And since it was well known what happened in such a possibility, the odds of that possibility could not be all that low. \nAnd so it was entirely possible Hyakki Yakou and I had a connection there. \n“…” \nI brought my thumb to the call button. \nI hesitated. \nBut I pressed it in the end. \nIt did not ring. It likely would have normally, but someone on the other end picked up before it had a chance \n“Hello,” said someone who sounded like an elementary school girl. \nHowever, her voice had a gracefulness unbefitting of that age. \nI had never met her, but I felt like I had heard the voice before…and then I realized I had heard that same voice in a cell phone home video not long before. \n“You need not pretend to be Hishigami Mai. I already know that phone has left her possession.” \nShe “knew”. \nWas it simply that she had seen it happen? Or had she set this all up so it would happen? \n“I know how we are connected.” \n“Is that all you wish to discuss?” \n“The Zashiki Warashi,” I said. \nI decided to get straight to the point rather than trying any tricks. \nI guessed the sudden shock of that knowledge would provide the most impact. \n“A Zashiki Warashi is a Youkai that protects a specific house, but there is no guarantee they will stay in one place. After all, it is well known that a household a Zashiki Warashi leaves will decline. I have no idea what house she…Yukari used to be in. I just assumed she had always been in mine. But it is possible she used to be with yours.” \n“Is that a problem?” \n“I know what it is that happened to me just a bit ago. It makes perfect sense. A Zashiki Warashi has the following abilities: 1. Adults cannot see them. 2. They provide ominous predictions of fires or other dangers to their household.” \nThen again, my grandparents could see our Zashiki Warashi without issue and I had never heard anything about her predicting a fire. \nBut… \nThat was an issue with our specific Zashiki Warashi. Those facts held true for the species as a whole. \n“They can rewrite the information people see and they provide information on coming dangers. …That fits perfectly with the illusion I saw. What happened in this hotel? If what the woman who gave me this phone said is true, all of the workers here have been switched out with fakes. You created a Package to acquire that Zashiki Warashi, didn’t you?” \n“Is that all you know?” \n“What?” \n“I am asking if that is the extent of your knowledge. If so, I am sorry to say that I see no reason why I must continue this conversation.” \n“If luring the Zashiki Warashi to this hotel was your top priority…” \nI thought hard while I spoke. \nBut it was not enough. \nI had my hands full already, but if I did not gather my hand quickly, I would lose the thin thread of hope that was the phone call. \n“The lodging ticket for this hotel came to me via Madoka. That seems odd. Surely you had some way of giving one directly to the Zashiki Warashi.” \n“I am sorry to say that-…” \n“It seems odd that you would use such a roundabout method. For one thing, it means you had the precision to know for a fact she would announce she was going along as a pet. But that isn’t the only reason. If you can control people with that precision, you should have been able to lure the Zashiki Warashi to the hotel without bringing Madoka and me along too. And that means,” I paused for a second. “You purposefully brought Madoka and me here. Our inclusion was unrelated to the Zashiki Warashi.” \nIn my mind, I wondered if that was enough. However, I did not have time to think everything through carefully. If I fell silent, the girl would hang up. But I still felt like I was onto something. \n“And that makes me suspicious of the guests other than Madoka and me. Is it just a coincidence that they are here too? Is there perhaps some kind of common thread between all of our inclusions? There is little in common between Madoka and me. Assuming we were not chosen for being in the same class in the same school, I can think of only one other possibility. …We were both involved in the Youkai incident at the Sanatorium.” \n“Are you suggesting the other guests are also deeply related to Packages or Youkai?” \n“I have no proof, but I could gather it if need be.” \n“What could we possibly want from gathering all of you in one place?” \n“You gathered a group of people who had overcome some incident involving Youkai and then caused a bizarre phenomenon centered on that Zashiki Warashi.” \nThat illusion. \nOther than its precision, I could not immediately see any monetary value in that bizarre phenomenon. \nBut that was not the point. \nThe actual phenomenon did not matter. Something that gave it added value existed within the hotel. \n“Here is what you are doing. You want to envelop the entire hotel in the Zashiki Warashi Package, and then easily defeat and kill us. That would be a success for you. I suppose it’s an issue of flexibility. By showing that this Package is something like an unavoidable black hole that swallows up even people who have dealt with various different kinds of incidents, you give your Package a valuable brand name image.” \nThat’s right. \nIt was the same as an Intellectual Village that strengthened the brand name image of their crops by using cutting edge technology to create the clean image of a rural area. \nHyakki Yakou was doing the same. \nThey