Miiiinnn. Min-min-min-min… miiiinnn… The sound of cicadas droned. The air was warm enough to bead a faint sweat. It was evening—when the setting sun looked largest. A small mountain village lay in perfect peace. At a tiny shrine within that village, a lone woman prayed.
“O Lord. Ah, my Lord. All proceeds as planned. The accursed will no longer be able to reach our world.”
Yes—the means of luring sacrifices into this world had been set to random. There were mountains of urban legends that dragged others into the otherworld, and by swapping them in and out on the fly, the entrance would never be discovered. And, most of all, that bothersome machine had been utterly pulverized. In that case, that troublesome shrine maiden called Kogami Inari would no longer be able to come here. All that remained was to slowly amass power.
“It was unfortunate about the Tatari-gami… but that was irregular to begin with. All of this is for you, my Lord.”
【The Formless That Is Spoken Of】 admonished you not to grow careless.
“Yes, as you say. I shall be all the more vigilant.”
Saying so, the woman turned her gaze to the girl collapsed beside the shrine. The girl’s breath rasped—a thin hweee—so she still lived… but only for a little while yet. By the instruction of the god, 【The Formless That Is Spoken Of】, the woman had not killed her, but neither did she intend to treat her. The girl was plainly mortally wounded; even a robust awakener would not be able to move.
“Submarine,” Suzuno Shion. Even Japan’s fourth-ranked top ranker had been overwhelmed here by sheer numbers… and when the woman posed as a “victim dragged into this place,” finding an opening had been easy.
“That betrayed look… heh, it sent a thrill through me. Ah, my Lord, my Lord. That pleasure was like nothing else.”
Yes—this woman was an apostle of the being called 【The Formless That Is Spoken Of】. By its instructions, she was the true culprit who had been commanding the urban-legend-type monsters.
Name: Machida Shizuka
Level: 28
Job: Urban Legend Storyteller
Stats
Strength: A
Magic: E
Phys. Defense: E
Magic Defense: E
Agility: E
Luck: C
Skills
Leadership Lv 50 (Urban Legend), Transformation, Status Disguise, Blessing (The Formless That Is Spoken Of)
Machida Shizuka—before she “became” like this—had been a thoroughly ordinary awakener. No, perhaps even below ordinary. She had no particularly outstanding abilities, and her job had been the commonplace “Warrior.” There was nothing she could accomplish; yet because she was awakener, she ended up working for a small awakener company—a life without dreams of any kind.
The one who delivered an oracle to such a Machida was 【The Formless That Is Spoken Of】. In this stifling world, only 【The Formless That Is Spoken Of】 had offered her hope. When she grew this otherworld and made it into what 【The Formless That Is Spoken Of】 desired… then she would be granted further power and be reborn—literally. Then she would gain strength that even a top ranker could not match. Her life would change. For that alone she had endured a hopeless existence and devoted a long—very long—time.
“Over ten years…! I’ve devoted that much. I won’t let anyone meddle now…!”
【The Formless That Is Spoken Of】 warns of an intruder.
“Eh!? How!? The machine was definitely—!”
【The Formless That Is Spoken Of】 is wary of Kogami Inari.
“Kogami… Inari…”
She knew the name. It was the being 【The Formless That Is Spoken Of】 regarded with caution. The means to find this place should have been destroyed—so how? No, there was no time to think. If Machida’s existence were uncovered, everything would come to light—no need to imagine it. She had to deal with this at once. That said, to handle someone who could erase a Tatari-gami… there was only one method.
“…No choice, then. [Transformation].”
Crack, crack—Machida’s body warped down to the very skeleton; her clothes shifted as well… until she had the form of a boy of about middle-school age. Even her sex changed. “Ah—ahh,” she tested a prepubescent boy’s voice. Fine. No problem. The transformation had completed normally. With Status Disguise active, even someone with an appraisal skill would not notice Machida’s true nature.
Name: Machida Shizuo
Level: —
Job: —
Stats: —
Skills: —
Fine. No problem. By all appearances, these were the stats of a non-awakener, ordinary boy. Anyone would take him for a helpless child. Seeing such a boy here, anyone thinking straight would assume “a bystander who got caught up in this and needs rescue.”
Meanwhile, it seemed a battle had begun; something—or rather, someone—was fighting in the village. The underlings were being routed as well.
“Please watch, my Lord. I shall defeat them gloriously… and offer them to you as a sacrifice.”
With that declaration, Machida broke into a run. Situational setup and acting skill were crucial in this sort of thing. And fortunately, she had practiced both in the field for a long time—tricking those she had dragged here into this otherworld. Deceiving the good-hearted was second nature to her now… in fact, it had become Machida’s specialty.