Ever since becoming a God Slayer, this was the first ti Hikigaya began to doubt his own preference for divine powers.
Seriously, why did his well-functioning combat system have to co with a bunch of reproductive-related side effects?
Sothing must be wrong with the script.
Unfortunately, he couldn't call out to Zaimokuza—who knows what that guy is planning.
Well, no matter. Miura seed fine now, so ti to bounce.
With that comforting thought, Hikigaya stood up, dusted his hands off, and said to his classmates—whose expressions were visibly strange, "I'll just go give her a hand, be right back."
"Oh… okay." Hayama activated his Good Guy halo. "Be careful."
"No, you guys are the ones who need to be careful," Hikigaya replied, his expression even weirder.
He realized he had forgotten soone.
That quiet, seemingly suspicious kouhai—who had co to Kyoto with them—Isshiki.
Because she had been completely silent earlier, Hikigaya had genuinely forgotten she was even here.
The only reason he rembered now was simple—her reaction was the most dramatic. Thankfully, that exaggerated expression stood out just enough to grab his attention again.
Who would've guessed this girl had ninja potential?
But to be fair, her exaggerated expression could be sumd up in four words: dumbstruck and slack-jawed.
Yeah, Hikigaya could relate. Having your worldview shattered tends to do that. The rest of them looked pretty similar when it first hit.
By comparison, Hiratsuka-sensei was handling it better—still able to crack jokes. Probably because, as a martial artist, she already suspected that monsters existed.
Thinking of her, Hikigaya turned to look—her expression was shifting through several complicated phases.
Knowing this woman's temperant, he wisely decided it was best to leave.
"Be careful," he warned them again before dashing off.
Just after leaving the torii gate, Hiratsuka's furious voice ca echoing after him.
Hikigaya pretended not to hear it and bolted like he had rockets on his shoes, vanishing into the distance.
Once the shrine gate was completely out of sight, he slowed down and began searching for the rookie onmyoji girl.
Strangely, he felt a kind of inexplicable familiarity with her.
But no—he was sure he didn't have a thing for younger girls.
After walking just a few steps, he picked up the mountain ghost's aura again.
No matter how complex the terrain, it posed no obstacle for Hikigaya now—especially not in a place like Mount Inari.
He strolled through the forest at shocking speed, not making a sound.
Then, he stopped.
There was a corpse ahead.
Hikigaya walked over. It was a man who had been dead for quite so ti.
Judging by his clothing, he didn't appear to be a shrine worker.
Despite the advanced decay, the mountain ghost's aura on him was overwhelmingly strong—stronger than the stench of death itself.
He seed like another unfortunate soul who had failed to control the ghost he summoned and been devoured in turn.
Hikigaya flicked a finger— a spark landed on the body, instantly igniting it in a blazing fla.
But cremation wasn't his goal. In the center of his pupils, faintly echoing the firelight, glowed another light.
Hikigaya still couldn't use spiritual sight. Never had, still couldn't.
But after nurous battles with gods, he had beco more adept at wielding his original divine power—specifically, the ability to see hidden things through light, a power granted by Osiris. He now had full control of it.
It required light as a prerequisite, making it slightly less convenient than Voban's evil eye, but in terms of effect, there was no difference.
The intense blaze illuminated the truth: this guy really was the mountain ghost's original summoner.
Unskilled and inexperienced, he essentially offed himself—yet another piece of cannon fodder on the long road of failed magicians.
His kind was neither rare nor missed.
There's a reason martial artists outnumber magicians—Ki is dangerous, sure, but still far safer than magic.
While the corpse offered no useful information, the light did. Hikigaya now knew the locations of the mountain ghost, the rookie onmyoji girl, and himself.
The Osiris-brand GPS—nothing on earth could hide from it. No mountains, no rivers, no obstacles. Hikigaya found it extrely useful.
Humming a tune, he left the still-burning unlucky guy behind and made his way toward the girl and the ghost.
In this forest, shadow was more efficient than godspeed for travel.
Using Kuafu's shadow-based power system, he turned streams and tree-shadows into bridges.
He quickly spotted the onmyoji girl again.
