Chapter 82: The Goddess Temple
After a long and bumpy journey, Gin Tsumugi and Iwanaga Kotoko finally arrived at their destination.
Yayo Town.
Located in the buffer zone between Shibuya Ward and Shinjuku Ward, it was neither completely rural nor truly urban. It sat between worlds, both geographically and spiritually, like a place that had been forgotten by time but not yet swallowed by the city.
The moment they stepped off the bus, the Spirit Word sealing Kotoko's voice quietly dissolved.
Kotoko turned toward Gin with a resentful look.
"Director, that was too much. If you keep treating girls like this, you'll never get a girlfriend."
"Is that so?"
Gin simply tapped the mask covering his face.
The meaning was obvious.
Kotoko's expression stiffened.
"Hmph."
She turned away with a small, dissatisfied snort.
As much as she hated to admit it, with Gin's absurdly beautiful face and refined temperament, if he ever publicly announced that he was looking for a partner, the White Fox Office would probably be buried under a stampede of women by sunset.
It was truly irritating.
A natural butterfly magnet.
The phrase fit him so well it was almost annoying.
Kotoko decided to ignore the infuriating man beside her. She gripped her cane, struck it sharply against the ground as if venting her frustration, and strode toward Yayo Town.
Gin watched her puffed-up cheeks and followed with a faint smile.
Sometimes, teasing this little girl really was interesting.
After walking roughly two hundred meters, the two officially entered the town.
The first thing they felt was the air.
It was clean.
Unlike Shibuya, where the wind always carried car exhaust, commercial pollution, and the faint metallic scent of the city, Yayo Town's air was crisp and fresh. The roads were paved with uneven stones of different sizes, rugged but clean. No cars sped through the streets, making the paths look unusually wide and quiet.
On both sides of the stone road stood neat rows of two-story wooden houses.
Almost every household had a small fenced yard. Some grew fruits and vegetables. Others kept chickens or small livestock. The whole town carried a pastoral warmth that had nearly vanished from the cities.
"No wonder so many people, especially middle-aged people, like moving to places like this," Gin said. "It does have its own charm."
Life in a major city came with too much speed.
Too much pressure.
Too much exploitation hidden behind salary, competition, convenience, and neon lights. The glamour could intoxicate people for a while, but once the indulgence faded, what remained was often exhaustion and emptiness.
A town like this was different.
Stay here long enough, and the restless impatience that came from the city would slowly settle back into silence.
At least, that would have been true before the Supernatural Revival.
Since then, countless people had done everything they could to squeeze into major cities like Tokyo and Kyoto. At least there, on the surface, safety was somewhat guaranteed. At least there, one was less likely to be inexplicably swallowed by some unknown supernatural incident in the dark.
Places like Mitsuwa, where the Tsuchimikado family was based, were rare exceptions.
Yayo Town could still be considered fortunate.
Although traces of supernatural incidents could be found here, they were faint. Whatever had happened before had clearly been resolved by onmyoji in time.
Gin stopped walking for a moment.
"...It feels a little similar."
Kotoko glanced at him. By now, most of her earlier resentment had faded.
"Similar to what?"
"Mingao Village."
Kotoko paused.
She knew that name.
Mingao Village had been the core of the Wedding Dress Tree incident. From the origin of the case to its final resolution, everything had revolved around that old village in one way or another.
The Bing Lake inside the park area of Houjuo High School was the former site of that village.
Gin looked around slowly.
"I can't say exactly where the similarity lies. It's just a feeling."
Yayo Town's buildings had clearly changed with the times. They were far from the crude structures Mingao Village once had. Yet that faint sense of familiarity lingered.
Where did it come from?
Doubts rose one after another, but Gin pushed them down for now.
Business came first.
"Director," Kotoko said, "let's find someone and ask about the information we need."
Gin nodded.
There were not many people in Yayo Town. Most of those still outside were elderly. The younger generation had largely fled to the cities, while the old remained because they could not bear to leave the place where they had lived their entire lives.
At a street corner, Gin and Kotoko politely stopped an old man who looked to be in his fifties or sixties.
"Excuse me, sir," Gin said. "We're from the authorities. May we ask you about someone?"
The old man squinted at them.
"...What did you say? Speak louder."
He was clearly hard of hearing.
"Wait a moment, you two children."
He took a hearing aid out of his pocket and fitted it into his ear. Only then did he ask, "Now, what were you saying? You two must be from the city, right?"
"We're from the authorities," Gin repeated, taking out an official identification card. "We're here to investigate a situation and would like to ask about someone."
