"Is that so? Then you wouldn't mind that I went and contacted the Yama on my own, would you?"
"Are you messing with me?"
"Of course not."
"Come on, come on, let's have a big ♀ fight first!" Jiu Ming frowned and rolled up his sleeves. He was extremely unenthused about beings like the Yama—something that sounded like it managed the dead. After all, he himself was dead, wasn't he?
Karma and reincarnation... His very existence already violated the laws of reincarnation, didn't it? Whenever he encountered someone who even thought of such beings, he couldn't help imagining whether they would act like defenders of the Way, kicking up a huge fuss as they tried to deliver his soul from this world!
...Uh, lately he seemed to have gotten a little too absorbed in all that mystical stuff.
"Well, I was just teasing you."
"...Oh." Jiu Ming nodded, immediately feeling that his earlier impulse had been rather stupid. It was obviously exactly what he should have expected, so why hadn't he thought of it? Maybe Kazami Yuuka's provocation had thrown his state of mind off balance.
"Shopkeeper, you wouldn't mind if I took a stroll around your world, would you?"
"Hm?" Jiu Ming raised an eyebrow. After a long silence, he asked, "Why would you want to do that?"
He didn't ask how Yakumo Yukari knew about it. "Well, it just feels unfair." Yakumo Yukari's smile faded, and she spoke with what seemed to be a touch of melancholy. That sorrowful expression was exceptionally pitiful... Tch! What a tormenting little yokai... no, Great Yokai!
"Unfair!?" Jiu Ming's pitch instantly shot up by eighty percent. "How so!?"
Holding back the very human-looking cross-shaped vein that was about to pop out on his forehead, Jiu Ming lowered his voice and asked.
"I'm