東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 1:Hopeless Masquerade

—1—

When was it exactly that the epidemic of pessimism overtook the village?

Something as pervasive as a change in the atmosphere of the entire human village is not the sort of event that can happen overnight unless there were some sort of extraordinary event. Certainly, there were signs that something might be amiss before everything came to a head.

Looking back, there had been signs that things were starting to break down going back as far as the summer of Gensokyo's 127th season. Back then, the village witnessed a number of strange and frightening events. First there were several suspicious fires which destroyed homes in the autumn and then an eerie vertical column of water appeared over the Genbu ravine and persisted for several days, stretching high into the sky and causing a drought. After that, one of the wealthiest and most politically powerful figures in the village died unexpectedly in the winter, leading to chaos among the decision-making families of the village, followed by an unusually heavy dump of snow and rain just before the coming of spring, leading to floods and washouts. As a result, Keine and the rest of the neighborhood watch were kept busy all year round.

None of those stories have any direct relation to the events of this casefile and all of them are likely already well-remembered by the people of the village, so I won't go into them here.

Leaving the past behind, our story takes place after those events in the summer of Gensokyo's 128th season.

For the Hifuu Detective Agency, this was a year like any other. About the only entities that seemed to be doing well in the village were the birds nesting on the roof of our office, who had grown so prosperous that their nests were beginning to extend over the edge of our detective agency's roof. Since no customers were likely to show up, Renko and I found ourselves closing up shop one afternoon and making our way over to Suzunaan.

As we brushed aside the hanging curtain with its jingling bells and stepped into the shop, Kosuzu looked up from the book she was reading and smiled brightly at us from behind the counter.

"Miss Renko, Miss Merry, welcome!"

"Hello Kosuzu, have you found any new youma books recently?" Renko blurted.

"Hey, shh!" Kosuzu hissed, raising a finger to shush Renko. "Don't talk about my private collections, dad's in the back today."

I shook my head at my partner's careless bluntness and sighed. It was sometime in the autumn of the previous year when Renko and I had learned that sweet little Kosuzu had been secretly using her earnings from running the store to begin collecting a variety of so-called 'youma books,' which is to say written materials of all sorts that had been created by youkai rather than humans. These books came in all formats, from grimoires and manuals to private letters and records of youkai that had existed over the course of Gensokyo's history. Those last ones seemed to be Kosuzu's favorites, and the youkai depicted in some of her works were the sorts of obscure youkai that we had never seen in Gensokyo.

Kosuzu had always been a bright and curious girl of course, but why would she collect youma books of all things? Well it probably had something to do with another recent development...

"Ah, sorry about that," Renko said, still smiling. "Let's change the topic then. What's that you're reading right now? That doesn't look like English... is that book in French? I can't read that. Can you, Merry?"

"It's not really my field of expertise," I replied.

"Heheheh, it doesn't matter what language it's in, I can read anything!" Kosuzu puffed out her chest proudly, a slightly smug expression on her face.

"I see," Renko said with a faint laugh. "That's a very handy ability indeed."

A bibliophile's eyes. The ability to read and understand any written characters. That was the ability that Kosuzu had unexpectedly awakened last year. Apparently suddenly discovering unusual abilities like this wasn't uncommon for the humans of this village. Living in an environment as rich in supernatural influences as Gensokyo caused things like this to happen from time to time, or so we had heard.

In all likelihood it was the awakening of this newfound ability in Kosuzu that had prompted her to begin collecting youma books. As the operator of a rental bookstore, Kosuzu's motto seemed to be 'Books Are Meant To Be Read.' It wasn't hard to imagine that having suddenly found that she could read books that no one could, she would start wanting to collect tomes in other languages, and here in Gensokyo, youma books were probably easier to come by than foreign language books from the Outside World.

Of course when Renko and I had learned that Kosuzu possessed this ability, the first thing my partner had said was "Hey, do you have a copy of the 𝑉𝑜𝑦𝑛𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑢𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑝𝑡, by chance?" Sadly, Kosuzu had never heard of that book, and so its contents shall continue to remain unknown.

