“But diseases are traditionally weak to boiling and fire. Before the advent of bacteriology, mankind learned from their experiences and wove that into their legends. It’s too bad, whoever you are.”

“Since you use human teeth, do you use a Kitsunebi?”

A calm voice cut her off.

It was far from the voice of a man being burned alive in a furnace.

“A fox is said to strike human bones together to create a bewitching flame. ..If so, that is an overly-decorated and inefficient system. I can probably recreate this with a phosphorescent chemical substance.”

A tremendous roar burst out.

The black tornado tore through and dispersed the orange flames from within.

“Wha-!?”

“There are countless heat-resistant bacteria. Like the ones that grow in a volcano’s caldera and consume sulfur. I can easily survive this by using my Illness Magic to create an umbrella based on them.”

The Arson Thief realized her thoughts had ground to a halt.

She came dangerously close to touching her own circular saw as she swung around the electric morning star to reject it all. She would create a massive enough conflagration to burn away any and all inconveniences.

But..

“It may be reinforced by the paranormal, but it’s still a flame.”

The carpet of flames filling the restaurant completely vanished as if it had all been a joke.

The large man’s expression had not changed one iota.

“By creating aerobic bacteria – that is, bacteria that consume oxygen – I can easily erase those flames. Water is useless with the flames from chemical incendiary rounds, but sand works just fine. All flames grow fragile if you rob them of their oxygen.”

“..”

The Arson Thief could not move a single step. She had stopped swinging around the saw. The power tool clunked to the ground, moved about madly like a poorly trained dog, and only scattered sparks as insignificant as pissing on a telephone pole.

“How about we talk this out?”

That was all the large man said as he started casually across the floor.

He carried the entire scene’s atmosphere with him.

“What did the Byouki user ask for and where are you taking it? If you won’t talk, I’ll imitate Alzheimer’s or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and ask your brain directly.”

“Ha..ha ha.”

While trembling, the beauty in a red dress laughed tensely with nowhere left to run. And as she did, a certain thought filled her head: I’ve won.

She could control all types of flames and use their various traits: burning, consuming oxygen, gathering people’s attention, jumping from object to object, bursting out like a trap when a door was opened, etc.

And that included the hypnotizing flames that led people to hallucinate.

There were several kinds of hypnotism, but one way to induce a hypnotic state was to have the target stare at a flickering flame. Some theories said that was why the Hyakumonogatari used candles or lanterns. The Arson Thief would secretly weave those flames into the battle to slowly invade the brain of her opponent.

(It doesn’t matter if my flames don’t work on you.)

The unfocused eyes and unthinkably relaxed facial muscles were both signs that her target was not in a normal state of mind.

She pulled on the leash to retrieve the raging circular saw and grabbed it in both hands.

(You can believe you’ve won and stand there meaninglessly while your organs splatter to the floor!!)

A moment later, a strange noise exploded in her hands. The fiercely rotating blade had come apart on its own. The blade, the motor, the cover, and every last screw fell separately to the floor. The rapid rotation continued, so the blade nearly severed her foot on its way down.

“................................................................................................................Eh?”

This time, the Arson Thief’s thoughts truly did come to a stop.

“There are molds that corrode metal. This one gathered some attention when it damaged a passenger plane.”

The man responded with a composed expression, but that was not the real problem here.

(Why!? How!? He should be under my hypnotic control!!)

The enemy walked straight toward her with long strides. He could clearly see her properly. The beautiful woman could only shake her head at the overwhelming unfairness of it all, but she finally caught on a moment later.

(He isn’t thinking for himself.)

A chill ran down her spine.

(Did he detect the oddity and infect his own brain and spinal column with his Illness Magic? Did he send a virus into his own body to escape my hypnotism and continue fighting semi-automatically!?)

She had the right answer, but that did not reveal a way out of her predicament.

Before the Arson Thief could do anything, the large man grabbed her collar, lifted her with one arm, and slammed her back into the floor.

The sound produced by their height difference was much greater than that of a judo throw.

Part 5 (Illness Magic User)

I had defeated my target. I still needed to release the tied-up civilians, but I prioritized the Arson Thief. Whenever a member of Shinshou Hitsubatsu spilled the beans, they would be infected and killed by an acute form of athlete’s foot.

I grabbed the unconscious woman and dragged her to the kitchen.

I opened the industrial refrigerator, checked through the contents, and poked at the side of the woman’s head with the tip of my military boots.

“Wake up.”