had put together this plan to raise the value of their Youkai products. \nWhat I did not know was whether they were actually in the business of buying and selling or if they were establishing manufacturing techniques and researching means of application. \n“…So you have worked that much out,” said the girl. \n“Indeed I have.” \n“But I still see little meaning in continuing this conversation. You have not completely changed my mind. This may be useful to you, but I see no value in it for me.” \n“Don’t be so quick to decide that. That woman gave me this satellite phone. She could have tried to negotiate with you or threaten you, but she didn’t. She handed this last thin thread of hope to me. Why do you think that is?” \n“…” \n“Because it is my house’s Zashiki Warashi at the core of this incident. I am the point of contact here. I have no intention of claiming I own her and she may have been in your household at one point. But I am probably the one with the strongest connection to her at this point in time. It isn’t you.” \n“Do you think you can interfere with our assembly using that connection?” \n“Do you think I can’t?” \n… \nThat was of course a bluff. I did not have that ability and this “connection” was not something tangible. I had no idea how valuable a thing it was. Also, I doubted this enemy would actually take a high school student’s words seriously. \nBut… \nWhile my personal actions were one thing, I doubted that girl could ignore what that woman did. \nAnd she had given the satellite phone to me. \n“…We need a revival,” said the girl. \n“What?” \n“For the most part, the organization actually taking action in the hotel is Saishi Kajin, not Hyakki Yakou. Does the name Matsukai Hiroshi sound familiar? They were absorbed into Hyakki Yakou the other day. We had to weaken them during the incident in Ubasute Village to do so. However, it was still not enough. We are still far from being revived. We need more than that.” \n“What are you talking about?” \n“The house a Zashiki Warashi leaves will decline. That is exactly right. It took hundreds of years, but that is what happened to Hyakki Yakou. That is why we put together a plan to recover her as quickly as possible. She is not a new acquisition. We are merely taking back what we once lost. But even if we compensate for our lost power with her, it will not be enough to stop the decline. Hyakki Yakou has already begun to collapse. That is why we must use everything we have to raise the value of the Zashiki Warashi’s power.” \n“Answer me!! What are you talking about!?” \n“If you actually knew what you were talking about, what I said should have been enough. If that was not enough for you, I will count you as a secure asset.” \nNot good. \nDon’t let her shake your resolve. \n“That woman was fighting with someone other than the Zashiki Warashi. Did you send them?” \n“He is one of our top 5. He is one of Hyakki Yakou’s few pure spell users. That alone is a sign of our decline, but he is enough to defeat Hishigami Mai. This is another secure asset. Even if she defeats him, he will take her out in the process. The Zashiki Warashi will not be destroyed before this can truly begin.” \nDammit. \nI was understanding less and less of what she was talking about. And the girl’s tone of voice was plainly changing as well. The longer she continued speaking, the shallowness of my knowledge grew more evident. \nI knew very little of what was going on. \nThe household or organization known as Hyakki Yakou had begun to decline. One of the reasons for that was that the Zashiki Warashi had left them. They wished to retrieve that Zashiki Warashi to prevent further decline. \nBut that was not enough to know how to stop their plan. \nShe was shaking my resolve, but I had nothing to shake her resolve with. \n…No. \nWait. \nWhat did that girl say? \nAnd what did that woman say before we parted? She said she frequently receives jobs from Hyakki Yakou, right? \nSo… \n“It is my duty to bring about the revival of Hyakki Yakou,” said the girl. \nHer words were icy. \nShe knew I had no trump card and would soon hang up. \n“I will not shy away from sacrifice to do so. We absorbed Saishi Kajin, we will retrieve the Zashiki Warashi…and you all will be crushed underfoot to play the role of fertilizer. Sorry, but you cannot overturn this. I see nothing at your disposal that would allow that.” \n“Can I say one thing before you hang up?” \n“What would that be?” \nAn amateur student like me had no hopes of victory when it came to Youkai or underground society. \nI had to change my strategy. \nI had to use some method where a student like me was superior. \n“Young lady, you may be an expert when it comes to Youkai, but you don’t like your science classes much, do you?” \n“What are you talking about?” \n“It’s just…I’d rather not die in some plan thought up by an idiot who can’t do math. I was hoping you would deny it. If I’m going to die, can’t it at least be in some plan thought up by a genius!?” \n“What…? Oh, I had heard that it used to be called science class. We call it ‘life environment studies’, and I like it just fine. Combining traditional science with history into one class was a decent idea, wasn’t it? Then again, I just learn from the textbooks. I am homeschooled.” \n“Ha ha.” \nI could not help but laugh. \nI had been afraid my acting wouldn’t be