Weird Stories: Gothic Lolita Begins

The once "prosperous" Takigawa Village is now in ruins, with abandoned houses that lack maintenance occupying most of the village, which makes people sigh and feel gloomy.

In a sealed, half-collapsed cellar under the ruins of a house that has collapsed for many years and even the main beams are almost rotten.

The shadows crawled, emerged from the lightless background, and formed the human form of Lenari.

Landing in a place where she could barely stand up, Lenari took out an antique-looking battery lantern from her sleeve and turned on the switch.

In an instant, the not-so-bright dim light illuminated this half-collapsed basement that had been immersed in darkness for a hundred years.

As the embodiment of darkness, Lenari certainly does not need a light source to assist in seeing things, but the things dormant in this basement do.

"Come out." Lenari said softly, "I know you are here, and I know you can't hold on for a few days."

Lenari's voice fell, and there was silence around.

After a few minutes, a hoarse, weak, and erratic voice sounded from the walls and the ground around the basement at the same time:

"Dear strange god, why are you here?"

"Just curious." Lenari said, "I'm curious about why you... want to lead the villagers of Takigawa Village to such a dead end."

"..." The voice was silent for a long time without answering.

Lenari didn't care and continued to talk: "With my accumulation of divination, although it is still not useful to predict the uncertain future, it is still very reliable to explore the past that has already happened and is certain."

"I roughly know what happened in Takigawa Village in the past, but I am not sure about your motivation, or the motivation of 'you' doing this." Lenari said calmly, "I originally judged that you could last at least a few years, so I was not in a hurry, but..."

Lenari didn't continue.

The basement returned to silence again, just like the past hundred years.

——What appeared here was just a temporary body, Lenari was too lazy to spend more time on "anthropomorphism".

There was another long silence, so long that Lenari almost thought that the other party did not intend to continue communicating, and then the erratic voice sounded again:

"... All the tragedies originated from a paper windmill."

"Paper windmill?" Lenari asked in surprise, "The kind of paper windmill that children's toys use?"

"Yes." The voice slowly and reminiscently narrated, "Takigawa Village was once a happy village. The people here lived a carefree life with everyone well fed and clothed under the protection of Lord Oborozuki..."

"At that time, I was just like everyone else. Like some people, they firmly believed in the fact that 'we are happy' until that thing happened. "

"In the early summer of that year, taking advantage of the slack season in farming, a group of half-grown teenagers gathered together and finally completed what they considered to be a great invention that was epoch-making - a waterwheel, a waterwheel that was inspired by a paper windmill and finally completed after several years of joint efforts, which could replace human labor to help water the fields. "

Hearing this, Lenari understood, but she did not interrupt the narration of the erratic voice, but just quietly continued to play the role of a listener.

"Young people who are full of vigor and vitality are prone to the illusion that they are different, and I am no exception."

"We did not choose to tell those boring adults about our "great invention" first, but enthusiastically carried the not-so-big prototype waterwheel directly to the shrine to give a surprise to Lord Oborozuki who had been gently accompanying us through our childhood."

"When the linen covering the waterwheel was removed, we were not greeted with the praise we had imagined."

"At that time, Lord Oborozuki, who had always been gentle in our memory, was silent for a long time, and his expression was very... difficult to understand. At least, I couldn't understand it at that time."

"After the disturbing silence, Lord Oborozuki sighed and told us that all attempts to "break "Traditional" and all attempts to "cut corners" are the cause of disaster and the beginning of misfortune, such as this waterwheel. "

"He said that we are not the first people on earth to "invent" the waterwheel, and those predecessors in the past... most of them have died from the punishment of heaven caused by "restlessness", and the rest have to destroy their own "inventions" with their own hands and succumb to the so-called "tradition". "

"Heavenly punishment, the symbol of the absolute authority of the supreme god "Mist God" who created the world, is an existence that even a powerful god like Lord Longyue cannot contend with. "

"The waterwheel was put into the oldest, most remote and largest warehouse in the shrine. "

"That was the first time we walked into the place that was considered taboo by adults, where there were many"Inventions" similar to waterwheels."

"Finally, Lord Oborozuki personally escorted us out of the shrine and gave each of us a paper windmill that he had made and blessed. ——We mentioned that the inspiration for the waterwheel came from paper windmills."

"Lord Oborozuki's shrine is full of paper windmills."

"At that time, I couldn't understand what it meant, just as I couldn't understand the sadness in Lord Oborozuki's eyes at that time."

"Many years later, I realized that paper windmills are toys and can only be toys. ——The paper windmills decorated in the shrine that accompanied everyone through their childhood and were blessed by Lord Oborozuki, each of them represents an "invention" that was forced to be sealed up."

"I grew up gradually and became one of those boring, uninteresting, and complacent adults. That waterwheel, that forbidden warehouse, seemed to have been completely forgotten by me."

"I once thought that my life would continue like that until the news of my best friend's death came. ”

“He was a dyer. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were also dyers.”

“That day, he was found drowned in a dye vat.”

“Lord Oborozuki is the god of river, rain, and water. The people of Takigawa Village are blessed by Lord Oborozuki. Even if they accidentally fall into the water, they will not drown for about 300 breaths. This period of time is usually enough for them to save themselves and for Lord Oborozuki, who knows the situation first, to lend a hand.”

“But he still drowned silently in the dye vat.”

“In the dye vat were the new formula dyes he personally prepared, and hanging around were the brightly colored cloths he dyed with the new formula dyes.”

“The colors of those cloths are really beautiful, but he is dead.”

“The old people in the village said that his unconventional behavior brought punishment from heaven, and Lord Oborozuki tacitly agreed with this statement.”

“At the funeral, I once again saw the heavy sadness in Lord Oborozuki’s eyes. ”

“I couldn’t help but think of the waterwheel that I thought I had long forgotten.”

“A few days later, I finally mustered up the courage and quietly went to the shrine to find Lord Oborozuki and try to ask the truth.”