Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

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 recounted his experiences in as much detail as possible, from leaving home, arriving at the station, encountering the train spirit and the unnamed robot spirit, and the accident that happened, all the way to the end when he ran back home.

"You really have had a hard time." Akemi looked a little surprised. "I thought you hadn't even reached your destination or found anyone when you were surrounded by rats and had to run back in a sorry state."

"If I had set off any later, this might really have happened." Yuri had hardly wasted any time this time, although he might have taken some detours.

“Hmm… I might have heard of that robot spirit you mentioned, but I could be wrong.” Akemi thought for a moment. “If I’m not mistaken, then it’s a camera spirit.”

Cameras have spirits too? Yuri felt a wave of dizziness.

Yes, a camera is an object, and not a human, so of course it can have a spirit, but... is that appropriate?

"Camera spirits, their nature includes discoverers, disseminators, and secret keepers—you can believe they have a considerable intelligence network, though it's said to be generally not very strong... What you see might already be a representative of their kind. If they were to send a message to the Lord of the Spirit Court, they would likely send their strongest members."

The knowledge Yuri gained from the book about the Spirit King's Court was activated upon hearing the term.

Spirits are often unable to form social structures outside of the jungle where the strong prey on the weak. This leads them to always be hostile towards other spirits except for their own kind. Among their own kind, the hostility is usually only minor, with the exception of those who have a tendency to gregarious.

However, some powerful spirits, through their reputation (if they have it), wisdom (if they do), and strength (they certainly do), will maintain a relatively peaceful and orderly social structure in their core territories. Here, as long as they are accepted by the Lord of the Royal Court, all spirits can maintain peaceful relations with each other.

Those who are unwilling to maintain peace will be seen as challenging the ruler of the royal court, and will usually die.

After achieving peace, they might even turn to cooperation and complementarity, which, however much additional strength this might bring, would certainly be better than fighting each other.

Therefore, the Spirit King's Court is usually considered as a whole group, and its strength is often quite formidable.

"Uh, why are you looking at me like that?" Akemi felt uncomfortable being stared at by Yuri with resentful, dead fish eyes.

"The Spirit King's Court, why didn't you tell me about this sooner?" Yuri recalled that he almost got into a fight with the guards... No, he didn't really want to fight the guards, but he was indeed tempted.

If I had known it would turn out this way, I wouldn't have even been tempted.

"I thought you knew!?" Mingmei's shock was no less than Yuri's. "Yuri, you see, I know you've read that book, and you know there are powerful spirits here, and it's a peaceful zone. I thought you would have guessed—"

"I...didn't." Yuri felt like he had spent the last half day catching up on lessons. This lesson was "Don't think that just because you've read it and memorized it, you know it."

"I'm sorry." Akemi seemed unsure of what to say.

“Listen, this isn’t her problem, it’s yours—and now is not the time to dwell on your wounded feelings!” Yuri admonished himself, then spoke again, “Yes, I’ll remember that—so, just how vast is the territory of this Spirit King’s Court? Do you know?”

First, ruling out the possibility of only having one station, Line 2 said it would check out other locations.

Does that mean all the train stations in Tokyo? Isn't that too broad a scope?

“I don’t know, but judging from your description, it’s quite possible that a few major stations are the core, and then other stations and the areas near the major stations are the affected areas… That’s already quite large. Tokyo is a big city after all, and the lines are very dense… Whether it’s advanced or not is another matter.” Akemi pondered, “The spirit of trains… I never thought it would actually be…”

"Then it's obvious that the newcomer can't achieve complete harmony; the power of both sides will inevitably be squeezed... That's why the train spirits said they are certainly not friends." That makes sense, it makes perfect sense.

"Can we expect the train spirit to solve this problem directly? With a bang?" Mingmei made a smashing motion. "After all, it looks very powerful, many times more powerful than the two of us combined."

Yuri carefully recalled the transcript of the conversation and shook his head.

"No, I'm afraid not. It says 'it's not that easy.' Perhaps we can count on it to offer some help, but it can't, or isn't willing to, solve the problem directly."

“It seems we can’t just lie at home and wait for things to end, and we can’t just stop thinking.” Akemi was quite disappointed. “Honestly, I don’t want to get involved in something this big… but they don’t seem like they’re going to give me a chance to escape.”

Yes, the rats are still continuously depleting the magic circle.

Chapter 83 Facing Each Other Through the Window

This is a safe house, at least until the energy in the shrine is depleted.

Yuri had already used up his own energy reserves to heal his wounds, and he was careful not to use the energy in the shrine.

After all, who knows how long they'll be staying in this house?

Mingmei found a notebook and briefly wrote down everything Yuri had told her, trying to find more clues and suspicious points from it.

Yuri was responsible for monitoring the status of the magic circle during this time, as well as preparing for any emergency response should the rats find a way to break in.

This function is actually meaningless. The defense of the magic circle is not a specific shape, but a concept like "a house/a room".