“Eh? Ah..Cough, cough, cough!?”

When she woke in confusion, she choked for a bit and widened her eyes.

I crouched down and held a common food item in front of her face.

“If you tell me about the Byouki user, I’ll remove the ‘collar’ wrapped around your throat.”

“Y-you’re kidding, right?”

“This is called a cucumber sealing. It’s a Shikoku ritual to pray for health and safety. As the name suggests, you seal your illness inside a cucumber and bury it in the earth. It’s up to you whether you want to try it or not, but if you refuse, your options are dying from athlete’s foot across your body or being forced into a life of slavery. What’ll it be?”

“..”

“This is your one and only chance. Don’t you want to live in freedom?”

I could hear her clench her teeth even at my distance.

She may have called them her comrades or her organization, but it looked like she had known the truth.

“If you can really do it, prove it ahead of time. Prove you can satisfy me with that cucumber.”

“A simple task, but don’t forget that all it does is ‘seal’ the illness. Until it’s buried, I can still return the acute athlete’s foot to you at any time.”

The ritual itself was not difficult. After reciting a ceremonial curse, the illness hidden in her body was transferred to the vegetable.

Once it was over, she looked down at her chest suspiciously.

“Did that really do it?”

Instead of answering, I tossed the infected cucumber toward the kitchen window. The impact broke it in two and the transparent glass was instantly covered in white hypha-like threads. It was like a bomb made of slime mold.

Afraid of the sound and vibration, a centipede on the wall near the window crawled into a gap in the sink.

The woman was dumbfounded, but I got down to business.

“Speak.”

“R-right, of course. I don’t have any obligations to them anymore. ..I was acquiring the data needed to build a personal search system for the target, Ranzono Sachi.”

“Specifically?”

“Do you really think you have time for that?”

The woman smiled thinly from the floor and pointed at the ceiling.

No..

“I already handed the USB memory to a Shinshou Hitsubatsu courier. If you don’t hurry up, they’ll get away.”

That was when a deafening roar cut by overhead.

Was it a helicopter? But I hadn’t seen one when checking around the building before my attack.

Regardless, it was true I had no time.

I used my Illness Magic to exterminate the acute athlete’s foot on the kitchen window, opened the window, and stuck my head out. I still couldn’t see anything, but the source of the noise was quite nearby and the wind was rising oddly on the road out front. It was apparently about to ascend, so I still had a chance. As usual, I only had to use my Illness Magic, so I pulled out a charm.

After dealing with what needed to be done, I looked back and saw the woman asking me a question with a servile smile on her face.

“I won’t stop you. I’m free to go, right?”

“By the way, how many people have you killed as the Arson Thief?”

“I don’t know. One or two hundred maybe?”

That wasn’t much. I was hardly one to accuse her of anything, but I had to settle this. I pulled out a new charm.

“Then you can start by sleeping for about two hundred months.”

“Wha-!? That’s not what you-..”

I silenced her with my Illness Magic and left the kitchen. I approached the family of three bound with duct tape and freed only their mouths.

“Wh-what is.. Who are you?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t answer that.”

I cut across the room and borrowed a brand new tablecloth. I infected it with Illness Magic and small mushrooms began growing from it.

“These are a type of spiritual mushroom. You can sell them for more than caterpillar fungus. If you head out to Mount Tomi or Yokohama and sell them at a random Chinese medicine shop, you’ll get enough to renew your restaurant with money to spare. Sorry you got caught in the middle of all this.”

They looked dumbfounded, but I left them and called the police on the restaurant phone.

“Yes, this is the police. Please calm down and explain your situation. Are you reporting a crime or an accide-..”

“A robber broke into a new restaurant in Eastern Block 3 of Bozen City. Send the police out immediately.”

With that said, I threw the receiver on the floor without hanging up. Whether they believed me or not, they would trace the source of the call and send someone. The family could tell them what happened then. Paranormal powers or not, even an amateur could tell who was the perpetrator and who was the victim.

In my business, personally providing the police with eyewitness testimony was not the best idea. That Hishigami woman might have silenced the family, but I had no reason to kill them.

With that in mind, I left the restaurant.

I already had a new target. I had to pursue that invisible helicopter.

