Zongman I fight weirdness in everyday world

And that woman clearly knew something was wrong.

But before she could react, she felt the world spinning before her eyes, followed by a complete darkness.

After beheading the woman with a single strike, Nightstar didn't hesitate. He immediately reversed the Onimaru Kunitsuna in his hand, plunging the blade into her severed head that had fallen to the ground. He used the standard procedure for dealing with evil spirits and whispered,

“First one.”

Chapter 303: Divine Ritual, A Willing Participant's Plan

Looking at the body with its head separated, and the large pool of blood staining the floor, Nightstar pulled out two tissues from the table and wiped the blood off the Onimaru Kunitsuna, his expression unchanged.

The guardian deity of Itomori Town, seeing this, immediately began the classic flattery routine.

“As expected of the strongest Nightstar-sama! Mere small fry are no match for you!”

“Alright, hold your praise for now.”

Nightstar surveyed the body on the ground, lost in thought.

“How should I deal with these traces…? If Granny Ichiyo sees this, she might have a heart attack.”

“Can't you use your spirit energy to create flames, directly incinerating the body and blood without damaging the house? This shouldn't be difficult for you.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Nightstar crouched down, examining the corpse's clothes while searching for any valuables. In the end, besides a wallet filled with cash, he found nothing of value, no driver's license, bank cards, phones, or anything else that could provide information.

“I’m trying to avoid fluctuations in spiritual power. Leading her into the house was to lower her guard, then close the distance and ensure a one-hit kill, preventing her from using her own spiritual abilities.”

“You mean…”

The guardian deity of Itomori Town immediately guessed Nightstar's meaning, tentatively forming a sentence.

“Among those guys, there might be someone who can sense fluctuations in spiritual power?”

“Possibly, there might be.”

Nightstar slowly said.

“Those in Itomori Town are just pawns. According to the mastermind's style, the main body won't come here. Once a battle between spirit energy users breaks out, even if I appear as 'Mask', my identity is still too easily exposed.”

“After all, from Kyoto all the way to Itomori Town, the train records, and the townspeople who saw me today, wanting to erase these traces… while it can be done, the act of erasing traces itself leaves traces behind.”

“Moreover, to achieve a perfect clear, no innocent person in Itomori Town can die.”

After listening to Nightstar's words, the guardian deity of Itomori Town carefully pondered for a moment before offering a suggestion.

“Hmm… Actually, if, as you say, the mastermind isn't in Itomori Town, I could try to create a sealing barrier. Although it wouldn't last long, it could prevent outside spirits from entering and spirits from the town from leaving. That way, we could cut off the connection between those people and the mastermind you mentioned.”

“What you say makes sense.”

Nightstar first nodded, then glanced at the red threads floating in the air, looking speechless.

“Is there a possibility that people don’t need to use spirits to communicate? In case you didn’t know, there’s something called a cell phone. Although I don’t think these pawns have a way to directly contact the mastermind, it’s better to be careful.”

“Oh right, cell phones, I forgot.”

The guardian deity of Itomori Town first formed this sentence, then continued to form a new one.

“Please forgive me. Since the shrine fire over two hundred years ago, my power has been declining day by day. To be honest, I only just woke up from my slumber the day I met you.”

Seeing the words spoken by the deity of Itomori Town, Nightstar showed no surprise, only nodding.

“I more or less guessed that.”

Based on the deities encountered by the Excess Society members so far, a pattern can be summarized.

Although deities are not products born in the Reverse Side, they share similarities with evil spirits.

In the battle against the Weather God, Nightstar used Natsumi Suga's news reports and Soichiro Yagami's connections to broadcast the recording on television, cutting off the nearly endless source of spiritual power and ultimately killing it.

This proves one thing.

The power of a so-called deity, to a certain extent… no, for the most part, comes from people's emotions.

For example, the deity representing the weather, its power comes from people's desire for sunny days and their aversion to continuous rainstorms.

Another example is the Mountain God who occupied the mountain and killed Menma and countless innocents. Its power comes from humanity's fear of the legend of the 'Mountain God' itself, possibly mixed with some fear of the mountains themselves.

After all, the mountains in the darkness are indeed terrifying, and the Mountain God's occasional actions, the various accidental deaths, only intensified these emotions, making it even stronger.

The problem is that the guardian deity of Itomori Town is different from these two deities.

According to Nightstar's guess, its birth was due to the fear and panic caused by the meteorite that fell 1200 years ago, but it was not based on this emotion that it was born, but rather a deity born from people praying that someone could protect them from such a disaster and save everyone.

This hope was strong enough, strong enough to allow a deity to be born.

However, after the shrine fire over two hundred years ago burned all relevant materials and ancient books, even the Miyamizu family, as a family of shrine maidens, had gradually forgotten the meaning of the existence of the guardian deity of Itomori Town and the reason for the related sacrificial activities.

Judging from the Miyamizu family's annual divine rituals, the attitude of the people, and the fact that the current shrine maiden, Mitsuha Miyamizu, herself questioned the responsibilities of the Miyamizu family, it was expected that the guardian deity of Itomori Town, gradually losing faith, would become weaker and weaker.

“I just don’t understand, why are these people asking about the location of the shrine? Is this related to the disaster they want to cause?”

Seeing the question posed by the guardian deity of Itomori Town, Yae Star casually replied.

“Of course, I’m looking for you. Who else would I be looking for?”

“Looking for me…? What do you want from me?”

“Of course, I’m going to eat you. Who else would I eat?”

“Eat… eat me!?”

