Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes.

Chapter 141, page 139: The True Form of the Demonic Mist

They have already accepted that the experience of playing games is a repetition of possible historical events.

In the previous game, even if they didn't figure out the real ending, they were pretty close to it and figured out the general idea.

Most importantly, the prediction was correct: Zhu Hai broke through the subway space and entered reality.

That's why they believed so much about what happened in the game.

In the game "Escape from the Other Shore," reaching the end is considered clearing the game. Nobita believes that negotiating with Orochi is not the only way to clear the game, so the part of the story he experienced can only be used as a reference.

The only confirmed historical fact is that the Onmyoji entered the other side, clashed with Orochi, and eventually escaped.

Later, before the game even touches on that, he returns to the other side and forces the serpent to agree to do something for him within five hundred years, taking the serpent's egg as leverage, promising to return it after five hundred years.

Judging from the snake's condition, this matter must have been very unfavorable for it, otherwise it wouldn't have needed to be bound with chains.

As for why the Onmyoji broke his promise, he tends to think it was out of helplessness or some unexpected event that prevented him from fulfilling the agreement.

Since a five-hundred-year agreement was made, it means that what the serpent was asked to do was quite important to him. Even if he himself did not live to see that time, he should have made arrangements for future generations to remember it.

Otherwise, he could have tied the snake up there, and even if he wanted to steal it, he could have taken the snake eggs. There was no need for him to go through all that trouble to trick it.

Okay, even if this Onmyoji is really so shameless, wanting not only snake eggs but also tricking the giant snake into doing things for him in order to maximize his profits, he should still come over to collect the rewards and kill the giant snake in the process.

The thing Nobita pulled out of the snake's heart must have some value, right?

"Didn't Orochi mention that the spiritual energy in the human world has greatly diminished? It's said that during these five hundred years of inheritance, the decline in spiritual energy caused the Onmyoji family to lose its lineage and be unable to fulfill its promise?"

Uesugi deduced this based on Nobi's information.

For now, this is the only guess we can make.

"There's another way: the Great Serpent curses the bloodline of Onmyoji to suffer the pain of being devoured by ten thousand serpents. The effects should be quite noticeable. And after a thousand years, it must have spread to quite a few people by now, right?"

"If we can find even one of them, we might be able to deduce the identity of that Onmyoji and perhaps find some new clues."

"However, I think this curse is more likely to require a sufficient bloodline concentration to be activated, otherwise, after so many years, I might already have it."

Uesugi's words make some sense. In any case, it's a good direction. If the authorities knew this information, they might be able to find out the truth quickly. However, Nobi has no intention of cooperating with the authorities, and finding out the descendants of the Onmyoji family might be a bad thing for them.

Nobita suppressed his many questions for the time being, thinking that as long as the game continued to refresh, perhaps one day he would unexpectedly fill in the missing clues.

His concern stemmed from the lessons of the subway incident, and he feared that something lurking within might bring about a calamity in the near future.

"Thank you for your help these past few days. If you need my help in the future, please don't hesitate to ask."

Nobita thanked him sincerely.

"If there's anything I can't handle, I won't hold back." Uesugi was waiting for Nobi's promise; otherwise, he'd really think she was being generous for free.

If it weren't for the qualities Nobi demonstrated through her actions, she wouldn't have risked doing her best to help in exchange for a mere empty promise.

For some people, a promise is not even something they can keep to wipe their butt; after all, how can you wipe something you don't have?

For someone like Nobita, this is very important. He usually wouldn't promise to go out, but once he does, he's truly willing to go through fire and water for them.

"I haven't even asked yet, how many points did you accumulate?"

"Only 10."

"I only achieved the ending at 30, but this game isn't as torturous as Subway, so I think it's alright. I hope future games will be like this."

"The day after tomorrow is the 5th. I remember the first game appeared on the night of the 5th. It was supposed to be a cycle of one difficult game and one easy game?"

"Nothing could be more disgusting than the subway." Uesugi didn't want to recall those days. "How long do you plan to stay in Yamagata Prefecture?"

"I plan to raise some money for the families of the victims, which may take a few days."

The official figures for casualties have not been released, but Nobi discovered that the authorities had taken those who escaped from that small place into centralized resettlement, so he should be able to find out some information.

"Although I don't want to morally blackmail you, the Demon Mist was indeed very crazy a few days ago, killing a lot of people. The so-called special forces of the government were like dogs being led around."

"His ability is difficult to counter using conventional methods, and large-scale explosions in urban areas are impractical."

The last time they fought, the main reason was that the opponent seemed to have no mind for him at all, and he was a bit absent-minded. Coincidentally, he also summoned a companion with magical damage abilities, which made the opponent choose to leave.

It's hard to say whether it was his doing, or whether the other side, seeing that they had killed almost everyone, didn't bother to finish off the remaining batch.

The two chatted for a while longer before logging off to continue dealing with their real-world matters.

Uesugi sat up in bed, stretched, and started calculating his points.

"Eighty plus thirty equals one hundred and ten. Shall we buy something first?"

"Hey, why am I making money through live streaming even though I have superpowers?"

I checked the time; it was almost time to start the broadcast. Reluctantly, I sat down at my computer desk, adjusted the equipment, and just as I finished clearing my throat, the phone rang.

The caller ID showed it was her mother, and she answered it.

"Mom? Why are you calling me at this hour?"

"Tongyue, sob sob, your dad... sob sob."

It was evening at a hospital in Kumamoto City.

