reak?

She lightly waved her index finger back and forth and said, “For once, my sister is actually in a real pinch. This is actually more my issue than yours, detective.”

“Then do something about this Shikigami. And while you’re at it, how about you stay away from me too?”

But I was not even sure if the village even had an inn. Even if it did, I did not know if Enbi could afford it. That meant keeping her from traveling with me would force her to sleep on the streets. Forcing a teenage girl to do that for my own personal reasons went against everything I believed a police officer should be. And of course, thinking that way was falling right into the mystery freak’s trap.

As I held my head in one hand, I dragged my travel bag along and walked toward the ticket gate.

I was already feeling irritated when I heard the grating high-pitched voice of a female announcer coming from some TV.

“Blueprint of a Hit is on at Thursday at 7:00!! This week we will approach the secrets of Daikawara-san, the producer of the beautiful Onmyouji girls unit Seman Stars! We will reveal the trick to coming up with the group’s novel ideas such as the skillful blend of idols and spiritual mystique as well as the unique fan service of giving individual fortune tellings instead of a simple handshaking event! Don’t miss it!!”

I looked over to find the mystery freak had turned on the 1seg TV function of her cell phone.

“Wow, this is really is the middle of nowhere. There are almost no TV channels. All the commercial broadcasting is covered by a single local station.”

“You can order any show you want to watch over satellite or the internet.”

“What do you think of Seman Stars? Don’t you think Tarot Girls 22 is cuter?”

“There are too many of them, so I can’t keep track. Add in the backups and there are 56 of them, right?”

Sitting around at the empty station forever would do no one any good, so I began walking along the paved road with the Deadly Dragon Princess still clinging to my back. The mystery freak would stick with me whether I said anything or not, but I was having trouble deciding whether that was convenient or presumptuous.

The midsummer sun was so hot that I seriously began to wonder if it was not a mirage I was seeing and the road was really melting. Nevertheless, I continued to walk across the asphalt and toward my family home. The distance and heat must have been too much even for the mystery freak because she said nothing as we walked.

The Deadly Dragon Princess was clinging to my back and forcing her entire weight onto me, so my strength was being worn down quite quickly. It reminded me of poison damage in an RPG.

“Ahhh!! Detective, are there no cafes or family restaurants around here?”

“Give it up. This village only has a sweets shop. If you need a rest, there’s a bus stop with a roof not far up ahead.”

“This is horrible! Is this really part of Japan!?”

“I moved to the city to get away from this, so complain to someone else.”

As soon as we finally arrived at the bus stop, the mystery freak practically flung herself onto the bench but then started writhing around on top of that natural frying pan that had been heated by the sun.

“Hgywaaaaahhhh!?”

“Your problem is that you’re the type of mystery freak whose brain stops working altogether when you don’t have a case to solve. Why couldn’t you at least guess that the angle of the sun can still let it reach the bench despite the roof?”

“U-uuhhh... This is just cruel. There’s water so nearby yet I can’t drink it.”

“Huh? What is this doing in an Intellectual Village?” I muttered as I approached the object.

And that turned out to be a deadly mistake.

Part 6 (Jinnai Shinobu)

Despite emphasizing how soon he would be here over the phone, my uncle never arrived. I frowned and called him back a few times, but I couldn’t reach him.

“What is going on?”

Had he run into some kind of trouble?

Noukotsu Village had an extremely slow train schedule. Counting both directions, only 5 trains came through in a day. One of those should have arrived at the station already. If my uncle had been on that train, he should have arrived in the city by now.

“Hmm... Maybe I should go down to the station to check.”

I had hoped someone would go with me, but the Zashiki Warashi’s policy was to refuse to do anything that would be too much of a bother and the Yuki Onna did not want to head out into the hot sun. As I looked around in search of someone to rope into going with me, the Nekomata turned away from me.

Is this because of how Youkai naturally hate my uncle so much?

“Oh, that’s right. We’ve got a demon in addition to these Youkai.”

And so I headed up to the attic using the steep and narrow wooden stairs that were practically a ladder.

The house was quite large and the attic was not divided into individual rooms, so it contained a decent amount of space. However, it had a dank and stuffy impression due to not being a proper living space, so it was not a place I liked going to.

But Youkai and demons tended to like places humans found uncomfortable, so it was quite well liked by them.

