Update 16: Listen, People Die All the Time
BGM: Encroaching Supernatural
“Huh? What?”
That was my line. Why was he farming at a time like this?
“Thank you for the key.”
“O-Ohh… Don’t mention it. But don’t walk around by yourself. Everyone’s on edge as it is.”
“About that… Do you know how many humans the wolves can kill per night?”
“Chiemi went and told ya about it, huh?”
“I insisted on it. In fact, you had to have seen that coming when you sent her to meet me.”
“The info I have is still limited, but I’m a bit worried. Sorry to bother you, but can you tell me more?”
“‘Sorry’ won’t cut it. It’s a huge bother. I don’t wanna waste any time on this dumb shit! I have a farm to care for!”
“I thought you and Chiemi would understand, but you’re serious about this, too?”
“...”
Well, he really didn’t seem all that bothered by all this, but...
“Two people already died.”
“Huh?”
“Listen, people die all the time, and I’m always stuck cleaning it up.”
What? What was he talking about?
“Did you see the aftermath of the landslide uphill? It’s been like that ever since the Nosato got to work on the place eight years ago and it collapsed. They were too freaked out to even clean it up. I ended up digging out the workers’ corpses and burying ‘em.”
I had no idea that was such a big deal.
“Then there’s the idiots from the city, coming here just to hang themselves or getting eaten by wild beasts. Me and the old man always have to deal with the mess.”
“It’s not rare for Saranaga to bring us corpses, either. I don’t know if they’re mountain fishers or something, but it’s dangerous upstream, damn it!”
“And yet no one cares! I pick them, give them all nameless graves, and leave it at that! Beasts, corpses...you never know what you’ll find in the mountains, kid.”
“But this time, it was in the village…”
“Yeah. I was wondering about that, too. I never heard of Asian black bears eating humans, so maybe we got a pack of actual wolves here.”
“You’re saying that was done by beasts?”
“And you’re saying that was done by humans? What of it? We just have to create a night patrol! Why the hell do we have to kill each other?!”
“...”
This person was hard to read. There was no denying he had a good head on his shoulders. He was reasonable and skeptical about the unknown. On the other hand, there were some things he put even above rationality. It felt like something you could call “Yasumizu’s rules”, or, better yet…
“Fellowship”
He looked at the situation from the perspective of “I gotta protect Yasumizu”. He did whatever he could within those constraints, but he was in denial about the existence of enemies originating from within Yasumizu. To him, the situation was just a common case of “Some outsiders died. So what?”.
Or maybe that was what he really wanted to think. That made the situation very bad. But I, being an outsider, couldn’t say that.
“
Umm...that’s true. Like you say, there’s something wrong with anyone believing such superstition.
“...”
“But I’m curious about what I asked first. Do the legends say that everyone dies the first night or what? I need to know how to feel about this.”
“Oh, that won’t happen. Wolves can only kill one person per night.”
“Really? But why? What does the legend have to say about it?”
“What did baa-chan say again…? No one can go against the laws of the mountain. Not even the Yomotsu Ookami-sama.”
“Yomotsu Ookami?”
“Wolves that’ve returned from Yomi, apparently.”
Huh? Weird. I felt like I’d heard that term before...Still, wasn’t it weird that the laws applied to the wolves, too? They were on the yomibito side. As in, those opposing the mountain.
I was pretty sure the law of the mountain said that only one person could be killed per day. And killing more than one per night was against the rules...both would make you the target of the corruption. It didn’t make much sense to me, but at least I found out that the wolves, too, could only kill one person per night.
“Sorry for bothering you with weird questions. I’ll get out of your way...oh, right.”
“Yeah, sure…”
His last reply was half-hearted, but at least I got a bit of the rules I was missing.
BGM: Safety Zone
“Poop-man?!”
“What?”
The name still got a chance to spread…
That aside, I had to find out what happened at today’s feast.
…
Recalling what Mocchi told me made this kinda hard.
“Sorry, but can I borrow Chiemi-chan?”
“Haru-chan, let’s just help Mom.”
“You say something, too!”
“It’s probably something complicated.”
“Haru-chan, you be the one who holds him back.”
