A Little Evil Spirit!

"Honored elders, my son provided this important information. According to the clan rules, shouldn't he receive a reward?"

Li Zhun, his father in this life, spoke up on his behalf.

The three elders exchanged glances, then turned their eyes to the young Li Xia.

"Young fellow, what would you like?"

The three clan elders had decided that as long as this junior's requests were not excessive, they would grant them.

Li Xia gave it some thought. First, he secured some benefits for his father, repaying him for years of care and guidance. Then he asked to learn the Shikigami Technique and requested a large supply of spirit fluid to support his cultivation. The latter was his real objective.

"You want to learn how to form contracts with shikigami?"

One of the three elders frowned slightly.

Shikigami contracts were another core legacy of the clan, an advanced technique used in conjunction with talisman arts. Learning it had always been restricted to the prodigies of the main lineage. Members of branch lineages were not eligible.

The other two, however, readily broke this rule that had originally served only the clan's core leadership.

"Very well. As long as you lead us to that Demon-Worshipping Child Spirit, we will teach you how to form shikigami contracts afterward, whether we succeed in capturing it or not."

"As for spirit fluid, we promise you a monthly supply of two cubic meters. What do you think, young fellow?"

The reason they offered two cubic meters...

Was naturally that they had taken Li Xia's father and his three young sons into account.

Divided evenly among the father and his three sons, that came to half a cubic meter per person each month. In effect, they were granting this family of four a small portion of the benefits enjoyed by the main lineage.

That expense was negligible.

"Thank you, honored elders."

Li Xia gladly accepted.

As an ordinary cultivator in the clan, he was entitled to only three jugs of spirit fluid each month, totaling six liters. Yet even if those six liters were the enhanced, high-quality variety, and he used them as sparingly as possible, they would barely last him a day and a half.

And that was with his magical power still weak enough to be relatively easy to replenish.

Once his magical power and strength increased dramatically, six liters of spirit fluid would not sustain a day and a half of intensive training. Whether it could even last half a day would be doubtful.

Thus, he had no intention of sharing so much as a drop of those two cubic meters with anyone.

"To avoid complications from delaying, shall we set out for the Island Nation now to find the Demon-Worshipping Child Spirit?"

"Good lad."

The three elders grew even more appreciative of Li Xia's decisiveness.

And so, aboard that afternoon's flight to the Island Nation, there were three elderly men and one youth.

Meanwhile.

The Island Nation, Sunset Shrine.

Having just returned from the Warring States Demon World on the other side of the Bone-Eater's Well, Kagome took her younger brother Souta and hurried straight to the home where his elementary school classmate, Little Gō, had suffered a fire.

A family of three had once lived in that home.

They were ten-year-old Mayu, the older sister; eight-year-old Little Gō, the younger brother; and their mother. Naturally, it was their mother who had held this little family together, painstakingly raising the two children from infancy.

But a fire had broken out in their home a few months earlier.

Mayu had been burned alive inside the wardrobe in her younger brother Little Gō's bedroom.

After her death, Mayu's resentment lingered, and she came to deeply hate her sickly younger brother, Little Gō. As time passed, that resentment did not fade, but instead grew stronger. It bound Mayu even more tightly, preventing her from ascending to heaven and leaving her ghost stranded in the human world.

During that time, a Demon-Worshipping Child Spirit had found Mayu's ghost.

It played a soul-soothing flute to comfort her, trying to help the child let go of her obsession and ascend peacefully to heaven. At the same time, it silently watched over her, witnessing each step she took toward the edge of the abyss.

"Souta, you asked me earlier whether I'd seen an evil spirit, didn't you?"

Kagome asked, holding her younger brother Souta's hand.

The little boy nodded.

"Yes, Kagome. I think Gō's been haunted by an evil spirit.

Ever since that fire a few months ago, Gō's been unconscious.

At first, our classmates visited him often, but strange things started happening. Some of them fell down the stairs for no reason after visiting him, and others were nearly hit by cars after leaving the hospital. Nobody thought much of it when it happened once or twice, but things like that kept happening, one after another. Every classmate who visited Gō ran into something.

Everyone was scared something bad would happen to them, so they stopped going to see Gō at the hospital."

Souta recounted what he had seen and heard.

He himself had almost been hit by a car back then.

It had left him shaken ever since.

That was why he remembered it so clearly.

"Is that so?"

Kagome looked thoughtful. After pondering for a while, she asked another question.

"Then do you know what happened to his sister, Mayu?"

"There was a fire at their home a few months ago, and his sister burned to death. I heard his mother only knew Gō was home. She didn't know his sister was hiding in the wardrobe in his room. So when the fire broke out, she rushed back inside, risking burns, but only rescued Gō, who had passed out on his bed from the smoke. If she'd known his sister was home too, I'm sure she would have saved her..."

As they spoke, the siblings arrived beneath the apartment where the fire had occurred.

"Kagome, that's the place. Gō's family lived on the fifth floor."

"Mm."

Kagome looked up, worry flickering in her eyes.

Then her gaze grew firmer.

After learning some of Mayu's story, she had already begun thinking of helping the little girl out of sympathy and compassion.

Especially after learning about the Demon-Worshipping Child Spirit from Grandpa Myōga, an old flea from the demon world who had lived for over two thousand years. She had discovered that once this seemingly kind, harmless demon opened its closed eyes, the little girl's inability to ascend to heaven would be the least of her problems.

The rampaging Demon-Worshipping Child Spirit would surely take her to hell.

That was not an outcome Kagome wanted to see.

"Kagome, that apartment is strange too. Whenever anyone comes to repair it, there's always an accident. So even now, it's still covered in scorch marks from the fire. It hasn't changed at all since a few months ago."

The next moment.

An accident really did happen.

A flowerpot containing a withered plant suddenly floated out from the balcony, then plummeted straight toward the two siblings.

"Watch out!"

Kagome cried out.

She immediately grabbed her brother, hurried out of the way, and shielded him beneath her.

"An evil spirit!"

Souta went pale with fright.

Then his eyes rolled back, and he "fainted."

In reality, this was a tactic he had learned from dealing with sudden incidents like this many times.

As long as he promptly played dead, the "evil spirit" that liked causing accidents from the shadows would leave him alone.

Clever as he was, he had visited Gō more often than any other classmate. How could he not have learned a trick or two?

Kagome, however, knew nothing of this and began blaming herself for her recklessness.

"Souta...!"

As she shook her brother where he lay on the ground, a little girl dressed in a padded winter coat appeared beside her.

It was Mayu.

"Why did you do that?"