“The answer is #3: 50 countries!! The worldwide agricultural revolution focused on Australia is known as the International Plantation Project. Vast land is used to grow the specialties of countries the world over, such as Brazilian coffee, French grapes, and German potatoes. The standard is to use circular farms, but some crops use a combination of perfectly enclosed plant factories and megasolar facilities...”

It seemed the Succubus was watching the same quiz show rerun the Yuki Onna had been. I could hear the voice of the announcer who was known as the trivia king.

While standing on that steep ladder-like staircase, I stuck my head into the square attic. For some reason, the Succubus was sitting with her legs spread in an M-shape as if waiting for me. If I had been careless, my face would have run right in the center point of the M.

“What are you doing?”

“Just watching TV. Why do you ask?”

It seemed that sitting like that was as natural to her as sitting in the seiza style or cross-legged. After I explained the situation, she rolled backwards with her legs still spread in an M-shape. The movement somehow reminded me of a dead cicada.

“Demons prefer the darkness and Succubi rule over the night and dreams!! Why would you ever think I would go on a healthy walk under the midsummer sun!?”

Apparently, my uncle’s nature worked long range and was just as effective on Western monsters as Eastern ones.

I ultimately had no choice but to head for the station alone.

As soon as I stepped outside, I was reminded just how unbearable the direct sunlight was. For an instant, I considered taking a page out of those Youkai’s book and turning right back into the house, but I managed to resist.

I borrowed the Zashiki Warashi’s electric stickboard and took off down the farm road that was barely wide enough for two light trucks to pass each other.

“There are no stores on the way, so there’s almost no chance he took a detour.”

I raced alongside rice paddies filled with rice plants swaying in the wind as I took the shortest route to the train station. Someone must have been hunting down some dangerous animal because I heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the mountain. The old man who lived next door would sometimes share some boar meat with us, so I did not find it to be an unpleasant sound.

And then...

“?”

I spotted something sparkling on the side of the road. I ignored it, but I saw something else reflecting the sunlight a bit further on. After spotting three or four similar objects, I started to think it was strange.

What are those things?

They were objects I had seen on TV.

But...

“A cat-repellent water bottle?”[2]

I stopped the electric stickboard to check. The label had been removed from the plastic bottle and it was filled with water. I had often seen them placed in front of urban houses on TV.

But they were rarely used in Intellectual Villages.

For one, there was no scientific or zoological evidence they worked. Also, filling a round plastic bottle with water allowed it to function like a lens. When placed under the sun, it could easily start a fire.

Intellectual Villages thoroughly regulated their environment with all sorts of technology, so they had ways of more efficiently and effectively keeping stray cats away.

After all, this was where a bunch of grapes cost 30 thousand yen. When you could almost say that money did grow on trees, you would never protect those trees with mere superstition.

“What is this doing here?”

In my confusion, I approached the cat-repellent water bottle to get a closer look.

And then...

“No, Shinobu!! If you approach that, you’ll be caught in it too!!”

There was nothing he could have done.

By the time I heard my uncle’s voice, I had already been caught in the Package.

Part 7 (Uchimaku Hayabusa)

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, shit!!

I had been so focused on being caught in the Package myself and searching for a way to escape this Youkai that I had been unable to stop a new sacrifice from appearing. And this was my nephew Shinobu. What rules did any supposed god use to run this world?

I frantically ran over to Shinobu but felt a dull pain run through my right ankle.

It felt like wooly caterpillars that a mere touch from would cause a rash had broken through the skin and burrowed into my body. It hurt, it itched, it was uncomfortable, and it filled me with revulsion. The negative feelings seemed enough to cover up the pure pain.

It was a string.

It was painfully clear that a spider’s web had burrowed inside me.

“Uncle, what is-...!?”

Shinobu trailed off as his face twisted in pain and he frantically crouched down to hold his right ankle with both hands. He was obviously experiencing the same symptoms as us.

I shouted into the distance.

“Mystery freak, there’s a water bottle over here too! We missed one!! Shinobu has been caught in the Package!!”

Hishigami Enbi and the Shikigami named the Deadly Dragon Princess approached. Those two, Shinobu, and I were the current group caught in the Package. If possible, I did not want anyone else to be added to that group, but...

“What is going on, uncle...?”

“It’s a Jorougumo. Someone has set up a Package using that deadly Youkai,” I replied in a bitter voice.

