Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

"...I understand you don't know, but why do you think they don't know?" Mingmei previously said the information was from decades ago, indicating she had only read it in books. So why would she make a biased guess? Most importantly, why is her guess different from Yuri's?

By all accounts, these doctors should have realized that their treatments were producing better results than they should have.

“Well, we humans are very good at rationalization. Given a suitable reason, we usually choose an explanation that is closer to common sense… and here happens to be a very common-sense reason.” The high school student mystic gave a casual reply. “The reason why the healing spirit chose this place as its base is, of course, because it is more ‘healing’ than other roadside clinics outside—that is to say, even without the influence of the healing spirit, the treatment here is much more effective than in ordinary clinics.”

These doctors would feel that all of this is their own achievement, and they have indeed done a very good job. Whether this goodness is due to experience, financial resources, or something else, it was indeed done before the intervention of supernatural forces. That's probably what Mingmei meant.

While there is room for further investigation, there are more important things to do right now, at least in Akemi's opinion.

“Although when I told Lehwe before, you said that the Sin Eaters were in charge of this matter… I don’t deny that it is indeed their specialty, not ours.” Akemi paused to emphasize her point, raising a finger. “However, they are simply too few in number.”

Three or four Sin Eaters were a lot compared to Yuri and Akemi's duo, but far fewer than werewolves. Yuri wasn't sure if they needed a huge number of werewolves to solve the problem, so he decided not to argue about it. —Yuri felt the conversation was veering towards a dangerous direction; Akemi seemed determined to do something.

"—So, I think we still need to do something, Yuri, you don't object, right?" The high school girl, who had just been mentally criticized by Yuri, asked him to confirm his opinion. "Or do you have anything to add?"

This guy just directly said "no objection" and "supplement"? However, Yuri does not object to doing something "appropriately," but it must be kept within the "appropriate" range.

“I think we can help out by offering support, but we can’t be the main force.” Yuri wasn’t completely ignoring what he had said before. “There are three or four of them, and each of them is stronger than the two of us combined. We can help them fill in the gaps—is it possible to persuade the Spirit Hunters to contribute in this kind of situation?”

Werewolves are half-human and half-spirit, so they are quite effective against both physical beings and spirits, but what about ghosts?

“I doubt it. So much time has passed since the Rat King incident, and they’ve scattered again. Besides, they’re not very knowledgeable about ghosts,” Mingmei shook her head.

Although Yuri had never actually seen a super-powerful ghost... wait, it seems like there should indeed be exceptionally powerful ghosts. Didn't that ghost gang leader called Kuroyo say that they have a boss called "Tayu"... but they just can't get in touch with him.

You can consider asking them about it later; for now, let's put it aside.

“If it’s a lower-level spirit, then having a werewolf deal with it is pretty much the same as dealing with a ghost,” Akemi continued. “After all, they can just transform and take it down with bites and claws, without needing any special abilities—”

From another perspective, it means that it won't work when special abilities are required.

Mingmei confirmed Yuri's conjecture: "The absolute power of high-level spirits far surpasses that of mortals. Even among werewolves, there are very few strong individuals who can compete with them. If you rely solely on physical strength to fight against high-level spirits... for example, no matter how strong they are, how can they stop a train? Therefore, it is necessary to use the various special abilities that werewolves have accumulated and learned over the years to make up for their physical deficiencies."

Needless to say, the werewolves' accumulated strength has virtually no effect on ghosts. When fighting high-level ghosts, it really comes down to sheer physical prowess – they are definitely stronger than Yuri Minmei, but the chances of them suffering a loss increase significantly.

Yuri, who handles almost any situation (although, currently, he's terrible at them all), is an anomaly.

154 Breakpoints

Around noon, Hojo Reie, feeling that she had recovered sufficiently, insisted on being discharged immediately. The doctor did not object to this, but the "accompanying family member," Akemi, was somewhat worried about it.

From Yuri's observation, Lehweh still seemed a bit weak, but her spirits were good. Although her physical strength had clearly not fully recovered, she should be able to walk a few steps without any problem... If she goes home like this... she shouldn't... have any problems, right?

