Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes.

Chapter 172, Section 170: The Frenzy of the Other Shore

[Sen: I heard from the knight that you are Demon Mist? Currently, the other five players have reached a mutual assistance agreement, and they may make their move against you next.]

But I know you must have had reasons for what you did in real life. I really don't want to see hostility between players. We should unite to prevent the official team from having any opportunity to exploit the situation.

In the early morning, Iwasaki read Renault's message but didn't feel much.

Even setting aside his inner thoughts, his abilities meant he couldn't share a common goal with other players who wanted to maintain order.

Even if they manage to stay together, they will eventually fall out due to differences in their views.

This player named Sen is quite interesting.

He spoke in a seemingly kind tone, then subtly revealed that the five players had formed an alliance and might be targeting him.

Is this an attempt to entice me to proactively propose cooperation with him?

For reasons of self-interest, he did hope to have an intelligence source that could provide information on the movements of other players.

But this person gave him a sense of hypocrisy, as if he were hiding a knife behind a smile.

It's like someone who thinks highly of themselves, putting on a disguise and portraying a stereotypical image of a certain personality.

However, if it's just about mutual benefit, there's no need to consider so much.

Iwasaki closed his eyes and carefully considered the matter.

The knight's abilities may seem flashy, but they pose a limited threat to him in practice.

If we're talking about the person he fears most right now, it's Muramasa Taki.

She is the biggest winner in the game "Demon Blade". Even if she didn't get the perfect ending on her first playthrough, she must have received a considerable reward. In addition, she is likely to be able to create extraordinary weapons and is currently an official collaborator, which naturally creates an adversarial basis for him.

"Enemies become allies mostly for survival, while allies become enemies mostly for profit."

He stiffly climbed out of bed, slowly walked to the window, gazed at the hazy dawn, and spoke to himself.

Good morning, Mr. Iwasaki.

Goto knocked on the door and came in, ready to start his new day's work.

Since Iwasaki will be officially discharged from the hospital in a couple of days, she took the opportunity to pack some belongings and did a thorough cleaning of all her clothes.

"Oh, right, the police just told me that a friend of Ms. Iwasaki will be visiting at ten o'clock this morning," Goto said while tidying up.

Iwasaki's movements were a little stiff, but given his current performance, it was normal.

Ya's friend?

He is still surrounded by police, but not in a particularly tight security manner; they are mainly there to ensure that he remains under surveillance.

But to see him, you need to go through a police check.

Iwasaki, recalling his sister's suicide note, already had a guess in his mind.

Around 10 o'clock, a woman with a sickly pale face, wearing glasses, and with deep dark circles under her eyes came to the ward.

"Nice to meet you. I am Natsu Tokura, a friend of Miyabi Iwasaki."

Iwasaki repeated the other person's name, and it did indeed match the abbreviation for TNT.

"You came to see me because you wanted to ask about Ya's whereabouts, right?"

"Yes! I've been looking for her for a long time, but she seems to have vanished into thin air. Even the police can't give me an answer, and it took a long time for the police to approve my request to come to you."

Shi Cang looked dejected, but his eyes were firm.

“I can guess that the police suspect that Ya is the recent demon mist, but I saw the demon mist at the Camellia Villa, and I don’t believe she would do such a thing.”

Iwasaki was startled, but his face remained expressionless.

Indeed, on the surface, Iwasaki Masashi is more likely to be the Demon Mist than him, but he had never even considered that possibility.

It's so easy to make that connection, so why hasn't he thought about it this way?

Iwasaki felt that it was highly likely the police had never asked him about Iwasaki Miyabi.

He could have guessed that the police would have made this assumption if he had asked even one question.

"When was the last time you contacted her?" Iwasaki asked.

"At 4 p.m. on April 11, she asked me for details about the modified surveillance system through an anonymous app. Then she said she needed to investigate some things and didn't want to involve me, so she cut off contact with me."

"Modify the surveillance system?"

"It is a type of monitoring that is not affected by common blocking and can still operate normally."

No wonder the recording could continue inside the room even after Toshitaka Iwasaki blocked the recording.

After a few seconds of silence, Iwasaki shook his head: "The last time she contacted me was at the end of March, so you've got the wrong person. There's nothing I can do to help you."

"Really... not a single clue?" Tokura's eyes were filled with pleading, as if he were grasping at the last straw and was unwilling to let go.

Iwasaki shook his head again: "Sorry, no."

Shi Cang slumped down, his last bit of energy seemingly drained from his body in an instant.

Goto couldn't help but gently support her, afraid that she would fall off the chair.

"I understand. Thank you, sorry to bother you."

Her eyes were dull and lifeless. She got up to say goodbye, her steps unsteady as she tried to leave.

“I’ll be discharged in a couple of days,” Iwasaki suddenly said, looking at Tokura who had turned around in a daze. “You can come to my house; maybe I can help you in some way.”

Shicang's eyes regained some of their light, and he asked nervously, "Is it okay?"

"Okay, Goto, leave your phone number so we can let Miss Tokura know."

"Yes!"

The Iwasaki family home was definitely searched by the police, but the surveillance footage was deleted after Iwasaki confirmed there was no cloud backup. The computer was taken somewhere by Iwasaki and his family, and the electronic suicide note was also hidden. There are basically no clues left.