Yuri suspected that with proper modifications, a circular magic circle could also be created, but that might cause some problems in its application... after all, very few people would live in a circular house.

Perhaps this is actually an improved version.

Although it doesn't have any special significance, the light film actually covers the entire wall.

Upon close inspection of the inner side of the walls in the spirit version, one can find the same light membrane as that found at the doors and windows.

This proves that the defense did not appear out of thin air at the entrance, but rather expanded to the entire room... with the room completing the final shaping.

In this way, it's unlikely that a single vulnerability will appear; if it's going to break, it will break completely.

Yuri had some doubts about whether Minmei assigned him this task primarily so that he could take a break.

Well, I'll accept her kindness.

Yuri found a comfortable position, floated, and unconsciously stared at the mice outside the window.

It's simply impossible to ignore it.

These rats cannot directly wear down the magic circle with energy like Yuri, nor are they capable of breaking through the magic circle before destroying it, and launching an attack on the magic circle seems to consume a lot of their energy.

Although a few mice still occasionally try to nibble at it recklessly, only to be bounced away by the light membrane, most mice have generally given up on continuous attacks and have instead adopted a defensive stance.

They were already in this state before Yuri appeared. Yuri's sudden appearance stimulated them, making them active for a while, but now they have calmed down again.

This is probably why the energy inside the shrine can last for more than ten hours. If they were to launch an attack regardless of their own losses, this time would be greatly shortened.

In less than an hour, they had gotten used to the encirclement, only becoming agitated when Yuri entered the room.

Is something hidden here...? Yuri recalled the process of entering the house.

As soon as he appeared on the rooftop, he noticed that some of the rats were moving toward him.

These rats' actions will not be later than Yuri's arrival at the rooftop; in fact, they may even occur earlier.

Based on their own line of sight, they shouldn't be able to spot Yuri. This corner can block Yuri's view, and naturally it can also block the rats.

Furthermore, these rats couldn't possibly know how long it would take for the shrine inside to be depleted; to them, the defenses here should have been marked as insurmountable.

Whether out of animal instinct or reason, they shouldn't be lingering here, looking like they're determined to break in.

What reason could they possibly have to keep besieging this place? Is there something inside that is extremely attractive to them, or is someone directing them, and the person in charge believes that this place should be besieged?

One possibility is that they do not perceive their surroundings through sight, or at least not entirely through sight.

Yuri, as a living, but not strong, spirit, was sensed by them.

This seems reasonable... According to this understanding, the next step is that they could very well have sensed something in the room that was very attractive to them.

Akemi? Is Akemi really that special?

However, even if it wasn't Akemi, there was another obvious target.

A shrine that contains a great deal of energy.

After the initial emergency, and having mastered the ability to exploit the repeating machine, Yuri changed his view of the shrine from daily sustenance to a reserve granary. Akemi continued to store spiritual essence into it every day (of course, sometimes she would slack off), but Yuri would not easily use this reserve force.

As carriers of specially concentrated spiritual essence, this might be a feast for these mice. Of course, if it were actually divided equally among so many mice, each mouse would probably only get a small portion, but they probably wouldn't think that much about it, each believing themselves to be the lucky mouse who gets the biggest share.

The second possibility is that it wasn't just based on "their" line of sight; there were other lines of sight at the scene that helped them locate themselves.

At first, the other eye was fixed on the dwelling and did not notice Yuri, who was a little further away. But when Yuri appeared on the roof, it saw him and immediately commanded the swarm of rats to rush up.

That doesn't seem impossible... As the leader, it might be hiding in the shadows, which is why Yuri didn't find it when he was observing the rat swarm.

Then the commander determined that Mingmei, who was blocking its advance, was a threat and ordered the rats to continue surrounding it there.

The third possibility is quite simple: they were targeted from the very beginning.

Yuri didn't think Akemi Kakizaki had any right to be targeted by someone who had caused such a big incident, but it was also possible that the other party had just randomly drawn an X on the map, ordered the rat swarm to this place, and Akemi just happened to be surrounded here.

This is simply bad luck, a very unlikely possibility, but if it did happen, Yuri would be powerless to stop it. Furthermore, it doesn't explain why the rats were able to react so quickly; other factors may need to be considered.

He closed his eyes and continued to think, trying to find other information.

wrong.

Yuri approached the light membrane and carefully observed the swarming rats outside.

They keep moving and never stop, making it difficult for Yuri to pinpoint a specific one, but spending more time on them will still help.

This swarm of rats, at least the ones perched outside the window, are all very weak.

It's not that they're weaker than Yuri, which is certainly true, but the point is that they're exceptionally weak on their own.

Yuri believed that a small portion of them were slightly weaker than the repeaters, but overall still at the same level. However, the majority of the remaining group consisted of extremely fragile individuals with extremely low energy levels, and—considering their previous encounters—truly weaklings who could be easily destroyed by Yuri's casual attacks.

The legendary Level Zero? The initial form of all spirits, a nascent shape with a future direction. Their structure is currently unstable.

