Ch.216Epilogue. Training Camp (10)

Sometimes, there are people who remember things about me that even I’ve forgotten.

Perhaps I forget such things because there’s a selfish side to me.

Like Mako right now, for example.

Only after hearing what Mako said could I recall something that happened over a year ago.

When I hadn’t known Mako for very long.

…In the original light novel, Mako was a character who was already dead by the time of the main story.

Caught in a ghoul’s trap, probably eaten alive. Only parts of her body were found, with signs of being devoured.

It was probably because Mako was kind.

The ghoul seemed to deliberately choose such children.

It judged by ‘appearance.’ It chose innocent, naive-looking children like Mako with her thick glasses.

It would pretend to be injured, then devour the child who approached to help. Alive.

I saved Mako from that fate.

Mako didn’t know that much. She only knew that after she left first, I was found collapsed unconscious in the alley.

Instead of knowing I had fought with a ghoul that day, Mako believes I was sexually assaulted because she left me behind.

Even now.

Even now as she stands in front of me, breathing heavily.

Whatever is beyond the stairs remains standing still, watching us. I don’t know why. Whether it’s a vengeful spirit, or perhaps a ghost completely unrelated to the death on those stairs.

One thing is certain: whatever is there doesn’t seem to be human.

“…”

Mako says nothing.

She’s just blocking my way, not knowing what to do. To protect me.

And that situation made the fear in my head completely vanish.

It was the same when we entered this house. I was terrified when we first came in to look for the flag, but I felt a bit more at ease after finding it and turning back. Because I’d at least accomplished the goal. And because I’d somewhat figured out the structure of this house on our way here.

…Even looking at that thing, I was surprisingly thinking similar thoughts.

Isn’t it just like a yokai?

Just judging by its appearance, it’s not even scarier than a yokai. Of course, I don’t know what kind of body might be at the bottom of the stairs, but what’s visible so far is just a person with extremely wide-open eyes. Normal people can open their eyes that wide too.

No, that’s not quite right. Not a normal person, but one of those people with unusually large eyes. It looks like such a person with their eyes wide open.

I have a feeling the face below isn’t a normal human face either.

But still.

Still, how many monsters have I seen until now? This is nothing. Kudan looked a bit scarier.

“Mako.”

“It’s okay, Kotone.”

“…No. That’s not it.”

I said to Mako.

“Huh?”

Mako made that sound without turning to look at me.

“That thing, I think it’s okay.”

“…Kotone?”

I ducked under Mako’s outstretched arms and said:

“Those things are much more dangerous than you think.”

“Kotone.”

“But there’s nothing to worry about.”

I said.

“Despite how I look, I’m an expert at dealing with these things.”

Strictly speaking, I’m more of a semi-expert. I’ve never actually been a real shrine maiden. In terms of expertise, I can’t compare to Yuka.

I turned to Mako and smiled.

“And there’s something else you’ve misunderstood. I’ll tell you about that too.”

“Huh?”

Yes. I think it’s still a bit early to tell Mako everything. Things like how the world almost ended, or fighting with gods—that’s still too much.

But I think I can at least ease some of the guilt Mako has been carrying since that day.

I wasn’t sexually assaulted that day. Rather, I was the one who wanted to stay behind after sending Mako away. So Mako did nothing wrong that day. She had just been playing with me enthusiastically.

“Ko-Kotone…”

“It’s okay.”

“N-no, that’s not it…”

Noticing that Mako’s gaze was fixed slightly to the side of my face rather than at me, I slowly turned around.

The face seems to have risen a bit more.

No, it’s not just a feeling—it really had risen. Before, it was barely visible up to just below the eyes, but now it was clearly visible up to the middle of the nose.

“I-it’s coming up…”

Mako muttered.

I looked straight at the ghost.

The ghost was just staring at us with its eyes wide open. Not moving at all.

Maybe it moves when we look away? But I’ve been blinking continuously.

“…”

I carefully took one step forward.

Thud.

The ghost’s face rose a bit more. Now its philtrum is visible.

A chill ran down my spine.

It still looked like a human face. The mouth wasn’t smiling or anything.

But now that I look closer, there’s no blood in its cheeks. It’s the color of someone with no blood flowing through their body at all. Not just pale—

Its hair was all matted together. A body that looked like it hadn’t been washed for a very long time.

Maybe it’s someone who’s been living secretly in the mountains? Someone who committed a crime and has been hiding in the mountains for decades…

…

No, thinking that way makes it even scarier.