At any rate, all of this is a digression. Getting back to the topic at hand, we had come to Suzunaan not only to return some books I had borrowed, but also to chat with Kosuzu, something we were now in the habit of doing somewhat regularly. Beyond that though, Renko and I had another reason for being there that day. One we wouldn't mention to Kosuzu.

—

"So you two know Kosuzu, right?"

It was late last autumn—at one of the unpredictable but somewhat frequent parties at the Hakurei Shrine—when, out of the blue, Reimu posed that question to us.

"We're acquainted with her," Renko had replied. "Why? Did something happen to her?"

Reimu had folded her arms and frowned, seeming to consider something for a few moments before coming to a decision and leaning over to whisper to the two of us. "I want you two to keep an eye on her for me."

"Are you looking to hire the Hifuu Detective Agency, Reimu? We could tail her for you if you like."

"You don't have to follow her. I just want you to keep track of her and let me know if she's getting involved in anything dangerous."

"Anything dangerous? Kosuzu? Oh, does this have anything to do with the fact that she recently awakened her ability?"

"No, it's just that..." Reimu seemed like she was about to say more, but then took one look at Renko's face and sighed. "I'm asking the wrong person, aren't I…?"

"Don't say that, now you've gone and got me interested," Renko pleaded. "The fact that you're asking us about it means that it must fall under the scope of your authority as the Hakurei Shrine maiden, right? Let me guess, there's a youkai who's been visiting her store? No wait, it can't be that, that wouldn't be enough to warrant your involvement. Could there maybe be a youkai who's taken an interest in Kosuzu outside of her role in the shop? No, you'd just exterminate them if that were it. Since you're asking us to keep an eye on Kosuzu, you must be worried about her mingling with youkai or collecting youkai-related objects. Given her proclivities, it must be something to do with books. I'm betting she's started collecting books about youkai and you're worried that it'll lead to trouble, aren't you?" Renko said, pointing at Reimu and smiling.

Rather than replying directly, Reimu sighed exaggeratedly and buried her face in her palm. "I definitely asked the wrong person."

"Don't be like that. The Hifuu Detective Agency would be happy to watch over Kosuzu for you. We're not picky when it comes to customers."

"...Well, you're right. Kosuzu's been building up a collection of youma books."

"Youma books?"

"They're books written by or about youkai. She especially likes collecting books that have minor youkai sealed inside of them. I'm worried that she might eventually break the seals on one of them, either intentionally or by accident. The sort of youkai who would end up sealed in a book wouldn't usually being very dangerous, but there's no telling what could happen if something like that got released in the middle of the human village."

"I see. Why ask us just to watch her then? Wouldn't it be better if you just told her to stop collecting dangerous books?"

"This coming from you?" Both Reimu and I blurted at the same time.

Renko scratched at her head self-consciously and laughed. Reimu sighed.

"If I confront her about it, she'll probably just keep collecting them behind my back. Isn't it better to acknowledge what's going on and gather as much information as we can about what she's doing? That way, if anything does go wrong, it'll be easier to handle."

It was sound thinking. If anyone in a position of authority were to punish everyone beneath them who makes any sort of a foolish mistake, it's easy to see that mistakes will start going unreported. Human error is unavoidable, after all, so it was a good policy to instead praise anyone who reported mistakes rather than condemn them. In the end, the mess that would need to be cleaned up would be smaller.

Reimu's policy seemed to be something along those lines. If someone was going to keep doing something you had already warned them was dangerous, it was safer to have them do it in the open where they could be observed. Honestly, it was a rational, well thought-out plan.

—

And so, Renko and I had begun coming into Suzunaan much more regularly to keep an eye on Kosuzu. I'm not sure how effective we might have been at actually keeping her out of trouble though...

While I was going through the process of returning the books with Kosuzu this time, we heard the bells on the curtains on the front of the store chime and a familiar figure made their way into the shop.

"Welcome!" Kosuzu leaned around me to shout. "Oh, Akyuu, it's you."

