Clues

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Yuya Matsuki, whose consciousness was almost frozen by fear, stared fixedly at the figure in the woods behind him on the screen. He no longer had any attention to spare for the comments. Under his unblinking gaze, the figure remained motionless, showing only a silhouette.

As time passed, a thought could not help rising in Yuya's mind. Maybe the figure was only some object that looked human from a distance, or maybe one of his fans had come here deliberately to cause trouble. After all, before the stream, he had announced where he was going.

Just as he gathered his courage and prepared to turn around to check, the scene on the screen sent a chill pouring down from the top of his head, soaking his blood cold.

Yuya Matsuki could swear he had not imagined it. The shadow in the woods had vanished in an instant.

Coming back to himself, he hurriedly checked the comments. The viewers in the stream were discussing it too. Unlike him, who was there in person, most of them still believed it was part of the script or some kind of prop. Of course, some spoke earnestly about ghosts and gods, though he could not tell whether they truly believed it or were simply playing along with the atmosphere.

Yuya raised his head to look at his two assistants, wanting to confirm it with them as well. But the moment he lifted his gaze, his expression froze. A human-shaped shadow was walking out from behind the two assistants, but there were no footsteps at all.

Because of that, the two assistants still wore expressions changing from terror to disbelief. When they saw Yuya's gaze, they had not yet recovered before a voice sounded behind them.

"You people have serious guts."

Yuya's heart had climbed into his throat, but his expression suddenly froze. It spoke. It was a person. Once he realized that, his fear began turning into anger. He stood and was about to question the person, but a reflected glint from something stopped the words in his throat.

"That... is a sword, right? It is fake, right? What era is this? Who goes out carrying a real sword?"

Looking at the figure, human though he was, with most of his face hidden in darkness, Yuya could not help remembering another theory about the disappearances here: a serial killer.

Why did a serial killer feel even more terrifying than vague ghosts and monsters? Yuya forced out a smile.

"Sir... we are here doing an online livestream. If we disturbed you, how about we leave now?"

At that moment, the camera assistant seemed to have been stunned senseless by his earlier fear. Once he realized the person was human, he cursed and prepared to turn around. But then he felt a hand like cast iron clamp the back of his neck, leaving him unable to move at all.

"Do not turn the camera toward me. Didn't your mother teach you not to film people without permission? Learn some manners."

The assistant, whose neck was held in one hand so tightly he was almost lifted off the ground, naturally did not dare say a word. He was sturdy enough in height and weight, so he understood very well what kind of person could lift him with one hand.

Yuya's suspicion that this person was a serial killer deepened. Even if he was not, he was definitely not one of Yuya's fans. Unwilling to be filmed, clearly powerful, and carrying a weapon.

Yuya swallowed and quietly pressed the other phone in his pocket to the emergency dialing screen, ready to call the police at any moment. He did not act immediately because he was afraid of provoking the other person into harming the three of them.

Yuya forced out another smile and pretended to scold his assistant.

"If someone does not want to be on camera, don't violate their privacy. This gentleman is probably here to travel or explore too. We should not disturb him. We will leave now."

Ren put down the man carrying the camera and patted his shoulder. Hearing the streamer's words, he was a little puzzled. What was this person talking about?

Ren had originally planned to simply walk out, but when he thought that the streamer might record him while livestreaming, while he was carrying two swords and appearing in a place like this in the middle of the night, he moved into the blind spots of the livestream and camera first to avoid unnecessary trouble.

Sound did not matter. As long as he was not recorded, it was fine. In truth, if not for the fact that any incident would bring nagging later, Ren would not even care if he was filmed. He had come out to find this streamer for another reason. Apparently, he had frightened him just now.

"Wait."

Yuya, who had been preparing to pack up and leave as if nothing had happened, stopped. To him, the voice that followed sounded like a death sentence.

"Have you been doing these ghost-hunting streams around here lately? You recorded them with the camera too? Then where else have you gone besides this place?"

Yuya swallowed.

"Nowhere-"

Under the boy's intimidating gaze, Yuya chose to tell the truth.

"We went to several well-known nearby spots. But this place was the most likely one for ghosts to appear."

As he talked too much, Yuya slipped into his usual streaming mindset. When he realized it and stopped, he saw the person step out from the shadow behind his assistant. Yuya froze for a moment. From his perspective, this was a young man, or rather a boy, whose face alone could make a living online.

