Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

A sense of unease crept into his heart, as if letting the anchor leave was unwise... Indeed, what if someone else found the anchor and used it against him in the future? Upon further reflection, he could retrieve the anchor later, allowing someone else to make contact with it, thus avoiding any harm to himself.

After his unease subsided, he felt a wave of dizziness, and memories of his previous struggles flooded back—"I succeeded! All that hard work has paid off! But it doesn't matter anymore, I don't need to dwell on it, I have so much more to do."

As the excitement faded, a sense of weakness washed over him. Although the man hadn't suffered serious injuries in the fight, he had exhausted his strength, and now he was cold and hungry. Takemura disliked exercise; he preferred to solve everything with magic. Wasn't using magic to directly strengthen the body more efficient than exercise?

However, in this situation, it became a drawback. His plan to use magic to replenish himself had failed; the spell hadn't been cast, undoubtedly because he was too weak and excited—his condition was poor, and he was indeed unsuitable for casting spells. Takemura found an explanation for his condition. He then comforted himself, telling himself that everything was alright, and using magic to heal himself was never the healthiest way.

"I'm severely overworked, I need to rest," he diagnosed himself.

During the voyage back to shore, the boat stalled several times, only to restart each time. The sea surface exposed on either side of the boat seemed like a bottomless abyss, and the man tried his best not to look there. These were merely his own psychological effects; even if the spirit of the ocean itself had malfunctioned, the ocean wouldn't immediately turn pitch black, especially since he had only affected the spirit of a slightly more influential marine creature.

"Once I've rested, I'll use my newfound power—" The man continued on his way, constantly bolstering his consciousness with the things he was about to do. He didn't want any further complications and wanted to return to shore as soon as possible to rest in a safe place.

A safe place? Where is a safe place? I'm too tired to remember.

A small wave caused the already unsteady man to fall onto the boat, taking a while to get up. "I... what was I trying to do? Oh right, I succeeded. I need to dock and go back to rest."

My physical condition continues to deteriorate, as if I have lost control of my limbs... What a joke, I am... I am an expert in the mysteries of life and the mysteries of the spirit, how could I possibly lose control of myself?

As they approached the dock, the man's consciousness blurred. "Who am I?... Why am I asking this? It doesn't matter. I'll be fine after a rest."

Forgetting who you are is obviously a bad sign; you may be carrying too much of a burden and can't afford to overexert yourself. You need to rest as soon as possible.

"I did it! I did it! I did it!" The man kept repeating these words to encourage himself as he docked his boat at the pier.

Soon—or perhaps a long time later—the man disembarked from the boat and floated up, with tentacled-like things emerging from his clothes.

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.

Yuri emerged from the illusion. After repeated attempts, through some method still unclear, he successfully extracted information from the other's mind. To avoid being unable to re-enter the illusion after leaving it, he watched the illusion seven times in a row.

The result is that I now have a splitting headache, blurred consciousness, blackouts, and hallucinations.

—Wait, can spirits also have headaches? Yuri, having calmed down, realized that the splitting headache was Takemura's memory, not his own—but this did not alleviate the phantom pain.

In the illusion, everything except Takemura himself seemed unusually unreal. This was probably Takemura's subjective perspective as he gradually died, when he was probably unable to pay attention to anything else.

Judging from the remnants of souls scattered along the way and the final transformation in Bamboo Village, it seems... he did successfully merge the hunter with himself, but the final result was not as he had imagined—that he would control the hunter's power. Instead, the deeply wounded hunter took over his body. His physical body was unharmed, but he died on a spiritual level, or rather, on a soul level.

The hunter expelled his soul... or memories... or personality—something like that—from his body.

As a magic user with considerable knowledge of supernatural powers, Takemura produced multiple afterimages during his gradual death, but none of them possessed self-awareness. If they were truly pieced together, they should have been conscious, but this was not the case.

The first possibility is that the image is not yet complete; some fragments have not been collected. The second possibility is that it is complete, but the method of assembly is incorrect.

However, it may be precisely this fragmentation that allowed Yuri to extract information about Takemura, because Takemura was incomplete and therefore unable to hide his memories deep within...

Something's not right. How do ghosts remember their past lives? If the echo itself lacks self-awareness and cannot recall memories, then where do these memories come from?

In addition, Yuri had a feeling that if he tried harder, he could replicate a Takemura deep in his mind—but who would want to become someone else?