"Why are you welcoming me as if you weren't expecting me? You called me here, didn't you?"

"Oh, hello there Akyuu."

"Ah, Miss Renko, Miss Merry. Hello to you both as well."

She smiled and bowed. This was probably the biggest change I can report to have happened since my last case file. Since Reimu had asked us to keep an eye on Kosuzu, the two of us had ended up becoming much closer friends with Miss Akyuu.

We had been closer to her than most people before, of course, due to our frequent consultations with her in regards to our investigations and the help we had provided her in her research for the 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑘𝑦𝑜 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑙𝑒, but on those occasions we had been getting to know the Child of Miare, Chronicler and symbolic head of the village as well as our employer and the patron sponsoring our school, rather than as Akyuu herself. Whenever we had met her at her manor or even out on the street, we had always treated Akyuu as the prestigious VIP and employer that she was.

Now that we were coming into Suzunaan more often, we had had more opportunities to speak privately and candidly with her. Akyuu and Kosuzu were already close friends, and they said it felt odd to try to speak reservedly around the two of us when they were used to being familiar with each other. From that point on, Renko had started calling her Akyuu. Actually, she had first asked 'can I just call you Akkie then?' but Akkyu had politely refused that nickname. For as long as Renko had been calling me 'Merry' she had always been the sort to try to give people nicknames.

"So what was it you wanted to show me, Kosuzu?" Akyuu asked, dispensing with the need for pleasantries.

"Oh, right! Miss Renko I can show you as well since you and Miss Merry are here. Come take a look."

Saying that, Kosuzu excitedly led us through the curtain dividing the front of the store from the work area in the back where a scroll made of high quality hand-made paper was hanging on the wall. "Tadaa!" she said, beaming with obvious pride as she gestured towards it. "Can you guess what this is?"

Printed on the scroll was what at first appeared to be an expertly-made fish print. Looking at it though, it definitely couldn't have been that. Although the skillful application of an ink wash had beautifully preserved the intricate details of a creature's scales upon the paper, the shape of the animal's body would have been all wrong for a fish. It was long and snake-like, but with a pronounced and bony snout as well as a pair of features that had left a vague, membrane-like pattern behind which shouldn't have been present on either a snake or a fish. They almost looked like... wings?

"...Is that supposed to be a dragon?" Renko asked incredulously.

"Yep!" Kosuzu threw her arms wide with excitement. "A genuine gyotaku print of a real live dragon! It's completely authentic, an actual genuine article!"

If it was actually a dragon print, I suppose it should have been called 'ryuutaku' rather than 'gyotaku.' I tilted my head as I considered the print. Akyuu seemed hesitant to accept it as well, a blatantly suspicious look resting on her face.

"How can you be sure it's real? Isn't it just a print of a snake that someone stuck some bat wings on to?"

Kosuzu raised her chin and closed her eyes. "Tsk tsk, Akyuu, I suppose even a high-born noble like you might not have had the opportunity to see something this rare before. It's definitely the real deal. Can't you feel the aura of menace coming off of it? It's unquestionably a genuine youma book."

"Where would you even get something like this? Did someone come in here asking a fortune for a rare treasure or something?"

"Of course not! I wouldn't get scammed like that and I doubt something this priceless could be bought with money anyway. I got it from the same source who assured me it's a genuine article. The dragon who made the print himself."

"What?" Akyuu, Renko and I all blurted out the word in unison, but Kosuzu just stood there smugly, basking in our incredulity.


—2—


Whether it should be called 'gyotaku' or 'ryuutaku,' the story about that dragon print isn't the relevant point to this anecdote. If you'd like to learn more about it, go talk to Kosuzu at Suzunaan. I'm sure she'd be willing to tell you all about it.

So then what was the point of relating this story? It was what happened next. As all of us were in the backroom talking to Kosuzu and admiring the dragon print, a tremendous clamor suddenly arose outside on the street. Upon hearing it we all turned toward the entrance in surprise. Kosuzu quickly led the way to the front of the store, storming ahead of us, seeming incensed at having her moment of glory stolen. We all followed suit, eager to see what was causing the commotion.

