A week passed since the attack that nearly took his life and Richard found that his life had gotten a lot more calm.
"Thats the last request for today"
Richard sighed as he watched the group of high school students leave his office.
"Yumi’s doing so real heavy lifting"
"What do you expect from a cute high school girl enrolled in multiple schools under different nas?"
Richard gave Cindy a calm smile as he went over the records of the many cases they had to deal with.
Most of them were hauntings, but it was easily dealt with using charms. Of course, those hauntings were not "real" hauntings and more like scripted plays.
With Yuna’s help, Richard was able to build a network for the Japanese Mystical Beings who were all labeled as Yokai and Urban legends.
The recent rise in technology helped them rise to prominence, their nas spread through internet forums and urban legend websites. So of them are made by the mystical beings themselves.
Yet, as technology matured and science took over, the belief in urban legends, mysteries and the like had fallen.
People stopped believing in those stories and instead chalked up any mysterious sightings to people playing pranks.
It didn’t help that actual prankters were dressing up as ghosts, creating "killer clown" myths and then posting them online.
When you see people post a video of them getting chased by a monster and hours later, a video taken by said monsters laughing as their prank worked-
The idea that "Urban Legends = fake" took hold- strongly.
Any mysterious recording, any weird video online... everything was viewed with heavy skepticism.
This made the once mystical land of the east turn into a weird dead zone.
What’s worse is that the people who believe in such legends were the type to visit a certain forest alone to et with God.
Most of the people who believe in the supernatural were either scare junkies or just downright psychotic.
This trend led to many of the mystical beings in Japan being forced to take on more human forms. Their once immortal lives have regressed, now they are even forced to live among non-mystics.
Work, struggle and survive.
While it looked good on paper, the reality was a lot more harsh than one would expect.
Japan is a country where even the smartest honor graduate could end up working to death in a black company if he got unlucky.
Now, imagine what would happen to a random mystical creature whose resu lacks any "highlight worthy" accomplishnt or accolade?
Because of such circumstances, many mystical beings try their best to regain their mystical power. So even resorted to turning to rather... unsavory ans such as haunting that leads to lewd dreams rather than scares.
For Richard, it was interesting to hear that a famous mystical entity had resorted to selling her body to spread her fa.
The yokai ended up becoming desperate celebrities who didn’t want to fade from the lilight and Richard gave them that opportunity.
Yumi’s background and the spells that were connected to her existence allowed her to act like a "phantom student".
She existed in multiple schools and her job was to look for "custors". Have them experience actual paranormal phenona that was done by Yokai and then she’d recomnd Richard’s small business.
The haunted students would buy a charm and keeping that charm prevents them from getting haunted but losing it or forgetting to keep it on your being would mark you as a target.
It was not an expensive charm, it cost nothing to make and was sold for spare change. Even an elentary school kid could buy it like buying candy but Richard only sold one to each person.
Those charms were nothing more than ID’s that mark you as a non-target for hauntings.
Keeping them and holding them close made the custor rember the ghost that was haunting them.
Forgetting about it would lead to a haunting which reminds them of the charm.
Richard did not make any money from it but it did help the mystical beings in Japan slowly escape from the non-mystical world and return to their lives as mystical existences.
"The charms are more like a curse, if they learn about it... wouldn’t you get sued?"
Hana asked as she looked through the thick stack of papers. All of them were records of custors who had bought charms.
Richard smirked as he replied-
"The devil’s proof, mystical organizations would do their best to hide the truth. You think they’d call my charms scams? I’m selling them for pennies not millions. There is no damage done"
"Psychological damage was done"
"Again, how do they prove it was ?"
"..."
Hana shook her head, Richard would always resort to saying random BS whenever he explains things. Whether they were truly BS or not, only he would know.
The worst part about his words though was not that it was sotis just gibberish, no, the annoying part that struck both Cindy and Hana was the fact that he mixed in non-mystic and mystical knowledge into his words!
Yet, the confidence with which he spoke made it hard to say that he was lying.
Moreover, they can’t really go against it simply because "they can’t understand it".
Because that would lead to an even more annoying conversation in which Richard would just use their "lack of understanding" as an argunt which he recycles over and over weaving them into his long answers.
But there was so truth in Richard’s words, a common fact that is considered by any governnt when talking about harm is the "extent" or "level" of harm done.
All anyone could prove was that Richard might have potentially scamd his custors off a few pennies but any other damage especially the psychological ones could not be attributed to him unless proof that he was the one "doing the haunting" was provided.
Moreover, although Japan had long gone through its scientific boom, the cultural beliefs and traditions they had were still carried over.
With the rise of snowflakes all over the world, Japan was not excepted from such a problem and weak willed individuals were easy targets for assholes like Richard.
"I thought you wanted to make a profit though?"
"I am"
"The proceeds from the sales... even if we maintain this level of output would ultimately reach a dead end. We’re not selling candies, returning custors would only exist if we have the yokai take away the charms. That or use hypnosis to make the custors throw the charms away... In any case, there’s a hard limit to how many we could sell and even that would barely cover the operating costs..."
Hana explained while reading through the financial records that Richard had prepared.
Seeing her act like an actual financial advisor, Richard showed a surprised expression as he answered.
"Didn’t think you’d be that capable... seems like you’ll be a good secretary"
Hearing his words, Cindy turned her office chair towards Richard’s direction, her expression icy cold as she asked.
"How about ?"
Richard turned to Cindy, his eyes sized her up and down before he replied-
"You’re a perfect Sexy-ta-"
*whoosh*
Richard ducked down before he was able to finish his words as a thin arm cut through the space where his head was just monts before.
"That was uncalled for"
"Are you trying to test my patience?"
"Co on, you know I’m just joking~"
Richard stood from his seat and casually moved behind Cindy and started to massage her shoulders.
"You know your own value, without you, I wouldn’t be able to have a proper connection to Yuna!"
His words were sweet but the reply he got from Cindy was still as cold as before-
"Hands"
"Whoops! How did that get there~"
Richard raised his hands that had sohow moved from massaging Cindy’s back to massaging her chest.
It was an uncharacteristic act and was also the reason why Cindy’s mood had turned rather sour as of late.
"How much longer are the after effects going to last?", Cindy asked with an exhausted breath but the answer ca not from Richard but from the goddess who had manifested.
Ever since he had gone through the awakening/evolution using the nephilim blood. Richard had changed.
Not physically but his nature had morphed.
While he maintained his original personality, so "ancient will" was making him act upon thoughts that he would have normally been able to easily contain.
"What kind of perverts were the nephilim? Or is this just Richard’s inherent nature?"
"..."
Hearing their conversation, Richard could only give a sheepish smile as he endured their cursing and hostile looks.
"Damned ancestors... why the fuck is magic about will anyway?! I thought it was interesting but now it’s just utter nonsense!"
Richard could only lant as he was unable to do anything about his current situation.
If he didn’t take in the nephilim blood he would have died but taking it in was giving him more problems in the long run.
Add his renewed contract with Nyx and he felt that he was likely to die of stress and anger before Scathach’s spear reached him!
All because of the cursed nephilim!
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