Chapter 72: See, Now We’re Gonna Have to Destroy the Shrine
“What happened to him!?”
“I have no clue! He just vanished!”
Taketsuru and Meiko shouted at almost the same time, panic creeping into their voices.
From their perspective, it was only natural. One moment I had been standing right in front of them, and the next I had disappeared so completely that even my presence had evaporated into thin air. It wasn’t merely that they had lost sight of me—they couldn’t even sense that I had ever been there. It was the kind of impossible event that belonged in ghost stories, not reality.
Unfortunately, this was hardly the moment to dwell on my mysterious disappearance.
Because behind them…
The villagers were charging forward at full speed.
Not jogging. Not running.
They were sprinting with the reckless desperation of people who had cast aside every shred of dignity.
“For now, where do we run!? If they catch us, this seriously looks bad!”
“Wait, we didn’t even do anything wrong, did we!?”
Everyone silently agreed with that statement.
They hadn’t committed any crime.
But judging from the expressions on the villagers’ faces, logic wasn’t going to save them.
Every last one of them had lost all semblance of reason. Their bloodshot eyes stared fixedly ahead while thick strands of saliva dripped from the corners of their mouths as they pursued their prey with terrifying determination.
“But… where exactly are we supposed to run?”
Niwashita-san’s casual question brought everyone to an abrupt silence.
Their legs continued moving on instinct, carrying them farther down the winding village paths, but none of them had the faintest idea where they were actually headed.
The truth was painfully simple.
The moment they had entered this village…
They had already lost every meaningful escape route.
The only places they knew were the inn where they were staying and the car they had driven here in.
Except the car refused to start.
And according to everything they’d witnessed, a murder had apparently taken place at the inn.
No matter how they looked at it, reason insisted this had to be some elaborate event orchestrated by their “friend.”
Even so…
They also remembered what that very same “friend” had said only moments ago.
“One warning before I disappear. None of this is an act. If they catch you, assume they’ll really kill you. Anyway, I’m leaving now. Good luck.”
There hadn’t been even the slightest trace of intimidation in those words.
No dramatic flair.
No attempt to frighten them.
He had simply stated the facts in a calm, detached voice.
That was precisely what made it so unsettling.
It sounded…
As though he truly believed they might die.
“This way.”
A voice suddenly echoed directly inside all four of their minds.
Before anyone could ask whether the others had heard it too, they found themselves moving almost instinctively.
As though guided by an invisible hand, they slipped between two tightly packed houses into a narrow alleyway.
Moments later, the pursuing villagers thundered past the entrance without even glancing inside, continuing their chase straight ahead.
“…Did we lose them?”
“I… think so.”
Only after holding their breath for several tense moments did Taketsuru mutter the question.
Kuwajima answered in a whisper.
Then…
All four pairs of eyes slowly turned toward the same figure.
Standing quietly at the end of the alley…
The girl who had led them there smiled softly.
“Are you… Miya-chan?”
Niwashita-san asked carefully.
The girl’s face was familiar.
She was the child they had seen playing by the river earlier that day.
The same girl they had later spotted standing atop the festival tower.
Her clothing matched as well—a solemn shrine maiden’s outfit, identical to the one she’d been wearing on the tower.
And yet…
Something was different.
The atmosphere surrounding her had completely changed.
She no longer felt like an ordinary human child.
There was something ethereal about her.
Something sacred.
Something that transcended humanity itself.
Even someone as remarkably insensitive as Kuwajima could feel it.
“If I had to choose… I’m closer to Mana. Though, in truth, I’m neither.”
“…Could it be… you’re the local guardian deity?”
Rather than answering directly, the girl who called herself Mana merely smiled.
Then, the brilliant smile faded into an expression filled with quiet sorrow—a face entirely at odds with the festive atmosphere filling the village outside.
Without waiting for another question, she began to speak.
“First… listen to my story. I’ll explain everything. The secret of this village… and the situation you’ve found yourselves in.”
And so Mana told them the truth.
The truth hidden beneath Fushijishi Village.
The truth about the guardian deity.
The truth that had remained buried for decades.
The real Fushijishi Village no longer existed on any map.
Long ago, it had been abandoned.
The entire village now rested at the bottom of a dam reservoir, swallowed beneath countless tons of dark, silent water.
Yet every summer…
Reality became distorted.
For only this brief season, two contradictory histories overlapped.