good enough to fool her. \n“Did they still call it ‘life environment studies’ when they were talking about curriculum reform, getting rid of the more relaxed schedules, and maybe even going to school on weekends for more class time? I thought they changed it back to just science class then.” \nThe girl fell silent. \nI then began speaking again to cut off her next excuse. \n“And even the textbooks a homeschooled elementary school student would use will match the categories of the official curriculum. Once the schools stop calling it ‘life environment studies’, they would start making textbooks just for science. Wait…or would they? Which would it be?” \nTo be honest, a high school student like me had no idea how things worked for an elementary school student. \nNo matter how much knowledge someone gathered, there were things that only someone who was actually that age would know. And yet the person on the other end of the phone remained silent. They may have had extensive knowledge, but their confidence had been shaken by a student like me. \nAnd that meant… \nMy guess had been right. \nWith the confidence that gave me, I took the plunge. \n“How about you end this act. It’s no fun now that I’ve figured it out.” \n“…” \n“Was that not enough? You’re embarrassing yourself, so how about you start acting your age.” \nI said it. \nIt was a natural question to come up with given everything that had happened. Was the person I was talking to actually the person that woman had wanted me to contact with the satellite phone? \nTo be blunt, wasn’t it possible she had been switched out with an imposter just like the hotel workers? \n“Ha ha ha.” \nAnd… \nI heard laughter. The voice was the same. It was the voice of a lovely young girl. But something about the tone of the voice had changed. The tone was that of a rude and vulgar man. \n“Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!” \n“Enough pretending. It’s not like I can see you through the phone.” \n“What tipped you off? That science vs. life environment studies business had to have only been the final push. You must have some more fundamental proof,” said the girl (?) while she gradually corrected the emotions hidden behind the words. \nMy answer was simple. \n“That woman said she frequently receives jobs from Hyakki Yakou. And yet she did not hesitate to stab that worker from Saishi Kajin…Matsukai-san was it? That makes no sense if they had already been taken in by Hyakki Yakou. At the very least, she wouldn’t kill him on sight like that.” \n“That is not proof. So all you really had was speculation.” \nShe did not explain what the fault in my reasoning was. Perhaps I did not have a proper understanding of the organization of Hyakki Yakou or of that that woman’s actions. \n“But I will admit that you have seen through this farther than expected. Hyakki Yakou has split. One side is the Kaikoku faction that compromises and allows those outside the organization to take jobs in order to preserve order, and the other side is the Sakoku faction that will abandon order in order to strengthen the organization and keep everything within the organization.[1] The actual ‘removal’ did not begin until about a week ago, so it is unknown if Hishigami Mai is aware of the situation as she was working in Europe at the time.” \nOne side was trying to protect order and the other was trying to destroy it. \nFrom the situation, it seemed clear to me which one was our enemy. \nIn the ideal democracy, the majority did not have power robbed from them. \n“For something you planned, you certainly are talking about it like it doesn’t matter.” \n“What, do you want me to be more triumphant and to brag about it? Gwa ha ha ha ha. All we did was purge the incompetent leaders.” \n“…I see. You saw crushing them as such a natural move that it does not even excite you and you do not feel any need to explain yourself. Are you even aware what you did qualifies as a coup d’etat?” \nIn a way, this was even more dangerous than a hackneyed demon king. \nDidn’t I hear someone say that a sense of justice can destroy nations? \n“What happened to the real Hyakki Yakou? What happened to that girl?” \n“I am part of the real Hyakki Yakou. Have you ever heard the story of the Tanuki of Kachi-Kachi Mountain that killed an old lady and took on her form?” \n“…” \n“Just kidding. Things did not go that well. But even though we split, it was not an even split. One side is much larger than the other. And we absorbed Saishi Kajin to expand even further.” \n“So you joined with an external group despite insisting on the purity of the organization?” \n“We overwrote them. We merely gave them a chance for a religious conversion. Discord only occurs when differing systems are built into the organization. If they are completely remade before we use them, no rejection reaction occurs. The main principle required is a unified format.” \n…? \nShe was speaking with absolute confidence, but something about it seemed off to me. \nSomething about that ideology did not feel right. \nIt was like someone talking about a specific genre while not understanding any of the details of that genre. It was the same as how people would broadly describe matcha or red bean paste as tasting like Wagashi. \nThe Sakoku faction wanted to preserve purity by cutting off the normal flow of information and distribution, so