"What's all this racket about?" she asked as she came through the curtains and up to the counter. As Renko, Akyuu and I followed we all one by one came out and stared out of the store's entrance toward the street.

"𝑂𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔!"
"𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜𝑜!"
"𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔'𝑠 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑡'𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟!"
"𝑆𝑜 𝑤ℎ𝑦 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔!?"

On the main street bisecting the market district upon which Suzunaan stood, a rowdy procession of people were dancing through the street, singing verses like those above, but all over top of one another, with no unified tune or harmony and only the barest semblance of rhythm. The procession seemed far from orderly—a handful of the people were singing verses, but many of those following behind were just chanting "Yoi! Yoi!" or stepping through the repetitive motions of an odd kicking dance with their arms locked bent-elbowed at their sides.

"What the... What is this, some kind of festival?"

"I'm not aware of anything like this having been planned," Akyuu replied, frowning at the spectacle.

As we watched, it looked like some of the people who had been in nearby shops around the street were drawn into the procession, taking up the dance and adding discordant verses of their own to the cacophony of chants.

"This is like a scene from the last days of the Edo period..." Renko muttered as she watched the procession.

Akyuu nodded calmly. "It doesn't seem to be raining money though." I vaguely remembered reading something about bouts of mass hysteria following the financial crises that marked the end of that period.

The appearance of this sudden outburst of almost ecstatic pessimism was unexpected, but perhaps not entirely so. As a teacher I had gotten a certain feeling of building tension from the families whose children I had been teaching for the last year or so. The string of natural disasters and the period of political instability that began after the death of the village's salt merchant had pushed many households to their limits, causing unrest and much grumbling among the families living in the merchants district. In the end, the majority of positions in the village had not changed significantly, which, according to Keine, was enough to provoke despair among the village's poorest residents who had hoped that the disquiet would signal the beginning of a more equitable era.

Keine had told us that she hoped that the unrest in some quarters of the village would die down, but it didn't seem like that was quite what was happening. Though looking at what was going on outside, it didn't exactly look dangerous either...

Or maybe not. As I watched, one of the people dancing in the street kicked a stand full of merchandise over and got into an angry scuffle with a shopkeeper. The people surrounding the altercation did nothing to stop it and kept right on dancing by, kicking their feet in lockstep. All around the front of Suzunaan multiple small scuffles like that one were starting to break out in the midst of the crowd. I wondered where Keine and the rest of the neighborhood watch were at the moment. Surely something like this couldn't have gone unnoticed.

I was just thinking that to myself when all at once a dignified voice rang out over the chaos.

"Truly, this world is filled with suffering."

The voice was loud enough to be heard over all of the chanting, but it didn't sound like the speaker had been shouting. Almost as one, all eyes turned toward the source of the voice and the procession stopped in the middle of the street.

Silhouetted against the pale sun, which was visible just as a glaring disk through the haze of the overcast day, a figure was descending, floating down toward the street from above, a dramatically flapping cape billowing behind them as their distinctive, animal ear-like hairstyle glistened in the misty drizzle.

"Why must we all live in a world filled with suffering? Surely no one wishes for the world to be like this, so what then is the root of all of this misery? The answer is simple. This world is filled with suffering only because the people who inhabit it do not yet know how to be truly happy. That's all there is to it."

The figure descended, landing lightly on the ground and striding into the crowd, which parted to admit them as easily as if it were a bank of mist. She walked until she reached a knot of people near the center of the press who were still dancing crazily, flailing about with their arms locked together. There, she turned around to address the crowd, smiling gently.

"No matter how much effort you put into your work, you never see any rewards. No matter how you distinguish yourself, no one seems to care. You must all have suffered. Truly, your lives are painful. Somewhere in your hearts, you all long to escape from your current lives, but you've learned to tamp those desires down. To give up and accept that this life of quiet misery is all that you'll ever be capable of achieving. That this world is all your worth. It's much easier to resign oneself to a life like this and give up, right? This is the root of your suffering. Your own resignation is the cause of all of your woes."