Trying again to banish the unsettling images from his mind, Yuri began to summarize the actions of the past few months. Yes, a lot had been gathered, but not everything was useful. Although Yuri's judgment wasn't always accurate, he could at least immediately identify the useful items and pick them out.

First and foremost, the anchor is indeed effective, and it is very likely still very effective against the hunter. The hunter used this to make Takemura abandon the anchor, thus completing his possession of Takemura's body. In short, if it was effective at the beginning of the possession, there is no reason why the hunter would no longer fear the source of trouble after the possession was complete.

To be fair, if Takemura had insisted on not abandoning the anchor at that time… he would still have been doomed. His connection with the hunter meant that the anchor would also harm him, ultimately leading to mutual destruction. This would have been a better situation for Yuri, who was already at odds with the hunter, but it wouldn't have made much difference for Takemura. The fundamental reason for his failure was that he had become one with something uncontrollable.

Secondly, Takemura is dead, so the possibility of him becoming the Hunter has been ruled out. While the Hunter may have absorbed a part of him, he is now entirely under the Hunter's control. Perhaps something related to Takemura could reactivate him and cause trouble for the Hunter.

—If this is true, it also explains why the fragments of Takemura cannot be pieced together, because another part of them was eaten.

Furthermore, the hunter is extremely vengeful, so he will never let Yuri go unless he still cannot find his target after searching high and low.

—It's true that it might not be found in the short term, but if the hunter further recovers its power and returns to the level expected of a higher-level spirit, its perception range may increase further. Even now, it's possible to stumble upon one at any time.

Next, the Hunter's base is a sea urchin... um... that explains why its tentacles don't have powerful suckers. However, that jet-like motion is definitely that of an octopus or squid. In its growth from a small spirit to its current form, the Hunter devoured countless other spirits, transforming its nature from a simple sea urchin into that of a marine predator.

—Now it moves on land, and its prey has become ghosts. Unlike Yuri, the hunter might be able to effectively digest the essence of other types of spirits. ...Not necessarily. It's clear that the hunter's control over its limbs is not perfect, which could be evidence that it cannot digest them perfectly.

In any case, this means that if the hunter returns to the sea, the situation will almost certainly be much better than it is now. By then, Yuri will probably have no way to deal with him.

The hunter is not returning to the sea, likely because it is severely injured and does not intend to return to the vicinity of its familiar enemy until it has replenished its strength. It remains weak.

Finally, Yuri mastered a new ability: to extract life force or spiritual essence from injured targets... In fact, it should also work even when uninjured, but only the extremely weak can be extracted. Conversely, against exceptionally strong opponents, even if injured, as long as they still have a breath left, it's unlikely that life force can be extracted.

While it's difficult for ordinary people to quickly heal themselves after sustaining an injury, spirits can rapidly consume spiritual essence to plug the leaks. In other words, they are essentially forcing the opponent to use their offensive spiritual essence for healing.

From another perspective, if the hunter were crazy enough not to heal his wounds and directly attacked Yuri, then Yuri would have to constantly heal himself.

In summary, this ability is equally dangerous for both Yuri and his opponents. Using it requires getting close to the enemy, and then... it immediately enters a life-or-death situation. Yuri believes that this ability can be used against hunters, but it cannot be relied upon for victory; it can only be considered a way to survive when entangled.

As for reading memories... even if you actually read the hunter's memories, it doesn't seem to be of much use. The flaws you reveal during the memory reading process could kill you ten or more times over...

Chapter Seventeen: Encounter Again, Plan

Yuri anchored at his residence and went out for his routine ghost patrol.

It's considered routine even if it's done twice.

This time, he was prepared that if he found traces of the hunters or if the hunters found traces of him, he would run back to his residence, grab the anchor, and fight with his back to the wall.

It's not that I don't want to carry the anchor for insurance, it's just that I really have nowhere to put it on my body, and carrying the anchor is not conducive to spiritual movement.

Most of the sources of trouble are just ordinary objects to spirits that are not the target, and the anchor in this case is an example.

On the other hand, it doesn't seem quite right for Zhucun to be running around with a tape recorder.

It's the morning of the second day of a two-day weekend for human society. The number of people on the streets is not much different from usual, but the atmosphere is noticeably more lively.

Meanwhile, a suspicious man in a trench coat and sunglasses was loitering in various dark corners.