The original village that had sunk beneath the dam…
And another version—
A Fushijishi Village that had never been submerged at all.
That surviving village existed in a different possibility.
A world where the guardian deity had never lost its divine power.
A world where the god had successfully protected its people.
“So… you’re saying that in the world where faith in the deity never disappeared… the dam project ultimately failed, and the village survived?”
Niwashita-san asked, carefully confirming her understanding.
Mana nodded once.
Faith…
Was the source of a god’s power.
And in turn, divine power created even stronger faith.
The village that had never sunk beneath the reservoir was one inhabited by people whose belief bordered on fanaticism.
A place where sacrificing humans to their god was accepted without question.
A village so detached from modern society that concepts like the Constitution of Japan held no meaning whatsoever.
But Mana wasn’t finished.
She moved on to explain the circumstances surrounding the four of them.
Every summer…
People occasionally wandered into this world by accident.
The reason they couldn’t leave wasn’t simply because they were lost.
It was because the world they originally belonged to and this version of Fushijishi Village were no longer directly connected.
Even their phones no longer worked because the signal couldn’t cross the boundary separating the two worlds.
And once someone established a connection—a bond—with this world…
Escaping became increasingly difficult.
“For example… eating food from this world. Speaking with too many people here. Listening carefully to the children’s songs. Little things like that. One by one, they deepen your connection. And once enough of those ties accumulate… it becomes dangerous.”
“…” “…” “…That bastard…”
Taketsuru, Meiko, and Kuwajima clearly weren’t accepting Mana’s story at face value.
In fact, they were treating almost everything she said with heavy skepticism.
Even so…
They couldn’t ignore what had already happened.
Too many impossible phenomena had unfolded before their eyes.
And those phenomena had already been “guaranteed” to be beyond human trickery.
Which meant…
As absurd as it sounded…
There remained the possibility that Mana was telling the complete truth.
That this village really was where the living world overlapped with another realm.
That they truly were about to become sacrificial offerings.
Of course, that couldn’t possibly be true.
But then again…
It was hardly my fault they had neglected to gather proper information beforehand.
“So then… Mana-chan, why did you help us?” Niwashita-san asked, getting straight to the heart of the matter. “Were you planning to help us escape?”
It was a perfectly reasonable question.
If Mana were their enemy, she wouldn’t have saved them from the villagers.
Nor would she have patiently explained everything.
Surely…
She intended to offer some sort of guidance.
“…I’m not especially happy about saying this… but you outsiders are dangerous to this village as well. If your souls become too deeply connected to this place, it’s possible that even the dam from your world could begin flowing into ours. However… with the power I currently possess, I can’t immediately send all four of you home. So… I need you to escape this village through your own strength.”
Only after carefully prefacing her words did Mana reveal the solution.
“Destroy the shrine dedicated to the guardian deity. Once the deity’s power is thrown into disorder, the force imprisoning you inside this village will weaken as well. If you can escape afterward… you’ll return safely to your own world.”
“So now we have to destroy the shrine.”
“Seriously… how much of this is actually true?”
Only moments ago, their “best friend”—or rather, Taketsuru’s best friend and Meiko’s childhood friend—had practically described this exact scenario.
Now they were living it.
Taketsuru and Meiko both buried their faces in their hands.
Well…
If you were dealing with one of those classic cursed villages, destroying the shrine was practically mandatory.
A traditional horror village simply wasn’t complete without one.
And once a shrine existed…
Breaking it became an unavoidable event.
Naturally, the story also had to provide a compelling justification.
Otherwise, it would just be property damage.
“…Um… may I ask something too?”
Kuwajima timidly raised her hand.
Mana silently gestured for her to continue.
Looking strangely anxious, Kuwajima spoke.
“What happened to Kirishiro-kun? Is his disappearance… connected to everything you’ve been telling us?”
“…He…”
Mana hesitated.
Then…
Her voice echoed directly inside my own head.
“What’s the setting again?”
Don’t call it a setting.
Honestly…
Fine.
I’ll explain everything one more time.
This time, make sure you remember it properly.
So I quickly filled her in on everything I’d supposedly been doing around the village.
A few moments later…
Mana resumed speaking.
“He realized the truth about this village before anyone else. The secret of Fushijishi Village… the truth behind the guardian deity… and the mystery connecting your world to this one. More importantly… he was the one who awakened me.”
“…Meaning?”