"Didn't I tell you not to call my daughter over? Oh dear, the doctor told me I'll have surgery tomorrow, be discharged in three days, and be able to exercise in seven days. You're making it sound like I'm going to never get off the operating table."

In the hospital ward, Uesugi's father complained to Uesugi's mother, who was wiping away tears.

"When I heard it was some kind of tumor or cyst, I was terrified. I thought the doctor was just trying to comfort me."

"It's a liver cyst, you can find out by searching it online. It's not a big problem. If it were a terminal illness, the doctor would be hiding it from me. But if I told you, I would definitely be able to tell. And now they even made Hitomi take leave and come all the way back." Uesugi Hitomi was peeling an apple on the side, watching the two of them talk back and forth.

When she first heard the news, her mind really went blank.

I quickly bought a plane ticket to the nearest hospital and flew there.

On the way, I read the message from my mother, slowly sorted it out, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Liver cysts are indeed benign tumors and generally don't cause any problems.

but
“Dad, it’s surgery after all, you should have notified me.”

"And you, Mom, you should have been clearer when you called me. You really scared me."

The father smacked his lips and muttered something like, "It's just a minor ailment. How can an old person not have any ailments?"

The mother sat down next to Uesugi and began asking about his recent life.

"Here, have an apple—oh right, you can't eat that, you have to fast today."

Tongyue twirled the apple in her hand and handed it to her mother.

"Yes, yes, he can't eat, and he should drink as little water as possible, or better yet, not at all." The mother took the apple and ate it in front of her husband.

Uesugi's father, seemingly unperturbed by the sight, lay on the bed with his eyes closed, feigning sleep, appearing sullen, but a slight smile involuntarily curved the corners of his mouth.

The next day, Uesugi continued to stay with her parents. They didn't do much, just chatted about the past and present in the hospital room. They generally didn't talk too much about the future, worried about putting too much pressure on their daughter.

But the future is constantly becoming the present, and then it becomes the past without any regret, just like human aging, which is irreversible.

She took out a box containing two health pills that she had just redeemed with sixty points.

Points can be earned back, but parents' health is more important.

"Mom and Dad, this thing is my friend."

"This is Kosuke Iwasaki's medical report. His condition is much worse than when he first moved in."

"He was completely cooperative?"

"Well, at least for now, his suspicion can be downgraded by one level."

"Hiss, but it's too much of a coincidence that his parents were killed in a car accident, and Yaowu went to great lengths to bring the car to the hotel. Could it really have been just a convenient thing to do?"

"Currently, there is no evidence that the Iwasaki family orchestrated the killing of his parents."

You definitely won't find it.

The person who drove the car was a terminally ill patient and died long ago. The people who knew about it were the Iwasaki family's higher-ups and the leader of the Arakawa Ryuzaku group. Now, all of them are lying neatly in a temporarily rented cold storage.

In other words, there is currently no evidence to suggest that Iwasaki's parents' deaths were related to the family, which is why Iwasaki Kosuke had a strong motive to kill them, and to take revenge with a truck.

Pretending to be a paralyzed patient is easy; unless something is contrary to common sense, it's hard for ordinary people to see through the illusion.

The demonic mist he transformed into never revealed this ability, and he always physically shielded himself from cameras.

Just like when you see a trash can on the side of the road, you won't doubt that the trash can is fake, but if you see a passenger plane crash into the Twin Towers in front of you, you will definitely think that you have seen too many hellish jokes and it is just a hallucination.

The process is a bit complicated because he can fool people and even cameras, but he can't fool the original data from mechanical inspection. This requires him to be familiar with the inspection process in advance and prepare replacement materials.

However, the most important methods for checking whether someone is paralyzed are neurological and imaging examinations, as well as the characteristics of prolonged bed rest. He can fake these, and he has already prepared based on past records.

At the same time, he also tried his best to expand his range of perception so that he could leave immediately if anything unexpected happened.

Kurosaki scratched his head. In his intuition, Hiramori Ryu, one of the top suspects in Iwasaki Kosuke's group, also thought so.

The reason this process hadn't been followed before was simply because the methods for dealing with the demonic mist weren't yet complete.

They are now on guard, and the Talos squad is also on guard in secret, but they have not made a move because the other side has not shown any unusual behavior.

Now that the information is available, there is even less need to take action.

"Has Iwasaki Miyabi been found?"

"Not yet, it's like they've vanished into thin air. The most recent sighting was on the 14th."

Ping Shenglong glanced at his phone and answered a call.

A moment later, he hung up the phone, his expression rather strange.

"I think I heard Nakajima's voice."

“Yes, someone reported to the police that her friend had been missing for some time, and her friend is Iwasaki Miyabi.” Taira nods slightly. “In the information she provided, there is a secret investigation by Iwasaki Miyabi into the Iwasaki family. The information shows that Iwasaki Miyabi suspects that her parents’ car accident was not an accident, but was done by the family. But after that, she suddenly lost contact with her. She suspects that her friend has met with misfortune.”

Kurosaki's eyes gradually brightened, and the previously lacking evidence was now being filled in.

Besides Iwasaki Kosuke, another person in the first tier of suspicion is Iwasaki Miyabi.

And he is more convincing than Kosuke Iwasaki, a paralyzed patient.

The inhuman, ghostly voice that the other party revealed when talking to the knight seems to further corroborate this point.

With this new information, the actions of the demonic mist, when applied to Iwasaki Miyabi, are perfectly plausible and make perfect sense.

"No wonder we couldn't find any trace of her, that explains it."

"Iwasaki Miyabi—that's the Black-Robed Demon Mist!"

(End of this chapter)