Chapter 67: Isn’t That Setup Way Too Careless?
After bringing that remarkably productive discussion to a close, I made my way back to the family-run inn, Fushijishi-an.
By the time I arrived, there was no one lingering around the entrance or out in the garden.
Well, that was only natural.
This was a minshuku—a family-run guesthouse—not some large establishment with a small army of employees bustling about every hour of the day.
The difference between a minshuku and a traditional ryokan wasn’t merely a matter of legal classification.
If you ignored the technicalities, the biggest distinction was probably the atmosphere.
A ryokan existed to pamper its guests. Every detail was meticulously prepared in advance, and from the proprietress downward, every member of staff devoted themselves to providing polished, attentive hospitality.
A minshuku, on the other hand…
Rather than feeling like a business, it felt more like someone’s spacious home had simply been opened up to travelers. Guests naturally mingled with the family who lived there, and often with other visitors or even local villagers as well. It carried a warmth that couldn’t really be manufactured—a relaxed, homey environment where strangers could become acquaintances over dinner.
Neither style was inherently better than the other.
But if you asked which suited a village built upon generations of bizarre customs…
A minshuku was unquestionably the better fit.
Besides, any village prosperous enough to make a full-fledged ryokan profitable probably wouldn’t need to revitalize itself through a “Traditional Customs Village” tourism campaign in the first place.
Though, if there was one downside…
Family inns often didn’t have enough private rooms.
Sleeping communally in one large room wasn’t unusual.
A mixed group of college-aged men and women sharing the same room certainly wasn’t the sort of thing that looked particularly respectable from the outside.
That said, for an ordinary group of university students, winding up in a shared room while traveling wasn’t exactly unheard of.
And I had absolutely no intention of causing any trouble.
Besides.
Before long, none of us would have the luxury of worrying about something that trivial.
“Oh my. Are you the other young man who came with the group?”
The moment I slid open the front door, I found myself face-to-face with a woman who, rather than resembling the refined proprietress of a traditional inn, gave off the unmistakable impression of a kindhearted country mother.
The reception counter behind her had been polished until it gleamed, though a handful of subtly religious-looking ornaments had been arranged upon it.
She was standing there so perfectly that it almost felt as though she’d been waiting specifically for my arrival.
She was probably the village chief’s daughter-in-law.
If I remembered correctly, the chief’s household consisted of three sons and a rather impressive number of grandchildren.
For a rural village supposedly suffering from depopulation, the chief’s family seemed remarkably…
…Well.
Never mind.
“Yes. The reservation should be under the name Taketsuru. There ought to be five of us.”
“Oh, of course~. We prepared a room for all of you upstairs.”
“…But?”
“Now, I wonder if I should really be saying this… They left a message before heading out. They said, ‘I have a feeling that if we stay here, we’ll end up falling into Kirishiro’s trap, so we’re going out for a walk instead. If Kirishiro shows up, please lock him up somewhere so he can’t get into mischief.'”
That wasn’t a message.
That was an instruction.
…Taketsuru, you bastard.
So you’d anticipated I’d start moving on my own and decided to strike first.
He wasn’t wrong, either.
If my best friends had still been around, I absolutely would have taken advantage of the opportunity to naturally shepherd everyone toward the traditional-customs events.
Even without my intervention, events were scattered all across the village.
The difference was simply choosing guaranteed events over random encounters.
Apparently, they intended to get through this village as peacefully as humanly possible.
No matter what.
“By the way… isn’t Mana with you?”
“Oh, that girl? She said she’d stay at Father-in-law’s house and play a little longer.”
“My, my… I just hope she doesn’t cause Father-in-law too much trouble.”
Thanks to the—well, technically—landlady’s casual remark, my assumption about her relationship to the village chief’s family had been confirmed.
More importantly…
Regarding the local guardian deity.
It wasn’t that the deity had completely fabricated Mana’s identity.
The real Mana genuinely existed.
In fact, the reason this entire Traditional Customs Village functioned in the first place was because Mana possessed spiritual sensitivity unlike anything seen before. Her natural aptitude as a shrine maiden had become so extraordinary that it allowed the local deity to possess her body.
