Chapter 32: Fushimi Inari Taisha

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Sweating profusely and feeling a wave of nausea, Uesugi Toru rested for a long while on his bed before looking at the prompt that had just popped up.

The "Wriggler" had dropped 132 points of Soul Ash, which was quite substantial. This brought his total reserve of Soul Ash to a full 472 points. Even if a one-star gacha banner required 50 Soul Ash per pull, he would be able to afford a massive ten-pull and drain the new mini-banner dry when the time came.

Seeing the notification that the side quest was complete, Uesugi Toru paused briefly, thinking to himself that the "Wriggler" was indeed the "White Scarecrow." He then realized that the quest reward pool could actually be accumulated.

[You have chosen to accumulate quest rewards.]

The upgrade for the Laughing Hannya was only a little over 30 hours away, and his exploration of the Arakawa Ghost Village had reached 62% thanks to his frantic darting around. Once he completed the first side quest and both main quests together, Uesugi Toru was certain the accumulated reward pool would not disappoint.

Finally, the Wriggler had also dropped a special item. Uesugi Toru tapped on the item's description page and his eyes widened immediately.

[Spirit-Awakening Mist]
[Quality: None]
[Effect: Reduces the Resurrection cooldown by 4 hours upon use. Automatically replenishes every natural day.]
[Special Effect: Consume directly. After consumption, moderately restores physical strength and stamina, slightly restores spiritual power, and provides a minor continuous healing effect for injuries. Each use consumes 2 hours of the Resurrection cooldown.]

The effect of this item was nothing short of absurd. While reducing the resurrection cooldown by 4 hours was crucial in the mid-to-long term for increasing the efficiency of map exploration and quest completion, it was still a standard "game item." However, the special effect was truly monstrous—it could be consumed directly in reality, providing an unreasonable, all-encompassing recovery and healing effect. It was essentially a health potion from a game.

Imagine if, with both sides on the verge of death from severe injuries, Uesugi Toru simply pulled the Spirit-Awakening Mist from his inventory, took a sip, and was back in peak condition within minutes. The psychological trauma that would inflict on an enemy!

Thinking of this, Uesugi Toru took the Spirit-Awakening Mist out of his backpack and found it was a small cup, roughly the size of a sake cup. It appeared to be made of ceramic, with exquisite craftsmanship and a faint, glazed sheen on the surface. Looking inside, he saw two crystalline, cyan water droplets.

Better test the recovery effect first. The gash that the Flying Head Barbarian had cut into his back that afternoon had yet to scab over, and any significant movement caused a dull ache. When Nanjo Aimi was performing the "Great Memory Recovery Technique" on the two cultists, she had only let Hiyori-bo disinfect his wound and tossed him a roll of bandages to wrap it himself. It was, at best, enough to keep him from dying. At such a critical juncture, Uesugi Toru did not want to go to a hospital—a place prone to urban legends—and risk complications. He knew this flesh wound would heal automatically if he transformed into the Laughing Hannya for an hour or two.

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Naturally, he had put it off until now. As it turned out, the timing was perfect, saving him from having to cut two more gashes into his own arm!

Uesugi Toru opened his mouth and dropped one of the water droplets inside. The next moment, his spirit jolted, and he felt his five senses sharpen significantly. The lingering aftereffects from being killed by the Wriggler moments ago vanished, and a warm, tingling sensation spread across the wound on his back. Uesugi Toru unwrapped the bandage and stood up; looking in the mirror, he saw that the wound on his back had already begun to scab over.

He felt an urge to burn off his excess energy; if his "Old Man Ghost" weren't outside, he would have gone out for a ten-kilometer run already.

"Excellent, excellent." The effects of the Spirit-Awakening Mist were a delightful surprise.

Allocating the remaining two hours to his Resurrection cooldown, Uesugi Toru pulled out his phone as usual—according to his past experiences of returning to reality with the Walker Token, someone was bound to have messaged him. Sure enough. Let's see what the new message was.

[Work Must Die]: Our company approved our annual leave for a few days from now. Are you free to meet up offline?
[Work Must Die]: I've always heard the Fushimi Inari-taisha is famous, but I never had the time to visit. I have a friend there who claims they can show us the legendary "gods."