Even though ordinary people couldn't see him, Yuri felt strange, especially since he was quite certain that someone had seen him several times.

However, they may have gotten used to this and didn't really do anything to Yuri.

With so many people in Tokyo, it's quite normal for a few to be able to see spirits.

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 traversing the previously established network of ghosts, they discovered something unusual.

Previously, the ghosts Yuri contacted were generally arranged in a circle around his residence, but now some of the ghosts have disappeared—this in itself is not a problem; the most obvious possible reason is that they have been hunted down.

However, it is rather strange that ghosts disappear simultaneously at opposite ends of the circle.

Could the hunter's route have been to glide past the edge, then turn, drawing an arc, and then just happen to turn back on the other side? That's too much of a coincidence, as if the hunter was searching for a spirit that had escaped twice in a row in this area. It can't be that precise, can it?

To determine what was going on, Yuri expanded the search area, looking for testimonies from other ghosts.

Although no ghosts were willing to testify, the results of examining the ghost locations still brought him a sigh of relief. Only one side of the ghosts had disappeared collectively, which undoubtedly meant they had been hunted down. The other side's ghosts had disappeared selectively.

Through Yuri's own memories, combined with interviews with other ghosts, Yuri managed to find commonalities among these ghosts who selectively disappeared.

As victims of murder, they all harbored a desire for revenge against society.

No, that's not it. Most of the ghosts of victims want revenge, and among the newly born Level 2 ghosts, there are a lot of different types of victims.

Indeed, these people were very excited when they met Yuri, but the murderer who killed them was not at the scene, so how could they have really done anything? They couldn't even move too far from where they were.

Thinking about it carefully, if their targets for revenge included others besides the criminals, this was rather excessive. However, Yuri lacked the ability to read their minds and was in a hurry to set up the network, so he didn't ask in detail.

In reality, it's very likely that it will never get involved.

The existence of ghosts is based on obsession, so no matter what kind of ghost it is, there is something that can drive it crazy and obsessed.

Except for certain confused fools who have forgotten who they are.

The second possibility is that all of these items were actually featured in the newspaper (though the placement and size of the pages varied).

In this scenario, someone might be reading a newspaper and think that ghosts might be lurking there, and then, while Yuri is busy with other things, unknowingly eliminates or even delivers these ghosts from the world.

Please, I hope you can also help the hunter pass on to the afterlife.

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 continuing to patrol the area that had clearly been swept through by the hunters for some time, Yuri replenished the Ghost informants.

In addition, in a block near the edge, he sensed some changes in his surroundings. Specifically, a small pachinko parlor gave Yuri a different feeling from the past.

Retrieving information about the shop from his memory, Yuri had once approached it to investigate, only to be driven away by ghosts—it was the base of a small ghost gang.

While Yuri described it as small, he wasn't entirely sure what constituted "large," but with only five or six demons in the group, it was probably considered small.

Their leader was a gang member ghost, managing his subordinates in a gang-like manner… In truth, for low-level ghosts who couldn't stray too far from their anchor point, social activity was rare. Yuri suspected they were simply passing the time by continuing to role-play as they had in life. They demanded spirit essence from ghosts entering as payment; those who paid could enjoy entertainment within the shop. However, low-level ghosts couldn't possibly travel that far to the shop, and as for high-level ghosts… would they dare stop them?

No wonder Yuri received a warm welcome when he tried to enter the shop last time. They were excited when they first asked for energy, and even more excited when Yuri refused to give up the spiritual essence. Four ghosts rushed out and chased Yuri for half a block. He was probably their first customer in years, both in terms of the situation.

After observing for a while longer, Yuri noticed something different—every time he passed by this place before, Yuri could feel that there were ghosts watching him inside the shop, but now the spiritual energy surrounding it had weakened, and the feeling of being watched had disappeared.

problem occurs?

Although he knew he shouldn't meddle, Yuri slowly approached, prepared to turn tail and run at any moment. He had an excuse for himself: anything happening in his area of ​​operation could affect him, so he needed to be careful.

Five steps from the shop entrance... The lights weren't on inside. It was evening, not yet opening time, but the staff (humans) should be getting ready. The shop wasn't well-lit, with few windows, so they should have the lights on.

Three steps... You can vaguely hear hushed voices, as if they are arguing about something.

Two steps... one step, until Yuri entered the store, no ghost pounced on him.

The moment Yuri entered the store, he felt a harmless force sweep over him.

