Chapter 9
1. The God of the Dream of Immortality
The sea was so beautiful it felt almost artificial.
Each wave shimmered like aluminum foil, reflecting the unrelenting sunlight.
The road that ran perpendicular to the coast was lined with small wooden souvenir shops and charcoal grill stands, buzzing with life as if it were beach season despite being midwinter.
A surfer in a thick wetsuit walked slowly, the wet fabric glistening—he looked like a bipedal dolphin.
As I smoked in front of a convenience store with a name I'd never heard before, Miyaki pointed at a flag fluttering above a sign that said 'No Idling.'
"Look at this—'This year's Hidden Gem Village Ranking, fourth place. In the Top Ten every year since '96,' it says."
The flag, printed with a hand-drawn message and an illustration of a port town—probably made painstakingly with colored pencils and drawing paper by a store clerk—flapped in the sea breeze.
"Nice, right? Honestly, the places we go are always either obviously creepy or just plain empty. It's been a while since we've come somewhere that actually feels like a tourist spot."
"Traveling on taxpayer money, huh."
I flicked my cigarette butt into a red tin standing ashtray.
"Any place that has to scream 'we're a great spot!' like this is probably not worth it. If it were, we wouldn't be called in."
"You've been grumpy this whole trip, Katagishi."
Miyaki shrugged her shoulders.
"Even if it's a request from your brother-in-law, work is still work, right? And the conditions are pretty good this time."
"Good, my ass..."
It's a staple of ghost stories that the living are scarier than the supernatural, but I genuinely found my brother-in-law Rokuhara more unsettling than any monster.
From the first time we met, his pale, lifeless face and those eyes that seemed to stare off into the distance while catching my every move creeped me out.
When I was invited to his house and saw him open the fridge, I imagined it was filled with vacuum-packed human wrists and organs.
Worst of all, even if not directly, Rokuhara was still technically my superior.
Since we worked at the same place, he knew when I was too busy to take on more and when I had no excuse to decline. That's how he threw vague cases like this one at me—cases lacking enough evidence for a formal investigation.
If an exorcism could solve it, I'd prefer a supernatural case. No matter how many times I run to a shrine, HR and the family registry won't budge.
"In the past, we were always told to investigate the identity of the Territorial Divine Offenses—that was straightforward. But now? We're supposed to confirm that nothing's going on. It's a devil's proof. Proving a negative is the hardest thing there is."
Ignoring my grumbling, Miyaki started walking down the souvenir shop street.
A man outside a store fanned smoke toward us as he smoked dried fish over charcoal, while a woman selling tourist-exclusive bath salts and face packs shoved samples into our hands.
An old man lay sprawled out on a faded pharmacy bench, napping. Drool glistened from the corner of his mouth, tracing a happy curve along his lips.
"This place really is a peaceful and lively tourist spot."
Above Miyaki's head as she turned around, a sign shaped like a pink-scaled mermaid swayed in the wind.
"Would be nice if that were true."
The whole place was filled with mermaids. Mascot characters made of felt, neon signs on American-style motels that didn't suit a Japanese fishing village—all mermaid-themed.
Miyaki stopped and peered into the ice cream case at a kiosk.
"Look at this—even the ice cream is mermaid-themed."
Inside the frost-covered case, I could make out the silhouette of fish fins and long female hair on the frozen white popsicles.
"Ice cream in winter? Girls shouldn't be freezing their bodies. Even if I'm the one selling it."
A clear voice rang out, and when I looked up, a middle-aged woman appeared, tying the strings of her apron.
Miyaki gave her a polite smile. The woman glanced at our suits and immediately realized we weren't tourists, her cheerful expression briefly clouding with suspicion.
"Are you here for work?"
"Yes, we're here for a tourism-related interview. We had a quick meeting at the town hall today and decided to explore a bit."
The woman visibly relaxed and started tidying up the products at the storefront.
I didn't have the talent for such smooth lies. I just gave a vague nod.
"There really are a lot of mermaid-themed items here."
Miyaki spoke with feigned surprise, as if learning this for the first time.
"Right? Have you heard our mermaid legend yet?"
"A mermaid washed up on the shore, and after being nursed back to health by a fisherman and the villagers, she gave them her own immortal flesh as thanks... or something like that?"
Of course, we hadn't actually gone to the town hall. That was all in the materials Rokuhara dumped on me. The handwriting was so perfect it looked like a free font, which only made it creepier.
"That's right. We've always had a spirit of helping one another here. If someone's in trouble or something bad happens, everyone pitches in. It's rare in the countryside, but some young people who come here on vacation end up staying. Maybe it's that warmth that draws them in."
