Originally, the Red World Apostle, who should have lived purely for its own desires, deliberately went through the trouble of creating substitutes instead of completely devouring the existence of humans, all because it wanted to avoid being tracked by the Flame Mist Warriors.\ Once it were to devour everything, i.e., hastily erasing an entire existence, the world would experience a massive distortion called a sense of disharmony. Most apostles rampaging in the present world have no interest in the distortions they cause or the potential disasters that might result, nor do they feel any sense of crisis about it.\ However, if the purging Flame Mist Warriors could track them using these distortions, that would be another matter. If they wildly devoured everything without any plan, the distortions produced in the process would continuously expand, enabling the Flame Mist Warriors to perceive their existence.\ The measure taken to suppress this danger is to create torches.\ This substitute, made from the remnants of the dead, will gradually disappear over time. The sense of existence and position that the deceased once held will gradually be lost as the remaining power of existence fades. Unintentionally becoming inconspicuous, even their own existence is often forgotten, and when a certain unconscious moment is crossed, they will fall out of people's awareness, disappearing from both others' memories and all records. At the same time, the torch itself will also completely vanish without anyone knowing.\ The human existence originally possessed, equivalent to the connection with the world and to bonds, gradually weakens and will quietly dissipate like the wind without notice. This is the form in which the existence of a torch is extinguished.\ (However)\ The torch of Junko Ogasawara, who died being devoured, which the girl is now intervening with, has not had a large amount of its existential power consumed. This is evident from the fact that the girl's overall will still remains at the level of an ordinary person. Therefore, the bonds the girl acquired with Junko Ogasawara through intervening in her existence remain very vivid.\ If this were a torch whose existence had almost been forgotten by those around it, the bonds connecting it to people and things would seem very weak, with some even broken, making matters extremely troublesome. To disguise it, such connections and necessary information with the surroundings would have to be recreated.In order to search for the lurking Apostle, obtaining intelligence through bonds rooted in the local area is a very important step. The general daily circumstances, such as the specific location of the Ōkami family, the hiding place of the key, and determining the identity of the woman in front of you, can all be grasped through these bonds. Conversely, others connected by the bond should also treat themselves as Junko Ōkami with the same intensity of will.
(Obviously it should be this way, so why…)
Junko Ōkami's mother, why does she show a look of doubt towards me?
As if wanting to understand this doubt, the girl spoke up voluntarily:
I'm back.
Junko Ōkami's mother, upon hearing these words, clearly let out a sigh of relief.
You're back.
After responding, she finally realized the relic of Junko Ōkami the daughter was holding (the intervention of existence directly transfers the associations of the deceased onto oneself, merely erasing the physical part of the torch.)
Why are you dressed like this?
Hmm, something happened.
The girl had no intention of explaining, and only gave a brief answer.
Junko's mother did not look surprised, but instead showed a worried expression.
(Maybe I should change clothes and come back after all)
The girl slightly regretted it.
In Japanese academic training institutions, students are basically required to wear uniforms. If one wanted to pretend to have returned from that place, they would probably need to wear the uniform. Although earlier it was cumbersome to find a place to change clothes, and she sensed through the bond that home was very close, so she skipped this step.
Just as she thought about this, she immediately let it go.
(Forget it, it doesn't matter anyway.)
Compared to worrying about such trivial matters, the validation of the vivid bond she had acquired and the fact that a considerable amount of existence force still lingered in the torch of Junko Ōkami she had intervened in was naturally more important.
This fact was precisely proof that the Red World Devourer who had consumed the real Junko Ōkami was nearby and dangerous.
(Indeed, I can slightly sense that aura too.)
Flame Fog Warriors and Apostles can vaguely sense each other's existence.
Usually, the sequence is:
First, the Flame Fog Warrior arrives at the place where the Apostle is hiding.Then, the Apostle detected its presence and took action to either attack or flee.
Next, the Fire Mist Warrior accordingly took action to either confront or pursue.
That's how it was.
In this way, the Fire Mist Warrior had already arrived and was in a situation of being searched, yet the Apostle still did not make any move. This kind of unusual situation, where it remained in hiding, was not unheard of.
(However, even so, it's still strange.)
The girl, harboring doubts, awkwardly turned the key to unlock the door.
Then, the two of them again waited simultaneously for the other's action.
This inexplicable silence was finally broken by her mother. She pushed open the sliding door and walked in.
“Well then, I'll start preparing dinner, okay?”
She seemed to be waiting for a response. The girl felt it, yet she did not have words to reply.
Through intervening in the torch, all she could do was grasp the relational bonds of those who once lived, and have a vague impression of the relationships among people around and connections to things. As for shared matters with related parties or past conversations, that was not within this scope.
Among the Fire Mist Warriors, there are some who can extract memories from a torch in extreme detail. She had heard this from Alastair before. But, unfortunately, she was very bad at this delicate free method or the technique of manipulating the power of existence to freely cause phenomena.
(It's no big deal.)
Anyway, the time spent here was only a few days before discovering the Apostle's whereabouts. Beyond asking for the necessary information, there was no need to concern herself with anything else.
Seeing that the girl still didn't respond, the mother merely glanced back at her.
