Several more days passed after the old woman evil spirit and the giant evil spirit in the hospital were eradicated.
Xu Fu had checked in with Yoshida Saori and Yoshida Kotaro about the situation there, and Kotaro had happily told her that the people in the hospital were no longer having nightmares. A happy ending, a happy ending.
Xu Fu sincerely felt that, in this world, doctors and police officers were both terrible professions.
Because both jobs involved dealing with the dead all the time, which made it easy to run into evil spirits—and shinigami.
The "shinigami" in question were not the scythe-wielding gods from myth. They were a special kind of evil spirit, appearing as humanoid masses of black mist. They fed on all manner of spiritual beings, from Wandering Ghosts to evil spirits. They also appeared beside those whose time was nearly up or patients close to dying of illness, draining their life force and then carrying off their souls after death. That was why Yayoi Hozuki and the others called them "shinigami."
And unlike other evil spirits, shinigami could not be reasoned with, nor were they afraid of salt.
It was said that these shinigami appeared in places that had seen war and had an excess of dead souls, in order to keep the cycle of life functioning properly there. They usually haunted places like old battlefields, hospitals, and mass graves—anywhere many people had died. Their numbers were said to be roughly on par with humanity's, so wiping them all out was extremely difficult, even though they constantly caused trouble for the living.
Then there was Eiko Hozuki's bracelet.
For Xu Fu, this was hardly a major undertaking. Compared to her work in the immortality business, it was basically a children's make-believe problem.
Naturally, she couldn't put it that way in front of customers like Eiko and Keitaro Gentoga. She had to dress it up a little, make it sound like a rare and precious treasure. Only then would they feel the bracelet was worth every penny, and only then could Xu Fu make any money off it.
Take an apple that cost an average of three yuan, add a little decoration and some sales talk, then turn around and sell it for a hundred and eight apiece—that was what doing business meant.
Back in the day, that was exactly how she had operated in front of Qin Shi Huang. Even when she had no real results to show and was even using public funds to reimburse her own side business, she still had to tell him her research had made tremendous progress. Otherwise, losing her research budget would have been the least of her worries. She might have lost her head right alongside it.
Then there was Red Hood...
Her performance in the hospital had been a little lacking. Against the giant evil spirit, she had been thrown outside by the clones, then held off by even more of them and unable to return to the battlefield. She had killed fewer enemies than even Taira no Masakado in his growth phase.
Xu Fu naturally refused to admit that the problem had been her own commands. Clearly, Red Hood's level was just too low! She needed to eat more souls!
And since defeating the giant evil spirit in the hospital had netted them some more souls, Xu Fu fed every last one of them to Red Hood.
It was enough that Xu Fu could practically see words like [Level Up!] floating over Red Hood's head.
Actually, once she had souls in hand, Xu Fu's first thought had been to make another Grimm doll.
After all, Grimm was the protagonist of Black Souls, while Red Hood was the protagonist of Red Hood's Forest, DEADREDHOOD, and Journey of Red.
But she had failed—and she did not even know why.
When she had made the Red Hood doll, Xu Fu had created a "virtual personality" based on her impression of the real Red Hood. But when it came to Grimm, she simply could not create one.
The reason for that failure was probably connected to the Outer Gods.
After all, the Outer Gods were real. That "Outer God of Flowers" had caused her quite a bit of trouble before, and then there was "God of a Thousand Forms," "the Crawling Chaos," who had appeared before her in the form of Nyarko. That one also seemed to harbor some sort of special feelings toward her.
That particular "Nyarko" had said that she was only one face among the "Thousand Forms." She liked Xu Fu very much, but knew how to restrain herself and didn't want to do anything too extreme and make Xu Fu hate her.
But the other "Crawling Chaos"... that was another matter.
"You'd better remember this: if, while traveling between worlds, you run into another 'me,' make absolutely sure you stay as far away from it as possible. Since they're all me, there's a very good chance they'll be interested in you too. But what they'll do because of that... isn't something even I can predict."
That was the warning "Nyarko" had given her.
There was really nothing funny about that.
Was she going to end up like Grimm too, kidnapped by a "Crawling Chaos" to Wonderland? And if that happened, would she have good friends like Red Hood and White Rabbit Node to help her escape?
