Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

“After all, the turmoil of the past few days has passed, and apart from those who actually got infected, most people have forgotten about it quickly—Christmas is just around the corner, and everyone's spirits are lifted.” Mingmei began to explain, “And recently, all sorts of ghost stories have been circulating in our school.”

Akemi briefly described what she had heard at school... actually, there wasn't much.

With midterm exams approaching and people feeling restless, many students are already looking forward to the upcoming New Year holiday—which is nominally a "winter break," but in reality only about ten days long, not nearly enough to get through the cold season.

One of the discussions was about taking advantage of the holiday to go on a haunted house adventure!

"Going to a haunted house during the New Year? I don't really understand. Is this a custom unique to the Tokyo area?" Yuri was quite puzzled by this.

“Of course not—I’ve never heard of such a custom anywhere. Just assume they’re driven crazy by their studies…” Akemi categorically denied it. “Anyway, these ghost stories are so detailed and convincing that even Ms. Hojo called me specifically to ask if they could be true.”

"..." Yuri remained silent.

"?" The high school girl mystic looked over in confusion.

The silence continued.

Akemi scratched her head, stood up, and moved closer to the window where Yuri was floating. "What's going on? What happened?"

"Nothing, why did you stop talking?" Yuri turned to the side, dodging Akemi's outstretched hand.

Is this some kind of attempt to take one's temperature? Spirits don't have body temperature; you can only feel the temperature of the air.

“Normally when this comes up, you should have come up and asked, ‘Is it really true?’” Akemi wondered. “Why didn’t you ask today?”

“I was going to ask, but I suddenly had a gut feeling that if I asked, I might get into new trouble—” Yuri quickly replied, “and right now, I really don’t want to get into any trouble at all.”

"I see... Anyway, it's something you already know. We saw it in a book together a while ago—even though we didn't see the actual object."

Excluding those that aren't actually haunted houses but are simply misrepresented due to human error... there are only two types of real haunted houses. First, there are ghosts that linger inside and frequently cause trouble. Second, the house itself was destroyed, and the ghosts, due to human impressions of it, have become ghostly figures.

The latter is a real haunted house, but it usually doesn't appear at all except under special circumstances—generally speaking, this special circumstance refers to the same scenario as when the house itself was destroyed.

For example, a cabin destroyed by lightning reappears during a thunderstorm, and those who take shelter inside wake up to find themselves sleeping in the wilderness—if such tales truly exist, they would often be considered haunted houses in this sense.

Those who would be invited to explore haunted houses are definitely the former – real haunted houses are often not very scary, after all, houses have no mind, and dead houses do not either – most importantly, real haunted houses are very difficult to find, and it is almost impossible to determine the location in advance and follow the trail.

Moreover, a ghostly house, if it is not frequently remembered (often involving reconstruction on the original site), will soon collapse—this is not something written in the book, but a reasonable deduction by Yuri.

"You really don't want to know?" Mingmei seemed a little dejected.

“Of course I don’t want to know—ugh.” A wave of pain struck Yuri.

What if you suffer a loss because you don't know this information?

...What if something happened somewhere I didn't know about, and I could have prevented it from happening?

...What if I have to pay a heavy price in the future because of a moment of negligence?

Yuri didn't know how these horrible images had gotten into his mind, but it would probably take him some time to get rid of them.

Akemi wanted to say something, but seeing Yuri's poor condition, she gave up.

"Never mind then." Mingmei said, returning to the sofa and opening her textbook again. "If you ever want to know, you can ask me anytime."

Mingmei stopped speaking, while Yuri was caught in a struggle with the thoughts swirling in his mind.

Fortunately, this situation didn't last forever—in the middle of the night, Yuri finished his struggle with his thoughts and returned to a normal way of thinking. Of course, by this time, Akemi had already gone to rest, and Yuri, still suffering from a headache, even managed to say goodnight to her.

This symptom appeared out of nowhere, without any apparent reason, and... while it's not necessarily life-threatening, it's quite bothersome.

If it appeared under normal circumstances, it would cause a decrease in efficiency or waste time. But if it suddenly appeared during combat... Yuri had to revise his conclusion. If it appeared during combat, it would be extremely dangerous.

