I could see Narusawa slowly creeping up behind him. Our eyes met, and she put her finger to her lips as if to say “Shhhh!” Gamo hadn’t noticed her.
What was she doing? I watched, excitedly.
Narusawa pinched a few strands of his hair with her pretty fingers.
“Huh?”
“Pluck? Pluck! ☆” And then she yanked them out, hard.
“Ow!” As Gamo writhed in pain, I could see ten or so strands of hair in Narusawa’s hands.
“Hey, what are you doing, Ryotasu?”
“I’m your correspondent, right?”
“Huh?”
“Pan-paka-pan! Correspondent Ryotasu is off to do her duty!” Narusawa raised Gamo’s hair high above her head.
“Um, where are you going?”
“You know where I’m going, silly! Somewhere I can use this hair! ☆”
“You don’t mean...” Narusawa pointed her finger towards Gamo’s laptop.
“Black Magic Papacy! Bam! Ba-bam!”
Agency, you mean...
“Wait, why is today the only day you actually want to work? Is it the Myu-Pom Effect?” Gamo looked confused.
“Why me?”
“I mean, you know in anime and manga there’s always rivals. You two could be trying to show off to me, to show which of you is really the true Basara Girl.”
I understood that a Basara Girl was like a Bond Girl, but I wasn’t interested in being one at all.
“Anyway, Ryotasu, can you give me back my hair?”
“But isn’t this your big chance, Gamo?” I made a suggestion.
“Huh? How so?”
“If your hair gets you cursed by a devil, you’ll get your chance to become friends with one, right?”
“Oh, um... Y-Yeah. I am the NEET God, after all. Ahaha... By the way, Ryotasu, are you really not going to give me back my hair? Why don’t we go to Woodberrys right now? My treat?” Gamo’s face was twitching.
Ahaha!
Narusawa refused, saying only, “I’m a correspondent!” After that, she moved super-fast.
Maybe she’s this fast because she’s used to ignoring what everyone else wants, I thought to myself as I stared up at the sign for Harmonica Alley.
“We’re here! ☆” I still couldn’t believe we’d visited the shop that very day. Talk about super-bold.
“Maybe I’ll go home... I’m so nervous, my stomach is hurting.” It wasn’t that bad during the livestreams, but now my heart was pounding in a really weird way.
“Nope! ☆ Myu, you’re part of Kirikiri Basara, too! ☆ Kirikiri! Come on, Kirikiri! ☆” Narusawa made a cute pose at me in front of the crowded entrance to Harmonica Alley.
The people’s stares as they passed by were physically painful. If anything felt like it was getting ripped apart, it was my stomach.
The sun had already set. Harmonica Alley’s cramped street was filled with salarymen on their way home from work.
I always passed by this place on my way home from school, but I’d never actually gone inside.
I was a minor, so there was no reason for me to go there. And I had this weird idea that if I did, I might get creeped on by middle-aged drunk guys.
Narusawa had been in such a hurry that I hadn’t even had time to change out of my school uniform. That worried me, too. I felt totally out of place. If any of the teachers saw me here, they were sure to get mad at me. And if the police saw me and took me in, that would be even worse. Narusawa wasn’t wearing her uniform, and if you didn’t look too closely— or closely at all, really— she could kind of pass for an adult.
“Alright! Time for me to become a drunk! ☆ Mumuu!” Narusawa started to pretend to stagger around like a drunk.
Was this really okay? The only reason I’d come was because I was worried about her being here alone. I’d told Gamo he should come too, but...
“I’m the one who’s going to be cursed. If I come too, there’s no point.” He’d given that excuse and refused to come. It was plainly obvious that he was scared.
I’d come along since I didn’t have a choice, but... Umyu! I couldn’t stay standing here forever! It was do or die time, maybe!
“Okay, let’s go!” I motioned for Narusawa to follow me and stepped into Harmonica Alley.
