After hearing Inspector Eguchi's explanation, Horitake felt another wave of helplessness wash over him.
As expected, this information directly contradicted what Kagaya Ubuyashiki had told him. Kagaya had been informed that the hundred-odd people had disappeared within the last few days.
Good grief, Horitake thought bitterly. These 'government lords' didn't just hide the number of victims; they hid the timeline, too!
"A few days?" he muttered to himself. "They've been vanishing for two or three months!"
It was staggering. Over three hundred people had gone missing over the course of several months. For an incident of this magnitude, the Kyoto officials hadn't just suppressed the news to keep the public calm—they had outright lied to the Demon Slayer Corps when begging for help.
It was utterly beyond redemption.
Seeing Horitake on the verge of an outburst, his face tight with restrained fury, Eguchi could only offer a weary, sympathetic look. He tried his best to explain the logic—or lack thereof—behind the deception.
"If those officials told the Corps the true duration of these disappearances, the Corps would immediately realize how incompetent they are," Eguchi said. "Think about it: for two or three months, people have been vanishing, and the authorities have been stationary, powerless, and clueless. How could they possibly muster the courage to admit that to you? To them, seeking help from an outside organization like the Demon Slayer Corps is already a humiliating blow to their pride. To admit the full extent of their failure? They'd never do it. They have 'face' to maintain."
"Face? They have a damn lot of nerve calling it 'face'!"
Horitake finally snapped, his voice erupting in a harsh snarl.
"Citizens under their jurisdiction are being snatched away one by one for months! Three hundred lives gone, and they can't solve a single thing! Incompetence is one thing, but to prioritize their pathetic dignity and ridiculous 'face' over those lives? It's grotesque! It's absurd! It's beyond any reason!"
He paced a few steps, his eyes flashing with anger. "What do they think the people of Kyoto are? Just statistics to be managed? What do they think of the families of the missing? They're nothing but a bunch of useless bureaucrats, parasites who draw a salary while doing absolutely nothing but saving their own skins!"
Horitake let out a scathing tirade, tearing into the officials with a verbal lashing that was as thorough as it was satisfying. He didn't stop until the pent-up frustration and suffocating anger in his chest had mostly been vented.
Across from him, Inspector Eguchi remained silent, granting Horitake the time he needed to explode.
Once the silence returned to the courtyard, Eguchi let out a long, slow sigh. "And that... is exactly why I asked to meet you here."
Horitake paused, looking at him.
"The shrine is quiet and deserted. We won't be disturbed, and more importantly, we won't be overheard," Eguchi explained calmly. "You can lose your temper and curse them as much as you like here. No one will hear you, and it won't cause any unnecessary trouble."
Eguchi's words acted like a bucket of cold water, effectively dousing the remaining embers of Horitake's rage. His current mood was difficult to describe—a mixture of lingering irritation and profound exhaustion.
Sighing, Horitake finally conceded. "Fine. Forget those damn bureaucrats. Let's focus on the case at hand. Besides the true numbers, Inspector, is there anything else? Any useful intelligence? The more I have, the better my chances."
Without a word, Eguchi reached into his coat and pulled out a folded map. He spread it out across the flat surface of a nearby stone pedestal, gesturing for Horitake to look.
"In terms of hard intelligence, there's almost nothing," Eguchi admitted. "But I have managed to compile a list of relevant locations."
Horitake stepped forward, peering at the map. "Relevant locations? Are these where the people were actually abducted?"
"No," Eguchi replied. "These are the home addresses of the missing persons."
"Their home addresses?" Horitake frowned. "Is that... actually useful?"
Despite his doubt, Horitake studied the map as Eguchi smoothed it out. After a few moments of silent observation, his expression shifted from skepticism to surprise. He quickly re-evaluated his stance.
"I take it back. As expected of an Inspector," Horitake murmured. "Once you plot these addresses on a map, the pattern is incredibly clear. This is very useful."
The map was covered in a dense cluster of red dots, each representing the residence of one of the three hundred victims.
The dots weren't scattered randomly across the entirety of Kyoto. Instead, they were concentrated in a specific area that covered roughly one-third of the city. More importantly, the distribution formed a rough circle—like sesame seeds clustered in the center of a round pastry.
Based on this visual data, it was easy to deduce that the source of the disappearances—the demon's hunting ground or its lair—was likely located within that circular zone.
But that wasn't all.
There was another distinct characteristic: the further one moved from the center of the circle, the more sparse and scattered the red dots became. The closer to the center, the more the dots overlapped into a solid mass of ink.
The search area had just been narrowed down significantly.
Horitake traced his finger toward the very heart of the cluster, the epicenter where the red dots were most concentrated. He pointed to a specific building marked on the map and looked at Eguchi.
"Inspector, what is this place?"
Eguchi fought the urge to light another cigarette and answered firmly, "That is a library. One of the largest in Kyoto. It is known as the Hanying Library."
The answer caught Horitake completely off guard.
A library?
The idea felt jarring. A library was a place of culture, quiet study, and refined atmosphere. It didn't sound like a demon's den, nor did it seem like the kind of place a man-eating monster would choose to haunt.
And yet, if a demon was responsible for three hundred people vanishing over several months, the map didn't lie.
"The contrast is a bit much," Horitake muttered, shaking his head. "On one hand, you have a bloodthirsty demon; on the other, a prestigious library filled with books and scholars. The two don't exactly go hand-in-hand."
For a moment, he actually questioned the reality of the situation. He looked at Eguchi for confirmation. "Inspector, are you absolutely certain that's a library?"
Eguchi nodded calmly. "I'm certain. It's the Hanying Library. Of course, to be precise, the densest area of disappearances includes the surrounding residential blocks and shops as well. It's just that the library is the most prominent landmark in that specific radius."
Horitake kept his eyes glued to the map. "Fine. We'll call the library the primary suspect for now, even if we can't be one hundred percent sure. But wait—it's been two or three months. In all that time, hasn't the police department sent anyone to investigate the building?"
"We sent officers in at night," Eguchi replied, his voice dropping an octave. "But not a single one of them returned. They vanished just like the civilians. Among those three hundred red dots, several represent my own men. As for the daytime..."
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