Although there is no trace of any underlying principle, it seems that the trigger time was the moment Yuri refused to learn new information, which can be tentatively speculated as "actively refusing information when he could have easily obtained it"...

There are three ways to deal with this: one is to accept all information, another is to adjust one's mental state to make oneself invincible, and the third is to master the "magic to make one's mind clear" written in the notes.

Both are quite difficult, aren't they?

145 Dangerous Situation

Yuri spent the next short period of time testing repeatedly, trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with him.

The conclusion drawn is very simple.

It seems that "as long as Yuri expresses his intention to reject harmless information from others," it is possible that "it could trigger Yuri's mental health issues."

He had no idea what determined this possibility, but what Akemi told him would most likely cause his mental problems to flare up, while what Kuroi said... even if it was exactly the same, would simply mean there would be a problem two or three times out of ten.

Furthermore, if Yuri knew exactly what the information looked like, or believed he knew exactly what the information looked like, then he would "never begin to have mental problems."

In other words, there's another new solution, as long as Yuri figures everything out...

Forget it, it's better not to dream.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Three days later, on Wednesday, an ordinary day.

As midnight approached, Akemi had just finished her usual struggle with piles of books and was about to rest when her phone suddenly rang. When she answered, she only heard a faint voice from the other end.

Then it returned to silence.

"Hello? Hello? What's going on? Ms. Hojo? Ms. Ree—give me a response?" Akemi called repeatedly into the phone, but there was no response from the other end.

Yuri, who was hanging by the window doing a brain teaser, was drawn by the call. Although she wanted to ask immediately, "What's going on?", she didn't want to interrupt Akemi's conversation with someone she didn't know on the other end. —It sounded like a reporter.

He persisted until a minute after Akemi stopped speaking before asking the question.

“Something might have happened to our reporter,” Akemi said, keeping the phone on. “Her voice was very weak; I only caught one sentence, spoken in a very low voice—the key words were ‘Yuri, come inside.’ Do you know what happened?”

Yuri quickly went through his memories in his mind.

This is definitely not a good sign.

“Mingmei, I think I have to leave right away—” Yuri said, preparing to crawl out the window.

“I’ll go too, it’ll be faster with a car—where are you going?” Mingmei immediately stood up as well.

Now is probably not the time to be modest. Yuri nodded in agreement, and the two went downstairs together.

If we're talking about the three keywords "Yuri, Hojo Reie, enter the house," then it refers to something Hojo Reie said some time ago: "If there's no response, you're allowed to enter through the door." The example she gave at the time was "if someone collapses at home in a state of confusion and urgently needs rescue," which does align with the current situation.

The business card that Hojo Rei gave him had his address recorded on it... Yuri showed the business card to Akemi, and after Akemi looked at it, he destroyed the business card.

Judging from Mingmei's current appearance, she probably hasn't memorized it.

"Anyway, her residence is in this direction—let's keep going." Following Yuri's guidance, Akemi increased her driving speed.

It's almost midnight now, and there are very few pedestrians and vehicles on the road; the traffic is quite smooth.

But the light wasn't very good. Although it wasn't a new moon, thick clouds blocked the moon's light... As for starlight, it was barely visible in the city anyway.

It was fine in areas with dense streetlights, but when driving through corners with sparse streetlights, Yuri was really worried for Akemi.

The actual driver, Akemi, behaved normally and didn't actually cause any accidents. Yuri should probably admire her mental fortitude.

On the way, he also took the opportunity to think about what might happen.

First of all, Hojo Reie must have encountered something that would cause her to lose her ability to speak and move... Needless to say, her ability to speak is questionable, and as for her ability to move, if she could still move her fingers, she should have sent a text message to Akemi to tell her the details.

She was probably at home, and that's roughly the information she provided... or so?

If, in this clearly crisis-ridden situation, she were to say something like, "Yuri, although I told you before that you could walk through the door and into my house, what I really meant was that you absolutely must not come now," then what would she say?