I’d memorized the map of the alley after looking it up online. We took the shortest route to our destination, the House of Crimson.
When we arrived, all we found was a tiny sign and a plain-looking entrance. The sign only read, “Black Magic Agency — House of Crimson.” If someone came here without knowing anything about it, they’d be too scared to get close. Especially since going inside meant walking up a gloomy, dimly-lit staircase.
I looked up the stairs. There was a door at the top. I could see the dim light of the shop from the small window.
“Okay, Narusawa. All ready? Okay? Just follow the plan.”
“Yup. ☆” Narusawa grinned and gave a little cheer.
This was the plan: Narusawa and I were supposedly both in a relationship with Gamo, who was cheating on us both. But when we’d talked about it with each other, we’d decided that we’d put a curse on him to make him pay for what he’d done. Gamo had come up with this plan.
I’d said that I personally didn’t like it, because it made Gamo out to be much more popular with girls than he really was. He’d gotten mad and told me to come up with my own plan, then.
“Knock, knock, knock! ☆” Narusawa went up the stairs first. They were so steep that I could see up her skirt from where I was standing.
I looked around to make sure there were no men nearby, and then sighed. Narusawa needed to be way more careful. Could you believe it? Normally you’d at least try to hide that.
“Hello! ☆” Narusawa opened the door with a laid-back greeting.
I followed right after her. “Come on, don’t greet her like that...” There was no way the owner would believe that we were poor girls who’d been cheated on now.
I felt like the plan was already blown, but I followed her up the stairs anyway. Of course, I kept a close eye on the hem of my skirt.
The inside of the shop had a ceiling that was a little low, but it wasn’t as cramped as the staircase. Since it was a black magic shop, there wasn’t much light, and there were all kinds of creepy merchandise everywhere.
Wow... this place really felt evil.
Black magic and fortune-telling might seem similar, but they were totally different. All these different tools were meaningless to me, and I didn’t really like places like this that were supposed to feel mystic and foreboding. I always wanted my fortune-telling to be cheerful and fun.
It felt kind of hard to breathe, maybe. It felt like being underwater.
“Welcome to the House of Crimson.” I suddenly gasped as I heard a voice speak to me.
She sat silently in the back of the store.
—She was very pretty. That’s how it felt to me, from the bottom of my heart. She was really pretty. She had long black hair, elegant features, and a sad expression. It was like looking at a doll, somehow.
Was she the store owner that people were talking about? Oh, wow, she was a lot younger than I thought. Was she maybe not that much older than me?
The owner of the store stood up and brought us chairs from the corner of the shop. “Please, sit down.”
Narusawa and I sat down across from her. I didn’t want to stare, but she was just so pretty that I couldn’t help myself. Narusawa sat next to me, her eyes shining as she looked at the five stuffed animals on the shelves behind the girl.
“They’re so cute! ☆” She hadn’t forgotten the plan, had she?
The girl poured us herbal tea. I thanked her and took a sip, and sighed as it warmed my body.
The owner of the store said her name was Aria Kurenaino.
“This is your first visit, isn’t it?” She began to explain her system as a black magic agent.
She told us that her “dolls,” the super-cute stuffed animals o
n her shelf, would do the actual work of cursing someone for us. She told us that there were three packages, depending on the price we wanted to pay. And that the more expensive the package, the more effective the curse.
There was no way for me to know how much of what she was saying was real and how much was fake, but the idea of stuffed animals carrying out the curse made things seem a little less brutal for the client, and maybe a little easier.
“Which package will you choose?” All three packages were expensive. For a student like me, even the cheapest package was expensive.
Narusawa didn’t seem like she’d listened to the explanation. She just stared at the dolls, and answered without a hint of hesitation.
“I’ll take the Devil’s Ritual! ☆”
“What?” She picked that not because of the price, but the number of dolls! The Devil’s Ritual used all five dolls, but it was the most expensive, at 66,600 yen.