would they actually carry out a plan that took in an external organization? \nWas this girl (?) really part of the Sakoku faction? \nIn fact, was she even part of Hyakki Yakou? \nJust as terrorist groups received support from powerful nations during the Cold War, it was possible she had merely been given her objective by whoever was truly behind the incident and that she actually had another objective of her own. \nI had no idea what that might be, but I felt it would be prudent to keep that fact in mind. \nWhether she had realized what I was speculating or not, the girl began to speak about what may have been related to her objective. \n“The remnants of the old leaders abandoned their flying wing and have found somewhere to hide on land, but it is only a matter of time before they are found. They needed that wing to continually flee. It is self-evident what will happen if they stay in one place.” \nAccording to her, Saishi Kajin had been overwritten by Hyakki Yakou and absorbed, but it was still possible that process had actually been begun by Saishi Kajin. Or perhaps both sides had complexly interweaving plans and they were both using the other for their own ends. \nDammit… \nThis was worse than simply not being able to negotiate. The person that woman had been expecting me to contact wasn’t even there, so the conversation could not even begin. \n“Is keeping anything new out of the organization really that important?” \n“If you were told to try living as a nudist for 24 hours starting tomorrow, would you simply nod and agree?” \nHad this girl had checkmate from the very beginning? \nWas the scope of the incident much larger than that woman had thought? \n“Why did you choose this hotel?” \n“For one, because its layout was easy to work into our plan. But that is really of little consequence. What truly mattered was Kotemitsu Madoka. We wanted to gather every single one of the characters we needed, but we had to stick to the formalities to lure her in. This hotel gave her peace of mind. If we had created a brand new hotel for this, she would have been too suspicious to get anywhere near it. …That did mean we had to do some horrible things to the original workers. That made this quite expensive.” \nHer tone made it clear it was of little consequence to her. \nEven if all of us were wiped out in the process of assembling this Zashiki Warashi Package, she would likely not even bat an eye. \n“But it was not a major issue since almost everything has gone according to plan. Actually, some things have gone better than planned if you look at it in the right way. Circumstance has worked in our favor.” \n“What?” \n“Human greed can be a frightening thing. We had initially determined it would be impossible to have complete information control. That satellite phone is a good example. That was why we simply had to accept the possibility of you calling the police in. Since we were creating bizarre phenomena that would swallow up people who had overcome other Packages, we figured the police would just be swallowed up as well.” \n“Wait. So the flat tires on the cars and the phones not working wasn’t Hyakki Yakou’s doing!?” \n“Thanks to that, it looks like the precision of our Zashiki Warashi assembly will increase. It isn’t an entirely good thing on our part, but…it doesn’t really matter. It will give us greater results in the end.” The girl paused for a second before saying, “And if you were not aware of that, then you truly do not have a proper understanding of this situation.” \nThe connection cut off. \nI reached for the redial button without thinking, but did not press it. I knew trying to call again would be hopeless. She had said she “knew” what we were doing. Unless I did something that drew the interest of the current Hyakki Yakou, she would not answer the phone again. \nBut… \n“Hyakki Yakou isn’t the only enemy. Not all of the characters are accounted for yet.” \nThe flat tires. \nThe nonfunctioning phones. \n“Just how many enemies do we have here…?” \nPart 22 (Uchimaku Hayabusa) \nI first noticed that something wasn’t adding up when we decided to pool our information in the Zashiki Warashi’s room. \nThe Zashiki Warashi and Shinobu’s classmate Kotemitsu Madoka both gave the same story. \nShinobu had gone off somewhere to call the police. And since he had not yet returned, he must not have had much luck. They guessed the phones were not working. \nBut… \n“Mine works,” I said. \n“What do you mean?” \n“My cell phone has a proper signal.” \nIt was possible Shinobu had lied to them and had gone off to do something else. But it seemed that was not the case. Kotemitsu pulled out her phone to check. \n“Mine doesn’t. It has no signal.” \n“Detective, neither does my smartphone. Maybe it’s because we have different carriers. I don’t even have a signal for the flat-rate calls using wi-fi.” \nI had a bad feeling about what this meant. \nI had a good idea what could be causing it. Besides the carrier, there was one other obvious difference between my phone and theirs. \nI was a police officer. \nTo prevent important information from getting blocked by congested phone lines in emergencies, there was a system to artificially restrict those phone lines. Cell phones owned by the police, firefighters, EMTs, the JSDF, and government workers had a different designation that was allowed through while