Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

It was actually more serious, the damage was more severe, but there was no fundamental difference. The wound had stopped because Yuri didn't use the spiritual essence to repair it, so he may have given away more of his body structure, but in any case, it had stopped.

Beyond simply inflicting damage, Yuri only has two hands, and losing one is still very inconvenient.

Akemi seemed about to say something, but Yuri quickly changed the subject. "By the way, Akemi, let me see the stake again—after paying such a high price, I need to find out why, right?"

As if Akemi was about to say something, Yuri quickly added, "I already took a look when you took the stake away, so there's definitely no chance of anything happening again."

“The text is gone.” Akemi took a breath and said it aloud.

"What?" Yuri didn't understand. Even if he used a lot of force before, it should only have wiped off the red paint at most. Why would it have made the text disappear completely?

“After I took the stake from your hands, I glanced at it—the original patterns on it were largely destroyed.”

As Akemi spoke, she glanced at Yuri's charred right hand, her meaning clear: "Just how much force did you use?"

Yuri tried to take the stake back with one hand, but Akemi handed it back to him. After taking it, Yuri examined it carefully.

Rather than being damaged, the patterns spread outwards; the originally sunken patterns collectively widened and eventually all merged together.

“Release…the beast within…” After comparing it with the memories in his mind, Yuri deciphered the main body of the pattern.

"What does this mean? You can read it? What kind of script is this?" The high school student mystic was somewhat surprised and curious.

"It's the language you usually write, but it's distorted... The new script itself has an erosive effect."

Yuri tidied up his words and found that it was really difficult to describe in detail, but having experienced similar situations many times, Yuri already had some experience.

"This method of distorting text is special, possessing a certain mystical effect, and it is likely particularly effective against me—initially, when I was just looking at it, it didn't directly harm me, but it constantly occupied my mind and interfered with my thinking. And after I actually came into contact with it, it began to interfere with my body—my hands looked charred and blackened, but in reality, they were transformed into a distorted state. From what I can see now, its corrosive power is depleted; after I fought it out, since I am still normal, it has become abnormal."

In conclusion, it's not much different from being directly burned; both are unusable and probably beyond repair, requiring regeneration.

"I don't have that feeling, is it for spirit effects?" Mingmei added a clue.

"It could just be a special effect on me... Anyway, the reason I'm in such a mess is because the wording itself is wrong, not because of its inner meaning—which is what I said, unleashing the beast within."

"And can you even read it now?"

It's closer to realizing something than simply understanding it. This seems to be a gain from the victory against the enemy, better than nothing, I suppose.

“That’s right, I can read this pattern—but I might not be able to next time. I’ll avoid this pattern from now on.”

"Will it be too late by the time you see it?"

Is it that when Akemi is under less pressure, she starts poking at people's sore spots?

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.

"So, do you know anything about this 'unleashing the beast within'?" Yuri asked the high school mystic.

“No, unless it’s used metaphorically to describe a person being driven into a beastly state, or literally to unleash the so-called inner beast or shadow, I can’t think of anything else.” Akemi paused for a moment. “However, I did think of some records about bloodstained runes.”

According to Mingmei's summary, blood and runes are related in a long-standing way—in almost all mysticism, blood has special power, and combining it with runes helps to enhance the effectiveness of the runes.

This is especially true for vampires, who believe that all power comes from blood—so they developed blood magic, a ritual that uses blood as a medium to interfere with other creatures.

By inscribing rituals onto runes and imbuing them with blood essence, vampires can imbue an item with special power, whether by enhancing the item itself or by giving it the ability to take effect the moment it comes into contact with a target.

Essence blood? Essence blood is... blood that has been refined by vampires in some way. Akemi wasn't very clear about it either.

In short, in vampire legends, blood magic is actually omnipotent, but it has many problems due to reasons such as the excessive consumption of blood essence, overly complex rituals, unfavorable environments, and miscalculations.