Part 6 (3rd person)

A Tengu’s mysterious disappearances were the weapon used by Seidou Tagane, the Shinshou Hitsubatsu courier. The young man wore a flashy suit and sunglasses and had his hair bleached pure white, but more importantly, he could hide himself so long as he was flying. He could of course hide himself, but the effect also included anything he was controlling, be it a helicopter, an air cushion ship, a passenger plane, or an asteroid. The Tengu was a flying Youkai that made people disappear. He used that trait to carry his payload along the shortest route through the open sky. Nothing could be safer or more reliable.

He let a pilot working for him take care of the helicopter while he crossed his legs in the back seat and shouted into his cellphone to be heard over the loud rotors. “Yeah! I’ll be there right on time. Also, it seems there’s someone after us! Try contacting that Kitsunebi woman. If you can’t reach her or she’s acting weird, use the athlete’s foot!! See ya!”

He hung up and saw the pilot shaking his head. He asked what was going on and realized the pilot was trying to check on the reinforced glass in front

“Um, is this dust or something? It’s clouding my vision..”

“What?”

Seidou Tagane leaned forward to check for himself. There really was a fine powder covering the entire surface of the glass and it did look like sand, but it was not.

(What is this? Mold?)

A moment later, he heard the sound of sparks and his curse stealth using a Tengu’s mysterious disappearances was peeled away. The title of “invisible helicopter” no longer applied and the craft was entirely visible in the blue sky.

“Wh-what!? What just happened!?”

Part 7 (Illness Magic User)

Muscular reinforcement, increased flexibility of the blood vessels and cartilage, protection of the internal organs, readjustment of the energy consumption rate, activation of the mitochondria, and a change of blood distribution to prevent a blackout.

After taking all the necessary measures with my Illness Magic, I tossed aside several used charms, and ran from the sidewalk to the road.

My body immediately started running at 100 kph. And from there, my speed increased with quadratic growth. I quickly reached the 400 kph line. That was the same speed as a drag racer or a helicopter.

I had already captured my target.

I had scattered several types of mold from the restaurant’s second floor window when the helicopter had been preparing to take off. It seemed to be a type of curse stealth using a Tengu’s mysterious disappearances, but that simplified matters. Legend had it Tengu did not abduct people who had eaten mackerel because they hated the smell of mackerels.

Since the curse stealth relied on a Tengu, I could remove it by chemically synthesizing the smell.

I had stripped them bare.

They could ignore the roads and terrain to take the shortest path to their destination. I was unfortunately bound by those things, but I could not allow them to escape. I had to secure a route to the Byouki user no matter what.

I overtook the cars on the road, I jumped over the people on the crosswalks, and I would occasionally run along a building’s wall to take a sharp turn without losing much speed. I heard screams and confused voices around me, but each time, I used my Illness Magic to erase a few seconds of their short-term memory. I spared the small children because it would have been dangerous for them, but the adults would assume the child had been daydreaming.

Then the helicopter crossed a river.

At more than fifty meters wide, it was too far to jump and there was no bridge nearby.

“Compose an Illness Magic based on blastocladia.”

I pulled out a charm, muttered to myself, and leaped toward the river. No matter how much momentum I had built up, I was going to fall into the river partway. But as soon as my feet touched the surface, something like a pure-white lotus leaf spread out. I created my own footing based on a germ that attached to fruit that fell in the water.

I jumped across the surface like a stone skipping on the water and arrived on the opposite bank.

However, this would never end if I continued running along the surface.

To finish this, I needed a long thoroughfare or highway.

Part 8 (3rd person)

Finally, Seidou Tagane realized what was going on.

He saw a form running along the surface at unbelievable speed. Whatever it was, it was following the courier helicopter now that the curse stealth was broken. The helicopter was moving at over 350 kph and could ignore the terrain and roads, but this opponent showed no sign of caring.

The pilot gave a shrill shout.

“Let’s shake them!! We don’t need to stay on this course!!”

“You dumbass, we’ve lost our stealth! Everyone can see us now!”

“And isn’t that why we’re being chased!? I don’t know who that is, but they’re some kind of monster!!”

“Yeah, and the airport control tower radar can see us too! Adding in a false flight plan via the internet’s the most I can manage. Start flying all over the place and they’ll scramble some domestic stealth fighters to come after us!!”

The sky was not as free as it seemed.

It was more crowded than the roads on the surface. Countless beacon signals divided up the flight paths and anything that left those would be deemed dangerous and ordered to land. If it did not respond, they were free to shoot it down.

That meant Seidou Tagane and the pilot could no longer escape.

They knew someone was after them, but they could not swing the control column around like in a movie.

“Dammit, what in the world-..”

Seidou Tagane trailed off.