All around the lone figure the crowd began to buzz. Some people were discussing the newcomer's message, but just as many seemed angered by it. The crowd began to close around the pointy-haired hermit. Shouts of "So what should we do?" and "But what can we do about it?" rang out.

Suddenly, the figure drew her sword. Raising it high above her head, the gleaming blade caught the wan light of the sun and seemed to magnify it, throwing off a lambent glow that bathed the entire street in warm light.

"There is only one truth!" she declared. "One path toward understanding and happiness. Learn the way of the Tao and become the sort of person who can rise above the dreary sufferings of mundanity!"

The crowd stared blankly at the prince.

"Taoism is the way of hermits. Follow my teachings and all the mysterious powers of a hermit will be yours to command. The path to mastery does not require that you abandon the world and live on a mountain eating mist. As long as you have the will to learn, you can apply the teachings of the wise hermits to your own life. The Tao cares nothing for your status: whether you are a man or a woman, young or old, rich or poor has no bearing! To those who follow the way of the Tao and master the hermit arts, anything is possible! Your families will be well cared for! Your businesses will prosper! Your mind and body will be free from weakness and disease and happiness will be yours to claim! Perhaps you wish to be rich? Or would you like a long and healthy life? Or to be admired by those around you? That's fine! Taoism exists to fulfill your desires! The essence of the Tao is the art of living happily in this world!"

For a moment there was silence. The people in the crowd and in the shops alike stared at each other in disbelief. Finally, someone spoke. "Would anyone really become a hermit for such a mundane reason?"

The prince turned to the person who had asked and smiled. "What I preach is not Buddhism. I will not tell you that you should abandon greed or seek to live a life free from worldly desire. Taoism does not reject human desire. No matter how vulgar a desire is, as long as it drives one to improve themselves. No matter what your desires are, you can learn to make them a source of personal power. It is only because of our desires that humans are able to attain great things and better their circumstances. Of course excessive indulgence of any desire can destroy someone. What's important is balance. You must learn to master your desires and not be mastered by them. Doing this is the best way to live a happy life as a human. So long as you overlook these truths and cleave to ideologies like Buddhism, your lives will continue to be as dull and miserable as a vegetarian diet." Saying this, Miko flipped her cape off of her shoulder and raised her voice.

"Today is the beginning of a new era! Come visit the Divine Spirit Mausoleum, study the secrets of the Tao and learn how to master your desires. You all possess limitless futures in the form of your descendents that connect you to every wonder yet to be seen. Learn to achieve happiness, foster righteous desires within yourself and use those desires to fulfil your dreams. That is the happiness I offer you. That is the great legacy you can leave to future generations. Your earthly desires can be your allies in achieving happiness when trained through the wisdom of the Tao! Come, let me teach you!"

Once again the crowd fell silent and stared at the Crown Prince in disbelief. A moment later, someone stepped out in front of the Crown Prince and fell to their knees.

"Take me with you!" the young man pleaded. "I want to be your disciple!"

Following that first supplicant a wave seemed to pass through the crowd and one by one numerous people around the prince began prostrating themselves, falling like dominoes at the Crown Prince's feet.

"Very well, everyone. Follow me!"

The prince began marching, and everyone who had fallen to their knees quickly stood up to follow her, breaking away from the crowd and trailing behind her like a scene straight out of the story of the 𝑝𝑖𝑒𝑑 𝑝𝑖𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝐻𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛. Roughly half of the people who had been dancing a few moments before followed after her, and those who remained afterward seemed to have lost their momentum and began to break up, drifting away into small groups. As suddenly as it had all begun, the street had returned to its usual state of peaceful quiet.

"What do you suppose that was all about?" I murmured.

Renko folded her arms in consideration. "I wonder if that was all orchestrated by the Divine Spirit Mausoleum as some sort of large-scale missionary work". I wondered if it was possible that the Crown Prince had had some of her people in that crowd of dancers, or if perhaps the person who started the dancing in the first place had been someone associated with the Divine Spirit Mausoleum…

My musing was interrupted as we all caught sight of Keine dashing up the street wearing the armband of the neighborhood watch over top of her sleeve. Renko waved her down as she rushed between the shops.