Once we had understood the details of the Package to a certain extent, we had started by gathering all of the water bottles set up around the village. Everyone who approached them would be caught inside the Package, but the mystery freak and I were already caught. Touching the bottles could not cause any more harm to us. We had hoped to retrieve them all before someone else fell victim to them, but that had not happened.

The mystery freak explained the situation to Shinobu.

“A Jorougumo is generally known as a Youkai that transforms into a beautiful woman during the day and sucks human blood as a giant spider at night. But this one seems to be a slightly different type. This is the Jorougumo said to appear at the Jouren Falls. The cat-repellent water bottles are a trap meant to apply the situation of ‘taking a rest next to the water’ to the target. Anyone who spends a certain amount of time near one of the bottles is designated a target. The bottles may even have actual water from the Jouren Falls inside.”

Simply passing by was no problem. However, if you stopped, the danger shot way up. We had not actually tested this, but the entire village would have been caught if the target simply had to approach within a certain distance.

“What exactly does this Youkai do?”

“It wraps its spider web around the ankle of any travelers resting near the waterfall and drags them into the waterfall basin to kill them. In the story, a traveler cut the web wrapped around his ankle and tied it around a tree stump to escape.”

Shinobu looked at me.

I shook my head and replied, “We’ve tried it. The web is invisible, but we can grab it. However, nothing happened even when we tried to tie it to the bus stop sign, the bench, or anything else. We even went to the mountain and found a stump, but that didn’t work either. We can remove it temporarily, but it reappears back around our ankle before long.”

Technically, it dug into our ankle in this Package instead of just around it.

“So they’ve altered that portion,” commented Shinobu.

The mystery freak sighed and said, “We don’t know who did this, but it is obvious what they are after. Either everyone caught dies or they must fight each other to the death. The person behind this wants us to make that ultimate choice.”

“What? I don’t know what the time limit for this is, but don’t we just have to find what has been designated the ‘stump’ and reattach the web to that?”

“The problem is what that ‘stump’ is,” I cut in. “The mystery freak wrapped her web around my ankle as a joke, but that was the only time it did not reappear on her. ...It was kind of awkward, so she reattached it to her ankle.”

“...Wait. You’re kidding.”

“The bastard that assembled this Jorougumo Package has cruelly set the other participants as the ‘stump’.”

As a police officer, this situation made me click my tongue, but it would have been unfair not to explain it.

“In other words, we have two options. We can wait until our time is up and all die, or we can force our web onto another participant before our time is up. Those are the only two options.”

“I doubt there is a limit to the number of webs someone can have forced on them, so one death would be the best we can hope for,” added the mystery freak.

Naturally, no one wanted to be thrown into a deadly game of musical chairs.

That would decide who the sacrifice would be by a truly primitive method. In other words, all the participants would try to kill each other, forcing all the damage onto the weakest one.

Shinobu looked back down at his ankle and said, “By the way, how exactly will we be killed once our time is up?”

“We don’t know. Since the story is about being dragged into a waterfall basin, drowning or falling from a great height would make the most sense, but the Jorougumo is a bloodsucking Youkai. And since the stump was pulled from the ground and dragged into the basin, being crushed to death may also be possible.”

The only question was what the criminal wanted from this.

A rural area like an Intellectual Village had few main roads, so it would not be hard to catch someone in the Package by setting up the water bottles along those. However, it would be difficult to catch a specific target.

Was this nothing but indiscriminate murder?

Packages were developed by groups of dozens or even hundreds, so it seemed unlikely one would be built around the pleasure of an individual.

“I have a question,” said Hishigami Mai’s Shikigami all of a sudden. “A web has been attached to my ankle as well, but can this Jorougumo kill a Shikigami?”

“I’m not a specialist, so I couldn’t tell you,” replied the mystery freak. “But if this was assembled under the assumption that it would be killing humans, the damage set to drown or crush the victim might not be enough to kill you.”

“I agree. And with that settled...”

“?”

We all focused on the Deadly Dragon Princess.

The Shikigami then said, “All of you can attach your webs to me. That will allow you to escape this danger. Even if my core structure is destroyed, I can be remade if you manage to rescue Hishigami Mai.”

The last resort.

Once it was suggested, there was no point in rejecting it.

If time ran out with the webs still around all of our ankles, we would all die. The Package was put together to kill every last one of us. Denying that last resort would only increase the number of victims.

For that reason, the Deadly Dragon Princess’s view was not wrong.

