"Dolls?"
"Yeah. Before Xu-chan parted ways with us, she gave each of us a doll she made by hand." Yoshida Saori took a cute little doll out of her purse, a bright smile spreading across her face. "Apparently, these dolls can repel curses. As long as we have them on us, evil spirits can't hurt us, so Xu Fu told us we absolutely had to keep them close at all times... Though Taku-kun's doll ended up being given to Nagisa."
Remembering his own stupidity, Morita Taku started beating his chest in regret again, but he didn't blame Xu Fu for it. Back then, he had still been a firm materialist. Even if Xu Fu had explained everything clearly from the start, he wouldn't have believed her. And later, she had charged straight into an evil spirit's lair to save him. That debt alone made it impossible for him to resent her.
"Oh!"
Eiko Hozuki's gaze instantly locked onto the doll in Saori's hand. She even planted both hands on the table and unconsciously leaned forward.
"A doll that can repel curses?" Keitaro Gentoga was staring at it too, blinking in confusion. "So it's not the same as a katashiro?"
"Katashiro?" The term was unfamiliar to Saori.
Xu Fu kindly explained, "A katashiro is a kind of substitute tool. You put part of your own body into a human-shaped object like a doll or paper figure, turning it into your stand-in. If a spirit harms your real body, the katashiro takes that damage in your place."
"If you reverse the idea, though, you get something like a voodoo doll or cursecraft. A sorcerer uses straw, beast bones, and part of an enemy's body to make a doll, and when they injure the doll, the enemy suffers the same injury. It's a pretty vicious kind of sorcery."
"I see. Xu-chan really knows a lot," Saori said with an understanding nod.
Xu Fu waved a hand carelessly. "This used to be common knowledge. Since this type of sorcery was cheap, effective, fast, and hard to guard against, it was popular all over the world—while also being widely hated. Back then, the higher your status, the more you had to protect your personal information and your body parts, and the more likely you were to keep substitute objects around to block curses."
For example, Iskandar and Hephaestion as summoned by Chaldea. Historical records described Iskandar as black-haired and short, so when Lord El-Melloi II summoned a red-haired, two-meter-tall giant of a man during the Holy Grail War, he had been quite shocked.
The reason Iskandar in the TYPE-MOON world differed so greatly from the historical record was because he had a magus whose role was to act as "the king's substitute" and fend off curses for him. She had no name of her own, and when she was summoned by Chaldea, she used the name of her brother, Hephaestion. She was black-haired, and being female, naturally appeared shorter as well.
"Since these were made by me, there's something I should warn you about." Xu Fu's gaze swept over Saori and the other three, her expression serious. "I didn't have any especially good materials on hand, and I had to make them in a rush, so you shouldn't expect too much from the dolls in terms of quality. They have a shelf life, and they can't defend against overly powerful curses."
Xu Fu explained the dolls' limitations so Saori and the others would know what to expect. She would have liked to make them better, higher-quality dolls, but the problem was the same as before: she simply didn't have good materials on hand.
Of course, she could have just pulled materials straight from Chaldea's storage—things like Primordial Lanugo, Dragon's Reverse Scale, Phoenix Feathers, Ball of Rainbow Thread, Ash of Remembrance, or Deadly Poisonous Needle. She had farmed enough of those in the past, so using some wouldn't exactly break her heart.
Back in Chaldea, Xu Fu herself had used those ultra-luxurious materials to make Master a doll that could reflect all curses. When it came to dealing with curses, it had been even better than the solar earrings Karna had given him...
And then Xu Fu had gotten her cheeks pinched for charging the entire material cost to Master's account.
But while those items were common enough in Chaldea's warehouse to pile up like mountains, in this world they were priceless treasures. If she made dolls out of them and gave them to Saori and the others, she'd only be bringing trouble down on their heads. Xu Fu understood the principle well enough: a man is innocent, but the jade he carries is guilty.
If possible, she would much rather use materials from this world to make dolls for them.
Yayoi Hozuki was studying the doll in Saori's hand with great care.
"There really is... some kind of special energy on it."
