I'm a teacher in Tokyo!

I am just an ordinary person after all, and what I do is just what an ordinary person should do.

Upon hearing this, Kayako immediately got up, folded and straightened the blankets around the teacher, and covered herself with the blankets.

"Click——"

The ward quickly emptied. Yoshizaki Kawa closed his eyes. The excruciating abdominal pain had subsided somewhat over time, but it was still uncomfortable.

If it were before, Kayako would definitely have been jealous if she saw Tomie doing the same thing.

However, this made him feel even more powerless, even in a world that seemed so incredibly unfair.

"I'm not scared at all!"

He could only close his eyes and rest to fight against the strange feeling in his body.

This was the first time Kayako had seen Tomie so delicate and with red eyes, like a pitiful little sister next door, making her feel sorry for her.

Hearing the slight movement of the doorknob, Yoshizaki Kawa suddenly opened his eyes and looked up.

"I just saw Kayako and Tomie go out, so I came in because I was afraid of disturbing your good time."

Upon hearing this, Yoshizaki was speechless at Kotoko's attempt to cover up her true feelings by feigning fear of the curse.

Just practice your cooking more. Look at me, even with Kayako in one arm and Tomie in the other, I'm still invincible!

"Tsk, you're quite lucky. I happened to discover that the medicine Kayako bought was strange, and later investigated the ingredients. I quickly prepared an antidote and treatment plan for you, and I didn't expect it to actually save you."

"By the way, do you know how many milligrams of that drug are lethal?"

"Five milligrams can be fatal. Even with immediate gastric lavage, it could still damage the nerves and leave the person in a vegetative state. Moreover, the antidotes for the two poisons conflict with each other. You can only replace one of the poisons to deal with the other."

Upon hearing Kotoko's simple words, Yoshizaki immediately knew how much effort she had put in behind the scenes.

He decided to retract his previous disrespectful remarks about his godfather... ugh, godmother!

From this day forward, Ms. Kotoko, you are the benefactor in my life, my godmother!

"Oh, I almost forgot, you still have tubes in your mouth and can't speak."

Before, he was able to speak mainly because Kayako and Tomie were leaning on him, and Kotoko couldn't get as close to him as they could.

Even when he tried to speak using his diaphragm, his voice was still unclear, so he could only remain silent and watch Kotoko's self-talk.

However, he still wanted to talk; he wanted to tell Kotoko about his dream.

"Doctor, can we remove the tube in his condition?"

Kotoko seemed to sense the desire Yoshizaki was trying to express, and she immediately called the doctor.

The doctor first observed Yoshizaki Kawa and confirmed that all indicators were normal and that he had the ability to breathe independently before removing the oxygen tube.

"Miss Kotoko, I just created a new nightmare..."

"Doctor!! Quick, put it back in! Put it back in!! Right now, put it back in!"

Before Yoshizaki could finish speaking, Kotoko immediately told the doctor to put the oxygen tube back in, but it was too late.

"It's no use trying to shut me up. What's done is done."

Hearing Yoshizaki's calm words and glancing at the doctor who was caught in a dilemma, Kotoko waved her hand helplessly, signaling the latter to leave.

Then, Kotoko closed the door and sighed, "Then you go ahead and say it..."

Kotoko felt that she was going to be played to death by Yoshizaki Kawa sooner or later. She still hadn't found the leader of that sect. Just yesterday, Kotoko found the sect's headquarters through some methods.

However, several rotting corpses were found on the altar, and members of the sect were either dead or scattered.

Based on the records left behind within the sect, they went to find those believers, and the only message they received was—

The cult leader and his major protectors have completely disappeared; the cult is now defunct in name only.

Those believers who committed crimes were arrested or imprisoned, but the real mastermind behind it all remained elusive.

Given that the cult worships an evil god, it may have already completed the ritual and truly summoned the evil spirit. Therefore, the church is useless to them and is naturally discarded at will.

That evil spirit was already enough to give Kotoko a headache.

Then--

At this point, Yoshizaki Kawa said he had a nightmare.

How could this not break Higa Kotoko's heart?

"I dreamt about hell and the existence of gates this time."

Yoshizaki spoke slowly, and when he said the word "door," Kotoko's expression became incredibly interesting.

"You dreamed about a door??"

"This thing can dream too??"

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 147 Gate of Hell

"Do you know what that is?"