It was not wrong.

However...

“We can’t, uncle.” As expected, my nephew Shinobu spoke up. Even if it was being idealistic, I felt he should be proud of still being able to say that here. “There has to be another way! A Package is a much larger system than it appears, so there are a lot of gears that can be removed. If we can find one of those, we won’t have to make this choice like the criminal wants us to!!”

“But we have no way of knowing if we will succeed before time runs out. In fact, we do not even know the full scope of this Package. We have not even narrowed down who the suspects might be. If we begin gathering information now, we will never finish in time.” The mystery freak’s words stabbed at him coolly. “From the state of our ankles, the detective and I only have about 10 minutes left. The time limit meaning our deaths may be after that, but the web digging into our ankles will be too much for us soon. This strange itching is spreading so much it feels like my ankle is suffering necrosis.”

“...”

“Shinobu, don’t worry. The limit will clearly come for us first. If worst comes to worst, you can attach your web to one of us. You at least can survive this.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to say!!”

I knew that he was trying to correct a fundamental mistake.

But we did not have time.

“We of course want to do whatever we can too. But think about what could happen. We are the first wave and you are the second. If you wait around until the entire first wave is gone, you will be the only person left. Once that happens, you will have no one to attach your web to.”

Shinobu gritted his teeth and looked over at the Deadly Dragon Princess.

That monster looked like a slender girl.

“I will be fine,” she said to Shinobu expressionlessly. “No Youkai is used in my construction. I am a Shikigami designed from the ground up with organic material. If my physical body is destroyed, it can simply be exchanged for anoth-ghh.”

She misspoke at the end after biting her tongue.

Or so it seemed.

A slender and lithe arm pierced through the Deadly Dragon Princess’s back and out of the center of her chest.

What?

Who did that?

When did they approach?

I belatedly realized that asking those obvious questions was getting my priorities out of order.

If what the Deadly Dragon Princess had said was accurate, she was a Shikigami, an artificial Youkai, created by Hishigami Mai.

Normal methods would never be enough to kill her, so how had a human killed her barehanded?

“According to my sister,” Hishigami Enbi’s lips trembled as she spoke, “the Deadly Dragon Princess is a model case for a potential enemy. She assumed she would be able to stand up to most any Youkai if she redesigned her own body so she could defeat it with a single punch.”

That means...

The most likely candidate for who had destroyed the Shikigami in a single strike was...

“Hishigami Mai!?” shouted all three of us almost in unison.

The attacker pulled her slender arm out from the Deadly Dragon Princess’s back and casually tossed the wreckage to the side. The Deadly Dragon Princess had said she would be fine if she was destroyed, but I had no way of knowing how true that was.

And I could not even focus on her battered form.

Every nerve in my body refused to let me look away from the attacker.

The attacker was indeed Hishigami Mai. I recognized the bloody arm and the hair that had been damaged by direct sunlight. However, I had never seen that look on her face. And half of her body was covered.

Covered in what, you ask?

Covered in Japanese paper used for calligraphy. Or perhaps you would call them magic charms. At any rate, about half of her body was covered with Japanese paper with strange writing on it. We had not exchanged a single word, but it was obvious that Mai was not her usual self. It was possible she could not even hear us. She looked like spell words congealed into a human form.

The Jorougumo Package had been unbeatable enough already.

And now the trump card we could use as a last resort had been destroyed.

Plus the enemy that now faced us was the worst possible enemy I could think of.

“We can’t win,” I calmly analyzed. Neither Shinobu nor the mystery freak attempted to argue. “Don’t try to fight her!! Our top priority is finding a way to escape this Jorougumo Package!!”

To make sure we were not all killed at once, we ran off in three different directions.

Hishigami Mai would likely pursue one of us.

This was like a game of musical chairs.

If we wanted to survive, we had to choose at least one person to die.

A much more direct, obvious, and horrible choice than the Jorougumo Package had presented itself.

Part 8 (Jinnai Shinobu)

In the end, I was cornered before I had been able to resolve anything.

This was Hishigami Mai.

She was the worst possible person I could think of to have as an enemy. I had run toward the mountain to get away from her.

But that may have been a mistake.

Then again, there may not have been a correct answer when it came to confronting that monster of a woman.

“Shinobu!!”

My uncle called from somewhere.

He must have run after me because he was worried about me. Or so I thought at first. Doubt came soon after.