After completing the formalities, Mingmei helped Lehui leave, with Yuri following stealthily in case of any unforeseen circumstances. Although he racked his brains but couldn't think of any possible contingencies, what if? What if it really happened?

On the other hand, he also had to find a reason for his tailing behavior, otherwise it would be a bit awkward to say, "I just followed without thinking too much."

No accident occurred. Although it was a problem that Yuri had to get back on the rope at the back of the motorcycle because it required three people to ride, it didn't matter since the people in front couldn't see his ethereal form anyway. Yuri had confirmed with Akemi that although Akemi could see Yuri's ethereal form if she looked directly at him, she couldn't see it through the rearview mirror. She knew some special methods to make the mirror reflect the spirit form, but they were very troublesome and couldn't be maintained for long, so she simply got lazy and didn't try them.

In other words, no one saw him making a fool of himself by flying a kite in the back.

Back at the reporters' lodgings, Li Hui showed the two a lot of electronic information she had collected.

However, it was clear that she had provided the original documents before the screening—Yuri hadn't looked at them all, but he had found discrepancies in the few that Leh had just casually opened. There were some contradictory and obviously distorted things in these documents, such as rumors like "Taira no Masakado is about to return from the underworld and retake Tokyo."

"Do you have something to do?" After confirming that the two of them didn't have much special business, Leh Hui began to separate the pile of original documents according to the markings she had made.

Yuri witnessed two files, each starting with the exact same letter in their filenames, being marked as trustworthy and untrustworthy by Lehwa, while Akemi, standing nearby, seemed somewhat bewildered.

"How exactly are these files categorized?" It wasn't a good question, but Yuri couldn't help himself. "It's not that I want to pry into your secrets, but these two files have the exact same markings. How did you distinguish them?"

“That’s simple. It starts with the same key. If the file is larger than 50k, it’s trustworthy; if it’s smaller, it’s untrustworthy. I memorized the second half myself; I didn’t write it down anywhere.” Hojo Reie answered casually. “My mother taught me this when I was a child: things that require two keys are more secure than things that require one key.”

No, no, no, normal people don't need, and wouldn't use, such a complicated method of memorization! What kind of person is your mother? Would she teach a child this kind of method? —Besides, you added a file password to it no matter what, didn't you?

Akemi seemed to share the same view, or at least she was equally shocked, but she still looked at Yuri and slowly shook her head.

This was probably a signal to Yuri not to comment on it.

After picking out the documents, Hojo Reie pointed to the remaining portion, which made up about half of all the documents.

“I’ve already analyzed the first half, which is the easier part to deal with… Most of it can be handled with logical analysis, and the rest basically require on-site investigation—that is, about two-thirds of it requires on-site investigation. I’ve also visited several places… and you’ve seen the results.” The reporter copied the file to a USB drive as he spoke.

Yes, I saw it all.

“Although I would very much like to ask you to help survey the remaining parts, even I would find it unlikely that I would ask you to put yourself in danger again so soon after receiving your help.” Hojo Reie seemed a little tired after fiddling with things for a while. “Therefore, I have decided to hand these things over to you directly. How you handle them is up to you.”

"Is this alright?" Mingmei didn't immediately take the USB drive from the other party. "These files are all your hard work, right? You put a lot of effort into organizing them."

“Copying these things isn’t difficult; the difficult part is finding where to copy them—I don’t deny that I put in a lot of effort, but I didn’t delete the originals, and giving them to you doesn’t mean I don’t have them anymore.” Lie Huixian explained briefly, then smiled. “Besides, I firmly believe that if you find results that need to be made public, you will definitely come and tell me, right?”

That's true, but there aren't many supernatural elements that Yuri actually wants to reveal; Yuri tries his best to keep it a secret on the surface.

Akemi took the USB drive, then frowned. "Well... I'm very grateful, but I have a question."

"What's the problem?" Lehwa asked casually. "You knew all this information?"

“No, no, no, that’s impossible—the problem is, I don’t have a computer.” Mingmei’s face was very embarrassed. “I thought I would never need one, and it’s quite expensive, so I didn’t consider buying one.”