He had briefly looked away from the ground to argue with the pilot. It had only been for a few seconds, but he had lost sight of the pursuer racing along the surface.

“Find them! Dammit, where’d they go!? Find them!!”

The courier man shouted nervously, but then he spotted something odd.

Some kind of white structure covered the entire straight thoroughfare. It was over a kilometer long and looked like the first rise of a roller coaster or the electromagnetic acceleration catapult from a mass driver in an SF novel. Suddenly, he tensed up.

A catapult?

A moment later, the large man running at 400 kph flew through the air and collided with the side of the helicopter.

He had already exceeded a passenger plane’s takeoff speed. By shifting his vector upwards using sturdy rails made from hyphae, he managed to leap five or six hundred meters into the air.

The reinforced glass and steel door meant nothing.

Something must have corroded them because they were torn away like clay.

The man climbed inside.

“E-eeeeek!?”

Driven by fear, the pilot pulled out his handgun, but that was an obvious mistake.

He had confirmed he was hostile and had nothing to negotiate with. More importantly, they both worked in the underworld. The large man grabbed this “enemy” with a single hand and threw the pilot out of the helicopter.

Seidou Tagane was soaked with sweat and had the look of a man who had boarded an elevator late at night only for a man with a blade to walk in at an intermediary floor.

“Wh-who are you? Who are you!?”

“Tell me what you know about the Byouki user who is after Ranzono Sachi.”

“Do you really think I’ll tell you? I’ll be killed!”

“Then I will kill you now.”

The man pulled out a charm.

With a sticky sound, the helicopter’s silhouette crumbled. As he felt like he had stepped in humus, Seidou Tagane found himself already released into empty air.

“Eh?”

He did not know what had happened.

“Eh?”

The aircraft carrying him had corroded and vanished in only a few seconds.

“Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!?”

The sensation of falling squeezed at his stomach and he flailed his limbs in vain. Meanwhile, the large man’s expression remained unchanged as he turned around, grabbed Seidou Tagane’s collar, and spoke from close by.

“The Byouki user.”

“I don’t know, dammit! I don’t know!!”

“You will hit the ground in another ten seconds. Is that your final answer?”

“I’m sorryyyyy!! I’ll tell you anythinnnggg!!”

The large man gave an irritated sigh at Seidou Tagane’s tear- and snot-covered face. He pulled out a charm and something like a pure-white umbrella opened from his back. He did not seem to be wearing a parachute and the material was odd. It was a strange parachute made from a slime mold or something.

The large man slowly and carefully landed on the bank of a river and threw Seidou Tagane into a thicket.

Then he made a unilateral demand.

“Tell me everything you know.”

Part 9 (Illness Magic User)

Driving out evil was a common desire, so there were countless rituals for it from all over the world. Like the previous cucumber sealing, items on hand were often enough to perform one of them. This time, I used the river and paper. The specific method was similar to a spirit boat procession. The spirit boat procession was meant to send off the dead, but with a few modifications, I could make a boat with some paper, placed the evil or illness onboard, and send it away.

It may have looked simple, but it was a lot like surgery. It required accurate knowledge and exacting precision down to the millimeter or smaller.

Once I was done, I glared at the man who was breathing heavily in the riverside thicket. A centipede moved out of the way in the grass so I wouldn’t crush it underfoot.

“The Byouki user wanted a search system. Ranzono Sachi is our target, but they didn’t know her exact route. They wanted a system to know her location to make sure she ends up dead no matter what route she takes. The Byouki may seem like cheating, but it isn’t all powerful and it has to follow a certain sequence.”

“That being?”

“A radio interception system. But by adding in a special program, they can pick up the electromagnetic waves sent out by the vehicle’s robot brakes. I’m sure you’ve seen the ads about a car detecting obstacles and stopping on its own even if you let go of the steering wheel.”

The courier man wiped sweat from his brow while sitting on the ground.

“They claim you can’t identify an individual vehicle based on the radar waves, but that isn’t actually true. After all, cars drive along in rows and they’re also exposed to the radar waves of the traffic in the opposite lane. If they reacted to another car’s radar waves and slammed on the brakes, it could easily cause unexpected accidents, so the robot brakes actually have some secret data embedded in them. There’s a registration number just like the license plate number.”

“You mean the Byouki user wants to pick up the robot brake signal of the prisoner transport vehicle carrying Ranzono Sachi?”

