I had explained the situation over the phone earlier, but since Senior Fuma was not aware of the events that transpired afterwards, I had to explain everything once again.
With no suitable place available, we sat around the kotatsu in the duty room, and the Fuma Ninja Clan people looked at me with pure admiration after hearing about my exploits.
“I heard you were strong, but I never imagined you could take down a special-grade yokai with your bare hands.”
“…What’s special-grade?”
Hyoneko answered my question.
“In the underworld, yokai are usually graded based on the amount of negative energy they possess.”
According to Hyoneko, like grading meat at a butcher shop, yokai were classified into grades like first, second, and third, and particularly strong ones were given specific names.
She mentioned that entities like the three great evil spirits of Japan or the Nue from old tales were examples of this.
In the case of ‘special-grade’, it seemed to be a term collectively used for those stronger than first-grade yokai, even if they didn’t have specific names.
While drinking tea prepared by Ms. Mizuki, Senior Fuma asked,“You said the yokai you caught had a white mask floating in mid-air, right?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps the white face from the school’s ghost stories and the creature you faced are the same yokai.”
“Oh, you know about it too, Senior Fuma? The so-called ‘Seven Wonders’ or something?”
Senior Fuma nodded with a serious expression.
“Well, it’s related to the school I attend, after all.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Why are you having a conversation only you understand?”
For the benefit of the other ninjas who didn’t understand, I recounted the six ghost stories that Satoru had explained to me over the phone.
Hyoneko, rubbing her chin, murmured with interest,
“So, this time the yokai was a materialization of the ghost stories?”
“Materialization of ghost stories?”
“Like the old proverb, ‘Three men make a tiger,’ if enough people repeat the same story, even something without physical form can gain one.”
Senior Fuma added further explanation,
“Especially in a school, a place where many people live together, negative emotions tend to accumulate. And such negative emotions can serve as nourishment for yokai born from these rumors to grow.”
After listening to their explanations, I asked a question that occurred to me,
“But why did that creature act up today, of all days?”
Senior Fuma then looked at Ms. Mizuki, who was sitting in the corner like a sack of barley.
“Traditionally, yokai’s favorite prey has been shamans, shrine maidens, or monks with spiritual power. In that sense, Ms. Mizuki must have seemed like a very attractive prey to those creatures.”
“An attractive prey?”
As I was still trying to grasp the meaning, Hyoneko made a straightforward comment.
“Miss, are you really a virgin at your age?”
Ms. Mizuki’s face turned bright red.
“What are you talking about all of a sudden?! Besides, I’m only 25 years old!”
Curious, I asked,
“What’s so good about being a virgin?”
Senior Fuma nodded.
“A pure virgin with the qualities of a shaman and defenseless makes an irresistible target for most yokai. Probably until now, Ms. Mizuki was protected by charms or powerful guardian spirits, but once those were gone, she became exposed.”
Hyoneko asked the Teacher,
“Any idea, Sister?”
Ms. Mizuki, pondering while holding her head, seemed to recall something.
“Come to think of it, the protective bracelet my dad gave me as a gift when I left my hometown broke last week.”
“That’s it.”
Hyoneko sighed and touched her forehead.
“Usually, when a protective bracelet breaks on its own, it’s because its efficacy has expired. In such cases, it’s best to get a commercially available protective charm from a nearby revered shrine as a temporary measure.”
Then Ms. Mizuki asked with a bewildered expression.
“Do those charms actually work?”
“Even the mass-produced ones can be effective, as the person who makes them and the place they’re made in are important. They indirectly receive the deity’s blessing from the shrine.”
Listening quietly to their conversation, Senior Fuma took something out of her pocket.
It was a bracelet made of yellow thread.
“Yellow symbolizes earth, lightning, and prosperity. Moreover, Naruikazuchinokami, the snake deity worshiped at Ms. Mizuki’s family home, harmonizes well with a bracelet made of a long thread.”
Senior Fuma handed the bracelet to Ms. Mizuki, advising,
“This is only a temporary solution. When you have time during the summer break, go back to your family home, explain the situation, and get proper follow-up measures.”
