Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

"There's one more thing I need to confirm, Mingmei, just how good is the fire resistance of your clothes?"

Ideally, it should reach the level of a material called "asbestos" that Yuri saw in the book.

"To be honest, I haven't tested it, but it's not particularly reliable—if the other side throws fireballs or fireballs, you'll have to take them head-on. If my clothes get on fire, I'll have to get rid of them as soon as possible, and I might temporarily lose my fighting ability."

Minmei's answer was not as good as Yuri had hoped.

He decided to console himself that at least knowing beforehand was better than having an accident at the last minute.

The journey to the destination was very quiet, and nothing unexpected happened.

Around 2 or 3 a.m., most people are sound asleep. Of course, this excludes those working night shifts.

There were no flames or smoke in the vicinity, and of course, no arsonist running around in the street.

Has it not arrived yet, or has it already left? Yuri began to doubt his own judgment.

"Don't panic, let's see if this... this pile of junk is of any use." In the storage box at the back of the motorcycle, Akemi pulled out several strange items. Yuri had never seen these before, so they were probably brought by Akemi specifically for this event.

A compass with spiritual energy, a triangle, something that looks like a metal detector, a roll of soft water pipe, and a radio.

Yuri checked again carefully. Except for the soft water pipe, which had no spiritual energy, the others all had a faint spiritual energy... Judging from the degree of their weakness, they were probably not intended for direct combat.

"What are all these things for?" Ask if you don't understand.

"According to what the spirit hunters say, these are spirit-searching tools that even monkeys could use—not the soft water pipe, but the kind I plan to use to put out fires in case they start."

What does it mean to say "even a monkey could use it"? Isn't that a bit insulting?

"In short, they are all things with their own flaws, but they are still somewhat useful. For example, this radio is said to be able to hear the conversations of nearby spirits."

"What are the drawbacks?" Let's fast forward to the end.

"The downside is that no one knows what principle was used to select the conversations of nearby spirits—in short, when there is only one spirit nearby, you can probably hear about 90% of the tone."

"You mean 90% of the words?"

"Tone. So there are often splicing errors. Of course, what is even more difficult to achieve is to have only one spirit nearby - its search radius is several kilometers, depending on the weather and the state of the machine at the time, and in such a large area there will always be some low-level spirits hiding, and then, regardless of their strength, they will all cause interference."

"What if the target you're looking for is exceptionally strong, standing out from the crowd?"

"Theoretically, it would certainly be helpful, but in practice, it's generally not necessary to use it in this situation."

The same applies to other things.

"A compass pointing to the spiritual veins"—completely unable to distinguish the size of the spiritual veins.

"A triangle that rattles without wind, depending on the strength of the nearby spirits"—I moved closer to Yuri, and it's already started rattling.

"A detector used to detect recently performed spiritual energy"—it is almost always pointed at the user and other instruments.

Yes, it is indeed "even monkeys can use it"—anyone with an IQ above 10 should be able to use it, but the effectiveness is hard to say.

“The better ones were all moved away beforehand, leaving only these,” Akemi summarized. “And these are better than nothing, right? I also brought a stone and a clump of powder, the root of some fire spirits' malice, collected by that guy, Takemura. — I don’t know if they’ll be useful for this, but I brought them anyway, just in case.”

Akemi had indeed made a lot of preparations; after she was fully armed with these things, she looked a bit like she had just escaped from a hospital.

There's nothing we can do about it. According to Mingmei, the better products are probably all soaked in water now.

Yuri handed over what he had collected to Akemi; whether or not she could use it was up to her.

Walked for a while.

"Are you really sure these won't lead to troublesome wrong options? I think using so many unreliable tools at the same time makes it much more likely to go in the wrong direction."

"Yes, and if two or even three of these point in the same direction, I think it would be quite effective."

Does this make sense from a probability scale, you high school girl?!

After walking for a while, the compass was the first to react, then the detector turned in the same direction, and finally the triangle changed its frequency and started beeping.

Only the radio stopped responding; three-quarters of the instruments made the same judgment.

They all agreed that there was something wrong with a semi-abandoned house next door.

“No smoke, no fire, no strong spiritual energy fluctuations—” As Akemi stopped, Yuri rushed ahead and explored the house.

As Yuri approached the house, he felt a sense of threat.

Going in for further exploration might lead to trouble, but at this distance is enough to make a judgment: the aura emanating from the creature inside is different from that of the arsonist.

Undeterred, Akemi continued her search of the surrounding area. Unfortunately, she found nothing of value.

The monitoring instruments alarmed multiple times (any movement counts), but Yuri found nothing unusual except a few rat spirits (level one and not much larger than ordinary rats).

