Kana Shizumi briefly sorted through the information he had on hand, checked it again to make sure he had missed nothing, and decided to head out for a stroll.
He would gather some local information and pick up a few souvenirs along the way.
After all, he rarely traveled this far. Bringing gifts back for his family and friends was only natural.
What good kid would keep all the treats to himself?
Kana Shizumi spent about half a day carefully choosing his souvenirs before getting down to business.
Licking an ice cream, Kana Shizumi made his way to his destination.
After a quick comparison with the map, his expression soon turned peculiar.
Seriously?
Why was it so run-down...?
Looking at the outline of the building, which seemed to have gone years without maintenance, Kana Shizumi could not help sighing.
The shrine was roughly half the size of a basketball court. It had no nameplate, and its three offering stands looked extremely crude-so bare-bones that it was astonishing.
He had a brief chat with the old man responsible for cleaning the place.
Young people these days did not care about such things, so over time, people had stopped coming to worship.
That was reasonable enough.
Kana Shizumi had arrived around noon, when there happened to be no other tourists.
He browsed the place casually, confirmed that there was nothing worth studying, then returned to what appeared to be the main seat of worship.
Although the shrine honored a "righteous deity" in the literal sense-one of the neutral or benevolent members of the Eight Million Gods-the longer Kana Shizumi looked, the more something seemed wrong.
"What's the source of this cursed energy?"
As everyone knew, cursed energy went hand in hand with negative emotions.
Finding something like that here was inherently a