東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Chapter 4:Undefined Fantastic Object

—10—


"So, Renko, what now? Please don't say we're going to go ask the Yama directly."We were walking away from the Hieda manor as I asked this.

"No, even I'm not that reckless," she said, shaking her head. "If the Yama learns that Murasa has been freed from their imprisonment that might be disastrous. Until we know what her reaction to Byakuren's release might be, we can't risk letting her find out."

"Alright, but then how can we find out more about it?"

After all, the only people we knew who had witnessed the events had been Murasa and Ichirin, and even they weren’t witness to what the Yama might have said to Byakuren during the confrontation.

"For now we'll have to rely on written records. Records that cover details the Hieda account wouldn't have touched on."

"What records would those be? The only other person who was there was the Hakurei shrine maiden of that age and even if she kept any sort of record it would be gone now. All of Reimu's historical artifacts were destroyed in the earthquake, remember?"

"Ah, you weren't paying attention, Merry. Reimu didn't say they were 'destroyed.' She said she 'got rid of them' after the earthquake. It's a key difference."

"So what, you're proposing we find a garbage dump and try to sort out Reimu's things from six months ago?"

"You're off your game today, Merry." Renko said, looking at me and shaking her head. I puffed out my cheeks in response. "If you were the Hakurei shrine maiden and had a bunch of old books and junk to get rid of, what would you do?"

"Well if it was books, I'd sell them to a second-hand shop... ah!" I clapped my hands together without even thinking about it. I had completely forgotten about what should have been an obvious possibility. If you had a collection of old, broken and mysterious artifacts, there was a store in Gensokyo that you could always rely on to come pick them up. "She would have sold it all to Kourindou, right?"

"That's right. Our next stop is the edge of the Forest of Magic."

—

And so, before long we arrived at Kourindou. As always, the grounds around the shop looked something like a junkyard, with an unpredictable and nonsensical mishmash of goods standing out front. I’m not even sure how much of the stuff piled up out front could have gotten here.

"Hey Merry! Look at that! I think that's what they used to call a 'phone booth!' I've never seen one outside of a museum."

The antique was standing next to the entrance of the store, a single lonely telephone, not connected to anything, housed in a glass box like some forgotten relic sealed in a display case. Somehow it exuded a sense of melancholy.

"Do you think it's for sale?" Renko asked, running over and pressing the creaking accordion-fold door of the booth open.

"Where would we put it, Renko? It's much too large to use for interior décor."

"Look at this, Merry! Physical buttons! How retro!" she cried, pulling the handset off of its hook and excitedly pressing the buttons like an elementary school student.

"Don't do that, Renko. This is Gensokyo, who knows who you might end up connecting to if you dial the wrong number."

"You're being silly, Merry. That couldn't happen. I haven't put any coins in."

"Well don't do it anyway. You look like you’re about to get a call from the villain from some old mafia story in that trenchcoat, to tell you where to drop the ransom money or something."

"Oh if it started ringing on its own that would be pretty creepy. You’d never know who might be on the other end."

It certainly would be, but fortunately that didn't happen, since I dragged Renko out of the phone booth and shoved her toward the entrance to the store. "We came here looking for documents, remember?"

"You're right, you're right." she said. Renko slid the front door open and stepped into the cluttered space. By now the late afternoon sun was slanting through the windows at an angle, illuminating countless motes of dust hanging in the air. The shaft of sunlight lancing in through the door Renko was holding reached most of the way across the store, falling upon the proprietor, Morichika Rinnosuke, who raised his head from the book he was reading at the far end of the shop as we came in.

"Oh, it's you two. Welcome," he said before turning his attention back to the book. He made no effort to get up or show his wares, lounging around as usual. As business practices go it was sloppy, but for someone like Rinnosuke, who seemed more like a hobbyist, this laidback pace was probably exactly what he preferred.

"Hello Mr. Morichika," Renko said, walking straight toward him. "I'm hoping you can help me find something."

Rinnosuke raised his head again and inserted a bookmark into his book before addressing her. "Well, I only have what you see in the store. What exactly are you looking for?"