The identification was genuine.
It had been specially issued by the authorities to major supernatural investigation offices, ensuring that they would not encounter unnecessary obstruction when handling cases.
Normally, Gin preferred to show his onmyoji certificate during supernatural incidents. It was direct and convenient.
But in a countryside town like Yayo, he had to consider the residents' feelings.
Anyone who saw an onmyoji certificate would immediately understand that their town was involved in a supernatural incident. That could easily cause panic, which was not what Gin wanted.
"People from the authorities, huh?"
The old man carefully looked over the identification before returning it.
"Then tell me, child. Who do you want to ask about? I know every household around here."
"Kuda Mai."
The moment Gin spoke the name, the old man's face changed drastically.
Fear filled his cloudy eyes.
He subconsciously looked toward the northwest, as if the very name had touched something forbidden, something that might bring misfortune if spoken too many times.
"I don't know. Don't ask me."
The old man waved his hand quickly.
"You two children shouldn't be asking about that."
After saying that, he hurried away, ignoring Kotoko and Gin's attempts to stop him.
Gin frowned.
There was clearly some hidden story here.
Whether it was because of the so-called "Goddess's Curse" or something else remained unknown.
"Let's ask someone else," he said.
Kotoko nodded.
After that, they stopped five or six more residents of similar age.
Before they mentioned Kuda Mai, everyone was kind and approachable. But the moment the name left their mouths, the reaction was almost identical.
Fear.
Avoidance.
Silence.
Each person looked toward the northwest, just like the first old man, and refused to say another word.
Eventually, just as Gin was considering using Spirit Word to make someone tell the truth, they found a drunkard willing to talk under the temptation of money.
"Since you people from the authorities are here asking about Kuda Mai, then I guess something happened to the last member of the Kuda family too."
The drunkard looked slightly younger than the others, probably not yet fifty. He carried a wine flask in his hand and took a few gulps whenever the craving hit him.
He hiccuped.
"She went missing too, right?"
Kotoko looked at him in surprise.
"You know about that?"
The fact that Kuda Mai was missing rather than dead was something she and Gin had only inferred back at the White Fox Office.
This drunkard had said it with certainty.
"Of course."
He gave a tipsy laugh.
"She offended the Goddess and got cursed. First you go mad, then you disappear. Even Kuda Mai, who had already left town, couldn't escape the Goddess's Curse."
He took another drink.
"They really went crazy for money. Hic. They even dared touch things from the Goddess Temple."
Gin's gaze sharpened.
Goddess's Curse.
Goddess Temple.
A key point had appeared.
"Tell me about the Goddess's Curse and the Goddess Temple," Gin said. "As much detail as possible."
At the same time, he handed over a large-denomination banknote.
The drunkard's eyes lit up.
He quickly accepted the money and stuffed it into his waist pouch. After looking around to confirm no one was watching, he lowered his voice.
"To explain the Goddess's Curse and the Goddess Temple, I have to start with the legend of the Goddess passed down in Yayo Town."
He cleared his throat with a sip of wine.
"Legend says that a long, long time ago—no one knows exactly when—yokai were far more rampant than they are today. They treated humans like livestock and slaughtered them whenever they wished. People lived every day in despair."
Gin and Kotoko exchanged a glance.
They both had a rough guess.
The Heian period.
A thousand years ago, yokai, specters, and the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons had been at their most rampant. Humans only dared to move under daylight. At night, they could do little but pray they were not targeted.
"And then," the drunkard continued, "a Goddess descended upon Yayo Town."
His voice dropped further.
"She eliminated all the yokai lurking here and planted a divine tree in the town. That tree protected us from being harassed by yokai."
"A divine tree?"
Gin and Kotoko looked at each other again.
The resemblance was too obvious.
The Wedding Dress Tree had also protected a settlement from yokai.
It too had been given by someone else.
Only the figures at the center differed.
In Mingao Village, it had been a noble lady.
Here, it was a Goddess.
Perhaps the familiar feeling Gin sensed between Yayo Town and Mingao Village came from this.
"Please continue," Gin said.
The drunkard took another sip, moistening his throat.
"About the divine tree... personally, I used to think it was just an old tree that had lived a long time. That was before the Kuda family incident. After that, I stopped thinking that way."
He glanced toward the northwest again.
"In the Goddess legend, she left not long after planting the tree. Our ancestors turned the place where she temporarily stayed into the Goddess Temple and built a statue of her."
"As for the Kuda family..."
