Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

Yuri had a simple understanding of freelance contributors—basically, unemployed, non-contractual temporary workers, right?

However, Yuri was drawn to the fact that they covered all kinds of news.

"Have you investigated the recent news about spontaneous combustion?"

"Hmm... is there or not?" Lehwa seemed to hesitate for a moment. "There is definitely an investigation, but there's nothing special to report."

"Nothing special... Can you really distinguish between special news and non-special news?"

Yuri didn't want to be rude, but while the manipulated camera could indicate that she had some contact with the supernatural, she never expected that the cult leader might actually have superpowers, which meant that her contact with the supernatural was not very deep.

She, Hojo Reie, couldn't even see Yuri in his spirit form on her own. What special information could she possibly know? She's probably even more confused than Yuri.

"Don't doubt my expertise! I've published news about mysterious things many times before!"

Yuri wasn't sure which newspaper's mystery column this referred to, but as far as he knew, such columns were quite small.

After all, this is a modern society, and columns about mysterious things are basically equivalent to columns about ghost stories.

As Yuri's behavior seemed too obvious, Hojo Reie also sent a message: "Well, to prove my professionalism, I'll tell you in advance, which doesn't count as leaking secrets—several newspapers I'm in contact with are planning to publish conclusive reports on the spontaneous combustion incident, except for those that didn't mention it at all."

This certainly had a certain impact on Yuri.

A conclusive report? What conclusive report? The obvious fact in Yuri's eyes—"spirit arson"—can't just be told directly to everyone. So what conclusion do they plan to publish?

"You'll find out the specific conclusion when you read tomorrow's newspaper." Lehwa was quite pleased with Yuri's shocked expression. "You probably won't completely believe it yet, so I'll leave you my phone number. Contact me again tomorrow after you've read the newspaper and believe it."

That's a good idea, Yuri needs some time to sort it out.

"By the way, do you know how to use a mobile phone?" the unemployed reporter suddenly asked, then answered himself, "I misunderstood. Never mind, what modern person doesn't know how to use a mobile phone?"

“…………” Yu the Primitive Man remained silent. This woman was truly vengeful.

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 reporter left his phone number and left; Yuri didn't write it down, but simply memorized it.

Although the reporter did not intend to harass the cultists again that same night, Yuri went back to take a look. He missed the specific exorcism ritual and only saw the cultists preparing to leave.

These believers all said that after the exorcism ritual performed by the cult leader, they felt refreshed and in good condition. They believed that the cult leader was incredibly powerful and had truly driven away the evil spirits that were attached to them.

This was clearly a psychological effect, self-hypnosis, or a placebo effect, since Yuri didn't see anything dirty on them anyway.

Most of the cult members prepared to leave, with only a few remaining and heading in another direction from the house... It seemed that only a portion of the cult members lived there.

That's certainly the case. There's barely enough space here for people to gather, but it would be a different story if everyone were to live there.

It is highly likely that Akemi's classmate, Kento Kurahashi, with his six fingers, was among those who remained.

Having roughly noted the direction he went, Yuri headed towards the direction the cult leader might be. In his mind, this direction meant the basement.

The basement was empty, and even the lock looked like it had been haphazardly locked by Yuri before.

Yuri eventually found the cult leader and senior officers in the master bedroom. They had probably been discussing things for a while, but fortunately, the remaining content wasn't so fragmented that it was completely incomprehensible.

The cult leader's voice was dry. "So there's no need to worry about it, because the end of the world is just around the corner—in this situation, even if there are leaks, it doesn't matter."

Then came the voice of a high-ranking official, "Well, what if the world doesn't end? — Then wouldn't that be..."

"If you don't believe in the end of the world, then get out of here. Cough, cough... I've received a prophecy that the world will soon experience repeated apocalypses, and we must prepare for it."

The cult leader's voice didn't sound like the solemn, mystical version he used in front of his followers; it was more like an elder reprimanding a junior.