"Really? I can't see anything. It just looks like an ordinary doll to me." Eiko drew back her gaze and turned to Keitaro. "What about you, Kei-kun?"
Keitaro shook his head too.
He did have a spiritually sensitive constitution, but he didn't possess Spiritual Sight like Yayoi, the kind that could directly see spirits. He was more like a radar—when an evil spirit drew near, he felt a horrible chill.
"And then what? What exactly did that evil spirit do to you? What kind of abilities did it have? And besides the evil spirit, what else did you see? I'm curious, I'm curious! Tell me already!"
Unable to get any more useful information out of the doll, Yayoi turned her focus back to Saori and the others' experience at the haunted temple. Even as she urged them on, her face remained almost expressionless, as though the excitement and impatience in her voice had been deliberately put on.
Her question made Saori and the others look troubled. The four of them exchanged flickering glances and fell silent.
It was Saori who finally scratched her cheek and said awkwardly, "To be honest, we don't really know that much either... We were way too scared at the time, so our memories of what happened are pretty fuzzy. And because the dolls were protecting us, that evil spirit never came after us. It only went after Taku-kun."
"All I remember is that something really, really terrifying happened... and then I passed out," Morita Taku said quietly. "By the time I woke up again, Xu Fu-chan had arrived in time and already destroyed the evil spirit."
So if they wanted information about that evil spirit, they'd have to get it from Xu Fu?
The moment that thought crossed her mind, Yayoi slapped a hand down over Xu Fu's and gazed into her eyes with deep sincerity.
"Will you tell me? About that evil spirit?"
"I mean, I can tell you~! But Xu Fu-chan is a very important person, you know. If I just tell you because you asked, wouldn't that make me look cheap?" Xu Fu said with an impish little grin, merciless as ever.
"Your price?"
"Twenty braised pork hocks."
"Deal."
In just a few lines, the two little girls concluded a deeply shady transaction.
"Yayoi-chan?!"
Keitaro looked completely lost. Where was Yayoi supposed to get the money for twenty braised pork hocks?
But the moment he spoke, Yayoi glanced at him and pointed toward the service area shops.
"Keitaro. Go buy Xu Fu-chan twenty braised pork hocks."
"So I'm the one buying them?!"
Keitaro shot Yayoi a look full of exaggerated eyebrow signals: You're agreeing to someone else's condition with my money, and you agreed that fast?
Yayoi shot back a totally un-seductive flirtatious look: It's because it's not my money that I don't mind at all. Now hurry up and go buy them. I know Keitaro is the nicest.
Keitaro Gentoga: ...
He had come here to work as Yayoi's private tutor, so why was this job somehow costing him money instead of making him any?
The instant Keitaro got up from his seat, Xu Fu's excited voice rang out behind him again.
"Make sure they're packed to go! I'm afraid I won't be able to finish twenty portions!"
"If you're afraid you can't finish them, then don't order that many!"
Keitaro was finally beginning to understand why Xu Fu and Yayoi had become friends so fast. They both liked dolls, both could see ghosts, both were little girls, and both were outrageously self-willed. Being around Xu Fu felt like dealing with a second Yayoi Hozuki.
What Yayoi was most curious about was the monk evil spirit's abilities. Since she had browsed through its memories, Xu Fu remembered them quite clearly.
The monk evil spirit's curses mainly centered around the three "ritual implements" in his hands: a skull mokugyo, a human-face-skin kasaya, and brain prayer beads.
The brain prayer beads let the monk evil spirit freely control, command, or kill the child evil spirits around him.
The human-face-skin kasaya allowed him to transfer any damage he received onto the child evil spirits under his control, making them bear it in his stead.
The sound of the skull mokugyo turned any living human or dead spirit under the age of six into something like the surrounding child evil spirits. If the target was older than six, they would gradually be de-aged bit by bit.
The three abilities complemented one another perfectly, making the combination extremely troublesome. And so long as the target was a child—living or dead—they were utterly at his mercy.