that system was active. \nAnd in that case… \nThe people cutting off communications to isolate the hotel had to be… \n“It can’t be…” \nI pressed the call button on my cell phone. I simply pressed the call button without entering a number. When the system was being restricted, the places that could be called were also restricted. \nAnd someone answered. \n“It connected,” I said. \n“Is that enough for you to figure out who I am?” asked the person on the other end. \n“If my phone works, this must not be a JSDF format communications restriction. My phone’s designation would only get through with the police format. And only the riot police have the authority to activate that system. So you must be…” \n“That level of information isn’t enough to determine who I am. Of course, you could always try to back trace this number or analyze my voice print.” \n“Why?” The question naturally spilled out of my mouth. “This is a high level system within the police. Why would someone high enough to use it be aiding criminals!?” \n“I’m sure you know exactly why.” \n“What?” \n“You are the one that has seen this collapse of law and order the closest. All sorts of crimes being committed in this country can no longer be dealt with by the police. And those exceptions are growing. The very people who are committing crimes that must be punished are living among us as if they are on the side of justice.” \nFor an instant, I had no idea what he meant. \nBut then it hit me. \n“Are you talking about the Hishigami sisters?” \n“Our country is facing a crisis by allowing them to go free. People who know only a fraction of what they do are looking up to them and thinking they can do the same. These people have begun to appear and claim to be bounty hunters. But they are not very effective. They claim they are ‘investigating’ in order to justify stalking or explain away all sorts of destructive actions. Before long, they will likely decide who is guilty without carrying out a proper investigation and then carry out vigilante justice. We must put an end to this.” \n“Is it really so obvious that these people are being influenced by them?” \n“You are an excellent example.” \n“I don’t follow.” \n“Why are you in that hotel? Did you just decide to suddenly take 7 days of leave for fun? Would you normally let yourself do that as a government official? And yet there you are. You decided there was nothing you could do to stop it since the Hishigami sisters were involved, didn’t you? That kind of oddity is not isolated to just you.” \n“But how will you fill in the gap this leaves? I will admit that those sisters don’t exactly walk the straight and narrow, but they do achieve results when it comes to cases involving Youkai. In fact, it is impossible for the current system of the Japanese police to actually destroy a Package. All we can manage is to arrest the human criminals using the Package. It is very nearly impossible for us to do anything about the deadly Youkai at the core of the case.” \nThat was why a Package would cause more and more damage once it was established. It would spread from person to person like new method of phone fraud. \n“Unfortunately, we need the Hishigami sisters. We do not have the ability to overcome those things,” I continued. \n“But that is no reason to turn a blind eye to the Hishigami sisters.” \nHe responded immediately. \nHe did not hesitate even for an instant. \n“Our duty as the Japanese police is to stop crimes before they occur within this country and to solve cases that have already occurred. The circumstances do not matter. Even if the Hishigami sisters knew the sole way of stopping an asteroid that was on a collision course with earth, we would have no choice but to immediately arrest them if they broke the law. That is our duty as the police.” \n“…So you aren’t giving this any thought at all?” \n“It is because you think too much that you give into them so easily.” \n“So you have nothing to fill the gap left by the Hishigami sisters!? You know the victims of Youkai-related incidents in the country will skyrocket, but you’re still going to eliminate the Hishigami sisters just because you resent them for butting into the police’s turf!?” \n“We do not think we can accomplish this via normal methods. It would be very difficult to reliably eliminate the Hishigami sisters with the means available to us.” \nDammit. \nHe isn’t listening to me at all. \n“But the circumstances have turned in our favor. To be honest, having an organization like that operating within the country is a major problem, but we will deal with them later. The Hishigami sisters take priority. For now, we just have to carefully interfere with a conflict between different aspects of the occult.” \n“And to do this, you have no problem with killing living human beings and leaving other human beings to possibly die in the future?” \n“So what if I am?” \n“Then you are one of the criminals that I detest.” \nI received no reply. \nThe connection suddenly cut off. I tried to dial a few emergency numbers, but I could no longer connect. My number must have been removed from the communications restriction system. \n“Get away from the window. It will probably be difficult to leave this hotel.” I simply gave my conclusions to the others in the room. “This hotel is probably surrounded by riot police. Not only is there some incident