Ch.57Chapter 9. It Was Summer. (4)

Okay. Let’s first organize the positive things.

I think I understand why there are so many ghosts. With so many corpses, all kinds of spirits would be attracted to this place.

This world has many ghosts. Like the ghost that appeared before Izumi, they tend to gather around beings that experience similar emotions to their own.

…

Could those things in the refrigerator still be alive?

I shuddered.

If the body I’m currently using as Kotone Kurosawa works on the same principle…

Considering that receiving human blood transfusions cures my anemia, this body must be “human” to some extent. At least, it definitely contains human blood. At minimum, it’s probably half human?

Thinking about Shura—Nirlas, rather than the original Shub-Niggurath—

There’s a famous Lovecraft novel called “The Dunwich Horror.” I don’t remember the characters’ names exactly, but I know how the story goes.

To describe it very simply, in a town called Dunwich, a family arranged for their daughter to mate with Shub-Niggurath, resulting in the birth of a monster that didn’t look human, which university professors eventually had to stop.

If the author of Tokyo Slayers borrowed that story’s framework for their setting, it would make sense. The novel also mentions a failure.

The son who first appeared as a villain had a somewhat human form, but his body grew increasingly distorted and less human over time, until he was bitten by a dog while trying to steal the Necronomicon from Miskatonic University’s library and died.

It seems ridiculous that a being with otherworldly blood would die from a dog bite, but I suppose if his body was already weakening and twisting, it’s not that strange.

The corpse was described as turning to liquid and disappearing. I don’t remember exactly since I read it so long ago, but it also left behind a terrible smell.

…

Wait a minute.

Thinking about it again, does that mean those things in the refrigerator… aren’t dead?

If they’re supposed to shrink rapidly and turn to liquid upon death, those bodies shouldn’t have remained in this world.

“…”

I shuddered once more.

I’ve brought friends here before. Yuka has stayed overnight, and Yamashita has stayed briefly too.

And all that time, in every compartment of this house except for two, there were beings who might be my brothers or sisters, trapped in a state of neither living nor dying inside refrigerators.

What… should I do with them?

If those beings are “failures,” why didn’t Kagami get rid of them? Why keep them?

Couldn’t they be buried, burned, or something? Would something happen if they were thrown into the sea?

It’s particularly troubling because they’re offspring of an outer god, so I don’t know how to handle them.

“…Sigh.”

…Actually, I do know. I just don’t want to know.

If my fate is to be stabbed to death by Yuka’s sword, then those things could probably be dealt with in a similar way.

Though I’m not sure if a sword made with my blood would work on them. If they’re similar to me, what flows inside them might be similar too.

I sat in my room with my knees pulled up, clutching my head in deep thought—

Suddenly, I heard someone snoring.

“…”

I looked up.

I had seen the man leave earlier. Now I could be certain. The source of the snoring was definitely not the man.

I checked the time. It was still 9:30 AM. The man had left early this morning, and it hadn’t taken me that long to check the rooms.

How long would it take for the man to return from his interview?

I got up.

I didn’t need to make a new key. The man had left without locking the door. He said he hadn’t called a locksmith yet.

It’s probably about saving money more than anything. Didn’t he say he worked at a research institute? Depending on the institute, the story might differ, but if he needs another job, he’s probably not making much money.

A research institute. That’s honestly extremely suspicious.

The man acted as if his staying here was a coincidence… but would Kagami really let an ordinary person stay in this house?

I moved very slowly, making sure the sniffling sounds from the next room weren’t drowned out by my movements.

Making sure they couldn’t hear me from over there.

I grabbed the doorknob and turned it over the course of nearly a minute to open the door.

Then I went to the man’s door.

I put my ear to the door and listened.

…I could still hear what sounded like snoring. Listening more carefully, it also sounded like sniffling. Was something smelling the air?

Is it really a person? Or something else that’s not human? At least, it didn’t feel like a yokai to me.

But I couldn’t let my guard down completely.

If I flung the door open, a half-rotted ghost might greet me from inside.

Or maybe the man doesn’t live alone?

I took a deep breath, then used all my strength to open the door forcefully.

In this apartment, the entrance and kitchen share the same space, and beyond the kitchen—entrance dividing door is the room. If that door is closed, you can’t see the room just by opening the front door.

The man had left that door open.

It didn’t seem intentional. He probably found it more convenient for daily life. I keep mine open too, except when sleeping.

The man’s room was neater than I expected. It was even tidier than my own room, which was somewhat organized—or rather, just didn’t have many possessions.

He had placed a low table against the wall like a desk, with file boxes lined up where the table met the wall like bookshelves, and thick books standing in a row beside them. Most were books on folklore. Some were old books with extremely difficult kanji characters.

