Three days have passed since the kidnapping of Akagi's younger brother.

Under the effect of the daily repeated horizontal jumping timeline, Teidan High School once again ushered in a day off, and Toru Amamiya had to get up early again and let Iwanaga Kotoko enter his house with sleepy eyes.

By the way, I also have to prepare breakfast for her......

"So you came to me so early today, is there something else?"

"Didn't you say we'd meet at noon......"

Toru Amamiya yawned, a little sleepy as he watched Kotoko Iwanaga circle around him.

"I'm your girlfriend! Can't I come to you for anything......"

"Although I did come this time because I received a little commission......

"But it doesn't matter, the place we are going to this time is a little far away, I can ask our driver to send us there, and you can touch my thigh on the road to relieve boredom!"

Kotoko Iwanaga lifted her skirt and put on a seductive look of wanting to refuse and welcome.

"Have you done something like this once...... Why I'm not at all surprised that you would say such a thing. ”

"Okay, what's the matter with this consultation?"

Amamiya Toru was a little helpless, sitting on the sofa and lying down silently, looking at the angry Iwanaga Kotoko and explaining to him quite unhappily.

"Recently, a small and remote place has been reported to me by a monster that a strange monster has appeared there."

"Foggy tengu."

Toru Amamiya was a little puzzled when he heard this, In this world where youkai do exist, all kinds of youkai that are passed down by word of mouth among the people exist in reality.

Kiritengu, of course, is no exception.

"What's so strange about the Kiritengu? Isn't it often found in folklore......"

"But the problem is that the foggy tengu that appeared this time is different."

Kotoko Iwanaga explained to Toru Amamiya, pulling up some portraits from the classics from her laptop.

"In classic legends, the Kiritengu is a kind of monster with a tall stature, wearing a monk's robe and high-toothed clogs, with wings, a red face, a long nose, and a feather fan and a mallet."

"And the real Misty Tengu is indeed no different from what is depicted in the ancient books, a kind of monster that looks like an abbot monk."

"But the Kiritengu that appeared this time, although it also has the appearance of a monk, has wings......"

"But the body is like a spirit, and at the same time, it has been refusing to communicate with other monsters, and even shows some violent tendencies, which has brought a lot of trouble to the monsters in that area."

"I suspect he's a monster of imagination."

"If that's the case, then I'll have to deal with it."

Kotoko Iwanaga explained the difference between this one and the foggy tengu this time, and Toru Amamiya nodded.

The monster of imagination, a strange existence based on the will of ordinary people.

In this world, among the well-known demons and monsters of urban legends, there are many imaginative monsters.

What started out as something very small, like a classic urban legend, could have started like this:

"I was walking alone in an alley, and I was accosted by a woman with a face and body shape wearing a mask, and I was so frightened that I ran away."

Then these originally very ordinary stories were passed into the ears of some good deeds, and in the transmission of time and again, countless people enriched the details and set them finely, and then became like this:

"If you look closely, the mouth inside the mask is cracked...... After being frightened by the accosting person and running away, the woman chased after her quickly......

As the story spreads from one to the next, lies like these are added to the story one after another, and the details of the story are gradually enriched.

Only at this time, it was still just a fabricated story, with neither power nor substance, just a collection of lengthy words.

Until someone gave the rumor a definite name, and the story ended up becoming—

"Rip Girl"

A name that can be used to express the story and roughly determine its appearance and image will turn those vague rumors into a fixed image.

Fiction takes root in the minds of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people, and at this time, fantasies are given flesh and blood little by little.

Such monsters are often terrifying, even for those who are real youkai.

Because these imaginatively constructed urban legends are not the same as those demons and monsters that are truly self-aware.

They are just machine-like beings who act according to the "setting".

Monsters without reason are always the most difficult to deal with, and those youkai born out of imagination are always despised and feared by real youkai.

Only when the stories of these fictional monsters have been passed down for hundreds of years will they be eligible to have self-awareness and incarnate as new, real monsters.

"In fact, even if it is really a monster of imagination, this mysterious monster that appears in the mountains is not so worrying."

"It's just...... The legend of the Kiritengu has been around for hundreds of years, and the youkai Kiritengu with intelligence has been born. ”

"And this new, seemingly unintelligent Kiritengu is clearly a new fantasy independent of the legendary story, and I fear that it was deliberately created by some ill-intentioned people......"

Kotoko Iwanaga took a sip of the hot tea that Toru Amamiya had prepared for her on the coffee table, and told the information she knew.

"Have there ever been cases of imaginary monsters created by individuals or organizations?"

Toru Amamiya was a little curious and raised his doubts.

"As far as I know, this is not the case."

"The conditions for the birth of an imaginative monster are very harsh, and it must be truly born if more than 100,000 people truly believe in the existence of this monster."

"Most of the time, these rumors only stay in people's minds, and they are barely solidified by constant suspicion and constant dissemination, and then quickly disappear because of the decline in popularity."

"It's hard to imagine that a person or an organization can have that kind of strength...... I'm just worried. ”

Kotoko Iwanaga casually explained that she was inexplicably worried, got up from the sofa, and stretched widely.

"Anyway, let's go investigate first!"

-------------------------------------

To deal with this special kind of monster, Kotoko Iwanaga and Toru Amamiya need to do more than just go to the door, find the monster, start fighting, and solve the problem......

Toru Amamiya and Kotoko Iwanaga spent almost an afternoon researching the information of the newly born Kiritengu and finally determined the final destination location of the mission.

This time, the legend of the new Kiritengu originated in an old temple in a remote mountainous area.

And the location of this old temple also happens to be very close to the area where this new Kiri-tengu is active.

Once the goal was set, it was almost evening.

Toru Amamiya picked out a sturdy enough off-road vehicle from his garage, packed up a little clothes at random, and took Kotoko Iwanaga straight to the target location.

Monsters born out of imagination......

Toru Amamiya had heard of it many times, but he hadn't seen it with his own eyes......