Without the [Magic Mirror], the man was nothing more than an ordinary mortal at death's door.
Under Shinji's questioning, it didn't take long before he broke down in tears and confessed to everything.
His name was Katagiri Yusuke, and he had once been a simple, honest farmer.
Because he was poor and destitute, none of the women in the village would even look at him.
By the time he turned fifty, he had lived his entire life alone, never having married.
Then one day, while cutting firewood in the mountains, he came across an elderly man with white hair lying on the ground.
The old man begged Katagiri to help him get down the mountain and offered him a sum of money as a reward.
But greed took hold of Katagiri's heart. He could see clearly that the old man possessed far more wealth than just that small amount of money!
Driven by evil thoughts and reckless courage, he took the woodcutter's axe he carried and killed the old man.
He then stole everything of value the man had with him — including that seemingly ordinary bronze mirror.
For days afterward, he lived in constant fear and anxiety. It was his first time killing anyone; he had no experience, and after the murder, he had fled in panic without even disposing of the body.
But he was lucky. Perhaps wild animals had dragged the body away, or maybe no one had come looking for the old man at all. Somehow, he managed to get away with it.
Afterward, he believed that with money in his pocket, the women in the village would finally look up to him with respect.
But reality was completely different from what he imagined. To them, he was just a lifelong bachelor and a miserable old man.
No family would ever marry their daughter into what they saw as a life of misery.
Besides, the money he had stolen, though it seemed like a fortune to him, was only enough to live extravagantly for a few months. Once it was spent, it was gone forever.
He felt dejected and resentful!
Until one day, on a whim, he took that bronze mirror and offered it as a gift to Widow Ran, a woman living at the edge of the village, hoping to win her favor.
That was when the true power of the [Magic Mirror] revealed itself for the first time.
He was overjoyed. Little by little, he tested the mirror on other women in the village and gradually discovered its full potential.
And as he learned what it could do, his twisted mind began to swell with arrogance and malice.
He decided he would make every woman who had ever looked down on him — every woman who had ever acted proud or superior while ignoring him — pay the price.
So he left the village, which had already become "boring" to him, and set his sights on female celebrities — women who appeared glamorous, admired, and untouchable to the world.
And indeed, doing so brought him immense, perverse pleasure.
But as time passed, he noticed his body aging rapidly. His physical strength declined sharply, and he found himself growing weaker and impotent day by day.
Fear finally gripped his heart!
He wanted to throw away the terrifying mirror that was sucking away his very essence. But what good would that do? He would just go back to being a penniless, powerless old bachelor.
Having once tasted pleasures and power that were never meant for someone like him, he could never willingly return to his old life.
And so, he began his final descent into madness.
When he realized his body was failing completely, his mind snapped. He began to kill them after he was done.
And once there was a first victim, there would be a second… and a third…
Katagiri Yusuke was completely lost.
He wanted to take as many women as possible with him to the grave as his sacrifices!
At one point, he had even planned to target royalty — the princesses themselves.
But they were always surrounded by heavy security and guards, giving him no opportunity to strike.
Actresses and celebrities were easier prey. To maintain their public image and reputation, even if they disliked or distrusted him, they would still give him a chance to get close.
The reason he had acted so urgently and broken in tonight was because of a rumor he had heard recently.
Word was going around that this new actress was actually a princess from a foreign nation — which explained why she had such massive financial backing pushing her to stardom.
By this point, he no longer cared whether the information was true or false.
To drag a true royal princess down into the mud with him had become his ultimate obsession before he died.
And so he came… and that was exactly how he fell into the trap.
Listening to this rather bizarre yet utterly pitiful story — one that deserved not an ounce of sympathy — Shinji prepared to finish him off and send him to the afterlife, only to realize the man had already breathed his last breath.
He had kept the [Magic Mirror] on his person at all times, day and night, terrified of losing it.
The result was that it had drained the very last drop of his remaining lifespan.
Coupled with the extreme emotional shocks of the night, his body simply gave out.
Even if Shinji and the others hadn't intervened, in a few more days, his corpse would likely have been found somewhere anyway.
But in that case, the [Magic Mirror] might have fallen into the hands of someone with evil intentions once again.
Shinji, however, possessed an immortal body. Naturally, he had nothing to fear from the mirror's side effects.
Besides, he wanted to run a little test.
He placed the [Magic Mirror] directly into his [Shadow Pocket].
The description stated that it constantly drained the essence of its "holder."
But the definition of "holder" was vague.
Did it mean only when you were physically holding it? Or simply carrying it on your person? What if you picked it up and then threw it away immediately?
Based on Katagiri's story and his physical condition, Shinji deduced that the draining effect relied on physical contact, or at least required the object to be very close to the body to absorb vitality.
But the [Shadow Pocket] functioned essentially as a separate dimension or space.
Inside there, the [Magic Mirror] should be completely isolated and powerless.
Shinji suspected he was right. The moment he put it away, the faint sensation of energy being drained from him instantly vanished.
"Not bad. Got myself a Cursed Item for free."
Shinji was in a good mood. More than that, this mission was going to pay off in both currency and valuable loot.
Plus, if he turned this corpse in at the underground Exchange House, he could likely claim a reward even for a "useless" Cursed Object.
He honestly hadn't expected that the true culprit behind everything would turn out to be just an ordinary human being.
This also explained why previous contractors who had taken this job had never managed to solve the mystery.
Unless you caught him red‑handed like Shinji did, who would ever suspect such a broken‑down, dissipated‑looking old man?
Dragging the corpse along, Shinji arrived at Tamamo Hotaru's room.
As soon as he stepped inside, he saw the white fox, Moon, guarding her side. She bared her teeth and let out low, warning growls toward the door.
But the moment she saw it was Shinji entering, her expression changed instantly. She began wagging her tail ingratiatingly.
Seeing this, Shinji couldn't help but laugh. "You're supposed to be a fox, you know. Why do you always act like a dog?"
Moon didn't seem to find this offensive at all. She wagged her tail even more excitedly, then nudged her still‑sleeping owner with her nose.
Shinji knew Hotaru had fallen under the mirror's spell, but he hadn't expected her to remain lost in the dream world for so long.
Clearly, the power of the [Magic Mirror] was even greater than he had anticipated.
"Don't worry. She's just asleep… dreaming," Shinji said.
No sooner had he spoken than Tamamo Hotaru muttered something in her sleep:
"You… will address me as 'My Lady'… got it, you big jerk Shinji? Hehehehe~"
Moon's eyes widened. She and Shinji stared at each other in silence. Then, helplessly, the fox covered her face with her paw.
Oh Mistress… Mistress… I really can't save you this time.
____________________
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