Ch.432IF Side Story: Seems I’ve Arrived a Bit Early (129)

I had not completely neglected investigating the main story despite knowing its contents.

There were warning signs in the original story. The problem was that I’ve spent a long time in this world, and even in my previous life, reading that novel was something I did very long ago.

Moreover, I never finished that novel. Unlike web novels or webtoons that are regularly serialized online with fixed schedules, or regular serialized novels that consistently publish volumes in Japan and periodically become topics of discussion online even if they aren’t officially released in Korea, light novels often have irregular publishing schedules.

Some works release two or three volumes a year, while others are lucky to get one volume out.

The work I was reading was regularly published in Korea during its early stages when it had accumulated a decent number of volumes, but as it progressed, the serialization slowed down, and light novels themselves became somewhat less popular, causing the official release schedule to lag far behind the original novel’s publication timeline.

No matter how passionately you love a novel, after a few months pass, you tend to forget about checking for updates. That’s why I didn’t even know whether the original novel had concluded or not.

I simply occasionally took time to search for the murder cases I remembered within the scope of what I could investigate.

I hadn’t mentioned this to anyone else.

Kagami already has too much to worry about. Lately, whenever she sees me coming home after changing clothes following a fight, she gives me a look that seems almost enlightened. She just holds me tight in her arms when I return home and pats my back.

I could try telling Miura-san, but… in this case, things might go in a strange direction.

What if the target I identified was different? What if I failed to catch the entity that needed to be caught?

I can’t be certain whether it appeared in the original novel or if I simply can’t remember, but I don’t know the name of the Hanakawa High School female student who was killed by that “cannibal.”

Anyone I know could potentially fill that blank space.

So I didn’t want to redirect the “power” around me toward something uncertain. For the same reason, I didn’t tell Yuka either.

“Kotone—”

“Whoa, what, what!?”

Yuka tried to call me with a shocked expression, but her voice was drowned out by Kaoru’s.

“When did this coin move? I didn’t even feel it properly!”

Kaoru jumped up from her seat and exclaimed with a bright smile while looking at me.

“Kotone, you have talent!?”

“No, logically speaking, one of you two must have moved it.”

Izumi, who was watching from the side, said.

Though pretending not to be interested, she had somehow squeezed in between us to watch.

“No, it’s not like that! Kotone, did you move the coin?”

Well, it did move.

But I didn’t do it.

It did move because of me, though. But I wasn’t planning to answer that.

“See, she didn’t do it.”

When Kaoru spoke after seeing me shake my head, Izumi sighed deeply and touched her forehead.

“Then you must have moved it.”

“I don’t lie about things like this.”

Kaoru said with an incredulous expression.

“Besides, everyone here was watching the coin. Didn’t you see it suddenly move?”

“Your fingers also moved suddenly.”

“No, I’m telling you they didn’t.”

Kaoru’s expression turned into one of extreme frustration and indignation as she spoke to Izumi—an expression I hadn’t seen since meeting her.

I felt a bit sorry, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Kotone.”

While Kaoru and Izumi were bickering, Yuka called me while gently grabbing my arm.

Yuka’s black eyes stared intently at me.

“……”

Hmm.

This seems like trouble in its own way.

*

The atmosphere had become somewhat unsettled, so we decided to head home.

Well, when I say unsettled, we didn’t really have a big fight or anything. Izumi and Kaoru’s bickering wasn’t much different from usual.

However, Yuka’s and Koko’s demeanors were a bit different.

Koko stared at me with a surprised expression, while Yuka looked at me with a contemplative expression.

The other kids seemed to pick up on this strange atmosphere.

The club members know that Yuka occasionally works as a shrine maiden. Even if they haven’t seen it directly, stories about the past tend to come up when spending afternoons chatting about various things.

So they seemed a bit concerned that Yuka, who grew up in a shrine and helps with shrine duties, had reacted. While even elementary and middle school students play with kokkuri-san, it rarely actually responds.

For now, Yuka brushed off their interest with the excuse that she was just playing a prank for fun.

Well, it may seem like an “excuse” to those of us directly involved, but to those who know nothing, it’s just the natural explanation. Even if people live believing in yokai or ghosts, few believe they can actually summon such things.

“……”

Yuu’s gaze toward me seemed to narrow a bit, but fortunately, we were able to get away with it for now.

However, not being able to escape from Yuka was a separate issue.

On the train ride home, Yuka kept staring at me.

That creepy sensation is what I feel when there’s a yokai nearby, or when there’s a nest that belongs to a yokai.

It’s an instinct passed down from ancestors that only a very small number of humans possess—the instinct to recognize threats beyond humanity.

And for a very brief moment, I had created something like a nest in the literature club room. Though it was just a fleeting moment for others, Yuka had clearly sensed it.

We made it to the station without any particular conversation, but—

“Let’s talk for a bit.”

Yuka said that and headed toward her apartment.

Well, yeah.

That’s probably the best place to have this kind of conversation. There would be no one else except Yuka, me, and Koko.

My home is an ordinary Japanese-style house. It’s naturally located in an area where such houses are clustered.

In contrast, Yuka’s apartment is in a somewhat taller mansion-style building, so it’s closer to the commercial district than the residential area.

“……”

We were silent in the elevator going up.

It wasn’t so much that we were afraid someone else might get on, but rather that we didn’t know what to say.

Once we entered Yuka’s apartment,

“Have a seat.”

Yuka said that and brought out teacups, tea, and snacks from the kitchen.

Then she set them down in front of Koko and me with a clatter.

Normally, Koko would have already grabbed one with an excited “Ooh!” but—

“Uuu?”

Even Koko just tilted her head and looked at me, not showing her usual behavior, which was somewhat disconcerting.

“Phew.”

Yuka, sitting across from us, let out a long breath and opened her mouth.

“…Will you tell me?”

“……”

In fact, I had been seriously considering what excuse to make on the way here. I did have a few excuses prepared.

But after hearing Yuka speak like that, I decided to just drop them all.

Yes, if it had been shortly after we met, if it had been so soon after my possession of this body that I only knew Yuka as a character.

Then I might have hidden some things.

But Yuka has been my friend for several years now, and she’s also a comrade with whom I’ve fought for my life multiple times.

If I hadn’t been caught, that would be one thing, but since I have been, there’s nothing I can do. It was something I would have had to tell her eventually anyway.

“Even if I tell you, I don’t really know much myself. Is that okay?”

“It’s okay.”

At Yuka’s answer, I nodded and slowly told her about the things I had experienced and the strange things that had happened to my body.

“……”

Yuka listened silently until my story was finished. Koko also listened to my story without saying anything.

After the story ended, Yuka remained silent for a while, then finally said,

“I see.”

That was all.

Koko, who was sitting next to me, moved closer to me.

Although Koko’s misfortunes were incomparable to mine, right now she seemed to just want to comfort me.

“Do you think you know something?”

As I patted Koko’s back and spoke, Yuka fell into thought again for a moment, then shook her head.

“There are rituals to summon such beings. But entities that can appear so… freely are probably very rare.”

“……”

“So, that being that follows you is definitely not something insignificant enough to just ignore and move on from.”

I knew that.

It was too easy to imagine that it was something ominous.

“I—”

Yuka was about to say something, then closed her mouth.

Then she shook her head and looked at me seriously as she spoke.

“Let’s keep this a secret from other people.”

There could be various reasons.

If Yuka tells her father or grandfather, the government would eventually find out too.

I simply nodded silently and drank the remaining tea in my cup.

The tea was a bit bitter.