Akemi didn't know the specifics; she had only memorized the vampire stories by rote and had never actually practiced them.

“So, what if it means exactly what it says? Unleash the beast within—unleash something within the vampire, turning it into shadows…” Akemi pondered, “and then go out and attack others?”

“What’s the point? All these shadowy figures combined wouldn’t be enough for that assassin to fight on his own,” Yuri countered. “Whoever it is, if he wants to kill someone, he can do it himself.”

"...So they wanted to create some news and get others to find out?" Mingmei changed her perspective. "Maybe the assassin couldn't expose themselves, so they used this method to try and make a big fuss?"

“Well…” Yuri suddenly thought of the victim’s deduction before his death—that he wanted to incite a fight between different factions of vampires? “…That’s possible, but it looks like we’ve interrupted it.”

Now that the Shadows have all been wiped out, and the wooden stakes used to create them have been destroyed, the situation has been completely severed.

Chapter Forty-Two: The Root of Calamity

Half an hour later, around 2 a.m., Mingmei appeared furtively in a public phone booth by the roadside and made an anonymous call to report the crime.

The police officers on duty didn't react at first, and even thought it was a prank, but they became nervous after Mingmei tried to tell them in a high-pitched voice that there were obvious wounds on the deceased's body. Mingmei told them the exact location, and hurriedly hung up when the police started to question the person who reported the case.

Although Yuri had some doubts about whether this was even meaningful, could the police actually uncover anything about vampires?

But at least one thing is finally over, which is good.

It would have been better to let Yuri do this kind of thing, but Akemi felt that it was very unreliable to let a disabled person do it.

Then it's time to go home.

The spiritual energy around Akemi hasn't disappeared yet, but Yuri believes it will gradually fade away once the source is gone.

What if it didn't disappear? This thought popped into Yuri's mind.

Haha, no way—in that case, we'll have to start the investigation all over again.

After making the anonymous call to the police, they went home immediately; both of them needed to rest.

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.

On the way home, Yuri mentioned the act of reporting the incident to the police, believing that Akemi was simply seeking peace of mind.

Mingmei completely disagreed with this.

She believes that in a city as large as Tokyo, even if supernatural events don't dominate, they certainly happen from time to time—it's impossible for the police to be completely unaware of this. They may not have the ability to solve all problems, but if they don't even know about the problems, then there must have been many incidents already.

According to some unnamed spirit hunters, there is a department within the Metropolitan Police Department that specializes in handling supernatural cases—although the success rate of this department is questionable according to the same account, its very existence suggests that the police are aware of it.

Even if we take a step back, it's just that a body was found in the sewers; at most, it's just another cold case—the two, who regularly read the newspapers, know that cold cases here often drag on for over a decade, reaching the statute of limitations, before being solved with the help of a passing detective. Adding one or two more shouldn't be a problem.

The two managed to evade a group of drunkards and returned home relatively smoothly.

Mingmei quickly washed up and went to bed.

Yuri was left in the living room, flipping through a book on metaphysics with one hand.

The person who collected these books had virtually no interest in anything other than spirits, so Yuri did not find the detailed information about the vampires he had expected.

On the other hand, he did successfully find content that was closely related to himself.

In one book, the author argues that the principle behind how the root of evil harms the spirit is to directly destroy its essence, causing its structure to collapse. He introduces a multitude of explanations for this phenomenon, attempting to explain why spirits possess a root of evil and how to identify specific spiritual entities through the logic of mutual generation and restraint among all things.

Leaving aside theoretical analysis, Yuri had just experienced the situation described above.

Did I just grab my own nemesis with my bare hands? Yuri felt a chill run down his spine at his "feat"—if those runes hadn't inexplicably broken him, Yuri might have been knocked into a deep sleep.

The root of a spirit's calamity is a conceptual thing. For example, if the root of a sea urchin's calamity is an anchor, then simply taking the iron off the anchor wouldn't be considered the root of the calamity. If the sea urchin directly twists the anchor into a pretzel with its strength, it might temporarily disable the root of the calamity.

