The house's layout was familiar, but compared to how it had appeared in the father and daughter's memories, it looked far older now. Thick layers of dust covered many places, and the air carried the smell of decay.
"So... we're back?" Eiko Hozuki turned her head and looked around uncertainly.
As an ordinary person, she had no way to tell illusion from reality.
"Yes, we're back. Nobody's missing, and everyone's perfectly fine." Xu Fu lifted her chin lightly and planted her hands on her hips in smug pride. "With cute and reliable Xu Fu-chan on the job, an outcome like this was only to be expected~!"
"Honestly, Xu Fu-chan, you scared me half to death back there. At that moment, I really thought you were gone..."
Eiko shot Xu Fu an annoyed glare and complained out loud. Clearly, the resentment in her heart had not fully faded. Even pinching Xu Fu's little cheeks earlier had not fully vented it.
Yayoi Hozuki, meanwhile, did not once insert herself into their conversation. Her attention had been fixed on Taira no Masakado the entire time.
It was subtle, but she could still sense that something about him was changing.
"This is... some of it has come back?"
With Taira no Masakado reflected in her eyes, Yayoi murmured to herself.
"Your memories... and your strength."
That kind of change was only natural. After all, Taira no Masakado had truly eaten quite a lot this time.
Nearly the entirety of the mountain-sized Angel-sama had gone into his stomach. And aside from Angel-sama, he had also devoured dozens of the spirits hanging from the dead branches and singing.
If anything, what surprised Xu Fu more was that Taira no Masakado still had not evolved to the next stage—from Growth Phase to Mature Phase.
In the original story, Taira no Masakado had shown three stages. The first was his current form, wearing that ragged, tattered white garment.
In his second stage, Taira no Masakado would be "clothed in imperial robes," wearing the splendid attire from when he had called himself the New Emperor in life.
The third stage was [New Emperor] Taira no Masakado. In that form, he fully recovered both his strength and his memories, surpassing every Graduate in Yayoi Hozuki's possession and reaching a level equal to the gods of this world.
Because Angel-sama had been eaten by Taira no Masakado, Xu Fu had not gained much in the way of black souls from this battle. Even if she fed them all to Red Hood, it would not strengthen her very much. And yet the one who had gained the most—Taira no Masakado—still had not evolved to his second stage. Xu Fu found that deeply regrettable.
How could your appetite be that huge?
On the second floor of the house, Xu Fu and the others found the altar used to create Angel-sama. The altar had been made from the mother's remains. It had already been removed by the police during the investigation long ago, but the altar's lingering spirituality still remained there.
Inside a crack in the wall behind the altar, they found the cursed object The Replaced had placed there. It was that very cursed object that had continued sustaining the altar's spirituality even after the altar itself was taken away. Only after Xu Fu and the others destroyed it did this incident truly come to an end.
Eiko called the owner and successfully bought the old house for the astonishingly low price of one hundred yen, using it as a place to keep the Graduates.
With the house Yayoi and Eiko wanted taken care of, it was time for the house Xu Fu wanted.
It was a three-story little villa. After Xu Fu demonstrated a bit of "money power" right in front of Yayoi and Eiko, all the procedures went through with almost suspicious smoothness.
This time, they did not run into any terrifying evil spirits like they had at the House of the Annunciation. There were only a few Wandering Ghosts aimlessly drifting about, and Xu Fu simply waved them away. After all, the house belonged to her now.
Eiko had actually invited Xu Fu to stay at her house instead if she had nowhere to live, and Xu Fu had seriously considered it.
A house that big did feel far too empty with only one person living in it, and cleaning it was a pain. Ideally, she wanted to be able to lie on the sofa doing absolutely nothing while someone else took care of all the housework. Living with other people—or hiring a few servants—would have been a good solution.
But she wanted to make certain arrangements to her residence herself, and if there were outsiders around, accidents would be all too easy. So not only could she not live in someone else's house, she also could not hire servants.
Which meant the only answer was to make a few clockwork maid dolls herself and let them handle all the housekeeping.