related to dangerous Youkai being carried out here, but some others have come here to use it to their advantage.” \nPart 23 (Jinnai Shinobu) \nI rode the elevator to the 3rd floor. As the door opened, the satellite phone received a call. \nIt was from a different number than I had called before. \nBut when I answered, I heard the same girl’s voice. \n“…Ksshh…Is this…Hishigami Mai-san…ksshh…?” \nShe doesn’t know who has the phone? \nThat must mean… \n“Are you the real from Hyakki Yakou?” \n“Who are you…ksshh..? No, that does not matter. If that phone has left Hishigami Mai’s possession, does that mean she has lost?” \nI could not deny the possibility that this was the same girl (?) from before messing with me. But I could see no reason for her to do that. She had said she knew what I was doing. I didn’t see what information she would need to put on another act to get out of me. \n“She gave me the phone herself. She is fighting somewhere, but I don’t know the details. What was it she said she was fighting?...Illness Magic, I think.” \n“That member of the top 5? That is not a good matchup. It isn’t a matter of power. She is horribly incompatible with that opponent.” \n“What are you trying to say?” \n“Nothing…ksshh. No matter who you are, I doubt you can stand up to someone she cannot. This may sound coldhearted, but I think I need to change my plan.” \nI did not like abandoning her, but it was true I couldn’t exactly turn around and help that woman. \n“You must have some connection with the hotel. Either a worker or a guest. Ksshh…The Package prepared by someone claiming to be from the Sakoku faction covers the entire hotel, so I assume you are a guest if you are still there.” \nThe way she referred to the enemy seemed needlessly roundabout. \nHad this girl also noticed something off about them? \n“I am a guest. I was lured here with a free lodging ticket.” \n“Then you are one of the survivors of a Youkai incident. Someone there should have a deep connection with the Zashiki Warashi in the hotel. Please contact that person. That is the only way to bring this to an end.” \nAnd there it was. \nIf this girl was the same one as before, that would have been the bluff she was most worried about. My ability to interfere with the Zashiki Warashi at the core of their plan. She probably thought the odds were exceedingly low but still impossible to ignore. \nTo find a way to stop it, she had to get the information out of me. \nThe girl from Hyakki Yakou that carried out that coup d’etat had said she knew the situation here, but she could very well want to preemptively eliminate a risk. \nAnd… \nEven if this girl was who she claimed to be, she was still a member of Hyakki Yakou. \nI had no idea why she had called the satellite phone. She may have had her own objective and interests that were different from the Sakoku faction’s. \nAnd she might need the Zashiki Warashi to do it. \nEither way, I had to tread carefully from here on out. So carefully that I had to hide even the fact that I was treading carefully. \n“I know Hyakki Yakou is trying to retrieve the Zashiki Warashi,” I said. \n“I doubt doing so has any real merit.” \n“But they were saying they would be revived if the Zashiki Warashi is brought back.” \n“A household does not decline because a Zashiki Warashi left. The Zashiki Warashi leaves because the household is declining. …Ksshh… That is why you often hear that misfortune falls on a household once its Zashiki Warashi leaves, but you never hear of a Zashiki Warashi coming back. Unless the people of the household solve the underlying problem in their household, fortune will not return to them.” \n“So the cause is within Hyakki Yakou?” \n“That should be obvious since you have been wrapped up in our issues.” \n“If you aren’t after the Zashiki Warashi, what do you want us to do?” \n“The only way to bring this to an end is to search out the details of the enemy’s Package and destroy it.” \n“How will that bring this to an end?” I was unsure if I was succeeding in drawing information out of her, but I continued speaking anyway. “We may be able to escape from this hotel, but won’t Hyakki Yakou keep trying to acquire the Zashiki Warashi? I have no idea where you people are. Wouldn’t we be left trembling in fear of another attack with no way to fight back?” \n“Why would you?” \n“What?” \n“If you only just so happened to meet the Zashiki Warashi here in the hotel…ksshh…why are you so worried about her continuing to be targeted once she leaves the hotel?” \nOh, sh*t!! \nThat had not been the proper reaction for a normal guest who could just leave all this mess upon escaping the hotel. It had been the reaction of someone who would be staying with the Zashiki Warashi after escaping the hotel. \nIf this was the same girl as before putting on another act, then she had known who I was from the beginning. \nBut if this was the real girl and she was planning to use the Zashiki Warashi in some plan, it would be better if she did not know I had a connection to the Zashiki Warashi. \nI needed something. \nI needed anything that could explain away that reaction!! \n“D-do you promise not to tell anyone?” \n“Ksshh…Tell anyone what?” \n“…It was love at first sight…” \n“Nyah!?” \nMy whisper elicited a strange shout from the phone. \nThe girl then lowered her voice to match my whisper. \n“Oh…um…Hyakki