“Huh? Hey! What’s going on…?!”
*Everything goes silent*
“What did you tell Yasunaga-kun?”
“We talked about today’s feast. Things aren’t looking good.”
Yeah, I figured it was something like that.
BGM: Encroaching Supernatural
“Chikamochi-kun told me that Takumi-san revealed he’s the snake.”
“Mhm. He did.”
“Are there any other snakes?”
“Others? No, there’s only one snake.”
“If you ignore the fact that it’s murder, the fact that you didn’t choose a wolf suspect today is pretty bad. It’s a day wasted, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. That’s what I told Yasu-kun.”
“Then there’s the fact that the snake outed himself.”
“Mhm. It’s pretty bad.”
She understood it well. We couldn’t expect the help of the police or getting a forensic investigation, not to mention we were up against supernatural monsters. As things were, the snake’s power was the only way to find out who was a wolf or not.
“But he should be fine for today. The spider’ll protect Takumi-niichan.”
“Huh? Hold on. We also know the spider?”
“No. Yasu-kun suggested that whoever it is keep it a secret so that the wolves don’t find out.”
Sharp.
“Kanzo-jiichan agreed, and we went with that.”
“Seems like the right move.”
“It does. We probably should’ve done the same with the snake.”
They really should have. It was best to secretly gather info without revealing their guardians. Especially for the snake. He should’ve kept quiet and used his power to find out as much as reasonably possible before revealing himself. I knew it was difficult to figure out right away, but the fact that the snake - the most important role - was the first to be outed was really bad.
From my perspective, Takumi-san had been so focused on protecting Yasumizu himself that he’d made a terrible mistake. He appeared calm, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d realized this and was actually pretty shaken.
“What do you think will happen?”
She asked like she already knew the answer.
“The spider was told to protect Takumi-san. The wolves obviously heard that. If they try to go for him, the spider will stop them, right? No idea how, though.”
“Yeah. And with that, they’d lose one day’s worth of murders.”
Chiemi seemed to process this as a logic game, too.
“If I were a wolf, I’d ignore him and go for someone else.”
“You think so, too…? Who do you think they’ll go for?”
*Everything goes silent*
“If they prefer the blood of women and children, they’d probably go for the younger people.”
“
Scary…”
“Don’t worry, you’re not the youngest girl here.”
“
I’ll kill ya.”
“I-It’s fine! You’re still the prettiest!”
“
I’ll forgive ya. Though, that still sounds pretty bad. Who knows what they’ll do before killing me?”
BGM: Encroaching Supernatural
“That’d be someone influential or a player who’s invaluable to the humans.”
“That’d be Kanzo-jiicahn. Or Yasu-kun.”
That seemed likely. Yasunaga-kun was the only who’d done something helpful for the villagers this time. He seemed to be the leader of the high schoolers, and had a good head on his shoulders.
But his ideas required Kanzo Makishima-shi’s approval, which made it pretty clear he was a standout. Honestly, I’d expected him to take more initiative than he had, but the fact he considered the younger people’s opinions showed real leadership skills. In any case, he wasn’t someone the humans wanted to lose.
Oh yeah…
“Yeah. It’s Kiyonosuke-san.”
“Huh? What’s with that choice?”
“What do you mean? He asked for it, and we wanted to prioritize those who were the least popular. It’d make them safer.”
I wasn’t so sure about that choice. Those who were confirmed as non-wolves would have much more freedom to act. At the very least, they wouldn’t be suspected as wolves who were just trying to exploit the situation during the feast.
That being the case, shouldn’t they have opted to choose a potential leader to investigate? Well...I didn’t really know if Nosato-shi had the skills, but from what I could tell, he definitely lacked the influence to lead. If they wanted to secure a reliable leader, they should’ve went for someone like Makishima-shi.
But, wait…
“If the snake’s target is killed by the wolves, the snake’s power will be wasted, right? The dead can be investigated by the crow, after all...”
“Hm? No. Those killed at night are chosen by the wolves, so they’re obviously humans. The crow can only investigate those chosen and killed during the daily feasts.”
“Oh, I see...Makes sense.”