"Did Reimu sell you anything from her old storeroom back when the Hakurei Shrine collapsed last summer?"

"The Hakurei Shrine? Yes, she sold me everything that was left of her storehouse as a package deal. Most of what had been in there was broken, but the books and scrolls were mostly unharmed. I put them all together on the bottom of that bookshelf," Rinnosuke said, gesturing toward a corner of the store. "If I had left them for Reimu, I'm sure she would have just used them for kindling. They're all still right there, no one's come and bought any of it yet."

"Excellent!" Renko said, excitedly making her way over toward the indicated shelf.

"That's perfect, Rinnosuke, just as expected of you!"

Rinnosuke tilted his head and looked toward me, asking "Is this a request from Reimu?".

I shook my head. "No, we're just wanting to do some research into the history of the Hakurei Shrine."

"Ah, I assume you must have already talked to Akyuu about that. In that case, I presume you're looking for the sort of history that wouldn't have been recorded in the 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑘𝑦𝑜 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑙𝑒?

"That's right. We're hoping to find the account of a specific event..."

"I'm not sure if there's anything to find there. I would imagine that the Child of Miare would have looked over those documents at some point in the past..."

"Hey Merry, help me out here," Renko called out, ignoring my conversation with Rinnosuke.

"Coming, coming," I sighed, trotting over to where she had already grabbed herself a bundle of scrolls and hard-bound Japanese-style books.

"There's a lot here, Merry. It’ll take a while just to sort through all of this."

"Please don’t tell me you intend to bring all of these home, Renko."

"Hopefully not. Mr. Rinnosuke, do you happen to know what the contents of these documents are?"

"Well, the relatively new-looking bound books are the 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑘𝑦𝑜 𝑅𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑. They’re books made by each of the Hakurei shrine maidens documenting the events of their respective eras. The picture scrolls are depictions of various battles fought by the previous shrine maidens."

"So I guess we’d be looking for a scroll then…"

"What is it that you’re looking for?"

"It's something that happened a thousand years ago."

"Oh, none of these are even close to that old. I'd guess the oldest materials here go back about four hundred years."

Renko let a scroll drop from her hand to clatter on the ground with a look of utter horror on her face. "four hundred? That won't help, why didn't you tell me that before I pulled all of these out?"

"You never asked." Rinnosuke said with an exasperated expression.

"What a waste of effort," Renko moaned, sinking to the floor.

"If you're not going to be buying any of it, can I ask you to please put everything back as you found it?"

"Yeah, of course... Merry, help me clean this up."

"Yes, yes."

I had more or less expected this outcome. If it were that easy to find history that had been erased from the 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑘𝑦𝑜 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑙𝑒 then there would be no point in erasing it from the histories that the Child of Miare had written in the first place.

As I helped Renko pack up the various scrolls and handbound books, Rinnosuke muttered "It's starting to get dark" to himself then disappeared behind the curtain separating the storefront from his modest living quarters. The moment I started to wonder where he might have wandered off to, he returned holding something shiny and vaguely luminous in his hand. He climbed a small stepstool to reach up to one of the rafters and hang the object in a small cradle of twine that had evidently been placed there for this purpose. Immediately the interior of the shop became much brighter, illuminated by a steady light that never flickered.

"Oh, that's handy." Renko said, looking up at the object appreciatively. "What is that? It doesn't seem like an LED lamp."

"It's called a houtou." Rinnosuke said, adjusting his glasses.

"That sounds like a noodle dish. Something with udon, maybe."

"They're small pagodas associated with Bishamonten. Have you ever seen a statue of him? He's always portrayed holding a spear in one hand and one of these in the other. Originally, Bishamonten was a treasure god from India, but in the process of being transmitted among esoteric Buddhist sects through China and into Japan, he became revered as a warrior god, charged with punishing evildoers and protecting the righteous. The shape of the houtou is reminiscent of a stupa traditionally used to protect Buddhist relics and the fact that Bishamonten is always depicted as holding one has lead people to associate him with guarding and giving out treasure, so nowadays he is often seen as one of the Seven Lucky Gods in Japan, prayed to by gamblers and the like, even though the 'treasure' that he guards is actually supposed to be of an entirely different sort. Traditionally, you see, Buddhist iconography would often refer to..."