The reporter was stunned.

"Lee Hui?" The culprit who caused this scene waved her hand lightly in front of her eyes.

“…Alright,” Lehwa said, regaining her composure, “then just print it out using the printer here—are you really a modern person?”

“No, no, no, I’m from the countryside, from the countryside.” Mingmei unhesitatingly passed the question to her grandfather in the countryside. “I’ve never used a computer since I was a child, except when I was in class.”

"So, do you know how to use a printer?" Leh's voice made Yuri grit his teeth. "A printer, you know, that thing that prints words onto paper."

"Of course I know how to use the printer; I used it when I helped out at school—is there anything special about the printer here?" The high school girl suddenly thought of something, "Like, does it have a password or something?"

“No, not this time. It’s right next door—you go from here to the living room, then find the study next to the bedroom. The printer is in the corner of the study closest to the door…” Leh Hui tried to stand up. “Or I could take you there.”

"No need, no need, no need—" Mingmei waved her hands repeatedly, "I know how to do this, no problem."

She then quickly left the room to prove that she knew how to use the printer.

Hojo Reie left the chair and sat on the bed, looking like she had just exhausted herself again... It was unclear whether searching for information or talking to Akemi had taken more energy, but Yuri didn't dare to ask anyway.

What would happen if she knew that Yuri's skill level in this area was worse than Akemi's?

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.

About ten minutes later, Akemi came back carrying a large stack of papers and saw Yuri and Hojo Reie chatting idly.

"Hey, Liehui, you're already in bed? Why don't you stay in the hospital a little longer?"

And I immediately spotted the biggest difference.

After Akemi left, Hojo Reie sat on the bed, not simply to find a softer seat, but as a step in the process. Soon, Reie wrapped herself in the blanket and began to undress, but the movements under the blanket stopped when she noticed Yuri's rather awkward expression beside her.

Her stopping made the atmosphere even more awkward. Yuri almost wanted to run away, but that wouldn't have improved the situation much.

Fortunately, the two found a way to relieve the awkwardness, chatting quietly while listening to the printer next door, and got through the time.

Yuri knew he couldn't let Akemi bring up that awkward memory again, so he preemptively asked, "Speaking of which, Akemi, when did you start calling Hojo-san by her first name?"

It seems that she was calling him "Lee-Lee-Lee" when they were in the hospital, but Yuri didn't pay much attention to it at the time.

“I brought it up myself. I feel awkward being called ‘Ms.’ or ‘Miss’ by acquaintances all the time…” Hojo Reie continued, “You’ve helped me several times, and may even have saved my life. I think we’re quite familiar with each other now. Yuri, you can call me by my name too.”

Mingmei didn't speak, she just nodded.

"I see..." Yuri gained a new understanding; it seemed that their relationship had become quite close without them even realizing it.

“Besides, I’m young too, not much older than you. Being addressed like that for no reason makes me feel old. I’m still a young person.” Hojo Reie gave her second reason, while pulling one hand out from under the covers. “At least that’s what my colleagues at the newspaper say, ‘Young people just don’t know their place,’ and things like that.”

No, no, no, this doesn't sound like a compliment on your youth; it sounds more like someone taking advantage of their age. As for your real age… if I remember correctly, Akemi is sixteen, while the reporter in front of me is in her early twenties, Yuri thought, trying to stop his instinctive action of focusing his gaze on the other person's face to determine their age. And of course, Yuri, counting from what I can remember, is only a little over three months old… I can't tell the reporter that either.

Distracted by the interruption, Mingmei ignored the awkward atmosphere and placed the thick stack of papers on the table. "It doesn't look like much in the electronic file, but it turned into such a big stack when printed... I'm sorry for wasting so much ink and paper, Liehui."

"It's no big deal, I'm not short of money." The reporter waved his hand. "Wouldn't it be better to use the stapler on the table?"

“No, that would make it inconvenient to look…” Mingmei started looking left and right, as if she wanted to say something but was too embarrassed to speak.

Yuri wanted to speak, but was worried that he might have misunderstood.