They almost got into a fight with a parrot spirit guarding an extremely weak spiritual land. As a level one parrot, it tried its best to intimidate Yuri in order to protect its territory.

Of course, Yuri wasn't looking for a fight, so he voluntarily backed down.

The bad news is that it seems the arsonist wasn't caught red-handed.

The good news is that the possibility that the arsonist hasn't arrived yet outweighs the possibility that the arsonist has already run away.

"Since we're already here, why don't we just wait and see? I happen to have some time today."

Akemi's suggestion coincided with Yuri's.

While it's not to say that the arsonist wouldn't take a detour, the two are already here, so waiting a little longer won't cause any significant loss.

Of course, it is still necessary to decide where exactly to guard.

"What do you think of that place where you could feel the threat just by standing at the door?" Akemi asked. "I think it's more likely the arsonist discovered it first. But if it's incredibly strong, it might have been bypassed, in which case the parrot in the other place would have been the first to suffer. I didn't feel it was particularly strong, but what do you think?"

Yuri recalled his feelings at the time and finally spoke with considerable confidence.

"No, it shouldn't be that strong. I feel that it's... slightly stronger than me in terms of direct strength, but there's no fundamental difference. The outcome of an actual fight is uncertain."

Yuri has the advantage of agility when facing most spirits, and he can make up for it if the difference in strength is not too great.

"Let's go this way then. Now we'll see how lucky we are."

The two found a good spot near the semi-abandoned house, lay in ambush, and began to wait for their prey to come to them.

Chapter 66: Encounter

The wait was rather long, and Yuri felt he understood why there were often storylines where people would chat about secrets in places where no one else was around, and then be overheard.

He really wants to chat now.

Akemi, who had initially been focused intently on the "tree stump" used for waiting for prey, also began to lose focus.

If you point that out, she'll definitely say that a balance between work and rest, and mental relaxation, is essential to lasting longer...

Yuri strongly supports this point, so he won't specifically point it out.

However, even without chatting, the two of them are not exactly hiding their true intentions, since the suspicious pendants are still giving off some kind of reaction from time to time.

It's already standing still, yet it's still giving a response; that's just too much.

"Are all the things that Spirit Hunters use this unreliable?" Yuri finally couldn't help but bring it up.

“No, of course not. In fact, I doubt whether they did these things themselves… They prefer to rely on their own strength,” Akemi paused for a moment. “These are more like strange items that they collected and then discovered had some use, so I didn’t encounter any obstacles when I lent them out.”

Akemi's words carried a hint of self-deprecation, "At least Uncle Okumura thinks these things are for kids to play with, so it's normal for him to give them to me."

"And then they sent the kids to the front lines?" Yuri said indignantly.

Mingmei wasn't so excited, "After all, it was the child who went to the front line on his own."

Yuri wanted to say a few more words, but the radio suddenly rang, making a sound like "whooshing".

It was completely unlike any spirit language Yuri had ever heard, yet it continued to elicit a response…

Is it the spirit crying?

Yuri banished the absurd thought from his mind; he had never seen a spirit actually cry. Ghosts could fake crying, but for a spirit, even acting out a cry was difficult.

The sound continued and was amplifying, mixed with crackling sounds.

"What do you think this is 90% of the content?"

"There is only one tone, and I think there was probably only one tone to begin with."

Yuri's intuition told him that the big fish he had been waiting for might have finally arrived.

Intuition is unreliable, but Yuri's intuition was actually quite accurate.

He gave Mingmei a look, and Mingmei seemed to understand what he meant. She shrank back and tensed up.

Before long, a ball of flame rushed across the street at dawn. Lacking any other background for comparison, Yuri paused for a moment before confirming that the other party was a spirit in the twilight, rather than a wave of fire from the material world.

A living, spiritual flame emanated the familiar aura Yuri had been experiencing these past few days—a very faint one, which would dissipate in less than fifteen minutes.

According to Mingmei's knowledge, a spirit's aura usually doesn't leave a trace when not in combat. The fact that this guy could leave a trace for a quarter of an hour is already quite unrefined.

It didn't seem to have found the duo, or at least didn't consider them its primary target—it went straight for the duo's ambush target, the semi-abandoned house.

From the moment it appeared until it crashed into the house, a mere half-minute passed. Yuri had been consuming his spiritual essence to keep a close eye on it, hoping to "see" some weaknesses.

This spirit is brimming with power, its spiritual essence burning, absolutely surpassing Yuri, but not entirely invincible. —Inner mental marker: Level Three.

In other words, the one in the room who was "slightly better" than Yuri should, basically, probably, definitely not be its match.