I could tell Rinnosuke was starting to spool up. Like Keine, he had a tendency toward falling into long, rambling rants on a variety of topics of personal interest, leaving his listeners far behind as he delved into speculation and deep esoterica.

"Oh Mr. Rinnosuke, you're quite knowledgeable. Are you a practicing Buddhist?" Renko asked, interrupting him before he could really get started.

"Oh, it's not like that. I just dug this object out of a storehouse recently and since it's handy I'm putting it up for sale. I imagine it must have been a religious artifact of some kind at one point, but since it produces a steady light without heat, I use it as a lamp."

"You’d think that’s the sort of thing that would get you cursed by the gods. Wait, did you say Bishamonten?" Renko and I glanced at one another. Wasn’t the Myouren temple supposed to have been a temple of the Shingon sect devoted to Bishamonten?

Renko stood up suddenly, the box of scrolls at her feet forgotten. "Mr. Morichika, where did you find that thing?"

"Oh, it's been in my collections for a long time. I think it originally came from an old abandoned temple somewhere."

In other words, it might have come from the Myouren Temple.

Renko and I looked up at the stone pagoda, swaying gently as it hung in its little net. How sad to think that a religious artifact was now relegated to illuminating a shop full of dusty knickknacks.

My partner and I nodded at each other. This must be fate. Renko reached into her trenchcoat pocket, fishing for her wallet while looking Rinnosuke in the eye. "Mr. Rinnosuke, how much for that pagoda?"


—11—


"Oof. That was a lot of money. It's a good thing we just got raises."

"Payday's still about two weeks away, Renko. Are you going to be alright until then?"

"I'll figure something out. If this really does belong to the Myouren temple, then maybe Captain Murasa will buy it off of me."

"That's a pretty sacrilegious way of looking at things..."

Maybe I was one to talk though. We were making our way back to the village from Kourindou, guided by the steady light of the pagoda. I felt bad about using what might well be a sacred artifact as a flashlight, but given how completely the night had fallen around us, what choice did we have? If it was a religious artifact, I could only hope that its light would also be effective at keeping stray youkai at bay.

"Well, if it doesn't belong to the Myouren Temple at least we can use it to light our home."

"If it's not theirs, it's still a houtou of some kind. I hope Bishamonten doesn't strike us down for using it as a nightlight."

"Enh, don't worry about that, I'm a longtime Hanshin fan."

"Hanshin? What? You mean the baseball team?"

"The Hanshin Tigers, sure. Chogosonshi temple in Nara is supposed to have been built by Prince Shotoku after he was visited by an avatar of Bishamonten who appeared in the form of a tiger on the day, month, hour and year of the tiger on the old calendar. Every year the entire team goes there to pray for victory, just like Prince Shotoku supposedly prayed for victory there before defeating Mononobe no Moriya."

"What does any of that have to do with this pagoda?"

"Well, Bishamonten's got to be a Tigers fan too, right? No way he'd curse me for using one of his artifacts. If anything, I bet this brings us blessings, Merry."

I stared at her for a moment, walking in silence, trying to ascertain whether she was being serious or not. "...I hope you’re right."

In all likelihood she must be the only Hanshin Tigers fan in Gensokyo. She had taken me to Koshien Stadium with her once back when we lived in Kyoto, but here in Gensokyo, baseball was unknown.

"So what's the plan for tomorrow? Try to track down Murasa in the morning to show that to her?"

"Hmmm, no, not yet. Before that, we should try to collect a little more information about Makai. I need to find all the best restaurants, sightseeing locations and seasonal events there, right?"

"Please tell me you're joking."

"Just a little. I would like to know more about the place though. The librarian at the Scarlet Devil Mansion is from there, right? Maybe we can go talk to her tomorrow. Maybe she'll even have heard of Saint Byakuren."

