Chapter 326: A Notebook
Not long ago.
In the camera lens, Mia was sitting on the floor, panting heavily, a visibly uneasy expression on her face.
"Hey... everyone, I am currently sitting right where one of the victims was, let's see what happens."
Mia's tone was serious as she looked off-camera: "Simon, if anything happens later, don't leave me behind."
Seemingly getting a response, she then withdrew her gaze.
"Mr. Nakamura, let's begin."
A man in a suit quickly stepped into the frame.
He smeared something onto Mia's forehead, then muttered something under his breath.
This made the already quiet room even more dead silent.
A moment later, the man in the suit spoke: "Soul that passed away bearing grievances, please reveal yourself at this moment, we are willing to listen to your story."
Hearing this, Mia's entire body tensed up.
She faced the camera and mouthed wordlessly; from the shape of her lips, one could make out the words "I am so scared."
The camera lens subsequently panned left and right.
But a full minute passed, and nothing happened around them.
"Mr. Nakamura, did it work?" Mia couldn't help but ask.
But the man in front of her kept his eyes closed and ignored her. The former could only shrug at the camera.
"How could this be... it doesn't make sense," Tsuna Nakamura thought, feeling frustrated inwardly.
"Freshly butchered meat from today, along with warm human blood, why is there no reaction? Have those dead people already passed on to the afterlife?"
He had been paying close attention to their surroundings, but hadn't detected even the slightest fluctuation of a soul.
If this were in the past, those things would have long since pounced on Mia.
The lighting in the room remained dim, though the temperature seemed to have dropped slightly.
Tsuna Nakamura had already lost his initial confidence. But in order to prevent the two of them from noticing, he continuously avoided making eye contact.
Soon, he thought of a solution.
"Mia!" His tone was suddenly stern.
"Slowly stand up now and grab hold of my clothes. Do not look around, and do not say a single word."
Tsuna Nakamura knew very well that if he admitted to not finding any evil spirits now, not only would this business deal likely fall through, but once this footage was released, he would be completely finished in this industry.
Therefore, not only could he not show any signs of weakness, he had to adopt an even colder attitude.
This way, the client would simply assume he had discovered something, which was why he was acting abnormally.
Sure enough, Mia didn't harbor any doubts; instead, her expression grew even more solemn.
She grabbed the hem of his suit jacket as instructed.
Subsequently, Tsuna Nakamura slowly shuffled his feet, leading Mia toward another room.
To survive in this industry, one had to be able to face all sorts of unexpected situations.
"No paranormal activity" was naturally one of them.
In the past, when he followed those monks, he had seen how they handled such situations.
Tsuna Nakamura naturally disdained doing the same.
But he also had to admit that sometimes, clients just wanted to see the results they desired in their hearts, and didn't actually care about the authenticity of those results.
"Hmph... I can see souls myself. If I were forced to quit over an accident, it would be a severe loss to other future clients. So this doesn't count as scamming..."
He quickly convinced himself in his heart.
Estimating the time inwardly, Tsuna Nakamura deliberately stopped in front of another room.
"Which prop should I use later..." he thought to himself. "Brrr... I didn't expect it to be so cold at night. I should have worn more clothes."
After a moment passed, he spoke again: "Let's go."
But what he didn't know was that the forehead of Mia behind him was already dripping with sweat.
Ever since standing up from that mark on the floor, she had felt a heavy weight on her shoulders, as if someone was pressing down hard on her.
Mia desperately wanted to turn her head, but remembering Nakamura's warning, she could only endure it.
And in her blind spot, a deathly pale hand was currently gripping her shoulder.
There were also many pitch-black strands of hair around her.
Some of them slowly crawled onto Mia's clothes and wrapped tightly around her joints.
Others attached themselves to the walls and floor, silently following behind Tsuna Nakamura.
Simon was the last person to exit the room. He had been carrying the camera the whole time, but at this moment, the lens captured nothing other than the two walking people.
The second room.
This seemed to be a side bedroom. There were some moldy school supplies on the desk, and a few tattered toys scattered near the bottom of the bed.
"I have already sensed the aura of the deceased, but we still need to ask for permission to see them." Tsuna Nakamura turned around, pulling a pen and paper out from his pocket.
"Hover the pen over the paper, and ask them to tell you the answer..."
This was a highly popular spirit-summoning ritual on the internet, and many young people had been enthusiastic about it.
Tsuna Nakamura also liked it very much. After all, regardless of whether there was a response or not, he was the one who had the final say in the end.
Mia took the pen with an uneasy expression.
She desperately wanted to say that she felt like she had already gotten a response—at this moment, her shoulders weren't just heavy, they were even starting to ache with a dull throb.
But bound by the previous warning, she could only force herself to comply.
