東方プロジェクト二次小説・オリジナル小説サイト
Preface/Prologue: Immaterial and Missing Power

𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝑭𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅:

Hello again, all. What follows is the translation of the third book of the ‘Welcome To the Hifuu Detective Agency’ series. This volume comprises the Immaterial and Missing Power arc, and contains a lot of drinking and drunken antics as well as a passing mention of cannibalism. In general, the story is very PG and treats such topics in the same surface-level way the folklore Touhou is based on does.

More so than most books in this series, this story relies on a common understanding of two particular Japanese fairy tales that are as well known to Japanese readers as the stories of Hansel and Gretel or the three little pigs might be to English readers. Specifically they are the stories of Kintaro and Momotaro. There are numerous translations of these classics available on the web, and if you've never read them, I recommend you check them out. If you do, you'll probably recognize events in them from numerous games, manga and anime where they tend to frequently show up in one form or another.

Touhou, and by extension, these fanworks continue that trend. I've tried to include enough of the basics of these tales within the story that hopefully it will still make sense even if you go in completely blind, but you might have an easier time if you’ve read some of the popular versions of the classic legends.

With all of that said, I will now step back and let the narrator guide you through the rest of the story. I thank you for reading, and hope that you enjoy the story to come.



𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆

A year had passed since my partner and I first opened our Hifuu Detective Agency in the village. In some ways it feels as if no time has passed since then. Certainly, we had made no progress toward the goal of returning to our own world.

For Renko Usami and myself, we could no longer even imagine how the Kyoto of the 2080's might be proceeding along without us. Our lives here in the human village had become so familiar that we had both become accustomed to simply being Usami Renko and Maéreverie Hearn, a pair of outsiders living in the human village of Gensokyo.

Our transition was not entirely smooth of course, with many bumps and twists as we adapted to the changes in culture and technology level that our new lives brought, but the story of such inconveniences would be of little interest to the people of Gensokyo, and it is for them that I am recording this record. Thus, I invite you to imagine that we, who were outsiders to this world, faced various hardships and had to swallow a complaint every now and then about the nature of our new lives beyond what is described here. In return, I shall stick to recording the activities of our Hifuu Detective Agency, and the work of my partner so that you can enjoy the tales of a great detective.

Even a great detective cannot demonstrate their abilities unless they have a case to pursue, however. I suppose this makes it a lucky thing for us that my partner and I seem to have some element in our nature that makes us prone to being swept up in the incidents that shape the landscape of power in Gensokyo. Personally, I saw this proclivity on our part to be a curse. Being in mortal danger is something I wouldn't want to experience over and over again. For my partner, however, any amount of risk was a trivial concern compared to the overwhelming importance of uncovering the truth behind a compelling mystery. Thus, it was assured that so long as Renko and myself continued to survive our brushes with the colossal forces that crashed against each other to shape the landscape of this secluded world, we would continue to investigate incidents like the two I have already described.

I can only hope that our doing so would at least act as good publicity for our detective agency.

—

On the topic of incidents that reshaped the balance of power in Gensokyo, there can be said to be two kinds: the sort that become public knowledge and affect all the residents of this fantasy land, and the sort that remain hidden, their very existence known of only by the few with direct experience.

The Scarlet Mist Incident and the Spring Snow Incident were examples of the former sort of Incident. The one I will tell you about now is one of the latter. It is the incident recorded in the 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘰𝘬𝘺𝘰 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 as the 'Night Parade of One Hundred Oni Every Three Days Incident.’

Some readers, especially those who dwell in the village, may be unaware that such an incident even occurred in the first place. This is because unlike the Scarlet Mist Incident or the Spring Snow Incident, this incident did not affect the lives of the villagers. It is, in fact, impossible to even say whether this incident has even been resolved or not, or if the mastermind behind all of the trouble was really ever punished by Hakurei Reimu.

Nonetheless, it is the story of our involvement in this incident that I will now relate, and as such, I will first provide a brief overview of the events that occurred for those unfamiliar. The story is quite simple. During the course of this incident, a wild party was held every three days at the Hakurei Shrine. The organizer of these parties was Kirisame Marisa, but she was not the mastermind of the incident, merely the spark that set events in motion.

The mastermind of the incident was a girl named Ibuki Suika. She is an oni, a true monster and member of a race long thought vanished from Gensokyo.

You may ask, what was so unusual about boozy parties being held at the shrine? Certainly such an activity is not a rare occurrence in Gensokyo and to youkai, gods and other beings who live solely at the direction of their whims, even the frequency may not seem that noteworthy. To readers with that mindset, I merely say 'read on' and this record will show you the strangeness of these parties which compelled our engagement with this mystery in our roles as the Hifuu Detective Agency.

Why did Ibuki Suika cause a party to be held every third day?
Why did she return to Gensokyo after she supposedly left?
Why did the oni ever flee from this paradise for non-humans in the first place?

The answers to all of these questions converge on a single mystery. Namely, the nature of the race of oni who were once mankind's most fearsome enemy.

It goes without saying, of course, that this case is just another baseless story, a fantasy dreamed up by the mind of my partner. Like the other case files I have recorded already, it is up to you decide whether you believe it or not. If that doesn't bother you, then I will begin my third tale. I will tell you of the lonely night parade of one hundred demons and the commotion that arose from its recurrence every third day.