Starting a Night Shift Part-time Job at a Convenience Store.

Leavingimy bike at the convenience store might inconvenience Takenaka and Hirai again. I hidimy bike in the forest a short distance away from the store.

Afterithat, relying on Yakumo’s memory, I continued walking along the path for a while and found a spot where the bushes were in disarray, where his bike must have crashed into them.

Theimuddy soil, weeds, and snapped branches that had been trampled by theitires…

“Thisiis undoubtedly the spot.”

“Yeah…”r32vwg

Fromihere, the world was truly pitch-black with no streetlights. It marked the entrance to the sea of trees. Darkness abounded throughout the place, conjuring up such a disturbing phrase as “once in, the living will be ensnared by the darkness, blinded from the way out, and imprisoned for all eternity.”

To allay my fears, I turned on the flashlight I had bought at the convenience store earlier.

Suchia place… I couldn’t bring myself to go into, even for a test of courage.

Theidimension. Theiair. Theyiwere too different.

Theiconcrete on which I was standing now was utterly foreign from the darkness on the other side. A boundary existed.

Theibranches swaying faintly, as if beckoning me, I wondered where in the world the wind was blowing from.

I clearedimy throat.

“Areiyou scared, Sonny?”

“Youiweren’t afraid to enter this place?”

“Well, that’s partiof my job.”

“Iidon’t get it…”

Iniplace of me, who was not taking the first step, Yakumo took the lead and proceeded to the inner side. As I followed him, I tried not to leave too much space between the two of us.

“Don’t fret, I’ll protect you.”

Evenithough we were walking together, my footsteps were the only sound, and his words were not very trustworthy.

“I’ll try to look after myself if at all possible, but don’t you suddenly disappear on your own.”

“Yes, yes.” Translator: MadHatter

Withoutiany fear, he continued on his way, not even relying on the light of my flashlight, and when I looked back, the place where I had entered was gradually fading into the distance.

Aisense of regret filled me as I followed Yakumo’s lead.

Sooniwe were shrouded in absolute darkness, as though the entrance were obstructed by trees. Despite not having a phobia of the dark, I naturally felt unstable when enveloped in such thick darkness. Within minutes, the warm wind and the glances I felt coming at me from every angle—which may or may not have been my imagination—started to induce strange sensations in me.

Whatiwas I doing? Did Yakumo really wish for me to help him?

Wasiwhat Yakumo had said the truth?

Whereiwas Yakumo trying to lead me?

Was I possibly being deceived by thisiguy?

Andiso on…

Despiteithe absence of any means to grasp such things, my thoughts kept flowing unabatedly. The further I progressed, the more my suspicions about him began to sprout inside me, and the more I lost all sense of stability.

What would become of me from nowion?

“You’re beginning to suspect me, right?”

“Huh… What?”

Yakumo’s spot-on assumption sent my heart skipping aibeat. He then put his arm around my head and grinned unconcernedly.

“Thisiplace is such a place, full of a miasma that can destabilize people.”

“Miasma…?”Not shared on aggregator sites

“Negativeiaura that is detrimental to the human body. The density of this aura is particularly high in suicide spots and accident-prone areas, which are the root of the negative spiral. That’s why people die in droves, and because it can numb the human psyche, it’s extremely poisonous to the average person…”

Atithis point, Yakumo halted.

“I know you’re getting more and more ridiculous about cooperating with me, a man you don’t even know who I am, and who may beideceiving you. After all, I don’t feel comfortable dragging ordinary people into this… I can turn back now, and take you to the exit.”

“Theniwhat about you?”

“I’migoing to search for my body alone.”

“Then… I will accompany you.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, Iijust got a little nervous, that’s all.”

“…I see, but don’t strain yourself. I really appreciate your help, but if something should befall you, take care of yourself, okay?”

Nodding, I startedito move my legs again. At the look on his face, any doubts I had about him evaporated. Had I mentioned a word about wanting to go home, he would have sent me on my way to the exit of the forest.

Yakumoiwas speaking the truth. It was simply that I was so driven by anxiety that a strange thought struck me.

“Eveniso…”

Theiair was poor. If I kept walking in silence, anxiety would gradually erode me.

No matter how far I went in the never-changing landscape, only trees were in sight. And in between laid thick darkness.

Ah, thisiwas getting unbearable.

“You gotisomething interesting to talk about?”

Anything is fine, I said to him irrationally.

“Sonny, you’re asking a mindless question out of the blue.”

“I just want to be distracted. Tell me something that will make me laugh.”

“Laughing in the sea of trees… isn’t that too creepy?”

“Shut up. I don’t want to hear it from you.”

“Well, you know, I guess it would be better to have a change of scenery to prevent being swallowed up. It’s too complicated with you suspecting me, so why don’t we both disclose our personal information to each other first?”

“Okay, fine by me.”

I concurred with Yakumo’s suggestion.

To be honest, I felt uncomfortable disclosing my actions to a man I only knew by name, but at this point, I wouldn’t care what it was as long as it would distract me from this fear. Stepping on the muddy soil from the previous day’s rain and listening to the sound of a single person’s footsteps, I and the semi-ghostly man engaged in a bizarre identity reveal contest.