Xu Fu had even joked to Red Hood, "Hood~! How about you put on a maid outfit and help me clean~?"
As expected, Red Hood pinched her cheeks again without mercy.
Seriously. If you've got objections, then say them! We can talk it out properly! What's with grabbing my face every time we disagree?
...
"Whoa! Xu Fu-chan, your house is huge!"
On this day, Yoshida Saori came to visit Xu Fu's new house. Before she had even stepped through the gate—just from seeing it at a distance—she could not help but gasp in amazement.
With her was Nagata Takaya, Yoshida Saori's boyfriend.
Looking at Xu Fu in surprise, Saori said, "Xu Fu-chan, could it be... you're actually super rich? You just bought a house this big like it was nothing?"
"Well, Taoists burn through a lot of money on research too." Xu Fu answered as though it were no big deal. "Anyway, you two didn't come all the way out to a place this remote just to stare from the front gate, did you? Come in and have a look. I haven't bought any furniture yet, but the previous owner left behind a few old pieces, and I kept the ones that still seemed usable. At least there are places for guests to sit."
Out in the yard, Saori and the others saw a clockwork maid doll trimming the plants. Inside the house, several clockwork dolls were cleaning, and even the one serving tea to guests was a clockwork doll.
It felt like stepping into a witch's cottage from a fairy tale.
That was the delightfully childish assessment Yoshida Saori gave.
"Xu Fu-chan~! Give me one of those dolls that can cook and clean, okay?"
Saori wrapped her arms around Xu Fu from the side and rubbed her cheek against her like a spoiled kitten, pleading in a soft, sweet voice, "I want one that can help my mom out with the housework. Then she'd have more time to do things for herself."
"For something like that, wouldn't a fully automatic robot vacuum from the mall do the job?" Xu Fu answered helplessly while Saori continued rubbing all over her face.
"No way, no way~! How could a robot vacuum possibly compare to the dolls you have here, Xu Fu-chan? What I want is a Xu Fu doll—some lazy person miracle machine that can take over every household chore. Those so-called machines on the market aren't intelligent at all."
Just as wife cakes contain no wife, renminbi contain no people, and the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire, it was only natural that intelligent robots had no intelligence either.
"All right, all right, I'll give you one~! So stop clinging to me like this already! You're too warm~!"
"Heeheehee! I knew Xu Fu-chan was the nicest!"
To celebrate Xu Fu finally buying a house she liked, Yoshida Saori suggested they all go shopping together at the mall, buy some furniture to fill up the new place, turn the empty house into a cozy home, and have a meal together while they were at it.
After all, Xu Fu had helped Saori and the others solve the evil spirit incident at the hospital, and they still had not properly thanked her.
Xu Fu's clockwork dolls could cook too, and the dishes they made were both beautiful and delicious. But Saori insisted that eating in such a huge, brand-new house seriously lacked atmosphere.
"If I eat in such a beautiful new house, I'll get nervous and won't even be able to hold my chopsticks steady." Tugging at Xu Fu's sleeve, Saori blinked and said, "Eating out feels more celebratory."
Xu Fu thought Saori had a point. Even she felt the new house was too empty, without any sense of home to it, so she agreed.
Worth mentioning was that Nagata Takaya had not driven over this time. He and Yoshida Saori had taken the train here together. So Xu Fu left the task of guarding the house to the clockwork dolls inside, and then headed with Saori and Takaya to the nearby station to board a train.
Because the house was in such a remote area, when they first got on, there were not many people in the carriage, making it feel especially spacious. The afternoon sun shone through the clean windows, scattering mottled patches of light across the seats and floor. The warmth spilled over them, creating a peaceful, pleasant atmosphere.
But as the train gradually entered the city proper, the sunlight passing through the windows was sometimes blocked by tall buildings or reflected off glass, losing that earlier purity.
The carriage also gradually filled with crowds. The seats that had once been empty were quickly occupied, and those who boarded later had to stand in the aisle. The train was still quiet, but the quiet was no longer comfortable.
Instead, it felt strangely heavy.