This was, in effect…
The Guardian Deity Power-Up Season.
Incidentally, the deity hadn’t been masquerading as Mana because it wanted to lurk nearby like some mysterious mastermind.
Apparently, the real Mana had simply shoved the responsibility onto it with something along the lines of:
“Looks like they’re doing another Traditional Customs Event, so I’ll leave everything to you. Wake me up when it’s over.”
The role had practically been forced upon the poor god.
…Did this deity have no dignity whatsoever?
When I’d voiced that exact thought earlier, it had replied with complete sincerity:
“One can’t refuse the request of a small child…”
Which honestly sounded less like a divine being…
…and more like something a lolicon would say.
Dangerous god.
Very dangerous god.
Well.
No point dwelling on it.
At present, two things had become clear.
First, Taketsuru and the others had deliberately fled from me.
Second, the village chief’s daughter-in-law was stationed here at the guesthouse as one of the event coordinators.
And…
There was one more thing I’d known from the very beginning.
“By the way, ma’am… besides us, are there any other guests staying here?”
“Oh my, yes. There’s someone from Tokyo. A scholar, I think? Or maybe a journalist? Something like that. He’s here doing research. Please be nice to him. Oh—there he is now. He’s coming downstairs.”
Just as she said that, the wooden staircase creaked.
Perfectly timed, as though he’d been waiting for his cue, a man descended from the second floor.
He wore intellectual-looking glasses.
His build was slightly lanky, almost frail.
Probably somewhere around his mid-twenties.
His hair was intentionally unkempt, a layer of stubble covered his jaw, and a camera dangled conspicuously from one hand.
His entire appearance practically screamed:
“I’m either a journalist or an academic.”
Mm.
An utterly ordinary Traditional Customs Village cliché.
His role was called “The Suspicious Man with a Mysterious Past Who Has Been Staying at the Family Inn for an Unusually Long Time.”
“Oh? Hello there. You’re with those university students who arrived earlier, aren’t you?”
“Oh honestly,” the landlady laughed. “You could just call them his friends.”
“Oh—my mistake. I don’t have many friends myself, so the word slipped my mind.”
The easy banter between the two felt wonderfully natural.
Exactly the sort of warm, casual interaction you’d expect in a family-run inn.
Even in a Traditional Customs Village, friendliness was important at the beginning.
As I silently watched the exchange, the man turned toward me and introduced himself.
“My name’s Amagasaki. Feel free to call me Amagasaki, or Professor if you’d like. Either’s fine.”
“I’m Fujitani Mikako,” the landlady added with a smile. “Just call me Mikako.”
Prompted by them, I offered my own introduction.
“I’m Kirishiro Gouto. Please call me whatever you like. Amagasaki-san. Mikako-san.”
Apparently, Mikako’s husband also helped run the guesthouse.
At the moment, though, he was away tending the family’s fields.
Which explained why every window was thrown wide open and even the entrance remained unlocked.
From a security standpoint, it was laughably careless.
But in a village this small, everyone watched everyone else.
An outsider couldn’t exactly sneak around unnoticed.
Not to mention…
The guardian deity was keeping watch as well.
“So then, Kirishiro-kun. Why are you by yourself?”
“I had something I needed to take care of.”
“…Something?”
Amagasaki tilted his head.
With the introduction sequence complete…
I decided it was about time.
After all…
Ever since the two of them had appeared together…
The hallucination windows had been popping up nonstop.
──────
Fujitani Itsuki
Position: One of Fujitani Sōichi’s grandchildren
Pen Name: Amagasaki
Notes: Left for Tokyo to attend university but failed to secure stable employment. Currently writes horror fiction, though none of it sells particularly well, forcing him to move back home. His primary source of income is advertising revenue from web novels. Helping out with the Traditional Customs Village doubles as both a hobby and the family business.
Role:
Guide any young visitors who wander into the village toward its various Traditional Customs attractions at the most convenient moments. Also serves as both researcher and journalist, providing explanations for the strange phenomena the youths encounter. Exits midway through the scenario.