“Then, your name.”

“Hakamada―I won’t say anything further than that.”

“W-What… I gave you my full name, so isn’t it unfair to hide yours from me?”

“I hate what I hate. If there are five things I hate in this world, my name is one of them.”

“How unusual to hate something so much.”

“Yeah, I hate it.”

“Hmm, I see. Your age.”

“25.”

“Heh, that’s what I figured. I’m 20, though.”

Heh. Just as I expected.

“You don’t look like a student to me.”

“Yeah. I dropped out of junior high school.”

“…What!?”

I thought he wasn’t like that, but he was a real delinquent.

Dropping out of junior high school was… too much. What made him do that?

“Various things arose, and I ran away from home until I was 17.”

“…That’s a spectacular runaway.”

“When I returned, I was close to being killed, but I was lucky I wasn’t disowned, ahaha.”

The fact that you could laugh it off was remarkable. This guy apparently had a rather stormy life. 

My educational background, which included graduation from a prefectural high school on my resume, seemed so normal.

“You graduated from high school and now you’re a freeter?”

“Do I look like a manager?”

“No. Oh, are you one of those job-hunting losers?”

“You big idiot, I am not. Well… I was on track to attend university until the summer of my senior year of high school… but one day I just didn’t care anymore.”

Although I didn’t have a specific aim in mind, I recognized that a solid academic foundation would be beneficial in the future, so I still intended to continue on to university. My grades weren’t that awful, and if I had kept going, I would have finished university and had a different life rather than being a poor freeter.

“Being a freeter is not something to be proud of in the eyes of the world huh…”

I never considered saving up and striving to be something in the future.

“No, that’s not true. Working is better than doing nothing at all.”

“You’re probably the same as me, aren’t you?”

“Me? I’m paying the bill for the life I ruined. Right now, I’m training at a local ramen shop.”

…Surprisingly, he was working diligently.

Wait…

“You, please don’t tell me your job is to come all the way down here to deliver food…”

“No, not at all.”

“Then why did you bother to come all the way down here?”

“That’s my night job. As I told you before, I specialize in ‘exterminating evil spirits’.”

The guy turned around and his eyes seemed to glow with lights.

“…Exterminating evil spirits?”

Speaking of which, this guy said the same thing a while back about how he was going to exorcise evil spirits…

I didn’t feel like I should poke into it too much, so I let it slide perfectly but…

“The word ‘evil spirit exterminator’ means ‘exorcising spirits’. I may look like this, but I’m a professional ‘evil spirit exterminator’ who is called a professional at eliminating haunted spots. During the day, I work at a ramen shop.”

“What the hell is that?”e12dqwc

“My night job is to clean up haunted places, suicide spots, and spiritual paths to prevent them from becoming haunted places. I drive away evil spirits and help lost souls attain Buddhahood as well.”

According to him, while working on the front side of the world during the day, at night he operated a motorcycle from place to place as a side job to drive away the spirits that wandered in the world.

And Yakumo’s nighttime identity, which he could not reveal to the public, was what he called an “evil spirit exterminator”.

In short, an “evil spirit exterminator” was a person who exorcised and purified demons.

Simply put, their main job was to guide spirits who had become trapped in an insidious atmosphere to their proper destination.

Though I had never heard of this name before, I heard that apparently throughout Japan besides Yakumo, many other people with similar titles were active in this field, utilizing their own abilities.

Hirai’s mother, Ayame, was a well-known medium in Hokkaido, and Yakumo was in the same category.

“Well, it’s like a minor version of the psychics on TV or something, like the indies on CDs, right?”

“That’s an understandable analogy, but I don’t get it.”

“Well, it’s an underworld profession that the general public is unaware of.”

“Somehow…”

It was a fishy story.

“What are you talking about? Spirits are everywhere, and there are those who have to clean them up!”

When there was a mess, there was bound to be someone to clean it up, right? It sounded like that.

“Do you voluntarily enter such a place…? Isn’t it risky to do that…”

“Well, if I miscalculate my strength, I could get struck back, but this path is quite long, so I don’t mind that.”

The reason for his bloody condition yesterday was somewhat understandable.

That fresh wound under the chin, I wondered if that was the same case.

“Specters, can they attack physically…?”

“Specters are not really physical, but they can move things and do things with extreme force, and if you get hit by one, you will end up like I was yesterday.”

“Why… would you go to such bloody lengths to put yourself in jeopardy?”

Normally, even if I had such an ability, I would certainly not be willing to do such a thing.

Noimatter how many lives I may have, I had a feeling that it would not be enough. And yet, this guy carried wounds all over his body thatididn’t seem to go away regardless of the passage of time.

Eveninow, he was dying, and yet he stepped into suchia place by himself… Why was that…

Yesterday, had he turned back when he came to theiconvenience store, this would not have taken place.

Despiteithis, was there a solid reason why he was willing to put himself in danger toicontinue hisiwork to deal with those evil spirits?

“Of course thereiis.”

WheniI asked him that, Yakumo gave me a small snicker and said to me lightly and seriously as if it was a matteriof course.

“I’m going toieradicate the crowds that flock to haunted places.”

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