And the snarling, grimacing mountain ghost.
Let's be honest: no matter what face an ugly ghost makes, it only has one effect—
It becos uglier.
As for the onmyoji girl, she didn't disappoint—she was laughably incompetent.
She was throwing shikigami.
Violently.
With a very clear goal—she wanted to beat the ghost until it couldn't move, then drag it ho for training.
Hikigaya seriously doubted this simplistic thod had anything to do with the refined techniques of Kyoto's ghost-handling onmyoji.
"Go!"
"Go!"
"Go!"
Her energetic shouts echoed through the forest.
Hikigaya couldn't help but feel she was missing a line like: "My Pikachu!"
Since there were no benches, he sat down on the forest floor to enjoy the show.
He'd never seen an onmyoji using shikigami firsthand, but thanks to Ena, he had a decent understanding.
First, normal people couldn't see shikigami.
If they could, the shikigami would appear as grotesque-faced children.
As the onmyoji's power grew, the shikigami could evolve into humanoid or avian forms.
But the most common technique was to have them possess people or animals, making the host completely obedient—a favorite curse-killing thod of onmyoji.
So, most onmyoji didn't throw flashy ani-style fireballs.
Ninety-nine percent of them spent their entire lives throwing shikigami.
Either killing others or getting themselves killed in the process.
As for the girl in front of him...
Hikigaya suspected she might be a new type of onmyoji—one that kills enemies by making them laugh to death.
Because he was seriously about to laugh out loud.
Her technique was standard: she attached the shikigami to paper birds and threw them.
Yes—threw them.
Important enough to repeat—she threw them!
Throwing was bad enough, but she hadn't landed a single one. Every throw either fell short or overshot the mark…
The mountain ghost stood just across from her, tilting its head, surrounded by a circle of crumpled paper that had almost hit it.
On its hideous, hard-to-define face was an unmistakable expression that Hikigaya imdiately recognized as:
"What the hell is this?"
Honestly, for a mountain ghost to make such a face and ask such a question—it was kind of incredible.
Seriously though… was she actually trying to laugh this thing to death?
In the mountain forest, after a prolonged and intense "paper ball war" between human and ghost, things finally began to cool down.
Putting aside the exhausted onmyōji girl, who was now gasping with "haha" sounds from throwing paper balls for too long, the bewildered mountain oni, who had been completely thrown off by the paper ball tactic, finally started to catch on.
So the human spellcaster in front of it was… a total clown!
Although the mountain oni only had the body of a baby without the baby-like face to match, making it hard to pull off a "you scared the baby!" expression, it still had its own way of expressing similar sentints through body language.
It lunged forward.
If you ignored its face, maybe you could barely interpret it as a baby rushing to its mother for milk.
Unfortunately, its face was large and abstract enough that ignoring it wasn't really an option—there was no way anyone could mistake this for a heartwarming scene.
Let alone the fact that its target clearly wasn't a breastfeeding MILF. Just a young and naïve brat. One who was now so worn out from her clumsy paper-tossing technique that she'd collapsed from exhaustion.
But to be fair, there was sothing admirable: even as the oni charged at her, the girl calmly held her waist, muttering slowly,
"Ah, I threw out my back."
In the next instant, the mountain oni's claw slashed through the air—hitting nothing.
For the oni, this was just another bewildering mont among many today.
Still stubbornly convinced that it should have hit sothing, it stood rooted in place, entering a second round of "What the hell is happening?"
Had the dumb thing just looked up, it would've seen the girl, now held in soone's arms, standing in a tree.
Of course, her savior was Hikigaya.
Though at this mont, he was very much tempted to unscrew this girl's head and peek inside—just to see if her brain was filled with so kind of industrial pesticide.
The onmyōji girl hadn't yet adapted to the sudden change of scenery.
She blinked, evaluated her shifted center of gravity, glanced at Hikigaya's face, which was close to hers, then tilted her head and looked down at the still-confused mountain oni.
Her expression shifted into sothing like Conan's deadpan sarcasm.
"Oh… it's you."
"Is that really the kind of face you show your lifesaver?" Hikigaya barely resisted the urge to drop her right back down and let her resu bonding with the mountain oni.