Privately finds it increasingly mysterious that every event he comes up with somehow manifests exactly as planned, while drawing constant inspiration for his horror writing.
──────
──────
Fujitani Mikako
Position: Wife of one of Fujitani Sōichi’s sons
Cooking Skill: Homemade comfort food
Notes: Helps her husband with farm work while pursuing cooking as a hobby, regularly uploading her recipes to social media. Secretly famous online under the name “Minmin,” a charismatic cooking blogger. Her family has absolutely no idea.
Role:
Runs the family guesthouse while conveniently directing visitors toward the village’s Traditional Customs locations. Also responsible for relaying information about the visitors’ movements throughout the village. An unsung hero behind the scenes. May also exit midway through the scenario depending on circumstances.
──────
“If you’re looking for your friends, they headed toward Oamida Shrine with Miya-chan. If you hurry now, you should still be able to catch up.”
Amagasaki kindly informed me where Taketsuru and the others had gone.
Presumably, if they were going to trigger an event anyway, he figured he might as well make sure I got caught up in it too.
Hold on.
Why…
Why was the place dedicated to Amida Buddha a shrine?
Shouldn’t it be a temple?
Was this one of those situations where they thought, “If we tweak the name a little, maybe nobody will complain that we borrowed the real thing?”
Wouldn’t that make people more likely to complain?
Was this really okay?
Or was the point to signal from the outset:
“We’re a fringe religion that picks fights with both Buddhism and Shinto.”
If so…
That was an absurdly clumsy piece of foreshadowing.
Seriously.
The setup was so heavy-handed it bordered on parody.
Had those idiots really walked straight into someplace called Oamida Shrine without questioning it?
No.
That’s not right.
Someone definitely noticed.
Even if nobody else did…
Meiko certainly would have.
With her absurdly sharp intuition, there was no way she’d overlook something that obvious.
They’d probably ignored the bait entirely and gone somewhere completely unrelated instead.
After all…
Miya-chan was the kind of girl who could be bribed for a thousand yen.
For all I knew, they’d already gotten their hands on some valuable insider information.
“…Phew…”
I let out a slow breath.
As expected…
This wasn’t going to be easy.
Very well.
Then it was time for me to shift into a higher gear.
Both the village chief’s daughter-in-law and grandson watched me curiously as I abruptly straightened my posture.
I decided there was no reason to delay any longer.
“Now then. There are a few things the two of you need to hear.”
“…Yes?”
“Hm?”
“Allow me to introduce myself properly. I’m Kirishiro Gouto, the Advisor appointed to oversee this Traditional Customs Village event for Fujitari Village—not Fushijishi Village. Accordingly, I need to brief both of you on the schedule from this point onward.”
“…???”
“…???”
Their expressions synchronized perfectly.
Each face plainly read:
What the hell is this guy talking about?
So I casually decided to remind them…
That I already knew exactly who they were.
“Amagasaki-san… or rather, Fujitani Itsuki-san. Life in Tokyo must have been difficult, wasn’t it? They say horror novels can really pay off if one becomes a hit. I sincerely wish you the best.”
“…Eh?”
“And you, Fujitani Mikako-san. The photographs of your cooking always look delicious. Being a famous blogger must come with plenty of jealous people. It’d be troublesome if everyone discovered your real identity, wouldn’t it?”
“…!”
“As you can see… I already know all about both of you. Which makes me one of your own. An ally. That’s why I’m telling you this. I’ll be managing this event.”
The practiced expressions vanished from both their faces.
For the first time…
Their genuine reactions surfaced.
I smiled pleasantly.
Granted, both of them looked a little pale.
But for a Traditional Customs Village…
Looking slightly lifeless was probably just about perfect.
Now then.
Shall we begin?
Taketsuru.
Meiko.
Kuwajima.
And Niwashita-san.
Welcome…
To a two-day, one-night Traditional Customs Village event.
“…Well then, to begin with… The two of you’re going to have to die.”