“Even so, wasn’t that a bit too far? Mayuzumi, what are you trying to do?”

“Don’t be so pessimistic, it’s not like I wanted to step on such a spiny-feeling back.”

In other words, you mean if it wasn’t so spiny then it would be fine?
I won’t even bother asking, if Mayuzumi actually ended up nodding it would cause such a headache.

Mayuzumi was swinging her bare feet, the stockings she was previously wearing when stepping on the old man had been tossed into the wastebin. The contrast between the traditional-style room and girl in Gothic Lolita clothing was rather bizarre.
The room that was prepared for us was enormously s.p.a.cious and far beyond the s.p.a.ce necessary for two people.
For a second, I thought we had come to one of those luxurious traditional-style j.a.panese hotels…….but it seems Mayuzumi wasn’t planning on taking it easy.

“Anyhow, Odagiri, since we’ve essentially accepted the client’s case, let’s go properly greet them!”

“What? Greet? That’s not really the issue right now, Mayuzumi, what exactly happened between him and your grandmother? I remember you mentioning something about being a succubus……”

“That’s also not important, his uncle committed self-immolation for a certain reason, and it just happened to be slightly related to my grandmother. Could you please hand me my chocob.a.l.l.s?

I think that’s actually a rather important element, but for Mayuzumi it probably is a trivial sort of matter. Seeing her happily eat the chocob.a.l.l.s, she doesn’t look the slightest bit perturbed.

“Alright, let’s go.”

Mayuzumi stood up and began walking forward, I thought she wanted to go greet the old man’s family members, but it would appear not. Instead she had walked to the entrance and off into the courtyard. Although I felt her actions were a bit strange, I ended up following after her through the snow-covered ground, the feeling of snow underneath was soft but at the same time quite cold. The sight of the courtyard’s gray clashing against the snow’s white produced a rather artistic spectacle, but the sensation of freezing cold air upon us was quite unbearable.

“Mayuzmi, why are we in the courtyard?”

“Didn’t I already say? To properly greet them! There are some people here who we need to first greet.”

Mayuzumi walked in front of me, her red paper umbrella in hand as usual, the layers of white snow in contrast with the bright red made me immediately think of the color of blood.

An ominous feeling began arising within me.

Mayuzumi came to a stop upon reaching the base of a towering pine tree. The pine tree was planted within the most prominent position within the courtyard which also made it naturally attention-drawing. Mayuzumi was glancing at the branches of the pine tree with a dreamy look as if she were in a trance.

———————-*Snap

———————-*Creak

Almost simultaneously with the sound of Mayuzumi closing her paper umbrella, a sound came from the branches of the pine tree, but the branches showed no signs of any movement. However, two pairs of legs were quietly dangling in front of my eyes, I followed the ghostly pale white legs up as drops of human fecal matter dribbled onto the ground. Humans with their necks stretched forth to the very limits were swaying about feebly, the person to the very front had an abnormally swollen face that was snapped to the side. Perhaps it was due to the freezing cold, but it looked nothing like a human being.

As I watched the frozen dead bodies hanging in front of me, I thought to myself that they must be heavy.
I hate how those were th

e only thoughts that came to my mind.
My hands began naturally reaching for my pack of cigarettes and after founding it I asked.

“Mayuzumi, what is this?”

“As you can see, Odagiri, it’s a rare sight!”

The bloodshot eyes gave forth a painful expression, the mouth was hung open and the lopping tongue a deep blue as if some sort of unknown creature had crawled forth from within. Multiple snowflakes were plastered onto the swollen face and the limbs stretching out from within the clothes were quivering ever so slightly. The smaller corpse hanging beside it was an even more terrible sight.

I couldn’t stand looking at the corpse of the child who was forced by her mother to hang herself.

The expression of pure anguish upon her…

“They……hung themselves?”

“To be specific, they were “forced to hang themselves”. Don’t you think this child is quite pitiful? Judging from her expression, she just couldn’t understand why she also had to die. These two are the family members of our client——Yujiro Saga’s second wife, Mrs. Asako and her daughter Aki. Apparently his first wife died of illness, and his third wife also pa.s.sed away shortly after the death of his second wife.”

Mayuzumi reopened her paper umbrella with a smile on her face.
Her voice was but a whisper and contained a hint of delight.

“Due to their hatred and resentment, I believe they’ve come back from the dead and are now appearing within reality.”

———————-*Creak

———————-*Creak

The bodies continued swaying back and forth silently, but when Mayuzumi gave a twirl with her paper umbrella they disappeared.

All traces of fecal matters upon the ground had vanished and all that was left was snow. The pine tree loomed above quietly as if none of the eerie occurrence had just happened.

“Let’s go, although I said we were coming to greet them, to be accurate, it’s more of a grave visitation, I just wanted you to meet them. I saw them from the reception room earlier when I was looking out into the courtyard, what we saw just now was merely an image from the past, essentially an afterimage and nothing more.”

Mayuzumi continued twirling her red paper umbrella. So what we saw just now are the remnants of a past tragedy. Mayuzumi continued on happily.

“But then again, where are those laughs coming from?”

Maybe from your own throat?
Although I really wanted to say this, I could only endure and swallow my words.
Mayuzumi continued forth without looking back, but then she suddenly stopped as if she had noticed something.

“What’s wrong?”

I glanced over her umbrella and saw the figure of a person wrapped head to toe in a long raincoat standing there. A bony thin face appeared from the depths of the plastic-like cloth, long layers of bangs were covering the person’s entire face, but upon closer inspection, the face was rather well-proportioned.

But the person’s appearance wasn’t the main point here.

“h.e.l.lo!”

The about sixteen or so boy gave us a greeting with a smile.
And his hand was clutching the corpse of a dead crow.