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Face.

Face.

Face!

There were faces.

All around, on all the trees surrounding the training ground, were faces everywhere.

Short trees.

Tall trees.

Twisted trees.

Trees that had now died and become ancient wood.

Trees turned into planks.

Trees wrapped with ropes for training.

Each and every one of those trees bore the engraved face of Ksitigarbha, displaying a compassionate smile. Using the trees as a canvas and mold as paint, the face of Ksitigarbha was depicted beautifully with closed eyes and a gentle, blurry smile. However, to the Master, that smile appeared nothing but mocking.

It was a grin filled with the meaning of taunting, saying, “You will not catch me even if you try.”

“Master, what’s going on…? Huh!”

“Ahh!”

“Ugh!”

But others did not share the Master’s sentiment. Hearing the Master’s furious shout, those who had stepped outside out of curiosity shrieked in terror the moment they beheld the countless faces surrounding the training ground.

Countless warriors clamored to cling to the Master.

“Master! Wh-what is that?!”

“What is it?!”

The Master, perhaps out of fear, stared at the warriors clinging to him.

Or rather, it might be more accurate to say he glared at them with a killer intent.

“These… little bastards….”

“Yikes!”

Eyes filled with murderous intent.

And the growling sound that flowed between them.

In the midst of it all, the Master’s dreadful anger and the grinding of his teeth could be felt.

Terrified by the incomprehensible strange situation, the trainees realized the even scarier reality: a Master who was not only furious but had a terrible temperament and was unhesitant to enforce violence. The warriors instinctively distanced themselves from the Master, actively avoiding looking outside the training ground as they hurried back to their lodging.

“Whining and screaming like a girl over something so trivial. These damn kids, are they out of their minds? In my day, we feared the Master far more than anything like that. How dare they cling to their teacher and touch him out of fear of ghosts?!”

With narrowed eyes, the Master muttered quietly.

“For a while, it’s hell training.”

Crack.

Gritting his teeth, the Master glared at the lodging.

Then he turned back to look outside the training ground.

Faces.

The compassionate face of Ksitigarbha was mocking the Master.

Moreover, the face lodged in the still-darkness appeared even eerier, as if only its head was floating in the dark.

After staring at the face for a while, the Master let out a small sigh.

“Looks like those guys from yesterday couldn’t keep up with their namesakes….”

He sighed heavily as he returned to his room.

Then, flipping through a booklet, he found a business card, contacting people who seemed capable enough to investigate the forest.

“Hmm. There’s nothing unusual….”

“What seems to be the problem that you called us for?”

“The geomancy is stable, and there’s no divine object….”

“Sometimes formations occur naturally and cause issues, but… this place is far from that. Did you just see an illusion?”

However, even the specialists he called in said there was nothing wrong.

“We used a detector, but we didn’t find any gas or hallucinogenic substances.”

“Just in case, we even tested for carbon monoxide, and it’s below the standard.”

“Mushroom? Hahaha. There are no hallucinogenic mushrooms on this mountain. While there are poisons, most just cause diarrhea or problems with the nervous system or stomach… just that.”

“Mold? Oh, of course, there are molds that cause hallucinations. But this one’s not, just common forest mold. It doesn’t cause any illness and doesn’t affect people at all. Plus, it’s a symbiotic fungus that doesn’t harm plants much.”

Topography.

Stone statues.

Air.

Mushrooms.

Mold.

None of it was said to be problematic.

“How can you say there’s nothing wrong? Doesn’t that look like a problem over there?!”

The Master pointed at the face of Ksitigarbha engraved on the tree, pounding his chest in frustration at the specialists who treated him like he was strange. But the specialists only looked at it with puzzled expressions.

“Well… there is a problem.”

“But coming from our specialty, it’s a problem that we can’t find.”

“There’s no formation, no scientific issues, no hallucinatory effects, no human traces, and no magical traces.”

“No matter how you look at it, that’s not artificial. It’s something that formed naturally.”

The specialists continued speaking to the Master, looking apologetic.

“We did our best.

But against our abilities, it was beyond our power.