Its power comes not only from the flames, but also from the power of the wind. As the saying goes, fire borrows the wind's power, and the two forces combine quite well—wasn't that the sound of wind and burning that you just heard on the radio?

It is not a simple fire spirit; it is filled with malice towards human society, for reasons that are unclear.

Its weakness—

Yuri encountered obstacles while trying to read his opponent's weaknesses, and before he could break through them, his opponent had already charged in.

Now that they'd already arrived, there was no reason to avoid it. They quickly informed Akemi of the abilities they'd identified from the other party, and the two rushed into the house one after the other, leaving the pile of equipment behind.

Unlike the fiery spirit that materialized and passed through the door, Akemi physically broke through the window, which naturally caused quite a commotion. However, neither of the two spirits currently engaged in combat seemed to have the time to punish such acts of property damage.

Just like previous observations, as a semi-abandoned house that has been uninhabited for a long time, the ground is covered with a thick layer of dust.

Although we don't know just how wealthy the homeowner is to leave such a large house unattended, it's convenient for now, as we don't have to worry about the homeowner suddenly appearing and getting involved in this matter.

As they drew closer, the appearances of the two spirits became clearer.

It was clearly the intruder's arsonist; a cylindrical flame, three meters high, had already touched the ceiling. Its diameter changed as it moved, but generally fluctuated between one and three meters.

The counterpart looks like a tree, but upon closer inspection, it doesn't actually have an upper half; it's a wooden stake—truly a case of waiting for a rabbit to run into a tree stump.

Although the two fighting spirits instinctively separated slightly the moment the duo entered, judging from their physical condition, the fire pillar had no range, while the wooden stake already showed scorch marks.

Without a doubt, in less than a minute, the arsonist had gained a complete advantage and inflicted damage on the opponent's body. This is why, the moment Yuri rushed in, the arsonist had the energy to turn around and observe the intruder, while the wooden stake was struggling to catch its breath.

"Release that stake immediately!" Mingmei commanded righteously, drawing everyone's attention.

"Human! You're courting death!" The voice of the Flame Spirit came from the center of the body. Even without the radio that had been thrown aside, both of them could hear it. It was a human language with a slightly strange accent.

"Why would you do such a thing! Who ordered you to do it!" Yuri immediately interrupted.

"You die too!" Unfortunately, the other party wasn't cooperative and didn't reveal their background at all.

The pillar of fire suddenly began to spin, and its size suddenly began to expand.

At first glance, it looks like it has grown larger, but upon closer inspection, it is actually a vortex of flames emanating from its main body.

Preparing to launch an attack while talking? That's dishonest, but completely understandable.

Yuri opened the protective barrier, adding extra spiritual essence to expand its range of influence, enveloping Mingmei as well. This barrier seemed a little different, but now was definitely not the time to conduct academic research.

The flowing flames collided with the fixed protective barrier, like waves crashing against rocks—however, Yuri's barrier was not as resilient as battle-hardened rocks, and it suffered some damage in the impact.

Can I take it one more time... or two more?

As the flames subsided, Akemi suddenly reached out from behind the protective barrier and rubbed her sleeve against the flames. Her clothes turned slightly black, but they didn't catch fire.

“The infused clothes can block the flames, but I’m afraid they won’t last long—look over there!” Mingmei briefly told Yuri the test results, then pointed to a place a little further away.

Following the direction Mingmei pointed, Yuri noticed that the wooden stake performed very poorly in this fire attack; its barely extended branches were swept away by the flames.

Is this what they mean by fire overcoming wood? The last time I saw something like this was when Mingmei used the anchor to smash the sea urchin. It seems quite normal that the spirit of the wooden stake was defeated so quickly.

We can't let it fall too quickly. First, it was, after all, one of the forces fighting the arsonist. Second, as a local strongman, it should know more about the situation.

“I’ll hold them off, you hurry over there, and I’ll escape last.” Yuri devised a simple plan—they couldn’t drag this out any longer; the Fire Pillar Spirit was about to unleash its second Flame Whirlwind.

Akemi threw the stone and the powder stuck to it at the pillar of fire, but unfortunately, these things passed through the pillar of fire without any hindrance.

As expected, it turned out that a random search revealed the opponent's weakness.

Taking advantage of the opponent being distracted by the thrown object... Actually, Yuri wasn't sure if the opponent would actually be distracted by it; it was too difficult to read an expression from a ball of flame. Anyway, hoping the opponent would be distracted by the thrown object, Yuri, suppressing his disappointment, took the lead and charged towards the pillar of fire with the protective barrier.

Living things have an instinct to fear fire, but spirits do not, therefore spirits are not living things.