Yakou has a few records of…um…unions between humans and Youkai. Ksshh…So it is not impossible…” \nWhy did this have to head in that direction? \nWell, whatever. I managed to fool her. \n“How will getting rid of the Zashiki Warashi Package solve the fundamental problem? The person behind all this is comfortably watching everything from well out of our reach, right?” \n“No,” said the girl decisively. “The environment surrounding you…ksshhh…spreads much farther than you think. Ksshh…And the same goes for the person claiming to be from the Sakoku faction who is circling above the Pacific Ocean.” \n“?” \n“They…ksshhh…have not realized it yet. They do not know how far it spread…ksshhh…after they pulled the trigger. Kssshhh…If they did, they would never have left that there with so little defense…ksshh. Ksshh…Even though it is a necessary part of the Zashiki Warashi Package, they…kkkkkkssssssssshhhhhhhhhh!!” \n“Hey, what’s wrong? I can’t hear you. What do you mean by ‘that’!?” \n“Kssshhh! Ksssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!” \nThe static grew so loud I had to move the satellite phone away from my ear. When I hesitantly brought it back to my ear, all I could hear was the dial tone. The screen displayed a message saying the connection had been lost. \nHad the Hyakki Yakou coup d’etat group interfered? \nOr had something happened to the girl directly? \n“…That got me nowhere.” \nI had not been able to receive whatever crucial hint that girl had. Then again, I had no way of telling whether she was telling the truth or if she was putting on an act for her own ends. \nAt any rate, my only option was to meet up with the Zashiki Warashi. \nIf that indoor Youkai was a crucial part of the Package at the core of it all, meeting up with her would likely help me figure something out. \nI returned to my room and knocked on the door. \nFor an instant, the thought of no one answering or kicking down the door and finding a bloody scene passed through my mind, but luckily, the door opened after a slight delay. The person who opened the door must have checked through the peep hole first. \nMy uncle was the one who opened the door. \n“Shinobu, you’re okay.” \n“I want to put an end to this. Is the Zashiki Warashi there?” \nMy uncle headed back into the room. I followed him in. The Zashiki Warashi…was there. She was sitting on the single bed. Madoka was sitting on the floor. A girl whose name I did not know was there was well. And curled up at the Zashiki Warashi’s feet was… \nWhat? …A dog? No, a Sunekosuri? \n“Zashiki Warashi, I need to speak with you.” \n“If it’s a confession of love, wait until Christmas Eve. I’m steadily making progress on a merciless, decisive, and hilarious plan for that.” \n“Damn you!! There are some things you don’t joke about!!” \nShe had been showing some signs of dere recently, but it looked like I needed to dig a bit deeper into that. Especially with that cold bath and nursing her back to health from before!! \n“…So, Shinobu. What do you want to talk about?” \nI opened my mouth to speak, but then froze in place. \nThe girl (?) from the Sakoku faction of Hyakki Yakou had said she “knew” what was happening here. I had no idea how she “knew”, but wouldn’t I be putting unnecessary risk on everyone in that room if I told them the core of the issue? \nAnd the danger did not end if we escaped the hotel. \nThis held the danger of having that organization constantly targeting us for the rest of our lives. \nI decided to tell as few people as possible. \n“Let’s leave the room first.” \n“?” \nThe Zashiki Warashi and I left the room. \nBefore we began speaking, the Zashiki Warashi grimaced. \n“…Ow…” \n“What’s wrong?” \n“I have a bit of a headache.” \n“Even though you’re a Youkai? I thought you couldn’t be hurt by normal methods.” \n“I am not immune to things like heatstroke.” \n“Come to think of it, that Yuki Onna has seemed a bit dizzy after taking a bath lately.” \n“It might just be that time of the month.” \n“Unfortunately, I do not think that’s it.” \n“What did you want to talk about?” \n“I want to ask about where you were before coming to my house.” \nThe Zashiki Warashi leaned up against the hallway wall, pressed her index finger to her temple, and sighed. \n“I get the feeling you aren’t going to be satisfied if I just tell you I was protecting some other household.” \n“The term Hyakki Yakou has come up. Does it ring any bells?” \n“Shinobu.” The Zashiki Warashi quickly called my name before continuing. “In all seriousness, you might die. Even if you make use of the information I have and escape this hotel, you have no hope after that. I know staying here and not doing anything isn’t an option either, but you should think long and hard about how you plan to resolve this.” \n“The very fact that I know the term Hyakki Yakou shows I’ve already gotten involved. Holding back now out of fear isn’t going to get us out of this.” \nWith that response, I showed I had resigned myself to this. \nAnd I continued. \n“So if I’m going to do this, I’m going to go all out. I will completely crush the enemy. I want to get back to my normal life after leaving this hotel, and I can’t do that if I hesitate to take a running start. I will jump to the other side of the cliff. If I chicken out, I will fall. The odds of success are not good to begin with, but I need a full running start