*Sigh.*
Then, she placed her gloves on the nearby shoe cabinet, using the motion as a cover, and let out a gentle sigh. She took off her sandals, stepped into the room, and turned on the lights in the house.
The girl, finally liberated from Quanjun's mother's presence, exhaled in relief.
At the same time, as if tightening her slightly relaxed expression, she took another deep breath.
(Alright.)
She immediately focused her mind on the mission she had to carry out: to grasp the home-bound impression bonds that Quanjun had cherished during her life.A room filled with feelings of secrecy, refusal, confusion, and annoyance.
A restroom mixed with feelings of liberation, disgust, pain, and a sense of urgent crisis.
A bathroom full of feelings of relaxation, freshness, cleanliness, and warmth.
A kitchen that combines feelings of trouble and fun, hunger and satiety, cold and heat.
(If there is one, it would probably be here.)
From all these places, she chose the place full of family, television, and emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure. This was the spacious room next to the black-floored corridor, also known as the living room. Following the guidance of her bond, she reached out to the wall nearby and turned on the light switch.
After flashing a few times with white light, the room immediately brightened, revealing the round low dining table in the center, the tea cabinet holding tableware, and other furniture that had been used for many years. As for the floor, it was an old tatami carpet exposed to sunlight for a long time.
Seeing this scene, the girl did not react to her family's frugality and thoughtfulness.
(So this really is the family conversation room?)
She merely confirmed that her feeling was correct and felt satisfied. She looked around the entire room.
(Found it.)
In the small basket next to the only newly bought items, the TV and the VCR, she found her target.
It was a newspaper.
Regarding how to use this information medium, which makes it easy to organize chronological order, the girl had once received careful instruction from someone. For this long-awaited attempt, she first put the cake box on the low table, placed other items next to the basket, and then took out the newspapers that had been casually stacked there to check the dates.
(Yesterday's is Wednesday's newspaper.)
Before long, she found the newspaper that would likely contain reports related to the target event. She continued searching.
(To be cautious, I also pulled out the ones from the previous two days, and, hmm, why is today's missing?)
As the girl thought this, her mother came in from the kitchen connected to the washroom.
"Junko, why are you looking at the newspaper?"
Her mother entered with a puzzled expression.
"Nothing."
The girl pretended nothing was wrong while directly inquiring about the information she needed.
"Where's today's newspaper?"
"Under the dining table."Your dad has always left it there, hasn't he?
Really?
The girl took today's newspaper, which was mixed in with other less significant ties (Da Shang Junko seemingly hadn't really used newspapers much during her lifetime), from under the dining table, and stacked it together with the recent newspapers she had just picked out. Ignoring her astonished mother, she stepped on the creaking stairs and ran toward Da Shang Junko's room.
Junko, you forgot to take the cake!?
Her mother called from behind.
Here, take it!
The girl replied casually.
After pulling the sliding door closed, the girl first put the things she was holding onto the floor.
Da Shang Junko's room was a Japanese-style room with brand-new wallpaper that didn't quite match the darkened beams. There was no bed, only a tatami mat with a tatami rug on top, along with a table, chairs, and a wardrobe. In the corner of the room lay many cushions of different colors.
But the girl disregarded these practical aspects completely. She simply picked up the newspapers she had just placed on the floor and arranged them in order: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday (today). Among these newspapers, she first took the one she had found earliest, from Wednesday, the day the incident occurred, and opened it. Skipping political, economic, sports, and regional sections, which were of no help for the investigation and of no interest to her, she focused on the pages devoted to current events and incidents, as she had learned to do before.
Found it.
Hmm.
Arastel responded with a sound from the pendant on his chest.
The report they were looking at contained just a few inconspicuous lines above a large advertisement in the incident section:
Missing American reappears after ten years
Stamped in slightly bolded letters as a headline.
As for the content: A ten-year-old case in New York involving a missing American man – he has now been found in the small town where they live, with no memory of the period when he was missing. His clothing matches what he was wearing at the time he disappeared. It's an extremely bizarre event.
The man, once found, is temporarily under police protection, and discussions with the embassy regarding his return date to his home country are ongoing. After reading this brief report, the girl also browsed the newspaper from the day before, Tuesday, then the preceding one, Monday, and finally today's Thursday paper.As a result, no newspaper reported on the missing person or the circumstances of their discovery. Although it wouldn't have been strange if there had been no report in newspapers from the day before or even the day before that, the fact that today's newspaper had no follow-up on the incident, and that even the news section did not list it, judging from the strangeness of the event, is really odd—or rather, unnatural.
Hmm.
The girl nodded, recalling the events that began when she came to this small town yesterday.
(From the outcome, coming here was indeed the right choice.)
When passing by a certain police station, she happened upon a torch.
The torch surrounded by a large group of reporters, yet dazedly being led away by the police officer, needs no further introduction—it was the American man who reappeared after ten years.
That torch, situated at the center of a disturbance in human society, should not have attracted much attention given its existence.
The girl found this not only unusual, but, relying on her intuition as a Fire Mist Warrior, she became interested in the matter. Before long, reports about the man were published, and her intuition turned into certainty.
