"Blondie, this is interesting. He's actually following us."
"Is he trying to pull off some kind of plot that can't appear in a proper story?"
"But this doesn't seem like a convenient place..."
"I'd better make a move quietly. It wouldn't be good if they saw."
"Blondies like this, the kind that often show up in banned comics, really make people instinctively disgusted from the bottom of their hearts."
"First, I'll give him a Great Memory Restoration Technique."
"Guys like this will behave after a good round of Electric Baton stir-fried meat."
Fujino thought to himself, all sorts of blondies flashing through his mind as a deep loathing rose within him.
With a thought, his shadow turned fluid and flowed like a stream into the woods beside the stone path.
After a tiring trek, they made it up the mountain, where everything was peaceful.
The wooden shrine was enormous, with fox statues scattered everywhere. Its buildings intertwined in red and green, and aside from the main shrine, there were side buildings nearby. Compared to the shrine itself, the side buildings were clearly larger.
It had to be said that shrines like this looked pretty good. At least they were pleasant enough to look at. Though they were also tools for collecting money, compared to those places that mixed Buddhism and Taoism together, this money-making operation was at least carried out with some care.
Just treating it as a tourist attraction made for a rather comfortable visit.
Most importantly, admission was free.
Buying Omamori and such was not exactly cheap, but not excessively expensive either. At the very least, the Omamori really were drawn by the people here.
All that could be said was that their methods of operation differed...
After all, major shrines like this usually received donations from local