—Just watch, you little bastard. I’ll figure out your true identity, and then I’ll claim my rightful position!
But even that was merely a stepping stone for the sake of his dreams.
As Agatsuma Eiji thought of his rightful position, he laughed while driving.
“!?”
But all of the sudden, something seemed to crash onto the hood of his car. Eiji slammed the breaks and looked around, but nothing seemed amiss. He definitely heard something hitting his car, though. Not to mention he was certain he’d also seen someone’s face. But when he looked through his windshield, all that was there was the road illuminated by his car’s headlights. He couldn’t see any dent on his car’s hood from the driver’s seat either.
“…Was I imagining things?”
Just to be sure, Eiji got out of the car and looked around, but there really was no one around.
“…”
The whole situation seemed so eerie but it felt as if what he’d seen just now was a hallucination.
Still, with nothing else for it, Eiji could only shake his head as he forced himself to forget the hallucination and go back to his car.
When he checked the rear-view mirror from the driver’s seat…
“Who’s there!?” Eiji yelled as he turned around, but no one was there.
That was a given. After all, he hadn’t let anyone ride with him.
But Eiji was sure that he had seen something akin to a ‘white mask’ on the rear-view mirror. Only, when he turned around there was no one.
Eiji’s work was one where it wasn’t strange for a criminal to attack him for vengeance’s sake, so he checked the backseat and the area around the car just to be safe, but he really couldn’t find anyone.
Just what was wrong with his eyes today?
W-W-W-Welcome! To another night of Hummer Jun’s Missing Knight!!”
“Eeek!?”
Eiji was understandably startled when out of the blue the radio started playing by itself.
He went to turn it off, but then this time, the car’s horn honked.
“!?
…Damn it. What is wrong with this car? Did they sell me a fake?
That store is going to have hell for this!”
Even as Eiji face’s twitched and his back drenched in cold sweat, he still figured it was just the car breaking apart. As a man who has investigated the latest developments of science, that was a territory he absolutely did not want to encroach. He did not wish to think about it.
But despite not thinking about it, he still hurriedly started his car and drove as fast as he could back home, almost as if he was trying to run away. The entire trip back, he felt like he could see that white mask from the corner of his eyes.
The hallucinations he saw and his car breaking apart – or at least, that’s how he reasoned it – greatly annoyed Eiji, who was now sitting on his sofa.
As a bachelor, there was no family to greet him when he came back home. His house was as quiet as he’d left it.
It’s said that not having a family could affect one’s success in life, so he has considered making one in the past, but he liked the tranquility brought by a quiet house, so he instead decided to become successful purely with his own skills.
For some reason, though, this house felt strangely big and quiet today.
That’s why when that sound resounded, it came out really spooky.
—Pichan, pichon—
“!”
Startled by the sound of water, Eiji fearfully walked toward the source of the sound, the kitchen. There, he saw water dripping from the faucet.
Oh, “just forgot to close it”, he thought to himself as he stretched out his hand toward the faucet, but then the faucet suddenly fully opened, and a great amount of water came pouring out. Much of the water bounced off the sink and wet Eiji.
“This time it’s the faucet!? Just what the hell is going on!?”
As Eiji hurriedly closed the faucet, he started cussing within his lonely house, while intentionally ignoring the fact that more water came out of the faucet than possible.
Now wet as a duck, Eiji went to the dressing room to change. He threw his suit, his white shirt, and his necktie all into the washing machine.
He didn’t need to sort them himself, as the washing machine would do it for him, ensuring optimal results.
Garesto’s technology brought that function to all of the consumer electronics. But of course, only the wealthy few were currently in possession of the versions that had it.
“…Might as well take a shower, I suppose.”
Although he’d taken off his clothes, his wet body still felt icky. After confirming that the washing machine was operating correctly, Eiji went to the bathroom.
He only lightly washed off his sweat, as he already wanted to go to bed.
Although technology has advanced greatly, just like the cars, consumer appliances and utilities haven’t strayed too far away from their original shape.
As such, although the system that heats the water and distributes water is now much more advanced than before, the shower head still looked the same.
“…”
As Agatsuma stood beneath the shower, he told himself, “I’m tired”, and closed his eyes. Agatsuma Eiji belonged to the group of people who believed that supernatural phenomenons were nothing more than hallucinations. And when a world such as Garesto, a world with highly advanced technology, visited them, and they found out that they had no concepts of ghosts and the likes, that became a boost of confidence to people who criticized the occult.
“Right. What is there to be scared of? Such things are just nonsense in the age of science… Huh?”
But just as Eiji made his resolve, when he opened his eyes next, what he saw left him speechless.
Everything was red.
People like him rejected the existence of supernatural phenomenons because of Garesto, but in the end, that rejection was really nothing more than a conjecture. If they had looked at it from another point of view, then perhaps they would have thought that since Garesto existed, perhaps there was also another world that was its exact opposite. If they had thought such a thing, then perhaps Eiji wouldn’t be losing his mind now.
“U-UWAAAAAH!!??”
Everything was red.
The water pouring out from the shower…
His whole body…
Everything was red.
“EEk!? I-Is this blood!? GYAAH! UWAAH!! GYAN!?”
Trembling and scared out of his wits, Agatsuma Eiji tried to run out of the bathroom, but something caught his legs, and he fell to the ground. By reflex, he unfortunately ended up looking at what caught his feet. His face twitched.
There by his feet was a creature that looked exactly like a mummified human.
The mummified human had a face that seemed to belong to a man as it crawled out of the bathtub and grabbed him by the legs. At the same time, it looked at him with eyes full of hate as it called out his name.
“A, GA, TSU… MAA…”
“EEK!? AH, AHH, NO, NOOOOO!! [1]”
[1] – The romaji version makes it sound more feminine: “HII!? A, AHH, IYA, IYAAAAAA!!”
Tl Note: Been awhile since the last post. I had to make up some chapters to the other series, that’s why I couldn’t post for a while. Anyway, I owe about three releases for this series. This release is for this week and doesn’t count against that. We’ll catch up on those releases maybe in January after the holidays and stuff.
Today’s release ends with the color red, which sort of coincicides with the season.
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