Chapter Forty-One: Mie Nishikawa – Motive for Crime

The instant the Abyssal Touch coiled around the totem, nearly every ghoul in the vicinity hurled themselves forward, frantically tearing and clawing at the massive tentacle in a desperate bid to rescue the totem.

Chen Zi’ang grabbed Tsukimi Suzuna and fled in panic. Even in the brief sweep of his flashlight, he had counted at least six ghouls—there was no hope of winning a head-on fight.

But their enemies had no intention of letting the culprits escape. The two ghouls nearest the cave entrance quickly flanked them from left and right.

Their hind legs were extraordinarily powerful; with just a few bounding leaps, they were upon the pair, accompanied by a sinister, hair-raising creak of joints and a stench of utter decay.

One ghoul crouched low and closed in with alarming speed, its claws slicing through the air like a gale, aiming straight for the soft flesh of Suzuna’s abdomen.

The other leaped high, its claws spread like forged blades, bringing its full weight down in a vicious strike at Chen Zi’ang.

Chen Zi’ang spun and slashed upward with the Mandrake Sword, attempting to block the airborne attack. The force behind the blow reverberated through the blade, forcing him to stagger backward; his right arm felt as if it had dislocated in an instant.

Yet years of battling the unnatural still served him well. With his right hand powerless to grip the sword, Chen Zi’ang’s left hand shot down, caught the Mandrake Sword as it slipped from his loosened grasp, and with a swift, unexpected upward thrust, stabbed at his foe.

The ghoul, caught off guard by the speed of the counterattack, lunged forward to press its advantage, only to have the blade pierce its shoulder; the flesh around the wound shriveled and collapsed.

There was no time to finish it off. Chen Zi’ang quickly turned his head—just in time to see that the other ghoul’s body had already been severed in half, its remains flung aside. The shadow warrior flickered in the beam of the emergency flashlight, then disappeared at Suzuna’s feet.

“Beautiful!” Chen Zi’ang couldn’t help but exclaim.

Then, coming to his senses, he dragged Suzuna onward, racing out of the cavern and back toward the path by which they’d come.

“Return the book!” the shrill cries of the ghouls echoed behind them.

Their voices were coarse and grating, as if rasped by sandpaper, imbued with a cruel and palpable malice that reverberated from all sides of the cave, drawing ever closer.

A ruthless determination flared in Chen Zi’ang’s heart. With a thought, the Abyssal Touch coiled around the bone totem contracted with brutal force.

The ensnared skeletal totem groaned under the strain.

“Stop! Stop!” the ghouls screamed in panic.

But Chen Zi’ang had no intention of stopping. He could now sustain only a single summoned tentacle; unless he dismissed the thick appendage lurking in the bloody pool, the skill would be sealed and unusable.

Meanwhile, the ghouls could easily divide their forces—some trying to free the bone totem, others pursuing them—without the slightest concern.

Thus, the moment they burst out of the cavern and into the tunnel, he issued a mental command to the Abyssal Touch: destroy the totem.

As the notification for 100 Ember Points from the Shadow Cloak chimed in his mind, a tidal wave of furious howls erupted behind them—the ghouls had gone completely berserk, vowing to tear the two intruders limb from limb.

Chen Zi’ang, having staked it all, sprinted down the passage as fast as he could, feeling as if the very ground beneath his feet was trembling with chaos.

Fortunately, Suzuna kept pace nimbly, never once stumbling or turning into one of those hapless heroines from a horror film whose every blunder raises the audience’s blood pressure.

They reached the tunnel’s blockage at a dead run; Chen Zi’ang shoved Suzuna through the narrow gap, then raised his hand again.

A colossal Abyssal Touch burst from the earth, blocking the path of their pursuers.

For an instant, footsteps, shrieks, the sounds of struggle and curses, and the wet, meaty thuds of tentacles lashing stone and flesh all merged into a deafening cacophony, a wave of chaos that threatened to swallow everything.

Suzuna, already through the gap, reached back to pull Chen Zi’ang after her, but he suddenly froze, rooted to the spot.

From a distant, unfathomable dimension, the chilling gaze of the Ghoul King—drawn by the destruction of the bone totem and tracing the old book’s location—locked onto Chen Zi’ang across space.

Under the influence of this unknown power, his heart ceased to beat, his blood congealed, muscle and sinew decayed, bones withered, and in an instant, he was utterly lifeless.

Suzuna grabbed him in a desperate embrace, shadows enveloping his corpse.

“O Great Lord of the Deep Sea! I know you’re watching!” she cried out, her voice trembling. “Even the tides obey their laws and limits. How can the one who carries out your will be devoured by that which is rotten?”

A deep, ancient laugh echoed in the darkness, and before her eyes, Chen Zi’ang’s body revived at a speed visible to the naked eye.

His heart began to beat again, blood flowed, muscles regained their color, bones solidified, and his chest started to rise and fall with breath.

Suzuna breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly pulled him through the gap, the shadow on the other side yanking him through the collapsed tunnel, then hoisting him onto her back and sprinting for the exit.

As soon as they emerged from the mine and reached the surface, she saw a figure standing not far away, shining a flashlight in their direction.

Their beams crossed, illuminating each other’s faces, and Suzuna recognized the person waiting for her: Mrs. Fuyutsuki, the innkeeper.

“I thought you’d already died down there,” Mrs. Fuyutsuki said with a smile.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Suzuna replied, supporting Chen Zi’ang. “You’re Miharu Nishikawa, aren’t you?”

“Yes, that’s me.” The woman regarded her with unhurried composure. “You know me? You know my story, don’t you?”

“I’m not interested in your story,” Suzuna said coldly.

“But surely you can understand that despair,” Miharu Nishikawa replied with a gentle smile. “That pain and hopelessness—of watching the one you love slip away, powerless to help. Will you hear me out?”

Suzuna fell silent, focusing on checking Chen Zi’ang’s condition.

“They died because of me.” Miharu’s smile grew wan, her expression stiff with numb resignation. “My husband would take the street cart out every day after work to sell tempura at the school gate. When school was nearly out, I’d drive the family truck to pick them up.”

“But that day… I argued with him over the phone, and out of spite, told him I wouldn’t pick him up. When school let out, he and our child, with no ride, had to push the cart back through town on foot. On the way, they ran into those beasts…”

Her face spasmed violently, as if on the verge of tears, but no tears came; only her eyes bulged from their sockets.

“So it was your fault.” Suzuna’s tone was icy. “And yet you mean to take it out on others. How ridiculous.”

“Isn’t it just?” Miharu’s smile vanished, replaced by a twisted, grotesque grimace. “I planned to avenge them, then find a place to end my own life.”

“But even that small, pitiful wish was denied me.”

Her voice turned mocking, her gaunt cheeks twitching. She continued, “I once placed my hopes in the town office, in the city of Hokkyoku to bring me justice. But the office forced me to withdraw my complaint, and the city ruled against me, leaving me utterly desperate.”

“Even when I fell into hell, all I wanted was vengeance for my family—to kill every last wolf roaming the wild…”

Here, her face twisted into a bizarre smile.

“And then I discovered that these so-called wild wolves were, for the most part, nothing but abandoned, feral strays let loose from Hokkyoku itself.”