No, she shouldn't be that stupid. Although it's unclear whether she still possesses normal thinking ability, she should speak directly, whether to reduce misunderstandings or to conserve energy. In other words, her words should be closer to "Yuri, come inside, help..."—or, of course, it could be "Yuri, come inside, there are enemies, be careful."

In any case, what she was hoping for was that Yuri would come to her house to play some kind of helpful role.

Yuri had considered the possibility that Hojo Reihe had been kidnapped and that she was being asked to lure the kidnapper over—but only for six seconds. First, Yuri and Akemi didn't seem to have that many living enemies. Second, shouldn't she have made her speak loudly and clearly? Who could she fool by speaking so softly? If Akemi hadn't heard a single word, the two of them might not have gone at all.

After that, Yuri felt that the possibility of enemies breaking into the other party's house was also very small—Hojo Reie looked like she had lost the ability to move, so how incompetent must the enemy be to be able to make the call under such circumstances?

Time slipped away as I pondered.

Mingmei's speeding reduced what would normally be an hour's journey to thirty minutes, at the cost of the risk of a car accident late at night... and the potential fine if caught by a camera.

However, Akemi also covered up the license plate, so she shouldn't be caught easily... This seems even more outrageous, doesn't it?

Hojo Reie's residence wasn't far from the café where they had met several times before, nor from the garbage dump where the Rat King incident occurred, but it was quite far from the newspaper office. Her neighborhood, while not exactly upscale, looked significantly better than Akemi's—the security guards were on duty there, and the gates closed at night.

Mingmei parked the car in a nearby alley, locked it, and then started looking with Yuri for a good spot to climb over the wall into the neighborhood. They found one in no time.

Two suspected thieves easily entered the residential area and arrived at the building where Hojo Reie lived.

There was still a little distance; Hojo Reie lived on the fifth floor.

"...There's something I find strange. Given how weak Ms. Hojo was when she spoke, is it possible for her to have climbed to the fifth floor on her own?" Akemi pondered for a moment. "Yuri, what do you think?"

“First, I have a feeling there might be an elevator in the building… Second, she might not have called us immediately after getting home…” Yuri thought for a moment, “She might have gotten home, felt increasingly weak, and decided to rest—and then, around midnight, when she still couldn’t recover, she remembered to call us—but by then she was too weak.”

"Did you see it with your own eyes, describing it so vividly?" Mingmei's expression was a little distorted.

Without a doubt, it is not. It is purely a wild guess based on the question of "whether there is any situation that happens to fit the current state." If asked for any evidence, Yuri has absolutely no way to provide it.

"Anyway, we're already here, so there's no point in hesitating... The door to the stairwell isn't completely closed, so let's go in as quietly as possible," the high school girl suggested.

However, Yuri disagreed. "We'd better not climb the building together. Just in case, I'll float up the outer wall first and go through the window—I'll check first to see if there really is a vampire inside. Then I'll come back and report to you, and then we'll go up."

Although this tedious process will take more time, we've already wasted so much time, so a little more won't make a difference.

If nothing happens within half an hour of making the call, another five minutes should be fine. And if something does happen, Yuri should at least be able to make a basic response.

“No problem—but how did this get involved with vampires?—Go check it out first, and we can talk about it later.” Akemi nodded in agreement.

Yuri began to float upwards along the outer wall. Before coming up, he had arranged several obvious actions with Akemi, which meant "You can come up," "Come help quickly," and "Escape for your life"... Although the last one was useless, if it was a signal to escape, Yuri would definitely jump out of the window and lead the way.

The vampires mentioned earlier were just Yuri's fabricated targets, but after all, Hojo Reie had asked him to search for newspapers related to vampires... Although Yuri later reminded her not to cause trouble for vampires... what if she thinks she can do it again after this period of time?

Besides the vampire, there are no other suspects for the time being. Could it be that he secretly followed the werewolf and got slapped and coughed up blood?

Soon, he arrived at the fifth-floor window and looked inside... The room was completely dark, but he could see a decent living room, with no sign of anyone inside.