"That's not a bad idea. For now though, let's hurry back. They'll be closing the gates soon, and we have classes in the morning."

"You're starting to sound like Keine, Merry. The night is still young. If you work too hard at living a respectable life and being an upright member of society what will happen to the reputation of our Hifuu Club?"

"As long as we're living in Gensokyo we'll keep doing Hifuu Club activities though, won't we?"

"Merry, are you proposing to me? That's basically like saying that you want to keep the Hifuu Club going forever, right?"

"Don't be stupid. You're not still thinking we'll eventually get back to the Scientific Century though are you?"

"I’ve gotten so used to living here, I'm not even sure if I could go back now. What about you, Merry. If you could return to Kyoto, would you?"

"...I think I'd probably rather stay."

I looked up at the bright moon shining overhead as I mumbled that. How long have we been in this world now? Despite the years, I couldn't shake the feeling of being an Outsider here. As long as Renko and I retained our memories of the Scientific Century, we'd forever be foreigners who had merely settled in Gensokyo rather than natives. But if the two of us were to wake up back in Kyoto tomorrow, I think we'd feel just as foreign there for as long as we had any memories of Gensokyo.

There was no option for us but to live a liminal existence, a part of Gensokyo but also apart from it. Perhaps someday we'd forget the Scientific Century entirely and our bones would be buried in Gensokyo like any other villagers'.

As I walked along the road, thinking of such things, we both noticed a figure flying toward us along the road, moving quickly and descending toward the ground. At this time of night it was almost certainly a youkai. I could only hope it was one we knew.

"Who's there?" Renko called out, raising the pagoda over her head and peering into the gloom beyond its rays. A pale face loomed out of the night, squinting against the brilliance. It was one we recognized, Alice Margatroid, puppeteer of the Forest of Magic. She blinked at us, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the light.

"Oh, I was wondering who would be wandering around these roads at night. I should have known it would be you two."

"Good evening Alice. Are you on your way home from the village?"

"Yes, what are you doing out this way? Had you gone to visit Marisa?"

"We hadn't gone that far, we were just shopping at Kourindou."

"Oh, I see. It looks like you picked up something strange," Alice said as Renko lowered the houtou. "Is that a pagoda from a Bishamonten statue?"

"Indeed it is! Are you interested in Buddhism, Alice?"

"Not really, but I've studied Buddhist statuary. It's not all that different from doll-making." The range of what Alice was willing to consider a 'doll' was evidently quite wide. I remembered having seen terracotta warrior statues at her house though, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. "Plus, my mother was friends with a Buddhist priest."

"Oh? When was this? It mentions in the 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑜𝑘𝑦𝑜 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑙𝑒 that you used to be a human. Is that accurate?"

"No, that's just something I told Akyuu to make it easier for me to get in and out of the village. I'm from Makai. Hadn't I mentioned that before?"

We both blinked in surprise and looked at each other. Looking back over my previous case files, I found that Alice had in fact mentioned that before, though it had definitely been some time since then. By this point though, that fact had completely slipped from both Renko's mind and my own.

"Alice! You're from Makai?" Renko exclaimed, suddenly excited.

"Yes... I just said all that. Why do you ask?"

If Alice's mother still lived in Makai, and she happened to know a Buddhist nun there...

"Wait a minute! Alice, do you happen to know the name of the nun your mother is friends with?"

"Her name? Well it's been a while... I think it was Byakuren, or something like that."

The two of us must have been quite a sight then, staring at her with our jaws hanging open.


—12—


As you might expect after a serendipitous encounter like that we did not end up returning to town in a timely manner that evening.

"Alice, please tell me everything you can about that nun," Renko had demanded earnestly after recovering from her shock.

Alice had looked confused but didn't raise any objections. Instead she had asked "if we're going to chat for a bit would you like to come to my house rather than just standing in the middle of the road in the dark?" I don’t know how she does it, but everyone always seems eager to help Renko out.

And so, a few short minutes later we were finding seats in Alice's cottage, while animated dolls flitted around us, serving black tea.