Forcing himself to be positive, he thought, Maybe she's just a harmless idiot. That could be charming… maybe.
"Is that so… oh, thank you for the help. By the way, could you put down?"
"..."
He seriously considered just throwing her.
"You're so insincere," he muttered after a long silent stare, sighing as he set her down.
The sigh wasn't for the girl—but for the mountain oni.
Despite all the commotion directly above it, the thing still hadn't noticed a thing.
Hikigaya was starting to think they might actually be a perfect match.
"You seem pretty strong," the girl said, now balanced on the tree branch, patting her decently shaped butt. "But don't steal my shikigami, okay?"
"Heh. Don't worry. I already determined it suits you best."
"Oh, you're not so bad. Let's get acquainted. I'm Aoyama Keiko, future greatest exorcist swordswoman."
"Uh… what now?"
Hikigaya scratched his ear, thinking he must've misheard.
He had heard of exorcist swordsn—just like how ninja had infiltrated the magical society, swordsn were also a thing now.
So wielded swords in one hand and charms in the other, calling themselves "exorcist swordsn" in the flashiest way.
There were tons of them in Kyoto, often teaming up with onmyōji to clear dungeons.
But from what he just saw, he couldn't find even a sliver of resemblance between this girl and those flamboyant types.
Exorcist swordswoman? More like paper ball swordswoman.
And where was her sword anyway?
"Where's your sword?" Hikigaya, being an honest guy, asked imdiately.
"Huh? Just now—those were my swords," the girl replied with a completely straight face and unjustified confidence.
With Hikigaya still staring in shock, she pointed matter-of-factly at the massive pile of crumpled paper balls beneath the tree.
Are you kidding ? If that counts as a swordswoman, then so dude with a junk pile of paper is practically the sword god.
"Enough. Stop talking," Hikigaya facepald. "I'm leaving. Don't try to stop ."
"You can't!" she protested. "You seem to know so magic, so co help hold it off. I'll capture it right away."
"..."
Hikigaya was starting to want to et this girl's parents.
If he rembered right, in a normal swordsman-mage team-up, wasn't the swordsman supposed to go in front?
She wanted the spellcaster to tank? Was her teammate the enemy ghost?
"You take your ti capturing it. I won't interrupt your fun." Hikigaya was now thoroughly amused—but his ears picked up soone approaching at high speed in the distance.
And unless his ears were failing him, soone was shouting sothing like, "Keiko! Your mom says co ho for dinner!"
Speak of the devil…
"How ungentlemanly," Keiko huffed. "But since you understand , I won't hold it against you." She threw him a condescending look before staring fiercely down at the mountain oni. "What an idiot. Still hasn't noticed . Now I'll let you taste my ultimate—huh?"
She suddenly made a pained face—an impressive feat considering she seed like a total deadpan type.
Hikigaya, now intrigued, asked, "What? Out of stock? You used 'em all up?"
"No, can you put down?"
"…WHAT?"
"Take down. I can't climb trees," she pouted. "What, are you a masochist? Do you need to scold you before you listen?"
At that point, Hikigaya stopped caring whether her dad was the one approaching.
This bratty girl was absolutely not cute.
Justice needed to be served.
SMACK!
A loud sound echoed through the forest.
Her eyes went wide.
Hikigaya's eyes also went wide.
What the hell, why was that so loud?!
It was just a butt smack! When his mom used to spank him as a kid, it never echoed like that! Was her butt made of so kind of special material?
"You hit ?" the girl finally registered that her body position had shifted.
She twisted her head around, stunned.
But Hikigaya still felt like he was the most shocked—how could such a small girl have such a satisfying smack feel?
This world was truly filled with unscientific things.
But even if today was full of surprises, so things had to be done.
He had to spank her.
"Enough nonsense. Kids like you who don't listen need a lesson.
No skills and still running your mouth? That mountain oni used to be the shrine's guardian spirit, right?"
"Hmph. You sure know a lot—wait, no! Put down! I'm actually really powerful!"
"Oh yeah? That's real scary… Like hell I believe that! Take this!"
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