The final trump card that had existed ever since my uncle and that twintailed girl were caught in the Package was now gone. That Youkai(?) known as the Deadly Dragon Princess could no longer be given all of our webs. To escape the Package before the time limit, my uncle, the twintailed girl, and I had to force our Jorougumo web onto one of the others.

It was possible he had changed his plan.

My uncle and the twintailed girl had fallen into the Jorougumo Package before I had. That of course meant they had less time than me. They might want to force their webs onto me “for the moment” since I had more time.

If we then found a new way out of the Package, that was fine.

But what if we did not find one?

Once all the webs had been temporarily forced onto me, the only option would be my death.

“...”

I did not respond to my uncle’s cry. I couldn’t!

I could not decide whether I should hold my breath and stay where I was or run off at full speed despite the noise it would make. When it came down to pure violence, a normal high school student like me did not stand a chance against a professional police detective like my uncle. And he might also have a handgun.

If he shot me in the leg, my options would drop considerably.

I can’t risk agreeing to my uncle’s compromise.

But just as I thought that....

“Shinobu!! Don’t go that way! She’s coming!!”

“Eh...?”

I had grown so lost in my suspicions that it took me too long to realize what my uncle meant. And my enemy did not overlook that mistake.

A sound exploded out from my body as if something solid had been knocked out of place.

I could not turn my head around to check behind me, much less continue standing. The best I could manage was twisting my waist around as I collapsed to the grassy-smelling dirt.

Only once I was lying on my back did I catch a glimpse of who had attacked me.

It was that monster of a woman who had half her body covered in Japanese paper or magic charms.

Somehow, she did not seem all there. It looked like she was sleepwalking.

“...Hishigami...Mai...?”

She gave no response.

She crouched down as if to peer at my face and her hands reached out for my neck. I tried to twist my body around to escape, but I could no longer move properly.

She showed no mercy.

She brought her hands in as if to strangle a chicken.

And then my heart truly did stop beating.

Part 9 (???)

Something out of place was mixed into the gentle atmosphere of Noukotsu Village. Saijou Ai hummed as she looked at her cell phone and leaned against the side of her black luxury car known as a Hitman Tuxedo.

The text on the screen was short, but absolute and accurate.

“Jinnai Shinobu: Confirmed dead.”

“Uchimaku Hayabusa: Confirmed dead.”

“Hishigami Enbi: Confirmed dead.”

The possibility was incredibly low, but it was possible Hishigami Mai could have left Saijou’s control and was now sending false information. However, that may have been worrying too much. And Saijou Ai held the core of the Jorougumo Package.

She wore a glove that appeared to be made of a thin silk.

Technically, it was spider silk woven into the form of a glove using the same techniques used for making violin strings.

It had originally been made along with the Jorougumo Package for a perverted nouveau riche old man who wanted to play the gamemaster in a killing game. The spider web glove that stuck to the palm reacted to the emotional disturbance of the game participants and reproduced them as virtual feelings. Basically, it let the wearer “feel” the death agonies of the players.

The perverted old man had absolutely loved the idea of holding people’s invisible souls in his hand, but he had ended up taking part in the game as a player after he failed to pay the fairly expensive rental price.

At any rate, the glove could be used to check on the progress of the Package by seeing who was dead and who was still alive. The Jorougumo would continue hunting its target until that target was dead.

All feeling had left the glove.

It was receiving no response from any of the players.

The arrival of the three emails had matched perfectly with the disappearance of the feeling.

This confirmed that Hishigami Mai was still under Saijou Ai’s control and she had quickly killed every player, including her own sister.

But...

“Really, it could have been anyone,” muttered Saijou Ai casually.

She had merely needed to cause a commotion within Noukotsu Village. That had been the point of the Jorougumo Package that forced people to kill each other, and that had been the point of Hishigami Mai.

She had actually wanted to get more people involved and use the Jorougumo Package to alter the atmosphere of the entire village, but this was enough. A diversion was meant to be abandoned anyway. As long as the true objective was achieved in the meantime, everything would work out in the end.

Her specialty was not sneaking deep into enemy ranks like a ninja from the Sengoku period. She instead created a flashy commotion and moved along in its shadow. Houjou and Toujou had often said she was like a stun grenade, but they were dead now.

“...”

Someone approached slowly as if sleepwalking.

Hishigami Mai looked to be in a horrible state with half of her body covered in magica-->>

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