"...I understand, I believe you." The senior official's voice was still a little weak, but his attitude was very clear.

"Also, I didn't feel anything real during the exorcism today... The spirit left early, but it's not certain it won't come back."

"Is it afraid of you?" The senior official's voice was filled with hope.

"They're probably just passing through. At times like these, let's not cause any trouble—our business attracts curious spirits, so let's not talk too much and invite trouble."

"understood."

Yuri didn't dare get too close. It seemed the opponent could at least see him and possessed some anti-spirit abilities. At least the opponent could sense that his anti-spirit attack had missed, indicating they had real skill in that area.

He wasn't sure what would happen if he were actually exorcised—Aminmei's exorcism severed the connection between the spirit and the anchor point, allowing the spirit to be drawn back into its original realm, but Yuri had never even seen his anchor point. Could he be released off Earth after being exorcised?

The cultists' conviction that the end of the world is coming doesn't sound like something they made themselves... but it's also possible that they created the problem in their "preparation for the end of the world."

If they couldn't get any closer, they couldn't delve into the problem for the time being, so Yuri went back to do something else: confirm the identity of the six-fingered man.

Following the previous route, Yuri found a guest room that resembled a dormitory, with several beds arranged side by side, leaving only a little space between them, and most of the cultists had already begun to rest.

The six-fingered man had already lay down on the bed, and it seemed he hadn't fallen asleep yet.

Yuri floated to the floor beneath the bed and quietly materialized.

Lower the pitch and lengthen the sound, "Ken~~Rin~~Kura-hashi-Ken-Rin—"

A loud noise came from the bed. The bald man suddenly sat up and looked down from the bed, but unfortunately he couldn't see Yuri, who had turned into a spirit as soon as he got up.

This reaction almost certainly confirms it's the person in question.

While Kento and the other believers were discussing whether someone had just called him or whether he was hallucinating from being too excited about joining the church, Yuri began his return journey.

Today's survey was quite successful, but as for its overall impact... we'll have to discuss that with Akemi.

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 arrived home around midnight, but Akemi took longer. Almost two hours later, when Yuri had almost made up for the time he had spent repeating himself, Akemi finally got home.

Carrying a large, suspiciously folded piece of paper—it must be A1 size.

When folded up, it feels as thick as a small booklet.

Things need to be discussed one by one. Yuri first talked about what happened today. There were actually quite a few things, including the situation of the cult, the reporter's words, and the existence of Kento Kurahashi. All of these need to be explained.

“It seems this is the cult leader who truly believes what he says,” Akemi said after listening to Yuri’s account for a few minutes. “But from what you’ve said, they don’t seem like they would deliberately bring about the apocalypse—perhaps they think opening the gate to the Shadow Realm is some kind of way to protect themselves from the apocalypse? When everything explodes, they escape to the Shadow Realm and come back after the apocalypse?”

"Will this work?" Yuri didn't detect anything wrong with it. "If it really works, it's not a bad idea, is it?"

"Assuming that's really the case, it's not that it's impossible. It's more of a last resort... The Shadow Realm is full of dangers, hostile spirits, a complex and unfamiliar environment, and the fact that humans can't withstand the other world for long—all these difficulties make this method imperfect, but in any case, it's better than staying put and enduring the apocalypse."

Yuri nodded, indicating that he understood, but he had nodded too early.

"Of course, there is another premise: that the apocalypse will not reach the Shadow Realm. The connection between the Material Realm and the Shadow Realm is so close that even if the Material Realm is simply destroyed, the Shadow Realm will begin to fluctuate. Some spirits will decline while others will rise up. If things get worse, the concept of the apocalypse will certainly include the apocalypse of the Shadow Realm. So, this is just a workaround, something worth considering when you're desperate."

"As for Kurahashi-kun... sigh, I never thought he actually got tricked by a cult. Didn't you see Ooi-kun?" Akemi sighed and asked about the second person's situation.