The reason for saying this is twofold: firstly, it aligns with human nature, as people sympathize with each other in similar circumstances.

Secondly, he saw despair in her eyes, and if left unattended, she might do something drastic. It was laughable that he, a ruthless killer, would worry about the life or death of a woman he hadn't even met before today.

But speaking of which, my younger sister is really popular with women.

He received more love letters from women than from men.

After seeing Tokura off, Goto returned to Iwasaki's side, and his mood seemed to be affected by hers, becoming depressed as well.

Iwasaki didn't say much, and just like usual, he ate, exercised, and took a slow walk on the lawn.

It wasn't until nightfall that he transformed into black mist and came to the outside world.

Today was the agreed-upon time to pick up the weapons. Muramasa Taki placed the items in a shopping mall. All he needed to do was ensure the place was safe and retrieve the weapons he had commissioned to be made.

He only completed the normal ending in this game, and the reward was a "color-changing factor" that could change the color of his black mist, even making it transparent.

However, during this period, you cannot use your abilities to touch living things or switch to a physical form; otherwise, it will become ineffective and you will have to re-enter the cooling phase.

Upon arriving at the agreed-upon shopping mall, Iwasaki walked around but didn't find anything amiss.

He also conducted his first test on the color-changing factor. Soon, he turned into transparent smoke and found the double-sided needle weapon.

Although it's called a needle, it's actually about the size of a chopstick and quite heavy. The metal it's made from was something he collected by chance, and it's the hardest metal he could find.

He left with the new weapon, found a safe spot, and spent a considerable amount of time assimilating the six needles.

"The stench of sin"

He put away the flying needle; it was something he had prepared to use against supernatural beings or high-end official war weapons. For ordinary people, a mage's hand would suffice.

Iwasaki rushed toward the scent of evil he had caught; it was an old office building.

"Guidance, worship, death is not destruction, but rebirth!"

It was a fairly large conference room, but there were no conference tables and chairs, only people kneeling on the ground. The object of their worship was the scene in front of them, decorated in a solemn red, with red carpets, red cloth, and red candles. Surrounding it was only a delicate flower, a spider lily.

"The red spider lily descends upon the world, bringing destruction, but also guidance! The dead dwell in paradise, while the living toil and struggle—where is the human world, and where is hell! Wake up, we have all been deceived! This is hell, and the underworld is paradise!"

"The dead you see are beings from another world. They have come to guide us, but we need to hold on until this world is destroyed in order to enter Paradise as survivors."

"This amulet is made from the stamen of a divine flower and will provide protection to believers. It is also a pass to paradise."

"But cultivating the divine flower requires a lot of resources. We need to work together to make the divine flower grow and help more people!"

It's a cult, obviously.

There are only three evil souls inside; the other dozen or so are ordinary people.

In such cases, he usually wouldn't take everything with him.

Only when there are seven villains and three normal people would one say, "I'm too lazy to tell the difference, so I'll just kill them all."

But their fervor was somewhat unusual.

Iwasaki casually crushed the head of the person giving the passionate speech.

Large splatter of blood landed on the faces of the believers below. They were stunned for a moment, but then felt overwhelming joy.

"The leader has ascended! The leader has ascended!"

"He's been chosen! Waaah, take me with you! Please take me with you!"

This is very abnormal. One or two people would be understandable, but more than ten people like this, could they all have been found in a mental hospital?

He casually killed the other two evildoers, and the others, covered in blood, showed no fear, talking to themselves and acting erratically.

Iwasaki drifted to the red spider lily, and just as he was about to examine it closely to see what was different about it, his vision suddenly blurred.

The sunlight was blinding, and the chirping of insects was irritating. He sat in a chair, holding an ice pop in his hand.

"Brother, brother? What are you spacing out for?"

He snapped out of his reverie and saw Iwasaki Miyabi sitting opposite him. She was biting on an ice pop stick and waving her hands curiously in front of Iwasaki's eyes.

His face was a little bruised, as if he had just been in a fight.

"It's a deal, I'll treat you to an ice cream, but you can't tell Mom and Dad about the fight."

"."

Iwasaki remembered; it was around the time when Aya was still a high school student.

"Okay, I promise you."

He closed his eyes, then opened them again. Iwasaki had broken free from the illusion and returned to reality.

This flower has a big problem.

Iwasaki turned around, glanced around at the frenzied crowd, and then tried to take the flower with him.

"Guardian Flower! He's a demon!"

"No one may take the divine flower away!"

The crowd suddenly became agitated and charged towards Iwasaki while shouting.

Can this flower actually sense information that is detrimental to it?

Iwasaki casually blocked those people and picked up the spider lily along with its pot.

He wanted to experiment and see how these people would change after they left the flower.

Will things return to normal, or will they descend into even more complete madness?

However, before that, he sacrificed the three corpses.

"The fact that the energy has not decreased significantly indicates that this flower is not absorbing souls."

Iwasaki knew that this thing was definitely related to the disaster that had occurred in Yamagata Prefecture, but why was it appearing in Tokyo?
"Did the authorities or the knights bring something related here?"

Carrying the whole pot of flowers, Iwasaki left and then hid at a distance to observe.

(End of this chapter)