"Relax your mind, invite them with your heart." Tsuna Nakamura slowly backed away, leaving the space to her.
This was also part of the ritualistic feel.
Crunch—
Suddenly, he stepped on something.
Tsuna Nakamura looked down and found an old-fashioned toy block, though it was now broken in two.
He instantly frowned.
Then he squatted down, gently wiping the edge of his shoe with his hand. Only after confirming there were no scratches did he breathe a sigh of relief.
Tsuna Nakamura used his foot to kick the broken toy near the edge of the bed before standing back up.
However, the moment he turned his head, a deathly pale little hand reached out from under the bed and took the broken toy block back.
The former remained completely unaware of this.
"Just a few more minutes and this will be over." Tsuna Nakamura began formulating his concluding speech in his head.
On the other side, Mia's face wasn't looking too good.
The hand gripping the pen was exceptionally cold, almost numb, and she had long since lost the strength to hold anything. Yet, the pen was firmly wedged in her hand, as if... someone else was holding it for her.
At the same time, Mia felt her other shoulder grow heavy, as if something was digging into her flesh.
Unable to endure it any longer, she immediately tried to cry out for help.
But she then realized she couldn't make a sound!
It was as if something was blocking her throat. A stinging and tickling sensation occurred simultaneously, as if someone had stuffed a wad of hair down her esophagus.
Mia's eyes instantly welled up with tears.
Just as she was feeling helpless internally, a muffled thud echoed from the wooden closet in the room.
Tsuna Nakamura whipped his head around instantly, his eyes full of suspicion.
Simon also pivoted the camera over.
They saw that the surface of the wooden closet was plastered with many strips of paper, covered in meaningless patterns, looking quite similar to sealing talismans.
"Could that be a response?" Tsuna Nakamura suddenly realized something.
Joy flashed in his eyes, and he immediately reached out and ripped off the seals.
Riiiiip—
After pulling the closet doors open, a putrid stench immediately wafted out.
Tsuna Nakamura frowned and waved his hand to fan it away, before finally peering inside.
His eyes then lit up, and he pulled a notebook from the bottom shelf.
"This is..."
The black camera lens immediately zoomed in.
It appeared to be a diary, recording the owner's unrequited crush on a man named Shunsuke Kobayashi.
But the contents inside were highly abnormal.
Overly detailed observations, massive amounts of fabricated scenarios...
The owner of this notebook seemed completely immersed in her own one-sided delusions.
And the subsequent contents astounded Tsuna Nakamura even more.
It turned out the owner was already married and frequently suffered from domestic abuse.
Her crush, Kobayashi, had also died unexpectedly, yet she deluded herself into treating her own child as his reincarnation.
She even threatened to sacrifice anyone who stepped into their territory.
Tsuna Nakamura gulped. The owner of this notebook was definitely a madwoman.
He flipped to the end, only to find that the pages here were stained with many red spots, looking like... blood.
Nakamura's eyes lit up; this could serve perfectly as the "response from the deceased." Now he finally had something to wrap this up with.
He snapped the notebook shut, signaling to Simon that he could pan back.
But at this moment, Nakamura suddenly realized something.
Why hadn't Mia come over?
And from just now until now... hasn't it been a bit too quiet.
At the same time, both Tsuna Nakamura and Simon felt the room grow even colder.
"Ugh-uh..."
Suddenly, a low, bubbling croak sounded near their ears.
Tsuna Nakamura whipped his head around, and his eyes went wide the next second.
He saw Mia's feet off the ground, her entire body suspended in mid-air.
The female streamer's eyes were full of terror, and her face had turned a bruised, ashen color.
Tsuna Nakamura quickly noticed that something black was wrapped around her neck. Looking closely, he realized it was a clump of hair.
He slowly raised his head, only to see the ceiling already covered in pitch-black hair. These things seemed alive, slowly writhing around.
And all the black hair in the room originated from the floor in the corner.
There was a silhouette there, its face completely obscured.
When Tsuna Nakamura looked at it, the figure also slowly raised its head.
Then, he saw a deathly pale face and a single eye with a pitch-black pupil.
In that instant, he realized—there was an evil spirit standing opposite him.
But what surprised Tsuna Nakamura even more was that even with the anomaly right in front of him, his perception of spirit bodies still didn't react at all.
There was only one possibility...
The resentment of the evil spirit before him had far exceeded the limits of what he could perceive.
"Heh... it's... going to be fine." Cold sweat seeped from Tsuna Nakamura's forehead.
He hurriedly pulled out the bag of bloody meat from his pouch and threw it out.
"As long as I feed this guy with flesh and blood, it'll be fine... all the evil spirits I encountered before were like this." He panted heavily as he spoke.
It was unclear if he was comforting himself or the already dying Mia.