In the books Yuri had read, their existence was only mentioned in theory; most mystics had never actually seen these extremely weak spirits.

Well... that's for sure. After all, such spirits are too easily destroyed for various reasons. If they can shatter themselves when attacking Yuri, they will naturally be disturbed and destroyed in a million other situations.

The vast majority of them fail to grow into spirits with a stable form.

If someone sends out a signal that they can all hear and obey, such a signal cannot be too complex.

Spirits are not without brains, but these weak spirits have no room for brains; they are unlikely to understand ethereal hints.

Yuri and a mouse that had stopped looked at each other, but Yuri couldn't read anything from its small eyes.

So, a clear signal, like "upward," should also be something Yuri could hear.

The truth is no.

Possibility two was ruled out. And possibility three was simply too small.

Assuming we take possibility one, they are quite sensitive to energy, even to the point of being as hungry as Yuri. Right now, they are likely to chase Yuri and Minmei to the ends of the earth, unless something else attracts them away.

...Back at the window, Yuri observed the mice outside. After a while, he concluded that they must have fainted from hunger.

During the time he observed, two extremely weak mouse spirits disintegrated on their own, and the little bit of spiritual energy they emitted was devoured without hesitation by the other mice.

This seems to be the first time Yuri has seen spirits that have actually starved to death. Perhaps when they pounced on him before, they literally meant they wanted to devour Yuri alive.

Even so, they showed no intention of looking for food elsewhere, which is truly remarkable.

Another takeaway is that Yuri believes the root of most Zero-Rank Rat Spirits' malice is quite broad… “Predators,” clearly not limited to cats. Upon closer reflection, perhaps a portion of it is so large that Yuri includes it—the one that ran into Yuri's teeth and died might be of that type.

But it's almost certain that ordinary people don't count, although humans are indeed quite advanced predators—maybe they have to be a bit wild, like the American Plus version?

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.

"I think we can make a preliminary assessment of who's behind this..." After half an hour of research, Akemi declared to the records in front of her.

“According to the information I got from the train spirit, it’s a Zoan type,” Yuri immediately stated the conclusion he had already reached.

“Yes, of course it’s an animal type, but we can refine it a bit more—to put it simply, it’s undoubtedly the king of rats… let’s call it Rat King.” Akemi nodded, tapping the notebook in front of her.

"Why? Just because all we're seeing now are rats?" Yuri couldn't find any evidence to contradict this conclusion, but he felt that the existing information was insufficient.

“That’s right, because all we’re seeing right now are rats—have you seen even one cat?” Akemi continued the conversation directly.

Strictly speaking, after Yuri searched his memories, in the very beginning—that is, after they first sensed the opening of the Shadow Gate and when Yuri went out to patrol—he did see some other spirits.

Although they are not cats, but dogs and birds, the difference is not significant in this context.

But today, after leaving the station, he didn't see any other spirits at all.

"I haven't seen it recently, at least not recently," I answered Akemi's question honestly.

“If it were simply about increasing the resonance of animals, then the overall proportion of various spirits should be more even, rather than the current situation where the rat spirit has an overwhelming advantage.” Mingmei seemed to be about to draw a diagram on the paper, but stopped after starting, leaving only half a circle. “The current situation where the rat spirit has an overwhelming advantage only occurs when the vast majority of those who come from the beginning are rats. In other words, this resonance may indeed accept the manifestation of other animal spirits, but it is most suitable for the rat spirit.”

Yuri understood the rest without Akemi having to say it.

If a powerful spirit resonates with a rat, then it is naturally associated with rats.

After being largely convinced, Yuri realized that there was actually another piece of evidence supporting this judgment.

While thinking, he told Akemi his thoughts, “What you said makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, the number of rats has obviously far exceeded the limit under normal circumstances, and they are not attacking each other, which usually only happens in environments with particularly abundant energy—but I don’t think the environment around us is like that for them… In fact, just now, I even saw some that were starving to the point of disintegration.”

Akemi listened attentively, and it was clear that she had no objections to Yuri's description.

“I think—” Just as he was about to reach a conclusion, Yuri suddenly felt a little guilty. “Wait a minute, let me confirm. Higher-ranking spirits of the same kind do indeed have the ability to dominate weaker spirits, right?”

“If we’re talking about spirits, that’s true. It’s hard to say whether it’s direct control or some kind of instinctive intimidation. In terms of behavior, higher-level spirits can often command lower-level spirits of the same kind. It’s a different story with ghosts, but that’s not important right now.” Mingmei nodded.

"So I think—the mastermind behind it all gave them an order, or a constraint, making them unwilling or unable to attack each other, which led to the current situation."

Yuri spoke with a hint of regret. If these rats had attacked and devoured each other, they might have formed a few slightly stronger ones, which would have made them much easier to deal with.

Unfortunately, whoever the "Rat King" behind the scenes is, he is clearly not foolish enough to send out a bunch of self-destructive creatures.

Pause—Yuri realized he had inadvertently taken a step ahead.