“No matter what route she takes, the Byouki can kill her. Recently, there was some ridiculous news about a civilian app that could capture the signal of government planes and reveal their flight paths, remember? This is pretty much the same. Robot brakes are pretty common these days, so you can figure out where the armored cars carrying money for banks and the black luxury cars carrying VIPs are.”

“The Kitsunebi woman said she gave you a USB memory stick.”

“Sorry.” The courier raised both hands while still sitting down. “As soon as I saw you, I threw it out into the sky. It’s sending out a beacon signal, so the Byouki’s probably picking it up right about now.”

“..”

That meant I didn’t have a moment to spare.

Would I pursue and attack the Byouki user or would I search out and protect the prisoner transport vehicle carrying Ranzono Sachi? I had to make up my mind, but I had no hint to ensure success for either option.

But then the courier made a suggestion.

“If you’re willing to listen, I’d like to help you out. So could you maybe spare me?”

“Out with it.”

“I’m a courier, but I’m good at making some money on the side. I made a copy of the USB memory without telling the Byouki. I can’t tell you where they are, but you can use that data to pick up the robot brake signal to find Ranzono Sachi. You want to lie in wait for the Byouki, don’t you? So what’ll you do?”

“Fine. But only if you swear to immediately retire from this industry and never again use your power or skills to cause trouble for civilians.”

“Of course, of course. If I’d known there were people like you out there, I never would have gotten into this business in the first place. I think I’ll head back to the countryside and start farming or something. So I don’t have any use for this data anyways.”

“I see. Then let me give you some more incentive.”

“?”

I pulled out a charm.

A sticky sound burst from within the courier’s head.

“Wh-..bah!? What did..you do!?”

“I attached some Illness Magic to your hippocampus which is deeply related to your memories. If you break your promise, you will harm your own brain. You might be able to fool others, but you can never fool yourself. Bear that in mind.”

“Dammit. You’ve gotta be kidding me! Goddamit!”

After taking the storage medium from the wailing man, I left the area and made a call on my modified cellphone.

“Hello,” said the Hishigami woman.

“Do your duty.”

“Couldn’t you at least ask me to help you? You’re going to break my heart if you keep being such a high level tsundere.”

I ignored her nonsense and mentally went over my plans.

Ranzono Sachi came first. If I could protect her by defeating the Byouki sent after her, the Byouki user would give up on a long-range attack. And if they tried to force their way in for a direct attack, intercepting them and disposing of them would probably be fastest.

Part 10 (Illness Magic User)

“Okay, found that robot brake signal. Looks like they’re abusing the cellphone tower antennae. They’ve added a command to pick up some extra signals around town and send them to a secret server. That lets me search for any car in Bozen City, not just Sachi-chan’s prisoner transport vehicle. Wow! Why is the mayor’s first secretary’s car stopped on the side of the road right now? Is he enjoying some adulterous car sex? He probably doesn’t have anything better to do while the big boss is meeting with the city council.”

“Get to the point.”

“Including decoys, there are three prisoner transport vehicles. The real one is traveling along the mountain pass.”

“The search system only tells you the type of vehicle and their location, not what’s inside.”

“I’m using a different method to pick up camera footage from near the police station. The morons let the target onboard in full view of those cameras. That’s why you need to build your parking lot underground.”

Now that I had that information, I had no more need for her. I hung up and started for the destination. There was no law forbidding a human from travelling at 400 kph on foot, so I pushed myself pretty hard.

I found a small road losing out to the dense trees and a guardrail that had turned green more to corrosion than just rust. This was one of the poorly maintained national roads I would sometimes hear about. It would have been difficult for two light vehicles to pass each other here.

And along one hairpin curve, the guardrail was badly broken.

I peered down and saw a prisoner transport vehicle on the rocky area several meters below.

Had the Byouki arrived ahead of me?

I jumped down to the rocky area and approached the vehicle that had not just fallen on its side but was stuck between two large rocks. First, I used my Illness Magic to corrode the reinforced windshield that had turned pure white from all the cracks. After dragging the driver out, I circled to the back and destroyed the steel door as well. Including the driver, there were three police officers inside. Their uniforms were all soaked red with blood.

But that was all. There was no sign of Ranzono Sachi who should have been restrained inside.

“..Uuh..”

They were just barely breathing. I wanted to ask about Ranzono Sachi, but I couldn’t treat them roughly with their injuries. As I removed all germs from the wounds and used their neckties to stop the blood, a thought came to me.

What kind of injuries were th-->>

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