“No, you said yourself that he doesn’t have any obvious features, and I might not recognize him even if I saw him.” Yuri recalled that he hadn’t found anyone who was obviously familiar with Kurahashi—and if that information wasn’t taken into account, then there were no clues at all.

"Well, this information is enough for us anyway. We can consider calling the police." The high school detective smiled. "Finally, some good news."

Chapter Sixty-One: Whitewashing the Truth

Finally, there's the reporter, Ms. Reie Hojo.

If this is reliable, she may be Yuri's biggest gain from this operation—although she doesn't seem to have a very high status, she still has more access to the news than Minmei.

If she's unreliable... at least she's clearly not with the cultists. So be it, unreliable is unreliable, better than nothing.

There are ways to determine if she is reliable: see if many newspapers start defending her tomorrow. If so, it means she does have certain information channels within the newspaper.

To expand on that, news media isn't limited to newspapers; Yuri plans to watch television news as well.

I've heard that online media is very popular, but unfortunately, there isn't a clear plan for accessing the internet yet.

"I'm thinking too far ahead," Yuri said, pulling himself back to reality.

Of course, if it is confirmed that the other party has a reliable source of information, then how to obtain the information from them is another issue, and it probably won't be so easy to get answers to every question.

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 brought back mainly this much information, and then he began to inquire about Minmei's findings.

Mingmei spread the large sheet of paper out on the coffee table.

Like the previous sewer layout map, it was clearly a map of Tokyo, much more detailed—but upon closer inspection, there were many pipe-like structures that Yuri had never seen before.

A large portion of them came from along the streets.

What is this? A diagram of Tokyo's water pipes?

Yuri didn't have to wait long before Akemi quickly told him the name of the thing.

Akemi said that this was a map of Tokyo's spiritual veins—a map of the spiritual veins drawn on an ordinary map of Tokyo, based on the long-term research and investigation of the spirit hunters.

The so-called spiritual vein flow is actually just a conventional term. A spiritual vein is not a specific thing. This map should actually be called a "spiritual land rift region"—the world itself has spiritual essence resources, and they will leak out in some relatively special places. Near a relatively large rift, there are often some small rifts—these rifts are called spiritual lands. Connecting these places with dotted lines gives you the so-called spiritual vein map.

Indeed, some of the smaller cracks' spiritual essence originates from the leakage of the larger cracks, with the spiritual essence overflowing from the initial leakage point gathering at these smaller storage points—however, in most cases, regardless of size, the cracks obtain spiritual essence from the world itself.

Based on the location and condition of the sacred land, one can determine the state of the spiritual veins in the region—for some reason, they are often distributed in a linear pattern, much like water veins, hence the name. Some scholars believe this is because when fissures naturally form, they tend to create a long, narrow opening… They have a point, but there is no evidence.

Because spirits gather along with spiritual marrow, and spiritual marrow is "naturally" generated in spiritual places on spiritual veins, spirits often gather along with spiritual veins. Therefore, this map can usually be used as a distribution map of spirits in Tokyo. If the opponent will attack spirits everywhere, its movement route will likely follow the spiritual veins.

It's a series of interconnected links, each quite loosely connected, but overall it's heading in this direction.

Yuri quickly found the flaws in this method.

There is no reason to believe that the other party will definitely follow a single spiritual vein—they can easily dart around and traverse uncharted territories. Besides, it has been proven that even the spirits on very weak spiritual veins will be discovered and silenced—at least for now, the other party seems to accept all comers without hesitation.

To reinforce his argument, Yuri gestured on the map, pointing to the empty house. "You see, this area isn't marked. This means that only the more important ley lines are marked, and our opponent has indeed proven that they will act according to the non-important ley lines. In conclusion, relying on this map to find our opponent... is probably not a reliable strategy."

“Yes, so we need more information to make inferences. This… sigh.” Mingmei sighed. “We’ll have to wait until the other side burns a few more points.”

It's clear that Mingmei is not willing to do this.