Still, I prepared to transform my body. It was a power I’d barely needed to use for the past 4 months, but I had to use it if necessary.

And I slowly put my hand in my pocket. I could feel the talisman I had folded twice and put in my pocket at my fingertips.

It’s coming up one stair at a time with each step I take. It’s not suddenly rising up all at once; when I step forward, it steps on the stair, and when I take another step, only then does it come up. It seems to be moving at exactly the same speed as my legs.

That’s why its face is gradually rising.

When I moved a little step further, the face rose a bit more.

A not-quite-scream escaped from Mako’s mouth. The sound was like metal scraping on a chalkboard. A scream that couldn’t become a scream because her throat was too dry to make a proper sound.

As for me, my mouth was clamped shut and wouldn’t move.

One more step.

The man’s face…

No. Not his face, but his body was a bit strange. It was twisted at an odd angle.

His shoulder line was diagonal. Was his spine slightly curved to the side?

They said the person who died here fell down the stairs.

The sight of the upper part of the neck being straight while the lower part was bent was bizarre in many ways.

“Mako.”

“Y-yes?”

“Hold tight behind me and follow.”

“Okay…”

As I took another step forward, Mako, who was holding onto my clothes, followed with one step.

Of course, the man also came up one step.

His wrists and elbow joints were also twisted at strange angles, as if bent, making it feel like looking at a tree that had grown haphazardly.

His head was in the center, but the body below was turned backward.

The man was facing backward. Only his neck was looking in our direction.

The man’s upper body was like a sideways J with the head attached perpendicularly to the protruding part.

Neither of us could make a proper sound.

“Mako.”

“Yes?”

“L-let’s go all at once.”

“What!?”

“…It’s the only way out of here.”

“…”

Mako seemed lost in thought for a moment, unable to say anything, then,

“…Okay.”

She finally answered.

I carefully exhaled.

And then.

“Uryaaaaaaah!”

I shouted that meaningless cry and ran forward.

Thump thump thump thump!

As we ran forward, the man also picked up speed to match our footsteps.

He was about a head taller than me.

His neck and upper body were as I described, and his legs weren’t in much better shape. One ankle was bent at a right angle.

I hadn’t noticed it well when he was coming up the stairs, but the sight of him running in the corridor was truly horrifically bizarre.

But I had no intention of just taking it.

I pulled my hand out of my pocket.

With the talisman wedged between my thumb, index, and middle fingers—

“Die!”

I shouted as I slapped the ghost’s cheek.

Slap!

A sound that shouldn’t be possible with an ordinary ghost was heard.

Spin.

The ghost’s head spun around once.

It spun all the way around and its eyes looked at me. Clunk. Its head fell sideways and flipped over. Now its body and neck truly formed a complete inverted ‘J’.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!?”

I was terrified and struck the ghost’s cheek several more times.

The ghost’s expression didn’t change at all.

But it seemed that the ghost also felt something was wrong.

Well, that makes sense. Usually, ghosts do bad things to living people one-sidedly.

“Huh? Huh? Huuuh?”

And Mako, who was stuck right behind me, was just making those sounds, unable to grasp the situation.

“Back off! Back off! Back off!”

I kept shouting and swinging my hand.

The ghost kept backing away as I commanded. It didn’t seem like it was backing away because it wanted to, but rather because it didn’t know what to do.

When the ghost backed away a bit more, I unfolded the talisman.

There were about three talismans layered together.

I quickly tore one off and tossed it behind my head, while continuing to swing one hand.

Mako, who was behind me, took the talisman.

“Uh, uhh! Back off!?”

She came forward with me and randomly waved her hands.

Thwack! Thwack!

But I heard a completely different, dull sound from what I was making.

When hit with a fist enchanted with an exorcism incantation, the ghost seemed even more disoriented.

Finally, the ghost took a step back—though “step back” isn’t quite right since its legs were moving in the “forward” direction. Since its lower half was completely flipped backward—and stepped onto the stairs.

Should I push it? Should I push it?

My mind, numbed with fear, asked.

Mako seemed to be thinking something similar, seriously considering whether we should push the ghost—who had already died falling down these stairs—down the stairs again to kill it.

But before we could reach a conclusion.

Bang!

The door opened.

And we heard the sound of someone running toward us.

“Ghost!”

I heard Kaoru’s shout. And the sound of people screaming in terror.

And then—

Whoosh!

The ghost was pushed back and tumbled down with a crash.

…

Wait, why is the ghost rolling down the stairs? Shouldn’t physical laws not apply to it?

