Tokyo bombing incident Nth time

In any case, the presence of spiritual energy implies a supernatural phenomenon, so coming here was the right decision. A detailed analysis seems to require the old methods; Yuri focused his attention, using his heart rather than his eyes to observe his surroundings.

A fiery aura appeared on the remains of the furniture, almost leading Yuri to believe that the spontaneous combustion had occurred again. However, upon calming his mind, he realized that, just as he had sensed before, this aura had become quite weak and continued to weaken as Yuri observed it.

These are not real flames, but remnants of something that appear as flames.

These spiritual forces had no real effect. Even though the shop assistants walked through the flames without knowing what was happening, it had no effect on them—no harm, no possession, no interference.

Yuri approached and cautiously touched the spiritual energy directly with his hands, much like the shopkeeper, and experienced almost no negative effects. Indeed, Yuri felt that prolonged contact might cause injury, but "prolonged" was probably measured in hours—more akin to contact with corrosive substances than burning flames. Unlike the shopkeeper, Yuri's hands didn't pass through the spiritual energy; instead, it felt as if he were pressing on some kind of gelatinous substance. With a little pressure, Yuri pushed the flames in another direction, feeling no resistance, but the damage increased.

It really does look like a simple remnant of some kind of spiritual energy—can spontaneous combustion produce these things? Yuri was highly skeptical; if spontaneous combustion could produce these things, then it should have done so when he lit the fire earlier.

Focusing his attention on a specific flame, Yuri tried to sense something deeper, such as what exactly brought about this spiritual power.

Unfortunately, there were no results as expected; when looking at the flames, all that could be seen was a ball of fire.

However, something else was discovered... Below the flames, some fragment-like things could be seen... Were they wood chips? Logically speaking (after a fire, unburnt wood chips remained on the surface of the burned object?), and visually speaking (these wood chips looked somewhat ethereal), it meant that they were not wood chips in the physical sense.

Are they fuel for this fire? Without much hesitation, Yuri plunged his hand into the flames, trying to remove the wood chips.

This time the damage from the flames has increased, but it's still a rather slow rate. In comparison... if it took several hours to damage Yuri's hand before, it will now take several tens of minutes.

The losses increased, but not excessively.

It was probably outside at that time, and there wasn't much contact, so it wasn't very noticeable.

Without wasting much time, Yuri grasped the "wood chips" in his hand and removed the particles. As the "wood chips" were removed, the flame vanished instantly. It seemed that these "wood chips" were indeed used as fuel.

Upon receiving it, Yuri examined it more closely. He had expected that some "flames" would be brought out and require further processing, but it seemed that such interference alone was enough to make the "flames" disappear completely... It was indeed an echo.

First, let's be clear: Yuri is indeed in a spirit state, so the "wood chips" he's holding are also spirits.

Based on this, it seems to contain a certain amount of spiritual essence inside. Yuri rarely comes into contact with small objects in such a spiritual state, but based on his contact with large objects, namely buildings themselves, he can clearly sense that only a few contain spiritual essence.

Most atomized objects are very inert atomized matter, lacking the active, perceptible spiritual essence. Yuri believed that atomized matter and spiritual essence could be transformed into each other, but it was much easier for spiritual essence to transform into atomized matter.

The spiritual essence contained within this thing looks just like... just like the "flesh and blood" of an intelligent spiritual being like Yuri.

After gaining this understanding, Yuri began to see these things more and more like the remains of spirits.

Looking around and finding nothing else noteworthy, Yuri simply went around and took out almost all the "wood chips" that were still "burning," leaving only one that looked the most vigorous, in preparation for if Akemi came in to investigate in person.

In the end, Yuri collected a whole handful, which he then carried out.

Akemi waited for Yuri's report in a corner a little further away. This was perfect, as Yuri wanted to ask her whether these were indeed the remains of spirits, what they meant, and what their purpose was.

Yuri paused for a moment—what would it mean if Akemi couldn't see him? —Then he continued walking; there was no need to pre-determine a solution for something that could be confirmed immediately.

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.

The high school mystic did not disappoint Yuri. Akemi could not only see these fragments, but also clearly confirmed that they were the remains of spirits, or more precisely, the remains of some kind of wood-related spirit.

When a spirit dies because it cannot sustain its physical existence, it explodes and scatters. Ghosts are pulled back to the underworld, usually appearing as if they have been swallowed by a deep pit in the ground, while spirits may shatter into fragments of their related essence—for example, a pine spirit might shatter into a pile of pine needles.

In actual combat, those who die relatively cleanly usually leave behind little to no remains. However, sometimes an opponent doesn't/cannot completely eliminate every fragment of their opponent (for various reasons). In such cases, these fragments gradually and slowly disappear, appearing as if they evaporate into the air.