“…Alright, I’m going to rest in my own bed for a bit.” Hojo Reie seemed to have figured something out. “If you don’t have anything else to do, please let me have some time to myself… That’s why I was so eager to come back; a hospital bed can never be as comfortable as a bed at home.”

"Then I won't bother you anymore!" Akemi visibly breathed a sigh of relief.

Ah, I guessed wrong. Now it seems that Akemi wanted to find a reason to leave but was worried that it would be inappropriate for her to speak up. Yuri guessed that the printer broke down thanks to Akemi's efforts.

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.

The two closed the door and left the reporter's house.

The first thing I did after taking the elevator downstairs was to put the stack of documents in the motorcycle's trunk.

The matter was resolved, and we began our return journey.

Although Akemi planned to "do something" about this matter, her immediate task was to go back and digest the newly acquired information.

Yuri had nothing to do in the back seat of the car. The scenery passing by seemed no different from what he had seen before, meaning he didn't need to care... He could completely ignore these things and focus entirely on planning his next move.

There are practically no clear things that need to be done immediately; everything else is rather vague.

Analyzing the information provided by the reporter, according to what Hojo Reie said in casual conversation, this information mainly consists of ghost stories that have suddenly appeared recently. If the stories are really about ghosts, then these activated ghosts should be inextricably linked to the mastermind behind this incident, the mysterious voice.

But contact is just contact. Yuri has already seen two ghosts affected by the mysterious voice in person. The first time, he even witnessed the ghosts suddenly attack, but he couldn't grasp any trace of their existence—neither could the Sin Eaters.

Tell the Sin Eaters; they're experts in this area… and since they're fewer in number, they might need additional information to support their claims. Perhaps with that information, they can crack the case. Besides, they're clearly already involved; they'll get involved anyway, so Yuri doesn't need to bother persuading them.

The problem is the same. They will get involved no matter what, so they must have gathered intelligence on this as well. Simply telling them the information may not be effective. Meanwhile, they have proven that at least half of the Sin Eaters cannot follow the clues from the on-site operation of the Mysterious Voice to find the target. Like Yuri, they are unreliable.

Contact the werewolves. Werewolves are not experts in fighting ghosts, but they are still powerful, and they obviously have a numerical advantage.

Mingmei said that it was almost impossible for them to get involved in this.

One option that only exists in Yuri's mind is to go find the ghost leader known as "Tayu" by the ghost gang. "Tayu" is definitely the right person for the job and knows something about this kind of thing in the city... provided that you can find him.

The problem is that it can't be found.

Finally, relying on Mingmei's intelligence and her own strength... let's just cross this option out. If this method is reliable, wouldn't that mean everyone else is useless?

Take it slow, Yuri told himself. There were obviously taller people to handle things now, so there was no need for him to rush around frantically... Now was the time to proceed steadily and step by step.

155 Intersection

In the following days, he tried almost all the methods he had previously used, but as he had expected, none of them had an immediate effect.

On the werewolf side, specifically, Murakami Akisa's reply was "Observe for a while longer, and don't you two do something reckless"—although both Yuri and Akemi knew that other werewolves would be easier to incite, they had to be prepared to turn friends into enemies if they did such a thing—they didn't want to get involved in this mess, and it's best not to do such things unless absolutely necessary.

Besides, they already tricked Murakami Akisa once before. Do they think they can bully her just because she's a relative? There are many ways to turn relatives into enemies, and this is definitely one of the most efficient ones.

Yuri went to ask the ghost gang if they had heard the mysterious voice and if they had recently contacted their boss, and received two pieces of news, one good and one bad.

The good news is that they haven't heard the Mysterious Voice, never. They hadn't even heard of its existence unless Yuri specifically asked. The bad news is that during Yuri's absence, the Taifu's envoy had already visited once and left with the offered spiritual essence—their next visit was unknown, but based on past experience, the interval wouldn't be short. Furthermore, there's another piece of news—the Taifu's envoy also didn't mention the Mysterious Voice.