Only after the ghost fell did I realize that it hadn’t actually been pushed and fallen, but had been pulled from behind and fallen.

The face that appeared right after the ghost rolled was Yuka’s face. Yuka’s face, illuminated by the flashlight, was deathly pale.

And she also looked strangely terrified.

I thought she wasn’t afraid of ghosts?

Yuka, who had been pressed against the side of the stairs watching the ghost tumble down, quickly looked over me and Mako, then immediately turned and went down the stairs.

Yuka was holding a flashlight in her hand. Unlike the square flashlights that Mako and I were carrying, it was a black, long flashlight that looked more like a club, the kind that armed security guards in movies might carry.

And there was a talisman attached to that flashlight.

“Wait, Yuka—”

Somehow able to anticipate what was coming next, I called Yuka’s name, but.

Thwack.

Yuka was already moving.

She boldly mounted the ferociously-looking ghost and swung her flashlight.

“…!”

A terrible scream escaped from the ghost’s mouth, but she didn’t seem to care at all.

When I quickly came down the stairs to see Yuka, she was striking the ghost’s face with a truly terrifying expression.

Maybe because it was a ghost, there was no blood flowing or splattering, and since the opponent didn’t really have a human-like atmosphere to begin with, it somehow seemed less serious, but the overall atmosphere was still quite brutal.

Is this how exorcisms are normally done?

This is the kind of exorcism you’d only see in a comedy manga.

Well, I suppose if you can send them to the afterlife by cutting them with a sword, beating them with a blunt object shouldn’t be impossible either.

“Yuka, wait—”

I tried to somehow stop Yuka, but—

“U-Uncle!?”

I was left speechless by the woman’s cry.

Even Yuka, who had been furiously beating down the “uncle” with her flashlight, looked up in surprise.

The woman covered her mouth with both hands as she looked at the uncle that Yuka was in the middle of exorcising, then simply collapsed.

Kaoru and Harumi quickly caught the woman beside her.

“…”

For a moment, no sound could be heard.

In the suffocating silence, we couldn’t decide what to do—

Thwack.

We returned to reality as Yuka struck the ghost once more.

*

For a very brief moment, I wondered if it might have been a human after all.

“It’s definitely a ghost.”

But Yuka cleanly denied my thoughts.

“That talisman you were holding is good for confusing ghosts. Since creating a barrier is impossible with just one sheet, and you need to use the entire place, I brought the most convenient one to carry around and use immediately.”

“I see…”

I said with a blank expression.

Indeed, Yuka’s mounted body looked less like she was sitting on top of the ghost and more like she was “sitting in the place where the ghost was.” Only the talisman-attached flashlight was making contact.

“But then, why did the ghost tumble down the stairs?”

“Because that’s where it died.”

Yuka said.

“Earth-bound spirits are often bound to the place they died and repeat the appearance of their death. This is probably one of those.”

“…”

I closed my mouth.

That’s… a bit sad.

Yuka diligently beat the ghost until it disappeared, and as soon as it vanished, she led us straight back to our lodging.

Then she rummaged through her bag, attached talismans all over the lodging, took out another bundle of talismans, and took me and Yuu back to the mansion.

Carrying flashlights, we attached talismans everywhere, then I and Yuu followed Yuka to perform an exorcism ritual.

It took about two hours. More precisely, it was the time we waited until two o’clock in the morning.

Just like when she summoned the silkworm at the playground, Yuka conducted the ritual at a specific time.

Oh, of course, we sent the woman home first. Her family was quite curious about the reason, but we said we’d explain tomorrow and smoothly moved on.

“Will it not appear anymore now?”

“Probably not. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal.”

“…Why did it appear in front of us two?”

“Ghosts and spirits… well, usually they’re seen by people who are truly afraid.”

“…”

So she’s saying both Mako and I were too scared, that’s why we saw it.

Well, that makes sense. In the other groups, there was at least one person who wasn’t afraid of ghosts at all.

“Besides, you know, you’re like that. It’s your constitution, I guess.”

“…”

I had nothing to say.

“But, earlier.”

Yuu, who had been quietly listening to our conversation, opened his mouth.

“Mako was particularly adamant about not letting you go. What’s the reason?”

When I tried to follow Yuka out, Mako didn’t want to let me go.

That’s…

“Probably…”

Yes, it must be because of what happened that day.

I rubbed my face.

I’ve dragged this on for too long.

I thought I should tell her just a moment ago, and I still think so, but…

How should I bring it up?