Yuri pointed out that what he saw was not "evaporation" but "burning".

Akemi also analyzed this—after this battle, the Wood Spirit obviously lost and died, so the flames must have been lit by the victor.

This makes sense; if the Wood Spirit's opponent could set fires, it would explain why the shop "spontaneously combusted."

The monitoring showed that nothing was seen, so it is highly likely that the opponent was also fighting in a spirit state.

Is it possible that the same is true in other places? We'll have to wait and see when we go to other places to find out.

Before that, we need to consider how to deal with the wreckage.

Simply absorbing them all seems like the most convenient approach, but Yuri isn't that thirsty for spirit essence right now, so that would be a huge waste. Besides, even if he did absorb them all, there wouldn't be much spirit essence to be gained, since these are just remnants, and they've already lost most of the day's worth of essence.

Then we need to find a way to preserve it for further understanding and research; specifically, we need to prevent it from evaporating.

As Yuri followed Akemi, he pondered how to deal with the wood chips. He focused his attention on the debris in his hands, only glancing at the figure in the trench coat ahead of him out of the corner of his eye.

The next few spontaneous combustion sites were not described in detail in the newspaper. Mingmei relied on the simple information in the newspaper and asked passersby to locate them in detail, which greatly slowed down her movement speed, giving Yuri time to study how to preserve the wreckage.

Chapter 55 Provisional Conclusion

First, try to knead these sawdust pieces together as much as possible... Indeed, after getting closer, they have a tendency to merge, but the tendency is just a tendency, and there is no actual movement. They were the same body in life, and they are still quite similar now, but they have lost a lot of vitality and are still losing it (if spirits can be described as having vitality).

Press them down hard, and they seem to stick together, but they are actually still separate—they fall apart again with a slight shake.

Perhaps prolonged pressing might help? Yuri pressed it for a while longer this time, but there wasn't much change. In fact, the reduction in the total amount became more obvious—it was evaporating even while he was pressing it.

This was the final attempt; if it failed, he would have to move on to the next step. Yuri exerted all his strength to control himself, injecting the smallest amount of spiritual essence he could muster into the clump of sawdust-like material.

The effect was excellent; thanks to the binding effect of the spiritual essence, they stuck together. That's good, otherwise Yuri would have been upset for several minutes about the spiritual essence he had lost.

Next, to prevent it from naturally dissipating, put the small piece of wood into the pocket of your trench coat and then seal the opening.

No matter where it wants to go, it can't possibly pass through this outfit that's essentially Yuri's shell.

Akemi, who kept glancing back to observe Yuri's actions, asked him what he had done after he finished his work. After Yuri answered honestly, she asked, "Does this count as you eating them?"

...This question is really hard to answer, and Yuri was stumped—since the clothes are part of Yuri, does being wrapped in the clothes count as eating them?

Yuri stammered for a while but couldn't come up with a good answer. Fortunately, Akemi had only asked casually. Seeing that Yuri didn't answer, she turned around and continued forward. There were still many things to do today, and she couldn't waste 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.

On the roadside, Yuri saw some guys dressed in familiar clothes—slightly reflective, plastic-looking garments—handing out flyers and strangely gathered together… Yes, it was the “Tokyo Guardian Cult.” Yuri didn’t recognize their faces; they couldn’t be the same group.

That's right, this direction does indeed align with the direction we encountered with the cult last time...

As they passed by, their slogans drew both Akemi and Yuri's attention. The two had intended to simply walk past and not waste their time, but the cultists' slogans, such as "The recent spontaneous combustion is a warning from heaven, if you don't—then—" were impossible to ignore.

Yuri's first reaction was that they had caught the real culprit, but then he realized that these people might just be trying to ride the wave of popularity. They were claiming that all sorts of strange phenomena were the product of their sect's god or leader's influence, since ordinary people didn't have the ability to verify it anyway.

Mingmei stepped forward and inquired about the spontaneous combustion phenomenon. Unfortunately, whether it was due to good secrecy or because they simply knew nothing, the cult propagandist said a lot, but he didn't provide any of the information Yuri wanted.

"The gods are angry at this world full of sin, but they still love humanity deeply, so they only send down a warning. If not—then—" "Flame symbolizes change and is also the most enduring force in human history. Choosing flame is God's profound intention. He uses flame to show that human society needs change. If not—then—" In short, that's the general idea.

Akemi was forced to hand a flyer to escape the preacher's vigorous sermon. The cult members weren't using violence in their proselytizing, but Akemi was trying to find a less obtrusive way to get away. Yuri, on the other hand, was growing increasingly impatient, and the cult member who gave her a chance to escape inadvertently eliminated the possibility of Akemi getting a beating.

