Chapter 159: The Mountain God!
Miko had already learned from Luke's message that the taxi was coming.
She immediately grabbed Yuria and Hana and rushed toward it, throwing out the substitute rabbit doll she had been clutching at the same time.
After shoving Hana into the back seat and practically tossing Yuria in after her, Miko glanced back.
The substitute doll carrying her life energy had already reached the spirit beneath the torii.
Without warning—
Riiip!
The foxlike face split open from the tip of its snout like a blooming flower, revealing four petal-like sections lined with uneven, razor-sharp teeth.
Then it stuffed the doll carrying Miko's life energy into its "mouth."
'Its face can actually open?'
'Then… what's inside?'
Miko froze and stared into the opened face.
Deep within that pitch-black interior, something seemed to be watching her.
The object responsible for that gaze looked almost like an eye—And almost like a bell.
"Get in already, miss! Fuel isn't cheap!"
The ghost driver shouted at her.
"Oh! Right."
Miko quickly used her phone, which was still on the camera screen, to take a picture of the scene before climbing into the taxi.
In the blink of an eye, the taxi that had been sitting there disappeared.
Only the spirit remained.
It finally realized that what it had swallowed was not the target it wanted.
Its flowerlike face slowly closed again.
The attendant spirits beside it seemed furious, screeching incomprehensibly.
The larger spirit ignored them.
It slowly placed one claw upon the doll and lightly scratched it.
"Begone."
A gust of wind swept dust across the open ground.
Several spirits vanished.
...
The taxi sped onward.
A thin layer of mist seemed to cover the scenery beyond the windows, making it impossible to clearly distinguish the outside world.
Hana looked curiously toward Miko beside her.
"Miko-chan, where did this taxi come from? Where are we going?"
"Something happened at home, so I need to head back early."
Miko casually made up an excuse.
"I asked one of my elders to come pick us up."
"Oh, really?"
Hana chose to believe her as usual and did not ask where the taxi had come from.
However, she still whispered,
"But your elder…"
"Um…"
"He looks kind of weird."
"Uh…"
Miko's words immediately got stuck.
She lowered her head, pressed both hands against her skirt, and squeezed her legs together nervously.
Because—The driver really did look strange.
He looked exactly like someone who had died a gruesome death.
Miko genuinely had no idea what excuse could possibly explain that.
The ghost driver casually glanced at the two girls whispering in the rearview mirror.
'What a pain.'
Why had he insisted on going out looking for work in the middle of the night back then?
He had encountered someone he should never have met, and now he was stuck doing unpaid labor while getting whispered about by some little girl.
After lamenting the hardships of ghost life, the driver slowly spoke.
"Kid, I'm not some weirdo."
"I only look like this because I'm preparing for this year's Obon Festival."
"Eh?!"
Hana jolted.
"Obon?"
"Don't worry about that, Hana~"
Miko hurriedly tried to shut her up.
"I'm not that hungry. You can have my bread."
"It's fine."
The ghost driver smiled slightly.
"There's no harm in explaining."
"Then…"
"Do you girls know the meaning of Obon?"
Obon was a Buddhist festival.
In simple terms, it could be understood as a period when the gates of the spirit world opened.
During the festival, people performed rituals to welcome the souls of deceased family members back home, entertained them, then later used lanterns to guide them away again.
Nowadays, however, much of that had been simplified into visiting graves, making offerings, and similar customs.
"It's basically… about honoring your ancestors, right?"
Hana answered.
The ghost driver smiled.
"Mm. That is part of it."
"But its original meaning also involves the gates of the spirit world opening."
"So aside from the souls welcomed home by the mukaebi fires, many wandering spirits also come out."
"These wandering spirits mingle among ordinary people."
"Sometimes, people who can see them, those with weak bodies, or small children become haunted by them."
"So to frighten those wandering spirits away, people wear masks and makeup even more terrifying than the ghosts themselves."
"Really?"
Hana looked enlightened.
Miko weakly turned her face away.
'He made all that up, Hana~'
"But Obon is still pretty far away, isn't it?"
"I'm preparing early."
The ghost driver continued without missing a beat.
"And people nowadays are always complaining that life is boring, right?"
"So if I pick up passengers looking like this…"
He grinned.
"Wouldn't that make things exciting?"
'That would be way too exciting.'
'If someone met you at night, they'd probably die of fright.'
Miko sighed.
Hana nodded again as though everything made perfect sense.
"Ohhh. I see."
"Exactly."
The ghost driver cackled.
"After all, I'm always at the cutting edge of fashion!"
...
After Luke explained that Hana should be fine, Miko first made sure Hana got home safely.
Then she and Yuria went to Kasumizuki's place.
Luke slumped weakly against the sofa and sighed.
"This heat is killing me. I seriously don't want to move."
"Do you think Miko has some kind of spirit-attracting constitution on top of her Yin-Yang Eyes?"
Kasumizuki stared at the photo Miko had sent on her phone.
"How does she keep running into every bizarre supernatural thing imaginable?"
And Luke had literally just convinced Yumiko to come over to his place to see the cats—Only for one message to drag him all the way here.
"You only noticed now?"
Luke looked exhausted.
"Haven't we known this for ages?"
"At this point, I wouldn't even be surprised if she caught a nine-tailed fox one day."
Someone who had developed Yin-Yang Eyes after birth despite there being no historical record of such a case—And who could even observe both worlds through the realm of the dead—How could Miko possibly be ordinary?
"Mm…"
Miko sat beside him with her head lowered, her face buried behind her long hair.
She clenched her hands and spoke quietly.
"Sorry… I caused trouble again."
Luke glanced at her gloomy expression and comforted her.
"It's fine."
"This isn't even that serious."
"That thing isn't some orthodox god from a legitimate shrine."
"If it dies, nobody's going to file a complaint."
"The miko here could probably deal with it in two or three moves."
"Eh?!"
Kasumizuki froze.
Then she immediately shouted,
"Could you stop dragging me into your bragging?!"
"I absolutely cannot handle that thing!"
"Hm?"
Luke looked genuinely surprised.
"You can't?"
"Is it really that strong?"
"So what exactly is that thing?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"Right."
Kasumizuki corrected herself.
"Or rather, what I know is incomplete."
She began explaining.
"I did know that something called the 'Mountain God' was revered in this area long ago."
"But I had never personally seen it."
"And I couldn't find any trace of it in the shrine's old records."
"I assumed it was merely a legend people had invented."
"Mountain…"
"God?"
Luke immediately sat upright.
He had been searching for this kind of existence for a long time.
Ever since the incident when Miko entered that dream, he had never encountered anything similar again.
And with the Chiba branch leader's abilities alone, there was no way to summon something powerful enough to genuinely be called a god.
Luke stared at Kasumizuki.
"Go on."
"I'm listening."
"You want the details?"
Kasumizuki exhaled slowly.
Then she asked,
"…Do you know what a human sacrifice is?"
...
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