But before he could think about anything else, he saw the full shape of the swords at the boy's waist and in his hand. Yuya had once used blades and swords as part of ghost-exorcism content, so he knew a little about them. Judging from what he could see, the unsheathed blade in the boy's hand was very likely a genuine weapon. In other words, if it had been sharpened, it could be used as a murder weapon.

Still afraid to be careless, Yuya honestly listed all the places they had explored for ghost-hunting content these past few days. Who knew whether a person carrying weapons in a place like this at night was a killer or someone with mental problems? Weren't the people who came here to commit suicide all people who had already collapsed and grown disgusted with the world?

If this person was one of them and wanted to take a few people with him before he left, wouldn't they be horribly unlucky? He really should have brought self-defense tools. It was all Shinji's fault. The man had suddenly gotten sick, and because of that, many things had not been prepared properly.

Ren tapped the phone they were using for the livestream, signaling for Yuya to turn it off. Sweat seeped from Yuya's forehead. For a moment, he almost thought the other party was about to act. After thinking about it, he lowered his head and hurriedly said a few things to the screen, then ignored the flood of comments and ended the livestream.

Then he heard the boy ask, "Have you run into anything strange these past few days? Think carefully."

Yuya desperately wanted to blurt out, "You are the strangest thing we have run into these past few days." But the sword in the boy's hand cut those words into nothing. Still, he breathed out slightly. The questions, and the way the boy wandered around after he had closed the livestream and camera, did not make him look like a killer.

At the very least, aside from grabbing his assistant's neck at the beginning, the boy had not forced them to do much. If he were the culprit, he would probably be trying to disable them by now.

So Yuya cooperated with the questions and thought hard. But he truly had not encountered anything strange or supernatural. Though he worked as a ghost-hunting streamer, he had never encountered a real supernatural event in all his years in the field. Supposedly some of his peers had, but Yuya sneered at those claims and assumed they were only mixing truth and lies for attention.

Just as he became nervous because he could not think of anything, his other assistant, the one in charge of props, spoke with difficulty.

"Yuya-aniki, if we are talking about strange things... does Shinji count?"

Yuya had a flash of inspiration and quickly said, "Oh, yes, there is something like that. Though it does not seem that strange."

"Talk."

Ren, who had been walking around and checking the props they had set up, turned and stared at him when he heard there might truly be a clue.

Yuya then explained everything. There was actually one more member in his team, mainly responsible for miscellaneous tasks. His name was Shinji. The day before yesterday, after they went to an abandoned temple on the only famous mountain nearby, Shinji developed a high fever and began drifting in and out of awareness. At first, they thought he had only caught a chill.

So they packed up and sent him to a nearby hospital, then came back to continue the ghost-hunting livestream. After all, Yuya had already posted the stream announcement. If he stood viewers up, his livelihood would take a hit.

Ren looked thoughtful. "Delirium. What exactly did he say? Were you with him at the time? Did none of you feel anything wrong?"

Yuya smiled bitterly and shook his head. He felt as though he understood a little now. This person seemed extremely interested in stories about ghosts and monsters. He seemed to want Yuya to describe some supernatural incident. Unlike his fans, who only wanted to listen to stories, this person wanted something "real." But where in this world were there ghosts?

'Is that really true?'

That sentence flashed in the depths of Yuya's heart, but the current situation gave him no time to think about it carefully. He roughly repeated some of the nonsense Shinji had muttered while feverish.

Then he saw the boy across from him fall into thought. In the unsettling silence, the boy spoke again after a while.

"Did your camera record the whole time?"

Yuya froze. "Most of the time, yes. Mainly so we can edit behind-the-scenes clips or supplementary footage later..."

Ren nodded and said in a tone that allowed no refusal, "Let me see it."

Yuya wanted to say there was a lot of footage and it would take a while to watch it all. Maybe they should leave first and find somewhere else to look through it slowly. A safe police station would be even better.

But what came out of his mouth was only a short, "Okay."

Ren took the camera and flipped through the recordings. To save time, he even used his technique to scan through most of it in an extremely short period.

Then, under Yuya's confused gaze, Ren returned the camera.

"Thank you."

Ren thanked him politely and added, "Go home quickly. Goodbye."

Then he turned and left.

Yuya Matsuki breathed out in relief and thought, 'Let's never meet again.'

Then he hurriedly called his assistants and prepared to leave. He would have headaches to deal with later, but being able to return safely was already something to be grateful for.

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