Uesugi Toru's hand holding the phone trembled—how was it that in less than half a day, mythology was becoming reality?! At this rate, someone would tell him in two days that the moon in the sky was actually the true form of Tsukuyomi. But then he reconsidered: if there were truly "gods" at Fushimi Inari-taisha, they would never allow foreign demons and ghosts to approach the shrine. In other words, it was a safe house for when the first wave arrived.

His netizen colleague was a descendant of a prominent family who could casually produce fragments of high-level Yin-Yang arts; the chance of them bluffing was slim. Therefore, going to Fushimi Inari-taisha... was undoubtedly the safest course of action!

"—However, as for this act of running away alone and tucking my tail between my legs, I refuse!"

Uesugi Toru typed a quick reply.

[Tsukisuna-chan]: We have midterms coming up soon, so I might not have time to go out... Also, it's best not to interact with people who act strangely during this time.
[Work Must Die]: Ah, alright then. Go to sleep. I'm going to work overtime.

—Refusing to run away, is this the arrogance of a genius, then?

Finished typing on her phone screen, Nanjo Aimi, sitting atop a pile of corpses, took a bite of a half-warm, half-cold chicken sandwich and asked while chewing, "Shizuma, are there any left outside?"

Struggling against the urge to vomit, Shizuma Fuyuki turned her pale face away and replied tremblingly, "Miss Hiyori-bo has finished her work, but there are still two or three left for Ms. Nuri-onna."

She found it hard to imagine what kind of mindset Nanjo Aimi possessed to be able to sit in a semi-enclosed room on a pile of charred, stinking corpses and eat as if nothing were wrong.

"Well, the work is almost done then, yay..."

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With dark bags under her eyes, Nanjo Aimi swallowed her dinner in two gulps and gave her little sidekick a weak peace sign. But the moment she stepped outside to face the other colleagues, Nanjo Aimi transformed from a depressed office worker into that powerful, calm, and reliable Junior Yin-Yang Master.

Nanjo Aimi kept a straight face as she shook hands with the fire department lead. "Thank you all for your hard work on the cleanup."

The lead replied, "By tomorrow, this will just be a chemical explosion incident."

She nodded, turned back, and smiled at Shizuma Fuyuki. "Let's go."

Shizuma Fuyuki couldn't smile back. Every time she closed her eyes, the tragic state of those people before they died and the sound of their pleas for mercy would involuntarily surface in her mind.

"I have to adapt to this new job quickly," Shizuma Fuyuki thought silently. "As long as I survive the three-month internship and get hired full-time, everything will go smoothly for little Natsu." Even for Natsu's sake, she had to persevere! "Come on, Shizuma Fuyuki! Just like all those exams in the past, you can do it!" She encouraged herself.

And then, Shizuma Fuyuki suffered from insomnia for the entire night.

...

The next day.

Uesugi Toru arrived at school and, as usual, skipped class to practice at the Kendo hall with Ririko. After more than three hours, Ririko was soaked in sweat, exuding the vigor of youth from head to toe.

Uesugi Toru, however, remained indifferent; he only cared about when his two skills could be upgraded again.

[Your skill, Fragment of the Ki-Harmonization Technique, proficiency +31!]
[Fragment of the Ki-Harmonization Technique (Proficient 201/300)]
[Your skill, Tennen Rishin-ryu, proficiency +15!]
[Tennen Rishin-ryu (Novice 280/500)]

Although both skills were not far from promotion, there was still a tangible gap of several days' worth of proficiency.

"I'm going to take a shower," Ririko's voice came.

—At this point, I have to be a gambler and see if I can fish out anything good from Edo Castle with one life.

In any case, he wasn't confident about dealing with the Hachishaku-sama or the White Hannya before his Laughing Hannya upgraded, so it wouldn't be a loss even if this life yielded nothing.

No sooner said than done, Uesugi Toru firmly closed his eyes. The Laughing Hannya pushed open the door and walked into Edo Castle, well-acquainted with the path. But before he had taken two steps, Uesugi Toru, wearing the Walker Token, felt something trip his ankle.