"What's going on?" Keine asked as she drew up to the doorway, "I heard complaints of some sort of commotion, but everything looks fine here now."

"You just missed it, Keine. There were a whole bunch of people acting crazy and dancing in the street, but the Crown Prince just came and talked everyone down. About half of them followed her when she left and the rest just broke up."

Keine groaned and raised a hand to either of her temples, massaging them as if to alleviate a headache. "It's the same thing over here..." she muttered.

"The same thing? What do you mean?" Akyuu asked from behind me, standing on tiptoes to try and get a better look at Keine. I stepped aside to let Keine come in and continue the conversation.

"Oh, Miss Hieda," Keine said, straightening her posture and nodding her head. "Something similar just happened a half hour ago in the northern part of the village."

Upon hearing those words, all of us turned to look at each other in surprise.


—3—


We all listened as Keine told us the tale. According to her, at what must have been very close to the time we first heard the dancers begin parading through the streets here, a similar procession had begun in the north of the village, in the entertainment district. Without warning wild dancers, discordant chanters and a throng of marchers had gathered together to shout and carouse in the middle of the street. A number of fights had broken out and just as things looked likely to transition into a full-fledged riot, the head nun of the Myouren Temple, Hijiri Byakuren had suddenly appeared to take care of the situation.

She had preached that the people could find peace in their lives by abandoning desire and following the teachings of the Buddha. Roughly half of the assembled crowd decided to follow her through the gates and down the road toward Myouren Temple. Other than the people involved, the situation sounded identical to the one we had just witnessed.

"I asked around there and was interviewing people, but no one could tell me how the dancing had started or who had been the first to start singing. It's like everyone just got the same urge to start dancing at once." Keine said with an exhausted sigh.

"The Divine Spirit Mausoleum and the Myouren Temple…" Renko mused. "Two opposed groups both intervening in two identical events occurring in two different locations at the same time. Since both groups are rivals, I can't imagine that they're working together, but if they're not, that's quite the improbable coincidence." Renko reasoned as Akyuu nodded in agreement.

I guess both the Myouren Temple and the Divine Spirit Mausoleum took this as an opportunity to do some missionary work.

"Whenever people's hearts and minds are troubled, religion often serves as an answer."

"Akyuu, shouldn't it be you to unite the village, not religious leaders? You're the Child of Miare after all."

"No, the Child of Miare is just a chronicler and symbolic leader. If I had any actual political power in the village then the village would end up completely under the control of the Hieda clan. To avoid that, the Child of Miare is forbidden from wielding any sort of political power."

"Ooo, a dictatorship run based on Akyuu's mood. Yeah, I see how that could be a problem." Kosuzu said with a nod.

"Hold on, what's that supposed to mean, what kind of a person do you think I am?"

Kosuzu stuck her tongue out impertinently as Akyuu glared at her.

Keine sighed. "At any rate, we never found out who started all of this, so it could end up happening again. The neighborhood watch will remain on high alert for now. Merry, Renko, if you see anyone or hear about anyone who's been riling people up, please let me or another member of the watch know about it right away."

"Understood, Miss Keine" Renko said with a nod. "For the time being though, what are you going to do about all the people who left to go to the temple and the mausoleum?"

"There's nothing I can do," Keine said with another sigh. "While I am concerned, I don't think either party would try to eat the villagers. If all they're doing is proselytizing for their respective religions, then we can't really stop them and the villagers are free to follow them if they like. It will end up being a problem if the people who left the village following those two don't come back, though. For now, I suppose I should work on trying to find out exactly who left so I can check on them and see when they come back."

Saying that, Keine took a deep breath then stood up from her seat.

"It's a bit frustrating for us in the neighborhood watch to find that people's hearts and minds are so troubled that they would follow street preachers out beyond the walls. It makes me feel like we're not doing enough to make everyone feel safe. Between this and all of the disasters last year I don't feel like I'm doing a very good job of protecting this village and its people."

