Hiroshi Toyokawa finished his bento, feeling thirsty. He headed to the kitchen, picked up a cup, and tried the faucet. Nothing came out.
He tapped his forehead in frustration. "I keep forgetting that the pipes are clogged…"
Annoyed, he remembered he hadn't stocked any bottled water either. But there was still a half-full teapot on the table.
He took it over, tilted it, and barely a couple of drops fell into his cup.
"Hm?" Opening the lid, he saw his father's eyeballs resting at the bottom of the pot—just as expected. What he didn't expect, however, was the absence of water.
Hiroshi's face slowly darkened as a sly smile twisted his lips. His pale eyes, rimmed with shadowy circles, scanned the room with an almost feral glint.
"Well, well… What do we have here?"
"Could it be…" His voice turned menacingly soft. "…that a thief drank my water?"
Cautious and suspicious by nature, Hiroshi moved stealthily, stepping into his sister's bedroom, and noticing the fluttering curtain. A glimmer of excitement crossed his twisted face. With a boning knife hidden behind his back, he crept closer, then suddenly yanked the curtain aside.
"Gotcha!"
But there was no one there.
His expression instantly flattened, and he turned away, heading toward the next room.
In the basement, Luo Shu's pulse quickened as he heard Hiroshi's footsteps above, his Sanity Level creeping up with the heightened tension. The unease was far more intense than anything a ghost could evoke. Here was a live, twisted mind—a much more suffocating presence.
Listening intently, Luo Shu whispered to Sylas, "In the Horror Game, each scenario should have both an easy and a hard mode. If we complete this scenario with a score below B, that will probably count as the easy path. But for a high difficulty rating, like S or A…"
Sylas shivered. "So… the hard mode would be…?"
Luo Shu didn't answer immediately, as he rifled through the basement bookshelves. Relying on luck had never been his style, so he had been meticulously searching every corner of this basement.
In a game where there was a low-difficulty path, there was sure to be a higher one—a hidden, challenging route to victory.
His search finally yielded results when he laid his hand on a thick, leather-bound book. The system prompt flashed:
[Letter from Jiro Toyokawa (unsent)]
[Type: Story-Related]
Inside, hidden within the pages, was a faded letter. Without needing to open it physically, the system provided a readable, high-resolution text:
"Teacher, in response to your last letter—I think I should explain.
Yes, I dislike Hiroshi. He's my son, but… I'm terrified of him. Those eyes of his…
What he sees, the things he talks about… I'm afraid. I fear my own child.
Perhaps you don't know this, but my father was an Onmyoji. Our family, the Toyokawas, has been steeped in this tradition for generations. But my father told me that the spirit world's influence is growing stronger—Shikigami have become increasingly twisted, and the risks to Onmyoji are greater than ever. Many have died.
My father eventually abandoned my training, determined to shield me from that life and allow me to live as an ordinary person.
But I didn't realize he hadn't given it up entirely…
[scratched out]
My father's character changed after that. Unwilling to accept death, he used an ancient technique to store his soul in a six-eared jade vial, allowing him to persist as a Shikigami as long as there were blood sacrifices from the living…
I doubt he retained much of his humanity by the end.
[scratched out]
Hiroshi is just like him! The eyes, yes, but there's more…
If one day [self-redacted]."
The letter ended there.
Luo Shu took a moment to process, lost in thought. Sylas, sensing his distraction, asked, "What is it? What's in that letter?"
Snapping back to the present, Luo Shu said, "It's story-related—a clue that fills in the gaps." He smiled, piecing things together. "I had my doubts about a few things… like the odd triangular kneeling pose of the skeletons, which felt like some kind of eerie ritual. Or how, if the three of them became vengeful spirits, their killer could live here unscathed. We get harmed by them if we get too close—wouldn't he?"
And then there was the disturbing vision of the bodies hanging from the cherry tree.
"Now it makes sense," he said slowly. "The Toyokawas—an Onmyoji family, intertwined with the supernatural. Hiroshi Toyokawa might've been the last of their line, going insane before he died but resisting death, and jamming his soul into some enchanted bottle…"
"He'd need human sacrifices to wake up."
"And the guy upstairs? That's his grandson, Hiroshi. Probably has a natural gift for this stuff, like the spiritual sight of an Onmyoji. His family was so unnerved by him that they had another kid to try and balance things out. He grew up hated, isolated, and he finally snapped, slaughtering his family."
By now, Luo Shu's Sanity Level had shot up past 120%. His excitement spilled over into a torrent of darkly humorous phrases as he worked through the new information, doing his best to keep his voice low.
"Something in the stars must've aligned because I'd bet anything Hiroshi found the family's secret techniques. Learned the blood ritual. Slaughtered his family. Used his grandfather's soul as fuel—and turned him into his own twisted little Shikigami!"
Suddenly, the system presented him with a notification.
[World Concept Unlocked!]
[Major Hint Unlocked!]
Luo Shu blinked as his vision dimmed, a single bright spot illuminating before him.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。