Her Grimm doll plan had failed, so Xu Fu had ended up using all the souls she had obtained to strengthen Red Hood instead.
Later on, she might set her sights on making other dolls as well—Jeanne dolls, Dorothy dolls, Elma dolls, or maybe even a Deadpolca doll or a Lily Killer doll, and so on and so forth...
She'd think about those whenever the mood struck her.
As for a Leaf doll, forget it.
That green worm was more suited to being used as a punching bag. There was no way Xu Fu was ever going to give it a "virtual personality."
After leveling up came the weapons.
At the moment, Red Hood only had a kitchen knife, a short firearm, and the Drake Sword. Xu Fu still had some drops left over from the monk evil spirit she had taken down before, and from those she had made a Vorpal Blade. This time, after defeating the giant evil spirit, she had gotten some more drops, and wanted to see whether she could upgrade the Vorpal Blade into a Vorpal Sword.
If she could take it all the way to max level and turn it into the Heroic Vorpal Sword, that would be even better.
Unfortunately, this world did not come with Rabbit Teacher Vorpal, who could teach her the sword techniques for hunting evil dragons so she could "learn them by enduring them herself."
"Excuse the intrusion~!"
Today was the day she had arranged to go house-hunting with Yayoi Hozuki and Eiko. There was no wind and no rain; the sky was clear and the air was fresh.
Perfect weather for going out.
"Xu Fu! Welcome!"
Xu Fu's toes had barely crossed the threshold before Yayoi darted over like a happy skylark. She gently took Xu Fu's hand and spun with her lightly a few times by the door, even though that porcelain-doll-pretty face of hers still wore no expression at all.
"Yayoi~! Xu Fu-chan came over to hang out with you~!"
Xu Fu beamed and let Yayoi lead her in those spins at the entrance.
Once inside, Xu Fu sat down on the sofa while Eiko brought over hot cocoa from the kitchen, along with chocolate, senbei, and other little snacks, setting them all on the coffee table in front of her.
Xu Fu counted them.
There were four cups of hot cocoa on the table, but only three people in the living room.
"Is Keitaro coming over later too?"
"Ah, no, he isn't. Kei-kun has other plans today, so only the three of us are going to look at houses," Eiko explained patiently with a gentle smile. "The fourth cup is for Red Hood. She's here too, right? She can have some of these snacks as well."
"Hood," Yayoi said too. "I want to see her again. Last time I didn't even get the chance to talk to her properly."
Red Hood was just a doll. Strictly speaking, she had no need to eat.
Even so, Xu Fu still released her.
Red Hood's cold gaze swept over Yayoi and Eiko before turning to Xu Fu, and she said icily, "You actually called me out for something like this... honestly, I don't even know what to say. Wouldn't it be better if you just treated me as a useful blade and only summoned me when you need to fight?"
Xu Fu stared blankly at Red Hood and blinked a few times.
...Was the Red Hood in my memory always this prickly?
"..."
Red Hood walked in silence over to Xu Fu, then suddenly reached out with both hands and pinched her soft cheeks, pulling them outward expressionlessly and stretching that delicate face into a ridiculous shape, like she was kneading a lump of mochi.
"Why~?! Why are you pinching my face~?! Yamero—stop that~!"
Yayoi and Eiko both seemed to like Red Hood quite a lot. Watching the two of them gather around her while she herself sat there with her cheeks still a little red from having just been pinched, Xu Fu drank her hot cocoa and gradually puffed up into a sulky expression.
Xu Fu-chan was obviously the cutest one in the world, so why were they flocking around Red Hood instead of fussing over her?!
How was Red Hood stealing her popularity away?!
The more she thought about it, the more indignant she became. So she quietly circled around behind Red Hood and, in a fit of petulance, lifted a foot and kicked her in the calf.
Of course, it didn't hurt at all.
Red Hood noticed Xu Fu's little move and couldn't help smiling faintly.
But the smile vanished in an instant, and the next moment her face was cold and indifferent again.
"Before we go look at houses, I want to show Xu Fu and Hood the collection in my room."
The "collection" Yayoi was talking about was, naturally, not ordinary figures or dolls.