The TV seems to be in the opposite position from where I put mine. I say “seems” because I couldn’t see a TV from here.

Maybe there isn’t one. The man seemed to use his home mainly for sleeping. Honestly, since I could hear snoring but no TV sound, it makes sense that there probably isn’t one.

Anyway, that’s not important.

I couldn’t see much from here. Without entering the room and looking around, I wouldn’t be able to confirm what was really inside.

The snoring stopped the moment I opened the door.

But still, I had an ominous feeling. It wasn’t the same sensation as encountering a yokai, but…

Clatter.

At that sound, I immediately entered the room.

The sound seemed to come from where the refrigerator was.

When I looked in that direction, my body froze.

And the same happened to whatever was there.

At first, I thought it was a giant snail. Or maybe a slug. Anyway, something legless, seemingly sticky and vaguely flesh-like.

But once my initial shock subsided, I could see what was really there.

Blink.

I blinked.

Even though I was seeing it clearly, it was a sight that made me doubt my eyes.

Well, I’ve seen many strange things before—monsters with monkey heads, balloon-like humanoid creatures, weird hybrids of humans and dogs… I’ve seen plenty of oddities.

Just today, in fact. I had just seen the remains of things that looked human but clearly weren’t, in the other rooms.

But even so, this was…

What was clinging quietly to the wall was… a “nose.”

This isn’t a joke or metaphor. It was literally a nose.

At first I thought it was some disgusting ornament, but then I remembered that the sound I’d been hearing was literally “snoring.”

As if staying still would make me think I hadn’t spotted it, the nose clung motionless to the wall. It was about the length from the tip of my middle finger to my elbow. Though shaped like a human nose, it was too large to have belonged to a person.

Some skin around the nose was attached too. It looked as if it had been forcibly torn off, or rather, “cut off” from somewhere.

…Those pieces of flesh.

Once again, the story of “The Dunwich Horror” came to mind.

That son of Shub-Niggurath had a younger sibling. And that sibling resembled their father—or perhaps another mother—Shub-Niggurath much more than the older brother did.

It had several thick legs like drums or logs, and at the very top of its body—

—there was a human head the size of a house.

“…Ah.”

However it interpreted my sound, the nose on the wall moved quickly.

It darted toward the ceiling, heading for a corner of the kitchen ceiling in the man’s room, then wriggled into the gap.

And in an instant, it was sucked into the gap and disappeared.

“…”

For a while, I stood there with my mouth open, staring blankly at where it had been.

Then I hurriedly went outside, closed the door, returned to my room, grabbed only my phone, wallet, and student handbook, locked my door, and fled from the apartment.

*

So those things in the refrigerator were “one” entity.

That was my hypothesis.

It wasn’t “many” pieces that were cut up, but “one” entity divided into several parts and placed in refrigerators.

When it was first born, it probably wasn’t as large as described in “The Dunwich Horror.” That’s why they could handle it inside.

But there wasn’t enough space, so they distributed it across several locations.

“Senior?”

“Huh?”

I was standing there absentmindedly when Shii called out to me, making me answer a bit too loudly.

“Is something wrong?”

Shii asked with a worried expression.

Ah, right. Of course.

Today is a busy day with many customers.

Weekends are usually busy, but it’s also vacation time.

In Japan, many schools have Saturday classes. My school, Hanakawa High School, is one of them.

Students sleep in on Saturday mornings, then get together with friends and spread out to various entertainment districts. That’s why there were many high school students in the café today.

There weren’t many couples, mostly same-sex friend groups. There weren’t many male students either. Maybe because this place isn’t exactly a full-fledged maid café?

“…No, nothing’s wrong.”

I quickly said that and got back to work, but Shii continued to look at me with a worried expression for a while.

Right, I need to focus.

I can’t make her worry unnecessarily. She’s only a middle school student.

But throughout my shift, I couldn’t get the sight I’d seen out of my head.

Maybe they lost track of one piece while dividing the body into several parts. When cutting and packaging something so large, it’s understandable that they might miss one piece.

If the corpse they were organizing had been a human corpse, it might not have been difficult to check all the “pieces.” How many hands, how many feet, how many legs… you could match everything up that way.

But if the subject was a jumbled mess with no defined structure…

“…”

Shub-Niggurath told me not to run away.

But I wonder what range “don’t run away” covers.

Like…

Would staying away from home for just one day count as running away?

*

Fortunately, as time passed, my mind gradually stabilized, perhaps because work was so busy.

That’s not to say I was completely fine.

Rather, as my mind cleared, I became more aware of the state of the room I was using.

