Chapter 58: Resentment of the Death Curse (Part 8)

Dark clouds blanketed the sky, and scattered puddles pooled on the surface of the narrow alleyway. The streetlamps flickered on and off as if plagued by loose wiring.

The two-story wooden residence at 4-3-chome was half-concealed in the dim shadows of the trees, utterly devoid of even a sliver of light.

"Woo-woo—"

An eerie sound echoed through the alley, resembling the wailing of wronged souls and the weeping of vengeful ghosts.

"..." Stack Vanguard turned his head silently, glancing toward the source of the music. "Look, can you turn that off?"

"Pardon me, I was merely trying to set the atmosphere." Li Sheng, attired in his Mao Shan Taoist robe, complied gracefully. He stowed the portable stereo playing the haunting background music into his inventory slot, resuming his serious gaze toward the haunted house.

Stack Vanguard sighed helplessly in his heart, regretting his decision to agree to explore a haunted house at night with this Ephemera.

A curse like the Grudge is not a ghost with an individual will in the conventional sense, but rather an intensely concentrated mass of spite largely devoid of self-awareness.

It cannot be communicated with, possesses no clear target for revenge, and harbors no emotional spectrum of love or hate; it merely attacks all living beings tainted by the curse blindly and indiscriminately.

In such circumstances, whether players hid deep within uninhabited mountains or stood in the middle of a bustling street shouting "I am a paratrooper" to draw a crowd, the probability of being attacked remained identical. Thus, putting on a show or not made little difference.

"Drone scans indicate that no thermal signature is visible yet."

The voice of Awakening Spring Solstice came through the Bluetooth earpiece. The raw, unfinished apartment serving as their safehouse was not far from 3-chome, and she was currently controlling a drone to monitor the dwelling.

Standing nearby, Little Red Riding Hood clutched a standard-issue utility knife issued by the Japan Anomaly Investigation Bureau, nervously guarding four ordinary citizens and remaining on high alert against a potential attack from the Grudge.

"Expected. You and Little Red Riding Hood maintain your defenses, protect the three targets, and communicate immediately if any situation arises. Ephemera and I are entering the courtyard."

Stack Vanguard took a deep breath, reached out to push open the low wooden gate of the front yard, and stepped into the perimeter of the residence.

As his feet touched solid ground, the intense, chilling sensation flooding the entire body that he had anticipated failed to materialize.

Stack Vanguard glanced left and right. A residence left uninhabited for a month noticeably lacked human vitality; wild weeds sprouted from the flower beds, spiderwebs hung beneath the eaves, and a shallow layer of dust coated the surface of the glass windows.

Rustle, rustle.

A noisy sound came from the side. Stack Vanguard turned his head to see that Li Sheng had put on a face mask and, through gloved hands, was unsealing several garbage bags piled in the corner of the courtyard, rummaging through their contents.

"...What are you doing?"

"Rummaging through the trash," Li Sheng replied as a matter of course. "A wealth of information can be analyzed from the traces left in garbage. For instance, kitchen waste reveals dietary preferences, domestic waste indicates lifestyle habits, and even the feces clinging to toilet paper can be used to deduce illnesses—

If the stool is black, it might indicate bleeding in the upper gastrointestinal tract or small intestine.

If the stool is black and glossy, it could mean a large accumulation of blood within the intestinal lumen.

Mucus and pus in the stool might suggest bacterial dysentery, diarrhea with grease could point to small intestine disease, and clay-colored stool might indicate tumors or gallstones in the biliary tract..."

"Uh..."

This miraculous speech left Stack Vanguard speechless. He paused for a moment before asking, "How do you know so much? Did you learn this from forensic science textbooks?"

"Not at all," Li Sheng said. "I learned it from my seniors back when I was interning at the outpatient department of the Tokyo University Colorectal Hospital. Our department's slogan was 'Aim high with hemorrhoids, keep a warm heart in the bowel path.'"