With Aria sitting right there, I couldn’t say anything about it, so I just sat there in shock.
And I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Narusawa take almost 70,000 yen out of her wallet. Was she really going to pay 66,600 yen?
Was Narusawa from a really rich family or something, maybe? Why would a girl like that be hanging out with Gamo?
“Understood.” Aria took the money and slowly nodded.
She spread out a sheet with a magic symbol drawn on it on the table. And then she put the five dolls on top of the symbol.
Narusawa poked the green-striped doll in front of her on the head with her finger. I was terrified that Aria might get mad at her.
“So what’s your request?” Aria didn’t smile, but that only made her seem more alluring and beautiful.
It felt like she really could use black magic.
“Samurai Gamonosuke cheated on me! ☆ Please curse him for me! Thanks! ☆”
“Ahaha... um... Narusawa? I don’t know if she’ll be able to understand that.”
“Poyah?”
Don’t say “Poyah.”
I figured that even Aria must have been confused by that, but when I looked, her expression hadn’t changed.
But even if her expression hadn’t changed, her tiny white hands grabbed one of the dolls— a weird-looking one with a white bag on its head that she called Lilith XII— and began to fiddle with it. That was her only reaction.
Was she trying not to laugh or get mad?
“Um... I think we should explain it better... We were, ummm...” I tried to think of a nicer way to put it, but I gave up.
“Let’s try to explain more about the man who cheated on us, okay?” I whispered in her ear, and Narusawa put her finger to her cheek and began to stare at the ceiling. But she only made that thinking pose for a second.
“Gamotan is a year older than me. He’s also a year older than Myu. We became friends two days ago! ☆” Aria’s hands began to move faster as she played with Lilith XII. If it could speak, it might have been screaming in pain.
“Um, so you see...” I interrupted. “There’s a man named Yuta Gamon, and he was cheating on me and Narusawa here. And he calls me Myu-Pom, too. And so we talked about it, and we decided that we were going to make him pay.”
“...”
The only sound in the room was my voice echoing off the thin walls. Why did I feel so tense?
Aria wasn’t looking at us. She was looking down at the boy doll, or maybe girl doll, in her hands. She still had no expression on her face. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
I couldn’t tell.
Was it a good idea to explain things like I just did, anyway?
I gave her Gamo’s name. What if she really cursed him? I couldn’t tell.
I was really worried. What was I doing here? Was it a good idea to test her like this? I didn’t know.
I didn’t know, so I couldn’t help but look... at a vision of Aria.
—Open, Yesod.
I didn’t actually have the cards in front of me, and without them, the visions were less clear, but...
I imagined them in my mind.
I imagined myself flipping over the 9th card. That was all I had to do.
That was all it took for the vision to appear.
I saw a dimly-lit place that looked like it was filled with fog. There were countless silhouettes of people floating around me.
I was beneath dirty water. The filthy mud floating up from the bottom cut off the moonlight on the surface.
No way... This was...
“Myu?”
“Myu?!” I came back to my senses.
Narusawa had her hand on my shoulder and was looking at me, worried.
“I-I’m sorry... I’m fine.” I shook my head and tried to forget about the vision I’d just seen. I felt someone looking at me.
Aria had raised her head and was staring at me. I had to say something.
“I-I was so shocked... It was such a shock that he was cheating on me...” My voice was shaking, but I think that helped me fool her, maybe.
“I understand. Then I will now perform the ceremony.” Aria’s voice was firm.
Evidently, she’d believed us. Afterward, I watched in silence as Aria performed some kind of black magic ritual.
But later, I couldn’t remember what she did at all. I was thinking of something else the whole time.
My vision of Aria... the way she was down at the bottom of the water.
I’d seen the same vision before. It was when I’d tried to find the livestreamer who’d done One-Man Hide And Seek.
—Why? Did she have something to do with the man who’d gone missing? Or was he killed by her curse? I was terrified, and my whole body was freezing. I clutched my arms tightly around myself until the ritual was over. I wanted to get out of this shop as soon as possible.
