Volume 5, Chapter 16: The Demon’s Mercy

“Yeah, I think things have settled down.”

The Demonic impulses that I’d had when I remembered my own ident.i.ty have resolved themselves. I was a starving demon…. Although I had been offended by those people if I do say so myself, I should still reflect on how I played around.

“……But”

Two more people…… Kyoji and Grandpa Kuon can’t be overlooked as it is. Although their land speculation I could overlook, they’d tried to harm me, and if I left them alone, they might do the same thing to Misa.

Also……

“Because they know my true ident.i.ty, I don’t think things will end so easily like this.”

…… What is with that villainous-sounding line?

Now then, where did those two people hide?

A while ago, while using the demonic language…… the [Spirit Language]? I’d ‘sealed’ all the ways out of this school.

If it wasn’t someone with more power than I had, they couldn’t even force an air molecule in.

Because of all the hoodlums making so much noise in here up until a while ago, the oxygen’s getting thin, but we can still go on for a few more days before the oxygen runs out.

Even for demons, willpower is important. Right now, just because I ate a lot of souls I’m not really feeling greedy. Well, that was inconsequential.

“……fumu.”

My fragmented memories also emerged, and they were a mess, but after rearranging and looking for things that I could use from them, a bit of ‘knowledge’ that seemed useful came up.

“……[Summon]……”

I used my power to create a small summoning formation in my hands.

If I can sort out my memory, I think I can draw a more complex summoning circle, but for now, that’s enough.

From my hands, black pieces fell with a clatter to the floor.

“………”

I might not know what I wanted, but it was supposed to have summoned the lowest [Spiritual life form] from the surroundings, but what I summoned was dried “seaweed”.

As a last resort, I scattered it across the corpses that were lying around, and the wakame seaweed that absorbed the blood began to move into the body, manipulating them as it groaned with an [Uboo~Uboo~], getting up.

This just feels kind of horrible.

“……Well, whatever. You, look for humans that are still alive.”

[Ubo~]

What was with that, I wonder… I wonder if I was under a seafood products curse.

＊＊＊

“What, what is that!? Explain it!”

In the dimly-lit AV room, Lord Kuon was deeply confused by the absurdity and chaos. He barked at the young man while blabbering.

The broadcasting room, with its soundproof walls and thickly-walled doors, was perfect as a bunker, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t be noticed by that ridiculous monster that exceeded common sense with the commotion they were making.

While he thought that, Kyoji remained with a calm and collected att.i.tude, and bowed his head to Lord Kuon while pointing something out.

“That is definitely the daughter of the Toukaki family.”

“Toukaki? It’s a rising family from the last generation. But that doesn’t matter! That thing is what I’m asking about!”

As far as he could tell, it really was the youngest daughter of the Toukaki family, Yuzu. Why did she turn into that, and how did she gain the power to bend, twist, and kill a large adult?

Kyoji was also confused from the start, and up until now fear still gripped him, but as someone who was familiar with the circ.u.mstances of the Kuon family, he came to a single conclusion.

“When accidents happened on sites, and I requested a.s.sistance from those people, I saw similar things.”

“Accidents…… You mean that thing!”

“Yes. I guess this girl might have been possessed by a ‘vengeful spirit’.”

Sometimes, when they tried to do land speculation by force, there were ‘accidents’.

Even when they asked the shrines around the area, they couldn’t get rid of it, so when they came to their wits’ end, they asked the inst.i.tution that the politicians relied on to dispel the cause.

The largest demon-hunting organization in the country: the monks of [Oyama].

Kyoji had once seen a ‘vengeful spirit’ possess stray dogs in a region that had no sacred tree. A dog that had bitten several of the Kuon family’s people to death in the twinkling of an eye, with a repulsive appearance that continued to cackle even after taking a bullet, it stuck firmly in Kyoji’s mind.

“Then, call the monks of [Oyama]! That is not a child…”

“But, cellphones have stopped working.”

“What!?”

Lord Kuon picked up his phone himself in an attempt to make a call.

“Sir, you are in danger here.”

The broadcasting room was not completely surrounded by walls, and one section of it faced the hallway with a large, fixed window. He feared that even though the window was one way, that ‘monster’ would see them through the window from the corridor.

“Eeh, Kyoji, you run out and make contact for me!”

“…… Understood.”

He didn’t move in front of the window, and sighing internally at Lord Kuon who glossed over his own faults with a shout, Kyoji murmured.

“…… Is this a good time?”

*BANG!!*

“Gyah!?”

Suddenly, the thick window gla.s.s shook under the force of a blow, causing Lord Kuon to curl up and yelp.

“Wha-”

“This is……”

His subordinates were leaving b.l.o.o.d.y prints on the gla.s.s, their eyes blank. Even though they were clearly no longer alive, but they moved and shuddered at their wrists broke hitting the gla.s.s.

“Tsch, they got here.”

Kyoji clicked his tongue as he tried to leave the broadcasting room alone without Lord Kuon.

“K-Kyoji, I”

“Sir, I will head out alone.”

“Wh-what are you saying…”

“In any case, even if you don’t die, returning to politics will be difficult. Shouldn’t you take responsibility for this?”

Slipping through the hands of the moving dead who were sluggish with their grasping, Kyoji left the man who was his master and started running.

“KyojiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII…… uAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

From behind Kyoji, who didn’t turn back, came the screams of Lord Kuon who had been attacked by the dead, but for Kyoji, this was no longer his problem.

Kyoji did not serve his master seriously, unlike his father.

