Case 14: In the Mirror (3)

I was relieved to find that I was in Okutama, a world where time functioned properly, and that there was air here. I guess that’s how much I had been drawn into the strange story of the old man, Ryouichi Mamiya.

As I walked down the corridor, stepping firmly on the dark red carpet, Krishna-san stopped suddenly ahead of me. I looked to see that she had her face up to the wall of the corridor. I went up next to her, and saw several framed black-and-white photographs adorned alongside it.

“I guess it must be Mamiya-san and his friend who passed away.”

Krishna-san spoke.

Two men stood side-by-side as they smiled in the monochrome picture. They were both young and had nice smiles.

One of them was indeed the old man. I thought he must have been quite handsome when he was young, but-- this was amazing. I never thought I'd go so far as to say that a man was smoking hot, but I'll say it now. A bright young man who reminded me of a movie actor was smiling and showing his white teeth. And the other man projected in the photograph must have been the friend who disappeared in the cave.

Compared to Mamiya-san, He didn't look as graceful, but he still had a beaming smile aimed towards us. And, seeing his left arm still attached to his body, something bitter rose up in me.

“What do you think?”

After being introduced to our respective guest rooms on the second floor, and as soon as the servant departed, I went to Krishna-san’s room and asked her.

The bobbed hair occult website manager was sitting in her bed with her fist to her lips, ‘Hmmm’.

“It feels like Mamiya-san’s sense of guilt of ‘Having abandoned his friend and coming this far’ has taken form. I think the guilt is too heavy for him to accept his current success as a reward for which he worked so hard to redeem himself. On the contrary, the more wealth he accumulated, the stronger it might have become.”

“... Ah, I see.”

“A cave that was deemed forbidden. The prey that took refuge within. The era where food was scarce, I don't think that is something to be persistently blamed for. However, what I don't understand is the voice he heard, the thing that assaulted him from the depths of the darkness. The possibility is high that it was an auditory hallucination, or a delusion borne from fear -- but, in the chance that it was neither of those, then I should have searched for the meaning behind it.”

“Should have…? Eh, do you mean to say that you already went to investigate that cave?”

“Yeah.”

Krishna-san simply nodded.

“It was about a week ago. I went to the cave in question. The entrance was still cordoned off with a new shimenawa, a small shrine had been erected, and it was sealed off so that no one could enter. I heard from the shrine that managed the small shrine that it had completely caved in only a few meters in its depths. According to the chief priest, a deity of unknown origin had originally been enshrined in the cave. There were also theories that it was dedicated to a fleeing samurai in the closing years of the Heian period or to a mountain god, but in the end the origin wasn't well understood. Even in the village, it is buried in the dark of history as something that was already over. I felt I was being indirectly pressured not to dig in too deeply into it.”

“Huh.”

All I could do was stroke my chin, and nod.

“But... This house, it's amazing, isn't it? Is he living alone in a place that's big enough for a family of ten? Was the Mamiya family rich to begin with?”

“He seemed to have been an influential person of the village, but even so, he must have been wealthy for a villager’s standard. That person built his fortune through hard work up until now. That earnest effort must have originated from the feeling of atonement towards his friend -- but perhaps it was also a kind of possession or curse.”

I nodded once more, ‘I see’ -- And asked.

“Then, what are you going to do, Krishna-san?”

“Hm?”

“When are we going back? It's already evening, even if we were to call a taxi….”

“…Ah. I think I'd like to stay for a few days here if I'm allowed to.”

“Eh?”

“It's fine if you go back. No, you should go back. Your lectures will have started already.”

“…No, well, that is the case, but what are you planning on doing by staying here for a few days?”

“I believe this is also a form of exorcism. I want to do something as thanks for all the years I've been supported for ‘Ikaigabuchi’.”

Krishna-san spoke as she bit her lips—

However, could she really do that? No, it might be possible that she could loosen the hardened guilty conscience of the old man by listening to his stories…but, could she really do that by staying here for only a few days.

I looked outside the window for some reason. The sun had already begun to set, and it was getting darker by the minute. There were hardly any houses or even power lines along the way, so the surroundings would completely sink into darkness.

Ugh… what should I do? Well, I could do something about university, but I still had my part-time job, and I didn’t even bring any spare clothes to begin with. There didn’t seem to be any convenience stores nearby, and in the first place, just how was I going to go back home alone from here by myself?

As I thought that,

“…Ah.”

A voice suddenly escaped Krishna-san.

“Why didn’t I realize it before—the warnings in the cave Mamiya-san saw.”

“Eh?”

“Listen, first it was 『Those who continue ahead from here will have no guarantee of their ‘life’』. Next was 『Those who continue ahead from here will have no guarantee of their ‘friend’』. And at the end it was 『Those who continue ahead from here will have no guarantee of their ‘name’』. If we take ‘life’ as his friend not returning, and if we take the ‘friend’ as the friend Mamiya-san lost —then what about the ‘name’ at the end?”

I suddenly felt a chill down my back as if something slithered through.

It was—about that. It appeared in my head because for the past few days, I’d been flooded with all kinds of strange talk about ‘names’.

‘Um’, I asked.

“Krishna-san, have you heard of ‘The Scholomance university of magic’?”

“…Hm?”

“It was said to have existed in the Balkan peninsula or something.”

That was the university of witches that the mysterious young girl whispered to me about. And originally, it was blurted out by the enigmatic Noh faced man I met in front of university that day.

“I heard that the disciples of the witch were made to dedicate themselves to researching the origins of names of things in that university.”

“Well, that’s very knowledgeable of you.”

I received a rare complement.

“The Scholomance university of magic is an ancient European legend of obscure origin that has passed down through the ages. It is said that the university has a large library where you could research the true names of every event and creature in this world. According to one theory, it might perhaps be another name for the Akashic Records, but there are still very few references to it in Japan… and I thought I would go research it in more detail once, and…huh? How did you find out about such an obscure story?”

“Well, ummm… I think it was on the net? I forgot, haha.”

In a panic, I made something up,

“Anyway, I recalled it with the word ‘name’. Why were the disciples of the witch made to only repeat the same thing – in short, why were they made to only research the origin of the names of things? Are things like names really that important?”

“They are. Names are what bind the entirety of living things to the world. To wear the W in witch*, would ultimately mean to forget who you are. Conversely, if one were to regain their ‘true name’, the worn ‘W’ would be--”

Thereupon, Krishna-san suddenly sunk into silence. Her head was slung down, gesturing as if she were biting down her nails with her fingers to her lips.

“Krishna-san?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

Saying that, Krishna-san gave a forced smile.

However, that smile illuminated by the sunset looked exceedingly fleeting—

I was suddenly seized with the illusion that she would end up disappearing.

Unconsciously, I was about to reach out my hand to her soft cheeks to keep her tied down to this world.

“Anyway, I’ll be staying here for a little longer.”

The bobbed haired former occult site manager declared to me in a mechanical voice.

“—You can do as you like.”