“Thank you, Fuma-san. I should do something in return.”
Ms. Mizuki said, bowing her head, while Senior Fuma waved her hand dismissively.
“Thank Kim Yu-seong more than me. Without him, you might have faced a serious situation today.”
Hearing that, Ms. Mizuki also bowed to me.
“Thank you too, Kim-kun. I owe my life to you.”
“Ah, no. It just so happened that I was able to help.”
If Satoru hadn’t borrowed a book from me and then left it in the desk drawer, and if I hadn’t decided to fetch it today instead of tomorrow morning, despite being lazy, I wouldn’t have been here.
It was a kind of endless ‘what if’ thought, but thinking about it, I felt fortunate that I came to school.
“So, is this where we separate?”
Emerging from under the kotatsu, Hyoneko stretched out and said,
Hearing this, Fuma, who was nearby, nodded in agreement.
“We’ll just take care of the aftermath and leave.”
She was probably referring to the broken windows in the hallway.
“Ah, is that okay?”
Fuma nodded in response to my question.
“For the Fuma Ninja, repairing such damage is nothing. Concealing traces of battle is one of a ninja’s main tasks.”
In that case, I guess I had no choice but to trust and leave it to them.
“I’ll leave it in your hands, then.”
“Leave it to us.”
Saying this, Fuma looked at Ms. Mizuki.
“Ms. Mizuki, you should leave for the day as well. We’ve done the minimum necessary, but tonight is a full moon, so it’s a particularly noisy night for peculiar things. We’ll escort you home.”
“Thank you, Fuma…”
It was only a few hours, but with so much happening, Ms. Mizuki seemed exhausted.
Afterward, we gathered our things and left the school in the middle of the night.
Probably, today’s events will remain an unforgettable memory for both me and Ms. Mizuki.
After all, they say people remember scary or unhappy memories better than happy ones.
Eventually, I got home at 4 a.m.
Normally, it would have been the time I just woke up.
But, after getting entangled in all sorts of incidents while retrieving my Korean book left at school, I was so exhausted that I chose to sleep over my morning jog.
After falling asleep like I was fainting in bed, I woke up again to find it was well past 1 p.m.
Since starting to exercise seriously in my first year of high school, it was the first time I had woken up so late.
Anyway, with only two days left until the exams, I ate a late lunch and then holed up in my room to study all day.
The next day, I went to a library near my house and finished my final exam preparations by studying for about 12 hours straight.
The late-night yokai commotion on Friday felt like a lie, as I had perfectly regained my daily rhythm.
Then came Monday again.
Thanks to my weekend study marathon, I was able to perfectly ace Monday’s exams in Korean Language and Classical Literature.
It was worth focusing on these subjects, which were my weakest.
After the exam, Class 2-B was filled with groans due to the difficulty of the test, which was much harder than the midterms.
To lighten Satoru’s gloomy mood, who was packing his bag with a darker expression than usual, I grabbed his shoulder and said,
“Hey, Satoru, you wouldn’t have dared to pull such a prank last Friday, would you?”
Then, Satoru turned his head and said, “Huh?”
“What are you talking about? What prank did I pull on Friday?”
“Are you trying to feign ignorance? When I called you on Friday evening and mentioned the school, you rattled off about the school’s seven mysteries.”
Then Satoru looked at me as if I were making even more nonsensical statements.
“What are you talking about? When did we ever talk on the phone? I had my phone turned off on Friday evening because of a cram school class.”
“…What?”
Hearing that, I hurriedly took out my smartphone from my pocket.
And then, I checked the call history.
“It’s not there…”
Despite having definitely talked to Satoru from school last Friday, his name wasn’t in the call history.
Seeing my reaction, Satoru tilted his head and said,
“Why are you saying such things all of a sudden, Yu-seong? Did you get heatstroke or something?”
But Satoru’s teasing words didn’t register with me.
Then, who was the Satoru I talked to at school?
I had no way of knowing who it really was.
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