ories in our world.

Part 6

Hishigami Shikimi, founder of the Hishigami line, had ceased to function.

The flower bore fruit and then withered away. The white hair was spread out around the small body that would never move again. I rolled off of her and onto the roof. I couldn’t stop myself, so I slid right off the roof and onto the dirt ground.

“Kh...”

I couldn’t feel my legs.

The bones had apparently been taken out when I had blown myself away with the explosives.

I guess not even the Yozakura’s support was enough for that. I’m going to need my kit to repair myself. If I inject the medicinal liquid to set the bones and add a wooden splint on the outside, maybe I can stand.

Just as I was thinking that...

“I can’t believe we actually lost Shikimi-san here.”

Even I felt a chill down my spine.

I couldn’t move my broken legs, so I forced my head up while crawling along and found a long-haired man in a monocle and the kind of suit seen in paintings from the Meiji period. He held a Sunekosuri in his arm like a pet-lover. Standing next to him was an unemotional Zashiki Warashi in a pure white yukata, with a head mounted display hanging from her neck and with half her face hidden by a veil. The monocle and veil made it hard to tell, but they both had different colored eyes. More specifically, they had both swapped an eye for a human and Youkai eyeball each.

One was the Sunekosuri named Ohatsu.

One was the Hyakki Yakou Special-Made Ver. 40 Zashiki Warashi.

And the last was a man with a full family crest on his chest.

“Majina!?”

“I hadn’t been too worried since she had already lived for a thousand years, but I suppose everything eventually meets its end. Even the prosperous inevitably decay. Don’t you think that is the worst Japanese saying of them all? Can’t anyone reject that awful tendency?”

This was not good.

It was possible I could heal my legs with my kit, but he would never give me the chance. On his own, he could rival the current Hyakki Yakou and he also had the Ver. 40 Zashiki Warashi who could create the world’s destiny from nothing. If I was faced with something like that when I couldn’t even stand up, there was no way I could win.

Then what was I supposed to do? Try to rely on someone else? The Sunekosuri was out of the question and I had no idea what had happened to the Deadly Dragon Princess after she was blown away by Shikimi. That meant she was out of my control and I couldn’t use her.

Wait.

Does that mean...

There really is nothing I can do!?

“What..?”

“Yes?”

“What are you trying to do? No, what are you trying to cause? I can’t figure out why you would start this zombie panic. With the Ver. 40, you should be able to directly create your utopia without going through all this troublesome work... So why aren’t you using the Ver. 40. Could it be that...”

“You Hishigami Women like to stall for time by talking and to wait for an opening when the thread of tension grows slack.”

“Could it be that you aren’t holding back on the Ver. 40. Could it be that you’re already using it for something else? If so, what are you using it for? No, what is the true problem that you couldn’t find a solution for without using the Ver. 40!?”

“Well, the Kasha Package – what you’re calling the zombie panic – is just a way of raising the standard.”

Raising the standard?

I looked confused and Majina continued while petting Ohatsu the Sunekosuri.

“Needless to say, the seeds have already been sown in thirteen cities of five different regions. As time passes, the saturation point will be reached and zombies will cover the archipelago in no time. But turning 150 million people into zombies is only setting the stage.”

He made it sound so simple.

Normally, hearing about the collapse of an entire nation would be enough to feel faint, but we were looking at something beyond even that.

“Needless to say, humans gain a much more powerful body when they become zombies. And the effect isn’t as noticeable, but as they bite people, creating second and third generations of zombies, the zombies gradually start retaining their rational mind. ...Eventually, they are no different than when they were alive.”

He was strengthening the entire population of Japan.

On top of that, he could control the core of the Kasha Package, to manage the wills of everyone who had become a zombie without even realizing it. He was raising the standard so all those harmless civilians could survive in our professional world.

It almost sounded like...

“Are you trying to start a war?”

“If a one-on-one conflict can be called a war, then one has been ongoing for ten years now.”

I had no idea what he meant by that, but that was as far as he went.

“More importantly, you should probably be more worried about what happens to you.”

I immediately heard a raw and soft sound as something fell onto my back. It had fallen from the roof of the nearby shack. I thought for a moment, realized what it had to be, and felt sweat pouring from my body.

It was Hishigami Shikimi.

Her white hair was spread out and her shoulders were pushed far outside her kimono.

And her dead, discolored body was moving, which could only mean one thing.

“I’m sure you’ve investigated some things on the way here since I left some materials here and there. The Kasha controls the corpses of sinners when it approaches and the legend of Mikuchi-sama means any abandoned corpse or fatally wounded individual is labeled a sinner and thrown into the abyss. All in the name of preventing disease.”

“Kh...”

“So what matters is the boundary between life and death. Being directly bitten by a zombie doesn’t particularly matter. Of course, when you aren’t bitten by a zombie, you start out as a first generation and don’t retain much of your rational mind. Oh, to be honest, there was a risk of a Zashiki Warashi becoming a zombie as they’re a collection of children sacrificed during famines and the like. I was afraid that might happen here since Mei could only become the ideal Zashiki Warashi, but she’s just fine. Just as you would expect of the ideal.”

If the dead became zombies regardless of how they died, what did that mean about Hishigami Shikimi now?

“And Shikimi-san isn’t the only one who became a zombie.”

Two new threats appeared from behind the building.

It was the man and girl zombies who had been freed of the bonds placed on them by Hishigami Shikimi’s attack.

They had white hair, muddy eyes, and skin covered in red and purple. The detective’s cardigan and slacks were stained red and one of my sister’s twintails was roughly undone.

Majina stepped aside as if to clear the way for them.

He smiled and spoke.

“Until we meet again. Although it’s hard to say whether you will be alive or dead when that happens.”

Several hands and mouths approached the living flesh that could not move.

There was nothing I could do.

There was nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?