I didn’t have the courage to speak or to stop the ceremony, so the contract to curse Gamo was made.
site 23: MMG
“Things have been awfully noisy lately.” The voice came from the back of the room, in an area blocked off by curtains. The voice was calm and emotionless, but Takasu could feel a tension running through his mind and body as it spoke.
“Yes... There were more problems with the first generation.” He just barely managed to get the words out.
The back of the room was dimly lit, and from where he was standing he couldn’t see the speaker. The speaker kept talking, unconcerned with Takasu’s fears. “Its specifications are so powerful, and yet you still can’t fully master them? As you’re aware, the first generation was still in the beta test stage. There’s a variation in the overall scandium distribution. We’re also seeing patterns where the receptors are causing extreme variation in brain activity. It’s probably due to a mismatch with the receptor proteins, we believe.”
“Orphan receptors, huh?” Takasu sighed, being careful not to let it be heard. There was no one besides this man who could scare him like this.
“We’re still analyzing it, but despite the extreme similarity in amino acid arrangement, we’re seeing what are clearly different results than the known protein receptors. It’s a near certainty.”
“And that’s the cause of the bug receptors?”
“Yes. Most likely.”
It felt like talking to the darkness, Takasu thought. A bottomless darkness. He wanted to get as close as possible to its depths. He wanted to live up to the expectations of the great person within it.
He was nervous, but talking to the voice was also Takasu’s greatest joy. “The system protocol control continues to be unstable. If you wish to speak strictly in terms of ‘specs,’ they aren’t too low...” Takasu paused to gulp down his saliva.
“They’re too high.”
site 24: Yuta Gamon
Wednesday, February 24th
I checked the time on my phone, and it was 5:12 PM. I looked up. The hallway was long and straight. I looked down towards the end.
There wasn’t much light, both because the sun was about to set and because s
everal lights had been turned off to save electricity. It felt a little like something out of a horror movie.
“The professor’s not here after all...” I’d only wanted to whisper to myself, but my voice echoed more than I thought it would. I quickly looked around.
Building 10 was where the professors had their personal offices. It was the tallest building at Seimei University, I thought.
I was in a hallway on the sixth floor. There was no one here but me. Finals had just ended, it seemed, and so most of the students had probably gone home. But even accounting for that, the place shouldn’t have been this empty.
I hadn’t seen a single person since I’d come into the building.
Man, I want to go home. I really should go home.
I was wearing my high school uniform, so I felt really awkward. This school was for scientists. If someone saw me wandering around, they’d be sure to ask me what I was doing.
“How did this happen?” It was all thanks to Ryotasu that I ended up here.
Two days ago, Ryotasu had suddenly shown a willingness to actually do work for once. She’d run off to do research on the black magic agency. My plan had been to take this newly awakened Ryotasu and have her go interview Dr. Hashigami for me.
When I went to go home from school today, Ryotasu, who I almost never saw at school, ambushed me at the entrance.
“Samurai Gamonosuke ☆, don’t you think it’s time you visited the professor? Like, right now?”
For my part, I thought visiting the professor without an appointment might be considered rude, so I tried to get out of it. But “Awakened Ryotasu” was a lot more pushy than usual.
“You should go! ☆ If you don’t, you won’t be able to see him! ☆ Now’s your chance to stop being such a wimp-o-nosuke! ☆”
And so, well, I ended up reluctantly coming all the way to school.
The problem was, I was sure that Ryotasu would follow me, and she didn’t. When we got to the entrance of the university, my self-proclaimed servant familiar said, “‘Kay, good luck!” and headed straight home.
How could she make me do this by myself? Sure, I agree that it’s not right for me to sit on my butt when my self-proclaimed servant familiar was working really hard. It would be a bad example not just for her, but for our newest member, Myu-Pom.
Occultic;Nine: Volume 1 Page 20