And what I felt was “danger.”

Of course, I don’t intend to run away. I’ve gone too deep to back out now. If I had wanted to escape, I should have fled from the house early on and never returned.

Well, that probably wouldn’t have created a more positive situation. It might have made things worse. I would have been chased by the cult, the story would have been distorted, and the lives of people connected to me might have become terribly complicated.

Anyway, after making a deal with Shub-Niggurath, running away isn’t an option.

That was the conclusion I reached while eating ramen with Shii.

But.

“Then, senior, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

After waving goodbye to Shii who bowed politely to me, I took my phone out of my pocket.

I stared at the screen for a while, then made a call.

[Hello? Kurosawa?]

The person who answered was Yuka.

Yes. But still—

“…Can I come over today?”

—How could I possibly stay in a house with a giant crawling nose?

I just need a temporary refuge until I can come up with a proper idea.

[Um… sure!? At this hour!?]

“…Yes.”

[That’s fine with me! Are you coming now?]

“…Thank you.”

This isn’t running away.

It’s called a strategic retreat.

It’s in the Kojiki.

…Or at least it’s in Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Probably.

*

Yuka seemed… quite excited.

She welcomed me enthusiastically, which made me feel a bit embarrassed since I had only reached out thinking of finding refuge.

Since going to my house in Saitama and packing my things would mean missing curfew, I bought some t-shirts and underwear at a nearby mart again. I didn’t need to buy pants since the ones I had were comfortable enough.

I arrived after dinner time, but Yuka greeted me with a smile.

“So what brings you here?”

Yuka asked after letting me into her room.

Um…

Should I tell her everything?

But I shook my head internally. No, Yuka would definitely try to resolve the situation if I told her.

The reason Miura-san, who learned about me, didn’t come to the apartment was probably because he didn’t know what was happening there.

There would be legal issues with suddenly sending someone to investigate.

…The apartment is in the middle of a residential area where many people live. If by some remote chance there were some kind of… religious booby trap in the apartment that could harm nearby civilians, that would be problematic.

“…I watched a scary story. Last night.”

At my words, Yuka, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed, froze.

Did I say something too strange?

While I was briefly worried, Yuka soon made sounds of suppressed laughter, “kk, kk.”

“The girl who fearlessly charges at yokai with a sword is not immune to scary stories?”

“…I’m still scared of ghosts.”

I grumbled quietly.

That’s right.

If it had been my previous life, I wouldn’t have been scared at all. I lived thinking ghosts didn’t exist.

When walking in mountainous areas at night, if a friend said “something might appear,” I would scoff. At least, I’ve never trembled with fear while walking alone on the street.

Occasionally, very occasionally, I worried about people or wild animals jumping out, but that’s a different matter.

“Hmm, yes, that’s right.”

Yuka looked up at the ceiling, seemingly lost in thought.

“You were scared when we talked about something similar before. Remember when I told you about your apartment?”

“…”

“Ah, sorry, sorry.”

Yuka waved her hand with a smile when she saw me staring at her.

For reference, I was sitting in the chair in Yuka’s room. Since I’m shorter than Yuka, my toes barely touched the floor, but my heels were floating in the air.

“…Was I talking too much?”

Yuka asked with a slightly embarrassed smile.

I shook my head.

Actually, it’s better when she talks a lot. Conversation helps me think about other things.

I’m sure I’ll eventually adapt to the state of that apartment, but I need some time to think until then.

Let me say it again, I have no intention of running away. I’m just looking for a solution.

“I… don’t actually have many friends. I do keep in touch with some people, but not very often. I haven’t really spent enough time with anyone to have friends I’ve known for years.”

Yuka scratched one cheek somewhat embarrassedly as she spoke.

“…Me too.”

I was the same.

Though in my case, it’s different from Yuka. I built walls around myself as I grew older.

When talking with people, conversation inevitably turns to those around us, and then to family. And older people always nosily tried to pry into my personal information.

I… disliked when people talked about family. I also disliked being pitied after people heard my story.

In some ways, this world where no one knows about my past is a bit more comfortable.

“…”

At my words, Yuka smiled slightly, then cleared her throat with a “ahem.”

“You said you work on Sundays too? But it’s okay to wake up late, right?”

“That’s right. It’s okay to wake up a bit late.”

If I leave from here, I’ll arrive much earlier than if I left from Saitama.

“Then… want to play some games?”

A fitting choice for Yuka, who had given me a Super Famicom as a gift.

I nodded.

And for the first time in a long while since meeting Yuka, I spent a very ordinary time with her.

This choice was definitely right.

Spending enjoyable time with a friend was a very good way to shake off worrying thoughts.