Listening to the other party's words, Keli's face darkened slightly.
Things were now aligning.
The matter of wish-killing, which he had heard about since Totsuki Academy, was not being promoted by a specific Cult. It was probably more like an urban legend, so it was heard everywhere, but most people probably didn't know the reason behind it, so it was just a rumor.
It was just that Nekiri Senzaemon, when having his subordinates collect clues, first found this, rather than content related to the Deep Ones that had been specifically hidden.
The invisible monster also matched. That should be something like an evil spirit, which was the god previously worshipped by the villagers. After being released, it killed people along a certain trajectory, and this group of old men thought it was the Buddha Mother collecting sacrifices, perhaps believing it was the Buddha Mother's subordinate, as they called it.
And the mess they made, and the initial tracking when they went out, also seemed to align. The street where the few of them lived was very likely because, after the residents of that village moved out, they all chose to buy houses on one street for convenience when they came to Tokyo.
Thinking about it this way, the neighborhood association aunt on their first day of moving in might have been one of those villagers, or someone converted by those villagers.
The villagers must have collectively moved to Tokyo two years ago, and the Buddha statue was also moved at this time. They probably didn't place the Buddha statue too far from themselves; they probably still needed to worship daily. This also matched the time when the low-probability crime incidents, collected by Kirito, suddenly began to occur frequently on this street.
Now, only two questions remained unanswered: first, what was so special about Keli's house, and why did that group of people initially want them to leave, but later began to warn them not to go out?
"So why did you hire people to tell us not to go out?"
Keli felt this question could explain all previous issues.
Hearing Keli's words, the old man shook his head, somewhat annoyed.
"If I had known it would come to this, I would never have thought of warning you."
"When the Shadow Adult is primarily active, it goes to the houses where we've placed offerings, but sometimes after finishing one family, it might go to other houses."
"That house, for some reason, the Shadow Adult never visited. So we used to deliberately hide inside whenever the Shadow Adult arrived. However, that house also has something strange about it; every night we stayed there, strange things would happen, and we didn't dare to stay there permanently."
"We even wanted to buy that house, but it seemed to have been bought by a big shot. We even received warnings when we tried to investigate who the owner was. However, no one lived there for several months, and we were afraid someone would move in, so we could only spread rumors that it was a haunted house."
"But once you came, we had to find another place."
Keli nodded at the old man's explanation, as they had indeed found it somewhat strange when they moved in: the first floor had no dust, but the second and third floors had quite a bit.
The main reason the Shadow did not come could be that there was already a ghost inside.
And the previous owner of that house was the village chief, who bought the house for an old friend, but only as a memento.
And that night, that Shadow must have attacked next door.
However, Keli had actually miscalculated, because last night those people had already placed offerings in the drainage ditch in front of their house, plus they basically went out every night, so that group of people had calculated that they would die last night.
But there was still one last strange point: if that were the case, warning them not to go out, and their living place being a safe house, wasn't that protecting them?
Seeing Keli's puzzled gaze.
The boss sighed deeply.
"I saw you talking with Yasuda earlier. Ueno and I are friends; he used to often wander this street, and I even invited him to work at my shop, but he wasn't interested. I also advised him to stay away from that street, but he insisted the sewer had some secret base of his. Yasuda also often came to find him, so we were acquainted."
"Ueno later disappeared. Yasuda said he went missing. Seeing that you get along with that scruffy old ghost, you shouldn't be bad people."
"To be honest, it's just hypocrisy. That day, from the back street, I found a small stray cat that had been half-eaten by other large cats. Thinking of how young you all were, I spent some money to find those kids and tell you to stay indoors. That way, perhaps you wouldn't get involved, but now it seems I overthought it. You're here to investigate this matter, aren't you?"
"Heh heh, to tolerate that thing randomly killing people, yet not wanting to see a few young people I like die, perhaps that's just how humans are."
"I confess. Although I voted against it when the village wanted to move that thing out, I didn't stop them when they decided to do it. These past few years, I've earned a lot from that thing, from originally renting a house in Tokyo to open this shop, I've now bought this shop and have my own home. But my children are innocent; they were truly just tied to worshipping by us old fogeys. You can investigate all of this. Take me away."
After speaking, the old shop owner spread his hands frankly.
Yasuda was the homeless man who told Keli about the sewer.
By the end of his speech, he was no longer using honorifics like "Buddha Mother," but instead referred to "that thing."
Undoubtedly, this old man was a very complex person, with both good and evil, but Keli had no intention of letting him go.
Considering how to leave after killing, Keli sniffed.
But he found something wrong.
Downstairs! A scent was coming from downstairs!
Keli stood up under the old man's astonished gaze.
He rushed downstairs and found a horrifying scene.
As a Japanese restaurant, frying was indispensable.
But at this moment, the old woman downstairs was erupting with a strength she shouldn't possess, lifting the entire small deep fryer, which was still plugged in.
Then she turned her head and gave Keli a strange smile from the stairs, directly pouring the boiling hot oil inside onto her body, still clad in a cotton padded jacket.
"Ah ah ah ah!"
Horrifying screams and the sound like oil being poured on noodles rang out simultaneously, and hot steam billowed in the small shop.
Horrifying blisters swelled up at a visible rate, but Keli's gaze was no longer on them, but fixed in one direction. It was also invisible, but this one was more than just one level stronger than what he had seen before.
The other two were at night, but this was a bustling downtown area in broad daylight, and the method used seemed like mind control, much more potent than the Shadow's most impressive trick of putting people to sleep.
And Keli could feel that something was escaping towards the outside of the shop.
Keli chased after it without hesitation.
Pushing open the shop door, he pursued that feeling through the crowded street.
However, just as Keli had chased about 30 meters, a scream came from behind him.
"Ah ah ah!"
Keli turned around sharply.
The old man had actually climbed out of the second-floor window, aimed a sharp food-grade scissor at his own mouth, and jumped directly from the second floor.
"Crack!"
The scissors pierced directly into his brain, and the boss died on the spot.
As if proclaiming that this was the consequence of speaking out of turn.
Keli, in the crowd, felt the screams and panicked throng around him, and the other entity escaping from the second floor, but he stood still.
He raised his eyebrows and looked there.
"Is this a warning, or a provocation?"
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