Should this be considered a good thing? Yuri weighed the situation in his mind. Based on this news, Taifu was probably not involved in this matter. Yuri didn't need to consider someone who was likely to reach Level 4 and had a wide influence as an enemy.

The remaining two methods were feasible, and Yuri combined them into one.

After he informed the Sin Eater Society about the haunted house exploration plan, the Sin Eater Society took over the task. Although the results were not good, it was definitely much better than him going alone. Yuri went to explore with Yuka Yamanaka several times, but did not find any new information. They did find two ghosts, but apart from beating them up to make them behave, there was no other good way to deal with them.

To make matters worse, new information kept coming in from the reporter—at first, Akemi would go to the reporter's house to pick up the printed copy, but later she simply contacted them via text message—the complicated details couldn't be written down, but both Akemi and the reporter decided to just send the location and level of danger.

What caused this situation was... perhaps it was part of the Mysterious Voice Project all along, or perhaps the actions of the Sin Eaters had produced the wrong result. In any case, every time they suppressed a vengeful spirit, four new locations of dubious authenticity would appear. After searching them, one or two new vengeful spirits would be found... and after suppressing the newly appeared vengeful spirits, even more and more new locations would appear.

Although the number of vengeful spirits has not increased significantly, the number of new locations brought about by the rumors has been so great that even the sin eaters are feeling exhausted.

This outcome was not solely due to the hard work of the Mysterious Voice—or at least not entirely—but also to the tireless efforts of numerous journalist colleagues, including Hojo Rei. While the Sin Eaters Society was doing its utmost to suppress the ghost story, various tabloids were frantically amplifying the issue.

Of course, there are also a large number of ordinary people who are undoubtedly not the masterminds behind the scenes, and whose sheer number makes it impossible for them to be hired by the masterminds, but who are simply there to join in on this trending topic.

Their intense focus on haunted houses provided many ghosts with an additional source of spiritual essence. Ghosts awakened/enhanced in this way did not harbor the same intense resentment towards humans as those activated by the mysterious voice, but this greatly increased the workload of the Sin Eaters. Furthermore, the various rumors they spread also continuously increased the frequency of ghost-related incidents plaguing the Sin Eaters.

A casual remark made by someone just joining in the fun, after being passed around several times, eventually reaches the ears of the sin eaters and becomes an event that urgently needs to be resolved—and unless they go to the scene to check for themselves, the sin eaters have no way of distinguishing the truth from falsehood.

"I think these people are treating Christmas like Halloween." This was Yuka Yamanaka's angry outburst after running around to eight different places in one day and still finding nothing. She seemed to have been holding back for a long time, but finally couldn't help but speak out—Yuri being there to listen might have been one of the reasons, or she probably wouldn't have said it if no one had been there at all.

In fact, Yuri, who had run the entire route with him, agreed while silently adding in his heart that it was good enough that it wasn't the Ghost Festival.

At first, Akemi tried to keep up, but she was quickly overwhelmed by the amount of homework and had no choice but to order Yuri to tell her when he finally discovered the mastermind behind it all.

Yuri outwardly agreed readily, but in reality, he had no intention of carrying it out—why tell Akemi about the mastermind? Calling her over wouldn't do any good anyway; it would only put her in danger—this kind of thing should be handled by the big sin-eaters.

Anyway, at least right now, Akemi, who is buried in her studies, is probably more relaxed than Yuka Yamanaka.

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.

"So—why don't you need to attend classes?" Yuri asked Yuka Yamanaka during his free time.

He had already shifted some of his attention to observing his sin-eating friend... This might not be quite honorable to say, but he really didn't intend to do anything detrimental to his sin-eating friend through this, so he could completely convince himself that "I'm doing this to foster our friendship."

“I’ve convinced my spirit to help me with my exams and leave of absence as long as I skip class because I’m working on my supernatural endeavors.” Yuka Yamanaka said with a relaxed expression. “I am indeed working on my supernatural endeavors now, aren’t I?”

Wait a minute... The idea of ​​using spirits to solve exam problems is easy to understand. It's just something Yuri mentioned a long time ago: becoming a spirit to look at other people's exam papers—how is the problem of asking for leave solved?