to have any chance of survival.” \nThe Zashiki Warashi tilted her head in puzzlement. \nHer long hair covered her face so I could not see it. \n“Hyakki Yakou,” she whispered. And then she continued. “Hyakki Yakou has been involved in all sorts of things for a long time. And it seems one of those things involved Zashiki Warashi. Since it is in my nature to wander from house to house, I had assumed I had just happened to end up with Hyakki Yakou. But it turned out I was wrong.” \n“…You mean they influenced what house you chose?” \n“I don’t know. All I know is that it was odd. I still do not know what exactly happened, what they were after, or even if they succeeded or not. That is the level Hyakki Yakou has reached. The millennium-old established theories that humans cannot kill Youkai and that humans cannot understand what Youkai are thinking do not apply to that group.” \nWas the true threat humans or Youkai? \nOr could Hyakki Yakou even be counted as humans? \n“A Zashiki Warashi moves from house to house based on the rise and fall of the households, but after I saw a portion of the things going on there, I decided to leave of my own will for the first time. …I essentially ran away, but that may show that Hyakki Yakou’s methods were imperfect. Or perhaps they were already headed down the path of destruction at that point.” \n“Was it after that that you came to my house?” \n“That was about 150 years ago. I had some difficulties because places for Youkai like me were decreasing rapidly thanks to the end of Edo period. I certainly never expected for those places to make a comeback in the name of ‘Intellectual Villages’.” \n“And Hyakki Yakou never tried to take you back?” \n“There is no point in it.” \n…? \nShe makes it sound so simple…but wait. That isn’t what I heard. \n“When a Zashiki Warashi like me leaves a household, it declines. At the very least, Hyakki Yakou had to have some internal trouble at the time. The stronger the household, the greater the chaos. And as I said, Hyakki Yakou was involved in many dangerous things, so there was a danger of causing a chain reaction that would destroy them utterly.” \n“But Hyakki Yakou didn’t collapse. They still exist today.” \n“Since I had left by that point, I can only speculate, but they probably did some insane things to get back the power they lost. It was a twisted place to begin with, but I get the feeling they have become even more twisted now.” \n“What are you basing this speculation on?” \n“From stories I have heard from Youkai passing by the house. Also…they are using everything they have to retrieve a Zashiki Warashi that has already left them. Hyakki Yakou must have transformed into something else if they do not realize the reasoning behind that is flawed.” \n“…You knew what they are trying to do?” \n“From the moment you uttered the term Hyakki Yakou, Shinobu.” \nThe Zashiki Warashi let out a deep sigh. \nEither her headache was getting worse or the problem we were facing had her worried. \n“Shinobu, you said Hyakki Yakou is at the core of this. And if they are after me, Yukari, specifically rather than any old Zashiki Warashi, that has to be their aim. If their plan simply needed a Zashiki Warashi, they should have targeted one they had no previous connections to. It’s an issue of purity. I don’t know if it’s due to the good fortune or if it’s some spiritual thing, but Zashiki Warashi are welcomed in this day and age. And they are not exactly rare. I can see no good reason for them to specifically target me.” \n“It ‘seems’ like Hyakki Yakou has undergone a split after a coup d’etat. But it only ‘seems’ that way. It might not be true,” I warned. “It also ‘seems’ this rampage is thanks to that. According to the group that ‘seems’ to want to bring an end to the coup d’etat, we need to figure out how this Zashiki Warashi Package works to resolve this problem. Since it ‘seems’ you are the one it’s built around, do you have any ideas or hunches?” \n“That’s a lot of ‘seems’.” \n“What do you think they could gain by lying about all that?” \n“I don’t know.” The Zashiki Warashi seemed to be the type to not give much thought to things she did not immediately know. “Oftentimes, the Youkai a Package is built around is completely unaware of it. And in this case, Hyakki Yakou is behind it. They will have meticulously arranged the environment. It’s a miracle I am even feeling this headache.” \n“…So it isn’t going to be that easy.” \n“But if they have built a Package around me to create some kind of bizarre phenomenon, it would probably be related to a house or building.” \n“So you’re saying the hotel itself is a part of the Package?” \n“Not necessarily. Basically, they have to prepare something that perfectly corresponds to it and use that. It would be similar to magic that that uses a doll to harm a human. It could be a model of the hotel or a diagram of its layout. There should be plenty if we look. Unlike the old days, this age is quite convenient.” \n…Wait. \nDidn’t I see something like that? \nThat girl said something about the core of this Package being in the hotel. Not an illustration or a piece of art, but something functional and crucial to the Package. Where had I seen it? \n“…I know.” \n“?” \n“The diagram. The diagram of the hotel on the wall behind the front desk!!”

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