The author believes that the root of evil for every spirit always exists in this world, and that a specific root of evil can be destroyed.

That is, if a sea urchin successfully twists the root of all evil, the anchor, into a pretzel and throws it into a blast furnace to melt it down, then it has truly destroyed its own root of evil—at the same time, something else related will be activated and become the new root of evil, which may not be the anchor, but something like an oar.

The author provides no evidence to prove this, but he believes this is the only explanation for why even higher spirits have their own sources of trouble—don't spirits consciously destroy things that can harm them? But many sources of trouble for higher spirits still exist in this world.

The higher the level of the spirit, the clearer its source of trouble, which is definitely not good news for mystical scholars who want to deal with that spirit. If the source of a spirit's trouble is "silver," it is very easy to find. However, if the source of a spirit's trouble is "a silver alloy candlestick that has been blessed by two high monks, has eight branches, and the sixth branch is broken in half, with a silver content between 60% and 70%", then it is much more troublesome. First of all, it is difficult to investigate so accurately. Then, there will be considerable problems in preparation. Finally, the possibility of it failing due to accidents during the battle is also greater.

Yuri is not a high-level spirit, so the source of his troubles should be something rather broad.

However, in retrospect, it is not just broad, it is downright disastrous—the very act of writing in a particular way or the patterns carved in the wood itself is the root of all evil, existing in a specific form of knowledge.

After what happened today, Yuri could create twenty pages of his own misfortune a day on his own, and every word on them had a real effect. He tried it, and it was true. After carving the second stroke, he started to feel dizzy and hurriedly crossed out what he had carved.

The root of evil exists in the form of knowledge, and it's a root of evil that others (ghosts) already know about and are using... Yuri felt like he was really in deep trouble.

What if this is the common language of some groups? Just thinking about it is terrifying.

It must be kept a secret, absolutely a secret. Not even Akemi can be told—although Akemi might guess it herself, it would be a different problem if it leaked out of her own mouth.

To prevent himself from unknowingly encountering his own source of trouble in the future, Yuri began to recall its specific appearance.

If just having something flash through one's mind is considered seeing and activating something, then things will get complicated. Just in case, Yuri tried hard to control his thoughts, attempting to only remember what he wanted to remember.

It failed, but there were no adverse consequences.

These words easily surfaced in Yuri's mind, but did not begin to move.

Imagining the words spinning, Yuri began to observe what existed only in his mind.

The more I look at it, the more abnormal it seems. At first glance, it appears to be a special variation of the local language, and I can even read its meaning. However, upon closer inspection, I can always sense a sense of incongruity. Incorrect writing can certainly make reading difficult, but if it still looks increasingly unlike what I expected after I had already formed an impression, then something is definitely wrong.

Could the words themselves be supernatural? Or could their supernatural power spread among readers? Akemi wasn't affected, even though she had read them too.

After staring at it for a while, Yuri began to have the illusion that someone else was looking at him through the patterns, which was clearly not a good thing. Another feeling was that each stroke of the pattern seemed to have its own texture, and that if he continued to look, he could understand its deeper meaning, which was also clearly not a good thing.

Yuri prepared to stop his imagination, then noticed a neat and beautiful pattern floating in the blank spaces where his thoughts were not. It looked very similar to another pattern that had appeared and filled his entire field of vision when his consciousness was hazy.

I didn't actively imagine these things, so why can I see them?

Yuri turned his attention to that.

The writing here doesn't seem to be any kind of language (of course, it's also possible that Yuri is ignorant), but its meaning seems to already be within Yuri's understanding.

Seeing a language you can't understand, yet knowing its meaning, feels like a dream.

That dream was so vivid.

Yuri deciphered the text, and its meaning was... death.