His own rise in the world, starting from the bottom of the political world and rising up, had only been stepping stones.

Therefore, there was no longer any use for Lord Kuon, either as a person, or a politician. Following him to that place was all for the sake of making a decoy so that he could make his escape to a safe place.

But, as the dead bodies began to move, he had to use that ‘decoy’ much earlier.

Some of the dead bodies with expressions of anguish on their faces still hadn’t started moving, but he couldn’t tell when they would.

“……No, I can’t die yet.”

Kyoji thought for a while, and then headed to the rooftop.

The door downwards had been sealed with a strange power, and that ‘monster’ would mostly be wandering around.

He was certain that the rooftop door had been broken, and should have been removed, but remembered that it had only been blocked with a blue sheet without being repaired after it had become an abandoned school.

With Kyoji’s physical prowess, he should be able to get to the ground floor by climbing down the drainpipe, even if it was from the roof.

Running out of breath as he ran up to the rooftop, Kyoji tore off the blue tarp that blocked his way to the roof and breathed in the outside air for the first time in a long while.

“Now, where do I……”

Kyoji muttered as he looked around, stopping his feet as he looked for a place to get down.

No one should have been there…… but at the entrance leading to the school building, the girl that he absolutely didn’t want to meet at all was smiling up at him with her crimson eyes and fangs.

“……u…a……”

Looking at her dragging around Lord Kuon by the neck, grasping it firmly in her hands, Kyoji faintly knitted his eyebrows.

“……He’s still alive, huh?”

If he survived by any chance, it would interfere with Kyoji’s future plans. As he thought of that, he muttered to himself.

“Oh my. I only asked them to find you. You didn’t have to run away, you know?”

“………,”

Kyoji didn’t think that the girl who was supposed to be possessed by evil spirits would answer, and caught his breath.

“……Unless…… you’re fully conscious?”

“Yes, of course. I’m not in the hobby of having dreams while awake.”

“…………”

In that short conversation, Kyoji understood that that monster before him was exactly the “Yuzu” who he had been talking to when they were coming here.

“……Why are you keeping that man alive?”

If Yuzu was conscious, there was a possibility that she could be deceived by his words. Even if she was smart, she was still ‘a grade schooler’, and Kyoji tried to probe her with conversation.

“You said so yourself. It would be a problem if n.o.body took responsibility.”

“!”

Yuzu seemed to know the conversation that happened between Kyoji and Lord Kuon.

In front of Kyoji, who was tongue-tied, Yuzu gently lifted up Lord Kuon with one hand and stabbed her fangs into his shoulder.

“…………puhaaaaaa”

Yuzu who lifted her head after sipping blood, threw him down where she stood, and Lord Kuon didn’t even groan, and was merely looking up at the sky with a blank gaze.

“You don’t have to worry. You won’t remember anything, and you’ll just become a cripple.”

“…………”

To be one step short of being a vegetable unable to do anything, that was taking responsibility. Kyoji realized that various connections related to this incident might not end up being exposed if that happened.

“Yuzu-san…… could you please overlook this?”

“Oh, but why? There’s no reason for me to go easy on you. ……Why, weren’t you thinking that I should just die honorably……?”

Kyoji desperately sought an out, fully fl.u.s.tered on the inside.

He had knowledge of martial-arts, but now it was meaningless. Martial arts were a technique for the weak to defeat the strong, but it was impossible for the cat to defeat the tiger.

“……”

Kyoji took that moment to turn his back and flee.

Even if he took measures according to his plan, there would only be tragic “death” waiting for him, since he had only planned for “human beings”.

So, Kyoji decided it was sink-or-swim, and jumped off the rooftop. There was a possibility that he would survive if he could grab onto something, whether it was a drainspout, some window frame, or even a tree branch along the way down.

“Wha!?”

In front of Kyoji who had jumped over the wire mesh of the roof, there was a hole in the sky, opening itself up.

A black hole about 1 meter in diameter started to suck in Kyoji along with the neighboring air.

“What is thiissssssssss AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!?”

While light and darkness and the very air itself were being swallowed into the s.p.a.ce, a severe pain crushed his whole body, and Kyoji cried out.

“As expected, it’s only to that extent with half-baked knowledge, huh.”

As if answering a question, Yuzu had a troubled expression on her face as she spoke.

“Because I picked it out of my memories, it was only to that degree…… I guess I’ll give Kyoji a chance for taking the trouble.”

“……Chan…ce?”

“Through there, living things cannot reach you, and I don’t know what [dimension] it’ll go to. I won’t make a move on you. Consider yourself lucky.……”

“……Y……es”

“I ate half of that grandpa’s soul, so I’m feeling quite full right now.”

Kyoji realized that the little girl in front of him was a far more daunting existence than a mere evil spirit or vengeful spirit.

“I…… I, dying in a place like this, is impossibleeeeeeeeee! ”

“Is that so? Well then, do your best. There isn’t any air in there, so I guess you’re confident in your lung capacity?”

“……I AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHaAa…a……”

As he gave his last cry, Kidou Kyoji fell into the s.p.a.ce between dimensions.

And……

“………who?”

As Yuzu turned her head back slowly, on the roof of the water tower, was a small, black-masked shadow staring at her silently.

The black-masked person formed a tiny black hole in her hand, and putting their hands into it, took out a huge sword that was as tall as they were, turning the tip towards Yuzu slowly.

“……You, are you a ‘reincarnator’?”

Author’s Notes:

Next time, the final chapter of this volume.