As for the child evil spirits in that corridor, many of them had originally been adults. Some had been villagers from that village, while others had been innocent outsiders dragged into it, just like Saori and the others. But all of them had been turned into children by the monk evil spirit's curse and then transformed into child evil spirits under his control, forever unable to pass on.
"What a shame. If nothing unexpected happened, that monk evil spirit was probably a Graduate-level evil spirit too. If I'd been able to capture him, he would've become one of my strongest assets." Yayoi frowned slightly, her words tinged with unmistakable regret.
"That Red Hood... is that an evil spirit too?"
"No. It's just a doll I made... no, I should say, it's a trusted companion."
Before long, the two groups said their goodbyes. They might have gotten along well, but in the end, they had only met by chance at this service area, and each had their own destination.
"Xu Fu-chan! Come with us to a haunted spot!" Yayoi held a paranormal magazine in her hands, her eyes shining as she tried to recruit Xu Fu into their little haunted-location expedition group.
"Ehh~? That sounds like such a pain..." Xu Fu said, her face full of reluctance. "Besides, I still have to escort Saori and the others home."
"Mm... I see." Yayoi's disappointment was visible to the naked eye. Even the ahoge on top of her head drooped listlessly.
Seeing once was better than hearing a hundred times. She really had wanted to see how Xu Fu performed against evil spirits for herself—especially that Red Hood who had defeated the monk evil spirit.
"Yayoi-chan, it's time to say goodbye to Xu Fu-chan and the others."
"Don't worry. I'm sure we'll have another chance to meet very soon. When that happens, let's go on an adventure together."
And so Yayoi left with Keitaro and Eiko in their car. Their destination was a relatively famous haunted spot nearby. According to them, they were going there to have an adventure and capture evil spirits.
Once Saori and the others learned where they were headed, they were left both puzzled and impressed.
"They've seen evil spirits with their own eyes too, just like us, and they can still go charging off to places like that on purpose. As for me, I'll be trying to stay as far away from those places as possible from now on. I never want to go through something like that again," Nagata Takaya said with feeling.
"No kidding," Morita Taku said, deeply agreeing.
Saori, on the other hand, was more worried than anything else.
"Xu Fu-chan... do you think Eiko and the others will be in danger?"
"Dangerous? Of course it'll be dangerous. If it weren't dangerous, they wouldn't be going there in the first place~!" Xu Fu said carelessly. "I don't know why exactly they're going around capturing evil spirits, but I can tell that Yayoi-chan has a very urgent need for powerful ones. To her, the more dangerous an evil spirit is, the more worth capturing it becomes."
Yeah, right. In truth, Xu Fu knew exactly why Yayoi was collecting dangerous evil spirits. The moment she met those three, she had already realized what world she was in.
Dark Gathering... also known by the nickname "Dark Pokémon."
The series didn't seem especially popular, and not that many people had seen it, but the people who had generally rated it pretty highly.
Its only real flaw was that the manga updated way too slowly.
Xu Fu remembered that the reason Yayoi was so obsessed with capturing powerful evil spirits was because an evil spirit had stolen her mother's soul away. In order to get her mother's soul back, Yayoi had been searching for that spirit's whereabouts while capturing evil spirits to build up her own side's strength.
Yayoi had named that evil spirit Kuubou, a name taken from the final apparition in the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons—the sun that burned all the yokai to ashes—because the spirit's appearance was round, like an ominous black sun.
But Kuubou's true name was actually the Embryo of the Dark Dawn. It was not a "black sun," but an "unborn embryo." The reason it had taken Yayoi's mother's soul was because it wanted to parasitize her soul-body and have Yayoi's mother give birth to it.
Xu Fu suddenly thought of the Corpse Immortal of Myriad Deeds. That one had also pulled all kinds of absurd stunts for the sole purpose of being successfully born.
---
T/N: hehehe sorrgeee well not really but i actually forgot about webnovel LMAOOOO anyway heres ur 4 chapssss
though for this one....... ur getting more chaps actually one sec
bonus chaps
100 stones -> 1 chapter
200 stones -> 2 chapters
300 stones -> 3 chapters
and so on
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