Seeing the red threads forming the words of Itomori Town’s guardian deity tremble incessantly, Yae Star chuckled and said.

“Oh, right, I forgot to tell you. Apart from me, most spirit energy users can increase their spiritual power by having their Soul Avatar devour spirits, be they evil spirits or so-called gods, as long as they devour them.”

Upon hearing this, the red threads of Itomori Town’s guardian deity flickered with afterimages, stunned for a second before quickly forming a sentence.

“Lord Yae Star! You can’t let those guys eat me! You have to protect me! I don’t want to be eaten! Waaah…”

“Don’t try to play pitiful. I definitely won’t let you be eaten.”

Hearing Yae Star’s promise, the guardian deity of Itomori Town finally calmed down, speaking in a pitiful tone.

“Lord Yae Star is the best. You’re completely different from those guys. Making one’s Soul Avatar stronger by eating spirits is really against human… against spirit ethics!”

“Of course.”

Yae Star smiled and nodded, a stream of black flames湧现ing from his palm. He suppressed the fluctuations of his spiritual power as much as possible, burning the blood and corpses on the ground into nothingness, and said softly.

“I don’t need my Soul Avatar to eat. I can just eat them myself.”

Itomori Town Guardian Deity: “…You won’t eat me, right?”

“Of course not. What kind of monster do you think I am?”

“Then I’m relieved.”

After cleaning up the scene, Yae Star walked to the bedroom door and raised his hand to knock.

“Grandma, you can come out now.”

Miyamizu Ichiyo walked out of the bedroom, looking at the living room, which was exactly the same as before, without any changes, and asked in confusion.

“Eh? Where’s the person who knocked on the door just now?”

Yae Star smiled and replied.

“She had some urgent business and left in a hurry, even forgetting to take her head with her. Fortunately, I’m a kind person and sent her head to her body, so they’re reunited and have ascended to eternal bliss.”

Miyamizu Ichiyo shook her head and sighed.

“I really can’t understand what you young people are saying anymore.”

“Grandma.”

Yae Star asked casually.

“Your Miyamizu family’s shrine, I’m referring to the place where the kuchikamizake is stored, how far is it from here?”

“Hmm… it’s quite far, it’s more than an hour’s walk. It’s near that meteorite crater. Are you going there?”

“Not for now.”

Yae Star shook his head and asked softly.

“I’m just confirming, how often do you send the made kuchikamizake to that place after each god-offering ritual?”

The specific location of the place of offering cannot be easily revealed to outsiders.

However, Miyamizu Ichiyo thought that her family’s god had given an oracle, saying that this young man was trustworthy, so there was no need for her to be secretive.

“That’s hard to say, usually whenever we have the time.”

“I see…”

Yae Star replied noncommittally, then asked.

“When is the next god-offering ritual?”

“Eh, didn’t Mitsuha tell you?”

Miyamizu Ichiyo said with a smile.

“You’ve come at the right time, it’s tonight.”

…

In the afternoon after school.

“You’re Yae Star, right? Hello, hello.”

Before Miyamizu Mitsuha could even greet him, her friend Natori Sayaka ran up to Yae Star, who was standing at the school gate, and greeted him with a smile.

“I’m Natori Sayaka, you can call me Natori-san, or Sayaka… never mind, just call me Natori-san, otherwise someone will get jealous.”

“Sayaka, you’re still teasing me, aren’t you?”

Miyamizu Mitsuha blushed and quickly interrupted, walking up to Yae Star and saying softly.

“Um… school’s out, shall we go?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be presiding over the shrine’s god-offering ritual tonight?”

Hearing Yae Star’s words, Miyamizu Mitsuha was stunned for a moment, then seemed to suddenly remember.

“That’s right, I completely forgot!”

It couldn’t be blamed on Miyamizu Mitsuha’s poor memory, she originally remembered.

But after suddenly seeing Yae Star in the morning, and learning from him that Itomori Town would face a catastrophic disaster, and not just one, but three, she had been thinking all day about how to save the residents of Itomori Town, and where to start investigating, completely forgetting about tonight’s arrangements.

“But…”

Miyamizu Mitsuha glanced at Natori Sayaka, who was not far away, then leaned closer to Yae Star and whispered hesitantly.

“We need to investigate… maybe we can cancel the ritual once in a while… that god, should be able to understand, right?”

“No need to cancel.”

Yae Star reached out and rubbed Miyamizu Mitsuha’s hair, this very intimate gesture made Natori Sayaka, who was standing there watching, have an aunt-like smile, as if she was seeing the CP she was shipping finally getting some sweet moments.

“I have a plan, just follow the original procedure.”

“Then… okay.”

Miyamizu Mitsuha and Yae Star walked side by side into the distance, Natori Sayaka followed beside them, unable to suppress the burning gossip in her heart, and asked curiously.

“Yae Star-kun, are you a high school student? Or do you already have a job?”

“Like you guys, first year of high school, at Soubu High in Kyoto.”

“Oh, Kyoto, a big city.”

Although the saying goes that everywhere in Sakura Country except Tokyo is the countryside, to Miyamizu Mitsuha and Natori Sayaka, who live in Itomori Town, Kyoto is indeed a well-deserved big city.

“Then you and Mitsuha are in a long-distance relationship, don’t you feel it’s very hard?”

Listening to Natori Sayaka’s continuous questions, Miyamizu Mitsuha tugged at her sleeve, giving her a look.

“Ask fewer questions, you’re like a police officer interrogating a criminal.”

“Eh, can’t I ask a few questions to understand? Really.”