The video camera aside was also aimed at the corner. Although the lens trembled slightly upon closer inspection, it did not retreat a single step.
The next second, the silhouette in the corner suddenly vanished.
Just as Tsuna Nakamura was about to search for it, he suddenly noticed Simon aiming the camera at him.
Based on the level of cinematography the other party had displayed along the way, he instantly had a bad premonition.
Tsuna Nakamura slowly looked down, and his heart turned to ice.
He saw the evil spirit clinging to his waist, its head twisted upward in a way impossible for humans, revealing its dead, empty eyes.
"Ugh-uh..."
The low, bubbling croak sounded again.
Tsuna Nakamura instantly broke out in goosebumps, followed immediately by a sharp pain in his arm.
He saw a deathly pale hand claw tightly into the flesh of his shoulder, violently tearing a chunk of it off.
Fresh blood spurted out instantly.
Tsuna Nakamura almost passed out. Holding on by a single breath, he used his other hand to grab his neck.
Hanging there was a yellow jade pendant, engraved with some kind of pattern.
He tore it off and threw it forward.
Hum—
A burst of pale yellow energy erupted, and the long-haired evil spirit immediately retreated, crawling off his body.
At this time, the black hair wrapped around Mia suddenly loosened, and she dropped to the floor.
Tsuna Nakamura didn't hesitate for a second, immediately running toward the door.
But before he could step through the doorframe, clusters of black hair sprouted from the edges, quickly sealing the doorway completely.
"Ah! Ah!"
Tsuna Nakamura waved the jade pendant, attempting to drive the black hair away.
But the next second, a mass of hair suddenly dropped from the ceiling, wrapping around his good arm.
He instantly widened his eyes.
Squelch!
Bright red blood sprayed into the air.
The entire mass of hair wrung into his flesh, cleanly severing Tsuna Nakamura's arm at the shoulder.
Mia leaned against the wall, trembling. Suddenly, she felt a warm splash on her face.
She reached up to wipe it, and a thick stench of blood hit her nose.
At the same time, a tap-tap sound echoed on the floorboards.
Mia looked up, only to see the long-haired woman with her limbs bent unnaturally, crawling rapidly toward her.
"Ah—!"
Unable to suppress the terror in her heart any longer, she instinctively scrambled up from the floor.
Crash—!
The bedroom window shattered as Mia threw her entire body out from the second floor.
And the "silhouette" on the floor quickly crawled out the window after her.
Simon collapsed to the floor, but the camera on his shoulder remained perfectly steady.
A second later, he pushed himself up from the floor, then took out the rope gear he carried, tied it to the camera, and slowly lowered it out the window.
After finishing this, he also resolutely vaulted out the window.
A dozen seconds later.
Sizzle... Sizzle...
The black hair sealing the doorway suddenly melted away entirely. Immediately after, several glass bottles were tossed in, and a foul stench instantly erupted in the room.
Only after this did William rush in from the outside.
With a single glance, he saw Tsuna Nakamura on the floor.
And the residual energy fluctuations in the room indicated that a battle had just taken place here.
"You need to get to a hospital."
William checked the other party's injuries and quickly reached a grim conclusion.
"It's... too late." Tsuna Nakamura's face had turned extremely pale.
"Don't... let that thing... escape."
He tightly gripped the hem of William's robe, his eyes filled with struggle.
Three circles of golden patterns surfaced in William's eyes, and Holy Power instantly surged through the room.
Even though this house didn't cover a large area, under his comprehensive scan, he actually couldn't pinpoint the source of the evil!
At this time, he suddenly noticed the broken window.
Meanwhile, sensing the powerful spiritual energy radiating from beside him, Tsuna Nakamura also widened his eyes.
"I... was wrong... so incredibly wrong." he muttered.
Subsequently, color suddenly returned to his face, and his remaining arm regained some strength.
"Take this... huff... its story is recorded inside." Tsuna Nakamura pulled a notebook out from under him.
William also noticed the other party's condition.
He reached out and took the tattered notebook, shaking his head inwardly.
Subsequently, the light in Tsuna Nakamura's eyes dimmed, and his arm dropped limply.
After offering a brief prayer for the other party, William opened the notebook.
He also realized who the enemy he was facing this time was—Kayako.
"It really is her..."
Crawling under the covers, killing in broad daylight, dooming anyone who came into contact with her grudge... it was talking about this very God of Slaughter.
"But since we have her notebook." William observed the energy fluctuations on it.
He quickly made a discovery.
He saw a strand of pitch-black hair suddenly emerge from the pile of spirit particle runes, extending all the way out the window.
William slowly approached, but frowned the next second.
That strand of pitch-black hair looped around the first floor once, then returned to this very room, stopping right beneath his feet.
☆☆☆
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