Whatever the case, perhaps investigating Kiyonosuke-shi wasn’t that much of a mistake. Did that mean that they were actually doing a decent job? Well, it’d be pretty bad if Kanzo-shi was the one to go...
*Everything goes silent*
Chiemi looked gloomy. She and I probably felt that it wasn’t a complete blunder, but still had a bad feeling about it.
BGM: Encroaching Supernatural
Well, I could understand it, considering the legends, but I’d still wondered why the students didn’t go to school. It was a weekday. When I’d asked, they just told me “Why would we leave when it’s so dangerous?” The idea that they couldn’t leave when the mist was here was so popular, it affected their daily lives.
Also...the people at Kamifujiyoshi had to know that Yasumizu was covered in mist, right? Considering the school there probably had few students to begin with, the non-presence of the three from Yasumizu would normally be a serious problem. I knew it was a settlement for the ostracized, but did they really neglect this place that badly?
Looking at it from that angle, it was safe to assume that the local villages, Kamifujiyoshi included, actually concealed the Feast of the Yomi-Purge.
Chiemi had given me some cup ramen and hot water. We’d chatted for a moment about being neighbors for a while, and then she returned to her room. Weird we could be so casual about this, considering there was a chance we wouldn’t meet again tomorrow.
After dinner, I took a bath. The gas boiler was pretty damn old, so learning how to use it took a while. There were some working electrical outlets, too, so I could charge my phone. I didn’t have a wristwatch, so that was important.
By the way, my room didn’t have a kitchen. I was pretty sure the other rooms didn’t, either. From what I could tell, no one here actually cooked or ate at their own homes - they all relied on the dining hall to provide their meals. This settlement had not only a unique culture, but a way of life, as well I couldn’t help but wonder how something like this began and survived into the modern era. It was an interesting subject to research, but for now, I had to worry about the fact my life was in danger.
Anyway...what were my options now? I wasn’t part of the feast, but walking around at night was probably dangerous regardless. After all, I had memories of getting killed doing exactly that. Then again, I had a record of surviving by just not making any noise at night. Maybe I should’ve stayed awake and looked around? Also…
...Takumi-san had said they were gonna have someone keep watch at night, didn’t he? Was he gonna do it himself? Considering the snake’s importance, he shouldn’t do something so dangerous.
Shit! They’d barely decided anything in the feast! I wasn’t getting enough info, either. I felt like I barely knew the basics. Talking during the feast meant giving info to the wolves, but if the humans kept too many things hidden, the wolves would end up knowing way more than them, and that was just dangerous.
Still, there was a limit to what I could do in my situation. If I kept being the messenger I was today, I could create a huge imbalance of info myself. Not to mention I could be deemed suspicious and lose the residents’ trust. Shit. What was I supposed to do here? Was it best for me to just stay quiet and wait for the feast to end? That…
That wasn’t like me at all.
I opened it up and looked outside. Everything was still covered in mist, so I couldn’t see much. I could only see the handrail and the branches going into the hallway. But maybe I could see some intruder if I kept staring…?
...Not likely. After all, this was the room at the end of the second floor. Haru-chan’s and Chiemi’s rooms were closer to the stairs, so I couldn’t see anyone going to attack them. The only time I could see the monster come would be when it was coming for me.
Maybe keeping watch like this was the most important thing if I wanted to stay alive, but I found it hard to put my own life on the priority list.
Yeah, better not think that. Anyway, I had to stay awake. I still had many things to worry and think about.
“
“
“
“I see. Then can we all take shelter inside?”
“Why should I let you? This is Yasumizu’s problem. Not mine.”
“
“Yeah. Mists sure are weird.”
“I can get naked and no one will get mad!”
“...”
“Stop that, you fool.”
“
“Haru-chan?”
“
“Umm, Yasunaga, can you help?”
“Shit. Why must she live in a place like this?”
“To my knowledge, she moved to Yasumizu of her own accord. And there’s no need for her to be here in the first place.”
“Tch...Rikako-san, Rikako-san! Are you all right?!”
“Meiko-chan. It’s morning!”
“Meiko. I’m glad you’re alright.”
“I’m sorry.”