“After discovering those secrets, the landlady of the inn and one of her guests attempted to kill him. Instead, he defeated both of them… and offered them to the guardian deity as proper sacrifices according to the ancient rites. Through that offering, I awakened… and learned both his circumstances and yours.”
“…So… that murder we saw earlier was…”
“He and I made an agreement. If all of you escaped safely, he promised that in your world he would perform memorial rites for the village resting beneath the waters. In exchange, I agreed to help return you to your own world. The Kirishiro you saw until recently… was merely a recording he asked me to leave behind. He’s already escaped this world himself.”
“…………”
Silence descended.
The four of them exchanged uncertain glances.
It had become less a strategy meeting…
And more like a jury deliberation.
“…At least the story is internally consistent.”
“Ninety-nine percent chance it’s an elaborate setup… but those impossible things really did happen. And if, by some tiny chance, this story is actually true…”
“…Then we could really be killed and offered as sacrifices.”
“That would be quite a problem.”
Their doubts hadn’t vanished.
Far from it.
Even Taketsuru and Meiko, who distrusted almost everything, remained suspicious.
But compared to before…
The balance had shifted.
They believed just a little more than they had a few minutes ago.
That was probably the influence of the guardian deity itself.
Humans were creatures strangely inclined to trust the words of gods.
Of course…
I’d already rendered that sort of inexplicable divine brainwashing completely ineffective by redefining my own existence as something that stood above the very concept of a god.
Maintaining one’s own free will no matter how hopeless the situation became…
That was simply one of the fundamental skills possessed by an utterly ordinary university student.
After all, suddenly being told to consciously reconstruct your own mind wasn’t exactly something anyone other than an utterly ordinary university student could accomplish.
“…Well, whether this is all staged… or whether every word is somehow true… it doesn’t really change what we have to do, does it?”
“At least we can finally see the route for this haunted-house challenge.”
“So… destroy the shrine… then escape the village.”
“I’m guessing if we can just make it back to the car, that’ll count as the finish line.”
At last, the four of them seemed to understand the rules of this overnight haunted-village test of courage.
After all the elaborate world-building…
The objective itself was incredibly simple.
Destroy the shrine that served as the heart of the entire supernatural phenomenon.
Then make it back to the bridge connecting them to their own world—
Which, in this case…
Was the car.
Incidentally, according to the guardian deity, the spot where their vehicle had stalled happened to correspond with the entrance to the dam in the real world.
The reason the car couldn’t move any farther…
Was because beyond that point…
The road no longer existed.
Only water did.
“It seems you’ve made your decision.”
Having listened quietly to their discussion, Mana smiled.
It was the smile of a higher being.
A gentle, compassionate expression that embraced all humans equally, no matter how foreign they might be.
After confirming the determination now shining in each of their eyes, she spoke once more.
“One final thing. Please remember this above all else.”
This was the one instruction I’d insisted absolutely had to be included.
No matter what.
“If, during the escape that awaits you, excessive physical contact or overwhelming fear causes you unbearable mental distress… raise your right hand and loudly chant, ‘Fushijishi is a wonderful place—come visit at least once!’ three times in succession. I’ll use every ounce of power I possess to somehow help you escape this village.”
“Oh, come on! This is totally Kirishiro’s doing after all!!”
“If you’re trying to keep the atmosphere spooky, stop worrying about compliance at the very end!!”
“Kirishiro-kun is always like this! What does he even think an ordinary daily life is supposed to be!?”
“Wow… that actually makes me feel a lot safer~”
Well, this was only a trial run.
Whatever we’d eventually do in the production version was another matter entirely.
But for now, we needed safeguards.
If something happened, I didn’t want harassment complaints landing on my desk.
Besides…
Even real haunted houses managed to terrify people despite everyone knowing they were fake.
We’d make it work somehow.
That said…
It would be a problem if they became completely convinced everything was staged right here.
So naturally…
I had Mana add one final excuse.
“However… if you do invoke that protection, I’ll exhaust all of my remaining power. I may even die. So… please only use it when you truly have no other choice.”
“Don’t make it sound just believable enough!!”
“That pained expression on her face is making it impossible to tell whether she’s lying or not!!”
“What are you making a little girl say, Kirishiro-kun!?”
With the obligatory aftercare now safely in place…
The grand opening of the two-day, one-night cursed village test of courage could finally begin in earnest.