Some other people seemed very interested in the sect, and although Yuri felt that these people were simply being scammed, they successfully helped Mingmei escape this time, attracting the missionaries to preach vigorously when Mingmei withdrew.

After walking a little further away, Yuri asked, "Do you think they were the ones who did it?... To create an illusion and expand their missionary efforts?"

“I don’t know,” Mingmei shook her head. “If it were me, I would never want to be associated with this matter, even if you beat me to death.”

"But—" Sure enough, there was a but. "Cult members might indeed be trying to use this opportunity to gain fame, and what they say is very vague, so there's no direct flaw to catch them. Even if you call the police, they can't really do anything to them based on that. Although it's not impossible to put them on hold for a while on charges of spreading rumors, I doubt the police have the time or inclination to deal with such a trivial matter."

Yuri decided to make a note of this; the "Tokyo Guardian Cult" now had a place on his list of suspects.

However, we need to find other locations where the fire started first, and we can't waste any more time.

By the time it was completely dark, they had spent nearly two hours searching for their target. Unfortunately, by the time the crowds on the streets had thinned out, the duo had only found two other locations, including the very obvious supermarket.

At both locations, the two experienced the same atmosphere as before.

The fire at the supermarket was quite serious, and some firefighters and police officers are still there to oversee the situation. However, at another location, an empty house, no one is specifically monitoring the fire. After all, no one lives there, and most of the furniture has been moved out. If a neighbor hadn't noticed the smoke and called the fire department, there wouldn't have been any serious consequences—the fire extinguished itself after the wardrobe fixed to the wall burned out.

Now that it has been proven that this spiritual aura comes from spiritual energy, it means that someone with the same spiritual energy passed through here... The difference is that Yuri did not find "wood chips" or anything similar in these two places, the supermarket and the empty house.

Does this mean that no spirits were harmed here?

This conclusion may be correct, but there are also doubts—if no spirit was harmed here, and it was simply another spirit that came, lit a fire, and left… then how did it leave behind these spiritual auras? Yuri was also a spirit (albeit a weak one), but he himself never left behind any spiritual auras that could be perceived by others.

This could be explained by Yuri's relatively weaker abilities, but along the way—even outside empty houses—neither of them sensed the presence of the spiritual aura.

It's clear that simply passing by wouldn't leave any spiritual energy behind; the other party must have stayed in the house and done something.

Use Yuri's knocking technique to open the door—this room originally had a proper door, but the fire department broke it down, damaging the original lock. Someone has temporarily replaced it with a chain and padlock, which is within Yuri's capabilities. While even a proper lock isn't impossible to open, more complex locks are more likely to require more effort.

The dust on the ground hadn't been swept away, but it had been trampled into a mess by several pairs of shoes, so even if Akemi walked in, there wouldn't be any problem.

Mingmei circled around several times, but still couldn't discern whether any other spirits had ever been there. However, this only convinced her that the same thing had happened here before.

Yuri didn't understand at all, so he asked Minmei to explain.

“This old-style residential building is located on a very small spiritual vein—you might not be able to sense it as a ghost, but spirits are quite sensitive to it. Ghosts have their own version of spiritual veins, which are based on the conditions of the underworld, and sometimes they overlap with those of spirits, but not this time.”

Spiritual veins—Yuri had read about this in books; they were supposedly the energy conduits of the world itself—things like that. In practice, the spirits occupying spiritual veins could extract leaked spiritual essence from them.

“This spiritual vein is very small and weak. It will probably take several days to produce even a little bit of spiritual essence. But even so, some weaker spirits will occupy this place and live off it. — However, I did not sense any spirits moving around here at all.” Mingmei spun around in place. “But the spiritual essence accumulated by the spiritual vein itself has been completely extracted, which is why you did not sense it.”

Things that everyone desires, even if of inferior quality, will usually have a weaker spirit occupying them, since spirits are always more numerous than spiritual veins—but there's none here. Even if something extracted all the spiritual essence, there would be no spirit left here.

That probably means he was murdered.

“But this time I didn’t find any remains of the spirits.” This was a big difference, Yuri pointed out.

“I have two guesses. One is that the attackers would deliberately destroy the body to cover up the evidence. However, this makes it hard to explain why there were still some undamaged remains in the furniture store before – after all, they would be destroyed once ingested.”

Yuri awaited the second guess.

“Secondly, the spirits here are relatively weak and were directly destroyed without leaving a trace.” Mingmei spread her hands. “Generally speaking, attackers won’t go to great lengths to do this, but if the opponent is too weak, they won’t hold back.”

"I think the second guess is more likely... By the way, just how weak is this 'weak spirit' you mentioned?"

