"It was probably because so many people had gathered."
Sakumura, Ryoma, Takasugi, Hijikata, Oda Nobukatsu, Chacha, and the outsider Fujimaru Ritsuka had all gathered together to discuss what had happened the previous night.
Thanks to Izumo no Okuni's shamisen, a large number of villagers had gathered in the square on the western side of the village, drawing those strange monsters in.
However, the monsters had left no corpses behind.
They seemed to be life-like beings made entirely of mud. After being cut down, they shattered and turned into a soft, rotten sludge that smelled fishy.
Could this stuff be good fertilizer?
Fujimaru Ritsuka found himself thinking.
"So those monsters were after the crowd drawn in by Miss Okuni?"
Takasugi Shinsaku stroked his chin.
"Miss Fujimaru, did you have something to say? Your perspective as an onmyoji might give us a better line of thought."
Sakumura looked at Fujimaru Ritsuka, who had raised one hand.
Fujimaru Ritsuka had already quite naturally accepted his role in this Singularity as "an onmyoji who fought by controlling shikigami."
"It was something Miss Yukina mentioned."
"Those monsters carried exactly the same fishy smell as Lake Kurokawa."
Fujimaru Ritsuka looked out the window, toward the summit of Black River Mountain.
"Although our last investigation didn't turn up anything, the root cause of this incident still lies with Lake Kurokawa."
".I had the same suspicion."
Ryoma spoke with a grave expression.
"After things ended in the western square last night, I returned to the mountain gate to find Oryou, only to discover that she was hunting something."
"Something seemed to be trying to force its way through the mountain gate, but after a brief clash with Oryou-san, it fled."
"The timing happened to be when we were dealing with those little monsters that looked like the village