Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Stigmatized Property

When the ship finally stopped at the port, the police were already waiting to board. Some of the passengers who were getting off the ship were outraged when they got detained.

"You can't do this! We're Americans!"

"Shush, honey, you're embarrassing us!"

With Pumpkin's carrier in his hand, Adam walked past the passengers arguing with the police officers and slipped past the checkpoint using Glamour. However, as Adam stepped out of the passenger terminal, a man dressed in a monk's garb and armed with a ringed staff stood in his path. When he moved to the side, the monk followed suit.

"Uh, excuse me?"

"Meow?" Inside his carrier, Pumpkin tilted his head to one side.

"Hmph, yōkai, I can smell your stench from a mile away." The monk struck the ground with the base of the ringed staff, producing a ringing sound. "Leave this place, your kind isn't welcome here."

"I'm just passing through, alright?"

"Passing through? You left three dead on the ship alone. Or did you think no one would know?"

"...that wasn't me. Look, I can prove it."

Adam brought out the nure-onna from his inventory.

"What foul sorcery is this?! How dare you desecrate the dead! Die, yōkai!" The monk lunged forward with his staff.

Before the attack could reach, Adam controlled the shikigami to block the strike and burrowed into the ground. Moments later, while controlling the shikigami to dodge the monk's next attack, his hand reached out and pulled the shikigami underground.

The monk was scanning his surroundings for his opponent when he suddenly leapt away. Half a beat later, Adam's head popped out from the ground and spat fire in the direction of where he was standing a moment ago. The flames narrowly missed him. When he attempted to retaliate, Adam was nowhere to be seen.

"Do not think you have seen the last of me, yōkai!"

***

Despite the encounter with the monk, Adam was in a good mood. In fact, he was feeling thankful to the monk for the reminder. If he didn't manage to find any onmyōdō texts, he could just ransack a monastery for Buddhist texts instead. The prospects of him finding something useful here had significantly increased. While onmyōdō and Buddhism were different systems, he had no qualms about learning from other systems.

A few hours later, Adam went to a real estate agency after stealing some money from a yakuza office. After stealthily observing a couple rent an apartment, he reproduced a copy of the documents he needed using Glamour. When he heard from the agent that a stigmatized property was available, he jumped at the opportunity and rented the 1LDK apartment at the mere price of fifty thousand yen per month. The apartment even came furnished since the previous tenants vacated without taking them.

"Jackpot."

Adam stared at the swirling yin energy through the entrance of the apartment. He left Pumpkin outside in the carrier before entering the place. With the size of the apartment, it didn't take long for him to find what he was looking for.

A woman was standing inside the bedroom with her back to him. Adam walked toward her and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey."

The woman jumped away from Adam. She turned around but her hair was covering her face. She paused for a moment before timidly approaching him with her hand outstretched and waving her hand in front of his face.

"What are you doing?" Adam grabbed her by the wrist.

The woman panicked and tried to get away. However, she couldn't escape until Adam let go of her. She fell on her bottom and slowly backed away while facing him.

"I'm the one that should be scared, you know." Adam rolled his eyes.

With her hair covering her face, the woman looked just like the ghost from that Japanese horror classic. Adam had nightmares for weeks after watching that film.

From the start, Adam knew she was harmless. When he asked earlier, the real estate agent revealed there were four successive tenants who reported experiencing paranormal events after a tenant prior to them went missing. One of them even stayed for a week before vacating the apartment. The fact that all of them left the place alive told him more than enough.

The woman was a jibakurei—an earthbound spirit. Jibakurei were spirits trapped in the material world. What separated them from other spirits, such as the ubume, was that they could pass into the otherworld if their reason for being stuck in this world was resolved. Other than causing yin energy to accumulate, they were relatively harmless. The only problem was humans who resided in such places tended to fall sick easily.

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However, Adam couldn't just leave her alone since there was a chance she could turn into an onryō. Onryō were vengeful spirits born from those who died with grudges and resentment. Unlike popular belief, not all onryō were victims themselves. Some used to be jibakurei before they got corrupted by the negative emotions of the living. Onryō were extremely dangerous since they indiscriminately attacked the living.

Adam took a sniff of the room. He could smell an unpleasant odour lingering in the air. The odour was faint enough that he wouldn't notice if didn't suspect there was a corpse inside the room.

"Your body is here, isn't it?"

The woman pointed at the bed.

Adam braced himself while walking over to the bed. As he lifted the mattress, his sense of smell was overwhelmed by a putrid stench. He looked down and saw her rotting corpse staring back at him, with her eyes and mouth wide open, under the wooden slats. Her skin and flesh were falling off and her bones could be seen. The space under the mattress was enclosed on all sides except the top, which was sealed off by the mattress. Not only did that make discovering her corpse harder, but it also prevented the smell from spreading. It was no surprise the previous tenants didn't manage to find her corpse.

"Give me a second first."

Adam went outside and put on a gas mask before coming back in. He carried the woman's corpse out of the bed and placed her body on the ground.

"Is there anything you want to do? I will help you resolve your attachments."

Adam waited for a while but the woman didn't respond.

"Do you want me to take revenge for you?"

She shook her head.

"Do you have any family or relatives?"

She shook her head again.

"...is there anything you want to do?"

The woman paused for a moment before nodding. She started gesturing but Adam couldn't understand her. He took out a pen and paper, and placed them on the ground. She picked up the pen and wrote: I want to take a look at the orphanage I grew up in.

"Okay, but I'll have to create a soul core for you first."

Unlike the spirits Adam was using as temporary shikigami, the woman couldn't just leave the apartment. If she wandered too far away, she would start losing her sense of self and become like them.

Adam pulled off her rotting head and started preparing for the ritual in the living room. He made a deep cut on his finger and started drawing on her head. Then, he drew a symbol with five horizontal lines intersecting with four vertical lines on the floor and placed her head in the middle. He continued writing on the floor in a kanji-like language around the symbol while occasionally reopening the cut on his finger. The entire floor was covered in writing before he was done. After closing the curtains and shutting the doors, he placed spirit ward talismans on the walls and scented candles around the room.

Once the candles were lit, Adam started uttering an incantation while forming hand seals and circling around the symbol. In the middle of the ritual, the woman turned into an orb of fire and flew into the head. Then, the skin and flesh on her head started melting off as if the decomposition process had been sped up. After the ritual was over, an orb of fire left the head and turned back into her once more.

"Let me shower before we leave."

Adam showered and changed his clothes before calling the police. He didn't plan on staying there any longer. It would take far too long to get the smell out of the place. He took the woman's skull and left the apartment.

"Meow!" Pumpkin rattled the door of the carrier. He had never suffered such an injustice in his life! How could that foolish oni lock him inside this insufferable cage for so long?!

"Oh, are you hungry already?" Adam threw a handful of treats into the carrier. "I'll feed you later, okay?"

"Meow!" Pumpkin gobbled down the bribe and went back to sleep.

Following the woman's directions, Adam walked to the orphanage. It was close to the apartment. He snuck inside using Glamour and summoned her from the skull. He accompanied her as she relived her memories while touring the place. When she encountered a caretaker reading from a book to the children, she stopped and listened for a while. They eventually concluded the tour of the orphanage.

"Go on, go toward the light."

Adam waited for a while but the woman didn't move.

The two of them stared awkwardly at each other for a while.

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