"You can't blame yourself for everything that happens here, Miss Keine. Those events were out of your control..."

"There were other things going on too..." Keine muttered, then remembering herself, stood up to leave. "Well at any rate, I should get back to patrolling. Please let me know if anyone comes to you with any information."

"Understood."

"Miss Hieda, if I could ask you to keep an ear out for any information as well, I'd appreciate your assistance."

"I'll make sure to let you know if anything comes up."

With that, Keine bowed quickly and then turned and left the store. As she did so, I looked over to my partner. Renko had her head down and was fiddling with the brim of her hat, smiling to herself.

And so it begins, I thought to myself. I steeled myself for what was coming and let out a sigh.

"A wild spate of dancing suddenly breaks out in the middle of a calm afternoon in two different locations at once. That's a heck of a coincidence, don't you think, Merry? At this point, having there be a mastermind pulling people's strings seems more likely than not, don't you think?" Renko leapt to her feet and boldly declared "This is a case for the Hifuu Detective Agency!"

"Detectives get hired to investigate things, Renko. No one's hired us."

"Sure they did, Keine just asked us to find the culprit."

"...She told us to let her know if we saw someone stirring people up, not to find the culprit."

"Well how are we going to see something like that if we don't go looking for the mastermind behind this? It's obvious that's what she meant."

"I don't think that's obvious at all!"

"Well, now you know. Come on, Merry, let's go collar the mastermind responsible for making everyone break out in dance!" She flashed me her troublesome smile as she held out her hand.

I had my doubts as to whether any such mastermind actually existed, but I knew it was already too late to stop Renko from going in search of them. I sighed as I stood up and took Renko's hand.

—

And so, we began by interviewing people on the street around Suzunaan. All of the people who had been involved in the disturbance that hadn't followed the Crown Prince out of the village had returned to whatever they were doing beforehand, so it was hard to even know who we should be talking to. We managed to locate a few people, but the testimony we heard from them was vague.

"Hmm. Well I didn't expect finding the mastermind to be easy..."

"Who's to say there even is a mastermind, Renko? In cases like this doesn't it usually turn out that even the person who started it all didn't realize that it was going to catch on when they started?" In my mind it seemed likely that someone had probably just started all of this by shouting something like 'None of this matters!' or 'I can't take it anymore!' and everything had just snowballed from there.

Renko crossed her arms and tilted her head back in consideration for a moment. "Hmm, actually that raises an interesting point, Merry. Normally I'd agree with you, but if you think about what we saw and heard, this crowd didn't seem entirely spontaneous, did it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it. The people who were singing seemed to have a proper song in mind. Someone had to have thought those up ahead of time."

Now that I thought about it, it was a little odd. The people dancing in front of Suzunaan had not only had lyrics, but a proper melody for the song that they had all been singing.

"Maybe they just thought up some new lyrics to go with a well known song." I said that, but I couldn't think of any song we had seen people sing at any of the festivals that had had lyrics like those ones.

"Well a lot of the farmers do sing during rice planting season and dance during the harvest festivals, but actually that just makes things even stranger. Where did these two events take place, Merry?"

"Here in the shopping district and on the north side of the village."

"Exactly. That's the opposite of the south side of the village which is where most of the farmers live."

"Farmers come here to shop, don't they?"

"But the people who were signing were all people who live or work around here. We even saw people on the street spontaneously join in, remember?"

"Well then what do you think is going on, o great detective?"

Simply interrupting or shooting down Renko's ideas wasn't enough to stop her, of course. When I asked this question though, she paused long enough to poke the brim of her hat back on her head and grin at me. "Well, for everyone to get swept up in a song all at once? And for that same thing to happen in two places simultaneously? Doesn't that bring anyone to mind for you, Merry? I think we have a suspect."

"Who?" I blurted, frowning at her.

"The musicians with the power to manipulate mania and depression of course. We need to go see the Prismriver Ensemble, Merry!"