Seeing that Kotoko's expression seemed unusual, Yoshizaki Kawa quickly asked, "What exactly was that thing? Even in a dream, it gave me an extremely eerie feeling!"

Kotoko's eyes flickered slightly, as if she was thinking about something. After a moment, she picked up the documents the doctor had given her earlier and then plopped down on the sofa.

Only then did he slowly speak, "Yoshizaki Kawa, do you believe in the existence of hell?"

You ask me if I believe in the existence of hell? There are ghosts everywhere, and you still don't believe in hell?

Yoshizaki even suspected that the desolate world in his dream was the so-called "hell".

"Of course I believe it!"

"This hell may be different from the legendary hell. The hell I am talking about is the real hell in the literal sense, an underground prison that imprisons evil spirits, hence the name—hell!"

"Hell is a physical entity. If you keep digging down from one place, you can dig out the gates of hell."

"In ordinary places, it may require digging down 10,000 meters, but in some unusual places, it may only require digging down a few dozen meters to reach it."

"And the passage that leads to hell is called a door."

These are the general directions that Yoshizaki Kawa has tentatively summarized based on the information Kotoko provided, plus the scattered information dictated by the girl earlier.

He never imagined that hell in this world would be so concrete; as long as you keep digging underground, you can truly reach hell.

"But such a balance is extremely easy to break. After all, if the resentment outside the door is too strong, then another sacrifice must be made to balance the resentment outside the door. This cycle continues, and in the end, only an even more terrifying monster will appear."

As Kotoko spoke slowly, Yoshizaki felt a chill run down his spine.

So, what would happen if a living person dug out hell?

And combined with the Gemini ritual—

and so--

However, she still retained a sliver of rationality.

Does she mean that hell is about to descend and only finding her sister can stop it?

If we consider the well as a tunnel to hell, then the people in that village must have devised some way to temporarily seal the tunnel, which is why they have been able to live there peacefully.

Furthermore, the older sister was also affected by the Gates of Hell and became an evil spirit.

"But in ancient times, people did not know these things. They only knew that special sacrificial rituals could prevent the door from descending. Some even used resentment to stop resentment, and through things like human sacrifice, they let the resentment of the dead spread outside the door. The resentment outside the door was greater than the resentment inside the door, forcibly suppressing the resentment behind the door."

"Simply sealing off the area around the door will prevent it from spreading."

Perhaps the reason the elder priest wanted the elder sister to kill the younger sister was to complete some special sacrificial ritual, thereby sealing the entrance to hell.

"Behind these doors lies Hell, also known as the Underworld, so everything around the doors will be corrupted by the evil spirits of Hell. However, due to their nature, these evil spirits will only linger around the doors and cannot return to the human world, so they are not very harmful."

Yoshizaki listened attentively and realized that Xiao's life was indeed rather abnormal.

He felt that his approach was probably correct; there might be problems with the details, but the overall logic was sound.

The tragic scene of the village of the gods flashed before his eyes in his dream, and he seemed to understand what the so-called great sacrifice, the so-called offering, and the village's destruction as the old priest had said really meant.

Meanwhile, Kotoko continued to recount the story of the door;

The older sister failed to kill her younger sister, causing the ritual to fail, the gates of hell to open, and everyone in the village to die.

At that moment, Yoshizaki suddenly understood the meaning behind the shrine maiden's words to him: if "great reward" referred to the coming of hell.

Using resentment to quell resentment is indeed a rather cunning tactic.

No wonder in the previous village of Minakami, the elder sister had to kill the younger sister as a sacrificial ritual. Perhaps they wanted to use the resentment of the younger sister being killed by her relatives to balance the resentment behind the door.

"So what do you usually do about these kinds of things afterward?"

Yoshizaki asked, "Since Kotoko knows so much and even disdains human sacrifice, they must have found a better way."

"How do I do it? Just fill it in!"

"In the past, if a person touched the gates of hell, they would be taken to hell, so the gates of hell could not be closed by human hands. But now there are so many excavators and helicopters..."

Even the strongest gates of hell have limited expansion; they can't affect anything thousands of meters above the ground. First, clear out everyone in the surrounding area, then continuously pour sand to create an artificial mountain. Next, seal this mountain with talismans. Decades later, with Japan experiencing frequent earthquakes, the mountain will naturally block those gates during the earthquakes.

"Although it's troublesome, it's safe. We've already dealt with four of these doors in Japan."

Yoshizakigawa: "..."