Everyone in the carriage kept their heads down, busy with their own things, indifferent to whatever was happening around them. They even kept a wary distance from one another, rejecting the approach of strangers like parallel lines that would never cross.
Among them, Xu Fu also spotted several Wandering Ghosts. They were mixed in with the packed crowd, squeezing onto the train shoulder to shoulder with ordinary people who could not see them.
Had these Wandering Ghosts really been worked half to death? Even after dying, they still kept the habit of cramming onto trains, repeating the same thing day after day. Their cause of death was probably overwork.
There were especially many people like that in this country...
Just as Xu Fu let out a quiet inward sigh, her gaze suddenly fixed on one corner of the carriage.
"Hm? That one is..."
Xu Fu frowned slightly, her eyes locking through the crowd onto a suspicious-looking man.
He was wearing a gray suit, and everything about him—from his expression to the way he moved—radiated sleaze. Xu Fu noticed that, using the swaying of the train as cover, he was deliberately shifting his position until he ended up beside a female passenger.
After that, the man made it look casual and braced his elbow against the woman's back. Then, when the carriage swayed again, he pretended to lose his footing and let his whole palm slide onto the small of her back.
His breathing quickened, and the wrinkles on his face looked as disgusting as writhing maggots.
Well, well. Was this man planning to play out some eroge scenario right here in public?
Seeing that he was just about to go even further, Xu Fu quietly gathered a strand of green light at her fingertip, ready to teach the creep a lesson.
...Hm? Wait a second. What if the two of them were into it? What if that woman actually liked this kind of play?
To be safe, Xu Fu took a rough reading of the woman's aura to gauge her emotions. Xu Fu did not like prying into other people's memories at random, but at a time like this, it was enough just to sense her emotional state.
Only after confirming that the woman was not giving off even the slightest hint of anticipation or excitement did Xu Fu feel comfortable acting.
Just as the creep was about to let his hand slide lower, a hand suddenly shot out from the crowd and clamped around his wrist like a vice.
"Hiss—!"
The man sucked in a breath through clenched teeth from the pain. His features twisted together, and the corners of his eyes twitched wildly.
At the same time, panic exploded inside him. He was terrified that what he had been doing was about to be exposed.
Stay calm. Stay calm! As long as I face this down without flinching, there's still a chance! In a train full of people like this, that woman will probably deny she was harassed just to protect her own reputation.
A thousand thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant.
But the moment he saw the face of the one who had stopped him, every bit of mental preparation he had built collapsed at once.
"Mister... what game were you playing with this lady...?"
A little girl with black twin-tails, dressed in a blood-red dress, stood barefoot in a gap between the crowd. Her eyes and mouth were pitch-black, while dark red blood streamed from her features and dripped to the floor, pooling into a puddle beneath her feet.
From between lips as deep and dark as an abyss, a hoarse question slowly squeezed out.
"It looks really fun... can I play with you too, mister...?"
Crack. Crack.
With sharp, brittle sounds like porcelain breaking, tiny fissures spread across the little girl's cheeks. The cracks lengthened and widened, until they covered that face twisted into an eerie smile.
Then, amid a spine-chilling splintering sound, the entire skin of her face shattered and fell away, revealing a vast, immeasurable void beneath.
And in that infinite darkness, countless blood-red eyes opened—deep, terrible eyes, gazing wantonly at the sleazy man with inhuman curiosity and amusement as an invisible force dragged his entire being into that bottomless blackness.
Falling, falling...
Falling ever downward into deeper darkness, into a more indescribable abyss...
Until eternity.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHH...! AAAAAAHHH...!!"
When the train doors opened, a disheveled, gaunt man with unfocused eyes burst through the crowd screaming and fled in a panic, stumbling as he ran.
"Hmm... did I overdo it?"
Xu Fu tilted her head as she watched every part of the man's desperate behavior.
"Still, with a trauma like that, I imagine he'll never harass another girl again."
He might even develop full-on gynophobia.
---
T/N: MEN ARE PIGS!!!!!!! women are cute pigs teehee