Only those two meanings kept repeating like a broken record.”

“Huh. I see. For now, it doesn’t seem like human doing?”

“I can’t affirm it, but that’s the highest possibility.”

“I can say the chances of it being non-human are significantly high. But since nothing is absolute with probability, we can’t rule out the possibility that it could also be a person.”

“So, is this the work of a person or not?”

“For now, we lean towards it being something non-human… You can take it like that.”

“Then it’s the work of a ghost?”

“But, as mentioned earlier, we cannot dismiss the possibility of a person using some extraordinary method that surpasses our knowledge. Just like thieves and police, the technology of the intruder is often more advanced than that of the defenders. There’s a chance this situation could be similar….”

The Master shuddered at the specialists’ meandering words.

“…I understand. Thank you for coming all this way.”

For now, it seemed there was no major issue.

But there could be a problem that we haven’t identified.

It didn’t seem like a human act.

But a person could have done it.

What kind of nonsense conclusion is this?

“It’s not like a universal montage.”

There’s a joke that goes like this.

When creating a montage to catch a perpetrator, it often reads: ‘Gender is male or female, age ranges from 10s to 60s, and could be older. Height varies from 100cm to 210cm, and they might have disguised themselves, so beware.’ It says that mostly, this’ll fit anyone.

The situation with the specialists was exactly like that.

It could be someone, it could be a ghost.

There could be a problem, or there couldn’t be.

Is it not totally ridiculous that two completely opposite things coexist in one sentence?!

“They’re all frauds, frauds. Incompetent bastards.”

The Master, feeling a headache coming on, covered his face with his hand and grimaced.

“If I end up getting scolded like this… ”

He pictured what might happen if this business got into the ears of the lord or the elder.

” You useless bum! We sent you to properly teach and protect those kids, and you can’t even handle a situation like this?! How did an incapable parasite like you even get to the Master’s position?!”

“Look at you, unable to handle anything, begging for help! Who knows if you’re one of ours or a spy planted by another faction! They say FBI or CIA sends incompetent people brimming with enthusiasm to ruin everything, and isn’t that just exactly how you’re behaving?!”

“My lord, I may not have the keenest eye for people, but one thing I do know is that when such a person rises high, the subordinates suffer, and the organization rots like stagnant water without proper vitality. My lord, you must get rid of that person. If you’re willing to give him another chance, then he must undergo thorough training to get reformed from the ground up!”

“I’ll give you a chance. Kill yourself, or get this fixed with the resolve to kill yourself!”

Tremble.

Imagining that kind of dreadful scene, the Master shuddered.

Hearing the scathing words of the lord and elders echoed in his ears like a haunting whisper, he vividly envisioned the lord glaring at him and tossing a ritualistic dagger at him.

“Not this, I must find a way to fix this….”

* * *

While searching for experts who could fix the situation, the Master poured all his energy into managing the unsettled warriors due to the bizarre events.

He unlocked the food warehouse to treat the warriors to a special meal, simplified training that needed an entire mountain as the stage into an indoor training session, and, afraid they might spread rumors about the nonexistent issues, he strictly worked them hard so they would collapse from exhaustion at night.

On top of that, he even switched the patrols the trainees were supposed to do to himself.

It was a desperate struggle to avoid an internal and external crisis.

External troubles may come regardless, but if the morale of the warriors lowered and rumors began circulating, then it might grow into an unmanageable situation.

And did all these efforts finally bear fruit?

That night, nothing occurred.

During the Master’s patrol, nothing strange was seen, and the worried warriors slept soundly, exhausted. Moreover, no presence was felt, and even the security devices he had switched out didn’t detect anything.

Thus, the Master spent the night at ease and awaited the arrival of the specialists with an anxious expression the instant morning broke.

Then, before the sun rose high in the brightening sky, two people arrived.

“Hello. We come from the shrine.”

One young man, appearing to be a Shinto priest.

One young woman, seemingly a shamaness.

“Is there a problem?”

A pair of man and woman that reminded one of a rabbit and a fox.

 

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