Rita squeezed the brakes, and the bicycle coasted to a stop by the roadside.
"Rita?"
Shiina Mashiro clearly did not understand Rita's actions.
"Shiro, wait for me here for a moment."
Without further explanation, Rita dashed into the rain, heading toward the white shadow. She was neither worried about being lured away from the target nor concerned that it might be deliberately baiting her.
After leaving Firefly Grass near Shiina Mashiro to protect Shiro, Rita vanished from sight.
It was not that Rita was meddling. The other party had appeared so openly right before her—what did Rita have to fear? Besides... what if it triggered a quest, or some valuable item appeared?
During the previous two encounters with supernatural incidents, Rita had obtained spoils, including something as useful as the Sessho-seki.
Meanwhile, Shiina Mashiro remained alone by the roadside, holding her umbrella and blankly staring in the direction Rita had left.
It did not take Rita long to catch up to the white shadow because... it had stopped at a park.
When it stopped, Rita finally saw what it looked like. It was a creature about twelve or thirteen inches long, with a tail around nine and a half inches long. The rest of its body was blurry, like some kind of spirit body... but its head was that of a white fox.
"Is that... a Kuda-gitsune?"
Rita stopped. The little creature ahead looked almost exactly like the Kuda-gitsune of legend.
Also known as Izuna, the Kuda-gitsune was famous throughout Japan, and many places had legends about it. Around Edo, it would possess people, entering through the tips of the fingers and toes before invading beneath the skin. Once possessed, people lost interest in ordinary food and began eating raw miso soup instead.
Around Shinshu, the Kuda-gitsune was a