At Yomiyama North Middle School, Shizuku met the client—the principal of the school. However, he did not seem willing to discuss the matter in detail and directly passed Shizuku off to a librarian named Chiyuki Tatsuharu. According to the principal, he had been the homeroom teacher of Class 3-3 when the incident happened.
However, he was no longer a teacher and had chosen to become a librarian instead.
Chiyuki Tatsuharu looked to be around forty or fifty, but he appeared extremely haggard. With his head of white hair, he looked more like an old man in his sixties or seventies.
"Are you here to investigate that curse?"
Looking at Shizuku, Chiyuki Tatsuharu made no attempt to hide his doubts. Shizuku, however, did not seem to mind and merely smiled faintly.
"That's right. I'm the exorcist who accepted the commission to handle this matter, so can we skip this part and exchange some more useful information?"
"...Of course."
Faced with Shizuku's question, Chiyuki Tatsuharu nodded. He then sat down in a chair and stared at her.
"What do you want to ask?"
"I've already learned most of the situation from the materials the principal sent me, but I still need to ask this. When you learned that the curse targeted the third class of the third year, did you take any other measures? For example, leaving only two third-year classes? It would have been crowded putting students from four classes into two, but wouldn't that have stopped the curse?"
"We did consider that."
Chiyuki Tatsuharu gave a bitter smile.
"But it was useless. On the contrary, the curse only expanded further... That year had the highest death toll. All the third-year students in the entire school died in accidents because of it. In the end, we had no choice but to