It was evil spirits sealed inside dolls.
The Hozuki house had two floors. The first floor held the living room, kitchen, and bathroom, while the bedrooms were all upstairs. For such a large house, with only Yayoi and Eiko living in it, it felt rather empty.
That was because Eiko's parents both lived elsewhere.
With Yayoi leading the way, Xu Fu and Red Hood followed her upstairs to her room.
There was no air conditioner running, and yet the moment Yayoi opened the door, a piercing wind swept past Xu Fu and the others.
The instant the door creaked open, dozens of crimson points of light flared to life in the dark room.
Those eyes, like blood-soaked jewels, all turned in perfect unison toward the doorway from within the shadows. Thick malice churned inside them.
The air seemed to freeze in an instant.
Those gazes carried a cold, heavy weight, as though countless invisible tendrils were winding in from all directions. The shriek of the wind was as sharp as something wailing in agony.
The source of all that dense malice was the dolls arranged on the shelves.
Their hatred for the living and their hunger for food kept them all in a restless agitation.
Yayoi Hozuki's room was a genuine devil's den.
Even an ordinary person of mere flesh and blood, without Spiritual Sight, would be able to sense that something was terribly wrong about it.
The first time Keitaro, with his extreme spiritual sensitivity, had been brought into Yayoi's room, he had nearly pissed himself from fright.
Naturally, though, this kind of thing could not scare Xu Fu.
When it came to horror, Xu Fu—who had researched death and terror for so many years in order to kill the immortal Yu Mei-ren once and for all—was the very ancestor of the lot of them.
Xu Fu's beautiful eyes sharpened as her gaze swept across the dolls in the room, and she quietly activated [Collection of Deaths].
Without warning, one doll's head began to swell.
The seams in its fabric let out a skin-crawling tearing sound as the head distorted like an overinflated balloon, until with a muffled pop, it burst apart.
The truly horrifying part was this: despite being nothing more than a stuffed doll, it sprayed thick black blood when it exploded.
The foul-smelling liquid splashed across the bookshelves, soaked into the carpet, and spattered onto the surrounding dolls, making them look even more grotesque.
Then the second doll's head began to bulge unnaturally as well, its seams snapping apart one after another.
Then the third.
Then the fourth...
An entire row of dolls underwent bizarre self-destruction in succession, and for a moment the room was caught in a grotesque downpour of stuffing and black blood.
In the blink of an eye, more than a dozen of Yayoi's room's "collection" were gone.
The remaining dolls seemed to have been cowed into silence. The red glow in their eyes dimmed, and the room became so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Only the sound of black blood dripping from the edges of the shelves remained, conspicuously clear in the unnatural stillness.
Xu Fu blinked blankly and turned to look at Yayoi.
Yayoi had turned as well.
Their eyes met.
After a moment, a trace of reproach gradually appeared in Yayoi's gaze, while a trace of guilt gradually appeared in Xu Fu's.
"Um... I was only trying to scare them a little. They were the ones staring at us first. I just didn't expect them to be this weak—they died before I even put any force into it... so it's all their fault!"
Xu Fu shamelessly shoved all responsibility onto the evil spirits in the room.
At this point, scolding her would achieve nothing, and to be fair, the evil spirits really had been the ones to start it.
Yayoi gave a helpless explanation. "Not long ago, a Graduate was born in my room. More than a hundred evil spirits in here became nourishment for its growth. The ones left here now are all ones I caught recently, so both their quantity and quality are lacking. They can't be used as combat power—only as katashiro to take hits."
If you placed a piece of your own body tissue into a humanoid object such as a doll or paper figure, it could become a katashiro and take spiritual damage in your place.
An evil spirit sealed inside a doll shared its state with the doll, which meant damage to the doll would inflict equal damage on the evil spirit within.
Yayoi had combined those two principles, turning evil spirits into katashiro that could block damage on her behalf.
In order to avoid taking damage themselves, those evil spirits not only would not harm Yayoi and the others, they would actively protect them.
Even if a few of them wanted to drag Yayoi down with them, the other evil spirits—terrified of dying—would desperately stop them.
That was precisely the principle Yayoi relied on to take her evil spirits into battle like a Pokémon Trainer.