"Before I start telling you about what I know, might I ask why you're suddenly so interested in an acquaintance of my mother’s from another world?"

Renko gave a brief, surface-level explanation of the events so far while Alice listened attentively, then nodded as Renko concluded.

"I see. So that's how she had ended up there. From what you've told me, I'd say there's a good chance that pagoda of yours belongs to her. The sphere in the middle of that pagoda is a polished chunk of crystalized magical energy in a highly purified state. The light it emits is probably just the result of a slight leak in the large amount of magical power stored within that crystal."

"I heard that Saint Byakuren learned magic and used it to restore her youth, does that make her the same kind of youkai that you are, Alice?"

"To a human we would look to be the same thing. Among magicians there's a bit of a distinction between those who used to be human, and those who were born as magicians like Patchouli and myself." Alice said, adjusting her rigid posture as she took a sip of her tea. "At any rate, what do you want to know about her? I only met her once to discuss magic. Even though we’re both magicians we use entirely different types of magic, so we didn’t have much in common."

"Well let's start with the question of how your mother knew her."

"Ah," Alice said, nodding to herself. "Perhaps it's best if I start by explaining about my mother. My mother is the creator god of Makai."

"Makai's creator?"

It was a bit of a shocking revelation to hear, but Alice continued on casually.

"Mother would often claim to have created everything in Makai, but her role is actually closer to that of Yakumo Yukari here or Yuyuko Saigyouji in the Netherworld."

"I see. That's quite impressive. I've heard that Makai is full of demons and fallen angels, is that true?"

"It's a vast place. There are certainly enclaves of beings like that, but there are a great many other things living there too. My mother is a very hands-on person, so she tends to keep an eye on everything in Makai. That's how she met Byakuren."

"I see. So your mother was sort of like her guardian?"

"I guess that’s one way of looking at it. Since Byakuren was sealed away my mother’s job was just to check in on her from time to time. I suppose her role might have been more like a guardian’s."

To me it sounded more like the relationship between us and Ran than the one between us and Keine. I wondered if Ran was still watching over us even now.

"So I take it then that Byakuren wasn’t sealed in such a way that she was completely immobilized or anything. She could move around and talk?"

"There's a place on the very edge of Makai that's called Houkai. That's the place where she was sealed. She wasn’t allowed to leave there, but I think she was just banished from Gensokyo rather than imprisoned. I asked Mother why she was there once, and I think she told me that Byakuren had been sealed there after being betrayed by humans."

Betrayed by humans? That was an interesting take on the story. I wonder if from her point of view, humans’ rejection of her for harboring youkai would seem like a betrayal. There was no way for to us know for certain of course, but it seemed like she probably saw things in a very different light than the humans who had sealed her away for harboring youkai.

Renko thought for a moment, chin tucked to chest, then looked up at Alice. "Did your mother ever try to free her friend?"

"Not as far as I know. My mother is a very caring person though, so it's a good question. It may be that Byakuren didn't want to leave. I can't say she seemed unhappy with her condition. Maybe the two of them had some sort of agreement."

"I see. How did you get to meet Byakuren yourself?"

"Mother took me to see her once. Even though I’m a born magician, I think she wanted me to learn from a magician who had transformed themselves into one like Byakuren. It turned out that we had fundamentally different approaches to magic though, so there wasn’t much I could learn from her."

"Oh? What kind of magic did she use?"

"Her practice is all about physical enhancement. Mine's almost completely the opposite of that. It's like the difference between a bunraku puppet show and an actor in a costume. A completely different set of skills is required to achieve a good performance."

I don't know why, but I was surprised to hear that Byakuren was a master of enhancement magic. Maybe I've played too many old RPGs and defaulted to imagining a cleric as a healer.

"At any rate though," Alice continued, "we lived in completely separate places and only met once, so I didn’t ever get to know her well enough to say what sort of person she is. I couldn’t tell you why she was sealed in Makai, so I'm afraid I’m not much use to you."

