"What book is the teacher reading?"

Asako Asano sat next to Qiao Qiao and glanced curiously at the library book in Qiao Qiao's hand.

"Yes."

Qiao Qiao shows the cover to Ariko Asano.

The title of the book is "Thunderstorm", and there is a beast in the style of ukiyo-e on the cover.

"This seems to be played by Ibuki, right?"

Ariko Asano took a closer look at the author's name.

"Yes, because I read the book "7500 Flights" last time and found it unexpectedly interesting, so I went to the library to borrow a few copies of her works."

Qiao Qiao flipped the library book over, revealing the stickers in the library of the High School Affiliated to Fengcheng University.

"This is also horror?"

Riko Asano glanced at the beast on the cover again.

"Sort of."

Qiao Qiao bowed slightly.

"As far as I've seen so far, it's pretty good."

The plot of "Thunderstorm" has a kind of retro flavor.

The story begins with the protagonist's journey home, from the city to his ancestral home deep in the mountains, on the grounds that his great-grandfather has died.

Legend has it that my great-grandfather used to be just a down-and-out merchant who kindly rescued a wild beast on a thunderstorm, only to find out that the beast turned out to be strange.

After that, there is a strange story of repaying the favor, and the great-grandfather's business has been getting better and better since then, and finally he has become a rich man on the rich side.

However, the great-grandfather did not tell the rest of the family that the strange blessing came at a cost, and soon after his death, someone in the family died from a thunderstorm, causing panic.

The protagonist went home this time, originally just to simply listen to the will and divide the family property, but the way down the mountain was blocked by heavy rain and mudslides, and he could only wait in the ancestral house, however, there were more and more strange incidents.

"Blizzard Villa, it shouldn't be a ghost done by some member of the family to fight for the family property."

After listening to Qiao Qiaoqiao's story, Asano Ariko guessed.

"It's not clear, I've only read half of it, and the story has just arrived where the protagonist recalls the deeds of various relatives and sleeps with a distant cousin by the way."

“？”

Asano Riko's cheeks flushed slightly, and she turned her face away.

Don't take this for granted in front of underage girls.

But this kind of thing, it seems that there will always be a similar plot.

According to the FG, the distant relative is either the murderer or the next deceased.

She looked around, and fortunately, except for the two of them and a gray-haired grandmother who seemed to be asleep, only the driver was left driving in front of her.

The view from the window has long since changed from the city to the mountain forest, and the path winds through the forest and leads deep into the forest.

At dusk, the whole mountain is dyed gold, and the evening breeze blows like a sea of gold, sparkling.

"However, according to the evaluation on the Internet, Ikbuki is not the kind of serious reasoning that Ibuki created, so I guess this book should be a monster in the end."

Qiao Qiao didn't care too much.

"If it turns out that it was done by a human being, it would be too cliché."

Yes, now that weirdness has become widely known, it is better to say that the plot of human beings disguised as weird crimes has long been outdated.

"Judging from the current plot, this big family is really too distorted, everyone has ghosts, and even the maid has secrets, which is really uncomfortable."

Qiao Qiao commented again.

"The big family in reality may be even more terrifying."

Ariko Asano said that although she had not been in contact with much, she also knew that some of the Soul Removal Master families did have some very strange and distorted traditions, of course, she had no way of knowing the specific details, and could only hear about them.

"This Ibuki, who is only nineteen years old, didn't expect the things to be written to be so old and spicy, and many details feel the same as what I saw with my own eyes, is it really a genius beautiful girl writer?"

Qiao Qiao sighed with emotion and continued to read.

Asako Asano took out her mobile phone and flipped through the contents of today's commission.

The problem was an electrical substation located outside Suginami Ward, between the mountains.

It is home to three areas of Tokyo, including Shinjuku, Nakano, and Suginami.

Yesterday, Monday night, there was a strange incident.

Although there were no casualties, there was a local power outage in Shinjuku City due to the strange cause, which caused quite a commotion.

As for why it was characterized as a bizarre event.

It's because the staff on duty here has seen the weirdness.

According to the description, it resembles a large feline, quadruped, with a forked tail, long hair, a pitch-black body, and quick movements.

Originally, just looking at this description, you would probably guess that some kind of wild animal slipped into the substation.

But the employees of the power company on duty saw that the monster bit through the transformer, and the high-voltage lightning was eaten by it.

Later, when the power was turned off to check in order to restart the equipment, the employees of the power company did see some kind of bite from the sharp teeth.

Therefore, the power company asked for support from the Soul Killer Association, and entrusted it to Qiaoqiao's side.

Although it was obviously not a matter of resentment, Qiao Qiao still accepted the commission.

One of the reasons is that the substation is located deep in the mountains, and it takes a lot of time to go back and forth, and the bus to and from the substation stops at 10 o'clock, and if you want to go down the mountain, you can only wait for the next morning.

The second reason is that the remuneration is very high.

According to the average of the Spirits Association in the previous six months, this kind of strange event that may be related to youkai has exceeded 500,000 yen in appearance fees alone, and the average income is about 2 million yen according to the remuneration settled after the fact.

This time, since the client was an electric power company, we were able to earn more than 3 million yen if we had done it safely.

Three million yen!

What a concept it is.

This is an FN-16 portable anti-aircraft missile!

Qiao Qiao naturally accepted the commission.

By the way, I called Asako Asano to accompany me to make up for my previous mistakes.

"Three million yen"

Qiao Qiao said with joy in his heart.

"Spending the night in the mountains with my teacher"

Asano Riko was worried in her heart.

The two people sitting side by side thought about different things and came to the substation located deep in the mountains.

After they got off the bus, the bus continued to move forward, supposedly because there was a small mountain village in front of them, and although there were less than 10 households, there were still people, so it was the real terminus.

It is also said that there used to be a station that went deeper, but it no longer exists.

On the bus, where Qiao Qiao and Asako Asano couldn't see, the gray-haired, half-asleep grandmother suddenly opened her eyes.

"What those two young people said just now, isn't it what happened to Sakuraba's family?"

Her slightly cloudy eyes looked into the depths of the forest.

There is no focus on any point.

。