“Probably level one or two,” Mingmei pondered for a moment. “Judging from the current situation, the attacker is at least level three—and definitely a spirit as well. Weak spirits are unlikely to be sensed from a distance, so the attacker must have come here by following the spiritual veins.”

"Isn't he still taller than me?" Yuri grasped the key point and let out a silent scream in his heart.

"Is it possible... to go even higher?" Despite his deep reluctance to hear a positive answer, Yuri still asked. If he got a positive answer, he was prepared to run away—he couldn't get involved in this, or he'd die.

"How is that possible? If it really is level four, is it possible that it only burned such a small area?" Mingmei waved her hand with a smile. "Are you stupid? The highest level hunter we've ever seen... although it's supposedly level four, it's been nerfed again and again. If it really went all out, it should be able to create a small tsunami. As for a fire-related spirit of the same level as it, even if it attacks casually, it's unlikely that it would only ignite the small area shown in the surveillance video."

“If it’s intentional suppression of power—” Yuri paused, something seemed off, because—

"Of course, if you restrain yourself and try to lower your profile, you can always manage to disguise it. But if the target were as self-restrained as you, would they have set fire to so many places in one night?"

Yuri was puzzled; was this person praising him or criticizing him?

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.

When I came out of the empty house, there was hardly anyone on the street, not even the cultists were preaching on the street.

It's time to turn back.

This decision is not easy to make because, unlike real-world evidence that can be preserved for a long time as long as no one touches it, supernatural evidence has proven to be unstable. If it cannot be collected quickly after the event, it may not be felt in two days.

But if you can't find it, you can't find it. There's no one to ask now, and wandering around the streets won't help.

In his most desperate moment, Yuri grabbed a few local ghosts and asked them where the fire, smoke, glow, or something similar was coming from—but they didn't give any effective response.

Ghosts are less attentive to other things, which is one thing; low-level ghosts have such a small range of activity that they can hardly notice things far away. —However, if their range of activity weren't so small, how to stop them would be another problem altogether.

For the time being, there are no other options.

“Mingmei, I think we should acknowledge this problem,” Yuri said after carefully considering his words as they walked. “We haven’t seen any of our companions along the way.”

Indeed, unless cultists are considered fellow practitioners, all the supernatural phenomena along the way show the same sign: in terms of supernatural events, Yuri and Minami are undoubtedly the first discoverers.

No one else has conducted any investigation in a supernatural sense—the police certainly investigated from a real-world perspective, but if they can't see what's happening in the spirit world, their efforts will be in vain and fruitless.

On closer inspection, that's not necessarily true. They might just be firing blind shots, relying on motives or other reasons, and taking down their targets without even understanding how the incident happened. That's also possible.

However, this kind of thing is categorized as luck rather than ability, so you can't rely on it.

Yuri looked at Akemi, waiting for her conclusion.

At this point, if you still want to find someone to step forward—there probably won't be anyone else.

Akemi fell silent.

Yuri waited patiently.

After walking a short distance, Mingmei spoke, her voice a little hoarse, "Let's not rush into this for now—let's continue our investigation and gather intelligence. Since this matter is related to spirits, I think we can leave it to those spirit hunters."

Akemi's words carried rather complex emotions, but the meaning was clear: Yuri could completely accept it.

Regardless of who is behind this or whether no one is behind it at all, the one who actually carried it out and did it should be a spirit. Entrusting this matter to spirit hunters is their duty. As long as they keep track of the situation, they won't be completely in the dark.

Chapter Fifty-Six: Acting Alone

Akemi went back to rest alone, while Yuri stayed in the area to continue his investigation by himself.

The goal is to find other fire locations and see if there are any more clues. Although searching three locations in a row without finding any clues suggests that the chances of finding clues in the remaining areas are also slim, we still have to try our best.

It was called an investigation, but it was really just aimless wandering around. There were no specific clues, no specific direction, and no expectation of finding anything out. Yuri completely understood why Akemi wouldn't go through all this trouble with him.

However, Yuri's stamina is unlimited, and as long as he keeps searching, he'll eventually stumble upon his target! This was also the theory he used to convince Minmei to let him stay behind alone.

...At least that was the initial idea behind the operation, but now Yuri just feels increasingly stupid... Fortunately, he didn't claim beforehand that he would definitely gain something.

Yuri has now been wandering the streets for another two hours without finding anything. He has also visited two nearby residential areas but has not found any traces of the fire, or at least not any obvious traces that Yuri could have noticed.

On the other hand, he did get to know the ghosts in the vicinity, but unfortunately, these ghosts had no recollection of the fire incidents he wanted to ask about. Instead, he discovered something else: in the vicinity of the three confirmed fire locations, all the ghosts with brains had been cleared out.