I teach kendo in Tokyo

"Coincidence? What coincidence?" Kazuma asked in surprise.

"Of course it's a coincidence of time." Tamamo glanced at the head of the family, "My master moved the Jizo statue back, Kiryu Dojo became a dark place, and many daydreaming people appeared on the streets of Tokyo next to it. Come on...do you think this is just a coincidence?"

"...Really?" Kazuma blinked. This was a blind spot he hadn't noticed yet. "You mean, the appearance of those lost people is actually related to our dojo!?"

"So, this is what I am divining." The fox bit his lip and stared at the divination items on the table with slight annoyance.

“But I don’t know whether it’s because the way the question is asked is wrong, or because the matter itself is not so clear. No matter which method is used to account for it, the results obtained are quite ambiguous...”

"I see." Kazuma nodded and took a deep breath to calm down. It has been basically confirmed that there are mysterious side forces behind the Lost Ones, but to be honest, Kazuma has not connected this with his own dojo in his consciousness.

It's not wrong to think about it carefully. After all, the Kiryu Dojo became a dark place after the Jizo statue moved in. It is an existence close to the mysterious side. Tamamo's words made Kazuma realize this fact again, and he was shocked at the same time. .

Kazuma pondered, and told Tamamo about today's experience of rescuing Mikoto Hasegawa with Nagahide Kurosaki. He also mentioned that he had retrieved police station information and found that there were more than 200 lost people like Hasegawa so far. Within the entire Tokyo metropolitan area.

"Well, Kazuma, do you still remember where those people appeared?" Tamamo asked after thinking about it.

"It's impossible to write them all down, right? There are more than two hundred people." Kazuma smiled bitterly.

"We don't need too detailed locations. How about counting the total number of lost people in each place using the local police station as a unit?" The fox lowered his request slightly.

"This can probably be done, what do you want to do?" Kazuma wondered.

"I want to find out something." Under Kazuma's attention, Tamamo got up and took out a map of Tokyo from the filing cabinet next to him. He spread it on the desk and looked over, "Let's get started, police department, first of all It’s Chiyoda District, it seems that the news was first reported here…”

In the next quarter of an hour, Kazuma reported the statistical data he saw at the police station from memory, while Tamamo marked the corresponding numbers on the map with a colored pen.

Most of the incidents of stray people encountered by a single local police station are in the single digits, with no more than twenty people at most. However, if the scope is extended to the entire Tokyo, the number soars to around 270 people. This does not include At least half of the events were not recorded in the archives.

"Okay." After writing the last number, Tamamo put away his pen and suddenly frowned while looking at the map. "This is really..."

"What? What did you find?" Kazuma took the map from Tamamo and looked at it.

Tamamo marked the number of lost people at different locations on the map according to the distribution of local police stations, and also used different shades of color pens according to the levels of five, ten and fifteen, so that at a glance, one can immediately understand the number of lost people. The distribution is quite regular. Specifically, the light-colored numbers on the map are obviously concentrated toward the dark-colored numbers.

"...Wait a minute, I'll make another mark on it so you can see it more clearly."

While Kazuma was staring at the map, Tamamo picked up a color pen and drew a triangular mark on a certain location on the map, and wrote the word "HOME" next to the mark. The situation was immediately clear. The dark numbers on the map are only two or three blocks away from the HOME mark, and the location of the triangle mark is almost the center point where the dark numbers gather!

"Is this!?" Kazuma's eyes widened and he saw the dark numbers on the map, surrounding the Kiryu Dojo neighborhood in an almost encircling manner. If we extrapolate this situation, Kazuma seems to have seen those stumbling lost people rushing towards Kiryu Dojo, but they were separated by an invisible force on the way——

"Here for our dojo!?"

Kazuma was furious. This anger was so intense but had no reason, but maybe it didn't need a reason. Just like when the Tsuda group provoked the Kiryu Dojo, what kind of beast would not go crazy after being kicked in its lair?

"Wait a minute, I'm going to divine." Tamamo also became serious at this time, put down the flower cards and picked up the bone dice next to him.

She first recited a long prayer, and then threw the bone dice into a porcelain bowl from an unknown dynasty on the table. The bone dice jingled and danced in the porcelain bowl. After a few breaths, it slowly stopped, revealing three completely different dice faces in the porcelain bowl. Kazuma couldn't understand, but Tamamo was visibly relieved after observing.

"It's not our dojo... Well, that's not entirely correct. It should be said that they didn't come to the Kiryu dojo deliberately, but just happened to be looking for a similar place. Maybe there are no other targets within their range of activities, so the map This is the situation." Tamamo explained, and her gentle tone made Kazuma's anger calm down a little.

"...A place similar to Kiryu Dojo refers to the Land of Eternal Darkness?" Kazuma tried to understand the fox's words, but couldn't help but frown, "Wait a minute, they are all ordinary people who have nothing to do with the mysterious side. Looking for What do you want to do in the land of constant darkness?"

"I don't know. If we want to investigate, we can probably only start from their mental state... Like the Hasegawa you rescued, didn't it mean that she had frequent strange dreams for a period of time? Dreams themselves are human subconscious activities. If there are frequent strange dreams, it just means that someone is tampering with her spirit." As expected of a mysterious top-level figure, Tamamo's analysis was clear and logical.

"Is it so easy to attack the human spirit?" Kazuma doubted. After all, there are nearly three hundred known lost people alone, and this near-mass production scale is really scary.

"Well, although the human spirit may be strong or weak, it is generally not that easy to deal with, even in the past... As far as I know, there is probably only one horse that can do this." Tamamo Kazuma Smiled slightly. "By the way, that guy is also an acquaintance of yours."

"...Dream-Eating Tapir." Kazuma said the name in a cursing tone. The Dream-Eating Tapir is a great monster as old as Tamamo-mae in Japanese mythology, but in modern times it has also become weaker due to the overall decline of the mysterious side.

But unlike Tamamo Mae, who readily accepted it, Dream Eater tried his best to resist this trend, and even tried desperately to regain his past power. For this reason, he transformed into a human form and left many descendants in the present world. Kazuma met one of them when he was in the hot spring street, and he also had a fight with the Dream-Eating Tapir during the dispute.

The Dream-Eating Tapir suffered a secret loss during that conflict and disappeared without a trace after threatening revenge. The dream-eating tapir, who longs to revive the mystery, and the Fuzhi Technology, who wants to get involved in the mystery, are both on the opposite side of order and goodness. Kazuma even suspected that they might have joined forces in secret.

This time, so many unexplained lost people suddenly appeared on the streets of Tokyo, and the timing was so coincidental, Kazuma had reason to suspect that the other party was planning to take action against the often-fading Kiryu Dojo. But when he came to his conclusion, the fox at home shook his head in surprise.

"No, maybe the opposite is true."

"……How to say?"

"Oh, they couldn't have expected that you would move the Ksitigarbha statue back to the dojo. The chance of the dojo becoming dark is even lower than the chance of winning the lottery. Since those lost people were manipulated two or three years ago, it's even less likely The necessity is suddenly exposed now." Tamamo analyzed.

"You mean, those guys originally planned to do things quietly, but the darkening of the dojo suddenly disrupted their steps?" Kazuma blinked.

"That's right." The corners of the fox's mouth formed a slightly evil arc. "Although it's not clear what they plan to do, I'm afraid they are panicking because the project is out of control at this time. This is our opportunity!"