He hiccuped.
"All I can say is they brought it on themselves."
His face showed complicated disdain.
"Mr. Hisada was a famous scholar in Yayo Town. Usually, he was a decent man. But he loved competing with others too much. He insisted on sending his daughter, Kuda Mai, to Houjuo High School."
The drunkard shook his head.
"That's an elite school. How could people like us afford it?"
Houjuo High School tuition was indeed expensive.
On that point, Gin and Kotoko, both former students of the academy, had the most right to speak. A single year's tuition could equal several years of savings for an ordinary middle-class family.
Thinking about it now, there had always been something unreasonable about Kuda Mai, who came from Yayo Town, attending that academy.
"To send Kuda Mai there," the drunkard said, "Mr. Hisada stole artifacts from the Goddess Temple during his turn as temple guard."
He saw their expressions and explained, "You two are outsiders, so you probably don't know about temple guarding. In Yayo Town, every household takes turns sending one male member to guard the Goddess Temple for a month."
As he spoke, he kept glancing northwest.
That confirmed it.
Both the Goddess Temple and the so-called divine tree were in that direction.
"So," Kotoko said, "Kuda Mai's father stole artifacts from the Goddess Temple and sold them to pay her tuition."
The drunkard nodded.
"At first, everyone thought an outside thief had stolen them while the guards weren't paying attention. Then, one year ago, the Goddess Temple was burglarized again."
His expression turned grave.
"This time, the items stolen were said to be the personal belongings left behind by the Goddess."
Gin's eyes narrowed slightly.
"The artifacts stolen before were good things," the drunkard continued, "but most were offerings from our ancestors. The Goddess's personal belongings were different. They've been passed down for who knows how long. At the very least, they've existed since the Goddess Temple was established. Real treasures."
"At the time, it caused a huge commotion in town."
"What were the stolen items?" Gin asked.
"Two hairpins."
The drunkard answered without hesitation.
"Very exquisite hairpins. Even after all those years, they hadn't decayed at all. Anyone could tell they were precious treasures just by looking at them. The main reason we guard the temple is to prevent things like that from being stolen."
As expected.
A faint light of understanding passed through Gin and Kotoko's eyes.
They had finally found the origin of the hairpins.
"Then how did you discover that Kuda Mai's father was the thief?" Kotoko asked. "And you still haven't explained the Goddess's Curse."
"You probably know most of the rest already."
The drunkard scratched his head.
"After the hairpins were stolen, the Kuda family changed. First, Mr. Hisada's personality became strange. Then Mrs. Hisada's too."
He lowered his voice again.
"Kuda Mai seemed to notice something and left Yayo Town early. Not long after she left, Mr. and Mrs. Hisada completely lost their minds. They started acting like wild beasts. They couldn't communicate and even began eating raw meat."
His face paled slightly at the memory.
"We had no choice but to lock them up."
"It was during that time that we found several stolen Goddess Temple artifacts in Mr. Hisada's house."
He paused.
"Including one of the hairpins."
"That's when rumors spread that the Kuda family had offended the Goddess and been cursed."
The drunkard's voice became strained.
"And the most frightening part was what happened a few days later."
He swallowed.
"Mr. and Mrs. Hisada vanished from the place where we locked them up. Completely. Not a single trace left behind."
Fear leaked into his words.
He had been one of the younger townspeople who personally locked the couple away. Two living people had disappeared right under their noses. Even now, remembering it made his back run cold.
After a while, he sighed.
"The Goddess's Curse, then that strange disappearance... after that, the Kuda family became taboo in Yayo Town."
Gin now understood the general course of events.
But one point in the drunkard's words caught his attention.
"You said you found one hairpin in the Kuda house."
"Yes."
The drunkard nodded.
"We never found the other one. No one knows whether Mr. Hisada sold it or Kuda Mai took it away."
He took another drink.
"To return that hairpin to the Goddess Temple and beg the Goddess for forgiveness, the town held a festival for three consecutive days. You know how things are in this era. With the Supernatural Revival, no one dares go out at night, but we still held the rites."
His voice lowered.
"We even burned the Kuda family's house to the ground to appease the Goddess's anger."
Gin fell silent.
"So there are three hairpins."
He murmured the words more to himself than anyone else.
The drunkard blinked.
"What three?"
"It's nothing."
Gin shook his head.
"Thank you for your cooperation."
"Sure, sure."
The drunkard smiled as he counted the money in his pouch. Seeing that he was no longer needed, he happily wandered off to buy more wine.
.....
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