???

This time, not only Stack Vanguard, but even Awakening Spring Solstice on the other end of the earpiece was filled with question marks.

Thanks to the well-developed network resource library of the real world, Li Sheng, as a mystery enthusiast, had read all sorts of miscellaneous books. The knowledge he mastered might not be profound enough to rival the cutting edge of a field, but it was certainly vast and varied. You never knew when it might come in handy.

As for why he was acting foolishly, it wasn't entirely out of a sense of quirky humor—mainly maintaining a psychiatric patient persona helped distinguish himself from his real-world self.

Gathering his thoughts, Stack Vanguard asked, "Since Suzuki's son and daughter-in-law are in our hands, wouldn't it suffice to simply ask them if their parents were ill? Why bother with this redundant step?"

Li Sheng lowered the garbage bag and said, "Even children do not necessarily know their parents' physical condition in real-time. Besides, some elderly people do not even know their own bodies are failing.

Figuring out the true cause of death is exceptionally crucial. If the Suzukis actually died from a sudden illness, fainting in the bathtub and drowning, it would cause us to misjudge the exact time the Grudge manifested."

Hearing this, Stack Vanguard asked, "Did you find a clue?"

"Hahaha, absolutely none," Li Sheng grinned with confidence, flashing eight pearly white teeth in the dark night as he fished an empty soda can out of the trash heap and easily crushed it flat under his foot.

Then what are you being so confident about?! Aren't you just finding a random excuse to satisfy your urge to rummage through the trash? And why is your motion of crushing a soda can so practiced? Are you perhaps a sanitation worker or a scavenger in the real world?!

Stack Vanguard took a deep breath, barely suppressing the impulse to retort, and said calmly, "Anyway, I'm going to open the door. Get ready."

Reaching out to grip the door handle, he gave it a gentle press and push. The unlocked door swung open with a creaking sound.

The interior had not been ventilated for a long time, and air reeking of a stale, decaying odor rushed over them. Illuminated by the beam of the flashlight, the indoor furnishings were laid out entirely bare.

Just like the photographs provided by Suzuki Kazuya, this house was not particularly large. Upon entering the foyer, one was met with a corridor; to the right of the corridor were the shoe cabinet and the bathroom, to the left were the kitchen and dining room, and at the far end of the corridor was the living room.

In the corner of the living room, a staircase led to the second floor. The stairwell corner was exceptionally dark, instilling a strong sense of unease, as if something might crawl down from there.

"We previously confirmed that this residential area has electricity running to it, yet the lights still won't turn on..."

Stack Vanguard pressed the light switch on the wall, but there was no response. Suddenly, a tremendous, overwhelming force struck the door handle, and even though he was prepared, he was forcefully shoved into the room by the wooden door.

Bang!

The wooden door slammed shut heavily, cutting off the inside from the outside. To make matters worse, the figure of Li Sheng, clad in the Mao Shan Taoist robe, vanished into thin air, disappearing to who knows where.

Inside the entire house, only Stack Vanguard remained.

"Ugh, ugh, ugh—"

An eerie whimpering sound, as if someone had blood choking their throat, emanated from the staircase at the far end of the corridor.

Something was crawling down the stairs.

————

Wait, where did everyone go?

Li Sheng stood in the foyer, his brow slightly furrowed.

From his perspective, as the door suddenly closed, Stack Vanguard vanished with a "swish," leaving only himself behind.

The Bluetooth earpiece, touted as capable of resisting complex electromagnetic environments, transmitted a chaotic burst of static. The glass in the living room, which had previously only been covered in a layer of dust, inexplicably grew blurry and indistinct, completely obscuring the outside view.

This place was likely no longer the former residence of the Fujita family, but somewhere else entirely...

Li Sheng pondered for a moment. Confirming that even his mantis-arm blade covered in talismans could not chop through the door, he turned, stepped past the foyer, and began to explore the house.