"No need to apologize, even that much is some very useful information, and more that we had before. In your opinion, would it be safe to assume that Byakuren is probably still right where you last saw her, trapped in the Houkai?"

"I certainly haven't heard otherwise, but I also haven't been back home since I came to Gensokyo."

"Oh? When was that, exactly?"

"Not that long ago. Only a few months before I first met the both of you, actually."

"Oh, you would have arrived in Gensokyo about the same time we did then!"

"You don't say. Well time flows much more slowly in Makai than it does here, so I doubt anything has changed since I left."

"I see. May I ask what you think of Captain Murasa's plan? If she manages to make it to Makai, do you think she'll face opposition? Would your mother try to stop her?"

"I can't say. I don't know what the arrangement was when Byakuren was sealed in Makai. I think my mother would be happy to see Byakuren released, probably. Residents of Makai who want to leave have to go through a lot of hassle to do so, but for people who aren’t originally from Makai it shouldn’t be an issue."

"I see. When you came to Gensokyo, did you have to bother jumping through all of those hoops?"

"More or less," she said, shifting awkwardly in her chair. It seemed like she didn’t want to elaborate. Alice's family life wasn't what we were here to discuss, so Renko didn’t pry further.

"So if I wanted to go to Makai, is there a way that I could?"

"Well, there's a cave right near the Hakurei Shrine that leads there."

I gasped in surprise at that and nearly choked on the tea I had been sipping. Alice handed me a handkerchief, asking "Are you quite alright?"

Renko chuckled to herself. "I see, so maybe that's why Byakuren was sealed in Makai." Renko crossed her arms and nodded to herself. "Alright, I think I get it. Thank you very much, Miss Alice. That was very helpful."

"Really? I don't feel like I told you much of anything."

"Well, I'm sure just hearing that Byakuren was alive and well a few short years ago will be welcome news to Captain Murasa."

"I hope so," Alice said, standing up and draining her teacup. "Now then, it's rather late. Shall I fly you home?"

"Oh, I couldn't ask that of you. Just dropping us off at the edge of the forest will be fine."

"Don't be ridiculous. It's dark out now. Not only are you likely to get attacked on the road, anyone who saw me fly off with you would assume I was the culprit if you got eaten. I'll fly you home." She had a point. Renko didn’t argue any further so we took her up on the offer.

Thus, hand in hand with Alice, we were flown back to the gates of the village.

"Thank you again for the information, Alice, as well as for the tea, the hospitality and the flight home," Renko said as she raised the shining pagoda up again to light our way.

"It's no trouble. I assume you intend to sail into Makai on that boat once you can?"

"That's our aim, if we can make it work."

"I wish you luck then. If you happen to meet my mother there, please give her my regards and let her know I'm doing well."

"I'd be happy to. If she asks when she might see you again, should I give her any sort of answer?"

Alice turned away, not meeting Renko’s eyes. "Sometime soon. We can leave it at that." Renko nodded and didn't pursue the question any further. Clearly there was something going on between Alice and her mother, but prying into private affairs of a friend wouldn't do us any good. "Well then, good night, Alice."

"Yes, goodnight."

We turned and went to make our way into the village, but before we had gone three steps Alice suddenly called out to us again.

"Oh! I just remembered something!"

"Oh? What's that?" Renko asked, turning around.

"Something Byakuren said to me when I was visiting her in Houkai." Alice looked up at the moon, thinking back, speaking as much to herself as either of us. "I had just told her that I didn't think I could learn anything from her. I was about to leave when she looked down at me and asked if I had any siblings."

"Well, do you, Alice?"

"Yes, sort of, but it's a slightly complicated question. My mother claims to have created all of Makai and everything in it. Depending on how you take that, then I might have thousands of brothers and sisters. At the very least though, there were five other older sisters who I was raised alongside when I was a child."

So she’s one of six sisters? I wouldn’t have guessed that Alice was part of such a large family.

"When I nodded, she patted my head and told me ‘Siblings should cherish each other while they still can’," Alice said, letting out a sigh as she looked up at the moon. "they might not get a chance to later on."