Is this the corresponding living room? Yuri went to another window next to it, this time it seemed to be the bedroom... or maybe the studio. Yuri saw a bed and a desktop computer that was still lit up not far from the bed. The computer seemed to be running a screen saver program, which suppressed the brightness, so he didn't see any light coming out of the room when he was on the first floor.

Before Yuri could even discern exactly what she was seeing, she clearly noticed that a figure whose shape almost completely overlapped with the image of Hojo Reie was half-lying on the bed—in a strange posture with her legs off the bed, her waist at the corner of the bed, and her upper body lying on the bed… and her phone was lying on the bed not far from her hand.

Yuri was somewhat alarmed, because the scene was strangely similar to some murder cases reported on television... Could something really serious have happened? He quickly went through the window into Hojo Rei's bedroom.

Nothing rushed towards him, so he went straight to the reporter lying on the bed and checked her breathing—

—He was still breathing. There was no blood on the bed or floor, no signs of a severe blow to the head, and his back and chest... were obscured by his coat, but there were no obvious scratches on his clothes either.

She seemed to be in some pain, her breathing weak, but there were no external injuries—Yuri wasn't sure if he should move her immediately, so he didn't… Although he could sense a faint spiritual aura emanating from Leh, he could only determine the specifics through careful observation using magical vision… Was there supernatural intervention?

He then quickly searched the house, but found no threatening creatures. If there had been any, they must have left by now—and had kindly locked the door and put on a chain before leaving.

If it weren't a spirit like Yuri, this potential intruder would have to be very flat to get through.

There were no enemies inside. Yuri peeked out from the doorway but didn't find any enemies in the hallway outside.

Safe. Back in Hojo Reie's bedroom, Yuri turned on the light, walked to the window, and signaled to Akemi below, "You can come up now."

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

After confirming that Akemi had received the signal and started moving into the building, Yuri began to check on Hojo Reie's bedroom.

This was the third time he had entered someone else's bedroom... and the style was quite different from the previous two times.

Although there was no partition wall in the middle, Hojo Rei's bedroom was clearly divided into two parts—one part was a very comfortable-looking large bed near the window, which could probably sleep three people, and the mattress looked to be of very good quality; the other part was a computer, a computer desk, several blackboards, and a large number of newspaper articles pasted on the blackboards.

To be honest, this second part doesn't seem like a reporter's job; it's more like a detective's job... or a killer's job? At the foot of the bed, there's a wardrobe. Yuri peeked inside to check it out before. There was no killer hiding inside, but there were quite a few clothes—unlike some guy who only has two sets of clothes all year round.

Besides that, the biggest advantage of this bedroom is its size—maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but Yuri thinks it should be twice the size of the bedroom that Akemi uses.

Considering the other rooms he had previously visited, such as the living room, study, kitchen, and second bedroom, the living area of ​​this house should be about three times that of Mingmei's house.

Are the reporters particularly wealthy, or is the rent in this area exceptionally low?

He gently shook Hojo Reie's head and heard her let out a low moan, but she didn't seem to be awake yet.

He seemed a bit tired, but if it was just exhaustion, he shouldn't have called Yuri... Besides, this guy shouldn't be the type to exhaust himself to the point of fainting.

After checking again, there were no signs of further deterioration, and at least in the short term, nothing should go wrong.

Next, we just need to wait for Akemi to arrive. Once we open the door for her, we can start our investigation without any worries. It shouldn't take long. Yuri could already hear her hurried footsteps. It seems she didn't hesitate at all and ran straight up.

146 Stop loss

After opening the door from the inside... no, only from the inside... anyway, as Akemi entered the room and turned to close the door, Yuri also turned on the living room light.

Unlike the apartment that Mingmei rented, the reporter's home has a living room right inside the entrance, and the living room is quite large.

Mingmei didn't pay much attention to the wealth gap and immediately asked what was going on.

“She’s unconscious in the bedroom, we couldn’t wake her, there are no external injuries—I plan to do a more thorough examination when you get here.” Yuri led Akemi to the bedroom. “She’s over here.”

As Yuri stepped back into the bedroom, a thought popped into his head... Perhaps he should have given Hojo Reie a form earlier; she looked quite disheveled.