Death, something people want to understand but don't want to encounter, and ghosts are undoubtedly related to it—but Yuri didn't feel threatened by this passage; strangely enough, he even felt a sense of familiarity with it.

This passage is similar to the previous one in that it seems to be composed of even smaller characters. Could it be infinitely subdivided?

Yuri snapped out of his reverie and realized it was already noon.

He had tried to figure out more details about death, but he couldn't get close to it no matter what he did, and instead felt extremely tired—and he couldn't rest in his dreams.

Before leaving, he found another word, seemingly very similar to death, but with a different meaning: matter. Unfortunately, this time he had no energy to explore it further.

Upon waking, Yuri was overwhelmed by fatigue and felt like he didn't want to move even a finger.

Mingmei's door was open; she seemed to be awake, but she wasn't in the room.

Yuri lingered near the shrine for a while longer before hearing footsteps going upstairs.

Akemi opened the door and came in.

The two exchanged a glance, and Akemi spoke first, "You've recovered from your meditative state? I just grabbed something to eat nearby."

The fact that it's nearby indicates that it's not that Okumura-ya.

"Meditative state?" Yuri heard the key word.

“You’re wide awake but barely aware of your surroundings, your mind wandering. Aren’t you meditating?” Mingmei returned to her usual spot on the sofa. “Then are you sleeping? I’ve never heard of a spirit that can sleep, and you’ve never shown any sign of wanting to sleep.”

"Yes, I was indeed meditating." Was it that obvious?

"So what were the results of your meditation? You don't usually do this—unless you meditate every night?" Mingmei began to add a possibility she hadn't considered at first.

“This is the first time…” Yuri replied, “or at least not every day. I saw something I’d never seen before in my meditation, do you know what it was?”

"What is it?" Akemi asked, a little curious.

"Yes! #￥! Such writing." It shouldn't be a problem if he doesn't specify what it looks like, besides, Yuri doesn't think he can describe what the writing that appeared later looks like.

"What did you say?! #￥!?" Mingmei tried her best to repeat it, and although her pronunciation was similar to Yuri's, it was still different.

“Yes! #￥!...Hmm?” Yuri also sensed something was wrong; his voice seemed different from before.

I tried hard to recall the voice I used to hear.

“It’s words like ‘death…and matter,’” Yuri corrected his pronunciation.

“…I really didn’t expect that.” Mingmei frowned. “The meditation methods of different schools are very different, and individuals also have their own different meditation methods. A large part of them try to empty their minds when meditating, and wait for what they want to see to appear naturally. Another large part of them actively visualize what they want to visualize, trying to gain some insight from it.”

Yuri perked up and listened.

"Of course, there are all kinds of people, including mixed types, and some who don't control their thoughts at all, just drink alcohol and say they're meditating—anyway, from what you've said, you saw strange patterns when you were emptying your mind and even interpreted their meaning?"

"Yes?" Yuri nodded.

"Are you some kind of eminent monk? Your understanding is so profound!" Mingmei feigned surprise.

Is this high school girl making some sarcastic remark?

“Well, generally speaking, they think that such things are the future research direction, or what suits their own origin, or what is most closely related to them—in short, depending on the interpretation, the understanding can go in many directions, but they are all closely related to the meditator—no one will ever claim that what they see is unrelated to themselves,” Mingmei’s voice softened, “in fact, even if you force it, you have to steer it in a direction that is related to yourself.”

"Huh? Just kidding? Is that reliable?" asked a meditation beginner.

"Of course it's unreliable. In fact, it turned out that most people's interpretations were wrong, and even the remaining few can't be guaranteed to be lucky." The high school student mystic's tone was quite firm. "In reality, most people just mistook their own imagination for reality. And there are also some people who actually dream about what they've been thinking about during the day. They unknowingly completed what they've been thinking about all along, but they mistook their thinking for the result of meditation... Fortunately, at least this one was successful."

...After all that, you've concluded that this is unreliable. Is that a good idea? Yuri's face turned pale.