The store was in chaos, with several slot machines lying on the floor.

The shop assistants seemed unsure of what to do and gathered around the counter to call their boss.

On the other side, four ghosts, all seemingly injured, gathered around a slot machine, doing similar things, discussing something with a fat ghost who appeared to be the leader, without any intention of avoiding the human shop assistant.

Anyway, they can't see it.

Upon seeing Yuri float in, the ghosts were startled and turned around to assume a defensive posture. Yuri immediately recognized the ghosts who had chased him for half a block. It wasn't that he held a grudge; Yuri's memory was exceptionally good now, and these ghosts also had distinctive features, all with tattoos.

“…Friend, this shop is closed today, please leave.” The fat ghost at the back came out, indicating that Yuri should leave.

“What happened here? Tell me, I’ll leave right away.” Yuri looked at them. “For example—”

"Didn't you hear the Black Boss tell you to leave?! Huh!?" a ghost hiding in the back shouted, a classic case of bluster masking cowardice.

"—A flying octopus rushed in and caused a huge disturbance?" After saying this, Yuri unsurprisingly saw the other group's expressions change drastically.

It was the fat ghost, who seemed to be called Kuroshi, who calmed down first. "How did you know—or are you the one who's been spreading rumors about searching everywhere for flying octopuses?"

"That's true. I have a significant conflict with the Flying Octopus, so I'm gathering information from all over the place."

Concealing one's conflict with the flying octopus might have advantages, such as making concessions when the octopus are unaware of one's own urgency. However, it could also complicate negotiations.

“That’s right, it’s that flying octopus—we’re willing to pay you if you can take care of it.” Kuroshi tried to hide his anxiety, but like Yuri, he wasn’t good at this.

“I will certainly do my best to do so. But I’m more interested in something… You all seemed to have fought the Flying Octopus and suffered losses, so why are you still alive?” Yuri added, seemingly aware of the potential offense. “No offense intended, but this is a very important matter.”

"It was I who used a scroll bestowed by the Taifu," Heishi replied candidly. "We didn't keep all the energy we collected for ourselves; we also offered it to the Taifu. After accumulating a large amount of energy as an offering, the Taifu gave us a scroll that sealed a portion of his power, enough to expel the hostile spirit from our stronghold. But the scroll has a time limit; we don't know how long it will last, or whether the expelled octopus monster will be able to break through again."

Is Tayu the leader of the ghosts here? Yuri hasn't had much dealings with ghosts that occupy a stronghold for a long time, except when they're attacked and have to run away.

"Could I take a look at that scroll?" Yuri asked tentatively. "Since I wasn't kicked out, it means I have no hostility, right?"

“I’ll set it up right here, and you can watch from a distance.” Kuroshi agreed to this suggestion.

Yuri saw the scroll; indeed, the power enveloping the shop came from this spirited scroll.

“Three days. The power of this scroll will last for three days.” After reading it, Yuri casually uttered the information he had read.

"how do you know?"

Yuri fell silent. After carefully refining his wording, he spoke again. "Because it says 'three days' on it, and the emblem is clearly something else next to it." He had absolutely no idea how to rephrase it!

The atmosphere suddenly cooled down.

“Boss, it really says ‘three days’ on this.” One of the underlings of the Black Society turned to the front and took a look.

Hei Shi instantly shut up his loose tongue with a look.

To ease the awkwardness between himself and this underling from the underworld, Yuri quickly tried to change the subject.

"Anyway, since that Taifu was able to repel the hunter... I mean the octopus monster, with just one scroll, could we try harder to persuade Taifu to take it down directly?" Yuri thought of a good idea.

“We can only see the Taifu’s representative when we make offerings, and even then, the representative comes to us to collect them. There’s really no way we can go find them now,” Hei Shi sighed. “At first, we thought it was just a simple extortion attempt, and that we couldn’t beat them, so we had to back down. We never expected that we could save our lives today because of this.”

That's troublesome; I don't even know where to look for it.

After a while, seeing that he had no new ideas, Yuri prepared to say goodbye and leave.

Step outside—look at the tentacles—instantly retreat.

As the tentacles struck the wall, the familiar voice rang out again. "A swarm of seaweed hides here, unaware that this place can only sustain itself for a short time—"

Yuri kept his thoughts to himself: "Three days, you know?"

"—Three days. No one will escape my pursuit... You will all die."