The woman lined up three mermaid-shaped Matryoshkas in height order on the counter as she spoke.
We hadn't been here long, but it was already clear—this village didn't understand humility.
They praised their village in ways you wouldn't even use to flatter someone else.
Coupled with that strange sense of unity, the mermaid started to look like the emblem of a surveillance alliance or secret society.
"You must have a lot of local pride and love for your village."
Miyaki jabbed me in the side as I interjected. I thought I had phrased it pretty diplomatically.
"Oh, absolutely!"
Rather than taking offense, the woman beamed.
"We've made the Hidden Gem Village Ranking Top Ten every year! Out of all the villages in the country, and ours is the only one in the prefecture!"
Her booming voice echoed from deep in her belly, mixing with the horse race broadcast coming from the shop across the street. As I tried to focus on that instead, Miyaki elbowed me again.
Sunlight pierced into the shop like a blade of light.
The woman squinted.
"Have you heard? When the sea glows like this, they say 'the mermaid turned in her sleep.'"
Glancing sideways, I saw the sun shining brilliantly between two shops, illuminating the paved slope and the blue horizon beyond.
"Maybe it's because the sun hits this place so well that the people are so cheerful. The next village over is all cliffs and mountains—dark and gloomy like a different country, so the folks there are..."
The woman exaggeratedly covered her mouth and fell silent.
In the direction of her gaze, a thin figure was crossing a faded crosswalk.
It was clear at a glance that she didn't belong in this unusually bright village. Her hair hung like tangled yarn, and bare legs stuck out from a long down jacket.
The souvenir shop woman watched her cross in silence, eyes filled with curiosity and disgust.
Miyaki looked at me, and I shook my head.
Once the outsider disappeared, the shopkeeper returned to her smile.
"Well, since you're here, take your time looking around. You said it was for a travel magazine, right? I hope you write a great article, Mr. Reporter."
The woman poured amazake into two small paper cups from a pot in the back and thrust them into our hands.
"That woman walking down the road—do you think she's from the next village over?"
Holding the steaming cup, Miyaki continued along the souvenir street.
"Could be."
I'd heard that even this seemingly carefree fishing village had one dark shadow—its feud with the neighboring village.
Complaints that the other village stole tourists, that the flourishing one got all the public works funding while the other was left to rot. A tale as old as time.
"Well, this place is clearly bustling, and the village we passed through on the way here was deserted. It could just be jealousy and resentment..."
I remembered something I hadn't told Miyaki.
The reason my brother-in-law brought this case to me in the first place was an anonymous letter.
The sender was unknown, but the postmark was from the neighboring village. Amid the incoherent ramblings, one line stood out: something might be seriously wrong in the village with the mermaid signs.
If someone wanted to smear the prosperous village, there were plenty of ways to do it—tabloids, rumors, you name it.
But would someone really go to the trouble of showing a doctor a disease the other side hadn't even noticed, just out of spite?
"Hey, this is amazake, right? Doesn't it smell kinda fishy?"
Miyaki brought the steaming cup to her nose and sniffed.
"Maybe because they were selling dried fish too."
My arm, just as I was about to lift the paper cup, bumped into someone.
"Sorry..."
The woman in the down jacket stood in my line of sight.
She was younger than I'd imagined.
Her pale face, as if untouched by sunlight, was dotted with moles. Bones protruded from her exposed chest like a washboard, and her legs in the short slip dress and sandals were covered in fresh wounds.
Over the sickly woman's shoulder, I heard a couple whispering in the diner across the street.
"She's back again."
"She comes all this way just because there's no motel over there..."
The woman stared at me with a dead expression, then mechanically raised one hand.
The paper cup hit her fingers, slipped from my hand, and spilled lukewarm liquid across the asphalt.
"Hey, wait—"
Miyaki stepped forward to say something, but the woman pushed her shoulder.
Before we could react, a truck roared past us at high speed, the gust of wind slamming into us.
On the road, only the flattened remains of the paper cup were left behind with the exhaust and wind.
If we'd been standing just a little more to the right, it would've been either me or Miyaki plastered to the ground, tire marks and all.
Voices of concerned villagers began to echo belatedly, asking if we were okay.
The woman shook her head silently, shoved her hands into her jacket pockets, and walked away.
"What the hell was that..."
Next to me as I muttered, Miyaki was still staring at the ground.
"Katagishi-san, maybe it was the right call not to drink it."
Miyaki's half-smiling, tense face dropped her gaze to her feet.
The amazake spreading between the cracks in the asphalt sparkled for some reason. I thought it was just the sunlight, but it wasn't.
Mixed in with the rice malt were iridescent flakes—fish scales that had no business being there.