Of course, she quickly rallied. "My original plan was for us to do both our surveillance and news analysis simultaneously, but now that we have your journalist friend, she should be able to help us with the news analysis part, so we only need to—"

Yuri interrupted Akemi, "I can't be sure yet whether she counts as my journalist friend."

Akemi looked over hesitantly.

"Yes, I did her a big favor—but now that I've done my part, it's uncertain whether she'll reciprocate in a sufficient way."

"What? You practically saved her life? She didn't even know how to get discounts—" Mingmei blurted out.

...Something seems off.

“Mingmei, when I helped her, she was just tied up and thrown into the basement. That's at most a loss of freedom—not that freedom isn't important—but isn't it a bit much to fast-forward to saving someone's life?”

Yuri couldn't vouch for the cultists, and whether they would ultimately resort to desperate measures was something he couldn't predict. But at least, what had already happened didn't immediately point to murder to cover it up.

“...That makes sense.” Mingmei took a few seconds to update her understanding. “Not all cults are the same. Even if the leader himself believes his own lies, this cult still seems to be very good at disguising itself and won’t kill people easily.”

"What exactly is this cult in your mind? A blood-sacrificing berserker order that disregards life and death?" Yuri wanted to ask, but he was worried that Minmei would give a definite answer like "Of course it is."

"Anyway, since it seems that the help you gave me doesn't feel like a life-saving favor... then it might indeed take a little effort, but I believe I can still persuade her, after all, it's related to her too—wait, no." Akemi interrupted herself, falling into deep thought.

Yuri wasn't quite sure what Akemi was thinking, but he felt he shouldn't bother her at a time like this.

He turned his attention to the map—which was clearly a photocopy, but even a photocopy revealed several different handwriting styles, at least three of which Yuri, an inexperienced person, could recognize.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to discern the order in which the handwriting was left on the photocopies—perhaps an experienced investigator could find it, but Yuri could not.

“No, it still won’t work,” Mingmei said, her expression troubled, and she stopped thinking. “We still have no way to prove that this fire is related to the cult… What if we’ve made a mistake? And if we can’t prove that the fire is related to the cult, we can’t convince her that she is also involved.”

Hmm, Yuri thought of a solution: forcefully announce "we know there's a connection" without telling the other party how they found out, commonly known as lying.

Yuri dislikes lying, and Akemi... probably never imagined that she could lie at this moment.

However, he didn't want to see Mingmei suffer any longer, so he suggested, "Why don't we just ask her for help? She seems very interested in these mysterious things. In the future, when it's appropriate, we can tell her some of the things we know as compensation."

For example, in some unsolved cases, Yuri would directly question the victims and then inform Hojo Reie... Since he's a journalist, this should be a decent reward.

“We can do it in the future, but we may not be able to achieve the desired result this time. If we want her help, we need her to cooperate as much as possible and work hard to help us collect this information, rather than just giving us a perfunctory response. If we don’t let her know how important this matter is, there is a high chance that she will just give us a perfunctory response.”

Yuri was out of options.

"Well... I'll try my best to persuade her to give us as much detailed information as possible, but we can't rely on her entirely. In the meantime, we need to continue combining newspaper and personal investigations."

It seemed that this was the only way, and Akemi nodded in agreement.

Mingmei plans to tell the school about the runaways tomorrow, but she needs to rest now.

Yuri was left behind to meditate.

Although it didn't serve any other purpose, it effectively consumed time.

The next morning, Mingmei went to school, while Yuri did not go out. He stayed at home watching the news on TV and trying to figure out the other party's possible route from the huge replica map.

Most news outlets didn't report on it, but one news story mentioned that someone was imitating the recent fires and starting arson... Was it really imitation? This could be considered a cover-up, but it could also not be.

More evidence is needed.

The analysis of the route further fueled suspicions that it was a cult.

At first, Yuri tried hard to find the spiritual vein path and see which direction was more likely to go, but then realized that with only three points and knowing only the order of two of them, the number of possible routes that could be drawn was too large to follow.